This photo of my son with an iguana during a shore excursion in Roatán, Honduras, came across my memories this morning and got me thinking about the lovely time we had that day five years ago.

As it was our first visit to Roatán, we took a tour through our cruise line, MSC. It was called “Snapshot of Roatán” and is still offered today by MSC, and in some variants through other cruise lines. There were 5 attractions at 3 sites:

• The French Harbor Heritage Society museum at The Buccaneer
• Arch’s Iguana Reserve
• Las Palmas Resort for the beach, a 20-minute boat ride to see the mangroves, and a 15-minute folkloric show by the Garifuna, descendants of the indigenous African and Arawak people

The highlight was definitely the iguana farm. There were hundreds of iguanas! We were allowed to pet them and hold them (so long as one of the staff picked them up). Marty LOVED this. So did I. One of the iguanas was put on his cap, scurried down his neck, onto my telephoto camera lens, over my shoulder, and down my back. We were told that Arch, the owner, wanted to do something to preserve and protect them. They are not captive—it’s a safe place for them to live.

Marty also got to perform at the Garifuna dance in Roatán. The beach at Las Palmas Resort was so pretty and the water was so warm. The sand sloped gently into the ocean and remained fairly flat once we got there. I wish we’d had more narration on the boat portion, but the overview was fine about how the mangroves protected the shoreline from storms and also the breeding areas of fish.

Our tour was listed as 4 hours long but took more like 5. So keep this in mind should you book a tour independently.