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Published: April 5th 2010
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Snorkel Dude
Walt at West Bay Beach Walt and I had a great vacation. I am very sad that today is my last day before I must return to school.
As soon as my parent/teacher interviews were done I was off in a taxi to the bus station, then heading for Comayagua.
Saturday morning we woke up at 6am to go catch a rapidito (mini-bus or van) to Siguatapeque. This was the start of our good luck that day. We JUST caught the van as it was about to pull away. Once we arrived in Sigua, we caught a taxi to the Don Tiki restaurant where we were going to catch our bus. The bad news was that the buses to La Ceiba (where we need to catch the ferry to Roatan) were all full until 1:30pm (it was about 7:30am at this time). I figured we'd miss the last ferry (leaves at 4:30pm) and we'd spend a night in La Ceiba and then catch the first ferry in the morning (9:30am). The good news was that Walt knew the guy working behind the ticket counter (someone he plays basketball against from time to time) and so every bus that pulled up, this guy was checking
it out for extra seats. Lucky break #2- we were on a bus and heading for La Ceiba at 10am! Just after 3, we were in La Ceiba and heading for the ferry terminal. Bad news: the ferry was full and we'd have to return the next day. I was totally ready to get my things and head to a hotel for the night but Walt said each attendant seemed to be saying something different and so he was going to keep trying. Lucky break #3 - At about 4:20 (10 minutes before the ferry leaves) Walt was shouting my name to come sign the credit card slip as he got the tickets and we were heading to Roatan! The ferry was packed and so we had to sit on the floor in the aisle but we were just happy we were going to get there that night!
I had already made reservations with my favourite Roatan hotel: Chillies. I've stayed there twice before and scuba dive with their dive shop: Native Sons. We got our room and went down to our favourite restaurant: Cannibal's cafe, where we shared a burrito (yes, they are that big) and some beers.
Native Sons Dive Boat
Just before our Easter Egg Hunt! The rest of the week is kind of a blur. We relaxed on the beaches (West Bay and West End), we ate at some restaurants, cooked a lot of our own food in the kitchen at our hotel, walked up and down the road in West End (even went running one morning!), and I did 5 scuba dives.
It felt so nice to be back in the water diving. I was a little nervous at first since it had been almost a year and a half since my last dive. I did struggle a bit with my buoyancy at first but it was like getting back on a bike. Didn't see anything crazy that I hadn't seen before, although unless a seahorse or whale-shark turn up, it'd be hard to see anything I haven't already seen. I did get to do a super fun dive though! Native Sons had an underwater Easter egg hunt to raise money for an organization called
SOL . The dive instructors took us out to a location and went down for about 5-10 minutes before us and hid 50 coloured, hard-boiled eggs. We were then put in partners and had 45 minutes to locate
Sawdust Carpets
stencils used to create such beauty as many as we could. I was quite proud of myself finding 7 on my own! My partner found 4 and I was sure we did well with 11, as there were about 12 people on the dive! Unfortunate for us, another team scored 15 eggs. What a fun dive it was, using buoyancy control to get close to the coral and reefs and swim-throughs.
Our last night on the island was another fundraiser for SOL - a BBQ at Native Sons complete with fun party games, hamburgers, and beers. We had an enjoyable last night and were off quite early on Thursday morning (5am wake-up) to catch the 7am ferry back to La Ceiba then catch a bus back to Comayagua.
Unfortunate for us, the travel BACK to Comayagua wasn't as successful as the travel from there. Many of the buses were not running, including any buses from La Ceiba to Comayagua (which we only discovered AFTER paying a taxi to drive us around to what we thought we all our options), which meant taking a bus from La Ceiba to San Pedro (which we'd have to pass by anyways on our way) and then catching a
bus from the transportation station there. Trouble was, all our options from San Pedro to Comayagua (even to Tegucigalpa!) were limited, so we found one bus company running to Tegucigalpa (and would drop us off in Comayagua on the way) but had to wait 3 hours until that bus was leaving. We ended up back in Comayagua around 8pm. The nice thing, was that Walt knew one of the current teachers from EBH (my old school) who was traveling back to Comayagua with her parents after they had spent the week in Utila, and so we had some travel companions and took turns watching each other's bags while the others went to walk around the station or find food.
The whole reason to go back to Comayagua was for the sawdust carpets, which they start building late Thursday night and then have completed Friday morning. We were both too tired to see them start the carpets Thursday night but were up nice and early to take lots of photos of the finished products on Friday morning before the procession comes down and ruins them all.
I was still amazed by the detail that is put into these carpets
and what can be done with sawdust! I took about a million photos. To see them,
click here!
Walt and I are home now in OUR apartment. He moved in Saturday and we've spent the last couple days playing house. It's going to be somewhat stressful for the next couple weeks while Walt looks for work, but we're trying to be optimistic and hope that work comes quickly. I'll definitely keep you all posted.
Happy Easter!
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DAD
non-member comment
Beautiful, painstaking work
I'm forever blown away by the wonderful, delicate art in these sawdust carpets. It is a gracious, impressive way to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Splendid. Glad to hear you enjoyed your holiday and that all is well in your corner of the world. My best to Walter. Look forward to seeing you in July. All my love, now and always, DAD XXX OOO