Can You Say Spanglish?

Well it has been almost two weeks since we arrived at our new home on the island of Roatan, Honduras. It has been a whirlwind to say the least.

First off, let me apologize for not writing anything sooner, but after our trek across, North America and a major chunk of Central America, Mic, the dogs and I were pooped. And I mean pooped with a capital P.  We have now had a little bit of rest and recharged to start the next chapter in our lives.

Most of you would have probably thought that we were going to take it easy when we arrived. Well, so did we. Ha - fooled you! When we arrived we immediately started doing some work on the house. I think we were prompted for a number of reasons; a) it was not in the truck and b) it was good to be doing something aside from sitting. We replaced boards on the deck, replaced most of the front entrance stairs, hired a crew to prep the site for the arrival of the container and had them string fishing line in the eaves to keep the pesky bats at bey. More about the bats and some of our other local wildlife later though.

With the weather here on Roatan, we were advised by our local handyman to make sure the container was elevated off the ground for a number of reasons including flooding during the rainy season and pest - no big ones, but mostly the insects. The pilings are ready and we await the arrival of our container.

When we left Canada we were requested by our logistics company to prepare a fully detailed inventory of our belongings. We wound up with 143 boxes from the house and 145 from the shop - that doesn't seem fair that the shop had more boxes than our house - must be a guy thing, right Mic? 

Oh well, everything was carefully packed and loaded. We were told that our container would be arriving March 15, tomorrow. Can't wait! No, don't get too excited as we learned just last Friday that 

we needed to have a value added to every line item on both the household and the shop inventories. 

Well, that pretty much ruined our plans for the weekend.

However, when we received the copies of our inventories from the Honduran customs authority, it had been translated into Spanish and we had to input our values on each line. Thank goodness we did not have to convert every item into Lempiras, the Honduran currency. The funniest thing however, they asked us to check their Spanish translations?!? Thank goodness for English-Spanish-Spanish-English dictionaries. On a side note, my Spanglish is definitely improving and I actually ordered my desk and office chair last week mostly in Spanish. I have a long way to go though, but it is fun learning our new language. Mic is reading the subtitles on Netflix, so he is improving too.  

The dogs are loving their new home and enjoy running throughout the yard and chasing any passerbys in our neighbourhood. They already have a few fans and a few neighbours that laugh. It is pretty funny, as we have quite the menagerie right now with Paige and Willie our Jack Russells; Molly our huge and growing Doberman puppy (the flatulance has improved thank goodness), and our tenants two island dogs; Diego and Annabelle. They are quite the motley crew.

The dogs have discovered some of the new wildlife we have including bats, geckos and iguanas. In fact, Willy who has decided he is my office dog, keeps looking for the gecko that chirps to us every morning. Yes, it is common to have geckos in your house in the islands - they too eat pesky little insects. Our gecko, Juan, as Willy and I have dubbed him, is our new mascot for our home, Casa Tropical.

Bats are also very common in the Caribbean and they are good to have around as they eat lots of insects and are pretty harmless; just ugly as sin. Since we bought our house a year and a half ago, we have been trying to figure out how to keep the bats around, but out of the eaves; especially over the pool where the inconsiderate little things would leave pits from fruit in the pool, and of course make a huge mess. 

Well, this week, we learned how to deal with bats. Yes, you were right Ed! Today's tip is about how to deal with bats; fishing line. You can put it in rows, on diagonals or any other pattern which keeps them from getting their little claws into the corners and crevices of the delves of your roof or anywhere they should not be. Since we had it installed, no more messes around the deck. Once Mic is set up with his workshop, we are planning on building some bat houses, which will give them a place to hang out away from the house, but they will stay around to deal with the mosquitos and other bugs. Now we just need to do the carport - the truck is kind of a mess now if you know what I mean.

I too had a funny instance yesterday as I prepared to vacuum the pool. The pool had not been used in the last few weeks and we thought that now that we had the bat problem under control, we would clean out the pool, fill it up and give it a good vacuum. As I went to fill the vacuum hose with water, out jumps a ting black gecko onto my arm and he looks up at me as if to say...lady, you are disturbing my siesta...he then proceeds to jump off my arm swim around the pool, got out and scurried away in the sunlight.

That is about all for now, but please check back every few days for more installations of All Paths Lead to Roatan!

We Have Arrived!

Well, first off my apologies for not updating yesterday but it was a little overwhelming to say the least as we finally arrived at our home on Roatan.  Let me take you back to how the day started.

We left off last night on our arrival at Casa Espana where we were treated like family by the owner Carlos and his wife. We had a wonderful evening and a very good night's sleep then up early at 6 a.m. Mic and I are not really breakfast people, but Carlos would not let us leave without making us a full breakfast of bacon and eggs, and fresh baked bread. They also served us the most divine coffee; the best we had on the trip.

At 7:30 a.m., we followed Carlos to the freight company who would ship our vehicle to Roatan. Unfortunately they do not have ferries as they do in BC or Washington state that carry cars. After we dropped off the truck, we headed over to the ferry terminal where we checked the dogs with cargo and bought tickets for ourselves. After our long trip, Mic thought we should splurge and buy first class tickets. It was nice, and they served us coffee, but not really worth the $10 extra, but at least the section was nice and quiet.

Upon arrival at the ferry terminal on Roatan, our good friend Edward Du Monceaux picked us up and kindly drove us to our home. Our tenant, Keith Miller of Blue Wave Radio Roatan gave us a wonderful greeting and our dogs were greeted by Keith and Greta's dogs Diego and Annabelle with wagging tails and lots of play. There were a couple of disagreements, but they are all getting along splendidly.

I had no idea how tiring the trip had been until we finally sat down in the dining room of our home. It was all we could do to keep our eyes open.

We went to a new restaurant for dinner with Edward and his partner Sergia, and had a wonderful Italian feast and shared some wine. It is so good to see our friends on the island. Thank goodness we had an early evening, and we retired fairly early last night. It is so good to be home!!!

From here on forward, I will be blogging every few days about our day to day life on the island and our adjusting to Carnibbean life. Until later my friends.

A River Runs Through It

The morning came early in Puerto Barrios and we were quickly packed and ready to roll. It was not long before we were finally on the road to our destination; Roatan, Honduras.

In many Latin American countries, it is common for the immigration process to be spread over a couple of buildings, but usually within the same vicinity. However, this is not the case when entering Honduras; the border crossing is spread over a total of 14 kilometres and if you miss one, you will need to turn back and pick up at the one you missed. You may be asking how we know this. Well, we learned this today through our own experience. Thank goodness for good natured Guatemalans and Hondurans who just laughed at "those crazy Canadians with the dogs". We definitely should have stopped for some coffee to wake up this morning!

Once we reached the border crossing and after exchanging our Guatemalan currency with a friendly entrepreneur at the border who once again gave us the daily bank exchange rate, we headed back to the starting line. First off, cancel the temporary import permit for the truck. Okay, that went well, now onto passport exit stamps, no problem there either. Finally, we were back at the border after travelling an extra 28 kilometres.

This time at the border we were asked to fill out the tourist card which we have done on many occasions before. We were also asked to do our finger prints, no problem there either. On to the next checkpoint.

This stop was manned by the Federal police who asked to see our paperwork for both ourselves and for the dogs after his reaction of "Oh...My...God" after seeing that we had not one, but three dogs
including a large Doberman puppy. He asked if we had any further paperwork, which we said no.
We are still not sure if we were missing something or not, but as he did not speak English and a Doberman barking in his face, he kindly asked us to move along; and by the way, "welcome to Honduras! Afterall, who are we to argue with the Federal police - not this chicken.

Again, we discovered the beauty of Central America. Rich green fields, crops a
waiting to be harvested and cattle and horses galore. It is always such a culture shock when you are in
a large city such as San Pedro Sula and you are passed at a stop light by a horse pulling an old farmer and the fruits of his labour in the right hand lane. Love it!

Once we arrived in San Pedro Sula, which has quite the reputation of being a rough city, we inadvertently zigged when we should have zagged and wound up driving through the heart of San Pedro in some of the craziest traffic we have ever seen.

We drove around and asked for some directions from a lovely gas station employee who although she did not speak English, and with my limited Spanish, we actually figured each other out. Thank you kind lady, you certainly are an angel.

We were back on our way and drove through more beautiful countryside. There are more rivers and waterways than you can shake a stick at, and they are all stunning in their own right. This must be the place they named the movie "A River Runs Through It".

Back to the horses though. Around every bend you will see a horse grassing in the ditch on the CA13 Highway which is a main route for vehicles and transport trucks. These horses, even though inches from the roadway, do not even flinch as a car goes by. Being someone with a  background in the hunter/jumper world in Canada and the US, it is amazing how lucky the show jumpers have it. They truly are pampered animals. On the same token, I have seen some beautiful stabling and facilities for performance horses on our journey including the National Guatemala Equestrian Centre in Guatemala City. They have an amazing facility with a permanent three-day event course complete with stadium, in the heart of the city. Today in Honduras, we drove by a couple of private stables which were absolutely stunning. One for Andulusians and another a private stable. Horse are highly revered in this country I am happy to say.

After a nice day of travel, we descended upon our resting stop for the night - our last one before we reach our home on Roatan tomorrow. Thanks to the advice of our friend and real estate agent Edward Du Monceaux on Roatan, we contacted a lovely couple who own Casa Espana Boutique Hotel in downtown La Ceiba.

Given the size of La Ceiba, Carlos offered to meet us so that we could follow home to the hotel. We arrived and walked inside to a beautiful little gem in the city and immediately felt as if we were staying with family. We spent the evening on a gorgeous rooftop terrace and enjoyed a home cooked dinner which we really appreciated after being on the road for just over two weeks. We thank Carlos and his wife for looking after us and making us feel as if we were at home. If anyone is coming through the La Ceiba area, you will have to look them up and enjoy their wonderful hospitality. We highly recommend Casa Espana!

Tomorrow morning we will be heading out on the final leg of our journey which will take us to our home on Roatan, Honduras. It will be including a ferry ride across the bay and delivering our truck to a freight company who will be shipping it to the island. It should be a full day with many new experiences!