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Published: April 12th 2008
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After a hot and noisy night listening to everybody else´s air conditioner (a luxury we didn´t have in our room!) and the driving rain, the alarm went off at 4.55am and we crawled out of bed. It had actually stopped raining to our relief.....but this turned out to only be a brief reprieve as, by the time we had packed everything up it had started again and so we had to unpack to get our waterproofs out. It was a short walk in the driving rain to the bus station but enough to get us soaked though luckily we caught a chicken bus that was just leaving and, initially at least, it was not too crowded. However, it was a two hour plus journey towards a major city, La Ceiba, so became very crowded and cramped with Hugh´s legs being in the way wherever he could manage to put them. We were therefore relieved to arrive....at a petrol station....and transfer to taxis to take us to the port where we were due to catch a ferry to Roatan, one of the Bay Islands in the Caribbean. However, we were stopped at the gates to the port because the ferries weren´t running
due to bad weather. Some lengthy debate followed about our options and eventually it was decided that we were prepared to pay the extra to fly over there instead so it was back in the taxis to go to the local airport. This was the kind of thing we had brought Steve, the group leader for of course! He sorted out tickets etc but we ended up with a few hours hanging around in an uninspiring airport. There was, however, some relief that they had laid on a large plane as initially we had thought it was going to be only 19 people and I´m too claustrophobic for small planes.
Following what must be the shortest flight I have ever taken (12 mins) we waited much longer to get our baggage and took a minibus to West End, a small town at the southern end of Roatan. Like Tela, it has a large Garifuna population and it was very strange as many people spoke English as a first language or a kind of Creole.
We had 3 nights here with a huge range of options for things to do. However, when we arrived, waves were crashing up onto
the volcanic rock just in front of the hotel and wind was whistling and, while this calmed a little, it never quite matched the picture we had of quietly lapping waves below a clear blue sky. Still, we got out and about. One morning we walked some distance along the coast to another beach, said to be the most beautiful on the island. It was more built up than we´d expected and many of the hotels/resorts had chairs on the beach that they were charging $10 to use. We did manage to find our own bit of sand and were considering a swim when the first drops of rain started. This soon developed into a torrential downpour and, when it became clear that this was not going away, we abandoned the day on the beach and headed back to the village, getting completely drenched in the process although it was nice to have the beach to ourselves!
The hotel had a small pool which I made use of every day but this was pretty chilly in the wild weather. Apart from that we also took a kayak out one morning which gave a different view of the island and
we could see quite a lot through the clear blue water. I also indulged in a long awaited massage with a very nice Canadian lady who has been running a small guest house there for 8 years.
Hugh went out on a boat trip to go snorkelling one afternoon - not something I wanted to do while the sea was rough. I´ll let him tell you all about it:
We thought we were going on a snorkelling trip to three different sites, but when it came to the appointed time there were only 2 of us who wanted go so we had to to make do with catching a ride on a dive boat and snorkel in one place.
The dive site was only a 5 minute boat ride to an area where the depth ranged from 5-15m near the boat. When I asked about the current they said there was none and they were right. The sea was still a bit rough, but it had calmed down a lot over the last two days so the visibility was great. There were loads of fish to see, including some particularly attractive bright blue ones (can't tell you what they were).
All in all it was well worth it.
(and no Mark, I didn't do the D thing)
Back to Sarah:
Apart from all that, we had some excellent sea food meals (including fish and chips from a van on the sea front one lunchtime - just like Scarborough....) and a few drinks but the town seemed pretty quiet which was lovely.
Of course, our last morning came with clear blue skies and reasonably calm seas. This at least meant that the ferry was running again and we had an early start to catch the boat at 6.30am back to the mainland, all a bit disappointed that we weren´t staying to make the most of the better weather. But we had places to go, unfortunately involving long travelling days.....
Hope you all travelled safely over Easter?
Lots of love
S + H xx
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