Advertisement
Published: July 17th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Our last day in Roatan was another chilled out yet busy day. We began by swimming through another run. We then sat around for the morning recovering but as you have probably gathered this is not a bad spot to do nothing.
We were very much looking forward to the afternoon as we were booked on for a dive which is, after all, what the island is famous for. We both have dived in many locations around the world but this is definitely the clearest water we have been in. There are as many dive sites as you have days to dive. Within a few minutes from leaving the Coconut Dive shop we were off the boat and into the water. Talking to some others that had dived multiple times on the island, this site held some particularly impressive coral. They were right. There was coral of many shapes and colours including, fans, tubes and brain patterns. Being such warm water the fish were not as plentiful as other places but we saw several decent sized grouper and barracuda as well as many tiny coloured fish of blue, yellow and red. With the crystal clear waters you definitely felt you
were flapping around in a hotel fish tank. We would have loved to stayed more days to dive but, although Bay Islands is known as an affordable dive destination, Roatan had already taken more than its fair share of our budget. So sadly the next day we left this Caribbean paradise to get back to the buses, bitumen and new adventures. Something we had almost forgotten.
We knew it was a big day ahead as the alarm went off at 5.30am with the taxi waiting outside to take us to the ferry. We were joined by another passenger in the taxi who quickly fell asleep on Leannes arm but she was not worried as this was a very cute wee 3 year old man obviously dragged out of bed due to us. His mother was lovely and chatted the whole way to the ferry with her very entertaining broken Caribbean English accent. Its funny when you stay in touristville you often only see one side and although the trip on the scooter allowed us to see some things, we didnĀ“t fully appreciate that violent crime is still present on the island. Our taxi driver explained to us that, only
3 months ago, a man was stabbed to death his taxi and she was also stabbed but luckily escaped. Not something tourists are likely to be involved in, but in this part of the world you can never let your guard down and that is what she wanted us to know.
One of the things about traveling that we love is you never exactly know how you will get to you destination, what the scenery will be like and what will be there i.e will you sleep in a luxury cabin or a dark mosquito infested box, will you be eating cheese, avocado and Tabasco sandwiches (we have had our fair share!!) or will be dining on fine local cuisine.
The transport of the day was far from direct but surprisingly relatively easy as we connected between a total of 2 taxis, 1 ferry and 3 local buses.
10 hours later we arrived at what became our destination, Omoa. We were keen to make it into Guatemala and had only 50km to the border but we had to remind ourselves we are still on holiday.
Omoa is described as a backpackers destination where the sun has
First on the School Bus!
If only it stayed that way... set, largely because the paved road between Guatemala and Honduras doesn't always require the stop over it once did. So with no expectations we departed the bus at Omoa junction and as we wondered around scratching our heads the bus driver tooted to get us back on. Locals always know best and he knew exactly where we were heading......... the beach! and it was a 1.5km hot humid kilometers away. Leanne maintained she knew this and smiled the whole way. Our 2nd hand American school bus driver screamed to a halt outside the backpackers joint and with another toot dumped us at the side of the road with our bags. In we went to "Rolis Place" which in its day was one of the best backpackers in the country. We had been warned the place came with its own set of rules and for our liking the Swiss German owner had one too many notices. We are sure this could be a cool place with a great chill out area , free bikes and kayaks and 50m to the beach but boarding school rules in paradise is still boarding school. One thing we will remember is the hundreds of fire
flies on the grass all around the lawn in front of our room. Very cool!!
Tomorrow we return to Guatemala, destination Livingston. At least thats the current plan.................
Advertisement
Tot: 0.128s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 14; qc: 63; dbt: 0.0784s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb