Thursday, April 19, 2007

Semana Santa, Roatan

For Semana Santa, Ingela and I spent most of the week in Roatan. Roatan is an island off the coast of Honduras, considered part of Honduras. It is, well ... gorgeous. This is a picture of Half Moon Bay, in West End. (Where most of the bars, restaurants, hotels, etc are.)






This is where we stayed. Despite a minor cockroach freakout, and the TINY room, and the mysterious price change (from $30 to $42), it worked out okay for us.








This was taken on our first full day there at Half Moon Bay in West End. We´re pretty. The beach is pretty. What else could we possibly want?





I'd post more pictures, but the internet is being hopelessly uncooperative.

Anyway, we had a great time. We took a water taxi (Read: Boat) to the West End to go to the beach and snorkeling the same day as the above picture was taken. We went sea kayaking in West End and got stuck in coral (yikes) until we opted for smoother waters on the other side of the Bay. We went out a couple of nights and got friendly with some Roatan locals (who were really nice actually), and we also met a whole bunch of US Army guys stationed at a Honduras airforce base near Comayagua. I didn't know there were US troops stationed here, did you? They were nice though. What else? We went to eat at a restaurant on a dock over the water and had about 4 cockroaches skittering under our feet, not fun at all.



Oh, we went hiking too! I wish I could get the pictures working. We went to the Botanical Gardens in Sandy Bay. It cost $5 to get in, and it was very pretty. There were trails, and we hiked to the top of Carambola Mountain. From the top, you get a view of Anthony's Key Resort (a little resort on a tiny island, you can swim with the dolphins at the resort here. I met a guy named Roger that works with the dolphins there. Not such a good conversationist though, so it didn't exactly work out between us.) It was very pretty and a nice break from being at the beach all the time. (I did burn, yes.)

Anyway, I loved everything about Roatan except the boat ride over. Incidentally, in the few moments of weakness after the boat ride when I was still recovering, we decided to fly back to Ceiba. A much more pleasant, albeit $20 more expensive, experience. It was also quite a bit faster. I really can honestly say that on the boat ride over, I was sick enough to make it one of the worst experiences of my entire life. They say it isn't always like that, but I'm not quite sure I believe them. Will I take the ferry again? Well, I can't afford to fly, and Roatan really is worth it.

Since pictures aren't working properly, it only seems appropriate to mention here that we took the Sambo Creek Canopy Tour and Hot Springs when we got back to Ceiba. It was so much, and I will post pcitures, some day. Eventually, I might even get them up onto my yahoo website! :) The guides were young, and super fun, they took our cameras and took tons of pictures. The rainforest it was through was gorgeous, and you could see the ocean from some of the platforms. To get to the top where the tour started, you rode horses. Ingela almost fell off of hers! It was really steep, and I was honestly afraid that my horse, George, would tumble back down to the bottom of the mountain, but, lucky for me, he didn't.

Basically, it was a wonderful vacation, and I was pretty freakin depressed when I had to go back and teach school the following Monday. Having Ingela here was awesome. But, it made me realize that I really do miss home. It's easy to forget about home (not forget persay, but forget how much you miss it and your friends and family) when everyone else is there and you are here. My life here seems so 100% separate from my life in the States. For example, when I forget someone's birthday in the States, I feel that it is unacceptable. Here though, well ... it's different. My life is different. My friends are different. Another thing with her being here, was that I had forgotten how much I missed having someone around who just GOT me. We just so completely understand each other. I laughed so much in the first 5 hours that she was here that my abs hurt. So, I'm a little homesick now, but I'll be okay.






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