Cruizin - Jungle style

Honduras... ahhh Honduras.  I was super excited for Honduras since Belize got rained out.  I had researched a lot of blogs, chat rooms and word of mouth about what the best excursion was in Honduras and everyone said the same thing: the Zip-Line through the Jungle.  On the reviews, many people saw monkeys and ended by going to a small zoo area where they were able to cuddle with said monkeys.... BUT we chose the zip-line/beach day.

Mainly because with small kids in our group, not everyone could do the zip-line and this was the one day when we were trying to do a more family-oriented excursion.  They were all ending at the same beach so we opted for that choice instead.

The zip line was amazing.  We drove just 35 minutes up the jungle to the very top where the zip-line started.  I was told it was over 400ft by the tour guy who buckled me into my harness.  I am unsure the actual height but dang... we seemed WAY up there.  The view was breathtaking. 

Before starting the tour, we had to sign a waiver which I never get too thrilled about.  And it specified acceptable weights and ages for this excursion.  It made me nervous... was the weight limit based on the ability of the cables? The strength of the harness?  What if someone lies and I have to go after them?

But ... I soon detected that the weight limit was do to unhooking and re-hooking your harness at each stop.  There were several stopping points where there would be an attendant on the pedestal attached to the tree where they would unhook you from the cable you just came down and hook you to the new one for the next "zip" ... ;)

In order to unhook you and re-hook you, the attendant had to bounce you up... this was done by you pulling yourself up with both hands as much as possible, then the attendant would bounce you up to unhook the latch.  Usually this bouncing was done by shoving their knee under your butt and lifting/unlatching in a quick motion before you land on the pedestal and get re-hooked. 

This made much more sense and made me have a little more faith in the whole shebang.  J went down before me and my mom followed with my dad, cousins, aunt and uncle after him.

Hi Mom! 

I didn't see any monkeys but J and I sure did enjoy the whole thing!

Except... we did have some weirdness with the giant gloves they give you.  In order to stop, you have to pull down with your back hand to slow you down... thus they give you one-size-fits-all heavy duty gloves.  Within 8 hours of wearing that glove, the back of my left hand broke out in some weird red splotchy-ness.  I don't want to call it a rash because it never spread.  But either way... I still have this red mark on the back of my hand and J has it on one of his knuckles.  This photo was taken 2 days ago... AKA 10 days post Honduras.

Creepy.  No one else from our trip has it.  The only thing we can think of is that we immediately doused our hands in hand sanitizer and everyone else just waited to wash them at the beach.  (Which we did also).   Either way... it worries me a little.  Eeek!

Moving on...

We then went to Tabyana beach where we lounged until time to go back to the ship.  The beach was beautiful!  It was one of the most beautiful beaches I have seen in a long time... up there with Magen's Bay in St. Thomas.

And of course we had to drink Coronas :) 

Up next: Cruizin - Caymans