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U8$1 equals 13 lempiras Quiet. Quaint. Secluded. Pristine. Utila is an escapist's paradise ... and it's likely to remain that way for years to come. So, if you're looking for an out-of-the way Caribbean retreat that will never be overrun with tourists, where your private beachfront will remain so ... we believe this is it. Properties are affordable-one third acre waterfront lots sell for a little as $25,000-and though real estate values are steadily increasing, they are not inflated and are not likely to reach the level of prices on Roatan. If you bargain, you can get very good value for your money. Your investment will be sound. Utila will never be a little Roatan with a large expatriate community and an active trading port. Big hotel chains will build elsewhere. Free trade zones will be established in other locales. But if you want to really retreat from the stress and fast pace you experience at home, Utila is perfect. And it's a pretty, lush little island. Smaller and flatter than Roatan, Utila has a different feel altogether. In town, cheerful gingerbread houses painted pink, green, or blue sport crisp white trim and extravagant tropical gardens. The one-lane winding dirt streets are occupied by only a handful of cars. You'll find a bank, an airstrip, little shops, and small restaurants and bars. And the diving is among the world's best. Getting home by boat The best waterfront properties are accessible by boat. Alun Gordon and Chris Phillips, owners of the successful Mango Inn, a hotel in town they built and opened a year ago, are developing a 38-acre property they've bought on the east end of Utila. You'll find over 1,200 feet of prime oceanfront land there (though it's rocky rather than white beach), and they have plans for a 30-room hotel, a restaurant, a dive shop, and home lots. The lots are all 80 x 200 feet and list for $25,000 each. Back lots with water views are $20,000, and 2-acre lots without a view, on the prairie side of the property, are $25,000. Contact Alun Gordon and Chris Phillips, The Mango Inn; teL (504)4253335, fax - 3327, mango @hondutel.hn. Bargain-basement offerings At Jack Neal Beach, a 15-minute boat ride west of town, there are several lots (72 x 220 feet) available on the beach selling for $55,000 each. Two-hundred feet from the water, there's a lot selling for $20,000. The beach here, white sand dotted with coconut palms, is set in a cove and at one of the best dive spots on the island. A dock has been built for residents' use, and each homesite has water. There is no electricity available at present outside of Utila proper. ContactJonas Wilson, Blue Moon Properties; tel. (504)45-1498, or in New York, (212)988-6669; bluemoon@globalnet.hn. At West Cay Beach, the lots are less expensive. A little under half an acre on the beach (frontage is between 75 and 100 feet) sells for $49,500. There are plans for a dock, and water will be provided for each homesite. Contact Jonas Wilson. At Pine Point on the western end of the island, there are quarter-acre lots available for $48,000. One lot back from the beach, larger parcels are listed at $22,000. The beach is sandy and pristine, and there are plans for a marina with slips for 20 boats. Contact Althea. Jackson; tel. (504)45-3212. We're heading back to Honduras this September with our Discovery Tour program and have arranged to spend a day in Utila so we'll have a chance to show you these properties and others. If you're interested in exploring this little gem with us firsthand September, 20-27, call Barbara Perriello; tel. (561)243-6276. Access to Utila Utila lies 18 miles off the coast of the mainland near La Ceiba. There are scheduled flights all week from there, San Pedro Sula, Roatan, and even Belize City. To hear a weekly schedule of flights, contact a local travel agent in Honduras. We recommend Averyl Muller, Casi Podo, tel. (504)445-1944, fax-1 946. A ferry runs weekdays between Utila and both La Ceiba and Roatan. We understand the ferry is air-conditioned, clean, comfortable, and stable-and provides a one-hour ride from La Ceiba. We ended up taking a smaller dive boat from Utila to Roatan and wouldn't recommend it: The weather was poor, it was getting dark, and the trip was a horrific, dangerous, and uncomfortable three-hour ordeal. Don't risk it. Take something scheduled ... a plane or a ferry. by Jennifer Murawski TRAVEL Portuguese notebook: Enjoy Lisbon on the cheap US$1 equals 185 escudos The big news in Lisbon this summer is supposed to be Expo T 8, a 154-nation international trade fair honoring Vasco da Gama, the intrepid Portuguese navigator who first made it round the cape to India 500 years ago. But for me it's the spiffy, new, ten-mile-long Vasco da. Gama Bridge over the Tagus River estuary. It is convenient for getting to the airport, appears to be virtually unused by the Portuguese, and cuts a useful slab of time off the drive down to the Algarve, as Portugal's southern coast is called. An excellent white elephant costing about three dollars to cross. I can't tell you much about Expo '98, which only opened on May 22 and runs until the end of September, except that its theme, predictably, is The Oceans. But the Portuguese have used it as an excuse for sprucing up Lisbon and laying on a ton of cultural events. So keep your eyes open. I can give you a few tips about enjoying Lisbon this summer, however. An excellent, inexpensive, and convenient hotel is the Miraparque, overlooking the Edward V 11 Park. Here I had a comfortable double room with bath for barely $80 a night, including scrambled eggs for breakfast. I was a hundred yards from a subway station (Parque) and within walking distance of the Gulbenkian Museum and Lisbon's main drag, the Avenida da Liberdade. Museums and meals The Gulbenkian Museum is worth visiting this summer to see the new Modem Art Center, which was designed by I.M.Pei, the Chinese-American architect who gave us the glass pyramids at the Louvre. It's a big, cool white place with an airy, relaxed interior that is a pleasure to stroll through. But the collection-all contemporary Portuguese stuff-isn't much. My favorite: a spiky, black line drawing of Fernando Pessoa, the most distinguished Portuguese poet of the century, in his wire-framed glasses. In the evening I usually dine in the Alfama, once Lisbon's aristocratic quarter but today a maze of narrow winding alleyways and steps at the base of the hill crowned by St. George's Castle. All the little restaurants around the Largo do Chafariz de Dentro are unpretentious and good. Don't worry if they seem deserted at first. The Portuguese eat late, and the restaurants fill up after 9.00'pm. Drive a wreck This spring. I had my first car accident in Portugal. The surprise is that it was my first, for the Portuguese are Europe's most dangerous drivers and have the highest fatality rate. So drive carefully. Here is what happened. My lady companion was at the wheel of our rented car driving through the Algarve beach town of Praia da Luz when a chica portugesa, driving much too fast, rammed us on the port side, smashing our front wheel. The airbags exploded, and my companion got the equivalent of a punch in the throat. The police, when they finally arrived, were quite friendly. They took statements, did a lot of measuring, and insisted on packing us off in an ambulance to the local hospital so my companion could get a checkup. There the doctor took a couple of Xrays but found nothing seriously wrong with her. The bill for all this attention came to exactly $8. Lunch on the hill On Sunday, as I always do when I am in the Algarve, I drove up to the top of the Monchique Mountains for lunch. Halfway up, a brief detour takes you to Caldas de Monchique, a pretty spa village tucked away in a cleft in the mountains where people have been taking the waters since Roman days. Here and at several other spots on the road, you will find Portuguese filling carloads of empty plastic bottles with the delicious mineral waters that bubble out of the mountain side. For lunch, I stopped at the Quinta de Sod Bento, a five-bedroom inn quite near the top, which belongs to Dom Duarte de Braganza, who would be King of Portugal if the country hadn't become a republic in 1910. I ordered my traditional Sunday lunch of Frangona Philiph, a decidedly unrubbery chicken roasted in a peppery sauce and washed down with red wine and Monchqite water. The inn is a study in aristocratic decline, with silver candlesticks on the tables, rickety antique dining chairs, and other furnishings harkening back to the last days of the monarchy. Your stomach's delight This year's Michelin guide awards three Algarve restaurants a coveted single star for gastronomic excellence-the Ermitage (tel.(35189)3943 29) and the Sio Gabriel (tel. (351 -89) 394521), both near Almancil, and the Vilajoya (tel. (351-89)591095) at Praia da GaI6 near Albufeira. But I did not visit any of them. Instead, I discovered an excellent restaurant beside the sea road at Vale Centianes near Carvoeiro where I was staying, called simply the Restaurant Centianes; (tel. (35189)358724). The owner-chef is a German woman who trained in Munich. She offers far superior quality for almost the same cost as most of the tourist traps in Carvoeiro or Portimao. This, of course, is for dinner. For lunch, I usually have freshly grilled sardines and shrimp served with tiny boiled potatoes at one of the innumerable sardineries that line the harbors of every seaside Algarve town. Rather than spend my last night in the capital, I stopped about 30 miles short at the Pousada de Palmela, near Setubal; tel. (351 89)350410). This is a fine mountaintop hotel built into the remains of a medieval monastery enclosed in a castle. The views are magnificent and, with the new bridge, the airport is only a 40-minutes drive away. by William Chamberlayne |
