Sunday April 25, 2010

Sorry I did post this earlier. Again, thunderstorms have hindered our Internet ability and with school and my TEFL class now I am rather busy. I will blog about the post Semana Santa stuff after this post and give you all an update. But without further a do, spring break part four.

The next morning (Thursday) we packed our bags and got ready to take off. Before we checked out we went back to the roof deck of the hotel and took some pretty cool pictures. We were pretty sad to leave because the weather could have not been better. We made our way downstairs, grabbed lunch at a street vendor and hailed two cabs to take us to the highway where we could catch a bus to San Pedro. We arrived at the bus station and were sitting and waiting for a bus when Steve suddenly had this panic look on his face—he had left his iPhone in the hotel room sitting on the windowsill. The three of us (Mike, Steve and I) hailed a cab back to the hotel (10 minutes one way) and luckily Steve was able to track his phone down—however in the process he knocked over a vase in the reception area and was not quick enough to catch it before it shattered on the floor. We then hopped back in the cab and made our way back to the bus stop where the girls were about to get on a bus hoping that we would arrive in time—we did and we were off to San Pedro.






This was a rather uneventful bus ride and when we made it to the bus station in San Pedro Rachel had arranged for the hotel we were staying at to send their free shuttle to come and pick us up. We made our way to the hotel, checked in, and were rather amazed at the hotel room. This is where the girls (other teachers) and their friends or family always stay before they fly out because it is close to the airport and has a free shuttle there. They were apartment style rooms with 2 bedrooms, a living room and a small kitchen. Very nice. We relaxed in the rooms for a little bit before we decided it was time to explore the City Mall.

Now, the City Mall is the place where you feel like you are in the United States. With a giant glass front I felt like I was walking into a mall in suburban America and as I rode the escalator to the first floor I decided this mall was 5 times better then Westshore Mall in Holland. Unfortunately we arrived a little late and many of the stores were closed—plus it was the Thursday before Good Friday. However, the food court was open along with the purpose of us going to the mall, Applebee’s. First the food court: it was amazing. Quiznos, Subway, Wendy’s, so much American food I could hardly hide my excitement. I wanted to go to each place and order one item. But we decided Applebee’s was the place and there we went. We sat down and one would have thought you were in the States other than the fact that soccer was on all the televisions (bad joke, sorry). For an appetizer I ordered the infamous Applebee’s spinach artichoke dip and it never tasted better. For dinner I ordered the Western Burger. Now burgers down here in Honduras are typically a joke. They are usually small pattys. At Applebee’s I knew I was going to get a real burger and it was a real burger. Amazing. Three months away from the US and I think the thing I miss the most is the food (right after my friends and family of course…). However, I decided that my stomach has shrunk since I have been down here. Usually back home I would order the burger at Applebee’s when I am not extremely hungry and it sounds really good, and I would usually devour it no problem. This was not the case with this burger. As good as it was I could not finish about two bites of the burger—I was stuffed. It’s going to be interesting to see how much I can eat once I get home.

After satisfying my need for good American food we took a cab back to the hotel where we were all so exhausted we decided to crash. We played cards for a while but Mandi, Amy and Steve had a long day of traveling the next day so we went to bed.

Friday morning came and we headed to the airport to see off our friends. After paying their exit fee (yes, you need to pay a fee to leave Honduras) they checked-in and were off, a rather epic vacation for them and us. I couldn’t believe the week was over. However, it wasn’t…




The view from our hotel in San Pedro and Mike the morning Steve and the girls left.

As I mentioned it was Good Friday and we began to hear rumors that the entire country was closed for the day. This included the bus station and all buses. We (Mike, LB, Rachel and I) were planning on heading back to La Union and Gracias respectively and not planning on spending another night in San Pedro. However, after asking around we found that the rumors were true and we were going no-where. We had to figure out where to spend the night and after talking with a taxi driver we ended up making our way to a hostel right near town. This was a pretty cool place and for 1000 lemps ($50) we got a private room with a bunk bed and a full size bed, air-conditioning, and our own bathroom. We went into town after checking-in and got lunch. McDonalds never tasted so good. We then bought some stuff for dinner and made our way back to the hostel. We hung out the rest of the afternoon because nothing was open in the city. After dinner we had some very serious Euchre playing. This had started at the airport earlier in the day while trying to decide what to do after seeing our friends off. The girls had beaten Mike and I so we wanted a rematch. Now, as a long time Euchre player I usually play a pretty fair game. However, playing with Rachel has turned me into a little bit of a rebel. She plays steal-the-deal, which I really never play, being the honest person I am. With this said, when Mike and I strategically distracted both of the girls and Mike stole the deal it was game on. A very serious game of Euchre followed with the victors being the boys. After this we called it a night because we wanted to get a bus ASAP in the morning and get back home.

We left the hostel at 7 and made it to the bus station where buses were running. The girls and I got a bus heading towards Gracias and Mike got one heading towards La Union. What an awesome vacation.

This concludes the four part series on my spring break vacation. I hoped you enjoyed reading about it as well as the pictures. I have uploaded almost 100 pictures from the trip—they are in my Picasa album that can be found on the right side of this page.

Thursday April 15, 2010

Ok, back to spring break, take three. I didn’t mean for these to be on the same day (read part two below), but that’s how it worked out with our Internet crashing.

The next day (Tuesday) we all slept in—which was until about 9 o’clock. We all gradually made our way down to the restaurant for breakfast where I had French toast. Around 11ish the girls decided that they wanted to go out shopping and walk around town. It was cloudy and raining so it was not a beach day (we were all pretty disappointed in this). Mike, Steve and I hung out at the restaurant playing Rummy. By the time the girls came back 3 hours later we were still playing Rummy. We decided we should go get some lunch and the three of us went out and left the girls in the restaurant playing cards themselves. It was during this time that I had an awesome experience. While walking to lunch we passed a native Honduran who was sporting a vintage University of Michigan number 4 basketball jersey (whose number? Any guesses? Answer at the bottom of this entry). This was the first of several U of M sighting in Tela. When we got back the girls were still playing cards and we figured out what we wanted to do that night. Dinner was the plan. After sitting around and being lazy all afternoon (which was wonderful) we went out looking for a different place to eat dinner.

The first restaurant we stopped at was Casa Azul. It looked very nice but when we looked at the menu the prices were a little steep. Rachel wanted to try and find another hotel/restaurant that was somewhere in town, but that was the problem, it was somewhere in town. After walking around aimlessly for 15-20 minutes we decided to just go back to Casa Azul and splurge. It was the right choice. I had some amazing chicken fajitas and the appetizer we had (see picture) was incredible. Bean dip with hot toasted tortillas. This also was the location of one of the tour organizations that specialized in kayak tours through the mangroves. We talked with one of the guys and we agreed on 400 lemps per person ($20). We were a little iffy on making the commitment because we weren’t sure what the weather was going to do, but he said we could have our deposit (200 lemps) back if the weather was poor. We agreed. We went home after dinner stuffed from a good meal and ready for an early morning (8 am) kayak trip. Balloon.



Wednesday morning we woke up and headed to Casa Azul. The weather was perfect—mostly sunny and a little cooler because of the cold front that had moved through with all the rain the day before. It was here where we had our second U of M sighting. One of the employees for the kayak company was sporting a Michigan t-shirt. I was ecstatic and made sure I pointed it out to Rachel, who inconveniently is a Michigan State fan hanging who was hanging out with three U of M alum and two other Michigan fans. After we verbally assaulted her about it for several relentless minutes and sung the Victors (this was mostly me, not going to lie) we hopped in the van and made our way towards the garifuna village where we would embark on our kayaking journey.

We arrived at the village and we first stopped at the restaurant where we were going to eat lunch after kayaking. Now we had eaten at a beachfront restaurant for dinner earlier in the week, but this gave beachfront a whole new meaning. This restaurant was basically an open-air building where you ordered food and then ate your food under palm branch huts that had picnic tables under them, on the sand, yards from the ocean. I could not wait to come back after kayaking and hang out here. We told them we wanted two of their largest fish and continued on our way to the mangroves.



We arrived at the national park were we were going to kayak. After getting our kayaks out from under the ranger station we dragged them about 150 yards to the river. As we were doing this other tour companies showed up with groups of their own. Our guide said hurry because we wanted to be the first in the water so we had the best chance to come across larger alligators. So we hustled and were successful in getting in first. Mike and Steve were in one kayak, Mandi and Amy in another, and Rachel and I in the last. Laura Beth had decided to stay home and relax. We kayaked for about 2.5 hours and it was incredible. From birds, to turtles, to alligators the wild life was abundant, not to mention the mangroves were incredible. We did see about 5-6 gators with the biggest gator being probably about 3 – 4 feet long. However, our guide, who led the way everywhere we went, did come across a larger gator (he said maybe about 6-7 feet), however he spooked it and by the time the first group made it to where he was at the gator was gone. Speaking of our guide, he was a pretty cool guy. He wasn’t a big talker (he spoke English) but he knew what he was doing. He had studied biology in Europe and had been giving tours through these mangroves for over 10 years. He could spot a needle in a haystack too. We would be 30 yards from shore and he would spot a black box turtle sitting on a log near the bank of the river. Very impressive.




After a successful kayak trip we made our way back to the launching point. Instead of having us drag the kayaks back to the ranger station we attached them to the back of the van and dragged them. Steve jumped out of the van half way and took this picture.



Next we made our way back to the beachfront restaurant. When we arrived our lunch was not yet ready so we all decided to go for a swim. It was paradise—blue water, a blue sky dotted with a few clouds and great sand. Not to mention the waves were a good size and the water was pool temperature. After a swim our lunch was ready and when we made our way to the hut there were two foot-long fish staring back at us. They cooked the entire fish so we got head and tail. I am not a big seafood fan but I was in paradise so I tried it, and I was surprised. It was extremely good. After having my share I just sat there and took everything in.




After lunch Steve, Mike and I decided it would be awesome to go jump around in the sand. We did this for a good 30 minutes and took some pretty solid pictures. The girls were laughing at us until they came and did it too. A bunch of 20-somethings just being kids in paradise.



The weather started to turn cloudy and we decided we should probably head back to the hotel. When we got back we decided a light dinner would be okay so we just went to a random restaurant and watched some soccer. We then decided that we wanted to go out and see what type of nightlife Tela had. We found a nice little place and just hung out, talked, and danced the night away. It was an awesome end to an awesome day. Oh, and at this small bar we had two Michigan sightings, two hats to be exact. Here is a picture.



Anyway, I will post part 4 later this weekend or early next week.

Friday April 16, 2010

Sorry this wasn’t posted earlier. We have had some serious rain/thunderstorms the last couple of days and those knocked out our Internet. That is why I didn’t post this when I wanted to on Wednesday.

So I realized I forgot to mention this incredible pizza place that we went to in Copan in the last entry. It was called Pizza Jim’s and a guy who moved down to Copan from California ran it. It was delicious. We ate dinner there after our long day of the ruins, swimming, and horseback riding. Again, this was the second time we had had pizza in three days—do you think I miss my pizza, and really all American food? Yes.

After our long day Sunday we crashed and went to bed early because we had to get up at 5 the next morning to catch the 6 am bus to San Pedro and then a bus to our final destination, Tela. We were all walking zombies when those alarms went off at 4:45, 5, and 5:15 (different people set different alarms so that they could get the extra sleep). I was the early bird at 4:45 and was ready to head towards Tela. We went straight to the bus stop at 5:30 and luckily for us a Pulperia (a convenient store) opened across the street and I had a breakfast (no platanos) consisting of chocolate milk and package of powdered donuts. Mmm donut. At 6 we were off. Now our understanding was that this first bus was a direct bus to San Pedro. By direct I mean we weren’t going to stop every 10 minutes to pick people up as was the case with most bus rides we had been on. Well, as we have learned, you can’t have such high expectations while traveling in Honduras. This bus stopped less often then others, but it still stopped and tried to cram as many people on the bus as possible. Ask my friend Steve how this worked out.

Steve and I were sitting next to each other and I was lucky enough to snag the window seat, which put him in the aisle seat. Half way through the trip to San Pedro, at one of the several stops, a young mother got on the bus with her young son and a few friends. Shortly after she got on she proceeded to start breastfeeding her son (which is a common public practice). Now, having two nephews I know that once a baby eats it also needs to burp—and more often then not cough up whatever didn’t make it down the first time. Well, this happened to occur with this young Honduran baby, and happened right over Steve. It was almost slow motion. I was watching the baby and Steve, while Steve was glued to the baby. The baby threw up once on the mother’s shirt when the mother was facing us, however now the mother had turned her back on Steve and was sitting on his arm-rest (the bus was packed with people), with the baby staring down on him. Suddenly I saw the baby’s movements—the movements I remember seeing right before my nephew Peter threw up all over me on Christmas morning. Luckily for Steve one of the young mother’s friends also picked up on the movement and just at the right moment took a plastic bag and put it over the baby’s mouth and caught all of the throw up. However, there was still some drooling and some of the first throw up that did drip onto Steve’s pants. However, the baby-throwing-up crisis had been mostly avoided.

We later learned that day that one of the other teachers was on a bus and was sitting in the window seat with her window open. Well, unlucky for her someone sitting in front of her threw up out the window. That throw up flew right back into the bus through the window Sarah happened to be sitting next to. Not as lucky as Steve.

After an eventful bus ride to San Pedro we went to go find a bus to Tela. I had never been to the bus station at San Pedro (it is large and crazy) but luckily both Rachel and Laura Beth knew where to go to find a bus to Tela. We had to wait for about 30 minutes but eventually we loaded onto a direct bus to Tela. Now this direct bus was more direct then the one we just got off of. We only stopped two or three times on our hour and a half ride. In fact it was probably the most comfortable bus ride we had all week.

We arrived in Tela and found two taxis to take the seven of us to our hotel. Now Rachel and Laura Beth had stayed at this hotel when they were in Tela earlier in the school year (before I came down) and they had tried to explain it to me. But you cannot understand how awesome this place was (in regards to its location right on the Caribbean) until you actually see it. I have never stayed at an ocean front hotel so this was a first, and it was awesome. May I remind you that for three nights it cost each person only about $90? This is when I decided that I would be coming to Honduras for vacations the rest of my life. When you are able to get a ticket for $300 (about the average price for a ticket several months ahead of time) and then only spend the amount of a one-night stay at a midrange level hotel in suburban America for an ocean side hotel in Honduras for three nights, it’s a simple decision. Go Honduras.




Now the original plan for us leaving so early for Tela was so that we could get there and enjoy most of the day on the beach. Well we arrived in Tela right around noon and this was the plan. However, I needed to make a quick run to the bank to grab some more money for the week. Now banks in Honduras are very unique. Although there are ATMs there is a long process to go through to get a card (which I haven’t done). Because of this most people go into the bank and do what they need to do. Well this often includes anything and everything. Not only can you deposit and withdraw money at banks but you can pay most bills as well. This often creates long waits. So my intention of going for a “quick” bank run disappeared when I walked through the doors of Bank Atlantida in Tela. I needed money (I couldn’t wait another day because we had to pay for our hotel and the banks were closing for Semana Santa) and had to wait. I stood in line for just over 2 hours. There goes my beach time. Luckily the bank was air-conditioned.

Laura Beth also needed money so we were able to keep each other company. But we both felt like we were in line at Cedar Point. Yet, it ended up being ok—we just told stories to each other to pass the time and before we knew it we were one and two in line. I made sure I withdrew enough money so that I didn’t have to go to the bank again.

After the bank I made it to the beach for about an hour, but with my luck the clouds rolled in and it was a downpour by dinnertime. That night we went to a restaurant right next to the hotel. I decided that I was going to splurge a little bit and ordered the filet mignon. That was a disaster. I ordered it medium and when it arrived it was closer to rare. So I ate the cooked parts and picked through the red meat. The manager came out to see how we were doing and noticed what I was doing. He quickly snagged my plate to put it back on the grill. When it came back parts were either still rare, or too over cooked. I just went with it and probably left 33 percent of the steak on my plate. Oh well.



After dinner we had high hopes for going out and exploring the nightlife. We went back to the hotel, showered and changed. When we went downstairs and asked where the nightlife was we were told that everything was closed on Monday nights. Awesome. So we went swimming in the Caribbean at 10:30 at night.


I will write a third post later this week/this weekend. I hoped you enjoyed this entry! More pictures are coming, I promise.

Tuesday March 13, 2010

Hi Everyone,

This is a follow up post on my two friends who are starting that microfinance company in La Union. I had written an entry several weeks ago describing what they are doing (Monday, March 15 post). My friend Mike just sent me an email with a link to the new and improved website for their company. It is really well done and I highly encourage all of you to take a look at it. Click here for the website.

Buy some coffee while you are at it and help an awesome cause!

Also, I am working on my next entry about my spring break adventures. I hope to get it up later tonight or tomorrow night at the latest.

Sunday April 11, 2010

First, I want to let you know that I saw my first snake here in Honduras earlier this week—and it was one crazy snake. Now there are two snakes that are very similar—the Coral snake, which is very poisonous, and the King snake, which is not poisonous. Both have the same color markings but the markings themselves are in a different order on each. While walking home from school on Monday Rachel spotted something moving on the side of the road under some brush. We walked over and there was the orange, black and yellow coloring of either a Coral or King snake. Neither of us could remember how to tell the two apart (there is a rhyme that distinguishes the two because the order of the colors are different on each snake) so we watched it for a minute or two slither through the brush, memorized the order of the colors and walked home to look up what we just saw, either the King or Coral snake.



We arrived home and after checking several sites we confirmed what I originally thought—we had come across the second most poisonous snake in North America (after the rattle-snake), the Coral snake. I love Honduras.

Anyway, over the next couple of days I will be posting entries about my Semana Santa (Holy Week) vacation. Now, to clarify, Semana Santa is basically a national holiday here in Honduras. This is when most schools have their spring break and most businesses shut down on Wednesday or Thursday for the rest of the week. In fact, on Good Friday the entire country shuts down. We found this out the hard way when we were planning on taking a bus back to Gracias and there were no buses running because it was Good Friday. Anyway, on to my trip.

Friday after school Laura Beth, Rachel and I took the school bus with the kids to town and hopped on a bus to Santa Rosa where I was meeting my friend Steve and Rachel was meeting her two friends Amy and Mandi. The three of them had flown to Honduras earlier in the day and we had given them directions on how to get on a bus to Santa Rosa. The three of us reached Santa Rosa around 5 o’clock and our friends were waiting for us at the meeting place we had picked. It was crazy that Steve was all the way down here, and when we met up with Mike shortly after the three of us began our epic vacation in Honduras, with two of us actually LIVING in Honduras.



We spent the night in Santa Rosa at a pretty nice hotel. The 7 of us went out and ate some good pizza (the beginning of my American food craze over vacation) and went back to the hotel and just hung out. It was a pretty relaxing start to vacation. The next morning we got up early to hop on the bus to Copan where we were going to spend the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday.

COPAN
Now Copan is in the Northwestern corner of Honduras near the Guatemalan border. It is known for being more of a tourist town because of the ancient Mayan ruins that are found just outside of town. We had quite the itinerary for our two days in Copan and we were very successful in accomplishing it.



We arrived right around lunch time and took a mototaxi from the bus station up to our hostel, the Blue Iguana, where we stayed two nights for 120 lemps a night (6 dollars), so $12 total. We had a room with three bunk beds and one cot so we all had to get to know each other pretty quickly. My friend Mike ended up not making it to Copan for the first night because he had some work he had to finish in Santa Rosa. He was hoping to make it but he missed the last bus to Copan. So the 6 of us made our way to Macaw Mountain.



Macaw Mountain is a natural preserve that runs off of donations and the entrance fee ($15). The main attractions are the hundreds of birds, mostly parrots, which they take care of. They have collected many of the birds through adoption and recuperation. We first took a tour of the park with a guide who talked about each of the different species. At the end of the tour we came to an open area where they had one of almost every species at the park hanging out. Here the guides would pick the birds up and place them on you. I took a picture of a blue macaw, a red macaw and a green parrot hanging out on my shoulders and arms (see the picture). In fact the blue macaw bit my shirt and put a hole in it. This was a lot of fun and to be so close to these “exotic” yet native birds of Honduras was pretty awesome.



After Macaw Mountain we went back to the hostel and relaxed. We were pretty tired from traveling and walking around. We ended up going out to dinner at a really good pupusa restaurant (a pupusa is basically two tortillas that have cheese and meat in the middle, basically a tortilla sandwich). From here we went out and enjoyed the nightlife in Copan. We ended up going to a restaurant/bar called “Club Fun” and I had a Honduras try and teach me to dance…unsuccessfully. But it was a lot of fun and we ventured our way home after a successful and tiring day.

Sunday morning we woke up and got ready to make our way to the Maya ruins. We first decided to get some breakfast and I was really feeling a banana. So while the rest of the group went to Espresso Americano to get coffee I made my way to the open-air market to find some bananas. I found a nice stand and asked the woman “Puedo tener tres banana’s por favor” (May I have three banana’s, please) and she grabbed three “bananas” and put them in the bag, I paid my 20 lemps ($1) and made my way back to the group. Well when I arrived I took one “banana” out of the bag and something wasn’t right. I looked at it, and then the group looked at it, and in unison we declared that I had been given plantanos (plantains) and not bananas. Bummer. Now for those of you who don’t know platanos are like a banana but not as sweet. They need to be cooked in order to be eaten because they are too hard raw. Therefore it was impossible for me to eat what I just bought.

After my disappointing breakfast (I ended up just buying a bag of mango from a street vendor) we made our way towards the ruins. As a history major/teacher I was really excited about checking these out. Other then it being scorching hot it was incredible. We ended up not spending the extra money for a tour guided and just wondered around the ruins ourselves. My friend Steve had taken a Mayan civilization class in college (my Mayan history is spotty because it wasn’t one of the areas I studied in college) so he was able to explain some different things to the group. To think about how this was a thriving civilization 1300 years ago and that these are the remains of that civilization is crazy for me to think about. Then again that’s probably why I am a history nut and a total geek. Here are some pictures.






After the ruins we hopped in a taxi and went back up to Macaw Mountain. The tickets we bought were two-day tickets and they had a pool that they said we could come back and use. So after walking around the ruins for a couple of hours in the hot sun we were all eager to jump into the pool and relax. Well, I was a little too eager in fact. I quickly set my stuff down by the pool, took my shirt off and jumped in—forgetting that I had my wallet and cell phone in my pockets. My money and wallet dried out, but I was without a phone for the rest of the week. Bummer. After swimming for about an hour we decided to go get some lunch and I had an excellent club sandwich.



After swimming we had to quickly make out way back to the hostel. On Saturday we had decided that we wanted to go horseback riding and had made reservations for all us to go at 3. We made our way to the meeting place and I met my new best friend for the next three hours—Mariposa, or in English, Butterfly (For the record Steve’s horses’ name was Princesa—Princess. This was an awesome three hours and probably the highlight of our time in Copan. It took an hour to ride up this trail to the top of this mountain where there was a native Mayan community centered around a school. We walked around this village for about an hour and then rode back down the mountain. The ride down was awesome—we were able to “open” the horses up and I stayed in a solid trot and a couple of times a decent gallop (for an inexperienced horse rider like myself this was a blast). We eventually made our way back to where we started (not before my friend Mike’s horse almost threw him off when his horse and Steve’s horse had an argument).




Overall Sunday was a busy day and we were all drained from the day’s activities. I will end this post here and include a second post sometime in the next couple of days about the second half of the week in Tela and San Pedro. Along with the pictures I inserted in this post I am working on sorting through others to post in a Picasa album. I’ll let you know when those are uploaded.

Hi Everyone,

I am still alive and well and back from an awesome vacation. Sorry I haven't posted earlier but this first week back has been probably one of the busiest weeks of school I have had down here. Between figuring out final grades, creating recuperation tests for kids who failed my class, and planning and grading I've been super busy.

Don't worry though, I am working on blog entries from vacation and I am also sorting through over 400 pictures that were taken between 6 people. So hopefully by the end of this weekend I will have some high quality content for all of you to browse through. However, as a teaser I want to post this picture which sums up how awesome our stay in Tela was (beach front hotel).



Until next time.