Honduras report: The days after

The trip to Honduras was divided into two parts: Thursday-midday Sunday was wedding stuff; midday Sunday through the following Thursday was bonus vacation time! Four friends and I booked a three-bedroom condo at Infinity Bay, on the other side of the island from our first set of lodging. (In addition, five new friends from the wedding were also staying in the area!)

Infinity Bay was quite nice - vastly bigger than our first place, but it has an infinity pool! And a swim-up bar! And beach access for snorkeling!

To be honest, they had me at "swim-up bar" - some part of me has always wanted to experience this! That little hut to the left if the bar - accessible via land on three sides, and from the pool on the side facing us in the picture. And yes, drinking in a pool is kind of awesome, especially when it's hitting 100 degrees.

An unexpected benefit of moving to the other side of the island is that we got to see the sun sink into the ocean each evening - it was different and amazing every night.

There was also a bit more variety of things to do on that part of the island - for example, we met an eccentric Canadian guy who sold everything and moved to Roatan to build and operate a floating bar. Of course we had to check out the Reef Rider!

 Note those clouds - they are not threatening, they are promising a rain storm. Sure enough, we got massively dumped-upon as we water-taxiied back to our beach. Fortunately we all found it quite hilarious (but all had to change before going out to dinner...except the birthday girl, who was kept dry by the overhang on the taxi!).

Our wedding hosts hired some fire dancers to give us a private show on the beach. I was delighted to see them doing a weekly performance one night, so I could actually get a chance to take some pictures of them working their magic.

I was ready to leave when our week was over - mostly because I was tired of continually applying sunscreen and bug repellent - but it was a wonderful week of swimming, snorkeling, hanging out with friends, seeing a lovely couple unite in marriage, and, of course, drinking a billion monkey la-las!

Honduras report: Wedding

As I mentioned in passing, I went to Honduras to attend a wedding! It was my first real tropical vacation ever and I highly recommend them.

Location of the Friday-afternoon beach wedding.

We all went to the island Roatan, 30 miles north of mainland Honduras. It's super easy to access - there are flights from Houston several days per week. The wedding party was the perfect size: the 28 or so of us fully booked the resort, Barefoot Cay.

I think all of us enjoyed the fact that we were all somehow associated with the bride & groom, and we easily fell into conversation at meals or in the pool; no one felt like a stranger for long!

The staff at the resort were super nice and they added all sorts of personal touches, from the couples' initials in the salsa (which no one wanted to disturb!) to cute little towel decorations in our lodgings.

Possibly best of all, I went scuba diving. Repeatedly. You may recall that I found it stressful (to say the least) when I was learning, but I am SO glad I put in the time and effort.

This is "my" boat - I went out three times while staying at Barefoot Cay, and was the only paying guest each time. If you look closely you can see that the seats on the boat are designed to hold many air tanks, so they could take out an awful lot of people if they wanted! My dive master (Delphine, who was awesome) said the policy at Barefoot Divers is that they take a maximum of 8 people at a time - so I was so lucky to be the only one going out. Delphine was especially helpful in giving me quick lessons in how to control my buoyancy better. It's really really interesting to spot something ahead & below, and to navigate down and over it just by exhaling and exhaling some more, lessening the volume of air in your lungs, and sinking accordingly. Scuba diving really is like flying, but it's a bit trippy if you think about it too hard (60 feet below the surface ... breathing through a piece of plastic hosing...yikes!).

All in all I went on seven dives when I was on my trip: it is a world of difference to dive off the back of a boat in warm waters. I still wore a wetsuit, but it was only 3mm and was shorts & shortsleeves, with no (claustrophobia-inducing) hood required. Plus stepping (or, later, falling backward) off a boat into the water made me feel like a rock star!