Advertisement
Well folks, we arrived alive. We’re hot, sweaty, Jon is chaffed and Hannah is laughing at him while voraciously scratching at her polka dotted body.
In the cab from the the airport our faithful driver, Robert, brought us up to speed on some local history. Apparently there are racial tensions between the native Roatanese population (who are decedents of a British slave population, dumped here after they revolted on the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean -- thank you Hannah and our guidebook) and the Spanish “Ladinos” from the mainland. The Garifuna (descendants of the revolters) now have trouble getting decent jobs because they don’t have the money to get the educations that these jobs demand. To fill these spots, there has been a massive influx (according to Robert) of Spanish speaking mainlanders much to, at least Robert’s, chagrin.
When we got to our Hidden (they weren’t joking) Garden Cabin, we were met by Tanja the manger who gave us the down-low and a monumental set of keys. (Don’t worry mom and dad, you have to get though barbed wire, three padlocks, a dead-bolt, and a guard to reach our friendly Oasis). Our hot water is intermittent and has
Roatan From the Air
not our beach, but not half bad...yet to compete with the temperature of the ocean, which we were able to see from our breakfast seats today in town. Snorkelling the first day and a swim this afternoon reintroduced us to the glories of the underwater experience. And a successful quest to the local grocery store initiated us into the ways of the beach bum lifestyle. Clearly, some still take us for fresh meat, only last night at dinner we were offered some ‘cactus juice’ (a life saver around here) to fend off the million … trillion… bugs that decided to snack on us while we snacked on a delicious meal of fried plantains, yellow rice (two bowls because they messed up the order in traditional Roatan style), a burrito and a mix of salva vida (cerveza) and lemonade (ode to walt!).
Lacking in a alarm clocks, the local roosters and cats happily filled in and had us awake at (an average) 8:00 (Jon is more resistant to such tactics). We made our way to a dive shop (in this one road town there are at least, we’re arguing, lets say between 12 and 20). In our case we found a great one (yes, they’re golden palm
certified), less than five minutes from our “little piece of paradise”. Having signed on as dive masters (we might even go for a full assistant instructor title, before the end) we made our way to the aforementioned breakfast spot to enjoy our desayuno typico which, like all things south of Texas, included beans. Our first dive is schedule for tomorrow morning and we’re off to see if we can make a friend or two before we call it a night.
As I flick a fly away from the screen and tell myself that its not worth touching the shower-head to find out if it really will electrocute me, we wonder… how much cactus juice is necessary for una cerveza por favor.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.103s; Tpl: 0.022s; cc: 5; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0694s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
deleted_40236
deleted_40236
So glad to hear from you.
hey guys sounds like youre having an amazing time. glad to hear you got there ok and settled into your nook for the summer. extremely jealous of your going diving tomorow. (among other things) (but especiallly that) unfortunately i must sleep soon, but im so happy to have heard from you two. love you both. hope you have (or had) an amazing time diving. glad to hear youre keeping with the tradition of salva vida and fresca. thanks for the awesome blog entry. i guess il hear from you again soon. love - Chris