We move on before dawn tomorrow morning after a week on the Caribbean island of Roatan, Honduras. It has not been fun dodging heavy rains, quirky wifi, and dead TV when we were stuck in the room and could actually have watched some! We have both been attacked by the notorious sand flies which leave red welts and incredibly painful itches all over the body--- skin is rubbed raw. To escape all that we rented a car (2007 Toyota, $60/day) and drove the 37 mile length of the island.
Rough roads lead to Coxen Hole (named after an 18thC pirate), the largest town. Tin-roofed shacks, basic shops, lots of manual labouring, and signs of better times past. Beyond the airport strip nearby there are many beautiful coves and beaches --- all gated and guarded for the (mostly absent) owners. Everywhere the telltale white surf line indicates the offshore reef, like a string of jagged pearls around a green felt top hat. Lots of kids in this more-or-less Catholic country, but what kind of future awaits them?
There's natural beauty if you look hard. Local monarch butterflies are a subspecies that don't migrate 3,000 miles like their Canadian cousins! Hummingbirds are generally darker and sleeker than the rubies back home. Beach walks are barefoot to get around the rock points ---- careful, it's sharp and slippery!
Roatan has the usual "attractions" of many tropical islands --- dolphin swim, monkey jungle, zip line, sterile condos, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary there. What Roatan does have is the best access in the western hemisphere to out-of-this-world scuba and snorkeling. The MesoAmerican Reef (second largest on earth after Oz's Great Barrier) is 40 feet from shore! You can walk in, put your face in the water, and see an awesome variety of vivid and mesmerizing fish. Or you can dive on one of hundreds of deeper sites: Green Outhouse, Octopus Acres, Calvin's Crack, The Church Roof, etc., etc
As if to tempt us to stay longer, the sun came out today and the water turned from cloudy to turquoise. The sunset tugged at us even more. Sorry, Roatan, you've been a real dive so we're heading to a Paradise, Too!
There's natural beauty if you look hard. Local monarch butterflies are a subspecies that don't migrate 3,000 miles like their Canadian cousins! Hummingbirds are generally darker and sleeker than the rubies back home. Beach walks are barefoot to get around the rock points ---- careful, it's sharp and slippery!
As if to tempt us to stay longer, the sun came out today and the water turned from cloudy to turquoise. The sunset tugged at us even more. Sorry, Roatan, you've been a real dive so we're heading to a Paradise, Too!
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