Beautiful Roatan Part 1

I fell in love with Roatan from the moment I stepped off the ship.  It was so beautiful, lush and green surrounded by amazing blue water.  Our guide, Daniel, has a small animal sanctuary in his yard.   He has rescued a few animals and to pay for their upkeep he brings a handful of people to his home to see them.  He also does occasional tours of the island.  He was such a wealth of information- explaining everything from island culture to sanitation, shopping,  industry and history.  We learned so much about this beautiful island.

Meeting Daniels’s animals was the highlight of our visit. I will put those photos in a separate post.

When we first met up with Daniel outside of the port, he was accompanied by a couple that was the very definition of  loud mouthed ignorant Americans.  They actually made us feel petite and the woman-wow-she had so many ignorant comments and opinions.  I was worried for a bit that they were going to join us for the day but luckily Daniel was just dropping them off at a local beach and we came along for the ride.  My favorite part was when Daniel mentioned his sloths...and the woman said "what's a sloth"   "T" whispered in my ear "does she really not know what a sloth is ?"  If Daniel has said a Coati or a Tapir...maybe I could understand -but who hasn't heard of a sloth. 

 I think the only thing I didn't like about Roatan  (and I also saw it in Mahahual) was all the trash washed up along the shore.  I even wondered if it comes from the US.  And of course who is going to clean it up.  Not the Roatan Junior League.  I still don't know the source of the trash but in Mahahaul the population couldn't possible produce that much plastic trash so it must come from elsewhere.  I really hope the US isn't creating this environmental nightmare.

After seeing Daniel's animals he reluctantly offered to take us to an Iguana farm.  I have mixed feelings about this place.  They have hundreds of iguanas which is cool.  The iguanas are free to leave but they stay because the food is plentiful.  However they also had two monkeys in cages and some penned up fish.  I could tell that these animals just weren't loved and cared for that much.  "T" was very upset being here and it wasn't the best way to end our day.  Daniel offered to take us to the beach to end our day but we were tired so we headed back to port.

At the port we had enough time for some touristy beverages.

 

Upon returning to our room this was off the balcony. 

It was the official Flagship of the Columbian Navy

I took a few photos as we sailed away from Roatan.  This is the tiny port.

One of the other cruise lines has a private port on the Island.  Daniel explained that the private port really hurt local businesses as the intent of the  cruise line was to keep the passengers in the private beach area for the day vs. giving them access to the island.  These port cities really depend on US cruise passengers and their American dollars.