For five weeks we have lived monk like. Up at 530, bike riding back and forth to Coral View, yoga, and eating our vegetables. All it took to derail those significant lifestyle changes were 59 teenagers learning scuba diving for a week. More precisely it was the introduction to Utila nightlife by a couple locals as “recovery” from the privilege of teaching students to dive. Long story short, you drink a lot of rum, vodka, Guiffity, Sambuca, or whatever else the attractive young DM/bartenders pour into your glass. Because of the libations, the music and the cocophany of accents, the hours fly by without realization. You can stop by one of the local bars, pulled in by the “Norm” style cheer as you bike by, and before you know it; the sun has set, dinner was ordered and multiple rounds of shots were ingested. You try to keep time by the bartender shifts, the island has fewer clocks than a Vegas casino; but the young pretty blonde bartenders (everyone turns blonde within a few weeks, but the females do attract more customers) all start to look the same. At the end of the day, you start counting backwards from your next dive and make a judgment call weighing safety versus that next really cheap drink. More often than not, the wrong decision is made.
But alas our intrepid hero will prevail. I will extricate myself from the cycle of sunny days diving and starlit nights on dock bars. Ah, hell; maybe tomorrow night. Another round of rumonades (rum & lemonade) has been delivered by the bartender smelling of pot and cocoa butter.