West Bay, Bay Islands Department, HondurasThere’s nothing like the sudden feel of a rain shower on your back as you study the creatures of the deep.
Each morning after breakfast Elenka and I do a nice little snorkel on a fish-filled reef just off Bonita Beach in west Roatan where our off the beaten path apartment is located. It’s the tail-end of the rainy season in Roatan and you can never be quite sure when these sneaky, thunder-less downpours will strike.
After nearly two years of twiddling our thumbs through COVID, we were travel twitchy. In planning for the journey we went to great measures to make things psycho-comfortable for ourselves. Wearing mummy-like N99 masks we took a taxi from our doorstep at the CTU to the airport, secluded ourselves in a corner at Gate 35 in Terminal 3, then waited for the dreaded boarding call. We were certain there’d be a mass of maskless ones.
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It wasn’t that way at all though. Our WestJet plane was a B737, thirty-two rows deep with six seats across, separated by an aisle. Only four of the six seats were occupied, so you never had anyone sitting right next to you. During the flight I did a mask study and estimated that a good 75 per cent of the passengers wore N95 masks or better.
I counted just one who used his mask as a chin support/drool collector.
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We’d also arranged, through our apartment rental agency, for a car and driver—something we’d never done before—to pick us up at the Roatan Airport. That’s when things went south. The driver didn’t show up so we had to find our own taxi. Not a big deal, except there was no one at the rental agency where we had to go to pick up our apartment key. We had only a vague idea of where the apartment was located. So the driver made a bunch of phone calls for us to friends and relatives looking for clues as to where this place might be; eventually, after nearly an hour, he was able to find the place. It was a pain-in-the-arse affair that would not have happened if we hadn’t been overwhelmed by the need for psycho-comfort.
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By House Hunters International standards—a TV show that has captivated Elenka’s attention over the past two years—our apartment is not very suitable:
There are a set of bay windows which give us a nice view of the beach, just 20 metres from our dining room table.
But if you move to the sofa to watch television you can’t see the sea, like, at all. While the kitchen is quite workable, there are only two stools at the adjacent bar. If we entertain, our guests could not be properly accommodated. Our bedroom with walk-in closet is pleasant enough, but when it rains at night the palm fronds outside our windows become very noisy when rain drops bounce off of them. And last, but not least, there’s only one sink in our en-suite bathroom, which makes it virtually impossible to wash ourselves at the same time.
Thank you ever so much House Hunters International, for assisting us in the creation of our own special needs toolkit.
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The Honduran Baleada
Around the corner and down a nasty alley from our apartment, there’s a woman named Dana who makes and sells tasty baleadas from her kitchen. The contents of a baleada are mashed refried beans, cream, crumbled cheese and pollo, wrapped in a tortilla. We’ve asked if we can exchange the pollo for pescado on tomorrows order. Let’s see how that goes.
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Beach Hiking
We’re just a 15–20 minute beach-walk from West Bay, or Tourist Central, as we've come to call it. We go there once a day for either lunch, dinner or provisions. While all of the locals wear masks, very few of their North American visitors do the same.
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We’ve checked AccuWeather.com and Tide-Forecast.com. Just before noon today the tide will reach its lowest point. And during that same time there’ll be a 2.5 hour rainless window of opportunity. So off we’ll go on a beach/rock walk to the village of West End in the opposite direction of West Bay. If it all goes haywire we can swim back. The rain has rinsed away most of our psycho-fears.
Stephanie Zilinski
2022-01-13
Glad you guys made it out there! Rainy season is winding down!
Majka
2022-01-13
Enjoy! It’s fantastic you got there after such a long time at home.
Valerie Randall
2022-01-14
It’s very cold here so I am envious but glad that you are traveling . My cousin who lives in Roatan is Michael Oldfield . Enjoy your visit .
Rodger S
2022-01-14
Roatan sounds wonderful! For now though, we will have to be content watching House Hunters International....
Peter
2022-01-14
The nasty alley sounds interesting....
Margo
2022-01-16
and they're off... You're resourceful I'd be sooooo confused. You two enjoy to have a wonderful getaway and I know you'll lap it up. Enjoy. Looking forward to all the updates and pics.
Margo
2022-01-16
typos You two deserve to have a wonderful getaway and I know that you'll lap it up. :)