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The heat in Central America isn't hot, it just wants you to know that Heaven can have flames too. It's a prolonged steam bath convivially interrupted by icy cervezas and thick, doughy baleadas with just the right amount of salted plantain chips, assuming you're on the bueno street corner (the one with the chickens picking through a pile of colourful garbage). Sweat becomes currency and currency becomes fluid; I spent a year teaching in Honduras at a prestigious international school in San Pedro Sula, the once infamous Murder Capital of The World, and I left without paying a single Lempira for the magic I found in Utila. When young, 20-something teachers are on holiday break from their classes they want sand flies. But barring those, the second choice is a hole-in-the-wall restaurant and dance club in Isla de Utila, the smallest of Honduras' major Bay Islands. The club was, and hopefully still is, open-concept, eclectic, and decorated with shells and kitsch that can't separate tackiness from class when viewed from behind coconut-rum induced euphoria. So far there's nothing about this story that any recent grad on a worldly spree of newfound freedom couldn't write. Except in Honduras there was a handsome, athletic, six-foot-tall Cornell grad named Ryan who was a bit mysterious, quietly razor sharp, and had extensive knowledge on genetic variations of potato varieties. He was also a vegetarian, but I'm running tangents at the expense of literary elaboration. Ryan was in Utila during that first wondrous long weekend, one of our group of rebel teachers who needed to swear and declare their angst toward an uncertain future away from the tropical bubble. That weekend the days were relaxed, filled with either scuba diving lessons or lazy strolls down a toasty dirt road where every gentle hipster felt like a neighbour and locals were peacefully bemused by "wanderers". The night was different. A group of about seven of us met to pre-drink on a porch and then meandered to the community-declared "best bar in Utila". The music was already throbbing, tables an open invitation to dance on, and cool, dark, salt breezes were blowing through equally salty hair. We didn't want to talk, we wanted to communicate. The bar was two-floors with the entire back side open and exposed to the ocean. Odd how the perfect recipe for disaster, filling patrons with alcohol and ego and then inviting them to jump into the ocean, was steeped in such a cozy feeling of innocence. And so we obliged: vigorous dancing, and then rushing to leap off the second floor platform into the moonlit Kool-Aide blue. Again. And again. And again. At some point we lost our clothes and our cares. The laughter, warmth, and alcohol made us all love each other, but Ryan was a distinct member of 'other'. Throughout the year, there would me more trips to Utila, in addition to all-night hiking and camping trips in a purportedly snake-infested jungle, countless games of Ultimate on the school soccer field in merciless heat, and a day of inner-tube-floating on a lake while the sun and sky mimicked every happy-ending movie created. When the year was over and we gradually scattered back to our "real" lives, Ryan remained a question without a complete answer. We had one night of perfectly imperfect intimacy. It wasn't enough. A crack in the earth must have swallowed him. I told myself he was some heirloom seed that needed to grow in darkness, maybe a potato. It made me ache. Isn't this always the case with people and places that burn your heart: maybe we travel not because we want to explore the unknown, but because we want to find what has been lost in pursuit of our passions. Nothing is new under the sun, especially for those who like it hot.