making friends...

All your life making friends is easy... until you get a stage where it's not.

First you have friends at school, then university, then work... it carries on. Now I'm at a stage where I'm not working or studying and it's proving to be harder to meet people. So, I decided to do as the people of this new decade are doing: I looked online. And it was successful. I found a networking website with postings from people in Tegucigalpa and signed up. Since then I've met two new friends, both of whom are very nice, and in a similar boat to me.

I had to chuckle at myself that I made friends online (felt like I'd resorted to online dating) and Keith's first reaction was: what if they are pedophile men. This of course did not turn out to be the case.

Through one of these friends (who is married to a half Honduran/British man) we ended up at a makeshift obstacle course for a 4x4 competition. It seems Honduras boys/men spend their time souping up their 4x4's and go around the country competing in these courses. This weekend was in Tegucigalpa. The sun was out, the beer was cold and the music playing: it was fun.

Roatan

Off the Caribbean coast of Honduras there is a group of islands known as the Bay Islands. These are Roatan, Utila and Guanaja. Historically these were discovered by Christopher Columbus (he landed in Guanaja in 1502) and the indiginous people were taken by the Spaniards to work in the gold and silver mines in Cuba and Mexico. Later, the islands were used as a base by pirates from England, the Netherlands and France. Today they were filled with tourists from America, Canada and Italy (there's a direct flight from Milan, as well as a seasonal one from Rome), amongst others.

We visited Roatan for a long weekend. We went with a group from Keith's work and enjoyed the luxuries of West Bay and the night life of West End. I stayed on a little longer and did some diving. It seems the second largest barrier reef is here, after the Australian Great Barrier Reef. I also came across some family friends who now live in Roatan, and who I hadn't seen in 25 years.