To start off with, I'd like to state some things I learned about Honduras:
1. Most cars, or more specifically taxi's, are too crappy to have seat belts in them. I have no idea how some of those cars got us from point A to point B
2. No matter how poor of a Honduran you are- you always have a TV. Even if you have cardboard boxes as wallpaper, you still have a TV in the room
3. Honduran food makes my tummy sick, and makes me spend lots of time in the bathroom
4. Red lights are used more as a yield sign
5. Everyone listens to the same crappy music where every song has the exact same beat. Kinda got sick of that.
6. The people are very warm and giving.
So, here's what we did:
July 5th- We left the wonderful USA and spent all day traveling. We flew into San Pedro Sula at about 7:30, went straight to the hotel, and called it a night.
July 6th- We took a 4 hour bus ride to Copan. It was such a cute little city. We got there a little late to see the ruins for as long as we wanted to, so we explored the shops, and ate a local restaurant. A guy convinced us to go horseback riding in the morning to the ruins.
July 7th- We woke up bright and early, to meet the horse people. We had the cutest little Honduran guide, who took us up a mountain. He was in such good shape, at 58 years old, he walked us up and down the mountain with no horse. He said everything in Spanish, so Brad interpreted for us, as he educated us about cows, and rocks, and fruits, and whatever else we saw on the way.
Here he is trying to talk to Stephie. We didn't understand much when he talked to us though.
On the way up, this was one of our views. SO SO GREEN! It was gorgeous. When we got to the top of the mountain there was a little town up there. The people that lived in this town are closely related to the Mayans. As soon as we rode in, a few of them came up to us to try and sell us their dolls. We bought one made out of corn husks. The guide informed us that our horses needed to rest, so he'd take us to the "hospital". We thought it was kinda weird to take us to a hospital. So we walked along a trail in the jungle for about 15 minutes. Pretty soon we came to a pile of rocks. That's what I thought it was at first- but it was actually Mayan Ruins! You could see a frog carved in those rocks. Our guide went on to explain that this is where the Mayans would take their women to have babies.
He sat down in the birthing spot and reenacted having a baby. It was pretty much hilarious. Then he said if that spot didn't work cause the legs couldn't spread far enough apart, they'd sit on the frog head. He then had me sit there to reenact it all.
He had us pull out the corn husk doll to be the "baby". We were all laughing pretty hard, as he coached pretended like I was having a baby, and pulled out his hat to catch it. Afterwards, we rode our horses back down the mountain, and to the actual ruins park. It was so amazing to see! Here are just a few of the pictures we took:
This was their ball court
This is the mother of all the pyramids there, that they are renovating. Every step has hieroglyphics on it, so they have it all covered to protect it. They are still piecing it back together.
Here is brad in the tunnels inside some of the ruins. We weren't supposed to go in because we didn't pay for it. So we got yelled at afterwards.
A view from some really tall ruins.
This is the residential area, where people lived
An alter beautifully carved
Overall the ruins were amazing. It's something I can check off of my bucket list. After the ruins we went on the longest bus ride ever to Tegucigalpa. It took about 9 hours. Who knew you could spend so much time traveling in such a small country?July 8th-
The next morning we were off to find a local family, one of the places Brad stayed as a missionary. Our plan was to stay a couple nights at their house. Plus, they currently have 4 kids going to BYU, so we hauled a big suitcase from their kids down to give them. We looked forward to not having to lug that around anymore. After a few tries, we finally found a taxi that was willing to take us to their house. Their house was across the city and not easy to get to. Brad was really hoping it wouldn't rain, because this family lives up a really steep muddy hill. When it rains, it's like driving up a hill in snow. Just as we were getting to the hills, of course it started to rain. The taxi did pretty good, until one part. There were like 3 cars stuck on this super steep hill, and a couple cars coming down. I was praying no one rolled into each other. After spinning out the wheels a few times, he reversed and we went to the bottom of the hill, waited for traffic to clear out, then took off as fast as he could. Now remember how I said the taxi's are super crappy cars without seat belts? So it was quite the experience. After that we finally made it up! I think if I were a taxi driver there, I'd avoid that part of the city like the plague.
I didn't get any pictures of this area, because apparently it wasn't the best area to be pulling out a nice fancy camera. The family said we could go outside as long as we didn't carry more then 2 or 3 limps on us (like 15 cents). I guess the area had gotten worse since Brad had lived there, and the church hasn't sent gringo missionaries there for a few years. It's a little nerve racking if the church won't send their gringo's there.....
That night we took a taxi down to Centro to go shopping. The dad of the family accompanied us so that we could find our way back.
July 9th-
This was the day we rented a car. We took a taxi to the airport, got our car, then went for a ride. The first stop? Valle de Angeles. A beautiful town about 45 minutes out of Tegucigalpa. This is where we did most of our shopping. Poor stephie was really sick at this time though, so she sat in the car for most of the time. After a couple hours there, we took another drive to the city of Danli. Bradly's first area.
We were so happy to see there was a Chester's Chicken there, the only American restaurant in sight. My tummy had had enough Honduran food. We visited so many wonderful people in Danli.
This is a picture of Brad in front of a house he helped build as a missionary. The family had 2 or 3 similar looking houses on their property. I also go eaten by mosquitoes here. Still hoping Yellow Fever isn't in my future.
This is another family of a bunch of girls that all loved Brad.After spending a night in Danli, We went back to Tegucigalpa, where we went to Applebees! I got cleansed there- it was the best meal of my life.
July 11th- After spending another night with the Tegucigalpa family, we spent the night with another old house of Brad's in El Siteo- in the outskirts of Tegucigalpa.
This is a picture of their Pila. The city will give them water like twice a week, they fill it up, and thats what they have to use until they get water again. After going to church, the family took us up to the Picachu Jesus statue. It was so beautiful!
This is all of us, minus the dad of the baby, he was taking the picture. The city of Tegucigalpa is behind us.
This is the famous statue that looks over the entire city.
There were beautiful gardens around the statue, including bamboo!
As we were wandering through the gardens, we suddenly realized it was going to rain any second. So we started basically running for the car. Just as we got to the car, it was a downpour! As we drove down the mountain, there were rivers of water running down all around us. It was pretty crazy.
July 12th- This day was a traveling day. We took a bus from Tegucigalpa to La Ceiba, then took the ferry up to the island of Roatan. It took almost 12 hours total.
Brad on the ferry eating a sandwich. Bad idea- he threw it up an hour later. That was one bumpy crazy ride.
We spent July 13-15 on the island, and is was so beautiful! We had the opportunity to go snorkeling and sea kayaking, and really had a blast. We were so freakin excited to get back to the US when it was all over though- we were both really missing our baby too. So in the end I at least learned to be very grateful for all of the riches that we have in this country. A couple days ago I was taking Isaac on a walk through the neighborhood, and I looked around and thought how there is nothing like this neighborhood in Honduras. Beautiful sidewalks and roads. Everyone has a lawn, and a good sturdy house with AC. We are really so blessed.
