Where´s Waldo...Live Version

My brother-in-law Brian was in Roatan, so I decided I would go look for him. The whole island is not very big and I figured that it would just be lazy to not make the effort, seeing as how we´re in the same country.

I left La Ceiba, but missed the first boat. That ended up being great because I took the afternoon boat and met two Americans who have been working in Honduras for the last year. The water was really choppy, I got horribly seasick and threw up three times. It was a pretty awful hour and a half, but I felt fine as soon as we got to the island. Emily, Anna, and I shared a room at a hostel and got dinner.

Okay, first, Roatan is SO expensive! We´re obviously used to mainland prices, so paying $10 for dinner was a little bit shocking. Once we got over that, however, we admitted that it was nice to eat something other than the usual beans and tortillas.

We stayed in West End and spent the whole first day at West Bay Beach. The island is full of beautiful white sand beaches, clear aqua water, and surrounded by the second largest coral reef in the world! It´s also famous for scuba diving, but since I was balking at the $10 dinner, I figured that a $200 diving certification would definitely be out of the question. Instead, I thought I would splurge and spend $25 on a glass bottom boat ride. That way I could still see the reef and fish.

I ended up getting in a long discussion with the glass bottom boat owner (Mario). He´s Cuban, but grew up in Miami, sailed around the Caribbean, then got married and set up shop in Roatan two years ago. We talked about Honduras, SHH, philosophy, life, relationships, and traveling. He let me ride the glass bottom boat for free because he liked what SHH was doing, and even offered to donate the proceeds from some of his tours to the organization! He also helped me figure out the best way to get to Helene, which is where Brian was and on the exact opposite end of Roatan. What a friendly guy.

The next day I rode the bus for an hour and a half to Oak Ridge (about halfway down the island). From there, the roads stop, so I rented a boat driver for the afternoon to take me to Helene. I got to Helene 1.5 hours later, completed soaked in saltwater. I found Brian with no trouble at all (I mean, a large group of Americans is pretty conspicuous in a tiny Honduran village) and got to hang out with the group for a few hours. We were cleaning up the area around the shore and I kept freaking people out because I was just some random girl who was not Honduran, but not part of the group. Even explaining that I was Brian´s sister-in-law didn´t really help, because I think it was a pretty random place to show up. Still, it was good fun.

I spent my final day relaxing on the beach and snorkeling. There were some issues at first because 1) I´m scared of drowning 2) I´m not a strong swimmer 3) When I smiled, water would get into my breathing tube 4) I smile a lot. Once I figured out how to not have panic attacks about being underwater and to not smile, I was okay. The coral really is beautiful and I have never seen so many electric blue fish in my life! My favorite fish, actually, was this huge round fish. It was literally half the size of me! I tried to follow it, and it just looked at me sideways like I was dumb. I got distracted trying to touch the fish, and almost got tangled in the coral. At this point, I freaked out. I had read all these warnings about how touching coral kills it and I didn´t want to be a murderer, but all of a sudden the reef got SUPER SHALLOW. I had to backpedal out of there pretty quickly. I didn´t see any sea turtles while I was snorkeling, but I saw some the other day, so I figured I was already lucky.

I arrived back in Progreso on Thursday. The last few days with the kids were wonderful. I can´t believe that I´m leaving tomorrow to go to Nicaragua. I keep feeling like I´ll be back in a week. Cosmo took me to the bus stop and we tried to process everything we´ve been through the last 4 weeks. We failed miserably. We also realized that we won´t see each other for 16 days, which is the longest we´ve been apart all year. Isn´t that sad? Anyway, I don´t think I will be able to access the internet while I´m in Nicaragua, but I´ll be sure to give a full update when I get back. Keep me in your thoughts!