Feb 2013 Western Caribbean Cruise- Roatan

Last week we went on a cruise along the second largest reef in the world, stopping in Roatan, an island of Honduras, Belize, and Cozumel, an island of Mexico.  Grandma and Grandpa Shepard and Jenny and Joseph joined us and spoiled the kids rotten with the attention of extra people able to toss them and tickle them about the pools and waves.

We started with two days at sea (and loads of eating) and spent most of those days reading by the pool (me) and swimming in the pool (everyone younger than me).  Chuck and I took dance lessons and learned little bits of the Merengue, the Cha-Cha and the Tango complete with this little trick where I kick my leg around him. I know! ooh la la!

Day 3-  Roatan.  Wow!  This was by far the most groomed and custom made for the cruise crowd beach that I have ever seen in my life. It definitely wasn't an accurate viewing of Honduras, but it sure was easy to enjoy.  We were able to walk right off the boat, down the huge dock into a little mini plaza of shops.  Then we paid like $5/person to ride on this ski chair lift thing 67 ft in the air and 1200 feet over to the white sandy beaches of Mahogany Beach.  This beach was pristine. 825 ft of chairs as far as the eye could see, not a speck of trash in existence, shade equally mixed with sun and coconut stands.

Katesy is a nut for coconuts and we made a goal to either pick one out of a tree (like she did last cruise) or buy one every place we stopped.  $5 was all it cost for coconut water so sweet and fabulous and then the salesman whacked open the nut and scooped out the fruit into easy to bite pieces of yummy.

Roatan has a rich history of pirates and treasure, castaways and iguanas. In 1723, a young castaway from New England survived on Roatan for 16 months before being rescued.  There were many souls not so lucky and there are legends of ghosts, or duooees, that whisper in the ears of visitors.  There was an iguana farm (home to 2700 of them!)  that we missed cause we were too busy being not busy. If we had gone, there was a chance that we would have seen a Jesus lizard, or Monkey Lala lizard, so named for its amazing talent for running across water.

Best known local cuisine for Roatan is a baleadas- a thick flour tortilla folded in half and filled with refried beans and grated queso duro ( a salty white cheese) with avocados, chicken possibly added. 

Below shows the many emotions Mahogany Beach can elicit from visitors.