Day 2 - Arrival in Roatan!

After a restless night, we were up at 5 am.  What is it about hotels that are antithetical to a good night's sleep?  We had a quick breakfast and then hustled off to the airport to sit in the Sky Lounge for a few hours (another first-class perk we were determined to take advantage of).  Flight was 3 hours this time, so we each watched a movie.  Andrew:  Gravity.  Me:  All is Lost.  Surprisingly good for a film with no dialogue.  

We arrived in Roatan about 1 pm, and were soon met by Al - the owner of the VRBO we rented.  Good news - he's Canadian!  We spent the short ride to the grocery store giving Andrew a hard time about the recent Olympic hockey games.   We rolled up in front of a modern-looking grocery store and Al gave us the 4-1-1 on what to buy there.  Pork and chicken are "very good", shrimp is "the best", avoid the beef because "it's not aged".  We laid in a supply of produce and meat to last us a couple of days.  Though Al tells us everyone here accepts US dollars, the local currency is the lempira.  20 lempira = 1 US dollar.  It was amazing to watch the register roll up to in the $1750 lempira range.  Not a dollar figure we're used to seeing at the grocery store.   I looked helplessly at the clerk who smiled and told me it was $84 and change.  Whew - that's better!  

After the store, it was a short ride to the VRBO.  Al & his wife Sandra live in a larger house next door.  They have two dogs - Mia and Zoe.  They gave us a tour of the house and left us to unpack.  Oh, how I love to unpack!  

Here's some photos of the house...

Main bedroom

There's a loft with a second bed. We'll sleep on the main floor - it's much cooler!  

View in to the living room/kitchen from the loft

Front of the house

View from the screened porch

Screened porch.  I foresee myself spending a lot of time here!  

Mia

Zoe

After we got unpacked we headed off for a walk down the beach...

On Al's advice, we stopped at a local place for an early dinner.  Note to self - learn some GD Spanish if we're going to continue to holiday in Latin America!  The family who owned the place didn't speak a word of English.  I recognized about every 4th word the woman said.  We managed to order what we hoped was some food and cocktails.  Drinks were out pretty quick - local beer for Andrew, something the woman called a "lee-mon-aid" for me.  I had no idea what that was going to be but it turned out to be a lovely lime & coconut (maybe Malibu??) slushy.  Score!   

True to island living, the food took quite a bit longer.  We could hear them chopping and chopping in the back, so we knew it was going to be good and fresh!  We thought we ordered mixed ceviche and two orders of grilled garlic shrimp.  What we got was mixed ceviche and one order of grilled garlic shrimp.  So close!  This turned out to be a happy accident, as the shrimp meal came with fried potatoes and salad and, with the ceviche, was plenty large enough to feed us both!  

Beautiful view while we waited for our food

After dinner, we wandered back to the house and decided to go for a swim.  Andrew snorkeled a bit and I hung out by the shore with Zoe.  Now the sun is down and we're in for the night.  We're pooped!  See you tomorrow...

Post script:  Just as I was pushing the button to publish this, the power went out.  We knew that this may happen from time to time, but Al said that it happened "far less frequently" than it had in the past.  Hmmm.  He also said that it typically lasted "an hour or two" and, at almost 2 hours (to the minute) the lights have reappeared.  Just in time for us to go to bed.  :)