We were only in Miami for two days and we were back out to the port to get on our second cruise the Norwegian Getaway for 7 nights. 

While Nigel and I were on the canal boat in England I encountered a last minute deal for a one week cruise that would take us to Mexico, Belize and Honduras.  It left two days after the Cuba Cruise that had booked ages ago and was really cheap.  So we sat in the middle of the English countryside and booked a balcony cabin (with no specific allocation as it was cheap). It’s one of those last minute decisions that turned out to be absolutely brilliant.

The Getaway is a huge ship with climbing walls, waterslides 4000 guests and 1600 crew, basically twice the size of the one to Cuba.  And you could tell.  We now agree when people speak about the really big ships being a bit too big.  They have so many things to do on them it’s a bit overwhelming and yet they still feel very crowded.  We had an amazing balcony room though as in the end they gave us an aft balcony at the back of the boat and so we spent most of our time sitting out there watching dolphins and flying fish and the world go by.

Our first port was Costa Maya Mexico which is famous for the Mayan Pyramid complex.  Big one on our bucket list and so we bit the bullet and did the day tour to see them.  We weren’t disappointed.  The temples are the stepped limestone rocks that you will recognise as soon as you see them.  They were built around 200 B.C – 700 A.D and so in comparison to Egypt they are babies but compared to the Aztecs from the 1500’s they are really old and very interesting.   Yes they did perform human sacrifice on top of them (but only later on and only to bring the rain, which apparently worked out well for them so they continued).  The Mayan people covered their pyramids in a red paint that you needed a whole heap of trees to create and so basically they cut all the trees down and ran out of food so they could have nice red painted houses.  That’s when they all left and the pyramids ended up covered in trees and debris and realistically you only know there is one there as there is a hill in the middle of the flat land.  Only 20% of the pyramids have been excavated and most of them are still waiting to show their secrets.  They still say that less is known about the Mayans than any other ancient culture.  Mainly because most of it is still underground.

Our next stop was in Belize.  Well actually it was a small offshore island owned by Belize and developed by the Norwegian cruise line company to provide zip lining, day beds, as many burgers as you could eat, A frozen margarita machine and beautiful clear warm water (which unfortunately was full of jellyfish and so we didn’t swim.).  It also had a butterfly house and you could buy a chilled fresh coconut with rum in it for $10USD.  It was a fun day and another country to add to the list but we really didn’t spend too much time there.

Next was Roatan Island Honduras.  They had zip lining, chilled coconuts with rum and as many burgers as you eat too but it was all inside the port area which was surrounded by a large wall.  Nigel and I decided we wanted to go for a look in town to see how the locals live and got all the way out to the port entrance where there was a massive sign.

“Please reconsider leaving the Port Area! We recommend that you only leave the port area on an organised excursion.  If you do leave the port area on your own please ensure that any valuables or irreplaceable items are left on the ship.  Please exercise caution and remain vigilant.”

While we were reading this there was whole heap of locals standing outside the fence yelling “don’t worry” “It’s safe outside” “Come out we will look after you”.  Nigel and I looked at each other and went, Oh well we are here now and stepped out the gate.

Pretty much you get hassled for the first 200 metres by locals wanting to sell you something or get you into their bar or into their cigar shop The Cubans could learn a few things about hassling and begging from the Hondurans.  But after the first few minutes they gave up and it’s kids going home from school and shops and banks and funny little run down house’ on stilts over the water.  It also had two armed guards at every bank.  One outside in bullet proof vest and machine gun and another inside with a shotgun.  They meant business.  We found out later just how dangerous Honduras is on a good day, but this little piece seemed to be just like any other town.

We walked along for as long as we could in the heat and then headed back down to the port area and back to watch the world go by in a restaurant overlooking the ship.  When we went to pay the credit card machine didn’t work and so Nigel had to go back onto the ship to get the cash and then come back to pay while I remained as collateral.  Still according to the rules of the how many countries can you clock up before you die list we had another one under our belt.  However because Nigel had to get off the ship twice and I only had to once he now reckons he’s been to Honduras twice as often as me… dammit!