honduras
I made my way to Honduras by a harrowing speed boat ride from Belize. After a comedy of errors and luck, I managed to find the village outside of La Ceiba I was supposed to volunteer at for a month. I left after two weeks. There were 8 volunteers piled into one house in a small village with the only project being the equivalent of daycare for 15 children. It was obvious opportunism (by expat Americans living there, no less) and pushed me swiftly into being jaded and frustrated by the voluntourism industry.
It was always my plan to learn how to scuba dive on Utila island just off the Honduran coast. So off I went thinking I’d spend a week or so and then move south.
I stayed on the island for 9 weeks. In that time I became divemaster certified, experienced lockdown from a military coup in capital, overcame abject fear while diving a shipwreck at night and having a spiritual experience with an octopus, and fully succumbed to the backpacking party lifestyle.
It was the first time I had done something in my life that had no other purpose than being purely in the moment. I dove over 100 dives and each one was a meditation on surrender, wonder, and elation.
