Roatan nature
Mar. 28th, 2010 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersSo I'm back from the Roatan adventure, which was a total blast. Roatan is a cigar-shaped island off the coast of Honduras, four miles wide and twenty miles long. We stayed at the Fantasy Island all-inclusive resort, which is a slightly rundown place on a lovely bay in the middle of the south side of the island. When I say rundown, I mean for example that the electrical and plumbing systems were more than a bit flaky. One thing this meant was that there weren't many people there and the place felt a lot different from the all-inclusive resorts we've stayed at elsewhere in the past four years. To us, it felt more homey and comfortable than the fancier places. The whole set-up was just about perfect.
Roatan is on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, which is the second largest barrier reef in the world. We had snorkeled and dived on parts of it by Cozumel in the Yucatan a couple of years ago. The Fantasy Island resort was right on the reef, and we could walk twenty yards from the hotel to a point where you could jump into the water and swim right to some spectacular snorkeling. I did that pretty much every day. There was also a lot of scuba diving going on, and my brother's family and my niece did a lot of that. I've pretty much given up on diving, partly because I can see so much by snorkeling, which is a much less complicated and dependent process.
Aside from the beautiful reef, we also had a a wonderful beach on the bay, protected on two sides by little peninsulas covered with pine trees that blocked the heavy winds that occasionally blew up. I spent a lot of time just sitting in the shade of palm trees on the beach letting my mind drift or checking out the other people. One of the interesting things about this trip is that for the first time in these resort excursions, I didn't suffer from extreme body image anxiety. I don't know if that's because I've just gotten used to my aging body, or if the relatively low key ambience of this resort didn't trigger my sense that it was all about the beautiful body.
I went on two different driving excursions in rental cars to explore the island. The first time I drove my parents and my sister to the West Bay and West End areas, where much of the fancier resort development is happening. We also drove through Coxen Hole, which is the biggest town on the island and seemed very working class and devoid of tourists. The driving was a lot less insane than on the Dominican Republic, although you still had to keep an eye out for bicycle and pedestrian traffic along the side of the road and some hazardous passing by oncoming traffic. I also went on a trip with my sister, my niece, and her husband, who drove the car that time. We went to Oak Ridge, which is a small, impoverished fishing village where a half dozen guys offered us boat tours of the area. Hustling hard for a buck. One thing we heard from other sources was that when Britain abolished slavery, they sent some of the remaining slaves to various places in the Caribbean, including Oak Ridge. This seemed to explain why the people there spoke English as though it were a native tongue.
We also met some interesting people at the resort. When we first got there, we were joined by a huge group of high school students from Tegucigalpa, which is the biggest city in Honduras. They were clearly upper class kids, and my nephews found out that they were from a private school. This was their senior trip, although most of them were apparently only sixteen. Cute kids, and full of wild spirit. They would stay up all night running around and shrieking like idiots. It was hard not to feel swept up by their energy, although some of the other guests at the resort were less nostalgic for their own youth, I guess. Not that I would want to be sixteen again. Yikes. We had this discussion at the dinner table, and I said I might be willing to go back to 30, but I'm not even sure of that.
Anyway, after the kids departed on Wednesday, a family from New York showed up. There were three younger women in the group, and we ended up hanging out with them a lot. Two of them were the daughters of a Honduran woman and a father who was a Russian Jew from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The other was from Brooklyn and the daughter of a woman who had known the others' mother for many years, so the three girls had grown up together and were very close. The mothers were there too, as well as an aunt and uncle. I talked to all of them, but mostly to the three younger ones. The two sisters were smart as shit. Both had gone to small private colleges, and the younger one had just applied to a graduate school in Utrecht. We all immediately hit it off and hung out drinking and talking about everything under the moon the last three nights of our stay.
The first of those nights involved a minor adventure that had larger implications for our family. My niece's husband had struck up a conversation with a guy named Bill who worked on a 90-foot catamaran owned by a rich property developer from Costa Rica. My older nephew had made contact with the New York crew, and eventually these things combined and a bunch of us went to the yacht to meet the captain and drink tequila. The next morning it turned out that the captain had told my nephew that there might be a job for him on the cat. Since my nephew had just dropped out of college and was looking for something to do, this seemed like an amazing opening. Indeed, after some back and forth in which it wasn't clear whether it would really happen or not, it appears that he might be going right back down there to join the crew of the boat. This is quite an opportunity for him, and probably a good way to get some life experience while he tries to figure out what the hell he wants to do with himself.
There are lots more levels to all of this, of course. Suffice it to say that for me this was probably the best trip of the four we've taken in recent years, although I also really loved the Yucatan trip. There were many reason why this one was great, but there's no denying that the New York crew was a big part of it. The younger women called me Uncle Randy, because that's what my niece and nephews call me. We all made such a great connection -- a connection of two clans -- and it it was really comforting somehow. A restoration of love for my fellow humans, even strangers whom I will probably never see again. They treated me with such respect and affection that it restored my faith in myself too.
Good times, and I haven't even talked about the bad monkeys or the mad Czechs. On the other hand, I'm really glad to be home. It's good to be sleeping in my own bed and plugging back into my network of friends and acquaintances. Yet I return with a sense of renewed possibilities. There may be life left in the old dog yet.
Roatan is on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, which is the second largest barrier reef in the world. We had snorkeled and dived on parts of it by Cozumel in the Yucatan a couple of years ago. The Fantasy Island resort was right on the reef, and we could walk twenty yards from the hotel to a point where you could jump into the water and swim right to some spectacular snorkeling. I did that pretty much every day. There was also a lot of scuba diving going on, and my brother's family and my niece did a lot of that. I've pretty much given up on diving, partly because I can see so much by snorkeling, which is a much less complicated and dependent process.
Aside from the beautiful reef, we also had a a wonderful beach on the bay, protected on two sides by little peninsulas covered with pine trees that blocked the heavy winds that occasionally blew up. I spent a lot of time just sitting in the shade of palm trees on the beach letting my mind drift or checking out the other people. One of the interesting things about this trip is that for the first time in these resort excursions, I didn't suffer from extreme body image anxiety. I don't know if that's because I've just gotten used to my aging body, or if the relatively low key ambience of this resort didn't trigger my sense that it was all about the beautiful body.
I went on two different driving excursions in rental cars to explore the island. The first time I drove my parents and my sister to the West Bay and West End areas, where much of the fancier resort development is happening. We also drove through Coxen Hole, which is the biggest town on the island and seemed very working class and devoid of tourists. The driving was a lot less insane than on the Dominican Republic, although you still had to keep an eye out for bicycle and pedestrian traffic along the side of the road and some hazardous passing by oncoming traffic. I also went on a trip with my sister, my niece, and her husband, who drove the car that time. We went to Oak Ridge, which is a small, impoverished fishing village where a half dozen guys offered us boat tours of the area. Hustling hard for a buck. One thing we heard from other sources was that when Britain abolished slavery, they sent some of the remaining slaves to various places in the Caribbean, including Oak Ridge. This seemed to explain why the people there spoke English as though it were a native tongue.
We also met some interesting people at the resort. When we first got there, we were joined by a huge group of high school students from Tegucigalpa, which is the biggest city in Honduras. They were clearly upper class kids, and my nephews found out that they were from a private school. This was their senior trip, although most of them were apparently only sixteen. Cute kids, and full of wild spirit. They would stay up all night running around and shrieking like idiots. It was hard not to feel swept up by their energy, although some of the other guests at the resort were less nostalgic for their own youth, I guess. Not that I would want to be sixteen again. Yikes. We had this discussion at the dinner table, and I said I might be willing to go back to 30, but I'm not even sure of that.
Anyway, after the kids departed on Wednesday, a family from New York showed up. There were three younger women in the group, and we ended up hanging out with them a lot. Two of them were the daughters of a Honduran woman and a father who was a Russian Jew from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The other was from Brooklyn and the daughter of a woman who had known the others' mother for many years, so the three girls had grown up together and were very close. The mothers were there too, as well as an aunt and uncle. I talked to all of them, but mostly to the three younger ones. The two sisters were smart as shit. Both had gone to small private colleges, and the younger one had just applied to a graduate school in Utrecht. We all immediately hit it off and hung out drinking and talking about everything under the moon the last three nights of our stay.
The first of those nights involved a minor adventure that had larger implications for our family. My niece's husband had struck up a conversation with a guy named Bill who worked on a 90-foot catamaran owned by a rich property developer from Costa Rica. My older nephew had made contact with the New York crew, and eventually these things combined and a bunch of us went to the yacht to meet the captain and drink tequila. The next morning it turned out that the captain had told my nephew that there might be a job for him on the cat. Since my nephew had just dropped out of college and was looking for something to do, this seemed like an amazing opening. Indeed, after some back and forth in which it wasn't clear whether it would really happen or not, it appears that he might be going right back down there to join the crew of the boat. This is quite an opportunity for him, and probably a good way to get some life experience while he tries to figure out what the hell he wants to do with himself.
There are lots more levels to all of this, of course. Suffice it to say that for me this was probably the best trip of the four we've taken in recent years, although I also really loved the Yucatan trip. There were many reason why this one was great, but there's no denying that the New York crew was a big part of it. The younger women called me Uncle Randy, because that's what my niece and nephews call me. We all made such a great connection -- a connection of two clans -- and it it was really comforting somehow. A restoration of love for my fellow humans, even strangers whom I will probably never see again. They treated me with such respect and affection that it restored my faith in myself too.
Good times, and I haven't even talked about the bad monkeys or the mad Czechs. On the other hand, I'm really glad to be home. It's good to be sleeping in my own bed and plugging back into my network of friends and acquaintances. Yet I return with a sense of renewed possibilities. There may be life left in the old dog yet.
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Date: 2010-03-28 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-28 09:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-28 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-28 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-28 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-29 03:21 am (UTC)Intriguing report, as always! I'm glad you had such a fine time. Tell us about the monkeys! We want to read all about the bad monkeys!
Puh-leeeze......
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Date: 2010-03-29 04:05 pm (UTC)And that is my bad monkey report. Except for the humans, who are bad monkeys of another variety.
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Date: 2010-03-30 07:35 am (UTC)It's been a long, long time since I've seen live monkeys anywhere other than in a zoo. When I was a youngster, my maternal grandmother had a pet spider monkey I liked rather a lot.
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Date: 2010-03-30 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-29 03:33 pm (UTC)Now, about those mad Czechs....
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Date: 2010-03-29 04:11 pm (UTC)Anyway, wild and crazy guys, those Czechs. They seemed to be having a splendid time.