Roatan, Honduras

 

 “Life is an island. People come out of the sea, cross the island, and return to the sea. But this short life is long and beautiful. In getting to know nature, man exalts the wonder and beauty of life.”

Martiros Saryan

Roatan is an island that sits in the Caribbean and is about 40 miles off the northern coast of the main land of Honduras. Roatan is the largest islands of the Bay Islands and was formerly known as Roatan or Rattan. This beautiful island is 48 miles long and less than 5 miles across its widest point. The name Roatan in Playa means “Water of the sun,” and in Mexican it means “Island of women.”

Roatan is a lush and hilly island which making agriculture not easy. They do have some fruit and nut trees but that is about it. The highest mountain is 1300 feet high. The usual temperatures in Roatan are from 77 to 88 degree F while the ocean temperatures range from 78 to 84 degrees year round. Roatan’s thick forest, rugged mountains, tropical wildlife, and the beautiful white sandy beach coastline and coral reef make this island a real treasure.

On our Norwegian cruise in December, we docked at the Port of Roatan just outside the city of Coxen Hole, which is the capital of the Bay Islands. The city of Coxen Hole was named after a pirate named Captain John Coxen. At the time, this island was a base camp for over 5,000 pirates. The port itself if gorgeous and a pleasure to walk around. What we saw of that city was only the road outside the port area, and we were not impressed at all. It seemed very third world but the locals were friendly. We were taking an island tour and a boat ride through the Mangrove's.

We waited on one of the streets for all our excursion group before going to our small bus. While waiting, we watched all the local dogs just roaming in and out of traffic on this busy street. It scared us thinking they may get hit but they seemed to know what they were doing and the drivers seemed prepared for them. Workers passed by us in the back of pick up trucks some sitting of the edge just barely holding on and motor bikes zoomed pass. We looked across the street at the power pole which had wires that was a tangle mess. It looked dangerous and it was connected to the local art museum.

While waiting young children, came up to us wanting us to buy jewelry they had made. When all our excursion group were there, we followed our tour guide down the road to our mini bus. The sidewalk was a mess with ruts and in some areas, we had to walk in the street to get to where we were going. It was sad to see such poverty there which is in their capital. We loaded up on our bus and off we went.

Our tour guide was a local man who talked about the island and gave us a lot of interesting information about Roatan. One thing we learned was that they have a population about 60,000 people yet the only have 60 policemen on the island. He told us no guns are allowed on the island. He said most people know each other. Another tidbit, he told us was that children are by law required to go to school. If they stop, they put up wanted posters all across the island with their picture on it. If it gets where they still do not go to school, both the child and parent are taken to court and the parents will get 6 months community work. Also all kids wear a uniform with school shoes, no jewelry, tattoos, or long hair. Also no buildings on this island can be over four floors high.

As we headed out of town, we passed many homes and businesses as we headed for the country. Along the way, we passed the other cruise ship pier where a Carnival ship was docked. From the bus he pointed out a sunken ship from on of the hurricanes in the past. Then we stopped at the Arch’s Iguana Reserve. That was a fascinating place where we saw some beautiful parrots, baby iguanas up to the Granddad iguana of them all. They put out food and they all came running to eat. It was crazy looking up in the trees and seeing iguanas staring back at us, It is a wonder they weren’t falling out of the trees.

Then we walked down to the dock where we saw some huge fish that they feed. It was fun watching all the commotion in the water. We even saw a barracuda lurking around. It was beautiful near the water and we really enjoyed our tour.

We stopped at the top of the mountain and viewed French Cay and could see the reef. It looked gorgeous. The water was a beautiful aqua color and it just looked stunning, This reef is called the Mesoamerican Reef and is the second largest reef system in the world. It stretches 700 miles from Mexico’s Yucatan to the Bay Islands. We will snorkel on our next trip for sure. Amazingly beautiful.

Then we passed a three masted pirate ship at the top of the mountain. What? Not really. It was built there to look like a ship and was a club called Isery which means new in Garifuna language. It was to have state of the art everything to include a bar and a restaurant and was to be an extravagant and original disco club. It was scheduled to open on Easter Week in 2016 but the US DEA was after the owner. He had many legal problems and was arrested and expatriated to the US. It became known he was the right hand of el Chapo, the boss of the Sinaloa Cartel. He did have his grand opening that even featured fireworks, but was soon closed and never reopened. There was talk that it could become one day become a market. Hopefully it will come to life again.

Then it was onto the town of Punta Gorda which is a very unique town on this island. This town was founded in 1797 by Garifuna, a mixture of Africans and the yellow Caribs from the island of Saint Vincent in the western Caribbean. It is a sleepy town that is only busy on the anniversary marking their arrival to this island. People come from all over to enjoy this grand celebration. This town is very unique as they do not believe in doctors or civilized medicine and still only use the towns witch doctor. During covid, no one in the town got covid. All the people living in this town are descendants from a king who came here years ago with his six wives. Each wife had a job as one would do his cleaning, one cooking, one laundry, one to fan him, and one to keep him happy with a never ending flow of drinks. When our bus was driving through this town, those who were outside stopped what they were doing to watch us go by. We did not stop. We were told, if anyone from this village meets someone from outside of the town and gets married, they are no longer welcome in the village and forbidden from ever coming back.

From there we drove down to the south-east end of Roatan to a town called Oak Ridge where there were small boats at the dock and we could see homes on stilts on the bank across from us. This town has been referred to as the Venice of Roatan. We waited till our boat came in for the tour and were surprised to see the size of the boat and how it was decorated. It was a small boat that fit about 10 passengers and was long and very narrow so that it could make it through the narrow mangrove trails. We loaded up on the boat and took off. We passed fishing and shrimping boats, many homes in many varying states, and headed towards the mangroves. One house has two dogs on the pier who ran after each boat barking as they went by.

Boating through the mangroves was spectacular. It was very narrow, only wide enough to fit one boat at a time in most areas. But these captains knew what they were doing even when another boat was coming from the other direction. One time, we had to back up quite a ways to let the other boat ride by. This mangrove forest had trees that were arching over us making what appeared to be a tunnel. It was fabulous riding under and seeing the unique views.

From there we headed back towards to port. This island is gorgeous and we loved the people. They were all very friendly and spoke good English. I asked our tour guide if he had ever been on the mainland or anywhere outside of  Roatan, and he replied, "Why leave.  I'm living in paradise."  We really enjoyed this tour and hope to visit Roatan again.

Till next time. Bye for now.