Honduras & Home

HONDURAS:

The last port on the itinerary, after traversing the Panama Canal, has been up in the air for quite a while. Originally, the final destination was Cuba, but unfortunately, some of the passengers were not cleared so the entire ship had to reroute. The second plan was to go to Guatemala, but was cancelled because of safety concerns. Finally, Honduras was settled on, and specifically, the island off of the mainland called Roatan.

With only two days and one night to spend on Roatan, the overall feeling was to not plan much and concentrate on spending time with the friends we have made. I got off the ship with seven others and we made our way to West Bay, an area of the island that is known for nice hotels, beautiful beaches, shopping, and bars. We immediately booked a villa at Infiniti Resort & Spa (one room with one bed and a pull out couch for eight people was standard by now). After changing and relaxing for a little while in the villa, we went to the beach and found that almost everyone else had had the same idea. The entirety of Semester at Sea had apparently chosen the same stretch of beach to inhabit and we were clearly taking over. I even ended up having a beer with my International Management teacher. There was a huge infinity pool (hence, the name of the hotel) with a swim up bar that dropped off only a few yards away from the clear blue ocean. It was perfect and exactly what we wanted. The beach was lined with hotels that different friend groups were staying in so we spent the day swimming in the ocean and pool and going bar to bar at all of the hotels. It poured the entire day so there wasn’t an instant that we weren’t sopping wet. Since we were in the water most of the time anyways, it didn’t matter much, but it probably would have been a very different day if the weather had been nice. I met a woman from Utah who had recently moved to Roatan who was currently bottle nursing a baby monkey. His name was Little Man and I was infatuated with the little thing. She was very protective but we were all holding him by the end of the day. Afterwards, we showered and got ready in the room before heading to dinner on the West End. We went to a Mexican restaurant and had incredible nachos and fajitas. The streets on West End were under construction and very tough to get to. Everyone kept telling us how different West End was because of this but we ended up finding a section that was a little better off and that had a few bars and clubs. We stayed out for most of the night and then came back to the hotel. Our room ended up being a melting pot of incredibly random characters that were not originally staying there- it was filled to the rim with bodies. The balcony was our self-made drunk tank and a random dog (who was in fact the hotel managers’) ended up cuddling up next to our friend Mike for the whole night. Some of us stayed up and laughed until it was 7am and the villa next to us was cooking breakfast. It was the perfect last night in port.

The next day was pretty slow moving because of the night before. After a solid two hours of sleep, we walked into town in the pouring rain to get some breakfast and souvenirs. We walked back, cleaned up the room, and hung out at the hotel bar for the rest of the day, joking around with the bartenders that had strangely become close friends in the past 24 hours. We caught a cab back to the ship about three hours before we needed to be back, which was perfect because right outside of the ship was a restaurant filled with SASers. There were hundreds of us and we ended up taking over- the best last hurrah I’ve ever seen. It was 4 pm in a Mexican restaurant but there were college students dancing on tables, singing, and yelling more than I had ever seen at any frat party.

HOME:

Landing in Port Lauderdale was extremely bittersweet. I was glad to be home and feel settled for the first time in almost four months but it was also hard to say goodbye to the people and the experience as a whole. My mom and Homie met me in Florida, which was great, and we spent a day and a half there before catching a flight to California. Most of my close friends on the ship left immediately that day or headed straight to Miami to go out that night so I didn’t see many once getting off the ship. We did have dinner with Colleen and her dad, which was extremely entertaining because he is the male form of her and funny as ever.

Some people were and are still worried about readjusting after the time that we just spent. Some friends were dreading returning home because, honestly, it was the time of our lives and home, as pretentious as it sounds, is relatively quite boring. I’m okay with coming home because as much as I love travelling and as much as I loved SAS, I’m ready to feel settled again. I’ve been in Newport for a little over a week now, visiting friends and family, and preparing for Christmas. I’m ready to get back to school but enjoying the down time. I’m currently planning two trips for next quarter- one to Denver and one to UCLA to visit friends (from SAS and from before), but the most exciting update is that I’ve been researching and applying for internships this summer. The locations that I’ve narrowed in on are Sydney, Dublin, and London. Looks like the travel bug isn’t as easy to shake as Dengue! Stay tuned!

Costa Rica

I have been to Costa Rica many times before with my dad so I knew what to expect when it came to country basics. We didn’t have many plans but I was definitely up for just relaxing and enjoying solid land after 18 days at sea with only a one-day stop in Hawaii. This was our longest stretch of sea and, as fun as the MV Explorer may be, I will never take firm ground for granted. I expected to just relax and hang out at the beach for the two days in Costa Rica. On past vacations to Costa Rica, it’s what I’ve enjoyed most – but from reading past blogs, you know better than to believe that’s what happened, right?

Day 1:
A big group of us got off the ship right away and headed to Parque Aventura, a massive place that houses all sorts of ziplines, ATV sites, and bungee jumps. We ziplined for a few hours and it was AMAZING. I kind of thought that we would only be flying for a few minutes and that there would be a lot of waiting, as there is whenever plans are made in big groups. However, we started as soon as we got there and spent two hours going from line to line, eight in total. I have grown to hate heights and was a screamer on a lot of them, but after watching 6-year-olds do it, the pride began to surpass fear. One of the ziplines that we did was one of the longest in Costa Rica, 550 meters. This one was my favorite because it flew you between draping trees and over water. The whole area was gorgeous and a perfect scene to start off our Costa Rican experience. Forests, rivers and dusty trails all backed up into each other with the ocean in the background. All of the guides were a little older than us and were clearly excited to be working with a huge group of college kids. They were hilarious and gave us a ride back in the back of their pick up trucks afterwards.

We immediately caught a cab from the ship to Hotel Club Del Mar in Hermosa Beach, right outside of Jaco. This hotel had a bunch of separate villas and a friend of mine had organized seven, with ten people in each. Seventy college students, all relatively immature, stupid, and fun-crazy, plus a constant influx of visiting friends, on a beach in Costa Rica after being stranded on a ship for weeks was potentially a very bad idea. Instead, everything went relatively smoothly and it turned out to be perfect. The hotel owner came in because he heard about the situation and talked to some of the guys for a while. He isolated our villas so that there wouldn’t be noise complaints from other guests and told us to party as hard as we wanted- that the maids were good at making it look like we were never there. We dropped off our stuff and took a cab to a beach about ten minutes away that was hosting the country’s annual surf competition. It was very fun to see their version of our US Open, so we walked around all the vendors for a while before walking down the beach farther to join the rest of the group. We had again taken over this area- people were sprawled everywhere with rented surfboards, booze bottles, and bags of chips. We had somehow picked up two dogs, asleep amongst the madness, and a 14-year-old local who had joined the crew. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach, swimming in the warm water and watching people surf. Towards the end of the day, I was swept out by a rip tide before being saved by the young local. I’m never going in big waves again without my dad. Ever. We headed back to the villas, showered, and got ready to check out the Jaco nightlife. Seven of us ended up at a restaurant that the hotel owner had suggested. In every port, we’ve eaten delicious food but after so many days at sea, anything edible tastes heavenly. That being said, our dinner was outrageous. We had fantastic nachos, mahi mahi, tuna, pizza, tacos, you name it- we got it. We headed down the street to the Love Loft and stayed there for the whole night. It was filled to the brim with locals and SAS kids. I met two guys on vacation that had graduated from the University of Wisconsin so we talked trash about the Rose Bowl for a while before remembering where we were. We were on a balcony, with hundreds of kids our age, looking over a packed street in Jaco, Costa Rica having one of the best nights possible. What even is the Rose Bowl? We all grabbed cabs back to the villa and partied there for a while on the beach before heading to bed.

Day 2:
Most of the group planned on returning to the beach that we went to the day before. We initially were going to join them but Kacie and I talked to the receptionist who convinced us to go ATVing. We persuaded a few others and there ended up being nine of us that crammed in the van to the ATV drop off. Again, it was packaged as a tour and I was a little worried that it would be a short ride with a lot of instructions and logistical nonsense. I was very wrong- they handed us helmets, gave us keys, pointed out the gas and brakes, and the guide was off! We jumped on and spent the next two hours driving through towns, little ponds and rivers, and up grassy hills on our way to a waterfall. The scenery was magnificent and showed off a part of Costa Rica that I hadn’t seen before. We got to the waterfall and swam for a while before the group decided to climb up and jump off of it- about a 40 foot jump. Kiley and I were the only ones who opted out- this trip may have made me a bit more adventurous but lets not get too carried away. For some reason, dirt stuck to my face more than anyone else. I think that it might have been because I had on a bunch of sunscreen, but I was an entirely different ethnicity for the day. Everyone wanted their own picture with the dirty girl but then they politely requested a close-up picture of themselves… the clean people. Rude. We stopped for lunch on the way back and got the typical Costa Rica meal plate- rice, beans, and chicken- I had missed it. A few of us had partnered up so that we could split the ATV cost so I shared an ATV with Kacie. I think that I actually ended up enjoying it more than I would have solo because the rides were so long and we laughed the entire time. Over and over, this trip has taught me that no matter how wonderful the place you’re in is, the people that you’re with make it. (Dad- the guide told me multiple times that I gas at all the wrong times and don’t steadily accelerate. Every time, I felt like somehow you had called and told him to get on me. He clearly does not understand my driving techniques). Poor Kacie had to deal with my driving skills or lack thereof but she was a good sport and we are alive to tell the story so it’s all okay! We got dropped off at the hotel, met up with the group, and hopped in one of the hugs vans that they had ordered to go back to the ship. We sang the entire way back- tired beyond belief but belting tunes for the hour like it was our job. There are some major characters that have created hilarious moments on the trip but I’m always entertained when I’m with the huge meatheads as they sing Beyonce and dance in their own, very special, way. There’s truly nothing funnier.

In the past four years, I have tried twice to organize a group of friends to make a trip to Costa Rica. It has never worked out because of financial and logistical reasons. I realized on this drive back that it was probably meant to be. I hadn’t even thought of it like that until that second but there was no pressure, no planning, and everything was perfect. We had more fun in two days than I could ask for in two weeks.

You would think that it’s just because we’re in the locations that we are. However, I think that an even bigger part is the people that we travel with. We tackle so much together and have so much fun doing it. Many people have grown over the past four months in ways that are difficult to describe but everyone on SAS sees. The voyage draws specific people that mesh very well together. I think that if they dumped the ship off in the middle nowhere with nothing to do, we could probably have a great time. I’m not sure how this trip inevitably facilitates such amazing experiences, it’s definitely a bit of magic that I will never understand, or forget.

A quick plug- The ship made a lipdub video that you can find on YouTube, the semesteratsea.org website, or the Semester at Sea facebook page. It’s a pretty good way to see the ship and get a sense of the crazies we have on board.

Pura Vida!