Howdy, Honduras!

July 9, 2014

Current Location: Roatan, Honduras

Hello, hello!

This blog is being brought to you from the beautiful island of Roatan! Today has been such a cool day. We had some of the coolest experiences today that I will never forget. I can't wait to tell you about what happened today while we were at Gumbalimba Park.

Our tour started very early this morning. We had to dock at 7:00 am because our ship was only allowed to stay until 3:00 this afternoon. This will become important later on when I tell you about the disappointment that I had because we had to be back on the ship by 2:30 pm. It was our shortest day at port but also one of our most exciting and unique days at port.

When we arrived, we only had just a few minutes to wait until our tour guides met us and herded us into a van on the way to our excursion. As a result, we were not really able to look at the things they had at the port. We didn't get to see all the handcrafted masterpieces or see what there was to buy as a souvenir. We weren't worried though because we had all afternoon, right?

We loaded the vans and started on our journey to the park. By the way, when I got on the van, all the seats were taken.  Then, one of the people in the back pulled this seat from the back of her seat.  It is called a jump seat and I am pretty sure it was not in the least bit safe for travelling. This tour was unlike any other tour we have ever been on. The "tour guide" did not tell us anything about the city. It was basically a silent ride to the park. We didn't learn anything about the city for the history at all. We just looked and drove.

Normally, the tour guide narrates the tour and we learn a lot about why the city is special but this was not the case today. On our drive in, the driver drove so fast that I was literally bumping out of my seat and almost touching the roof! We were able to see houses, schools, restaurants, gas stations, and other interesting things on the island. One thing we noticed was that this area also had a lot of poverty. The properties were mostly run down and we noticed that there was a lot of trash again on the ground. There was also one of my favorite restaurants in Honduras which really surprised me. It was a Bojangles! I thought us folks in the south were the only ones who were blessed enough to have this wonderful delicious meal option.

We also saw something that I thought was very interesting -- we saw dozens of children walking to school and walking home from school. We passed the school on our way back to the port, and after 5 miles or so, there were still children in their uniforms walking home. That means that some children have to spend hours walking to and from school. I realize that people in America used to do this very same thing but this was my first encounter with this experience. On our way back to the port this afternoon, we saw a group of small children walking home from school that couldn't have been more than about eight years old. This really got to me because my students are eight years old. I can't imagine them having to spend hours walking each day to get their education. They were literally walking in the street of the busiest highway on the whole island. At one point, one of the little girls was not paying attention and walked right out in front of our van. Thank goodness our driver was quick to respond and slammed on the brakes. She just moved over like it happen all the time, waved at the driver, and continued on her way. We also saw children who were older, maybe 12 or 13, in their uniforms walking home from school. It was just heartbreaking to see that in 2014 the conditions are still this way in some areas. I am not naïve enough to think that this was a terrible situation, because I know that there are other parts of the world where children are not even allowed to go to school, don't have clean drinking water, have to live in completely unsanitary conditions, and in some cases don't even have food. I realize that completely but these two ports on this cruise have been my first experience with this level of poverty.

When we arrived at Gumbalimba Park, we were split into groups for kayaking. The kayaks were unique because they were not typical kayaks. They had glass bottoms! This is really cool in theory because we thought that we would be able to see lots of fish and wildlife in the area but that was actually not the case. The reasoning is because of the same reason we had issues with kayaking in Mexico. All the new people stirred up the bottom of the ocean and scared most of the fish. It was no big deal though because how many times can you say you rode in a glass bottom kayak in Honduras? It was a fun experience.

We kayaked over to a private beach where we spent a little bit of time enjoying the relaxation of the white sandy beaches and the beautiful clear water. As you can see, for some reason, the tour guide said the smaller person should be in the back.  As a result, I was SOAKING wet from all the splashing.  I'll stay up front from now on, please! After our time at the beach, we kayaked back to where we began and we suited up for our snorkeling adventure.

This was one of the coolest snorkeling experiences I have ever had. There were hundreds of fish under us and there was a beautiful coral reef. We didn't touch the reef of course because some reefs are very dangerous for people to touch. The tour guide pointed out the fire coral which he said to give third-degree burns. We also saw lobster, conch shells, and a barracuda. How cool is that?

Apparently, I didn't make my fins tight enough on my feet because once we started doing a lot of swimming, they really started to bother me. After about 15 minutes of this, I ended up just taking the fins off. This was against the advice of the tour guide but it ended up being fine. They had literally rubbed blisters on my feet. I'm sure you wanted to read that! :-) This has been the vacation of injury. By the way, my foot has started to heal from our adventure in Key West and Ricky's barnacle legs are almost all the way better! Whoohoo!

On the way back to shore, Ricky took off his goggles so he could help me with my fin situation. Once we reached the lockers, Ricky realize that his snorkel mask and goggles had fallen off. Oh no! He started to walk back to the water but the tour guide stopped him and told him that he would look for it for us. He had two other tour guides also looking for the equipment but unfortunately, it was lost to the beautiful coral reef. We never found the equipment and it was only a few months old. Bummer!

Our tour guide's name was Steven. He told us that he is never been to America but his wife is from Canada. He was a great tour guide because he told us all about the coral reef, the different species of fish, and life on the island. He also told us about how the island was relatively safe, however, the country of Honduras on the mainland is extremely dangerous. He said that there was a lot of crime and a lot of violence in the country. He also told us about the poverty in Honduras. He said that many times, multiple families live under one roof. It reminded me of Belize and it made me sad again about the conditions that these wonderful people have to live in.

After our kayaking and snorkel tours, Stephen took us on one of the most famous tours at the whole park: The pirates, parrots, and monkeys tour! This might not sound like a lot, but it was really one of the best educational tours I have ever been on. We learned about the pirates that came to Honduras to find gold and there were many exhibits set up to explain their journey.

Guess what else we saw a ton of? Iguanas! They are protected on the island so they cannot be hunted and eaten. There were hundreds of them at this park! It was so neat. There were black ones, brown ones, and green ones. Some of them had smooth backs, while others had spiked backs.

Next, we learned about the native birds in Honduras. We saw a toucan and a macaw during this tour. The coolest experience of learning about the birds was that at one point a macaw sat on my shoulder and then sat on Ricky's shoulder. It just sat there and looked around and looked cute! Check out the pictures -- It was such a fun thing to do!

Next, it was time to head over to the monkeys. They were so cute and sweet. Our monkey hung out on my shoulder and ate nuts. Then something funny happened when the monkey dropped some of his snacks into my hair! Ahhhh! He started picking through my hair until he located his treat. Hahaha! I love the pictures we got. :-)

I began to worry about the time throughout this walking tour. We had to be back at port by 2:30 pm and it was already almost 1:00 by the time we saw the monkeys. I knew that it took half an hour to get back so it started to make me nervous. Finally the tour ended and we were on our way back to the port. As soon as we arrived, we ran to the Harley Davidson store and picked out our t-shirts. They didn't have the best selection but we both found one we liked. As we were checking out, I left Ricky to walk to the craft market. Less than one minute after I arrived at the craft market, the carnival horn went off. Ricky ran in to get me and told me that we had to go because it was already 2:35. We were supposed to be back by 2:30 to depart by 3:00!! This was the first port that I was unable to get any souvenirs or handmade items from. I had gotten instruments and a craft from every place so far but with the time constraints, we were not able to get anything from Honduras. We hurried back to the ship sadly and rushed to make sure that we were not left behind. This would've been fine, except that at 3:10, we were still sitting at port because other people were so late that they were still boarding at this time. I seriously should have just gotten my crafts when I was there and not try to hurry back to the ship. I would've worried though that I would've actually been left behind. Oh well, you live and you learn! *Update: we were able to find a website to order items made in Honduras! Yes!!!!! We purchased a hand carved box exactly like the ones in the craft market. Thank you, technology!*

This evening, we went to the lido deck to attempt to watch another movie. This time, I stayed awake the whole time! Yippee! We watched the movie Noah and let me tell you, it was so packed. We ended up having to sit on the very top deck because there were so many people. It was a great movie but I still don't understand the little rock people. If someone could show me where it talked about these rock people in the scripture, that would be great. We thoroughly enjoyed the movie and watching it under the stars on our ship tonight.

Finally, our last activity for tonight was another comedy show. His name was Cowboy Comedian and he kind of looked like Tim McGraw. He was hilarious, but his show was very R rated. At times, I felt like I wasn't even old enough to be there! It was a pretty funny show though. Ricky and I laughed our pants off.

Tonight, we found a dinosaur waiting for when we got back to our stateroom. Isn't he cute? :-)

Tomorrow, we will be at our last (boo-hoo!) port - Grand Caymen.

Thanks for reading about our adventure!

Ricky and Amy