Over the weekend, Ken and I took our end of the year vacation, before going to the U.S. that is, to the island of Guanaja. Guanaja is apart of the Bay Islands and it is the farthest of the 3 away from La Ceiba. This means it's also the most difficult to get to. The other two islands can easily be reached by daily ferries that depart twice a day, however, to get to Guanaja, you basically have to take a plane. Because it's farther away and more difficult to get to, there are less tourists and "gringos" which is a HUGE plus in our book.
Guanaja was supposedly founded in the summer of 1530 by Christopher Columbus who originally named it Pine Island due to all of the pine trees that covered this tall island. It was then ruled for 2 centuries by pirates before becoming more inhabited by Caracols or islanders. The island is the least developed of the 3 as well seeing as how there are no cars at all and water taxi is the only way to get from place to place. Most people in Guanaja live on the main key called Baracca that is super small! You probably couldn't even fit anymore houses on it. It's insane how many people actually live there. We ended up staying on this exciting key for our vacation though because it's the only place that would allow us to walk around freely, enjoy the culture, food, and of course the craziness of it all. Many of the other hotels are on their own islands (meaning they are super expensive) and the main land is basically untouched. It was hit hard by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and basically everything was destroyed including all of the vegetation so everything there is new and still growing. Guanaja is surprisingly now covered with all of the pine trees once that Columbus said existed there today and it is absolutely beautiful.
Ken and I went on this adventure with our friends Jake, Jenna, and Brian. We headed out a day early though on Friday to start vacation early and fell in love with it immediately. We took an 8-seater plane there, Ken being our co-pilot (he did a great job!), and landed early in the morning giving us the whole day to explore. We walked the whole key in about 20 minutes before grabbing a lunch of baleadas and then heading to the beach. WARNING: Guanaja has the worst sand fleas EVER! We stayed in the water almost the entire time we were at the beach beacause of this and of course my sun burn began....don't worry folks....Ken was tan already.
The next day when we met up with the rest of the gang, we headed to the North side of the island where we went hiking to a Wat(h)erfall (this was how the sign was spelled) which we never ended up finding. It was cool though to hike on the island and along the river. It was a different feel than anywhere else. We stopped for lunch at a hotel along the beach that had a fantastic view of the Caribbean Sea and did some snorkeling before signing up to go scuba diving the next day.
Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy and wavy the next day but we still went out and did two dives. It was great to finally get back underwater since Ken and I hadn't been diving since October. We got to go through this cool chute that had the water starting out gray and it turned into a magnificent blue. On the second dive we saw some beautiful coral and two humongous fish! They came from the depths of ocean and were just swimming with us for awhile. The sand was white and the water was warm, who can complain!
For dinner we headed to a hotel called Graham's Place that had an outdoor aquarium of different rays, barracuda, turtles, lobster, starfish, and many other things, along with a killer fish burger. The ride back to the key was exhilarating too since it was pitch black and our water taxi had forgotten his light! The whole time we were hoping the other boats saw us!
There's nothing better than getting away from La Ceiba and the hustle and bustle and this vacation did just that. It was a great way to end the school year and celebrate all the successes we've had as well as have one last "hoorah" with our close friends Jake and Brian who won't be returning next school year. Ken and I look forward to seeing everyone soon when we get back into town next week and we can't wait to tell you more about our adventures! See you soon!
