Honduras

Locations: San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba, Roatan & Copan

Highlights: Crystal Clear Water & Beautiful Beaches, Swimming with Dolphins, Flood, Iguana Farm, Animal Sanctuary, Celebrating my 28th Birthday, Mom Visiting, Seeing Seahorse while Snorkeling & Diving, International Friends (Roatan), Mayan Ruins (Copan)

Description of Highlights:
•Crystal Clear Water & Beautiful Beaches – Roatan is known for its great barrier reef which lies just off shore from the beach. The very dramatic reef wall drops into the ocean and makes for great diving and snorkeling. We took advantage of the clear water and amazing beaches every day!!!

•Swimming with Dolphins – We were snorkeling outside a resort that has trained dolphins for their interactive programs, the timing was just perfect and they let out two dolphins to go and meet some scuba divers that had paid over $100 to have a dolphin encounter. The dolphins swam over to us and we proceeded to play and swim with them for about 45min. It was amazing because it they were very playful and it was free!

•Flood – We had four days of nothing but rain and the entire Island suffered from flooding. Our room at Casa del Sol got flooded but luckily because we are from Texas and used to flooding we picked up all of our stuff off the floor and nothing got ruined….I can’t say the same for some other folks staying at the same location.

•Iguana Farm – I have never seen so many iguanas in one place. I think Joe was in Heaven and he tried to pick up all of the biggest Iguanas that were there. They really make Jopy (our old Iguana) look small!

•Animal Sanctuary – Such a clean and well taken care of sanctuary. We got to play and interact with several monkeys and other animals.

•Celebrating my Birthday – We had a great day hanging out with friends we met on the island. We spent the day sunbathing and swimming in West Bay and enjoying music and beautiful crystal clear water. The day was made even more interesting because a man jumped off the dock thinking that it was shallow and couldn’t swim. We thought that maybe it was a joke but quickly realized he wasn’t playing around. Joe jumped off the second story of the dock and into the water and pulled the man to the shallow water by the shore. Talk about a “BayWatch” moment!

•Mom visiting – I think the entire visit was priceless but fishing probably tops the list. We went with a local fisherman in his canoe (no engine, just paddles). We fished on hand-lines (no rods or reels) , Mom was the trophy winner that day, she brought in so many fish! I unfortunately wasn’t having as much luck so I mostly took pictures. Even though our guide wouldn’t put us on the really big fish, for fear we would cut ourselves with the line, we managed to bring in a nice bounty and have a very memorable experience!

•Sea Horse sighting - In Roatan we snorkeled just about every day. While out snorkeling with Joe and Mom, I spotted a seahorse. I only mention this because it is very rare to see in the wild! I was so excited and it was so cute to see the little fish swim around.

•Diving – We lucked out and got a free dive through a promotion at a dive shop. We got even luckier when we realized that our dive master would be our friend Gili. It was a beautiful dive and we saw turtles, lionfish, grouper and many other awesome species of fish.

•International Friends – The entire visit to Honduras was made even better by all of the wonderful friends we made while there. We met people from Germany, Canada, Poland, Israel, Australia, The Netherlands, England and the United States. All are very wonderful people and helped to make our stay even more fun than we thought possible.

•Mayan Ruins – On the way to Guatemala we stopped in for a visit to the Mayan Ruins at Copan. This is one of the top three preserved Mayan ceremonial sites in Central America!