Becomming Islanders

 

We arrived on the island and spent the next two weeks getting to know our way around, blending in with the locals, meeting the expats, sampling the local eateries and looking at property.  As a disclaimer everything in this next series of blog posts are from my recollection, feelings and acquired information and were written during or shortly after our trip in January 2014. It may not be historically, geographically or in any other way correct and may have been at times altered by the rum which runs plentiful on the island and can make ones memories fuzzy.

 

After we arrived and made it out of the airport with a rental car.( I will spare you the details of the extended visit to the rental car counter.  When the blog turns into travel advice I will expand in that and similar areas.) We proceeded to the grocery store for some basic supplies. While the grocery store was foreign ,in that the items were listed in Spanish and priced in Lempiras ,it was not unlike a trip to any grocery store not in your town. Look around find things you need in unfamiliar areas of the store. So like any extended vacation we got our supplies and headed off to the house we were renting.  (I will also address our travels around the island and experiences surrounding them at a later time.) In due time we did arrive at the road on which the rental property was located.

 

When turning down the road the house was to be on we said in unison something to the extent of “You have got to be kidding”.  The road went straight down a hill in a spiral manor.  So we held our breath and gave it a try. Not so bad really. After driving it several times it became routine even in the rain. After getting settled in we wandering down to the beach. It was a hike down down down the road but the beach was nice. It was a typical beach, not as tropical as I may have expected. My goal was to snorkel every day on this trip. I realized quite quickly a much more attainable goal was to make sure my toes hit the ocean every day. So after walking in the water and hiking back up the hill we realized we were hungry. After two long days of travel cooking was not exactly what I wanted to do at that point.  We decided to find our way to West End and get some dinner.

 

One of the funny things about Roatan at least funny to me is the names of places. West End  is located on the west side but not at the end of the island. It is more like a bay than an end. West Bay is located at the end of the island and is a long sandy beach not so much a bay. So once you figure out those little quirks the island makes more sense. This also explains why we did not make it to West Bay on either of our cruises I thought it was West End we were looking for. West Bay is also called Tabyana Beach by the Cruise ships which I was told was the original local name for it. All these little quirks could be the Islands way of sorting out locals from those staying on the island and those visiting on a big ship. Or they are just little quirks you decide. Any way figuring these things out just made me feel more like a local and less like a big ship visitor.  And “I myself am often surprised at life’s little quirks”. Sorry had to be done if you don’t get the reference you better look it up.

We got to West End and found what we thought was an acceptable place to park. The first place we saw that looked like a fun place to eat. It was called Monkey Island. How can you go wrong? A beach bar with monkey in the name, pineapples sitting on the railing, tiki hut roof and drink specials listed on a black board by the door. So we go in and we are escorted to our seats by a young man who seems happy to be there and full of energy. We decide to hang with the locals and drink Hondurian beer, which is of course the only beer there is available. We order food and relax, enjoy the island breeze, breath in the tropics and soak in the laid back vibe.

 

It was here I begin my vacation, relaxing at Monkey Island, eating amazing salsa and shocking the young bartender by asking for a shot of his best rum.  By the time we left that night we had found an island hang out, a second home. The bartender turns out to be a young man from New Mexico; he arrived on the island with his uncle. They had set out on a sailing adventure. He lived in Florida for some time before heading out sailing, and left from there. He and his uncle had some adventures I assume before their boat became stranded on this little island. He said his uncle was leaving or had just left, his plans were to stay there for a while then continue on to other Central American Countries to find surfing and adventures.

 I am a bit of a collector of people. People watching is one of my favorite pastimes. I noticed there was a man sitting behind us. He looked like a left over hippy, long grey beard, sitting next to a bag of laundry. He was at home here as if he comes here often. The thing that got me, the clincher as my person of the night was the book he was reading. He sat there reading Jaws. I thought how very funny a hippy guy chilling at a beach bar reading Jaws. It would have been a wonderful photo. It was dark and taking a photo would have been an obvious intrusion on his space.  So we enjoyed the moment. Next thing I know he walks up to our table and says he just had to come over and talk to us. He says my family is “quintessential Americana”. This led to a long conversation about him and us and who we were. He had traveled many places including many places we have traveled in the states. He attended music festivals we attended and listened to bands we listen to. Most recently he had come from Afghanistan, he ended up in Roatan to house sit for a Dive instructor friend he met along the way.

Having started the day in Atlanta, traveled to another country settled in, gone to the beach, it seemed like we had spent days in this process.  So exhausted we settled in to sleep our first night in Honduras .Little did we know that we would be woken from our slumber by loud squeaky bird noises? The girls came running from their room saying there is a bird or something in our room. Upon inspection we discovered the noise came from a Gecko. He was on the ceiling and apparently they call in the night. . As the trip progressed we became used to being lulled to sleep by many different island noises.  I found it to be a wonderful part of the adventure, the girls may feel otherwise.We determined him to be harmless and again settled into sleep .

 

 

What an amazing first day. We had collected two of the many special people we would meet along the way and we found a home town bar and restaurant which would return to over and over again . We felt a lot more like islanders than I thought we would so early in the trip.