Hello All: Bill and I have temporarily moved up in the world. We are currently living in a gated community in a very nice area of Roatan, Honduras. We have a beautiful apartment with two big bathrooms, a living room and a full kitchen. I could move in here permanently and be just fine.
As Bill noted yesterday, we had some trouble getting here. The Hondurans are burning sugar cane fields and it’s creating a lot of smoke. The airport has been periodically closed because it’s too hazy for planes to land. We had to wait for several hours in Dallas before our plane left. Fortunately, Dallas has a decent airport. There are comfortable places to sit, decent food options in all terminals, and it’s the quietest airport I’ve ever been in. While we were waiting, we went to a spa and got chair massages. It was a little weird, but we were both tired and it was an activity for half an hour.
Bill is concerned about not making it home in time to go back to work because there is no one to cover his shift. If airport problems continue, we may try to come home a day early. We were concerned that the air quality would be really bad. It’s hazy and smells faintly of smoke, but it’s not nearly as bad as we had expected.
We spent all day today on a snorkeling trip. We did three or 4 different snorkel sites, which was fun. The water is super clear here, but the hazy conditions limit water visibility some. However, the haze also helped prevent sunburns. If we had been out all day in blazing sunshine, I would have burned regardless of how much sunscreen I used. This way, I stayed out with no problems.
It’s the low season here and we are practically the only tourists in the West End. Apparently, this place is packed during the winter months. The smoke has caused some problems and I’m sure the water clarity would be better in January with a sunny sky, but I’ll take this over huge crowds and higher prices. We can go book any tour we want any time and we don’t have to worry about everything being booked or dealing with crowds of people in shops and restaurants. We were the only people at the restaurant for supper tonight.
We are planning to book a night snorkeling tour for tomorrow evening but take a more restful day. There’s a museum we want to visit and Bill wants to try out some new diving gear in the swimming pool before his dives this weekend. This is mango season, so I want to find some fruit. I had some really good fruit at the restaurant for breakfast this morning, but we would like to fix our own breakfast most mornings.
Overall, I think we are really going to enjoy this vacation and our week will go super fast.
Traveling with Emily! 