We arrived by noon on Saturday, which meant we still had a whole afternoon and evening on arrival day - so nice! We didn't start with a beer at the airport, like many folks we saw, but I did have to take our first photo there, before getting in the cab to head to the resort.
The ride to the resort probably took about 30 minutes, and wasn't nearly as harrowing as in Jamaica - our driver was very friendly and full of information about the island, too. He moved here from mainland Honduras about ten years ago. He is somewhat of an entrepreneur - owns three vans, and has a few other drivers helping him. He talked about the history, vegetation, topography, great restaurants and other advice, and talked about his home that he owns on the island. He has a "leetle piece of paradise - not so big, but its mine" and it has a ocean view from his bed, which he said was just perfect for him. And I can see why!
When we arrived at the resort and got settled in to our cabins, the first thing we did was throw our suits on and head down to the beach, of course! It was very windy on Saturday afternoon and evening, and I was worried that it might be like this all the time, but we did have a storm that night and both Sunday and Monday have now been much more comfortable, with just a gentle breeze.
Jan and I enjoyed alternating between the beach chairs and the water, and the guys met "Roatan Bruce", an interesting guy in his mid-50s who has lived here for eight years. He and his wife moved down here so she could do some research with dolphins, and he is the radio host on the English speaking station on Roatan. He has lived in New York and Boston for many years and was full of great stories about the island.
The rest of my photos so far can just be called the Dave Show, I didn't realize I took so many of him - I'll have to hand him the camera over the next couple days as well.
We enjoyed dinner at the Thirsty Turtle on our resort the first night, and Ric and Dave both ordered one of the specials, and thoroughly enjoyed it:
It was a fairly early night for all four of us, we were exhausted from getting up early that morning to catch our flight, and three of us had to be up for SCUBA the next morning. Dave enjoyed the hammack on our deck, after he figured out how to get into it:
Highlights from Sunday, day 2 (feels so nice to know that we're so early in the trip!) included my first two SCUBA lessons (went well, and more on that later) and then some beach time in the late afternoon. Sunday night is a big night on the resort, with crab races (money goes to a charity to help babies of mothers with AIDS) and fire dancing, and a live band. The guys showered and headed down early to get us a good seat for dinner and the show, and the four of us ate with another two couples who are from Canada.
The sunsets are beautiful, of course, but we didn't get out on the beach soon enough to get very many on Sunday, luckily we have a few more nights to try our luck again.
Dave had high hopes for the crabs he picked, but they weren't the big winners:
The fire dancing was very entertaining, but I couldn't get any great shots of the three people doing it - the main guy (below) was a white guy with dreadlocks, who had been on the beach all day with his niece and daughter, and had also made this sand sculpture with some of the local kids' help:
We stayed up until 10pm, I found my drink for the trip, a seabreeze - vodka, grapefruite juice and cranberry juice - yum! Of course the creamy fruity drinks are awesome (monkey lala and bananarama were my favorites) but you can't have more than one or two without feeling full, so I think they'll only be an afternoon treat, when on the beach!
The guys are back from diving now, and we're heading for some lunch before dives three and four for me this afternoon. Cheers!
4 comments:
Hi Nancy - so fun to be sharing your trip vicariously through your blog and I'm thrilled you are getting to enjoy a very memorable 40th birthday trip - although I think you're lying and it's really your 30th birthday! Enjoy every minute of it as I know you will!
I'm sitting here grinning SO BIG! I know exactly where you are and just what it's like! Hope by now you've met Guy and Louise and maybe even Tim, Wilma and Shawnee. Here's to the start of a GREAT week!
Everything looks incredible! I'm glad that you guys are already having a great time! I bet my dad really likes that picture of him floundering in the hammock... haha.
It was wonderful to get to see you guys last weekend. We had a really nice time getting to catch up a bit.
I'll be thinking of you and your scuba escapades and beach-chilling time throughout the rest of the week!
Love you!
Paige
The cab drivers name is Omar and he is truly a wealth of knowledge. I truly hope you are enjoying our "little slice of paradise." We absolutely love it there. Maybe a repeat visit with all of us together is in order?
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