Remembering Roatan

In the early afternoon hours of Friday the 16th, five young adults bounced down a bumpy, lumpy road on their way to an adventure. They bought their ferry tickets in La Ceiba and set off for the tropical island of Roatan, feeling giddy with excitement and expectancy for the weekend activities. The waves were calm, so the ride was tranquil, and the sea spray tickled their faces and spiced their inhalations.
And so began our weekend with my cousin Brandi and her husband Yourgin.
They made dinner for us the first night, which was absolutely delicious! Beans, rice, chicken, tortillas...does it really get much better than that? I'm STILL not tired of beans and rice! We turned in for the evening pretty early so we could get up and go the following morning.
Morning arrived the crack of dawn with Christine bumping about the room at 5:30 AM because she couldn't sleep. I slept a bit more after that, but the quality of it had declined severally. When we all were fairly functional, we made pancakes for breakfast and headed off to West End. We hired a guy to take us out to West Bay in his little boat and give us all snorkel gear for an hour. I saw a large blue parrotfish, normal parrotfish, many other what's-its and who's-its, and chased a turtle.
After our hour of snorkeling, we sat down in a small restaurant that we discovered normally just does breakfast until five PM. But since we explained that we had seen the sign for pizza, and would each order a pizza, she went in search of her pizza girl, and she came in to cook for just us. We felt pretty special, and very satisfied with lunch!
A cerulean blue kayaking experience followed pizza consumption. We all got a LOT of sun during that bit, with the exception of James, who went scuba diving instead of kayaking. We returned to our rooms to shower and such, and then I spent some time talking with Brandi and Yourgin while Yourgin worked on his Honduran jade jewelry. He does beautiful work!
We returned to West End to the Cannibal Cafe for dinner, and then found a live band at Rick's Roadhouse Grill for the remainder of the evening. The band was excellent, and we even got up and danced toward the end. We got in some tango, salsa, limbo, swing, and made-up-dance-moves-on-the-fly. I thoroughly enjoyed myself! Back at the house, I cut Samuel's hair, (he's back in a mohawk), and we all chatted and laughed about the evening until almost 2:00 AM.
James went out for another dive in the morning, and the rest of us went to a bilingual church where Yourgin has been filling in by leading music. So Samuel played djembe and Yourgin played guitar and sang. The message was spoken in English and Spanish, alternating ever few sentences between an English-speaking man and a Spanish-speaking woman. That was my first time hearing a translator in that capacity. After church, we ate pizza, said our goodbyes, and took a taxi back to the ferry. The Lents picked us up in Ceiba, we shopped for some groceries, and we had a very pleasant ride back to La Quinta.
The five travelers returned from whence they came tired, but jubilant and refreshed. The cyan waters still floated in their thoughts, and they with renewed energies returned to the daily routine, changed...somehow closer to each other than they had ever been....

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