After some fantastically relaxing days of lying on the beach and eating a lot of coconut ice cream every day (what? it was amazing), we reluctantly began our journey back to Real Life. Like most journeys while traveling in developing countries, it began with waking up at the unseemly hour of 5 am. (Why, why, oh why can buses and ferries and trains not leave at some time that begins, at the very least, with an 8? It's so exhausting to be dragging oneself out of bed at times that begin with 6s, over and over, for one's entire vacation. Times that begin with a 6 ARE NOT REAL.)
So, fine, we miserably dragged ourselves out of bed at 5 am and made our way down to the ferry. It had rained all night - it was raining when I got up and looked out the balcony over the water - but it stopped just as we walked out of our hotel and down the single little street. That meant that all of our wet clothes from the beach the day before were not dry, were, in fact, damp when we put them into our backpacks, but at least we were not ourselves soaked through for a day or two of traveling.
We were virtually the first ones on the dock, although there was a group of people just arriving by boat that might have been two families plus a random extra adult. We spent some quality (bored) time trying to decipher where they were from, until finally we spotted an address that ended in Austria on one of their bags. We wanted to sit down, they wanted to sit down, everyone who was arriving to wait for the ferry wanted to sit down, but everything was wet from the rain, so we just stood about until it became clear that the ferry was not leaving any time soon, whereupon we dismantled a portion of a huge stack of cement blocks, and we sat on those.
The ferry was late arriving from its docking point in the middle of the bay. It spluttered its way over to the dock and promptly died, right there in front of us. A. and B. were trying to make a 9:30 bus to Tegucigalpa, so a broken ferry on an island in the Caribbean Sea was not exactly the excitement they were seeking, but there was nothing they could do. We sat on our cement blocks. Men descended into the bowels of the ferry and came back up, shaking their heads at the crowd.
Nothing.
Still nothing.
The ferry made a half-hearted engine starting noise and then went back to nothing.
Nothing.
A. took some photos of the area, and some awful photos of an I-woke-up-at-5-am me.
Nothing.
More nothing.
Finally, an hour after the 6-something alleged departure time, the ferry's engine roared to life and we were all allowed to get on. As one of the Austrian guys was getting on the ferry, he slammed his head on the top of the deck and cracked it wide open. We set off with him bleeding extensively over everything.
So, fine, we miserably dragged ourselves out of bed at 5 am and made our way down to the ferry. It had rained all night - it was raining when I got up and looked out the balcony over the water - but it stopped just as we walked out of our hotel and down the single little street. That meant that all of our wet clothes from the beach the day before were not dry, were, in fact, damp when we put them into our backpacks, but at least we were not ourselves soaked through for a day or two of traveling.
We were virtually the first ones on the dock, although there was a group of people just arriving by boat that might have been two families plus a random extra adult. We spent some quality (bored) time trying to decipher where they were from, until finally we spotted an address that ended in Austria on one of their bags. We wanted to sit down, they wanted to sit down, everyone who was arriving to wait for the ferry wanted to sit down, but everything was wet from the rain, so we just stood about until it became clear that the ferry was not leaving any time soon, whereupon we dismantled a portion of a huge stack of cement blocks, and we sat on those.
The ferry was late arriving from its docking point in the middle of the bay. It spluttered its way over to the dock and promptly died, right there in front of us. A. and B. were trying to make a 9:30 bus to Tegucigalpa, so a broken ferry on an island in the Caribbean Sea was not exactly the excitement they were seeking, but there was nothing they could do. We sat on our cement blocks. Men descended into the bowels of the ferry and came back up, shaking their heads at the crowd.
Nothing.
Still nothing.
The ferry made a half-hearted engine starting noise and then went back to nothing.
Nothing.
A. took some photos of the area, and some awful photos of an I-woke-up-at-5-am me.
Nothing.
More nothing.
Finally, an hour after the 6-something alleged departure time, the ferry's engine roared to life and we were all allowed to get on. As one of the Austrian guys was getting on the ferry, he slammed his head on the top of the deck and cracked it wide open. We set off with him bleeding extensively over everything.
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