A simple walk down the street.

I thought the easiest way to give people a quick taste of what it's like here in Roatan would be to describe a simple walk down the street. YOu see the area that we're staying in is called the West End. A small carribbean enclave built on tourism but not overrun by it. Our personal stretch of beach is known as Half Moon Bay (if that's not a sign that we belong here I'm not sure what is).
The West End basically has one road that bends in an arc along the waterfront. As we leave our apartment we turn left to get anywhere aside from the local supermarket where we get our 5 gallom jugs of water. Immediately outside our door is the beach that accommodates the majority of our snorkeling needs. It could easily accommodate all of them but we've gotten greedy. Gone looking for more. "It's not you," we say to Half Moon Bay Beach, "It's us." Sadly our relationship with the beach is an unhealthy one. It welcomes us back everytime no matter how much we run around with other snorkeling destinations. But today we're not snorkeling, we're walking.
For a few steps at least because Sundowners Bar is right there. We have to stop for a moment to say hi to the salty ex-pats and bartenders that kept me company for hours on my first day before I was able to track Tami down.
Next we pass the Beach House where two sisters of a new local friend work along with a man who dreams of sailing to the States and living in Miami. The Beach House has a certain charm built on the fact that you can order the exact same menu item everyday and never get the same meal twice. Past the Beach House we find the only source of fruits and vegetables in town, a row of past their prime toyota pick-ups stocked with what back home are generally only considered smoothie ingredients and carrots so big I shudder to imagine the gargatuan rabbits that might feast on them. Invariably, while picturing this prehistoric Bugs Bunny one the many natives that we've met/been invited to dine with/gone fishing with/etc walks by spends a few minutes talking about the heat and locals' common dread of the impending invasion of mainlanders for Semana Santa.
At this point we generally realize that we've spent the entire time between lunch and dinner meandering our way roughly 30 yards down the street and return home for some hammock rocking and Ron y Pinas while watching the sunset at the end of another exhausting day in Roatan.
Tomorrow we hope to make it all the way down to the other end of the road (roughly 500 yards). We're budgeting about 10 hours. Wish us luck.