We started Hallowe'en week by voting to end the scary last four years in Toronto and it worked --- a new mayor who no one will notice, just a seasoned guy trying to bring the city back together. Then on the 30th we left to revisit some places in Central America that we traveled through in 1997. The aircraft got smaller and smaller as we arrived at the first stop, the island of Roatan in Honduras (in '97 we rode decrepit buses coming up from Nicaragua!).
Turns out the new President of Honduras declared some holidays and the island was swarmed with Hondurans who didn't mind that it rained constantly. The nostalgia kicked in when we compared our old digs ("Sammy's", $8 including outside laundry) with our bargain room for the week. Brand new spacious studios, best deal on West Bay beach at $80 including huge breakfast and all the mod cons. The sweeping shore that was deserted then is very built up now. Another victim of mass tourism, but the world-class dive and snorkel zone is still just offshore.
We read that it's cold and snowy back home, but here it has been non-stop pouring rain. We dodged the deluge to find foods and floods. Brilliant green lizards scurry by in the day and cackle in the night, reminiscent of coyotes at home. And just like in Kemble, small birds ricochet off the windows, letting us have a close-up look before it recovers and flies off. Unusual hummingbirds whiz by, not unexpected in the tropics. But how to explain the fly-past of monarch butterflies, hundreds of miles from their normal route? Pat muses that they are escapees from the nearby butterfly garden tourist trap.
Hallowe'en was a non-event here. The scariest things are the vicious sand fleas that bore into your legs until you scratch to bleeding. But this morning the sun is beckoning --- salt water will be a much better sting!
Turns out the new President of Honduras declared some holidays and the island was swarmed with Hondurans who didn't mind that it rained constantly. The nostalgia kicked in when we compared our old digs ("Sammy's", $8 including outside laundry) with our bargain room for the week. Brand new spacious studios, best deal on West Bay beach at $80 including huge breakfast and all the mod cons. The sweeping shore that was deserted then is very built up now. Another victim of mass tourism, but the world-class dive and snorkel zone is still just offshore.
We read that it's cold and snowy back home, but here it has been non-stop pouring rain. We dodged the deluge to find foods and floods. Brilliant green lizards scurry by in the day and cackle in the night, reminiscent of coyotes at home. And just like in Kemble, small birds ricochet off the windows, letting us have a close-up look before it recovers and flies off. Unusual hummingbirds whiz by, not unexpected in the tropics. But how to explain the fly-past of monarch butterflies, hundreds of miles from their normal route? Pat muses that they are escapees from the nearby butterfly garden tourist trap.
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