Utila

my_journey_through_honduras — Wed, 27 May 2015 01:02:46 GMT

My story starts in a long and hot day of April. Well, it actually starts a year before, when I decided to apply for a scholarship that would have sent me to Honduras for the following year of my life. When I applied, I was nervous, and I was 16. I was pretty young. I am still pretty young, actually. I am just 18 now, but through that year I think I have grown up a lot. But let’s go back: I had been chosen for that scholarship, and I left Italy to spend a year as a common Honduran adolescent.
Now, I could start writing about how great, and full of challenges, has my experience been, but I’d rather keep my focus on the greatest place I have ever visited. I am not talking about the most beautiful beach you will ever see in your life or the greatest monument you have ever visited, I am just going to write about the strangest place I have ever been in.
But let’s give things a chronological order: as a travel, adventure, and freedom lover, I decided to leave the great and dangerous continental Honduras to reach one of the smallest and less tourist island existing: Utila.
Leaving the land, facing the Caribbean Sea with that kind-of-a-boat was the first clue that made me understand that was going to be a not-so-usual journey. Talking about the island, it is like finding yourself back in the past, in an unusual and catching bohemian atmosphere. After a few days spent admiring how genuine and out of any stereotype that little “time machine” was, I decided it was time to explore the island as it deserved: I rent a bike and I escape, again, from time; space and maybe from my life. I went up, and than down, there were no paths, but just trees, birds, the sky and me. I am not going to tell you where I was, because I still do not know it. But I think that place was called Freedom. I must keep it alive in my mind, and in my heart, because I do not think I am going to find that place again. I had left the Moral Duty Road behind me, crossing the Social Obligations Avenue, to reach My Place. And I swear I have found it, lost in the middle of that nacre, guided by the Sun and protected by the blue sky. It is a place that I’d better find again, and you’d also better do it. That is where I left my heart dancing in the only paved road you will find, surrounded by just a few people, a few friends and a typical Caribbean music that seemed everywhere on the island. I know you’ll be able to find Freedom, dear reader, Utila is not that big... Or maybe, Utila is easily Freedom...

Photos: My Scholarship entry - The real country

my_journey_through_honduras — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 06:22:00 GMT

I really know where to start. I know what is Honduras and I know that there is actually one word that describes it in a perfect way: real. Honduras is real. Tourism is not that developed, so I was that lucky that I could know it as it really is. Honduras is a green treasure in the middle of America. You can swim in its deep, blue, crystal Carribean waters and then realx visiting its beautiful nature. You can get to know the Mayan culture by visiting the famous Copan Ruines and you can walk through vegetable and fruit vendors in La Esperanza. Honduras opened my eyes to real, powerful and strong nature, but also to a different way to live. It is a poor country, and so it is most of the people that live there. Honduras changed my life because I never really undestood how lucky I was and how different people is right now. Maybe it can sound a bit common and trivial, but that’s just the bare truth.

A country people don't know enough about

Utila

Photos: My Scholarship entry - The real country