Belated Honduras Travel Report: I've never consumed so many sugary beverages in my life

If you'd like diabetes, cavities or just a deadly sugar high, try the neon-colored Mirinda soft drinks in Honduras! The bottles pictured here are supposedly flavored in green apple and orange cream. However, one would be hard-pressed to taste anything but sugar water.

Let´s have a little flashback, shall we?

As you may already know, I took 3 weeks off from my language studies to venture outside of Xelá. Two of those weeks were spent in Honduras, which was named by good ol´ Christopher Columbus when he landed here way back when (Fun fact of the day: Honduras means "depths", a reference to the deep waters off the northern coast). What, pray tell, is the difference between a country like Guatemala and Honduras, you may ask? In my short time, I observed the following:

(1) They use red frijoles (beans) here, not black ones like in Guatemala

(2) More land, less people than Guatemala - lots of skinny cows, too

(3) Less indigenous culture, but more diversity in terms of peoples represented (black Garifuna people descended from slaves, whites on the formerly British-controlled Bay Islands)

(4) Insane concentration of American fast food chains (in addition to the usual suspects like McDonald´s and Burger King, they have many a Church´s Chicken and Popeye´s...come on!)

(5) An accent I really couldn´t understand very well (too bad! I met a really nice old man who wanted to chat because I was obviously the first chinita that he had ever seen in his life, but I could barely make out a few words. Boo...)

(6) Excessive use of the color lime green in women´s fashions (for realz!).

(7) The most sugary sodas (i.e., Mirinda) and juices known to mankind (try finding "natural" orange juice that doesn´t have sugar as one of the first three ingredients, and I will pay you 100 Lempiras...er, I guess that´s a bit less than US$5).

All in all, I did enjoy my time in Honduras. From the Guatemalan border, Copán Ruinas, site of those really beautiful Mayan ruins (I posted pictures a little earlier here), I traveled a bit along the northern Caribbean coast before heading to the Bay Islands. Here are some pictoral memories!

I discovered how to take black and white pictures on my camera, so now I think I'm all "artsy."

Omoa is a smallish village...and a really lovely one at that. The water is calm and wonderfully clear (although I would pretty much get used to this "clear Caribbean waters" thing before my trip was over).

A view of Tornabé's beach from right outside my beach hut room.

From Omoa, I traveled to Tornabé, which is an even smaller village inhabited almost solely by Garifuna people, who are the black descendants of slaves from way back in the colonial days. The village of Tornabé itself consisted of an unpaved, packed-down sand street running parallel to an incredible and pretty much deserted beach. My travel buddy, Chris, and I were the only tourists in the town. We stayed at a ramshackle but cheap "hotel" right on the beach. I say "hotel", but it was basically four concrete walls with a rusty tin roof and equally rusty, very sketchy electrical wiring (it reminded me of one of those elctrical boards that your 8th grade science teacher uses to demonstrate the idea of simple and alternating currents...except what your teacher used was much much safer). Also in Tornabé, we sampled some amazing fish at a little restaurant owned by Don Tiki, a nice elderly gentleman who used to live in the U.S. (the Bronx, for 20 years!). By the way, "Don" is an address of respect for older men in Latin America...Don Tiki's name wasn't really "Don." All in all, I really enjoyed Tornabé. It was really a bit of laid-back paradise, but the unfortunate lack of stuff to do (beyond lying on the awesome beach and swimming) led us to leave fairly quickly.

Lots of stray dogs in Tornabé. Well, at least they were friendly and not rabid...I think.

Look at me! All wet and in the water! See, I told you! I wasn't lying about learning how to scuba dive!!! This is me coming up after one of my open water certification dives. I learned to dive on the Bay Islands - more specifically, I got my certification on Utila (the smaller, more backpacker-y of the three islands) and did some fun dives on Roatán (the larger, posher island which is filled with vacation homes of rich Americans and Canadians). The water was so warm and clear that it was literally like learning in a swimming pool...except that you were surrounded by beautiful coral and amazing fish. Adding to the fun of the experience was the fact that Chris and I bumped into our friends, Jesper and Natalie, who went to Spanish school with us in Xelá. The two of them are diving instructors and divemasters (Chris is also pretty experienced as a Rescue Diver), so they were just in search of good diving. I mostly concentrated on passing my Open Water Diver course (that's the first level for a certified diver). This explains the conspicuous lack of pictures documenting my stays on Utila and Roatán: I was busy trying not to drown.

Lest I paint a bleak/scary picture with regards to diving, I have to say that scuba diving is indescribibly amazing. Definitely the poshest and probably most enjoyable of all my hobbies so far, novice that I am! You will never watch Finding Nemo in the same way again (really! You won't! I watched it after I dove and felt so much more appreciation for it!). It is not often that you get to drop into an entirely different world so quickly, and I would highly recommend it to all of you...and I'm really not saying that just because I need future diving buddies. Yes, it is a bit scary at first, but the experience of diving totally makes any fears melt away (trust me, I swallowed my fair share of saltwater during my certification course). Anyhoo, back to the topic of how enjoyable diving is, it's also quite educational. For anyone who doesn't believe in evolution, I challenge them to go scuba diving, look at some fish, and still hold that belief after they surface.

One bad point I noted about learning to scuba dive, however, was the fact that most, if not all, scuba chicks wear bikinis. Hmmm. This is understandable from a purely pragmatic standpoint (you're in your bathing suit all day, on land and water, you need to pee, etc.), but nonetheless quite disturbing to me, as one who finds herself very far from bikini-ready shape ("very far"=never). Well, I think I can work my way around this little loophole in the general coolness that is scuba diving, but it just means that I'll be forever unfashionable. So what else is new?

Another potentially bad point is that divers also become invariably obsessed with creatures and coral that they see under the water. Typical conversation after a dive:

Diver 1: Whoa, did you see that spiny-tail-thingy-majiggy fish? That was amazing!
Diver 2: OMG, I can't believe you saw a spiny-tailed-thingy-majiggy fish! I only saw a spiky-tailed one when I last dove! But I did see some spotty-dick-stingray-clowny!
Diver 1: Wow! Awesome!

This happened many times, and I didn't know what the heck people were really talking about, but I could see myself becoming a fish nerd quite quickly. As the girly novice that I am, I was merely pleased with seeing baby fish. So tiny! So cute!

Ahem. But I digress. Anyhoo, the Bay Islands are a little bit of paradise, but they are very, well, weird when compared with the rest of Honduras. For one thing, the islands used to be British colonial possessions, so most of the people there speak English (with a really strange accent!), not Spanish (on my way back to Guatemala, I even met a guy from the Bay Island of Guanaja who could not speak any Spanish. I spoke better Spanish than him...this is sad!). Most of the people also look like they stepped off the boat from Ireland, when in fact their families have been living in Honduras for generations. A bit weird, but therein lies some of the charm...and screwy English? Or should I say Engrish...?






Honestly, I found the Engrish to be quite a charming part of life on the islands, which were pretty much lacking in charm due to their super-touristy nature (especially super posh Roatán). Of course, as someone who is often subjected to annoying Asian stereotypes and whose dad speaks heavily accented English, I mean this in the least pejorative way possible. That said, here's my favorite sign so far, although I'm sure the unintended sentiment was due to unfortunate font selection rather than poor choice of words (just like the "crocery" store above). I hope so, anyway.

An ideal place to worship the Lord...?

My last stop in Honduras was the lovely Cuero y Salado Wildlife Reserve, which is a mangrove forest along a lovely river than empties into the Caribbean. You can only get to the reserve on a banana train, which is an open-air, two-car rickety little thing that bumps along a grassy track. The reserve itself was lovely, although very hot (like the rest of the Honduran coast). After camping out in a tent (waaaayyyy to hot too sleep inside!), Chris and I went on an early morning tour...canoeing on the river! Jaro (behind me in the photo) was our guide - he's a self-taught local kid who loves studying bugs. Apparently, there are supposed to be manatees in the reserve, but we didn't see any. Pooh! Still, we saw plenty of beautiful birds, huge bugs, some monkeys (white-faced ones...we mostly just heard a lot of the howler monkeys), and even a huge crocodile (nearly 10 feet long)! Or was it an alligator? Whatever!

All good things must come to an end, of course, and my vacation was no exception. I parted ways with my good ol' travel buddy and began to work my way westward towards and across Guatemala, where I saw plenty of other cool things, too! But you'll just have to wait for that blog post...!

Back in Xelá, being punished by rain and present subjunctive

When I was traveling in Honduras, the weather was so sweltering that I regularly wished that I was back in Xelá´s cool highland weather. Rude awakening: rainy season has arrived in the highlands...and it ain´t pretty. It rains pretty much every day. Cold, "I want to give you pneumonia!" type of rain. Good thing I am leaving soon!

So, yes, I am back in wonderful, albeit very wet, Xelá, and it´s quite nice. I have also resumed my language studies for a final week. I didn´t realize how much I missed my friends and teachers at school, so it is nice to be back...well, except for this crazy subjunctive business! Yeesh. Why is español so complicated anyhoo?

In any case, friends, since it is my last week in Guatemala, rest assured that I will resume the usual end-of-my-travels-in-this-country activities. That is to say, I will be blogging as much as humanly possibly before having to get on my plane). Sweet! Well, at least it will be sweet for the 2 or 3 of you who are my faithful regular readers! Until next time, then...

My first "stranded somewhere I can´t get out of!" experience

The title says it all. Today, I woke up all chipper and ready to bus the 7 or so hours from Río Dulce to Semuc Champey. On the way, I had to stop at El Estor, which is a small town where I would catch a connecting bus between the two spots. Seemed easy enough, right?

After 4 hours of waiting for a bus that never came (I later found out that there were problems with the roads), I resorted to asking random pickup trucks (that´s an actual mode of transportation here, folks!) and anyone with wheels (I was tempted to ask a little kid with his training wheels bicycle, too) for a ride. No luck today. No ride in sight. With half my traveling day gone, I got a little huffy and whiny about the situation, which doesn´t do much good now that I am traveling alone again.

Anyhoo, I decided to enjoy what was left of my day by going to a local finca which is famed for a pretty natural waterfall. It was really lovely, actually. Lookeee!



But the bad luck continued when I realized that I forgot my towel and swimsuit to go swimming in the waterfall (which is the point of the whole trip, after all) and I missed the last bus going back to El Estor. DANG. So I had to hitchhike. Luckily, people here are significantly nicer about the whole "I´m going to pick up hitchhikers to rob and rape them!" type of thing than they are in the States. The guy who picked me up was actually really nice, and we had a neat conversation about Guatemala, what he thinks about the country, etc. More importantly, he did not rob or rape me. Actually, most importantly of all, his truck had air conditioning, which was much appreciated after a sweltering hot day. Thanks, Enrique!

El Estor ended up being a lot nicer than I gave it credit for, too. The town is on the shores of Lake Izabal and very lovely. Everyone is so nice. I walked on one of the docks and encountered some dude swimming. He spoke English and was eager to practice, although we just ended up chatting in Spanish. Good practice after more than 2 weeks of not speaking any español!



So now I am just biding my time until my bus at 12:30 AM (that´s right! AM!) to finally get to this darn Semuc Champey! It better be worth it! Many of my teachers in Xelá have said it´s where they dream of going in Guatemala, so I´m hoping it is. Wish me luck, folks!

Scuba diving: Something else to accomplish with amazing mediocrity!

Hello, everyone! Well, this internet cafe costs a heck of a lot, but just to let you all know that I'm amazingly tan and certified to dive many meters below the ocean seas! Scuba diving is truly amazing and loads of fun...even for people with "beached whale" potential like myself.

The vacation is going great so far, so I will have to describe my good times and scuba (mis)adventures to you all in minute details and pictures. Later, though...when going online doesn't cost an arm and a leg! Tranquila!

In Honduras, there are more Mayan ruins to desecrate! (Oh, yeah, did I mention that I climbed the tallest point in Central America last weekend?)

I crossed the Guatemalan border yesterday morning with my travel buddy, Chris. Indeed, Honduras es amor. Actually, I am having a hard time remembering that I am in Honduras rather than Guatemala, but I am sure that will set in soon enough.

I am currently in Copan Ruinas, a small town that is very famous for the Mayan ruins of Copan (inventive naming, eh?). Although the site of the ruins aren't as big as Tikal, they are very impressive for the hieroglyphics and carvings present throughout the ruins. The desecration of Mayan culture continues, as demonstrated below:



An added plus is that the museum onsite is really spectacular. Thumbs up!



And, oh yes!, I climbed Volcano Tajumulco last week, which is the tallest point in Central America at a whopping 4,220 meters - that is about 13,900 feet for us non-metric folks from the U.S. It was really great 2 days climbing to the top, although it was a bit of a bummer that it was cloudy the whole weekend.

More pictures later!