After spending four days in Roatan, I not-so-vaguely resemble a lobster. Even though, at this point, I haven’t been in the sun for four days. (Yes, I did wear sunscreen – SPF 55! – and no, I did not reapply, which everyone knows is necessary. Believe me, my body is punishing me appropriately.)
Roatan is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. The beach is stunning (at least in West Bay), and the water is crystal clear and super warm. We swam out from the beach in West Bay to snorkel in the reef – did you know Roatan is home to the largest coral reef in the Americas? I certainly didn’t… I would’ve guessed Belize. As you can probably guess, snorkeling is how I got most of the sunburn, but it was worth it. The reef was incredible, even though the part we saw was mostly dead. At the same time, I decided I don’t want to spend my extra days in Thailand getting a diving certification. Diving is obviously cool, but I don’t have any real desire to go any deeper than I can go while snorkeling. Apparently, there’s a new thing called snuba, where you basically scuba while tethered to the boat by your oxygen hose. We heard rave reviews from other tourists, but it was a bit outside our backpacker budgets ($75 for 30 minutes of snuba plus the boat ride and instructor).
Also, an important note for those with sensitive skin: sand flies will bite you. The bites don’t start to itch for about 48 hours, and then they get itchy and ugly (evidence below). Even if someone tells you there aren’t any bugs, wear bug spray! Clearly, I didn’t, and when I got back to Tegus, I had 46 bites I could see. It was HORRIBLE.
Tracey (another staff member) and I stayed at a hotel called the Sea Breeze in West End, and the weather was so hot/beautiful that we didn’t realize we had hot water until our third night. We felt so weird realizing we didn’t need it at all! In front of our hotel was a kitschy little restaurant called the Cannibal Cafe. It had a strange wooden carving of a man in a chair sitting at the entrance, and occasionally, he would be wearing a sombrero. On our second day, I walked by and thought, “Oh, I didn’t notice the other carving sitting on that railing. How cute.” When he said, “You gonna pay me to look like that?” I almost jumped out of my shoes! It was definitely a man. I was so startled, I scurried off as fast as I could (not unlike the crabs we kept seeing everywhere, who all managed to escape my attempts to photograph them!).
Basically, the verdict is if you ever have the opportunity to go to Roatan, I highly recommend it. West Bay and West End are the tourist hot spots, with the better beach (and pricier hotels) in West Bay, and the better nightlife (and much cheaper hotels) in West End. The water taxi over to West Bay was only 50 lempiras ($2.50 USD) each way, so we were really happy with our choice to stay in West End and spend the day in West Bay.
And don’t forget to try the baleadas. They’re simple handmade flour tortillas spread with refried beans and topped with a bit of cheese and whatever else you want. I recommend egg and avocado. Yes, they’re cheap, which appealed to us, but more importantly, they’re delicious, local to the northern coast of Honduras (although they’re all over the country now), and keep you full all day.
Strawberries and Suitcases 
