Wednesday, May 9th - Roatan, Honduras

When you go on a cruise you stay on boat time.  What that means is that while the boat travels into different time zones throughout the trip, the boat always stays in the time zone of the port you left.  It helps keep everything synced and it made total sense to me...until we got to Roatan.  We got off of the boat at 8am boat time.  We were all chipper and excited to go sit on the beach and explore the island.  Shane walked up to a guy and asked what the local time was.  He replied, 6:07am.  I was thinking, It's 6 in the morning here!!!  Why the heck did they drop us off so dang early!?  I don't think I would have been quite so floored exept for the fact that we had to be back on the boat at 2pm boat time = Noon local time.  It just seemed like a rip off.  After exploring the island, we found out, it really was.

Instead of paying overpriced taxi's to drive us, we rented a car.  It was a Kia Picanto.  I've always loved how foreign countries have the same cars with different names on them.  We asked locals where we should go and then off we went.  We knew we had to stop and see a monkey - Kara insisted.  I could have cared less.  I had a traumatic experience with a monkey in the Philippines so I'm over monkeys.  (Their human hands creep me out and they know WAY TOO MUCH!)

We found little shops up on an overlook hill.  The women there were so nice.  I always want to buy something from each and every one of the shops just to help them out.  The lead what to me is a difficult life.

We found our way to what has got to be the most bizarre zooish type place I've ever been.  They had iguanas, 2 monkeys, turtles, barracudas, and a turkey.  It was $6 to get in and then you just walked around free to do whatever.  The iguanas were everywhere.  I was mating season so they kept biting each other - that was pretty cool to see.

I'll admit, this monkey did seem pretty cool.  He put on a little show for us and them snuggled up to the fence for some scratching.  No one cared that they stuck their fingers through the enclosure.  I kept waiting for the monkey to grab them but thankfully they never did.  Kara really wanted to hold the monkey and whenever she asked someone if they had a monkey she could hold they would laugh and give us that look of, You crazy Americans, monkeys are wild animals!  We had a funny yet not so funny conversation with a woman about monkeys.

Kara: Are their monkeys you can hold?
Lady: No!  I don't like monkeys.  One bit my grandma, and she died.

I have no idea why, but we laughed after she said that.  I guess we didn't think she could be serious.  But she was.

We found our way to West End on a gorgeous beach and there we ate lunch.  We ate at Cindy's Place on a recommendation of a little girl we met.  She didn't lie when she said Cindy had the best food.  It was delicious!  We ordered our food and after a bite we asked her to double our order!  If you ever find yourself in West End Roatan, order a chicken beleada from Cindy.  You won't be disappointed!  While we ate there we met a guy, I think his name was Dallan, who is a country songwriter from Tennessee.  He gave us the low down on what to do and how we should buy property there.  He also took the boys out to sunken submarine to explore.

While Cody about drowned getting to and from the sub (remember Shane is a fish so he fared a bit better), Kara and I sunbathed on the beach.  Kara also got a 10 min. massage for $2 - what a steal.  I became obsessed with the local dogs running around and playing.  I envisioned Kita running on the beach and Shane and I with a house there.  It was a glorious vision!     

 

 

Since we had to be back on the boat far too early, we reluctantly took off from our beach haven.  We filled up our Picanto and look what I found in the convenience store: better than sex cake!!! HAHAHAHA!!!   

Our evening was very enjoyable, mostly because Cody ended up going on stage to help out the performer.  The show was called the Evolution of Edge and he was great!  He was a juggling, chinese yo-yo and comedic act.  When Cody went up on stage he was asked to help get him into some stilts and as the guy stood up he took Cody's shirt with him.  It was hilarious!  I don't think I could ever go up on stage.  I get stage fright very easily.

After the show we went up to dinner.  They had a conga line which was lovely.  Then we made sure to take pictures with the wait staff.  They were such great company and we looked forward to seeing them every night.  At first we couldn't get George to crack a smile, but he finally broke and we saw the softer side of him.