We got into town and found a little hotel to rest our weary traveled bones after the 13 hour journey… but not for long because we were hungry. Found a spot on the beach to watch the outrageously beautiful sunset and to get a snack. We ended up at Big Wave Daves a bit later because Jim was jonesing for a good burger. We met Big Wave Dave himself and a Canadian couple, Anita and Chris, who are sailing from Florida to Baja Mexico for three years.
Our first full day there we checked out the small quiet town and then hiked up a very steep cliff to see Jesus. It was a religious experience so to speak. There is a huge statue of Jesus overlooking the town and ocean, you can see it quite well from the beach, but noooo, we had to see Jesus up close and personal! And all in the afternoon heat! Jesus’ view of the town, bay and ocean is wonderful. We also enjoyed seeing all of the big houses on our hillside walk back down to town. They are probably owned by drug lords and corrupt politicians as Nicaragua is supposed to be the poorest country in Central America. How could any citizen own such a grossly big house?
That night we met up with Anita and Chris for the sunset, then we had dinner, and to end the evening we went to open night mic night at Coquito Bar. Okay, that was one of the best open mic nights we had ever been to! I was so excited by the music, I jumped up to see the musicians play, not seeing a huge stump/stool in the middle of the pathway (who puts stumps in pathways?), I fell knee forward. How many scraped knees have you had this year? This is my second time for both knees. Anyway, I heard the young owner of the bar actually auditions the musicians, what a talented little town. And for added entertainment an attractive older, alleged ex-porn star lady, with screaming long red hair danced and shook her maracas. I repeat I said, “alleged.” I looked up her name and porn, and did not come up anyone who I think fits her, but it makes for good reading!
Our second day we found ourselves up early due to 4am fireworks. And not the colorful oooh aaaah variety, but ones solely for the obnoxious boom they make. The funny part for us, in our sleepy stupor we were trying to decide if it was fireworks or a shootout, and at one time Jim was convinced it was a shootout because he thought he heard different caliber guns! Although the official day of the town’s patron saint was 2 weeks off, they felt the need to start the celebrations that morning at 4am. This act is common in Catholic towns and it seems some towns have a lot of patron saints!
Late morning we went to visit Anita and Chris at their dry docked catamaran. What a lovely and spacious boat! We loved it! They gave us a tour, made us some French press coffee and then we chatted for quite awhile. Really enjoyed their company and just maybe it will work out that we take a trip with them up the coast to El Salvador in November after Hurricane season. With my hurricane luck, I do not need to be on water in a small sea craft…we would be like a hurricane bulls-eye!
Later that day we went fishing off shore with another couple we met, Terra and Corey. The water was a bit rough, but nothing we could not handle. I was worried a bit about Corey since he has a fear of the water, but he braved through it. We had heard the fishing was awesome there, but not on this particular day. Jim was the only one of us that caught anything, a Grouper. So we had Grouper for dinner. It was a fun afternoon, the staff were so personable and funny. They liked to play jokes, like the time they had me almost tasting some old yellow Styrofoam because they said it was a dulce (a sweet). What I would do for sweets! After fishing and our nice fish dinner, we met up with Anita and Chris again, but had an early night to ready ourselves for our big upcoming day.
Our last full day in San Juan was quite eventful! We went surfing! And yes, we actually surfed. We had a group lesson that set us back a whopping $24.00 each (nothing compared to the $90.00 a day cost we saw quoted in Costa Rica) and in the water our Peruvian teacher, Alfredo, worked closely with two people at a time. Jim and I were the first, and by far the oldest in the group! But we showed the youngins’ how to do it. We stood up on the board within the first few tries! It was awesome! We kept at it all day, okay not all day, we took breaks. The water was really rough and to just get out to where you could catch a wave was more work than our 40-something bodies have seen in quite awhile! Needless to say, the next day we were sore and bruised, and the following day a little more sore and bruised, but we were still high on our surfing experience so we did not mind!
Sore and all, we were off to Leon, Granada’s liberal northern nemesis. Again our bus kharma was working and we got there without any delays, breakdowns, mishaps or road closures!
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We were on our way to Montezuma, Costa Rica when I last wrote so let me refresh your memory. In Montezuma, I learned Jim had a dislike for modern day hippies. Seeing that he was born in Berkeley in the late 60’s this surprised me. Maybe it was the little bout of Montezuma’s revenge he was dealing with, he was just not digging on the dreadlocked, ipod adorned, high maintenance, daddy’s card carrying, patchouli smelling scene. But we did like the animal life!
We spent 3 nights in Montezuma. After one scary bitten by numerous bugs night we moved from a dirty place on the beach to a cool little cheaper yet spotless place off the beach with a balcony that overlooked an iguana hangout large tree, we were very happy.
The little town of Montezuma was fine, the beach okay, but the beach just a short hop, skip and jump away was even better. One evening we stumbled into a Full Moon party just starting on said beach. Our favorite day there was our Quad rental day which we drove up the coast to see other beaches and on the way we ran into a migrating group of Howler monkeys in the trees above us. It was so cool to see them flying / climbing tree to tree and even with babies in tow. We watched and video-taped them while one big guy in the back of the group kept an eye on us.
We were not into the over-priced Gringo-ized scene in Costa Rica, and since we had spent our required 72 hours there (for a visa renewal) we decided to leave the very green country. Although it was not the place for us, I have to say it was all so beautiful, very lush and the animal life thriving! I would say the healthiest and happiest cows live in Costa Rica (sorry California) as they were feeding in fields of grass up to their nicely plump bellies! The cross bred Brahmans in Central are usually a boney lot (and also adorable with they big long ears and big brown eyes), but not so much in Costa Rica. Between the cows, the iguanas having the run of the town in Montezuma, the cute little red haired coconut eating squirrels, the Howler monkeys and the insects in the first hotel room we had, I would say Costa Rica is good to its wildlife!
We had good bus kharma for our long trip back to Nicaragua, another 12 hour experience. And it went like this; bus, boat, walking, bus, bus, border crossing, walking, bus, and bus! We just jumped from bus to bus, the only one we waited for was at the border. The driver of one bus even stopped another bus so we could get on it to get to our final destination, San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua! Oh, we did not only have good bus kharma, but we had great entertainment too, an old blind guy played his accordion and sang on our way to the border. Everyone gave him some change and later it was fun watching a money changer try to give him the new plastic 10 and 20 Nicaraguan Cordoba bills in exchange for the Costa Rican Colon coins he received. Yes, they have plastic money in Nicaragua, it now comes in 10, 20 and 200 Cordoba bills. The accordion playing guy would not have any of it and called this plastic money, “Shit!” We, along with the other people waiting in the immigration line who had enjoyed his music earlier, all laughed!
After Managua, we went to the very cute town of Granada on Lake Nicaragua. We hit around 5 churches and one fort while we were there! Some cobblestone streets, a great well populated parque centro and kind of a pedestrian walk with restaurants and bars along it all makes for a nice place to hang for a bit. The house style in Granada is colonial with inner courtyards. I loved looking in people’s always open front doors to see what their courtyard garden looked like.
While having a drink or dinner on the sidewalk cafes in the evening, kids selling cashews and doing dances for money entertain you! Some were doing this traditional dance with a really tall women and a really short man doing the “Bailar del Viejo y la Vieja (The Dance of the Old man and Old Lady). Other boys were break dancing.
Our favorite was a little cashew salesman, who after repeated tries, we could finally no longer resist. And the cashews were delish! The process from tree to roasted form is not an easy one. Did you know that they make a drink from the fruit, maranon, that the cashew is attached to? I bet you did not even know that a cashew is attached to a fruit!
Too see a cashew / maranon fruit click here: Maranon
One of the days we did a trip to Masaya for their awesome markets, one for just artisan crafts and the other just a very large city market with some of the same artisan crafts for the same price. We bought up a bundle and enjoyed the town.
After Granada we took a 4 hour boat ride down the center of Lago de Nicaragua to an island formed by two volcanos, Isla de Ometepe. They used to be separate until one of them exploded and the lava formed a connection between the two…cool, eh? It was very rural and relaxing…well…until we decided to do a simple little mountain bike ride! Ha! Simple? No. Okay, maybe it was not that hard but we now officially know we are out of shape! It was all on a rocky dirt road with lots of hills. After taking a side trip to the volcano ash mineral water pools, we realized we did not want to go the whole way. When were done bathing in the pools we rode to the beach and had a nice lunch looking over the water. We met a cool couple from Australia at the pools, Mick and Pamela, and had lunch with them at the beach. Hope to hear from them or see them again on our travels.
After Ometepe we had a long travel day and for Jim it was a very bad day as he was having some travelers stomach problemos! Probrecito! This was our day; bus, boat, taxi, long border process, bus and then bus again….12 hours! We made it to Puntarenas which was supposed to a be a seedy port town, but the writers of Lonely Planet have obviously not been to Puerto Cortez in Honduras…a real seedy port town. Minutes after arriving to a hotel Jim ran to the potty!
The next day were were on the “Montezuma Run.” Literally, we were on our way to a beach town in Costa Rica called Montezuma. Jim was still sick, but with some drugs under his belt he made the boat and bus rides in one piece and with no embarrassing mishaps.
Next post…Jim’s dislike for hippies…who knew?
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Our bus ride from La Ceiba to Tegus was way more luxury then we are used to…a drink, a snack, air con and a movie! Woo Hooo! We stayed at a nice little place in what turned out to be a cool hood with a sushi restaurant. Yes, I said sushi! There was also some nice hotels, a hip looking disco, and some other bars where Jim could actually get a decent Martini. I tried for a Mojito, but mint is hard to come by in Honduras. Note to self…start a mint finca in Honduras!
We got picked up for dinner from some volunteer friends of Jim. They are working with Engineers without Borders and the Global Community Development program. We were taken to Tito´s pizza, the best pizza in Honduras from what we heard. It was the best we tasted so far, but we have only had pizza at Pizza Hut, so what do we know.
The next day we hit the centro and saw a bunch of churches, walked down a pedestrian walk and had a nice lunch in the fun Don Pepe´s! Between the hood we stayed in and the area we were in around the Parque Central…we like Tegus, unlike so many others. Maybe it because we had sushi for dinner, but I have to say I still feel so guilty about spending the money. It was not cheap, even more than back home! At least it was good!
We left the next morning for Managua and have never had such an easy border crossing. We may just keep on spoiling ourselves with these nice air con buses that come with border service too! Not too far over the border we got to see a huge smoking volcano!
Once settled in at a hotel in Managua, we needed an ATM. The nearest one was at the Mall. So our first experience in Nicaragua was a westernized mall…but just like in the states…people hit the mall on Sundays here too! We stayed low for the evening at our hotel, but did have dinner down the street on the sidewalk basically in front a family’s home. Ended up helping a third grader with her English homework. We also got a couple of the national beers to try out…so far Tona beats out Victoria!
Today we had a plan to check out some sights on our own, but got talked into a Taxi tour of it all for an hour. We actually saw more than we planned on seeing and Oscar was quite informative! They sure do love Sandino here! During his time he was labeled as a bandit by the U.S, what’s not to love? Sometimes the U.S. should just leave it’s nose out of other people’s business. But it didn’t and Nicaragua had a Revolution on its hands. After seeing the somewhat depressing old downtown of Managua that was destroyed at the Dec. 23rd, 1972 Earthquake, we were gonna go to the market place to check out the prices of gifties, but the taxi to get there was too much.
At 2:15ish am Thursday, May 28th a 7.2 earthquake hit Honduras
Our Minute by Minute Report
We have no cable or internet now so for the size we are going on what we felt and what others are saying. It was the biggest and longest mother I have ever felt. I was in San Francisco for the 1989 earthquake and felt the whole thing, and that was nothing compared to this large waved rumble of a thing.
I have watched those ghost hunter shows and movies about demons, I swear it was like our bed was possessed. When I was fully awake I realized it was not just the bed, but the building and not just the building, the earth underneath it.
I grabbed Jim and I said, “It’s an earthquake!”
He moaned and then mumbled, “No its not.” And probably tried to go back to sleep, but the longevity of it finally woke him up.
I was thinking about my years of teaching kids Earthquake Safety through the Red Cross in the San Francisco Bay Area. I knew we should do something, but in this circumstance the bed was the safest. If you are in bed, you are supposed get under the covers. We barely sleep with sheets here, so that would not have helped us. Since our walls are made of cement blocks and plaster we have nothing on them (can’t get nails into them and tape just peels off in the humidity) and the shelving unit that is our closet only has clothes on it…we were in no danger of falling or flying objects. So we rode this bronco of an earthquake out, and then got out of bed.
Everyone in our building came out of their apartments (there are 5 apts.) and started talking. No one had felt anything like this before as well and were very shaken (no pun intended), more so then us Californian earthquake old timers. Two business owners left to check on their investments, but alas no real huge damage.
It is now 11:20am (Central) and we are still a bit in the dark, not literally since we do have electricity, but are still without internet and the cable we hook up to our computer now and then to watch TV. Not even sure if the papers had much to say about it this morning, but the word out on the street is that the epicenter was right off the coast from us near the Bay Islands. We also learned it was around a 7.0 on the Richter scale. We think some buildings went down in Tegucigalpa, the capitol of Honduras which is a very large size city on the other side of the country. We did hear some people died in the center of the country in or around a town called Progresso as well. And yet another bridge is down. The floods in the winter (Oct – Dec.) usually take out bridges, but apparently one was not made to withstand large earthquakes.
We are now calling back to the states to let people know we are okay in case they heard about it. Paul, my step father, had not heard anything, but we have him checking online. My brother, where my Mom is visiting right now, was not available but I left a message for him. Jim is on the phone with his parents right now. They called here as they had already heard about it. They are giving us some updates, but not much more than we know already. They did give us a more accurate size of the earthquake, 7.1 or 7.2 and the epicenter was 75 miles directly off the coast of La Ceiba.
After that call, Jim called a friend that lives right outside of San Pedro Sula, the other large city in Honduras. San Pedro is around a 3 hour drive from here. The bridge that went down is the bridge between here, La Ceiba, and San Pedro, so we are not sure if we will be able to leave tomorrow for our trip to Nicaragua and Costa Rica. If the Catrachos (Hondurans) are one thing, they are resilient and I am sure the buses are up and running today. If they need a detour route, they will make one, even if they have to machete through the jungle!
We just hope we do not hear about the real damage later today or tomorrow. I think it is hard to get the news out here fast due to the remote location of some damaged places or just because the lack of news agencies. We are amazed La Ceiba does not have more damage due to the size and type of earthquake we felt. If this was San Francisco there would be buildings down, gas leaks, fires and general mayhem. In a country where general mayhem is the norm, a huge natural disaster brings calm. Go figure!
I thought Carnival was just a one day event, but what do I know about Carnivals? Ten days of street closures. Ten days of tons of people selling more of what a few normally sell everyday in the street market. Ten days of gambling. Ten days of tons of greasy street food. Ten days of live music with dancers in skimpy outfits. And ten days of a lot of drinking going on.
But before all that starts, there is the blessing of the patron saint, San Isidro (Saint Isidore). The reason for the Carnival is to celebrate this patron saint. Now who was this San Isidro and why does he get a whole country honoring him? Well, as I just learned Saint Isidro is not only the patron saint of La Ceiba, he is the patron saint of Madrid, Spain as well, where he lived in the early 1100’s and where miracles happened around him, such as being assisted by angles in the field so he had more time to pray.
Hundreds of La Ceiba school children carried “lanterns” made out of wood, colored cellophane and candles down the main street of La Ceiba, aptly named Avenida de San Isidro. They walked relatively quietly to a big stage in the middle of the road where many priests were singing. After the blessings, Carnival officially starts which means lots of Carnivalitos (little carnivals) leading up to the big one, Gran National Carnival.
Click the Photo Below for the Blessing Ceremony Album:
The first Carnivalito we went to was in Barrio El Iman, not far from our apartment. It was small and not too crowded, but had the same things we learned later that all the Carnivalitos had. There was home made gambling tables, music, dancers, beer, stuff for sale and greasy French fries. Jim and I basically just did a walk through to check it out.
Click the Photo Below for the Barrio El Iman Carnivalito Album:
I happened upon the beginnings of the Carnivalito in Barrio El Ingles. This Barrio is not considered a safe hood, but it is where Casa Del Nino is located. I walk through it to and from work most days and nothing seems really bad to me, but I am not there at night. The day of their Carnivalito, I was walking home and got to see the opening Parade. It was so cute! A fire engine with tons of kids on top followed by Garifuna drummers and dancers, a snare drum core, tiny little girl dancers, and in the rear was the parade queens and princesses of all ages, well all ages under 18 that is! I did not stay for the party, but enjoyed seeing the little parade-cito!
There were Carnivalitos going on every night of the week, but we saved ourselves for the Barrio El Sauce Carnivalito and our friend Audrey’s pre-party! Wooo Hoo! Barrio El Sauce is where we lived when we first moved to La Ceiba with a family in a home-stay. It is an upper middle class neighborhood, but the people at the Carnival were from all over.
As I mentioned, Audrey had an impromptu pre-party where we all met before hitting the crowds of the Carnivalito. There were around 15 people at Audrey’s, but the street was packed because all her neighbors were having parties as well. BBQs smoking, people hooting and hollering, videos projected on outdoor screens with music blaring… you get the picture, good times for everyone. And that was not even the Carnivalito!
With not enough food in our bellies and three rum cocktails under our belt, Jim and I finally got a group to go to the Carnivalito to have some dinner. We found a street restaurant with open tables and snagged them. We all had a tipico Honduran meal, grilled chicken, beef or pork with refried beans, a small ensalada and fried plantains. Jim, Audrey and Corey had an after dinner shot of Guifity, a Garifuna spice, herbal and rum drink that usually tastes like crap.
The rest of us refilled our beer cups and a-gambling we went. My favorite thing at the tables this particular night was all the kids gambling! Hee hee! Vegas has nothing on these Carnivalitos! One Lempira bills (approximately 6 cents U.S.) were all over the table, but still none of us came out a winner. After a while and a couple more beers, we needed a potty break so we went back to Audrey’s for a bit. I am not sure what went on there, but from the pictures it looked like I put on a one woman show and Jim followed it up with his musical talents on the conch. Whatever was going on, fun was had by all!
Click on the Photo Below for the El Sauce Carnivalito Album:
After that break we went back to the Carnivalito, bands were still playing, dancers were still dancing, but some of the gambling tables were empty. I stepped in and tried to make some money for myself, but was quickly kicked out! We danced some, watched the dancers a little, took more photos, and when we realized it was after 2:00am we flagged down a taxi for home.
Although not feeling great most of the day, we rallied to check out the Barrio La Isla Carnivalito the next night. We got a late start after a late dinner, so the streets were already a bit full. Not even 10 minutes into being at this Carnivalito, the you-know-what hit the fan and I saw it all in action.
Jim and I were with Jennifer, a house guest, Audrey and Audrey’s friend Cory. In most areas, the carnival was not completely crowded, except in front of stages where bands were playing. Opposite this one crowded band scene was a Salva Vida stand…a wood square structure where you can buy beer. It made a bit of a bottle neck which was obviously a good spot for crime to take place.
Cory was right in front of me and I saw it all come together. It was such a racket. It was crowded but people could still move through at a regular pace. Out of nowhere, I saw these men rush in crowding Cory like all of a sudden it got really packed. I looked at the guys weird and kind of pushed them away with my body then I realized this was something different. I looked down and put my hand on Cory’s front right pocket to see if they were trying to get in and Cory turned around to me saying, “They have already felt me there to see where my wallet is.” Cory knew what was going on too. Fortunately, he did not have one…he learned last year the hard way when he got pick pocketed and trampled at the Gran Carnival. They let us through after they knew we caught on.
So a bunch of these thieving butt head pick pockets stay around this one corner and basically lock you in until you are completely stuck. I got through the crowd but Jim was at the end of our group. I worried about him because he is not like me. I would NOT allow myself to be stuck in a crowd thanks to my slight case of claustrophobia, but he is nice and not as likely to push unless provoked. I saw him in that crowd of pick pockets, he was around 30 feet from me. There was a huge crowd and a loud band right there, but I screamed his name and told him to get out. He heard me, but was not sure what I was saying and did not push through. He looked so helpless. Of course trying to save the beer in one hand and having his hand in his other pocket on his money did not help his balance at all.
All in all the pickpockets were not going to hurt Jim, they just wanted something to steal. Still Jim did not move and I do not know what I was thinking, but I was so angry and afraid. I moved quickly and went in to get to him. I have a talent for getting through crowds, I do not care who I push, shove or step on. By the time I got to him I saw the guy in front of Jim blatantly blocking the way with a woman helping as well . I put my hand on the guys chest grabbed his shirt and shoved him away. Like I said, I did not know what I was thinking!
He looked at me like “I didn’t do anything” but did not come back at me. The rest of the pick pockets backed off and we got out of the crowd. Fortunately, Jim too did not have a wallet and had his hand in his pocket protecting what he did have. Afterward, Jim explained he was not that bothered by it all because he was not worried through the whole thing. Of course he did not know he was in the middle of a pick pocketing scam. Well, we all did go away from that scene pick pocketed free, but from the excitement, my heart was beating fast and hard.
But it is not over. We all talked about it while we walked on, but relaxed a bit to look at jewelry and the such. Then I saw these 3 women standing way too freakin’ close to us especially when it was not crowded at all where we were. I told the others to watch out for them. Even though I was obvious about my gestures to let these women know I knew what they are up to…they did not move from us. They had their sights set. Audrey had this large long strapped purse hanging across her chest and loosely at the side of her hip. Now we know she was their target.
We moved to a nearby little gambling table, and the women followed. I watched one of them take some money out like she was going to gamble, but also watched another one stare at me while I took money out of my wallet. I played two rounds, but kept my eye on the women. I could not see what they were really doing from where I was so I looked at Jennifer. From where she was standing she could watch them, well kind of. The women never gambled and then all of a sudden they left. After we stopped gambling we talked about the women which made Audrey checked her purse. They got her wallet.
I was so freaking mad. I am not a violent person, but I wanted to grab one of them by the hair and drag them to a police officer. And on top of it I felt bad because I should have said something to the women. If I said, “I know what you are doing, leave!” I think they would have moved on. Jennifer felt bad too because she was watching them, but they crowd so close into you and they are such professionals at it, you do not even know!!!
There are always bad people in a sea of good people that makes it suck for some. We called it a night, we were all tired from the night before anyway and the predators made it hard to enjoy the festivities.
I did not get a good night sleep though, seeing Jim in that crowd of pickpockets scared me. I was anxious all night long, but woke up feeling better and ready for the Gran Carnival Parade!
The Gran Carnival de La Amistad (Carnival of Friendship) started in the afternoon, lead by the parade. The parade was to begin at 2:00pm, so we were meeting a friend at 1:30pm. We walked more than half way down the parade route to get to our meeting place and it was already a mob scene. Okay, calling it a mob scene is a bit much. It was full of people, but not packed, well, until we got in front the city hall.
Half way to our destination, we nearly ran into El Presidente de Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, aka Mel Zelaya. He was getting out of a horse drawn carriage with what appeared to be his wife and daughter. We were wrapped up in the media and secret service mayhem. But they did not ask us to leave and there was tall ‘ole Mel in his cowboy hat within reach of us. I told Jim to start taking photos, which he had already started to do. Along with El Presidente was Miss Honduras as well. Two Honduran royalties in one viewing!
Since this is the first blog I have brought up El Presidente I feel I must give you some information on him as well. He is said to be the “Man of the People,” but some people think he is using the poor people’s lack of education as a tool to get voted in again in 2010. He increased the minimum wage 60% in one fair shot! Nice for the people working for employers that pay the legal minimum wage, but how are these small and even medium business owners going to pay that huge bump in costs without raising prices? And what about the vast number of people that are not paid minimum wage, or 28% that are unemployed, 63% that are poor or 45% that are extremely poor that depend on all of the commodities that are now going to go up in price? Okay, raise the wage, because $5.00 dollars a day is not much, but 60% all at once? And I hear crime has gone up, unemployment has gone up and the economy has gone down since he has been president. I’m sure it’s not all his fault, he will be judged by what he does about these important issues and how well his policies work out. Well, although it may seem like it in the above tirade, I will not go on because I do not know much about Honduran politics or good ‘ole Mel. First here is wikipedia’s view on Mel Zelaya. I especially like their link to the “Corruption Perception Index”
While searching for info on Mel, I also found this blog, Born in Honduras. The author was born in Honduras and lives in Tegucigalpa now, but writes his blog in English. I like how he writes and I am entertained by his view of Honduran politics.
After running into El Presidente we met up with Katrina to watch the parade together in front of the school where we took Spanish lessons. First we saw horse after horse, and just like in Gualala for the Honduran Memorial Day Weekend Celebration, the horses were grand and graceful. They were doing a special walk, even tapping in between steps as well. It was awesome to watch, but I felt sorry for those horses as the parade was going very slow and it was crazy hot. Amazingly so, the riders look cool as cucumbers in their jeans, nice long sleeve shirts, hats and boots….how do they do it?
The rest of the parade was filled with the young, the old and the in between marching, singing, dancing and playing instruments in all sorts of costumes with all the colors of the rainbow. And in between those marchers were big floats carrying hot young ladies in Carnival type sexy outfits, lots of skin and feathers! Jim was in charge of taking their photos, he was happy. One of my favorites was the Float little tiny Chiquita Banana Girls and their tiny Ricky Ricardo Latin Lover look a-likes! And I got a kick out of the Pepsi float were all the girls were wearing sexy athletic outfits with black high heeled boots, and sticking from the top of those boots were white socks and knee highs. Not so sexy, but I doubt any guys noticed that part! Oh, let me not forget the Mazola float, where two pretty masked ladies were throwing out mini tubes of lard to the crowds. The crowds loved it, except one small child who got walloped across the side of the head with one.
It was a nice day, we had a liquado to cool off first, then some meat pinchos (meat on a stick) to snack on and followed up with an ice cream! Not the French diet, but the two beers we had after the makes up for the rest. We kind of followed the end of the parade a bit, so the streets were not completely open for walking. It was tight at times, but it was not frantic like at the Carnivalitos at night.
Once we made it by the real thick area we just enjoyed ourselves watching the crowds. A lot of people were looking up to people on balconies wanting beaded necklaces thrown down for them. I got one guy to throw one to me, but a young guy able to jump higher than me got it. I am okay with that, cheap mardi gras beads are not worthy of a fight, but another guy who knocked my beer all over me while he was trying to get some was! No, I jest, but I did say, “Gracias!” with an attitude to him. Jim complimented me on using my Spanish.
My favorite part of the after parade parties-just-getting-started time was when some people on a balcony threw around 100 1 Lempira bills down. They came floating down and their faded red color made for festive confetti, not to mention the frenzy that it prompted on the street below. On our way out we ran into our friend, Tyler, who was buying a hand made palm bird hat…loooved it! I wish I got me one too.
Click Photo Below for Gran Carnival Parade Photo Album:
I am sorry to disappoint anyone, but that was the end of our Carnival celebrations. We just could not handle the crowds there that night and went to Audrey’s house for dinner for some excellent homemade chicken curry instead. In honor of the last night of Carnival we did throw back a couple of Salva Vidas. And then our age kicked in, we were yawning and ready to get home around 9:30pm!
Carnival set us up for our summer of celebrations. Well, the summer months of June, July and August that is (Summer here started at the beginning of April and ends around July – mind you it is hot here all the time). We leave May 29th for a three week trip through Northern Costa Rica and Nicaragua for another visa renewal. Then July 1st, the Mayer’s of Braunfels, TX are visiting for 2 weeks! After that we have a long weekend in Utila the first weekend in August for Sun Jam, a techno music festival. And we end August up with my two teen nephews from Oregon visiting here for two weeks. Wooo Hoooo! With this all said, my writing may slack off for awhile. If I can write short posts, which a lot of you know just may be impossible, I will do quickies to keep you abreast of our whereabouts.
It was almost impossible for me to write hell in the title when talking about Cayos Cochinos, a set of wonderfully beautiful small islands right off the coast from La Ceiba. Cayos Cochinos is usually thought of as heaven on earth, but I guess even heaven takes a day off.
The day was planned by Audrey and Jerome for a belated birthday celebration for Audrey. What a nice present, a day diving trip to tropical islands! Audrey and Jerome promptly picked us up at 6:30am. We had a surprise for them, small slices of our homemade cheesecake. A great way to start what we thought was going to be a great day! We got to the hotel near Sambo Creek on time, but not everyone else was on time. We are used to people being late in Honduras, so we just checked out the hotel and beach. When the others finally arrived, the boat was still not ready to take us, more delays.
Finally on the water, which was not as calm as I had seen in some photos the night before, we headed for the islands. The boat captain was going like a bat out of hell which apparently the engine did not like as it stopped for a short period of time. Once he got the engine back in order, the captain then drove at an obnoxiously slow speed, that is, until he ran out of gas! But low and behold, he had more gas and we finally made it to the island where our dive shop was. You would think after the dive masters making lots of comments about our tardiness, would have been ready and raring to go, but again we had to wait for them to get things in order.
I am not sure when we finally made it out for our first dive, but what is usually done is for a day of diving is after the first dive we have lunch, and afterwards we do the second dive. It went a little different on this particular day. Our first dive was nice, no problems, not much fish either, but nice coral. On the way to our second dive, oil needed to be added to the transmission of the dive boat which was having trouble getting into gear. Yes, boat problems and tardiness is the theme for the day, but I have not even started to tell you about the good stuff!
We did not stop for lunch because of the late start, so we went straight to the second dive location. We got in and had another nice dive. That was until we all popped our heads up from under the water ready to get on the boat, and there was no boat! Just a little thing that may cause fear in most divers, but in our situation we were not far from an island, so we could swim for shore if the need be. But we did not swim to shore because it would be hard to get back out if the boat showed up quickly. Also the boat could not get close to shore because of the shallow reef. Well, one of us did swim to shore, not a good thing to leave the group, but land is a safe place to be. The rest of us did not get to just float in the water waiting, we had to tread in very rough water and we had to do it for 45 minutes.
We saw a boat come from around the island and were happy to finally get picked up, but the boat went straight out to sea to another boat. Fortunately after stopping shortly at that boat, which we found out later was ours, it came in to get us. Oh yeah! A dive boat is usually moored to a line and the engine is off while divers are getting on and off, but since the water was so rough we had to keep on swimming to get to the moving boat, a bit taxing after the 45 minute treading exercise. All of us got on, except one, the one on shore. We waved Jerome to swim back over and over again, but he did not move. There was no way for the boat to go any closer to shore because of all the coral. Then the park ranger showed up. Cayos Cochinos is a national park including the reefs surrounding the islands. And the rangers here are not cute little guys wearing those odd shaped hats like in Yogi Bear, they were in military uniforms carrying AK47s. Their boat is next to ours and it was a face off…they are looking at us, we are looking at Jerome, and I have no idea what Jerome was doing, looking for seashells maybe.
Did I mention the water was rough? Yes, well, that means it made for a very seasicky wait. Jim’s skin had gone pale, which is odd after being in the sun all day. And he was not the only one feeling the effects of the motion from the ocean! One of the girl divers got sick a couple times. Finally one of the dive masters jumped in to swim to shore, Jerome seeing this puts on his fins and mask finally, and starts swimming back to the boat leaving his BCD and tank on shore. Guess he was just not going to drudge it back with him through the very dangerous coral and sea urchins. The dive master bravely put on the brand new equipment and swam back to the boat. New dive company, new gear, old dive boat drifting off to sea…not priceless.
It took a bit of time, but we finally figured out what happened to our original boat. Since the water was rough, the boat had turned itself around on the moor line. The line apparently broke getting caught in the propellers leaving the engine not able to work. The Captain and our snorkeler friend Jennifer were drifting off to sea. So after we were picked up and dropped off on the nearby island, the boat went out again to tow our original boat in.
Click the Photo Below for the After 2nd Dive Rescue at Sea Album:
We were let off to relax at a little resort, Plantation Beach. A resort in Honduras usually means a low key private hotel with hopefully nice rooms, but no where near the 5 star idea you have when thinking of a resort in other parts of the world. This one was nice, right on the water, with hammocks and beer…but no open kitchen in the hours between lunch and dinner. Mind you we ate breakfast at 6:00am, had not had lunch, went on two dives and treaded water for 45 minutes in rough seas… we were hungry. One of the dive masters brought out bread and peanut butter. We either had a half or whole slice of the combo. Bowl of cereal at 6:00am, half of piece of bread with pb for lunch with 2 beers at 2:30pm…sounds like the French diet made its way to Cayos Cochinos!
Once the broken boat was safely anchored in the bay we were taxied back to the dive shop on a small boat, called a dori which are very common in the Bay Islands. It is made of wood, around 5 feet wide and 20 feet long with wood planks across the boat for seats. It has around a 60 horsepower motor on it and fortunately a cabinet in the bow to keep our belongings dry. You are probably wondering, “Why is she telling us details about this particular boat,” well that story is next.
Excessive tardiness, being stranded at sea and not having lunch was nothing compared to our ride back home. First, the ride from Plantation Beach to Pirates Island was a wet one, which means the sea was getting even more rough. Not only were the waves high, the wind was whipping water at us as well. I was in the back of the boat getting smacked directly in the face with heavy sprays of sea water over and over. In the spirit of making everyone laugh I stood up, shook my fist towards the heavens and yelled up in to the now dark clouds, “Is that all you got?”
I jest, but I should have been a bit more serious when the captain asked us if anyone really needed to get back to the mainland that night as the sea was getting rough. Jerome and Audrey needed to get back for work and their dog. Another girl had a flight the next morning. Jim and I had to make it to our landlord’s birthday party. I wish I had said something to Jim because afterwards we were both thinking to ourselves that we wanted to stay overnight on the cool little island! But instead of talking to Jim, I did ask the Captain if he could handle the ride back. He answered, “Yes!” This was the wrong answer.
The ride back did not start off too bad, but it was obviously going to be a wet one. I was able to turn my back towards the hard waves hitting me, but others could not and kept getting smacked right in the face. In one way it was funny especially when Audrey explained the similarity to the “French spa treatment” in Brittany where “therapists” through buckets of freezing water at you. That was the last of the funny because after that the swells, the word swell does not seem enough to describe the seas we were facing, the rough waves were getting bigger. They rocked our little boat towards capsizing a few times, once tumbling everyone to the right side of the boat, on top of me after plowing into the back side of a wave.
We secured our life preservers on tightly and buckled down for a hard ride home. I think the Captain was doing famously considering the situation, he said he could handle it and I believed him. Once when the boat almost tipped over, he righted it and all was safe. And then we saw lightning in the distance and it started to rain on us. We joked that the fresh water would at least rinse the salt water off our faces. I was scared, worried, but was sure raging sea could be handled by the right man. That was until our “man” asked Jerome to come to the back of the boat and announced that he suffers severely from a panic disorder and he needed to take a break. After seeing fear in all our eyes, and I am sure experiencing it himself, one of our fellow divers, Greg, spoke up to tell us he has had a lot of experience with boats. It was not a hard decision, they were voted in as our new captains. Greg got more than he planned for on this business trip down to La Ceiba. After some rough riding, our former captain had not calmed his nerves and needed to lay on the floor of the boat. I think his nerves were the only ones that were getting any attention on that boat, the rest of us were in survival mode. And then while lying on my husband’s feet, the now ex-captain asked if I could hold his hand! At first I thought he was joking, but the poor guy was not. I took his hand and held on tight because 1) I could not turn that request down to anyone, 2) it comforted me as well, and 3) Jim wouldn’t hold my hand because he was holding on to the boat for dear life.
By this time I had already started my praying, but now I told Jim he should start praying as well. I was not only worried for my life or Jim’s, but I was afraid someone on the boat would get hurt. If that heavy boat capsized there was a good chance it would hit someone on the head or trap someone underneath it. But even with this fear, I could not help seeing the humor in it all. If I was going down…I might as well laugh. I kept on calling our new captains, Lt. Dan and Forrest because with the water slapping them in their face over and over again and their can-do attitude I could not help visualizing that storm scene on the shrimp boat in Forrest Gump, a movie that was on my mind, if you got the first reference earlier in this post.
The ride was even rougher with our new sea captains Jerome and Greg. They were unfamiliar with the boat and the waves, but I applaud their skills. Then one wave, the waves were now getting up to 7 feet high, hit us hard on the right side knocking Jerome and Jim out of the boat on the left side and flooding the whole back of the boat with water. I did not know what happened because I was keeping myself from going head over backwards into the water as well as making sure Audrey, who was almost all the way on top of me, did not get hurt nor hurt me. Once the boat was righted, I saw Jim in the water around 30 feet from the boat, I reached out to him worried to death. Then “Navy Man” Robert jumped in to try to help them. Robert, just discharged from the Navy, was getting more dive certifications. He passed rescue diving if you ask me, but not sure if it helped with him in the water too. His lack of concern about himself to try to help others so highly impressed me, especially since one of them was my Sweetie.
With that said, knocked out of his panic attack, and maybe a shot of adrenaline, our original Captain got back into action. With his help at the wheel, we got the three guys back in the boat. Fortunately, we were not too far from land and after seeing Jim in the water and the chance of capsizing had me wanting to dive in to try to swim to shore. But the decision was made to head straight to shore and not worry if we were close to our landing spot or not. The attempt almost had us in the water again, but finally we made it to land.
When we all got out we tried to pull the heavy boat in as far as we could setting the anchor in the sand hoping that would keep it safe. Then we thanked God, hugged each other and got our land legs back. After the euphoria settled down, we realized we had no idea where we were.
The clouds were dark and although you couldn’t see the sun it was about to set. Lighting was still striking, thunder boomed not too far off. Our adventure was not over yet. It was decided to walk, our motley drenched hungry tired and scared crew walked on. A bad day was not going to beat us! We probably looked like one sad group as we started our trek down the dark beach lined with even darker jungle woods.
Click Photo Below for the Making it to Land Album:
As I mentioned earlier, there was a little cabinet in the front of the boat that kept our supplies dry, so cell phones were in working order. Calls were made to get people looking for us. They started to look for us, but we were so far down the beach they did not find us for quite awhile. Around an hour later and maybe 2 miles we saw a truck on the beach. We were saved! We loaded on the truck, but as I feared after a short while we got stuck in the sand. Does this hell day every end?
It did. Another car came through the woods on a dirt road. The final adventure of this Dive Day from Hell story was to get the truck unstuck so we could get on our way. Thank goodness it did not take long and within the next hour we were home and safe. Starving and coming down from the adrenalin rush, we were dumb founded and did not know what to do until Jim’s stomach spoke up. I could not fathom going out or even eating for that matter, so my “thank God he is still alive” man got some food and forced me to eat.
I tried to sleep a short while later, but when I was lying down with my eyes closed, the bed swayed sharply back and forth as if I was still on the boat. After I calmed myself, I finally fell asleep only to be rudely awakened quickly by a bad dream of a giant wave washing over me right there in bed. I tried sleep again, until the same exact dream came back as soon as I drifted off. After that I made Jim come to bed with me, I did not care how hot it was that night, I was going to snuggle up with the man I love for safety. And it worked.
A day of relaxation and telling the story a few hundred times was our therapy. Jim had to deal with a bruised hip and shin, and I had just one scrape, but we now can laugh and joke about it all. Some fishermen from Utila, a nearby island, that were on the water at the same time as us were not as fortunate.
Now that I scared all of you from coming down and enjoying the beautiful usually calm Caribbean Sea, what we experienced really was not a normal day. I will not make excuses, mistakes were made and it could have cost someone their life, but my philosophy is “No one is perfect and everyone deserves a second chance.” And most of all, we survived to tell about it! Coming out soon from Harper Collins, Treading, Tossed and Beach Trails, The Story of Two People’s Day in Paradise.
We decided to take weekend trip last minute because of a day dive trip to Cayos Cochinos was called off due to bad weather (next post is about our near death dive day from hell we had the following weekend at Cayos Cochinos), but it worked out perfectly because right before we were going to leave, Gerald, our landlord, gave us the keys to his truck for the weekend. He is just that nice. At first Jim did not want to drive, since it is not our car or a rental, and it is more dangerous here. Hondurans drive crazy and there is some unwritten middle lane rule on the “highways” that scares the bejiggers out of us. And they will swerve wildly into oncoming traffic to avoid what may be a small pothole but hold steady when they might clip a pedestrian, dog or motorcyclist. But after thinking about the traveling freedom it would give us, we took Gerald up on his offer and off we went.
The ride to the little village of Los Naranjos on Lago de Yojoa took us 4 hours and it went smoothly. Fortunately since it was a holiday, there was little traffic, and since we did not hit the road until 2pm it was dark by the time we got to Pena Blanca. While driving through we passed by a teeny tiny cute little carnival. The holiday weekend had started! We took the turnoff in Pena Blanca to get to Los Naranjos and the D and D Brewery and Hotel. Jim had a micro-brew beer in hand even before we were settled into our room. The small hotel and even smaller brewery were quite cute and very lush. People were gathered around small tables telling tales of their day’s adventures, while we tried the much acclaimed microbrews and hamburgers. The place shuts down at 9pm, so early to bed in our very comfortable $12.50 a night room!
The next day we did not get a super early start, but not super late either. We decided, since we had a car, to go on a road trip around the lake to check out some of the small villages along the way. The first interesting thing we came upon in a tiny village was a big blue circus type tent with a semi-truck parked in front if it. On the side of the truck was written: “El Globo del Muerte!” (The Globe of Death). We were intrigued and found out it was one of those metal ball cages where the motorcycles ride around inside, upside down and sideways. I was ready to buy tickets, but we had a road trip adventure ahead of us.
We were told part of the way would be off-road, and boy oh boy was it. Okay, we have been on worse roads; at least it was dry dirt and not mud until it started raining lightly! Jim handled the drive famously and I enjoyed the view, or complained about the bumpiness while I was trying to take photos! We took our time and even stopped for a cricket crossing the road in a stream bed we crossed!
Click the Photo Below for the Trip Around the Lake Photos:
Our first major stop was Santa Barbara. The area is best known for their coffee and junco crafts. It is a small town set on a hillside, and that appeared to be the best thing about it. As with cities of any size here in Honduras, finding one with charm requires some searching. And to top it all off, the Parque Central in Santa Barbara was under construction and all fenced in. So, we just stopped the car, decided not to get out and then drove on through. Our next stop was Gualala.
Aaaah, Gualala…we loved Gualala! There is a long well cared for road to get into the center of town and on this day it was closed off for the labor holiday weekend festivities. We think we just missed horse races or some kind of horse show. We were amazed at the horses we saw, because the typical horses we see in Honduras are the size of donkeys and are usually grey. These horses were big, and wonderfully beautiful. They also had shining coats in chestnut, black and white. They pranced with an overwhelming amount of pride. It was nice just to be near them.
When nothing was happening with the horses we decided to walk to the center of town. It is a sleepy town, with white washed houses and old terracotta tiled roofs. Although it was hot, we enjoyed the walk through this quaint Honduran town. We made it to the Parque Central with its well taken care of large church on one side. Jim said the central square and church reminded him of the one in Valladolid, Yucatan, Mexico. It was pretty empty, but there were some booths set up selling wares. Homemade colorful candies appear to be the most common item for sale in Gualala! We bought some for our landlord’s family and asked about the festivities. A big fiesta was planned to start at 4pm, in about 3 hours. In Honduran time, that typically means well after sunset. We would miss the party, but realized we had to pass by the town on the way home and maybe we would get to see a glimpse the fun.
On one corner of the square there was a booth with a spinning colorful circle made of wood on it. It had the smell of gambling to me, so I went straight over and proceeded to gamble with some 1 Lempira bills (approximately 6 cents U.S.). I won, I lost and I won again. I did not want to walk away from this particular casino as a winner, so I bet one more time and walked away as a slight loser…but happy for the entertainment.
Walking back through town towards the car we noticed many sweaty boys running in uniforms. Running is not a sport people typically seem to do here unless there is a ball you need to kick around at the same time. So our interest was peaked and realized they were actually racing, beginning and ending at the local school. Running in t-shirts and long sweat pants in horrid heat and humidity is alone an accomplishment. Kudos to all those kids! As we got out the way of the runners, we enjoyed taking photos of the small simple homes we passed. They were mostly made of mud and sticks covered in a thin layer of plaster and white washed. The whole town was very clean, an unusual thing in most of the Honduran towns we’ve seen. The people seemed muy contento and harmonious. We really enjoyed our short stay in Gualala and would recommend going back there for their Labor Day celebrations!
We had to move on, and on we went to Trinidad! Trinidad did have some of the cute cobblestone streets mentioned in Lonely Planet, but that was as far as it went in the quaintness department. We went on a short walk looking for a place to eat, but not many businesses were open. The ones that were open did not look as good as the one we saw on the river at the town entry. We went back and had lunch, Jim a skinny burrito thing and me, a chewy meat pincho (kebab). After finishing lunch and our favorite refreshing drink, Fresca, a grapefruit flavored soda, we were on our way.
We were on our way back towards Gualala after 4pm, so we did a drive through to see if the fiesta had picked up momentum yet. Although things had picked up in the main square, they were only just setting up for the fiesta! We saw two trunks filled with musicians and instruments, a stage being decorated and more people milling around, but no partying as of yet. We needed to move on and reluctantly left cute little Gualala. On the road back right outside of town we passed a truck filled with speakers heading towards Gualala, that fiesta was going to rock!
After Gualala we stopped in tiny little Ilama, took photos and walked around for a short bit. It is a sleepy little town with a big old municipal building. Not the cutest little town in the country, but due to the people walking in and out of church, the two kids on bikes using the two or three words of English they knew on me, and the giant tree in the dirt Parque Central made for a laid back welcoming feel.
Since we had only gone less than half way around Lago de Yojoa, we had to make up some time to get back before it got too late in the evening. Fortunately, the roads were all paved on this route, so the driving went smoothly. Well, if you do not mind cars coming straight towards you as they pass huge trucks. This is what I mentioned at the beginning of this post. The unwritten “middle lane” rule. If a car is passing another car and coming straight towards you, you move over so it can fit in between! I joked with Jim that he would never be a Honduran driver if he did not do the following: pass a car on a blind curve, pass a car while going up a hill, or pass a car when there is oncoming traffic. Well, I learned not to challenge Jim because he did all three, and not only did he do all three, he passed a car on a blind curve while going up a hill! My eyes were closed so he might have done it with on coming traffic as well! It sounds dangerous, but it really is not as bad as you think. Since all drivers know this happens, people move over, slow down and so on. But with that said, we did see 3 significant accidents on the road during the weekend away. I can honestly say, although Jim did drive Honduran style, he did it much safer than most.
Our drive back to D and D was mellow, and I am happy to say we had time to stop and enjoy some of the road side crafts for sale. In the Lago de Yojoa area, “junco” crafts are popular. They include items made of reed such as hats, purses, mats and baskets. And at many road side huts, there is typically a hammock or two. We got a good size open basket for our shoes for only $2.50! Further along the drive near the shore of the lake, we had to stop for a photo op of the fish hanging out for sale on the roadside. If it could be sold in the Honduran countryside, they will sell on the road side!
After we returned to D and D, Jim went for a dip in the pool and I read nearby. When people started to gather for dinner, we moved over to the tables to talk with the new guests. And of course more of the micro-brew sodas and mirco-brew beer was ingested as well as dinner. It is always fun to meet other travelers from all over the world and hear about their experiences. On this particular night we also had live entertainment. Bob, the owner of D and D, along with some of his expat friends played some blue grass. Even a talented guest joined when another guitar appeared. Very nice. The “bar” was open a bit later on this particular night so we stayed to talk more to a young American couple that was at the end of their year teaching in Gracias, a little town in the mountains. After hearing more about it, now we really want to see Gracias even more!
The next day was waterfall day! We have heard and read about the Pulhapanzak Falls. Pulhapanzak is most likely a Lenca word. Lenca are the indigenous people of this part of Honduras and the area around the lake was apparently their capital. They are the largest indigenous population in Honduras and cover the largest geographic area. The Lempira which is what Honduran money is called is named after a young Lenca chieftain, who is now a hero for fighting against the Spanish Repression in 1537. There are several Lenca ruins in the area, but what we heard was they are still un-restored mounds of earth, or that they are not marked and hard to find, which we found out the hard way.
Back to the falls, since it was still a holiday weekend, the whole falls area was packed with Hondurans enjoying their day off in the cool river waters. At the top of the falls is a swimming and picnicking area. Down a sometimes dangerous walk you can get to the bottom of the falls which proves to be a bit wet from the spray, but offers a great view of the whole thing top to bottom. The park offers zip lines across the top of the 150 foot Falls. We were also thinking about getting a guide to go into the caves behind the falls, but we were just too hot and wanted to cool off in the water first. We had a nice day and even met a guy from Detroit who had recently been laid off from his engineering job at Ford, his cool job of trying to make race cars go faster just did not seem as needed in these economic times. Before the layoff he had a wedding to attend in Costa Rica, so instead of flying, he decided to drive his motorcycle down. He was on his way back to the States but seemed drawn to explore further given the weak economic prospects back home. Since he spoke Spanish fluently we tried to convince him to stay in Honduras longer and find some temporary work, but he was running out of money and the American way of life was calling him home. After awhile of enjoying nature and the people enjoying their last day of the holiday weekend, we were on our way. We made it back to D and D mid afternoon, so we just relaxed enjoying the quiet.
For our last day, Jim suggested we check out some Lenca ruins and a town a bit further away before heading back to La Ceiba. I agreed, but did not know there was tons of construction taking place on the highway which slowed things up a lot. As the Hondurans say, “As God Wills,” meaning what can you do about it! The ride was long, but not lost as we got to see very cute Comayagua, a clean colonial town of many churches and several parques dating back to the 1500s. The city was the first capital of Honduras, holding the seat of power from 1537-1880. I use the Spanish word for park, because as we think of parks, we think of grass. Many parks in Central American towns are what we call the town square and are mostly made of cement with some trees. Although that may sound not so cute to you, it is nice because it usually is a meeting and hang-out place for many people in the town where they relax on a bench under a tree and talk with their friends and loved ones. We walked around the center of town taking photos of the great churches and parques. We even got some shots of other churches on our drive out of town. Would really like to go back to Comayagua for their Semana Santa celebration when they blanket the main street in beautiful pictures made from colored sawdust only to be trampled over right after it is finished for an Easter procession! Goodbye Comayagua, hope to see you again!
Another thing we became more aware of during the long ride home was how most of the small villages along the highway have their own special item for sale. And what is so neat about this, is house after house, or teeny tiny stand after stand, sell exactly the same items. One could wonder how does any one place make enough money to survive with all the competition, but for the traveler zooming by it makes for good road side entertainment. We also noticed that the highway widening project was displacing a large number of these road side stands. Fortunately, it appears that someone is building new, modern, concrete and metal vendor stalls every so often with parking areas to replace the old dilapidated stalls that are “in the way of progress.” I’m sure the roadside shanty vendors will survive but they will probably be competing with the lucky few that get a stall in the new “stall-parks.”
Near the lake it was the junco items for sale, baskets, purses, dolls and hats made from reed. And of course fish as well. Then going up the mountain it was homemade honey, tons and tons of bottles filled with honey! You could see the light shining through the rich gold color as we drove quickly by. Going down the mountain there were hundreds and hundreds of mangos, which are in season right now, for sale. Brightly colored mangos lined up neatly, stand after stand. And then there was pottery, tons of it. I must say, I was not impressed with the pottery at these particular stands. They looked too much like machine made and tacky at that, but who knows. Also for sale at these pottery stands were bird cages, which should have alarmed us to what was being sold in the next town. At first it looked as though a woman was trying to rid herself of an annoying pet, but she was actually trying to sell the green parrot that was sitting on the end of the stick she was waving at us! And then another woman was doing the same thing a few houses down, and then a young girl after that. Now…I totally wholehearted agree with selling wares you make, but how did this town come up with selling the birds? Since there are so many NGOs (non-government organizations) down here, Jim thought one might have helped some of the towns with micro-enterprise plans. But could you imagine an NGO saying, “Hey, you have a lot of parrots living wild here, why don’t you clip their wings and sell them for imprisonment?” Whatever…those particular people found a way to make money to survive, more power to them. I am not for taking animals from the jungle and selling them for a life in a cage, but who am I to say what is wrong or right if selling those parrots put food on their table? Until they or someone else helps find another way to make money to survive they are going to do what it takes.
We made it home right after dark and thanks to Gerald for loaning us his car the trip was so much more exciting, interesting and easier! We can not let ourselves get pampered with car travel because in June we will be travelling for 3 days on buses to get to another country to renew our visa. I’m sure we will have many adventures along the way. We looked into flying, but the prices were just more than we can spend. So, back to my motto of “It is an adventure to get to an adventure!”
A now funny little video of a cool little Honduran bug…and friends:
This post is all about Casa Del Nino! Wait…I promised secrets about the French Diet, so at the end you will get the truth about the French Diet straight from a French girls mouth. Okay from her cute little French accent mouth to my hands!
We will start off with Beading Day with the boys. Did you know Hondurans boys of all ages go crazy for beads? Well they do! And not only the boys, the male adult staff got involved as well.
It would not have been able to happen if it were not for some of the supplies Coni, the longtime Swiss Volunteer at Casa Del Nino had, and also supplies sent from friends and family from the states! Although I found a place to get clasps for cheap, cheap beads in mass amounts are not easy to come by here, as well as the really thin wire I use to make beading needles. So thanks to all and the kids appreciate it.
The boys made necklaces and bracelets, some for themselves, some for novias (girlfriends), some for the female staff or some even for family members. Their favorite colors were the colors of the Honduras flag or their favorite local futbol team, so some colors were scarce but they made due. Our job was to tie knots for the clasps, between my failing eyes and Jim’s fumbling large fingers it was not an easy task, but we were glad to do it. It seems the clasps made all the difference to the boys, like they had real jewelry instead of something just tied together at the end in a knot.
Jim learned new Spanish words that day, for example knot, string, and clasp! Okay I learned the one for clasp too that day. And although the staff was there they did not help us, they just made necklaces too. Like I am getting supplies sent from the states for them to use! But I could not say no, because seeing grown men beading was so cute!
At the end of the activity when we were cleaning up, Angel, one of the boys, came up to me and said, “Dona, Gracias! Gracias por todos! Y dice su esposo gracias tambien.” Translated to “Dawn (they call be Dona), Thank you. Thank you for everything. And tell your husband thank you too.” Although some of the staff and even some of the kids thank me, that thank you sank deep down inside me and it was so really very nice. I felt his appreciation.
The thing is, since that day, Angel has been a bit distant from me. I think that they do not want to get attached and pull away at times to keep their emotions in check. That breaks my heart. He is old enough to have had his heart broken over and over again; I do not want to be another cause for another broken heart.
On another day, I had asked another boy how was the weekend home with his family, and he just looked sad. I asked him if he was sad because of coming back to the orphanage or because of going back home. He just simply said in a quiet voice, “Mi casa.” He looked so down and I felt so bad for bringing it up, so I tried to hug him, but he would not let me touch him. This is a boy who runs to hug me every time I see him, and is usually happy as well. What happened in this family of his that makes him so sad? Some of the boys were abused and/or neglected before their days at the orphanage. Why do the authorities let them back into those situations? But they do, over and over again. This one particular boy is the size of probably a 5 year old American child and he is almost 10 years old. I have been told it is because he was malnourished before coming to Casa Del Nino. At least is older brother is there with him.
I just want to take them all up in my arms and give them everything they need. And these boys do not need Gameboys and $75.00 sneakers, they need lots of love, attention, more education and tons of understanding with the right amount of discipline.
Okay I better stop before I start to cry! I miss them now! I miss their hugs, their saying my name over and over again when they want my attention, their asking me, “What are we doing today?” and them giving me a hard time when I say something wrong in Spanish!
Click Photo Below for the Beading Day Photo Album:
Let me go on to a project Jim is leading at Casa Del Nino. The computer room make over. Jim first went in to check the computers they had and what they would need to update them. It was a sad scene with very old and corrupted computers not hooked up to the internet. Jim took notes to start his research to see what he would need to make it all better. This same week, Jim needed to go to a computer store to buy a part to fix our broken computer. Our landlord took him to Technos Computers, as the owner is a friend his. Well, Jim came away with more that getting our computer fixed for a great price. He described the condition of the computers and that after being fixed they would be used for teaching basic computer classes if funding is found for a teacher. Jim was hoping to, at least, get a discount on parts to fix the computers, or better yet, get some for free since the computers are so old and the computer store may have old parts lying around of minimal or no value. He was also hoping the computer store guy knew someone interested in teaching for free an hour or two each week. The owner agreed to help repair the computers by sending one of his technicians for free with Jim to the orphanage. Not only that, he also said one of his staff was excited about teaching classes and could teach for free one day per week.
Then the next thing we know, the director of Casa Del Nino said he had some “new” used computers coming in. Joy Joy Happy Happy! So, the team from Technos Computers is now in the process or updating, re-installing and uncorrupting the computers to get them ready for a group of volunteers coming from the States in mid June. These volunteers are going to build computer tables, so there is adequate space for all of the computers. They are also going to hook the computers up to the internet and put an air conditioner in the room which becomes like a Bikram Yoga studio in the afternoon. God Bless volunteers on mission work! They come down for a week or two on what is most likely their vacation time and work up a storm to make things happen. The last group down to Casa Del Nino in March, painted the entire outside of the orphanage, built new ceilings in the office and kitchen as well as putting in new lights and fans.
So, Jim’s hope is that by July 1 we can have a complete make over of the computer room with classes starting to boot! Wish Jim luck!
Click the Photo Below to see photos of the Computer Room Make Over So Far Album:
This is how it goes, not a pretty tale, but lots of pretty thin French women live by it! Okay, you get up, usually late so you get coffee on the run and maybe 2 pieces of bread. Then all morning at work you drink 5 or 6 more cups of coffee. Since you can not smoke in the building while you work, you smoke like 10 cigarettes as well as maybe shop for lunch. After work you go to what is similar to an after work happy hourswith friends and work mates. You drink white wine and/or champagne. No one will say they are hungry, so you just drink more and more, until one of the girls in your group will finally admit they are hungry. So everyone orders a salad but no one dare finish it, much less eat more than half! You drink some more, talk about going home, but end up going to a late night bar, dance off the alcohol you drank and then go home late. Everything starts all over the next day with getting up late grabbing coffee and just two little pieces of bread and lots of coffee.
So with that story told, our resident French girl admitted you are always starving, but you fit into size -0 designer clothes and that is what is really important!
Good luck with that diet and pass me a beer and chips please!
Enough with the Panama talk, lets get down and dirty about our regular every day life here in La Ceiba, Honduras.
I was going to write a darker piece telling of the dangers, the health issues and so on, but that is just not my style. In a nutshell, life is life no matter where you are. We get up, eat breakfast, check online communications, do chores, work on volunteer stuff (for Jim it is making calls and doing reports on the computer, and for me it is preparing for activities with the boys at the orphanage), and have lunch. Okay, we may play a game or two as well. Then we go do volunteer work (right now it is mostly all at Casa Del Nino for both of us) and run errands. We also have to buy food frequently because 1) we buy all our veggies and fruit fresh from the street market and 2) our fridge is tiny so there is not enough room to keep extra food. Then we make and eat dinner. In the evenings we do a number of different things such as play on the computer (right now Jim is addicted to the Pirates game on Facebook, and I play the WordPath game some), work on the blog, more volunteer work, or watch TV shows or movies that we have downloaded. If we are lucky we have plans with friends for the evening, either for dinner out, a movie (the ticket now knows us and recommends the movie for us), or drinks out most likely at Expats. And sometimes we do stuff with our neighbors, like make dinner together or do something with their extended family. Most weekends it is usually the same kind of stuff, but sometimes we go away to visit more of Honduras.
So, although the blog posts make it seem like party party and tropical wonderlands…it is not that all the time. And we do all this stuff in extreme heat and humidity…which feels like twice the work. I am not saying we are super dooper busy or our life is hard…it is far from it. I am just saying we are really living a normal life, but in a developing tropical country on the Caribbean Sea.
And here is our apartment, simple, but bigger than we had planned! It is still cheap compared to California but costs more per month than most of the people in this country make. The best part is it came with a landlord that is the best ever!
Please Click Photo Below to view Apartment Photo Album:
Now…let’s talk about some of the more fun things that happen in our regular daily life! Like Semana Santa, Saint’s week to the people of Central America, Easter week to you and me. The difference is that most people get most of the week before Easter off, not just the kids in school! Also, starting the Sunday before Easter, there are religious events in the center of town, and not sure why, big concerts and parties in Zona Viva (basically the night life part of town) every night. It is also the official start to summer in this part of the world, and the weather proves it!
We did not participate in Semana Santa activities every day, but I will share with you what we did do! On the Tuesday before Easter, we went to Pico Bonito National Park right outside of town with the boys from the orphanage for a day at the river. It was a great day, not too hot, but hot enough for you to want to get into the water. The kids went in quickly and some of the staff and most of the volunteers followed suit. The kids had a blast…it was wonderful watching them just be kids and enjoy themselves so much. Jim and I were very worried when the older boys started to jump off high rocks in what was about 4.5 – 5 feet of water, but the staff did not mind so we tried not to worry anymore. A little side bar here, I really think that Americans are way over the top paranoid about anything from letting their kids do stuff like jumping off high rocks into the water to not eating leftovers properly stored in the fridge. It is nice sometimes to be around people a bit more free from the limits we give ourselves.
The staff had packed a huge lunch for everyone, a rice dish mixed with meats and a teeny tiny bit of veggies, very tasty! After lunch the boys swam and played some more. A good day and a good start to our Semana Santa festivities!
Click on Photo Below for the River Day Photo Album:
Then Wednesday night we headed out to the Zona Viva to see some of the nighttime Semana Santa action going on! We got a nice filling dinner first and then met up with Audrey to check out the music scene. We went to the Salva Vida Party area, and mind you I tried to crash the parties, but they all were open to everyone! What a concept, let’s not leave anyone out! If you are not sure, Salva Vida is the most consumed beer in Honduras. There are 4 major brands of beer here in Honduras all made by the same company. I like it because the name means, “Life Saver!” Ha! Anyway, the Salva Vida party was not a free one, but we went for it anyway. They asked for a whopping 20 lempiras, uh, that is around $1.00! The best part was they also handed you a beer for that price…entry and a beer for a dollar…and no high falutin V.I.P. areas. I just might give up my party crashing habits! Uh…nah!
Salva Vida was advertised everywhere, on the tents, on the tables, the chairs, the fridges, the stage, and even the bathrooms I think! Hey for that price, they could have tattooed my forehead if they wanted! We hung out and chatted until the concert started. It was a popular Honduran band, but I can not recall the name. They played some original music, but it was not typical Latin music that we are used to. They were a rock band, I would say more a pop rock band, and they were very entertaining. We got silly and moved right up close to the stage, with around 15 teenagers. Although it was a popular band, most of the crowd (over a thousand) stood and sat so far away! I may give up crashing, but I ain’t giving up dancing!
After a bit, Jerome, Audrey’s husband, joined us and we all decided to check out the rest of the goings on in Zona Viva. All along the road hippies from Brazil to Canada were selling their wares, mostly hand made jewelry and hand drawn fake tattoos. After we had a look-see we headed for the Heineken and Red Bull DJ techno music party! It was right on the beach and it was techno alright! It was great to hear it because you just do not get techno music much down here. Audrey and I danced and danced and danced and then Jim bought us light up red devil horns and then we danced some more. It felt so good to just dance and be free especially on the beach. We were so hot and I finally figured out why Audrey kept on dancing very close in front of the speakers. When I went to talk to her, the pounding of the music was creating little waves and puffs of air. It was like a sound fan! After dancing myself to exhaustion we left, but the parties were still going and so was Audrey!
Thursday our Semana Santa celebration was very low key. We went to the feet washing mass at the main Catholic Church in town. I was not sure what was going to happen, but I was sure to get my $5.00 pedicure earlier that day. I did not want anyone to have to wash my skanky dirty and in need of polish feet! You see it is hard to keep your feet clean all the time if you are wearing flip-flops and walk in the dirt, gravel and dusty roads every day! Well, to my disappointment the priest only washed the feet of the people in the front row of the mass. But the entertainment value of going to church in Honduras was worth the longer than usual mass. You see, the Priest did not just talk loudly for all to hear him, he yelled as if he was trying to scare the devil out of each and every one of us. Jim said they had the amplifier turned up to 11. I did not feel like I was at a Catholic mass, it was more like being at a religious revival under a big tent with healing and speaking in tongues. Okay there was no healing and speaking in tongues going on, but he sounded like the many evangelical preachers that have built up their own churches here. Sometimes I can hear them from down the street because they do like their PA systems and they like them loud! Anyway that was the only Semana Santa activity we did for that day, a loud sermon in Spanish and some prayers! Hope God could hear me over all that yelling!
Friday we were off for our neighbors Family’s Semana Santa party at their rural property on the edge of town. Gerald and Ramina just bought this property and it is nice. It has an old house that needs work with this giant size pool that needs even more work. But since the work on the pool would not be ready in time for Semana Santa, Gerald decided that he wanted a pool now and bought a 5 foot out of the ground pool that he put in the deep end of the giant pool! Ha…very Honduran! The property is covered with great old large trees and lots of grass, very much like a well manicured tropical park. They had also trucked in sand to make a “beach” play area complete with large shade tents, hammocks and a blow up slide. There was a volleyball net and a small ATV for people to play on as well, a beautiful spot. He plans to make a business out of it for events and such. We went around 2pm and hung out all afternoon and into the night with many of Ramina’s family and some of their close friends. Goodness, I did not know you could have so much fun without alcohol! And I am sure all the parents just loved me because after dinner, which was also around 8pm, I pulled out the little Easter bags I had made for all the kids! Even a barely walking toddler got to eat her candy! We left the hyped up sugar eaters not too long after that! Ha!
Although we forgot to take pictures that day, below are a couple of photos of Gerald installing the new loud speaker system on his truck. You are not Honduran if you do not have this obnoxious loud speaker system playing all types of music loudly all day long! Gerald is very light skinned with light brown hair and looks like a Gringo, which many of his friends call him. When we saw him installing the sound system I said, “Now I know you really are Honduran!” He laughed! He and his family are such great, giving, nice people.
For the day before Easter activities, in the afternoon we donned our bathing suits and headed to the nicest hotel in La Ceiba to crash their pool deck. To our surprise, once we stepped on the pool deck we saw…wait it was like coming home. We saw…our first Honduran and probably only…yes people…this is the truth…gnomes! And not only one but, two all white gnomes holding a tan fish each! I think the many Hondurans enjoying their Semana Santa vacation at the beach thought us two Gringos just crazy for taking the photos we took. Even though we were obviously noticeable with the gnome picture taking, it was a very overly crowded scene, so it was easy to blend in and we were not the only Gringos. I was happy that I got to crash something! There were no lounge chairs so we bellied up to the pool bar and hung out there. Had a tropical cocktail and some ceviche, not as good as mine, but good enough! We hung out and watched all the activity, especially the kids jumping off this little wet slippery cement bridge into 3 feet of water. No one stopped them, and again Jim and I were worried they were going to crack their heads open. No heads were cracked, no necks were broken, no blood was shed and there was not even a single tear dropped. They were just kids having fun without worried parents telling them “No!” every five minutes. After awhile we got in the not so cold pool and met some military guys on vacation from the small American Base south of La Ceiba. After awhile they moved on, the sun was setting and we needed to move on as well. We took off down into Zona Viva where we got some baleadas to eat and a tattoo. Okay, I got a fake sea turtle tattoo to cover the hideous and large staph infection scar right dab in the middle of the front of my right calf. I think I got more stares at my leg from the black tattoo then I did from the scar. I think I have now decided that is NOT where I will get my real tattoo.
We ended Semana Santa and Easter Sunday with a Sundae! After having a most relaxing do-nothing day, we decide to share a giant dessert for Easter Sunday dinner! We had seen this awesome looking ice cream deal at the Pizza Hut, and finally just had to have it. It was worth it! Get this, the outside of the large cup/bowl was dunked in hot fudge and then rolled in nuts with the ice cream, whipped cream and more fudge on the inside!! Crazy, eh?
After Semana Santa we had a quiet week, ending with the making of what now is Jim’s famous cheese cake. We made it at Audrey and Jerome’s, since the cake was for Audrey’s birthday. Although some of the ingredients are still secret, we did a photo shoot of the making of Jim’s Hondo Cheese Cake!
Click the Photo below for Hondo Cheese Cake Photo Album:
And let’s not forget Audrey’s birthday, a night out at Expats Bar and Grill with the best birthday cake ever…the Cheese Cake which Audrey topped off with fresh strawberries! We all had a nice dinner and cheese cake which was followed up with the not-so-traditional game of darts! Audrey and Dawn rule!
Click the Photos Below for Audrey’s Birthday Photo Album!
.WE.ARE.GNOMADS. 
