Honduras, November 22nd - December 5th 1999
Honduras, and specifically Roatan Island, really impressed me when I
went there in 1997. So when casting about for somewhere to take a
break in 1999, I figured I'd stick with what I knew and headed back
there. I kept a list of locations on my palm pilot, and took a bunch
of photos which unfortunately got lost in the Great Website Resync of
2000. Here's the itinerary, with annotations indicating when I went
scuba diving and when I went to Roatan's "capital" to get
more cash:
- 22/11/99 Dublin/Miami
- 23/11/99 Miami
- 24/11/99 Miami/La Ceiba
- 25/11/99 La Ceiba/Roatan
- 26/11/99 Roatan
- 27/11/99 Roatan (Coxen Hole)
- 28/11/99 Roatan
- 29/11/99 Roatan (dive)
- 30/11/99 Roatan (dive)
- 01/12/99 Roatan
- 02/12/99 Roatan (dive) (Coxen Hole)
- 03/12/99 Roatan (dive) (dive)
- 04/12/99 Roatan (dive) (dive)
- 05/12/99 Roatan/Miami/Dublin
Here's something I wrote after coming home, and probably posted to talk.bizarre:
- Travel
- Airlines are far more flexible than they'd have you believe.
- Health
- All the "normal food" I tried in order to knock some
shape into my digestive system didn't work. Then I had some Vietnamese
food and goddamn if that didn't do the trick.
- Critters
- My travel medipack says, "no malaria medication is 100% effective. Your best protection is to avoid being bitten."
Avoiding being bitten in Central America is like avoiding getting
wet in Ireland.
- Being Irish
- "This is Ronan. It's all right, he's Irish"
"You're Irish? How are you flying home?"
"oh, via San Pedro, Miami, London..."
"Could you post some stuff in Miami for me?"
"como se llama?"
"Ronan"
"donde de?"
"Irlanda"
"Ah, Orlando"
"No, -ee-rlanda"
- Loudmouthed Folk
- him: "see, I'm educated and intelligent. I can take
any side of an argument and win it."
me, thinking: "yeah, because you just KEEP TALKING until
the other person gets BORED and GIVES UP."
- Language Barriers
- Everyone speaks a common tongue after a few beers.
"hablas ingles?" is a good conversational opener.
- Politics and Religion
- Don't bother. You'll meet the loudmouth, get dragged into a
bottomless argument, and just waste your time.
There's no moral high ground, either.
- Diving
- Diving itself is pretty cool, but the real fun is in taking
advantage of the weightlessness to do Stupid Tricks.
- Taxis
- Both land-based and water-based taxis rely very much on faith for
structural integrity as well as saftey, steering, etc. It's best not
to dwell on it, and enjoy the ride.
- Technology
- Sitting in a hammock in an open-air beachfront bar (where they know
you by name, drink and bar tab) with the TV hooked to the bar's
sound system is one of the few options the DVD version of The Matrix
won't give you, but that's how I watched it.
- Culture
- "quick, channel 388! The Simpsons is about to
start!"
"Hang on. I spend four days travelling, and I'm now sitting in a bar
with a beer in my hand watching English Premier League
football. I'm missing something here, right?"