Thursday April 15, 2010

Ok, back to spring break, take three. I didn’t mean for these to be on the same day (read part two below), but that’s how it worked out with our Internet crashing.

The next day (Tuesday) we all slept in—which was until about 9 o’clock. We all gradually made our way down to the restaurant for breakfast where I had French toast. Around 11ish the girls decided that they wanted to go out shopping and walk around town. It was cloudy and raining so it was not a beach day (we were all pretty disappointed in this). Mike, Steve and I hung out at the restaurant playing Rummy. By the time the girls came back 3 hours later we were still playing Rummy. We decided we should go get some lunch and the three of us went out and left the girls in the restaurant playing cards themselves. It was during this time that I had an awesome experience. While walking to lunch we passed a native Honduran who was sporting a vintage University of Michigan number 4 basketball jersey (whose number? Any guesses? Answer at the bottom of this entry). This was the first of several U of M sighting in Tela. When we got back the girls were still playing cards and we figured out what we wanted to do that night. Dinner was the plan. After sitting around and being lazy all afternoon (which was wonderful) we went out looking for a different place to eat dinner.

The first restaurant we stopped at was Casa Azul. It looked very nice but when we looked at the menu the prices were a little steep. Rachel wanted to try and find another hotel/restaurant that was somewhere in town, but that was the problem, it was somewhere in town. After walking around aimlessly for 15-20 minutes we decided to just go back to Casa Azul and splurge. It was the right choice. I had some amazing chicken fajitas and the appetizer we had (see picture) was incredible. Bean dip with hot toasted tortillas. This also was the location of one of the tour organizations that specialized in kayak tours through the mangroves. We talked with one of the guys and we agreed on 400 lemps per person ($20). We were a little iffy on making the commitment because we weren’t sure what the weather was going to do, but he said we could have our deposit (200 lemps) back if the weather was poor. We agreed. We went home after dinner stuffed from a good meal and ready for an early morning (8 am) kayak trip. Balloon.



Wednesday morning we woke up and headed to Casa Azul. The weather was perfect—mostly sunny and a little cooler because of the cold front that had moved through with all the rain the day before. It was here where we had our second U of M sighting. One of the employees for the kayak company was sporting a Michigan t-shirt. I was ecstatic and made sure I pointed it out to Rachel, who inconveniently is a Michigan State fan hanging who was hanging out with three U of M alum and two other Michigan fans. After we verbally assaulted her about it for several relentless minutes and sung the Victors (this was mostly me, not going to lie) we hopped in the van and made our way towards the garifuna village where we would embark on our kayaking journey.

We arrived at the village and we first stopped at the restaurant where we were going to eat lunch after kayaking. Now we had eaten at a beachfront restaurant for dinner earlier in the week, but this gave beachfront a whole new meaning. This restaurant was basically an open-air building where you ordered food and then ate your food under palm branch huts that had picnic tables under them, on the sand, yards from the ocean. I could not wait to come back after kayaking and hang out here. We told them we wanted two of their largest fish and continued on our way to the mangroves.



We arrived at the national park were we were going to kayak. After getting our kayaks out from under the ranger station we dragged them about 150 yards to the river. As we were doing this other tour companies showed up with groups of their own. Our guide said hurry because we wanted to be the first in the water so we had the best chance to come across larger alligators. So we hustled and were successful in getting in first. Mike and Steve were in one kayak, Mandi and Amy in another, and Rachel and I in the last. Laura Beth had decided to stay home and relax. We kayaked for about 2.5 hours and it was incredible. From birds, to turtles, to alligators the wild life was abundant, not to mention the mangroves were incredible. We did see about 5-6 gators with the biggest gator being probably about 3 – 4 feet long. However, our guide, who led the way everywhere we went, did come across a larger gator (he said maybe about 6-7 feet), however he spooked it and by the time the first group made it to where he was at the gator was gone. Speaking of our guide, he was a pretty cool guy. He wasn’t a big talker (he spoke English) but he knew what he was doing. He had studied biology in Europe and had been giving tours through these mangroves for over 10 years. He could spot a needle in a haystack too. We would be 30 yards from shore and he would spot a black box turtle sitting on a log near the bank of the river. Very impressive.




After a successful kayak trip we made our way back to the launching point. Instead of having us drag the kayaks back to the ranger station we attached them to the back of the van and dragged them. Steve jumped out of the van half way and took this picture.



Next we made our way back to the beachfront restaurant. When we arrived our lunch was not yet ready so we all decided to go for a swim. It was paradise—blue water, a blue sky dotted with a few clouds and great sand. Not to mention the waves were a good size and the water was pool temperature. After a swim our lunch was ready and when we made our way to the hut there were two foot-long fish staring back at us. They cooked the entire fish so we got head and tail. I am not a big seafood fan but I was in paradise so I tried it, and I was surprised. It was extremely good. After having my share I just sat there and took everything in.




After lunch Steve, Mike and I decided it would be awesome to go jump around in the sand. We did this for a good 30 minutes and took some pretty solid pictures. The girls were laughing at us until they came and did it too. A bunch of 20-somethings just being kids in paradise.



The weather started to turn cloudy and we decided we should probably head back to the hotel. When we got back we decided a light dinner would be okay so we just went to a random restaurant and watched some soccer. We then decided that we wanted to go out and see what type of nightlife Tela had. We found a nice little place and just hung out, talked, and danced the night away. It was an awesome end to an awesome day. Oh, and at this small bar we had two Michigan sightings, two hats to be exact. Here is a picture.



Anyway, I will post part 4 later this weekend or early next week.