Okay, so I said that the Cayos Cochinos (if you don’t know what these are, refer back to my earlier blog posts and type it into google images) deserved their own blog post, and boy could this not be more right.
We travelled in a boat (about 6 foot long, with 4 benches squeezed in, just enough room for 14 passengers and two crew members), after about a 45 minute journey we passed a small group of islands. These were literally incredible, tiny little islands with one small house on, built out of palm trees, and about 20 feet in diameter. They were the perfect honeymoon location, without a doubt, (if the house was well stocked!) There was a group of about 12 of these islands surrounding a bigger island with a little bit more life. We arrived on the bigger island and were greeted with a tour guide talking to his group of chinese travelers about the destruction of the turtle industry and how many people are selling their eggs as an aphrodisiac because, apparently (his words) ‘the turtles make love for 3 days and 3 nights, like we do in La Ceiba, hahaha, just kidding .... not really!’ This made everyone laugh, and then we were whisked away back onto our boat to head to one of these smaller islands.
We hit ground and immediately went to the sea, crystal clear and warm as a bath. Coral and fish surrounding your feet, great big fish (if you went snorkeling) and clear blue skies. THE perfect detox after our heavy night out. We were all just so awe struck at how beautiful this place was. We had about and hour on each of the islands, and then headed to a slightly bigger (inhabited) island (you could still walk round the whole thing) and got something to eat. On the journey to this final island, as our boat was speeding along, we all heard the captain shout ‘Dolphin, Dolphin!’ to which we all whipped our heads around and saw a dolphin break the surface about 4 feet away from us! :O So amazing to see them completely wild, I was so happy at that point, literally the biggest smile I have ever had. We then all looked back to see about 5 bobbing up and down behind the boat in the waves that it was making. To see them generally playing, was so amazing, and not just there hunting or looking for food, but generally just having fun was the best thing!
So we had some typical garifuna food on the island (to which me and Ally had become slightly accustomed, but the for the other volunteers, this was their first time trying this new cuisine) which was great, and then we went for our final walk/swim on the beach/sea. We also got some nice pictures of the whole group and were all saying how much of a great day we had had.
So there we were on the boat back, and we could see great big black clouds in front of us, and crowding the shoreline of Honduras. The clouds came out quite far as well, and just as we were going under the edge of them, the captain’s voice rang out once more, but this time to the cry of ‘Tornado, look look!’ We all followed to where he was pointing and (quite a way away - I am safe everyone) we saw great big spikes of cloud coming down from the sky and stretching down to the sea, where they were met with (from what we could see) was a swirling circle of water. These formed some pretty amazing sights to see, and I could have watched them for hours, but the soon fizzled out into nothing as they were only small, but still it was amazing to see them.
So as we went further into the storm, we were close to the shore, and the waves started to get quite choppy and the boat ride began to get quite rough, this is when the boats, engine decides to cut out. There we were ... in a boat ... in the rain ... stranded in a choppy sea.
There were some words shared between the captain and the other man of the boat, and we then saw him jump into the water and swim for the shore with a rope in his hand. When he got there, we had drifted in quite a bit to where the waves were actually breaking against the side of the boat and rocking it quite a bit. The other man of the boat quickly pulled us in and we all huddled out onto a filthy beach, in the rain while we waited for another boat to come and pick us all up. The new boat arrived very shortly and we all hopped in and continued on our journey. We arrived at the port shortly after and got in the car for our lift back to our hostel.
So all around, in one day, visited paradise, saw dolphins, saw tornadoes, got marooned, had some great laughs, met some fantastic people and had the best day of my life ... so far!
Till next time,
Ciao!
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