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Published: April 25th 2006
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Before we get to the sun and sand, must tell you about the trip there.
We left Livingston on the 4am ferry (you can only get to Livingston by boat).... it was about a 1 hours boat ride in the blackness of early morning. We got to the port town of Puerto Barrios where we were acousted by taxi drivers offering to take us to a town to catch the bus to the border. We have figured out how the scheme works: the closer the people are to the boat or bus you are getting off from, the more expensive the "deal" is.
So we walked 500m down the road and saved ourselves being charged 4 times the price. We bordered a mini bus headed for the border(1 hour) and met a really great Hondurian couple who helped us along the way. On getting to the border we got off the mini bus to be acousted by a dozen moneychanges all offering us a deal on changing our Guatemalan currency for Honduran. Then into the border hut to pay our 2 dollars and get an immigration stamp. "Welcome to Honduras."
We had time for a quick take away taco before being
One of the diving boats
This is the bay that we stayed on. hearded onto a chicken bus bound for the town of San Pedro Sula on getting there we were husseled onto another bus towards La Cieba(4hours). At this stage we were worried about missing the second of only 2 daily ferries to the island of Roatan.
We got of the bus were I helped in making our backpacks lighter by leaving the only Jerseys we have on the bus. Quickly into a taxi for the port. We got there with time to spare, not due to good planing but because our guide book is 2 years old and the ferry left 1 hour later than it said. Popped onto the ferry and a 2 hour enjoyable boat ride got us to Roaton island, we bummed a life in the back of a bakkie (30min)to West bay which would be our home for the next week. After the usual walk around to compare accomadation, we found a place where we shared an "apartment" with 4 other travellers we had met on the way.
So after 14 hour of travelling I dropped our backpacks and went for a swim over the road from the hotel in the most incredible blue water of
the Caribean sea. Which is all it took to totally forget about how we got there and rather about why...............Total Paradise.
The next day the two Swiss girls decided to rather stay in the hostel next door which was a bit cheaper than the place we were in. The four of us (Mel, myself, Gab and James) did not mind because we all felt it was time for a bit of luxury. The place had 2 rooms, a kitchen and a shower with hot water. We figured we could save a bit of money by cooking for ourselves, and prawns and lobster tail were about 6 dollars a kilogram........ so you can guess what we ate!
James and Gab enrolled in an open water diving coure, which Mel and I did not have to do because we were already qualified. The weather was perfect. We did a few dives which was great, the reef is just a few hundred meters off shore and the water was really warm. We saw all kinds of tropical fish in their hundreds, a few tuna, baracudas, a baby turtle, and Mel found a moray eel hidding in the coral.
On our
4th day we hired scooters. We made it about half way around the island. On our trip we found a small animal sanctuary where a local guy showed us around, letting the spider monkeys and parrots sit on our shoulders. A baby monkey got quite attached to Gab and would not let her go. Even tempting it away with a banana did not prove very effective!We met a crazy Chec guy who lived in a brewery he had built making the Islands only real ale. His philosophy on life was "lets get naked and dance" ......so we did not stay long after drinking a bit of his beer.
We did about 4 dives on the island which were all spectacular.
Gab and James had to leave to Belize after a week, so we dicided it would make sense for us to leave too. We had a great week in Roatan but there was lots of places still to see.
So we hopped on the 7.30am ferry back to the mainland.
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