[travel blog] arrival in central america - roatan

ok,
i'm going to do these next few travel blogs in sections
spent over an hour doing a massive blog
and lost everything when the connection died
a couple of days ago in livingston
but i'm getting ahead of myself
on a computer that cannot type capitals or shift-anything
so no exclamations or questions ...
darn, eh
so anyways,
here goes

most of the group met at the airport in edmonton
including murray who flew up from calgary
that made 11 of us
it was cold and chilly
with the forecast to drop the mercury to -26c or so
sarah, erin and norm v left early morning that day
and mikayla the day before
the flight to toronto was easy
5 hours and a bit
with a couple hour lay over
then we were off to san jose in costa rica
another 5 hour plus plane journey
at which time
we switched from air canada to taca airlines
and after 4 of us got boarding passes for our flight to san pedro sula in honduras
the other 7 were told there was no room left
because taca had oversold the flight
they wanted to send the rest of the group on a later flight through el salvador
i insisted on keeping the group together
when i think back,
it was funny seeing megan's frantic reaction
waving me over
when the ticket girl looked at her passport
and said uh oh...
and then when megan asked what was wrong
she was told 'shhh, not now'
poor girl
megan that is...
hehehe
anyways
they sent our entire group on a little detour
to san salvador in el salvador
and then off to san pedro sula
but in order to do this
they had to re-tag all of our bags
and in doing so
they removed all of our original claim checks
so that they could go find the proper bags to re-tag
to speed things up
instead of 1 bag each with 1 claim ticket each for the 11 of us
they asked if it was ok to put all the bags under a few names
so chris had 4 claim tickets, i had a few, so did a couple of other people
when we finally arrived in san pedro sula
we counted 10 bags off belt
and upon further inspection
murray's bag having not arrived
we found that we had 12 claim tickets
2 of them under murray's name
an hour or so later
we ended up leaving the airport
without murray's bag
and 2 extra claim tickets
the drive into town to the holiday inn was our first introduction
into this new land
the men in military fatigues carrying m-16s also gave the feel
that we weren't in canada anymore dorothy
and i must say
i think i felt a lot safer
when we pulled up to the holiday inn
and at least one of the doormen
openly had a pistol on his belt
...i think
anyways,
we all grabbed a late supper across the street
at a mexican restaurant
which also had it's own armed guard
where we had some nice food
and later experienced some of the local live entertainment
which comprised of 2 scantily clad ladies and one fully clad man
dancing on top of the bar in the other room
from our separate room,
we had tv screens broadcasting the show
um, yeah...
the next morning
we were off to roatan
with a stop over in la ceiba
and many inquiries into murray's missing bag
which unfortunately had all of his dive gear in it
as well as a 2 computers
not good.
on roatan
we met up with mikayla, erin, sarah
and norm v. who was supposed to have met us in san pedro sula
but had decided to come over to the island earlier with the ladies
i was just glad he got there safe
the arrival to fantasy island itself
was a bit of a downer
because after entering the main gates
and crossing maybe 50 feet of paved road
we went onto a dirt road
and the rest of the road in seemed quite shabby
luckily,
things only got better from there
dave, chris' old high school friend
was supposed to meet us there
as he was supposed to have been there a day earlier
i say supposed to
because he wasn't
what we did have
was a message to call him
which i later found out cost me 3 bucks usd minute
damn eh
and found out or 16th and final member of the group
had had a reaction
to the multiple immunization shots he got
the day he was supposed to leave
and had been hospitalized for 2 days
but was ok now
and trying to find his way onto the island
after that
we all started off to our rooms and try to figure out this resort thing
welcome to fantasy island, roatan