for the first part we stood on the sandy bottom with our backs to a rock ledge and just watched them swim. when it was determined that everyone was playing nicely and there wasn't too much current we started swimming with them which was way more interesting. turn around and there's a shark behind you, above you, under you, staring at you with their little black eyes. one had a giant hook still attached under his mouth.
after about 15 minutes of swimming we went back to our ledge so the dive master could take the lid off his chum bucket. 3 frantic minutes of sharks thrashing for the fish bits and it was over. definitely worth the money.
you might be asking yourself why i'm still on roatan. i am too. i just can't stop being lazy enough to book a ticket anywhere. its so freaking comfortable here. i can speak spanish or english, there are bars and street food everywhere, to-go booze is perfectly acceptable for walking around, and the dive shop patio is always filled with fun people that have parties. i swim and do yoga and sit around watching the beautiful weather pass by. its hard to leave but i'm shooting for wednesday. well past time to get out of the wonderful comfort zone i find myself in.
i've made some friends here and had an interesting experience this past week. a friend was house sitting at a fabulous house on the water and invited me to tag along. i got to live in a real house with a real kitchen and a real washing machine. i did dishes and swept a floor and realized that i've all but forgotten how to do housework. it was actually nice to clean. not that i ever want to make a habit of it again but at some point i'm gonna have to.
i also got to take long showers with hot water. oh what luxury.
i've learned alot about roatan in the 3 weeks i've been slouching around here. one man owns the electric company, reco, and he charges 63 cents per kilowatt hour. everyone bitches but there's nothing you can do. the new road has caused some friction since the president came to officially open the road (which, btw, i was planning on meeting the president of hondurus but i ended up being too hungover to even see him, it was too bright outside). the road is hailing the start of mass tourism and what is inevitable and no one likes it. right now this place is absolutely perfect but plans are all in place to expand and the first corporate hotel chain is building (hyatt). the taxi drivers aren't allowed to park on the main road anymore (they could when it was dirt) and they are angry. the president told the chief of police that parking laws will be enforced and so far its fun watching them argue in the middle of the road with the newly appointed parking enforcement.
it really comes down to one thing here, though, what john calls 'affordable corruption.' you might get pulled over for anything but 100 to 500 limpira will take care of it, depending upon the severity. so $25 for a major infraction if you're nice to the cop and have the cash, all is well.
the taxes are pretty crazy but everyone has a plan to get around them. the sales tax is 12% on everything and businesses get charged a flat 25% income tax. all of the businesses have a rate for services, but if you pay by credit card be prepared to pay an extra 10-20% because that means they have to declare it. pay by cash and no one has to pay any tax.
there's also a sneaky way to get around airline baggage fees too. if you know you're going to be over weight line the top of your suitcase with school supplies and you get a free pass for the donation. good stuff to know.
at the moment i'm watching a drunk man chase a crazy girl. he's pissed and wants to break her hands. may sound harsh but its actually pretty funny and no one's attempting to interfere. actually, most people are egging him on, telling him how much more she deserves.
while there are many strange characters on this island there's one woman who stands far above the rest. she's a bit crazy (not entirely, tho) but also a junkie. usually she just runs up and down the road singing and screaming and taking off her clothes. throwing stuff at passing cars. all fairly tolerable. she's been chased by police many times and usually gets naked and jumps in the ocean until they leave. no one is responsible for her and the loony bin on the mainland won't take her.
a couple days ago she was going up and down the road ripping out the flowers that all the shops have planted. that was the last straw for alot of owners because when you yell at her she waits until night and does horrible things, like unmoor the boats of the people that pissed her off. yesterday 9 people called the police and they didn't do anything.
so marco dug out the mace and decided that if she keeps messing with the shop he's just going to mace her. after sitting on the dive shop porch drinking for a couple hours he decided that we needed to have mace practice since no one had ever tried it before. and it is harder than it looks. we picked a spot on the wall and aimed. marco also wanted to test what it did on a patch of skin and sprayed himself. the biggest consequence of mace practice was walking through our area and breathing it in and coughing for hours. it wasn't so cool.
today the crazy girl didn't bother us (someone set out a bucket of water to throw if she came too close, slightly more compassionate than mace). but she did go to the cemetery and steal all the flowers from the graves. then brought them to the center of town and screamed while shredding them.
the people here are pretty laid back but that was the limit. people were extremely offended and started chasing her down. she picked up a rock and randomly smashed a car window as she ran. and back to the drunk guy, he recognized his mother's flowers and what a scene that makes. crazy drunk chasing a crazy junkie. good times.
he's still down on the beach waiting for her to make land and break her hands.
time to watch some football. missed the browns game today because the power was out and no tvs were working but doesn't appear that i missed much. 0-5. so proud to be from
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| kinda creepy |
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