Honduras!

Honduras was definitely off to an interesting start after sleeping in the airport. The security guards in the airport came to get our passport numbers and our names to apparently "make sure we arrived somewhere safely". I guess if someone went missing on their ride from the airport they knew who it was?   From the views on the bus it seemed very similar in landscape to Costa Rica, very green, humid looking in the day time, and lots of farms. Poverty looked abound.  The bus assistant came up to me and asked me specifically for change.. I found this quite strange but I guess maybe travelers have given him some before so now he always asks? I didn't have any Honduran Lempiras, and really don't just give money to people who ask for it without offering some sort of service or singing and dancing or something. If they are hungry I try and buy them food but never give money. Many people have mixed ideas about giving food instead of money to beggars... But it makes me feel better to know that they are being fed then the other possible things they could chose to spend the money on.  I was really glad to just have my seat to myself on ths bus and be looking outside through the window and when we arrived in the city of the ferry terminal there was another backpacker still with me so we took a taxi together... I didn't feel extremely safe so was really happy to just get to the island. This was mid day... but to be fair it doesn't exactly have a fair chance since all I did was see it from the outside. My ATM card didn't work in the airport, the bus station, and now the ferry terminal... So i thought maybe because it was a monday morning a usual thing that happens is people empty all the money over the weekend and then Monday morning they are empty. Called the bank the next day and they said that my card was blocked because I didn't put Honduras in my travel alert. Props to you Truwest but way to freak me out!

My only Honduran meal was at the ferry port where I had a breakfast there. It was delicious fresh made tortillas, a chunk of refried beans,  some onions, and some sort of spicy vinegar type salad. So I made them all into little burritos.. Not sure if that is what you are supposed to do but it was delicious.  The ferry ride there was really nice a smooth and I again slept nearly the entire way. I got off and read that you could take a bus from there to West End where I would meet Patric and Nicole but everyone kept telling me I couldn't.. So finally I budged and just hopped in a shared taxi which was 4$ and apparently very cheap, but in comparision to the places I was before 4$ taxi is super expensive!

I arrived at the Dive Shop where Patric said he would be and if he wasn't there I could call him on the radio. They were upstairs and it was really nice to finally talk in person. Our skype conversation was really difficult because my Internet connection in Bolivia was terrible so I felt like I missed things.

Then they took me to the boat to put my things down in the dinghy. The boat was anchored out in a beautiful part of the ocean a few minutes away from the dive shop. We went back to the dive shop and I decided to do a dive while I was in Honduras. It was 40$ which was expensive but still almost half the price of galapagos diving so I couldn't resist. At the time... I didn't know that we would be able to do several more dives for 5$ a pop... 

The boat is very simple and small but homey. It is an islander 36ft built in 1970 ish. Patric has owned the boat for nearly a year. He is Swiss and girlfriend Nicole is from Seattle. They met in Florida while Patric was in the process of making his dreams of owning a sailboat come true. So they sailed first to Cuba, then to Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. Nicole went home for a part of the trip but they have done lots of different projects to the boat and recently in Honduras Patric got his dive master and Nicole her open water dive cert.  So most of their stops are for a while.

The boat is their home! Literally they have all their clothes, pots, pans, tons of food, a solar shower,  books, games, etc. Then the dinghy is like their little car haha. When the boat is anchored or in the dock the dinghy takes us wherever we need to go and we tie that up or anchor it.  There is one door on the boat and that is to the bathroom. I sleep on the sofa. Oh and lets talk more about that bathroom... to use the toilet you have to self flush salt water from the ocean in and out a few times to make sure that everything makes it out of the tubes... I was very unsure where all of this went but eventually found out that after leaving the macerator or a huge blender basically it goes into the ocean unless they turn on the holding tank which is extremely rare. So you pump the handle 20 ish times before you are finished. Great workout just to use the bathroom. Of course when possible you go when we are on shore and push a button or when swimming in the ocean... much easier! THere is a water purification machine on the boat so the water coming from the taps in the kitchen and bathroom are safe for drinking.. Sooo nice not having to buy bottles again!  The kitchen has nearly everything. Propane powered stove and oven, sink. No microwave. Patric always has installed solar panels which give the boat some power and then also use a little bit of battery from the engine every now and then. Left of the kitchen you have the captains desk, then the sofas and a pull out table, the bathroom, then the cabin which is kind of a huge triangle shaped bed. There is soo much storage on here I had no idea they could be hiding so many things but slowly I learned where stuff belonged. We cooked usually a big breakfast and dinner.  I haven't cooked much for them except for brownies because they seem to kind of have a routine in place and like certain things a certain way. I am the queen of doing the dishes though. Doing the dishes is fun because we use the water from the foot pump which goes through one less filter than the other taps so we don't drink from that one and it's used only for dishes so yet another boat workout.

The "Cruisers" community was a huge surprise to me. All the people with sail boats or catamarans going around the world I guess call themselves the cruisers. From the group I met in Honduras most of them are generally on the older side and Patric and Nicole are kind of like their children. Which is some ways can be awesome because they offer lots of help and things to them, but some times they are over bearing and think that Patric doesn't have a complete plan or idea about what he is doing.However, as per normal Swiss standards in order to have his boat registered in in Switzerland he had to complete tons of trainings, thousand hours of sailing practice and purchase more safety items for the sailboat then Americans. Some of them cruise for 6 months of the year then head back home for Hurricane seasons. It seems like most of them generally stay in the Carribean but one of them had sailed to Galapagos, another lady sailed across the Pacific. I think in total there were about 8 boats near us. The french boats never hung out but a few times we went and had happy hour with the cruisers. They would all laugh that I really had no idea what I was getting myself into and would always say that I should run away now haha.   Three of the boats had their own dive gear and P & N had also newly acquired all the parts to their dive gear. One of the boats had a spare tank which is all we needed to all three go diving together then we just had to pay to get the air refilled in the tanks which was the 5$ I said earlier.

Which meant most afternoons at 130 we would all hop in our dinghys with our dive gear, and pick a place to dive. Since Patric knew the area pretty well sometimes they would ask him to pick a place to dive. Two of the cruiser wives would just snorkel so we had to find places with a good snorkeling spot as well. Dives were the longest I've ever done because air was our only limitation. I never came close to running out and our longest dive was 73 minutes. I think I could probably do a 90 minute dive on one tank and depending on the depth.. With all the dives, I believe I got to do ten, it was amazing practice on my buoyancy skills. All the dives were very easy and never had a drift or current which I was a little bit bummed about. The reef life and little fishies were cool. Every once and a while we would see a turtle, lobsters and I became highly interested in the reef tingy animals and then the reef fish. They have a book of all of the species found in Roatan so I started looking at it right after the dives to try and figure out what I spotted. Nicole and Patric were also awesome at pointing things out to me and made the dives much more interesting. It was a Little hard at first to not be seeing sharks, rays, turtles, and so many fish you couldn't see. But rather appreciate the reef which I probably kind of missed in Galapagos looking at all the big animals.

Other things we did in West End before taking off was visit the huge grocery store to stalk up the boat two times. Their last visit to Cuba they found lots of basic items were nearly missing like TP, good meat, and things like that so we had to really do a good job provisioning which is what they call it before they take off. The grocery store was very western and even had free wifi..  there were very few supermarkets I found like that in south America with so much american imported stuff... So nice to be eating american food again haha but I kinda had to fend for myself with fruit and vegetables since mostly they didn't eat a ton and I'm essentially a rabbit and love nearly all of them.   Patric maks a mean pizza, and delicious breakfasts like hashbrowns with bacon, and eggs, etc. Nicole does a great job with most of the dinners we had on board. Chicken stuffing, pasta,  meals with rice, chicken fajitas, etc!  Lunch we usually just did some variety of left overs, snacks, or fend for yourself. 

I found it really strange in Roatan, that I would continue asking questions and speaking  spanish but the locals would always answer in English. Many of the business owners were american. The grocery store was like an American one, and everyone around me was speaking english again which was a strange thing to grasp again. I came just at the start of hurricane season so there were not too many cruise ships but all the cruisers said that the island is packed with them, and they have certain days for certain companies and would watch them happily sail away after the chaos they sometimes brought.

 one of our last stops was to check out of the country so we headed to immigration where I officially am not allowed back into Honduras... until I get a new passport.  While I knew that this moment would come on this trip, I was really hoping to make it to Korea where I could just get a new passport but I agree with the lady I think it is really quite full. Lucky for me in Cuba they don't stamp your passport, and then Mexico I think I have to visit the embassy to get pages added. I wanted to just get a full new passport however I don't think it is possible unless I falsely claim that it was stolen. Otherwise it takes two to three weeks to process the new passport and I will only spend ten days in cancun. So the ugly new pages will have to do.. even though I need a new passport in just three short years. Major bummer but what a cool accomplishment.. Although in some ways I feel like I cheated because every time I left and came back to Korea I got two stamps, and the one page visas for lots of Asian countries are also less legit ways to fill your passport then just with stamps.  But of course what a true blessing and gift to accomplish it nonetheless.

A few days after checking out, we finally left on Thursday May 18 to set off on our journey to Cuba. Overall I clearly didn't have a full impression of Honduras through the land but I know the cruiser life in Honduras and the underwater life really well which was incredible. I was anxious to get going but also really happy that we were staying a little longer because I was very worried about my Cuban money situation knowing that I can't use my card there, and had not withdrawn enough cash before leaving. So scrambled to find a solution and just thought I would lose the ten percent to change USD to Cuban pesos but something worked out in Cuba.  One day I would definitely like to go and see the rest of Honduras.