Ultimately Utila

Nothing like biting into a fresh tropical orange on top of a boat, flying between the Belize and Honduras border. The ocean rolling beneath your feet, the hull breaking waves and surfing swells.

The orange is juicy and pulpy, just toothsome enough to chew, just plump enough to gulp. Here in Central America, they peel the orange to the pith and cut them in half. You promptly suck and mash your way to pleasure; it’s messy but satisfying and there’s quite some technique. Like eating wings [flats over drumlet] no one wants to leave half an orange uneaten, but the nooks and crannies take some skill to maneuver.

A gorgeous taste.

I’m on my way to Utila, Honduras, via a charter ferry that crosses the Caribbean Ocean from Placentia to Puerto Cortes. It’s not quite the right way, I plan to head backwards to Guatemala after. I want to see Antigua and Lake Atitlan; arm myself with Spanish from a local homestay, and then continue into South America.

[HA! HA HA! Haaaa….]

But before that I plan to see my oldest friend who has holed up in a SCUBA diving resort, teaching classes and living an island life.

A remote island paradise seems like the perfect place to finish a book draft and get some SCUBA classes and settle in for a little bit before getting back on the road. I had just torn through Cancun, Valladolid, Holbox, Tulum, Bacalar. Then speeding through Chetumal, Belize City, and Placentia in 4 days. I was tired. This last rest-stop would buoy me through finishing strong. Unencumbered by the book. Rested from the movement. Ready to enjoy the last months wherever I wanted.

I had some excellent suggestions. St. Augustine in Columbia. Friends in Cusco and Buenos Aires.

The future was very bright.

[Sigh now I’m just lamenting over what I missed.]

This was how I found myself in a pirate costume, drinking beers and leaning into the ocean spray on the ferry that took me from La Ceiba to the island.

Utila is a getaway paradise. There are just a few spots in the world that have the same mentality, one so easy and enjoyable that all time blends into one continuous jovial experience. All mornings are Sundays, all nights are Saturdays, that endless cycle gives you freedom and reverie.

The peace gives way to opportunity too. Within a week I find myself on a high that is an absolute peak of my travels. Four days on a private island, under the clear Milky Way. Food, rum, family. All for a photoshoot for a waterproof-bags. We even got paid!

Again. Huge thank yous to Nick, Brad and Kasey for really being outstanding. To that entire family, Torrey, Sam One, Sam Two, Peer, Lizzy, Irene, Maria, Ricardo. Please don’t hesitate to reach out.

We got tattoos. We played cambio. We stargazed.

We built sets. We became art. We raced hermit crabs and spun fire.

The rest of my time in Utila blends. Torrey takes me out into the shipwreck, the personal domain of a massive highlighter yellow moray eel.

We play D&D in quarantine, adventuring into the depths of the island.

I take runs through the forest and hill tops, flanked by falcons and curious pelicans.

We explore secret beaches and shores. We host house parties. And see sunsets, sunrises, sunsets again.

I never get to eat a lionfish, a big regret of mine now. But I’m sure that’ll come around.

By the end, I had routine enough to find happiness. Writing, cooking, cartwheels, and Spanish during the day. Yoga at sunset. Drinks at night. But a month into lockdown the world was only getting worse. Our little paradise emptied of people; the linger-ers enjoying the last remnants of our retreat. Eventually there’s nowhere to go. Nowhere but home.

I fly out on my first private flight ever, a little 4-seater takes me 45 minutes from the island to the main airport in San Pedro Sula. The engine whirls at impossible RPMs, jostling the plane body. It’s just the pilot and I. We’re both wearing face masks and I’m not to get too close; the times they are a changin’.

Instead I lean my face against the window plane. A cyclone of colors from the shallow coral beds in the shades of brilliant blue; sandy stretches and thick tropic jungle. I’m pensive. It has been an exhaustive year. Part of me is very excited to come back. Part of me is weary, the travel has been long and arduous. Routine would be welcome, much like the routines I had found in the last weeks on the island. Part of me was wary. I was leaving a paradise, a haven from the virus; right into the biggest hotspot in the world.

Most of me was sad. This wasn’t how I wanted the journey to end. I didn’t want the journeying to end. I missed everywhere I wasn’t, but that plane had only one way through the slipstream coating the wings; propellers dragging us towards tomorrow.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

 This is the end of the travel series y’all! Thanks for following along! I plan to collect all of these into an anthology and have them all in one place.

With great love and wanderlust and love of wanderlust,

Winston