The Honduran Adventure: Oh that's a nice breeze ...

So there I was waiting in the airport on Roatan, standing right next to the arrivals door, legs jittering, not being able to stand still, finished coffee cup on the table behind me when out walks Megan. We lock eyes, her bags drop to the floor as she runs into my waiting arms. Whilst hugging my sister who I haven’t seen for 9 months, over her shoulder I see my parents walk through the door, hear my mums gasp as she sees her son for the first time in nearly a year and see her eyes glisten over with a beautiful mixture happiness and tears, just like mine are doing as I see both my mum and my dad hustle towards me to greet me and me greet them.

That moment when I saw my family for the first time on Roatan was so special and I knew that it would signify an absolutely great week ahead as both Ally and I spent the easter week with them in their villa that they had rented for the week as they came to see where I had been living for a week. This week was absolutely amazing, it was also really weird just to spend some quality time with the family again, calling out ‘Mum ... Dad?’ in a house and hearing them reply was one of the oddest experiences of the week. It was really great to show them the island where I had been living and I even managed to bring them up to Punta Gorda for a day and show them the school, our house, and our village. I think I can say that they enjoyed it as well, and loved to actually see the house rather than just pictures and stories of it so that they could really get a feel for how small it is. Although we did come up to Punta Gorda a couple of times (once to show them the village, and once when they dropped me off due to me having to work the next morning!) we spend most of our time in West End, the really touristy section of the island in a really lovely villa which was so much fun for Ally and I, because we were able to live in luxury for a week or so, drinking, chilling by the pool or on the beach, nibbling and eating a lot of great food in some of the fantastic restaurants in west end. Of course whilst in West End we went over to West Bay a few times and showed them the nicest, most pristine beach on the island, with some of the best snorkeling I have ever seen, for example, literally about 30 metres out from the beach me and Ally saw a pretty size-able sting ray ... on one of the most populated beaches ever!

The first trip we took to West Bay however, the weather wasn’t perfect, it was quite windy so the waves had picked up a little so there were kayaks out to stop people swimming too far out, however, Mum and Dad managed to get a little bit of snorkeling in and this pretty much convinced them to go and try a Discover Scuba Diving Course, which they decided to do the next day at a great dive shop called West End Divers, where all of the staff were really friendly and really helpful. The Discover Scuba Diving Course is basically the first of five chapters of the Open Water PADI Course and is just a starter course where the students get to do a few vital skills and then later go out for a full complete dive, which is where Ally and I joined Mum and Dad, after having breakfast with Megs (becasue she didn’t want to do the Scuba Course) as we had never dived in West End before. We went to a site called Turtle Crossing which is a place where you are guaranteed to see some turtles .... not one bloody turtle at TURTLE Crossing, although I wasn’t too disappointed as it was also a beautiful dive and I was so proud to see Mum and Dad diving along side of me. As well as that dive Ally and I joined them on one more the next day at a dive site called Seaquest where we did see a turtle, a really big hawksbill which was just so beautiful to see in the wild, even though it did have two bloody great remoras sucking on its shell. It was honestly one of the greatest moments in my life (so far!) and was made even better by the fact that I was diving with my parents and showing them this amazing activity!

So the rest of the week was spent just chilling out really, at either west end, the pool or west bay. We even spent a few evening at the beginning of the week with Eleanor’s family, her parents, Alastair and Leslie, and one of her younger brother Innes. They were all so lovely and I was so pleased to meet them and again show all of them, including Eleanor the island where we had been living for 9 months and it was also great to be able to show our project to the first hondie to visit. Sadly we were too busy to take Cat and Sarah (who arrived on the wednesday) up to Punta Gorda as we only had a limited time with my family. We had such a good time with everyone and I really cant thank them enough for making that week what it was. It was absolutely magical to see my family and be able to speak and laugh an joke with Mum, Dad and Megs. However it was also really sad as I knew that as much as they wanted to come, Josh (my brother) and his girlfriend Chloe (practically a sister) they couldn’t, so my love goes out to them and I hope that they have a great time in Barcelona, not quite a caribbean island but hey ....

To Mum and Dad especially, thank you ever so much for making that holiday of yours possible and it was an absolute pleasure to be able to show you the life I have been living for nigh on 9 months now! I really hope you enjoyed it (even though you were stuck in the Roatan Airport for about 2 days, and so missed out on your trip to New York) and again it was great to see you and cannot wait to see you again at Heathrow Airport in august, which is now only about 3 months away! :O

Till next time,

Ciao!