We docked in Roatan, Honduras on Tuesday morning and headed out past the pier to see if we could bargain to do some excursions. These folks were dancing on the pier while some of their friends played the drums. We just wanted a picture with them, but these ladies started dancing up on Spencer was standing next to them (hence the slightly freaked out face).
Right outside the port was a very poor area, so people swarmed there to sell crafts, tours, and taxis. They were pretty pushy too- if you said "no, thank you" they would follow you and try to talk you into buying their taxi or doing their excursion. After much wheeling and dealing, we headed up to do a zip line over the jungle canopy. The drive was kind of scary because they don't have a speed limit, and people would constantly walk in the street and only scoot over a tiny bit if a car was coming. I think the only formal traffic rule was "honk if you're going around me," and our driver lady did a lot of honking.
All suited up and ready to go. We had 2 tour guides, and it was really nice because one guide would go ahead of us with our camera and take pictures as we zipped toward him. So here we are:
I had to consciously think to look down as we were cruising over the jungle.
Just taking it easy. But then we got a little more creative...
like going Superman-style
and even upside-down.
As you can see, the second tour guide would come with us whenever we did one of the more crazy things. I had decided that morning that I wasn't going to shave my legs, but I kind of regretted it when I realized that he held onto our legs when we flew like Superman and he grabbed our legs to tip us upside-down. Blast. He was probably thinking, "Ugh. Hairy pale American woman."
After the zip line we went back to our ship to have lunch, and then we changed into our swimsuits. We spent the afternoon at the West Bay beach, on the more touristy side of the island where there were resorts and restaurants.
This is our little friend Nelson, who was 12 and spoke very good English. His dad owned the taxi business that we used, so he just rode shotgun in our taxi. When we got out to go to the beach, he decided to stick around with us. He pretty much followed Spencer wherever he went. There were lots of bars on the beach, and he told us that the drinking age on the island was only 7 years old. When we talked to other people at dinner, they told us that 2 little girls came with them everywhere to be their tour guides. So if you ever plan on going to Roatan, expect some company.
Spencer had told our cab driver that he wanted to stop and get some leches, this little red spikey fruit that we kept seeing on the ground while we walked through the shops. When our taxi driver picked us up from the beach, he had already stopped and bought us a bag of them. We had to bite them open, and then peel away the skin to get the little white fruit. It was sweet, slimy, had kind of a gelatinous texture, and then there was a big seed in the middle.
We had a good time, but we were glad to get on our ship at the end of the day.
I fully intended to take some cool pictures of us inside, but it didn't happen.
I fully intended to take some cool pictures of us inside, but it didn't happen.
For dinner, we had a get-together with some friends. We all miss the deliciousness of Cafe Rio, so we just get copycat recipes off the Internet and make it ourselves!
I think this was the 3rd "Cafe Rio Night" that we've had. Yum.
In other news, we went to the temple on Saturday and were called and set apart as ordinance workers. We are so excited about it! So if you're there in the morning of the first or third Saturday of the month, be sure to say hi.
