Cozumel, Costa Maya, Roátan, from Port Galveston: February 2025

She asked our tour guide to sing the Mexican National Anthem. We were in Honduras.

My original Roátan plan was a catamaran/snorkeling trip, but my excursion was cancelled, so I changed to the "Far and Away" tour, which was a smaller bus on the bumpy main island road that is under constant construction. Lots of fishing village culture and insight from a local. Max photo ops right?

On this tour was “Donna from Dallas” (not kidding on this name), an 80-year-old smoker who asked the tour guide to sing the Mexican National Anthem. When she could not, Donna did! I will remind you that we are, in fact, in the country of Honduras. For four hours, we got to listen to our tour guide Vanessa answer the same 3 questions from Donna - "What is the main language of Honduras?", "There is a restaurant on the cay, is it free?," and "We're going on a boat to get to the cay?" (No Donna, they make you swim the channel...)

I definitely want to return, stay in a little hut, and photograph the mangroves and the fishing villages from the water at foggy sunrise. Today's travel conclusion is that if an excursion involves a large group transport bus, I am likely a hard pass.

I did walk away from the tour learning about the island's infrastructure, and Vanessa shared a lot about the home-building process. Islanders are often given sections of land from their parents and by their early 20s they are building their homes out of whatever materials they can source. They are built rooms at a time over years and year of piecemail work. Independence and self-sufficiency are core Island values. Culture is interwoven into education, and singing the Honduran National Anthem (Not the Mexican Donna) solo is a graduation requirement.