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Hola,
So, the past few weeks have flown by... Corey and I are now in La Esperanza, Honduras and it is freezing cold!! This town is the highest city in Honduras, I swear I saw it snow a little last night. Alright, to catch ya up on our adventures we left Flores and headed to the Tikal Ruins. Corey and I camped there for two nights. The ruins were awesome, although I think Corey and I were more interested in the animals. We saw so much wildlife!! On one of the mornings in tikal we took an early morning walk to catch the sunrise on the top of the highest temple. From there we listened to the sound of howler monkeys in the moring mist as the sun rose over the other temples jutting out of the jungle over the horizon. That was the perfect start to what turned out to be a rather long day. The site of the ruins turned out to be much bigger than we anticipated and having got little sleep in our tent the night before, we were exhausted by lunch time. But we pushed on and saw all the important sites Tikal had to offer by the end of the day including a tonne of jungle wildlife: Howler monkeys, Spider monkeys, pacas, turkeys, tucans, parakeets, and something called a tayra.
After Tikal we continued on to Antigua. It was a beautiful colonial town built in a valley between mountains and volcanoes. It was a great hub for tourism and very picturesque. On our second day there we visited a coffee plantation to see how it was grown, processed and graded. On the grounds there was also a heritage museum where we learned about indigenous peoples traditions, music and rituals. Our third day we moved on to San Pedro La Laguna on Lago de Atitlan. Another beautiful town situated almost on the side of a volcanoe but much more remote and less busy than Antigua. It would prove to be one of our favorites. Here we made a trip to a neighbouring town called San Juan la Laguna where a woman's co-operative supported the manufacturing of hand woven textiles with natural fibres and dyes. It was nice to finally buy something that was clearly a product of the country it was sold in. The next morning we paid Antonio, one of the owners of the hotel we stayed in to take us to the "Indian's Nose" lookout to watch the sunrise. While the journey was a bit concerning the payoff was amazing! We reached the top just in time for the sunrise with a warm cup of tea. We then returned to Antigua to send some xmass presents home and begin our journey to Honduras to eventually meet up with our friend Chantel who lives and works there as a teacher.
From Antigua we took a bus to Copan Ruinas in Honduras. A bus ride that took 7 hours even though we were told 4. We arrived at night, so we quickly found a hotel and settled for the night. But not before we ate the most delicious hotdog ever invented from a kind street vendor. It was a simple hot dog bun and weiner but it was topped off with coleslaw, beats and onions, ketchup, mustard, mayo, and then jalepenos...Delicious! The next day we walked down to the ruins, which were no where comparable to Tikal. Sill cool, but the most fascinating things there was this enormous tree and all the macaws! The Copan Ruinas park was in the midst of introducing these birds back into the area, so there was still feeding posts for the birds. I guess we arrived at their dinner time because they were everywhere! We spoke to some people who only saw one or two the whole day. You'll see the photos later!
The next day we took a bus to San Pedro Sula and arrived at Chantel's house. We were able to clean up with a HOT shower and enjoy the comforts of home before we left with Chantel, Brian, and the teachers they work with, to the Bay Islands the next day. Most of the group ended up going to the island of Utila, which is a little less expensive then Roatan. We boarded a passenger boat to Utila one the very rainy Thursday afternoon. The boat ride was SO wavy I felt like I was on an episode of The Deadliest Catch! It was the worst, thankfully I had Dramamine or I would ahve been puking off the back with some of the other passengers. We spent 3 nights here, we stayed at the Mango in which I have to say was probably the best part of the whole trip! It was one of the nicest places we've stayed so far and it had an amazing pool. We relaxed on the beaches here and enjoyed some good food, and went snorkeling. Corey and I just rented some gear and swam out to the reef. It was beautiful. The four of us, Chantel, Brian, Corey and I also rented a golf cart and explored the whole island, we saw some amazing forest. We also picked up a new found friend, his name was also Brian, who explored the island with us and relexed by the pool side. Corey and I were able to try one of the main dishes of Honduras here, a Baleada. It's a flour tortilla usually stuffed with beans, eggs, cream, cheese and well whatever else. It was pretty good and cheap. Oh! and we also tried a Michealada ( usnure of the spelling on that one) which is a half of a Cesear and half of a beer. Our relaxation ended on Sunday when we had to catch the boat back to La Ceiba and bus to San Pedro Sula. Chantel and Brian had to go back to work on Monday, so Corey and I spent 2 days there to recoup on the money we spent before we left on Wednesday. It was hard to get our butts into gear that Wednesday, we were way to comfortable. But we hopped on a bus anyway, destination: La Esperanza.
La Esperanza was not quite what we were expecting in that there is virtually no help for tourists and we do not feel comfortable getting on a city bus or a cab to take us to the sites the guide books promised us. However we did manage to find a comfortable hotel to bare the nightly sub-zero temperatures. Its kind of nice going into December with a chill in the air...reminds us of home. It has been nice durring the days, it feels like a sunny late fall day. So that was enough to lift our spirits and get us out of the hotel, even if many of the people have been unwilling to deal with our lack of spanish here, and chosing to just ignore us at times. The one thing we did visit here was the chapel (more like shrine) built into a small cave at the west end of the city. It was welll kept and had an interesting back story about a general who had vowed to build the chapel after hiding out in that cave durring a battle. The view was great from above the chapel but the climb up quickly reminded us we were at high altitude. Feeling light headed and short of breath we returned to town took a small stroll through the markets, bought some interesting fruit and returned to our rooms for some reading. Tomorrow (December 2) we will catch a bus to Nicaragua, and if thats not possible than to the Honduras capitol of Tegucigalpa.
Bien Viaja!
- comments
Tia That was a great post!!!! It sounds like a real adventure. You are going o be so glad you are keeping this blog, it's going to be a great journal of your time away!!! We miss you guys, especially as it gets close to the holidays. Glad you are having fun though? Love ya!
Scott Mathieson Sounds like quite a trip! Looks like you'll miss the Xmas Mathieson thing at Brights Grove.... so tell me.. does Jen own a rolling pin?
Janet McMenamin WOW! what a trip, thanks very much for keeping us up to date an your adventure....sorry to hear about the loss of your pictures. I will keep reading your awesome trip. Aunt Janet
Corey Scott, naw, Jen is more of a fire extinguisher kinda girl.
Jen Aunt Janet, I'm glad your enjoying the blog! I wish we could post more but sometimes internet is hard to come by!