The capital of Honduras has many American fastfood chains, lots of street crime, and a very silly name. Once again, you never know what to expect when they tell you it’s a taco.

On the ferry from Utila every gringo with bare ankles had the raw pox of a week of sandflies, mosquitoes, coral, and god knows what else itchgivers. I am not alone!

Also on the ferry were two very familiar blue t-shirts with VOLUNTEER in white across the back and a little hand thingee. When confronted they appeared to contain two british guys, accompanied by a third without the tell-tale shirt. They were in Honduras doing conservation projects through i-to-i, the same organization I worked in India with. On Utila they fed iguanas. I never got to do that. Street children are almost like iguanas I guess. These guys were going back to Tegulcigalpa and were already familiar with it, so I decided to tag along with them. I met their coordinator, who knows my coordinator. That only makes sense, but is still WEIRD so weird to meet someone who knows someone I know in India in Honduras. See, even the sentence about it is weird.

Last night I was looking at their South America guidebook (they’re flying off to Quito, I think). Right after I got my camera stolen I was starting to think that going home relatively early wasn’t such a bad idea. Now I want another year to travel. Too much to see! Well, I’m obviously a terrible judge of what I want. Gotta see what reality ends up saying about it all.

They not only grow good coffee here, but they seem to know how to make it. I’m a happy little man.

I am now a certified open-water scuba diver. Not that that means all that much. Except being $171 poorer, 5 days slower, and able to rent scuba gear the world over. Really feeling weightless, the freedom of being able to breathe underwater, and all the new things I saw certainly made it worth the time, effort, and money. Luckily enough for my finances, I don’t see it being something I’ll be spending heaps of money on. It’s fun, it’s amazing, it’s beautiful. But it’s slow. Calm, slow, weightless. Tranquil. No adrenaline. And I’d rather stick to faster sports than upgrade to swimming with the sharks to find some.

Today I had my last two dives, and I’m feeling very happy to get off this god-forsaken island. It’s gorgeous, the water’s warm and reefs are amazing. But I’m tired of walking up and down the 1 road connecting my dive shop with everything else. I really can’t imagine what it would be like to live here. It does make sense how growing up here can turn you into one of these incredible sun-scorched, bad-teethed, inbred phenomena as are these islanders. Especially classic are the old men who just sit on the porch all day airing out their leathery permanently sun-burnt skin and beer bellies, yelling to the neighbors and passersby in their native English so thick and oddly-accented as to credibly betray their pirate heritage. Most of the islanders are bilingual, and the same ridiculous accent carries into their Spanish too. It’s great.

Not only is it really an island (no, I’m not making that up!), but it really feels way separate from Central America. I’m ready to get back. Too much of the same damned food, too much island.

The first two minutes or so were terrible. My brain said it’s ok, it’s ok. And my instincts said no it’s not, no it’s really not. Come on, get up, get out. You’ve been underwater way too long. You are going to die. All the while my brain screams some more it´s ok, it´s ok. But then my scuba instructor gave me the hand signals to start practicing some of the various skills I had to learn, such as how to clear my mask when if floods, and how to control my buoyancy. That was a good distraction from the problem signals my instincts were trying to send me.

That was the confined dive, the first of 5 dives in a 4 day Open-Water P.A.D.I. certification course. This was my 3rd day. It seems to be the only reason that people come to this strange island: really good, really cheap diving. Some say it’s the cheapest courses in the world here, I think I can believe that. Another thing I can believe – but this one I honestly almost can’t – is how much life there is at least in this part of the big flat blue wetness. Being able to breathe underwater is a little hard to believe too. I mean, that IS the point. But there’s a big difference between knowing that and experiencing that. And once I got used to moving completely submerged and controlling my buoyancy the real fun was just starting.

Who actually feels the need to bolt their door at night? For one, I do. Now. I never used to. But now, when I imagine it, it really is quite scary. Some of the many people I’ve told about it tell me that most of the petty crime here is caused by local crackheads. I just can’t help but imagine that whoever it was, he could have had a knife in one hand, while he used the other hand to grab my shorts and my friend’s bag off the floor. Just in case one of us woke up and saw him. One of us did wake up, Cassandra, the Canadian girl I split the double with, said she woke up with the light on and the door open, but figured I had left it that way. It was only in the morning that she, waking up first, exclaimed that her bag was gone, along with all her money and everything valuable. That shot me awake. From the bed I could still se my backpack was still there. OK. Oh boy… my shorts. Having put them on the ground at the foot of the bed, I had to get out of bed to see them. Or not to see them. Damn. This sucks. And a few more timely neuronal firings reminded me: my wallet. My camera. In the first one was about US$15.00 of various funny-named currencies and my driver’s license. Wow, that’ll be a pain in the ass. In the other were the last 2 weeks’ photographs. And the rest of my trip’s potential ones too.

“Oh my god! Yes, oh my god. I took my money and my passport out of my bag just before bed last night! I’d almost thought I’d lost them.” Cassandra showed me a small handbag, implying they were in there. “Oh no. But my necklace is gone. That was a present from my mom.”

Luckily for me my licenses to live in a legal and capitalist society (i.e. passports and money cards) were safely in my money-free-at-the-moment money belt, still in my possession. We went out into the hallway. A few other guests were already up at the time. After telling them what happened, we heard back a few second-degree stories about other thefts at the hotel all in the last 5 days or so. One girl, present, noticed that her bathing suit was no longer hanging on the line to dry as she had left it the night before. We all walked down to the porch to see the clothesline, and sure enough, the clothes that had been there were gone. From the porch one could see into the closet-sized kitchen (the use of which was one of the reasons to want to stay at that hotel). Cassandra exclaimed “my books!” and ran into the kitchen. On the small counter spread out and most likely rifed-through were her books and a few other things out of her bag. Under some other stuff she found “my necklace!”

We can assume our friend emptied her bag to stuff the other things in it. We can also assume that he was a he, and on crack, and ready to kill me at the slightest flinch. But, more practically, we can assume this guy is very familiar with the hotel. He knew how to open the door quietly, knew the layout of the room, the lightswitch, where someone might leave something easy to grab. He knew that there was a convenient flat spot in the kitchen. And he’s obviously at it a lot. We’re talking an employee or someone close to the owners.

So was the police chief, talking about it I mean. He agreed with me, when I went to talk to him at the municipal building, which is really the second story on a dock, and only has about 5 offices. This was certainly not the first time he’d heard about it, and he took my report and my address and was really nice and concerned. He even told me to come back before I left to see if anything shows up. Even though he was a million times more helpful than the average Central American policeman should be, I still wonder how hard it would be just to set up a little trap and get this guy red-handed. If he’s done it so much before, it’s 1000 to 1 he’ll do it again. But I really have no hoped up of getting anything back. At least it sure would be nice for this not to keep happening to people.

I think I’m noticing things that would make really cool pictures even more now that my camera grew legs. I’m getting over the shock, little by little. My initial feeling right that instant when I was sitting on my bed staring at the shorts-shaped empty piece of floor was to get the hell off this damned island, get the hell out of this fuct-up part of the universe. Go home and not have things like this happen to me. But after a little while I calmed down a bit. I remembered how terribly lucky I am. Not only can I come to places like this, but I can also leave them. I have a wonderful home I can go to. I can buy a new camera. A better newer one, even. Life goes on. No big deal. Best of all, I get another apparently very valuable lesson. Bolt the door at night. I won’t let this make me paranoid, but at least more sensible and cautious.