Machu Picchu

We got really lucky in Cusco and found a trip to Machu Picchu the first afternoon, yay for low season. We did a four day, three night ¨jungle trek¨. The first day we were driven to the top of a mountain at about 4,300 meters nestled in the fog. We then put on helmets and gloves and mounted our not so great mountain bikes. We rode down a steep mountain road and it was really fun! Shannon, much to our surprise, loved riding super fast down the mountain and kept leaving Kevin behind (until she crashed that is). The first 45 kilometers were paved and nice, not too much traffic. The worst parts were the water that ran over the road which we had to ride through numerous times. We stopped and ate lunch and then continued on a really crappy road. They were doing road construction and it was one lane dirt, gravel, and rocks. We were riding along when a car came behind us and started honking to pass. Shannon tried to get over to the side and rode into some rocks. In slow motion, her bike pitched forward and she hung suspended in the air for what seemed like an eternity before flying over the handle bars, not letting go until the bike crashed on top of her. Needless to say she was quite cut up and bleeding all over. We had to wait for the guide and then the van that was following us to clean her up. All that they had was alcohol which the guide poured over her wounds. Someone else had baby wipes so she was able to clean herself up and stop the bleeding. She ripped her shorts and was covered in cuts and bruises on her left side but luckily nothing more serious happened. The whole bike ride was 65 kilometers but we probably only went about 60 and then rode the last few kms in the car as Shannon was in no shape to bike more. We then drove to the ever so exciting town of Santa María which was dusty and ugly. We stayed there and ate dinner and rested our weary bones.

Day two was the best day (besides Machu Picchu of course) and we hiked 22 kms through the mountains. It rained the first half but we walked through beautiful scenery with breathtaking views of the valley below. We walked on parts of the Inka Trail and actually climbed pretty high. Much of the trail was right along the side of a cliff and our guide acutually fell off, luckily not too far but it was a little scary. We stopped at a hotspring pool towards the end of the day and relaxed for a little while before the uphill climb to the town of Santa Teresa. The town is really growing due to the influx of tourism and most of the streets were paved or in the process of being paved and a lot of things were being built. The town itself was in a beautiful setting with snowcapped peaks on one side and a valley and more awesome mountains on the other. We spent the night there in a small hostal.

Day three started with a terrible hike along a dirt road in the hot sun surrounded by nothing but dust and rocks. We walked passed two impressive waterfalls (impressive until we found out they were manmade) to hidroelectrica where they are still working on a giant hydroelectric plant (hence the waterfalls). From there we walked along train tracks to the town of Aguas Calientes. The trail was surrounded by lush forest and stunning mountains so it was a nicer walk. After about 18 kms of walking, we arrived in Aguas Calientes which is a town built entirely for tourism as it is at the base of Machu Picchu and the only place to stay. It was actually pretty nice but all restuarants and hotels. We stayed the night there before our climb to Machu Picchu.

Day four started at 4:00 AM with a walk to the bridge at the base of the stairs to Machu Picchu. We then climbed over 3,000 stairs to get to the actual ruins. Only one person beat us up and we made it in about 35 minutes so we were pretty happy with ourselves (we did knock a few people off the mountain in our rush up but not too many). We had a tour of the ruins and then climbed Waynapicchu (more stairs) above the ruins. We would have had a great view if it hadn´t been so cloudy. A couple of times the clouds parted and we caught glimpes of the ruins. It was a pretty steep climb and at parts it seemed inevitable that we would fall down the steep, narrow stairs and be lost forever. We also walked up to the ¨sun gate¨ where we had a magnificent view of the ruins below us. It is really impressive how big (area wise) they are and how well made they are. Walking through them is impressive but seeing the whole thing from above is just incredible. The actual site is also amazing as it is on a fairly high mountain (2,400 meters) surrounded by even higher jagged mountains. It was incredibly beautiful. We then decided to walk back down the stairs as we decided taking a bus was for weanies. We had a few hours to kill before our train so we met up with some of the people in our group for some much needed food after hours of hiking.

We had a million problems with our guide which put a little bit of a damper on the trip. Needless to say, there are tons of tourist agencies and as a result quality begins to suffer. Our guide was knowledgeable but not very friendly and never explained anything to us (like the plans for the day) unless we specifically asked him. By the end of the trip everyone was pretty unhappy with him and ready to mutiny. We also had problems with the tour agency not sending our tickets for Machu Picchu or the train back. We finally got our tickets around 9:00 P.M. the night before we went up (of course we wanted to go to bed by 8:00 to get up at 3:30). This happened to most of the people in our group and we had all gone through different agencies (even one recommended by lonely planet). We never actually got our train tickets. Our guide told us to meet him the afternoon when we got back from the ruins to get them. They still were not there and he told us to come back later and worse case scenario we would go to the train station with our passports and they could look them up. What he did not tell us was that he was leaving in half an hour back to Cusco so he wasn´t there when we went back and nobody could help us. Luckily they were very helpful at the train station but it just made us resent our guide even more. He also decided to take only a third of our group on the tour of the actual ruins and sent the rest of us with another guide and even more people and our group ended up having 15 and his 5...we really loved him by the end.

All in all it was a good trip. We had a really good group to make up for our guide and we had a lot of fun. Machu Picchu is so amazing and definitely worth the trip!

The End of Ecuador

So we´ve done a lot since we last wrote. We went to the not so exciting town of Latacunga where we met our friends Dan and Emily and celebrated Kev´s birthday with some pizza and beer. After perusing the impressive (and really cheap) Saturday market, we headed to the tiny indigenous village of Quilotoa. It is located at the top of an extinct volcano and there is a beautiful green lake in the crater. The elevation is approximately 4,000 meters and it was super cold. So cold that we had to have a fire in the little stove in our room in order to not freeze to death! It was nice to be cold after two years of summer. We stayed at a little family owned hostal that was run by a Quichua family. It was interesting talking to them and learning a little about their customs. Spanish is their second language which sometimes made communicating difficult as we spoke better Spanish than some of the people. We hiked part-way around the lake with Dan and Emily and went to the even tinier village of Ponce where they live. We met a lot of people and they were all so nice and polite. The little kids all shook our hands, something we never saw in Honduras. It was nice to see a totally different kind of Ecuador and get some nice hiking in.

From Quilotoa we went to Baños, a town in southern Ecuador. It is a very touristy town with the main attractions being hotsprings and outdoor adventures like rafting, bike riding, and hiking. We rented bikes and rode down ¨la ruta de las cascadas¨. It was mostly downhill much to Shannon´s delight since every uphill almost killed her. We rode about 12 miles past lots of waterfalls and even took a cable car across a canyon and over a waterfall. We ended our ride in Río Verde at Cascada Pailón del Diablo. We hiked down to the impressive waterfall which we could view from a series of balconies built into the cliff. We were close enough to get wet and were able to walk behind it after climbing/crawling through a crack in the cliff. It was pretty cool.

We then headed to the colonial city of Cuenca where we checked out all the old churches and buildings. At this point we have been to so many colonial towns that they all start to look the same so we didn´t spend much time in Cuenca. One of the best parts was the bus ride to Cuenca. We rode right through the middle of the Andes and it was beautiful! The mountains were so tall and the valleys so deep. Everything was very green and the mountains were covered with farms that made them look like patchwork quilts. It was a breathtaking journey and we even saw a beautiful sunset over the mountains.

After Cuenca, we headed to Perú. It took us a day and countless buses and cabs just to get to the border. It was one of the most complicated borders as we had to get off the bus about 4 kilometers outside of town and the actual border to go through customs. The bus driver forgot to let us off and we ended up having to go back once we got to town (after Shannon yelled at him he let us go back for free). We then had to take a taxi to the border and another to the Peruvian customs located 4 kms on the other side. It was ridiculous. We actually ended up getting so frustrated at slow, not so friendly people that we got out of a bus refusing to pay because the driver was so slow and wouldn´t tell us how much it cost or whether we would make it to the next town in time to catch our next bus. Shannon kind of lost it and yelled at him too (Latin America is wearing on us). We finally made it to our bus right before it left and spent 21 hours on it to get to Lima. We then spent another 21 hours on a bus to Cusco. It was a really long three days but at least the buses were comfortable and we made it in one piece! The drive through all of northwestern Perú was desert, desert, and more desert. We went through lots of mountains from Lima to Cusco but they were not nearly as green and beautiful as the ones in Ecuador.

Galápagos

We spent nine days in Las Islas Galápagos and it was amazing. Words really cannot describe all we saw and did. We went to nine different islands and a couple of islets and saw almost all of the animals that are there at this time. It was surprisingly cold (really windy) and the water was freezing (20 degrees C, think California water). We spent seven days on a sailboat and two days on the main island, Santa Cruz. The animals are not at all afraid of people and we could walk right up to them and they would either ignore us or just look at us. Baby sea lions would come up to us and try to touch us. We saw many different types of birds including frigates with their red pouches puffed up, blue footed boobies doing mating dances, baby albatrosses that are super fat and fluffy, giant pelicans, and so many others. Many of the birds had eggs and babies and they didn´t even blink an eye as we walked right up to them. It was awesome! We did a lot of snorkeling (Shannon had to wear two wetsuits and was still freezing) and got to swim with sea lions! They are so playful and would swim so close to us they almost touched us. They imitated our movements and did flips and jumps. Kevin really enjoyed this and spent extra time swimming with them (until the guide made him get out because a large male was swiftly approaching). The sea lions liked Kevin so much that they followed him out of the water wanting to play more! We also saw tons of green sea turtles (the highlight was when a sea lion swam behind one pushing it around), lots of white-tipped reef sharks (and Shannon didn´t even freak out), starfish, penguins, many types of rays, and even some bombs that the U.S. army left behind. We saw all the different types of island habitats ranging from lava to forest to desert. It was the dry season so many of the islands looked dead as the trees and plants were dormant. It never rained on us so we had good luck! We also went to the highlands and saw the giant Galapagos tortoises. They are so big and gentle. They just eat, sleep, and lay in pools of water. We even saw some dolphins that followed our boat putting on a fabulous show complete with jumps and flips. Our last day we spent scuba diving at Gordon Rocks, the premier place to see hammerhead sharks. We were not supposed to go there as Shannon is terrified of sharks and did not want to swim with hammerheads but we had some trouble with the law and plans changed. Apparently there are only three diving agencies in Galapagos that have licenses to dive, they got these licenses by taking a course, the last of which was offered in 2002. The other agencies have business permits and usually there is no problem but sometimes the park authorities decide that only the three agencies with licenses can go out. This just happened to be one of those days. We left at 5:00 AM to try to avoid problems but got stopped at the park checkpoint and were told that we could not go and had to go back. We spent about three hours trying to get around this and finally took a bus which was not checked. The rangers were not smart and let the car with all the equipment through so we just met them at the boat and headed out. We had to go to a different location though. It was an amazing two dives! The visibility was pretty good and we saw tons of fish including huge schools of barracuda, mullets, yellow fin tuna, and of course hammerheads among other things. Shannon was so scared to see the sharks that she cried but after the first time was not quite as scared and even swam towards them (keeping plenty of other people in between her and the sharks of course). Kevin was really excited to see hammerheads and glad that he got to see lots of them. It was definitely a great experience and very different than any of the other dives we had done. All in all, it was an awesome trip and the highlight of our travels so far! Now off to see our friends Dan and Emily who were in Peace Corps with us and now live in Ecuador.

Cali

At first glance, Cali seemed like a big ugly city but once we explored a little it got better! We walked all around the first day and saw all the churches and old buildings. We also went to a giant mall to people watch. Supposedly the most beautiful women and the plastic surgery capital are in Cali but we saw neither. We did eat some yummy vegetarian food (there were a ton of vegetarian restaurants which made Shannon happy) and went to a zoo. The Cali zoo is supposedly the largest zoo in South America and it was cool. We saw a lot of different animals including a bird that kept landing on Kevin´s head and bit Shannon when she tried to get it off! We also took some salsa classes at our hotel. The first day was a little hard but the second day was definitely better and we learned a bit and had fun! We were sad that we didn´t get to meet up with our friend from Cali but she was busy with a project so next time. After Cali, we went to Pasto, a town near the Ecuador border. It was a lot larger and more modern than we had thought it would be. We walked around and saw the really cool churches and the next day headed to Túquerres to hike to Laguna Verde, a green lagoon in the crater of a volcano. Everyone in Pasto told us it was very easy to get to but those were lies, and we ended up hiring a very expensive taxi (even after Shannon´s mad bargaining skills) to take us up the mountain to the trail. The hike was a bit hard mainly because of the altitude. The highest point was about 4,000 meters (the highest Shannon had ever been). The walk back up from the laguna involved about a million stairs and a steep climb that nearly killed Shannon! The laguna was really pretty though, super green with lots of bubbles. We originally thought the volcano was extinct but it turned out to be active. It smelled strongly of sulfer and some of the bubbles going into the lake heated the water to a nice temperature. On our way down after walking forever, we finally caught a ride with a SUV going down. We stood on the back bumper and held on to the luggage racks...quite a ride! We then headed to Las Lajas to see the Santuario de Las Lajas. It is a church built into the side of a gorge with a river running under it. It is an amazing sight, just for the location alone and the church is impressive as well. We are pretty sure that we were the only ones staying in the entire town and finding dinner was hard since everything was closed! The next day we headed into Ecuador and had the easiest border crossing ever! We went to Otavalo, a small town about three hours from the border known for its Saturday market. We happened to arrive on a Saturday and we treated to the best/most impressive market we have ever seen! There were beautiful fruits and vegetables including real blackberries which we haven´t seen for two years! They also had tons of crafts and of course clothes and scarves made from Alpaca. It was really a sight especially with all the local people dressed in their traditional outfits! We are now in Quito and have been all over admiring the buildings and churches in the old town. Quito is a huge city and the highest capital in the western hemisphere with an elevation of 2,850 meters. Right now they are having a three day holiday so the city is rather dead. Tomorrow we head to Galápagos to see amazing animals!

Salenta, Valle de Cocora, Bogota

After leaving lovely Medellín we headed to the small coffee and trout farming (we had trout for the first time, kinda like salmon) town of Salento. The town itself is pretty nice but most foreign tourists come here to take a hike in the Valle de Cocora to see the famous wax palms of the area, the largest palm trees in the world that grow up to 60 meters tall (almost 200 feet). We had to take a jeep to the town of Cocora and then started hiking up the valley through mostly cattle ranches. We could see some wax palms growing up the sides of the narrow valley. We evntually walked into the national park up the steep muddy trail to about 2900 meters through cloud forest and then proceeded to walk back to Cocora along a dirt road that meandered through the wax palms themselves and was actually the highlight of the walk. The jeep ride back got crowded and Kevin ended up standing on the back bumper with six other people holding on underneath a tarp becuase it was raining. It was a little crowded back there and his arm was very tired from holding on to the jeep on all of the curves after we made it back. We left Salento the next day and took a nine hour bus trip to Bogotá, the capital of Colombia with 8.5 million inhabitants, one of which we knew from Peace Corps Honduras. We stayed in or around Bogota for five nights, leaving on the sixth. Bogotá is a huge sprawling city that reminded us of LA except it was in a valley. We rode up to Monserrate, a hill on the valley wall, to see the massive expanse of Bogotá. The views are pretty good, unfortunately one of the many rainstorms started forming just before we went so part of the city was obscured by clouds and rain. We walked around La Candelaría, the colonial barrio of Bogotá, to see the old churches, museums and the giant Plaza de Bolívar that is home to hundreds of pigeons. The gold museum in the city center is pretty impressive as well. We also went to La Casa de Moneda which houses a few museums, one on the printing of money and one on Fernando Botero, Shannon´s new favorite artist, who draws and sculpts funny looking fat things from animals to people. Over the weekend we made a side trip to the salt cathedral of Zipaquirá, Villa de Leyva and Tunja. The salt cathedral was an impressive cathedral (the second one built as the first one is now closed) carved underground in the salt mines that produce 95% of the salt consumed in the country. Cathedral might be a little misleading as there is no actual cathedral but the inside of the mine is carved with carvings depicting the stations of the cross, and they even hold mass inside of it. It was something totally different than anything we have seen before. After the salt cathedral we went to Villa de Leyva, one of the most bautiful colonial villages in Colombia. It was a very quaint, very colonial town that also had one of the largest plazas in South America. We also had some very tasty passionfruit cheesecake there, the best cheesecake we have had in a very long time. We really liked Villa de Leyva with its colonial style houses and cobblestone streets. The next morning we went to the regional capital of Boyacá, Tunja. Tunja is known for its colonial architecture, elegant mansions adorned with some of the most unique artwork in South America, and mudejar art in its churches. One of the churches was very impressive with all of the designs and art on the walls and ceilings and was hard to imagine all of the work that went into its intricate details. We also took a tour of the mansion that had belonged to the founder of Tunja. It was built in the mid 16th century and shortly after was painted with scenes from floor all the way to cover the ceiling. After the owner died, his wife remarried and the new man had the house painted over and no one even knew of the paintings until recently when a roof collapsed and exposed ceiling paintings. Since then, they have carefully uncovered many of the original wall and ceiling paintings. Impressive! Our last night in Bogotá we went to one of the nicest parts of town with our friend John and his girlfriend and went to a microbrewery and Kevin got to have some good beer, even a dark one! He was happy about that. Then we back to John´s place where we stayed the whole time and ate some pasta and left at about 10 p.m. to take a 13 hour bus to Cali.

Medellin

After Taganga, we traveled on a bus for 16 hours to get to Medellin, the former stomping grounds of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Arriving into the city, we were really impressed with the city of 3.5 million residents lying on the valley floor and slowly creeping up the edges of the mountains. After finding a hostal to drop off our things for a few nights we walked around the central part of the city, admiring the old churches and buildings intermixed with the modern skyscrapers. Medellin is a very modern city. They have invested heavily into improving the city since the Escobar days, and it shows. They have built the only public transportation rail line, Metro, in Colombia and it is cheap and efficient. We loved it. Since building the rail line they have added two cable lines with gondolas to go up the sides of the valley to serve the poorer areas as well. One ticket of about 75 cents gets you anywhere you want to go within the system. They also have buses that serve the outlying areas to connect them to the metro stations. It is really quite awesome.
Over the next few days we walked a lot and rode the metro a lot to see Medellin. Our hostal was a few blocks away from the villa Olimpica. That place was huge. Besides the soccer stadium serving one of the pro teams, they have tracks, volleyball and basketball stadiums, six pools, chess, ping pong, skate park, and on and on. In other areas of Medellin we visited the free botanical garden, various parks and squares including one that is full of towers of lights and looks pretty awesome lit up at night as well as a park where you are encouraged to kick off your shoes and relax. We also decided to go paragliding while in Medellin. Shannon was terrified at first but Kevin really wanted to go, plus it is cheap in Colombia about half of what it costs in the United States or less. We took a bus high onto the valley wall that had great views of the city and there we strapped on our harnesses and hooked up with our pilots and parachutes and ran off into the wind to glide back down into the valley in silence. It was amazing and we both loved it. Shannon even said she would do it again.
We made a couple of day trips outside of Medellin as well. One day we went to a town called Santa Fe de Antioquia which is a small colonial town that is known for its tamarind candy among other things. We strolled around the city admiring its colonial look and many churches (of course). We headed toward a bridge outside of town that was one of the first suspension bridges built in South America and walked and walked to only realize we ended up going the wrong direction. (We blame Lonely Plant). So we didn't want to walk back and ended up on a bus back to Medellin. We also went to the town of El Penol which has a 200 meter high granite monolith near the edge of a lake. They have built a 649 step staircase into a fissure that allows visitors to climb to the top for some amazing views. From there we went to another town close by called Guatape which is known for its fresco-like adornments of the traditional houses that have brightly painted bas-relief depictions of people, animals and shapes that cover the bottoms of the houses. They were very interesting and fun to look at. The town has also become a weekend getaway for the residents of Medellin and is almost like a festival atmosphere on weekends with plenty of alcohol flowing. Colombians seem to really like their alcohol and beer is sold everywhere. While in Guatape, we took advantage of their 600 meter long zip line that goes over the lake. It was fun.
We really loved Medellin but had to keep moving on to see other sights. Next up: Salento and Bogota.

Mud Volcano and Scuba Diving in Taganga

Before we left Cartagena, we went to a ¨mud volcano¨. It was like a small volcano but instead of lava, it was filled with mud. We climbed stairs to the top of it and then submerged ourselves in the mud pit. It was really interesting as the mud was really thick but liquid and it was hard to sink down very far. After we had played around and were covered in mud, we went to the nearby lagoon and washed ourselves off. It was a very different experience but super cool. Now our skin is nice and mineraly! We spent our fourth anniversary traveling to Taganga. We stayed in a nicer place and went to dinner and had some yummy passion fruit daiquiris. It was a nice, semi-relaxing day. We are in Taganga now, on the Carribean Coast of Colombia and just completed a three day scuba ¨safari¨ which included our advanced certification. It was all in Spanish too so it was good practice for us. We stayed two nights in hammocks on a deserted beach and dove during the days. It was an awesome experience! There were ten of us that went and three of us in our course. All of the others were Israeli and Shannon was the only female. It was interesting to learn more about Israel. The course consisted of eight dives which we did over three days. We had to do a navegation dive where we had to use a compass to go in a line and back, make a square, a triangle, and go to a rocky point and back. We got to do that dive totally alone without our instructor and it was cool since it was the first time we were on our own. We also did a night dive which was really awesome! Shannon was of course really scared to do it as she doesn´t like to be in the water when she cannot see, but once she was in the water she realized that it was not scary at all. Everything is totally different at night as you use a flashlight which shows you the real colors of all the fish and the coral. These colors are not always visible during the day because the deeper you go, the less light there is. The first color to go is red so it was cool to see all the red fish and coral at night that look black during the day. The corals are also open at night and not during the day so a lot of them looked like little flowers. Crabs, eels, and lobsters also come out at night so we saw a lot more of those as well. The company we went with has a coral station where they are growing some of the types of corals that are the most endangered so they can replant them. We got to go there and help clean off the nets and corals (really hard when there is current and you are trying to stay still underwater). It was cool to be able to see this and help a little. All in all the trip was amazing! It was a lot different than our previous diving as the water was not as clear and there was a current, but it was interesting to see different things. Now we´re off to Medellín and the zona cafetería.

El Fin de Cuerpo de Paz y El Inicio de Otra Adventura

We did it, 27 months of Peace Corps in Honduras! We officially finished on September 24! It was definitely sad saying goodbye to friends both Honduran and Peace Corps but it was time and we were both ready to move on. It was definitely a great experience and we are glad that we did it. Was it what we expected? Of course not but we feel that we got a lot out of it and learned a lot about ourselves, Honduras, and of course lots of Spanish all the while helping people the most we could. We both drastically improved our Spanish levels and that is something that we really wanted to get out of this experience. We started at Novice High and Kevin ended at Intermediate High and Shannon at Advanced Mid. And we feel fairly comfortable conversing and can do everything that we need to. After a week in Tegucigalpa seeing doctors and dentists (we went two years without any worms or stomach problems!) we headed out on a ¨luxury¨ bus to Panama to begin our three months of travel in South America. We spent a night in Nicaragua, 8 hours in Costa Rica walking around, and a night on the bus and finally arrived in Panama after three days on a bus.

Panama City was amazing! After two years without seeing a big city it was very impressive (Shannon now realizes that after two years of no development she loves it). We didn´t realize how big it is and how many sky scrappers there are. We went to the canal (not that exciting because we were not able to see any ships go through) and walked all over the city. It was weird being able to walk around with a camera and not be afraid of being robbed! We then headed to Portobelo which is a tiny town on the Caribbean side of Panama. We took a 5 day sailing trip to Colombia and spent three days at the San Blas Islands, gorgeous white sand deserted islands off the coast of Panama. It was a great trip, our captain and chef were awesome and we got to see a ton of fish while snorkeling among the islands. Kevin saw a Nurse Shark but luckily Shannon missed that one! It was a great way to get to Colombia and we arrived in Cartagena as the sun was rising.

We are now in Cartagena, a quaint colonial town set on a bay. The entire city is surrounded by old walls that protected it and there is a lot to see and do. It is very developed and also a shock to us as we haven´t been any place like this in quite some time. It is a good start to our Colombian adventure. Next up, scuba diving in Taganga!

Travels

So we have been very busy traveling lately (we know, hard life) first with Shannon’s mom and sister which was awesome! They came to our site for about a week and Shannon showed them the sites (Kevin had dengue for the second time and was stuck at home). She also took them to a school while she did her dental hygiene class so that they could see what a Honduran School was like. Needless to say, they now appreciate schools in the U.S. much more. Some of the teachers from Shannon’s English class to our house and brought traditional Honduran food for her mom and sister to try and we had a little fiesta. It was a good cultural exchange and we had fun. Then we went to the only lake in Honduras and to Copan to see the Mayan ruins (not as cool the second time) and even got a flat tire along the way. Luckily Kev could change it and as we found out, it is really cheap to repair tires here ($6 for two including labor). After Copan we headed to the North Coast and of course got another flat tire. This time a nice man with a gun in the back of his pants helped us change it. On the North Coast we stayed in Parque Nacional Pico Bonito which was just beautiful. We were in the middle of the jungle right by a river. We went snorkeling at Cayos Cochinos, a chain of islands off the coast which was awesome! Beautiful, crystal clear water and tons of fish. We ate some fried fish and randomly ran into a group of students from the university where Kevin works (small world). Kevin, Shannon, and Laurie went white water rafting on the río cangrejal which was a great experience. Kevin and Laurie fell out but Shannon hung on tight! After all this fun we had to drive all the way back to Catacamas to pick up the kitties for their journey to the U.S. They rode to Tegucigalpa sitting on Shannon’s lap (a 4 hour trip) and were actually good for the remaining 30 hours of their journey (thanks Mom and Laurie!). Now they are living it up in the U.S. and all our neighbors are jealous that we took our cats home and not them!

After Shannon’s mom and sister left we headed to the island of Utila off the north coast of Honduras. We spent about a week there getting our NAUI scuba certification. It was an awesome experience and Shannon wasn’t even scared. The course was really thorough, we started out skin diving (basically snorkeling and learning how to dive down) and slowly proceeded to scuba. We were on the second largest reef in the world and we saw a lot of cool fish and even some eels (no sharks which made Shannon very happy). The only problem we had was when Shannon getting stung by a jellyfish. We were at the end of a dive going back to the boat and she got stung on her wrist first (since her monkey arms were not fully covered by the wetsuit). Then as she was getting back on the boat she put her regulator in (following the rules like the obedient person she is) and there was a tentacle hanging from it which stung her lip and tongue. We’re assuming the poison went straight into her body via the nerves in her tongue and she had a super allergic reaction. Her back started spasing and it felt like someone was breaking the bones in it. The boat had to take her back to the shore and they took her to our room. She was in more pain than she had ever been in and they gave her muscle relaxers and anti-histamines which kicked in about an hour later. Kevin still had another dive to do so she made him go and he called our site-mate who happened to be there too and she came and took care of Shannon (best site-mate ever). Luckily Shannon survived with only a swollen lip and a rash all over her leg and arm (that took over a month and some steroids to disappear). She even went back the next day for some more diving! All in all, it was a great trip and we are now scuba certified!

Our last trip was to Nicaragua. We spent 10 days there and had a lot of fun, but overall it was like a nicer version of Honduras with volcanoes and tourism. We went to Granada which is a quaint colonial town with cobblestone streets. We took a day trip from there to Masaya Volcano about an hour away. We got to the volcano in the late afternoon and went to the top (a short walk from the parking lot) and were able to see the smoke and three of the five craters. We then walked to the old craters (two more) that are now dormant and had a view of the lagoon and town below. We then went to a bat cave where we had a billion zillion bats flying around us. Lastly we went to the top of the crater once it got dark to see the lava glow but it was pouring at that time so all we saw was a little red glow and tons of smoke. It was a fun trip though. From Granada we went to La Isla de Omotepe, a small island in the middle of Lake Cocibolca. We spent a day hiking Volcano Maderas, a dormant volcano with a crater lake at the top. It had been raining a lot so the lake was really full and muddy but it was a nice hike and we saw a few white faced monkeys and howler monkeys so that was awesome! We planned on going to some beaches on the island but rumor had it that they were all flooded due to the rains so we ended up leaving early and heading for Leon. Leon is a large but quaint town that saw a lot of fighting during the Contra Wars (read about them and how badly the U.S. treated Nicaragua) but has now recovered and is quite touristy. We explored the city and its many churches and went to some awesome volcanoes too. We went to the volcanoes with a great non-profit group, Quetzaltrekkers, which uses the money earned to support programs to get kids off the streets. We went to Volcano Telica which was a long, but easy hike to the top of an active volcano. We got there around noon and it started raining but we were still able to see down the deep crater to the bottom. We threw rocks down and listened to them crash. It was very smoky and sulfury but really cool looking. It was all rocks at the top with no vegetation. The next day we went volcano boarding down the youngest and most active volcano in Nicaragua, Volcano Cerro Negro. We hiked up and got to walk through the crater which looked like a war zone with huge hunks of broken rocks, tons of smoke, and the ground was hot to the touch. We then put on these fluorescent yellow mechanic suits, sat on this little board, and sledded down the lava rock covered hill. It sounds a lot scarier than it was, the first time we went pretty slowly; Shannon actually stopped a couple of times she was going so slowly. The second time we went a lot faster but Shannon still got passed by Kevin and another guy (we decided that the heavier you are the faster you go). It was really fun and pretty too. After that we headed back to Honduras with a stop in Estelí where we went on a tour of a cigar factory which was actually pretty interesting. We took the tour (and had to be translators for the people who didn’t speak Spanish) and got to see the whole process. We found out that there is not really much difference between cigars (even the really expensive ones and Cubans) and all cigars there were $1! The workers were allowed to smoke the cigars as they worked and one guy was puffing away on a huge one (Kevin took a picture with him). At the end of the tour we all got a cigar that we smoked in the cigar storage room (weird right?). It was a cool experience.

On our way back to Catacamas we stopped to visit our friend Patrick in the quaint little town of San Marcos de Colón right on the Honduran side of the border. It was nice and cool there and we could finally finish our on-going competition of who had the better house, Patrick or us (we won). It was relaxing and a good end to our trip.

Public Schools

So as you’ve probably gathered from our previous entries, the public schools here are pretty bad. In fact, we cannot really imagine a way to make them worse. To be a kindergarten teacher, you only have to finish eighth grade, to be an elementary school teacher you have to finish high school (with a “major” in teaching), and to be a high school teacher you are supposed to have a bachelor’s degree (no credential), but we have met plenty of high school teachers without a degree. It seems like there are never classes for a variety of reasons: strike (there are many possible reasons for this), a funeral (could be for a parent of a child, teacher, or any other person known or unknown), some kind of event (in the school, in the community), due to inclement weather, or for a variety of other reasons. The school day is supposed to be five hours long (7:00 or 7:30 A.M. to 12:00 or 12:30 P.M. or 12:00 or 12:30 to 5:00 or 5:30) but this hardly ever happens. In most schools that we have been to classes usually start at least half an hour late and get out half an hour early. Plus, there is usually an hour of snack/recess instead of the allotted 20 to 30 minutes. If a teacher does not show up for whatever reason there are no substitute teachers, the kids just go home. Needless to say, the kids don’t learn a whole lot. It is very depressing.

Teachers have no supplies (paper, pencils, chalk, markers) unless they buy them with their own money. School is free but parents have to buy uniforms and school supplies. Thus, some of the really poor children do not go to school because it is too expensive. Teachers have to make everything for their classrooms out of construction paper that they buy themselves. They often “laminate” things they want to keep nice by wrapping them in clear tape. One certainly learns to be resourceful spending time in Honduran schools! Often times there are not enough desks/tables or chairs and there are never enough textbooks. It is almost impossible to find storybooks in schools as these are very expensive and not sold in most places. The playgrounds do not usually have anything to play on, maybe some painted, half-buried tires to crawl through. Flower beds (if there are any) are lined with half buried soda bottles and plants are planted in old tires. .

Shannon has been doing a lot of observations for her English classes in order to see how the teachers are teaching English in their classes. She has had some interesting experiences. The first one went badly. Shannon got up early to catch a 6:00 A.M. bus and the teacher never got on. When she called the teacher, she told her that she had another engagement and wouldn’t be able to make it (mind you she is a teacher and this is her job) but that she had left a message for Shannon on her voicemail. Turns out she had the wrong number so there was no message. Shannon had to stay on the bus an hour until they passed a bus going in the opposite direction to which she could hop on.

Another one of the observations involved both of us (Shannon was told it would be dangerous to go alone) walking uphill (literally no flat or downhill parts) for about three miles. After walking an hour uphill in the heat and humidity (yes it is already hot at 6:00 A.M.) and stopping to ask directions about a million times, we finally made it dripping in sweat. The school was two rooms for six grades with only one teacher. He had a helper, a “muchacha”, who is not qualified to teach and who the municipality pays L1,000 per month (about $50). Minimum wage is L5,500 per month so this is certainly not legal. The teacher is trying to get the Ministry of Education to provide another qualified teacher for the school but has not had any luck yet. Although he was the only teacher and could only be with half of the kids at a time, the kids were extremely well-behaved. They all participated, listened quietly (a miracle here), and really seemed to want to learn. It was amazing!

Another school Shannon went to had three teachers for six grades. Each class has two grades but unlike combination classes in the U.S., they are not grouped by age/grade. First and fifth grade are together, second and fourth, and third and sixth. The different grades sit on different sides of the classroom and one group works on an activity while the teacher works with the other group. Usually the group working on the activity messes around and yells a lot. In this particular school, one teacher was pretty good and controlled her classroom well, one was ok, and one was terrible. In the terrible class the side of the class not learning English was yelling, wrestling, throwing things, and one boy was sitting with his bare feet on his desk blowing nonstop on a whistle! Shannon could barely hear let alone concentrate. The teacher did nothing to control them and when she finally could not take it anymore, she sent the kids not learning English home (it was 10:30). The rest of the kids got out an hour early to make goals for the soccer games they were having the next day (classes were cancelled of course). This involved kids ranging from 9-12 years old running around with machetes chopping giant branches to the correct lengths (a little bit of math perhaps?). It was a madhouse with more machetes than Shannon had ever seen and all manned by children! Luckily nobody got hurt, even though many of the machetes were thrown through the air at other kids, and all the branches were cut.

Moral of the story, if you are ever feeling bored or a little too happy and optimistic, go to almost any public school in Honduras and all of that will change. It makes schools in the U.S. look like shining specimens of gold and makes us so sad for all these Honduran children who are not getting the quality education they deserve.

Latest News

About three weeks ago we had our Close of Service Conference with Peace Corps. Everyone who came to Honduras in our group (Honduras 13) who is still a volunteer was at this conference. Forty-one of the original fifty-one volunteers of our group were there. Those are actually pretty good numbers too. This was the only time since training that we have all been in the same place at the same time and Shannon hadn’t seen a couple of people since training so it was an exciting time to see everyone together again for the last time. About half of us are staying until September 24th, our actual close of service date, and we will get to see those people again. Others, who have plans to go back to school or teach or for whatever reason want to leave early have up to a month before that date to close their service with no penalties. We spent three days talking about what we have done here, how we can make training and service better and most importantly how to go about our futures. We had a lot of fun with everybody and had a good time but we also had to say a lot of good byes to people we will not see again here in Honduras – how sad. After the conference, it seemed as if we were already done but then we got back to Catacamas and realized we still have three months left so we got back to work. We are trying to finish all of our projects, not starting new ones, so we can finish everything before we go as neither of us is being replaced by new volunteers. It looks like we should be able to do that.

Other news: We visited another volunteer’s (Ryan) site and got to see our cats’ two sisters who now live there. They were doing very well and loved seeing us too. We also got to see a hammock bridge that Ryan helped build for his community which is pretty awesome. The Friday after we got back to our house, Shannon went to grab a bag and noticed a snake coiled up in the corner of the kitchen. Kevin went to get the camera and snapped a couple of pictures as the snake started moving. Not knowing if it was poisonous or not, we did not want to grab it and it went behind the oven and we couldn’t get it out. So, hoping it was not venomous, we eventually went to bed and didn’t see it again. Then, while cleaning Sunday morning, Kevin found about two inches of its tail by the front door that we assumed the cats had bitten off but still no sign of the snake. Shannon thought the cats had eaten it but Kevin was sure there would have been signs of part of the snake somewhere. Monday morning, after coming back from running, Kevin went in to take a shower, like most Honduran things, the shower doors do not fit right into the frame and the snake was coming out of the shower into the bathroom. We opened the back door and shooed it out, noticing that it was missing the end of its tail. We never saw it again but Kevin did look it up and found that it was a Northern Cat-Eyed Snake and is very docile and non-venomous. If only we had known that beforehand we could have just grabbed it and saved it some misery. One of our cats did have a sore that started oozing puss on his chest after that so maybe the snake did turn violent as it was getting its tail bitten off. We will never know.

We tried to hike the tallest mountain in Olancho two weekends ago. We have been wanting to do it the whole time we have been here and now that time is running out we are trying to squeeze this three day trip in. Unfortunately, it rained so much the night before that the river that we’d have to cross three times was impassable and we were unable to go. We have rescheduled it for another weekend and hopefully the same thing doesn’t happen again. It has been raining almost every afternoon now which also means our water turns brown and we often don’t have any running water in the morning and resort to showering by bucket or the other alternative of just not showering.
We invited all the volunteers in our department, along with some others, over for the 4th of July last weekend, which we celebrated on the third by finding ridiculous used “patriotic” clothing to wear. We had over 15 people at our house that night and had tons of food to eat and had a great time.

Dengue has also been hitting a lot of people in our site and around the country including our site-mate Elisabeth. Dengue is not fun. She barely had enough energy to pick up a glass of water and take a drink. This lasts for about a week. We took turns helping her out, taking her to the medical facility and cooking her food. Kevin didn’t mind as he went over every day to watch the World Cup games anyway. Now that the World Cup is over, he is really sad and was pretty devastated after the Netherlands lost. He had been rooting for them since before the World Cup even started. Maybe in four years. He even has a shirt he can wear in four years supporting the Netherlands, although it is in Spanish.

This past Friday and Saturday we went to Tegucigalpa to help do two training events with the brand new group of volunteers (trainees) that just came to Honduras three weeks ago. Friday afternoon we were on a panel to talk about safety and security since between the two of us we have been robbed, witnessed murders, had stuff stolen from our back yard, been bitten by a dog, etc. It’s always a fun time when you get to scare the new trainees. The next day was the fun day where we got to talk about the different Peace Corps support groups and do activities to really get to know the new trainees. We also had plenty of time for questions from the new trainees about what life is really like as a volunteer without any PC staff around. We can get some pretty interesting questions and it is pretty fun. We remember this activity very well from when we were in training and how exciting it was to finally get to talk to actual volunteers and ask them questions.

El Mundial

Unlike the U.S., the World Cup, or Mundial, is huge in Honduras. Soccer is the main sport played here and everyone plays it. When Honduras qualified for the World Cup everyone went crazy celebrating and the next day was declared a holiday! This is the first time in 28 years that they have qualified and it meant a lot to the people. Everyone kept asking us if the people in the U.S. were excited that the U.S. had also qualified and were shocked when we said that a lot of people probably had no idea. That is just crazy to them since it is such a big deal here. That said, it was an awesome experience to be here for the World Cup. In the months leading up to the event, there were signs, banners, store windows painted, and World Cup paraphernalia everywhere. Even the movie theaters participated with World Cup trivia on the screen before the movie.

The first game Honduras played in the World Cup against Chile started at 5:30 A.M. but that didn’t deter anyone from watching. We were in Tegucigalpa and got absolutely no sleep because there was a party outside of our room and they were playing the World Cup songs (you may not know this but there are two World Cup songs, one by Shakira and the other by K’nann and David Bisbal) and a Honduran artist Polache over and over again. We finally got up at 3:00 A.M., put our Honduras jerseys on and headed to T.G.I.F. with a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers to watch the game. Fridays stayed open all night and when we got there at 4:30 there were quite a few people. By the time the game started it was full and they were bringing out more chairs. Needless to say, Honduras lost and everyone was sad but they still cheered. It was a great experience because everyone was so into the game.

For the second Honduras game against Spain, we were staying with a friend in a small town. We went to his host family’s house for lunch and to watch the game. It was a bad game and super hot and Shannon fell asleep after eating lunch. The Honduran men present gave her a yellow card for sleeping during the game. Needless to say, Honduras lost again but it was another good experience watching the game at someone’s house and talking about it with them.

We watched the third game against Switzerland at our site-mate’s house since we no longer have cable (Kev actually goes over there for every game even the ones at 5:30 A.M.). Honduras finally played a lot better in that game but was still unable to score a goal and ended up tying 0-0. Honduras controlled the game and had plenty of scoring opportunities but was just not able to put the ball in the back of the net. We could hear shouts from the neighboring houses when a bad call was made and when the power went out for a few seconds.

So Honduras left the World Cup without having scored a goal but they left proud to have made it that far. People still wear their Honduras jerseys and they wear them proudly knowing that they proved to the world that they are a force to be reckoned with and vowing that they will be back in four years and this time will score lots of goals!

stuff

So it has been a little while since we have written. Kev’s parents came to visit for a week and we showed them the exciting sites of Catacamas and went to Tela, on the north coast, where we all got sunburned snorkeling (Shannon’s first sunburn in years, she was sad). We got to see some monkeys at a natural reserve and lots of plants at botanical gardens. Our almost site-mate Josh’s parents came right after Kevin’s parents so we got to meet them and spend some time with them as well. They accompanied Shannon and Josh to their English class and the teachers were super confused by their South African accents. It was good for them to hear something besides U.S.A. accents.

Shannon marched in a caminata pacífica (peaceful walk) last week with her counterparts. It was the second annual parade in which 10 schools and 5 high schools from the prevention program they do participated. It was a lot bigger than last year and was a lot of fun and of course Shannon is famous now because she was on TV.

We both attended the inauguration ceremony for the veterinary school that will be starting next year at the university where Kevin works. It was a huge event and people came from other countries as well as various ambassadors and diplomats. This will be the first veterinary school in Honduras so it is really exciting. The closest schools right now are in Nicaragua and Guatemala so having one in Honduras will be a great advantage for all of the young students who wish to study veterinary medicine. There is also much need here as many people treat their “pets” terribly and have no idea how to take care of them. It is very uncommon to spay and especially neuter animals (hence the millions of stray dogs and cats that run wild) so hopefully the school will focus on educating people about the advantages of this as well.

We celebrated biodiversity day a couple of weeks ago. The university hosted a big program put on by GTZ, a German organization, and we went on a trip to a town a couple of hours away to learn about biodiversity. We participated in a bird and plant count (Shannon almost died of boredom) where the vice mayor of the town was one of the guides and was extremely knowledgeable about birds. He impressed us by being able to identify all different types of birds just by listening to their calls. He also knew their names in English, Spanish, and their scientific names. We also got to see an endangered tree, Teocinte, which is endemic to the area and nowhere else in Honduras or the world. The Maya used it a lot during their reign and it the agency is trying to get people to protect and preserve it. We went to a local town pretty far into the campo (we had to ford a couple good sized rivers to get there) and saw the pine trees they planted as part of a reforestation project. It was a long day but we learned a lot and met a lot of interesting people. Go biodiversity!

Today we had some excitement when we went for a run at 5:30 in the morning. We got the to field where we normally run and saw special forces police officers everywhere crouching in bushes and surrounding about a block of houses. They were wearing bullet proof vests, helmets, and carrying semi-automatic weapons, something you don’t see everyday. A women who usually walks told us that they were trying to capture someone and that it was probably drug related so we should use the other entrance (on the side of the field away from them). We weren’t sure if it was safe to run but she assured us it was fine. Everyone else was going about their normal business, running, driving, and even walking through the mobs of police. So we ran as normal and after about 30 minutes they all stood up and it seemed like they were calling off the operation. It was weird. Later, our safety and security officer called to tell us that the DEA was running “operations” in Olancho this week. We assume this was part of it.

It rained a lot last weekend due to the storm Agatha. We heard that there were problems in Catacamas with flooding and bridges washing out and that the mayor had called a state of emergency. However, we didn’t see any of this and nobody could tell us where it was happening so we’re assuming everything was fine in most parts. Some other parts of the country were pretty hard hit so we were lucky we just had lots of rain (but don’t worry, if there had been an emergency Shannon recently went to the annual emergency zone coordinator meeting and is well prepared should there be an emergency). It tried to rain cats and dogs, but all it could muster up was a dead baby kitten on our patio. We’re still not sure where it came from, Kevin thinks that this evil stray cat that eats our cats’ food had babies but Shannon doesn’t think it was pregnant. A ver… Now we are just battling the terrible heat and humidity and trying not to melt (impossible).

Swimming without suits (almost)

We have been working hard since our last post and trip to La Moskitia. Shannon continues working with her English classes, Colgate program, HIV/AIDS, helping with Kevin’s swimming team, presentations, and many other random things. Kevin has been focusing on his swimming team as well as helping with English in the university and will start working with a class next week to hopefully start a recycling program at the university. We both went to Tegucigalpa this past Saturday with the athletes from the university that participated in the third annual JUDUCA (Juegos Deportivos Universitarios de Centroamérica). Eight countries and 19 universities were present at the games. It was the first time our university took teams to this event and we were represented in soccer, indoor soccer, basketball, swimming, track, tae kwan do, and chess. It was the first time many of these athletes had participated in a competition like this.
The Universidad Nacionál de Agricultura is set up so the students take classes about four hours a day and work about four hours a day on the university land. It is a hands-on approach to learning as well as regular classroom learning. After their time allotted to eat their three meals, study, and do anything else they need to do, they don’t have much free time. The students call it jail, and it kind of is like a jail. Everyone lives on campus, no one can leave without permission, and they are not allowed to have tattoos, piercings (for males), long hair (for males), drink alcohol, smoke, or fight. They get strikes for missing class, doing badly in classes, or getting caught breaking the rules. If they get too many strikes, or fail a class, they get kicked out of the university.
The universities we competed against were much more like universities at home. You can take classes when you want and then do whatever you want in your free time. They have real sports teams set up like universities at home. The swimmers were told from the very beginning that they would probably not win at this competition and would probably face competitors who had swum their whole lives. They wanted to go ahead and do it so we put in about two months of practice starting from learning to breathe in freestyle as well as learning all of the other strokes and they advanced a lot (at the beginning Shannon could beat all of them and by the end they could all beat her in 50 yards). Minus Easter week and the time we spent back home in March, they really only had 5 full weeks of practice. Needless to say, having never swam competitively in their lives and barely knowing how to swim when we started, we went to the competition with low expectations. When we arrived at the pool, the other teams were wearing their warm-up suits with their school names and had flags from their schools and we knew that these teams were for real. We were standing there in jeans and polo shirts. Our team dove off blocks for the first time in their lives the morning the meet started and we bought suits and goggles at eight o’clock the night before!
Our guys swam hard but we still finished last in almost every event we swam. One of our swimmers had the only false start of the meet, not that the meet was run super well but that is another story and Kevin is still upset about that. Afterwards, they all asked if we were still going to practice and were excited to continue swimming. So, we will. The next JUDUCA is in two years in Guatemala. The four swimmers we took are all freshman or sophomores and can practice, without our help, for two more years and keep improving. We will help them until we leave and continue to teach people to swim and how to improve their techniques if they already know how. The other teams from our university did just about as well as the swimmers but we did get one bronze medal in tae kwon do and the chess players were still competing when we left with the hopes to medal.
Our swimmers learned a lot from this experience and it is something they will never forget. We all went to the opening ceremonies and were introduced like in the Olympics where the teams walk in after the name of the country. Shannon and Kevin got to walk in the front with the University president and other professors who were there. Kevin got to give out medals to the swimmers as he was the only representative for the university at the swimming closing ceremonies. He also got the best seat, right next to the JUDUCA queen. Shannon and Kevin got free food and lodging for a few days and got to see parts of Tegucigalpa they had never seen. We got to bond with the students and learn a lot of slang! We also went to a playoff soccer game for one of the major teams in the capital with most of the athletes from the university which was a lot of fun. Our first soccer game in Honduras, unfortunately not the national team but better than nothing. Overall, this was an awesome experience for everyone that will never be forgotten.

home and La Moskitia

Almost another month has passed since our last post due to varying circumstances. We went home on an unplanned trip after Kevin’s grandmother passed away in March. It was under sad circumstances that we returned home but we were glad to be able to spend time with our family and friends.
The weekend before we went home we participated in a training activity with the new group of volunteers who are currently in training. We represented the married couples support group, one of five support groups that PC Honduras offered. We got to talk about what each of the groups did as well as any other questions the trainees may have had. It was a good 4 hours of interaction with the new group and we think they learned and enjoyed it as well. It was almost two years ago when we were in their positions wondering just what Honduras had in store for us in the future and were full of questions about PC life that were answered on the same activity day.
After being spoiled at home with whatever food we wanted, we flew back overnight to Honduras, caught a ride most of the way home from some nice people we met on the plane, finally got home that night to clean some cat messes that had been created while we were gone and packed our stuff to get ready for our planned vacation to La Moskitia, the wildlands of Central America. If you didn’t read the last blog, it is the largest intact forest in Central America and we went right into the middle of it. It was a lovely nine day trip that we will never forget. We took a plane in and then traveled around in dugout boats on lagoons and rivers until the last day when we rode a vehicle out on the beach. The first day was spent in the Savannah where we saw some huge cranes, caimans, water buffalo and other animals. Day two involved going to more of a beach community and a cultural night of dancing with the locals. Day three was the long, six hour boat ride up river to the community of Las Marias. Day four we went farther upriver and took a short walk in the jungle and saw some ancient petroglyphs. Days five, six, and seven were a camping trip/hike into the jungle and climbing Pico Dama (you cant get up the top rock face but can hike up until that point). During the trip, two types of monkeys, many birds, snakes, lizards and other animals were spotted. We also had to climb up roots ( really fun for Shannon and her broken toe) and use branches at some points to get up the trail. On the hike out we saw wild hog marks and jaguar poop as well. Day eight was back down the river to another beach community where we learned to fish like the locals although only one person caught one (Yay Ana!). We refreshed ourselves with coconut juice and soda and got ready to start our adventure home at three in the morning. Two hours by boat, three and a half hours in the back of a truck on the beach and dusty roads with 14 people packed in the bed. Some waiting, then many more hours on a bus that kept stopping and making us mad. We finally made it home at about seven that night only to find the cats had peed on our bed and we had to clean it off before we could go to sleep. What a trip!
All in all, it was a fabulous trip and a great chance to see a different part of Honduras. All the people speak the local language of Miskito and do not learn Spanish until they enter school. Most speak Miskito in their houses as well and only use Spanish when speaking to non-Miskito people. They were no cars and only a few motorcycles in most of the communities which meant no dust! Everything was green and beautiful and the people were very welcoming. We didn’t feel like we were in Honduras anymore. Now it is back to the real world of dust and heat…

Back to Work...

Almost a month has passed since our last blog entry. My, how time flies. We will be living back in the States before you know it. School has started back up and we are both working on several things now. Shannon has started working on the drug and alcohol prevention program with her counterpart, has started her English class to teachers again, and started teaching young kids about dental care through the Colgate program once again. She is also going to be helping a volunteer nearby do English classes for teachers near his community. Kevin has taken it upon himself to coach a new swim team at the university that really needs some help. It started with six guys and after two days of helping them out has grown to eleven. Only one of them knows all four competitive strokes. If they could swim with their heads down, they were doing well. After two days, they look a lot better but still have a long ways to go and the one and only meet is April 23, a little over a month away, but who’s counting, right? Supposedly they are going to get some swim equipment this weekend, like goggles, kickboards, stopwatches and other necessities. The English lab and program are now in full effect at the university as well where every professor and student will have to take English. We both go to the new English club every Friday night at the university to do fun English learning activities like sing songs, play games or watch movies. We recently recorded a cd with three other volunteers pronouncing English words to go along with the third level of the English course that Shannon teaches with the school teachers. That was a lot of fun but we are glad it is over. We were hoping to be able to watch the Olympics but unfortunately, no channel that we have carried it so missed out on all the winter action in Vancouver . This week, Shannon went to Tegucigalpa to meet the new group of volunteers that just arrived in country to talk to them about safety and security, Kevin already go to do that once after we were robbed and now Shannon gets to go after witnessing a murder and being robbed. Then, we both go this weekend to talk to the new group about the married couples support group. The end of this month, Easter Week, we will be going to La Moskitia for a nine day trip into a UNESCO world heritage site and the Rio Platano Biosphere, the largest intact tract of forest in Central America where we will try to avoid being eaten by crocodiles (and mosquitoes, although it is not named after an abundance of mosquitoes) and see some of the most pristine forest in the world and the animals and plants that live in them.

Photos from Trujillo

 
 
 
 

Recent Trips

We have been traveling a lot lately since the public schools have not started yet and we had a lot of free time. We went to Marcala, located in the southwest, to visit some other volunteers and had a great time. Marcala is known for coffee (too bad neither of us drink it), and it nestled in the mountains. It is cooler there and there are lots of pine trees instead of the jungle we live near. We had a nice, relaxing time eating lots of great food made by Rachel and hiking a little in the mountains. It was just what we needed and a nice break for Shannon from always hosting people. For once she got to relax!

After that we came home for a couple of days and then headed off to Trujillo. Trujillo is located on the north coast and is where Christopher Columbus supposedly landed when he discovered Honduras. It is a small, quaint town with beautiful white sand beaches and crystal clear water. We had MARV, the married couple group, and met up with the other married couples there. We stayed right on the beach in a hotel owned by a New Zealander and had a great time. The water in Trujillo has phosphorescent phyto plankton which was amazing! We went swimming at night and every time that you moved the water looked like it was glowing! The only bad part was the sand flies and mosquitoes. Shannon had over 100 bites when we got home and was pretty miserable. The road from Catacamas to Trujillo is also pretty terrible. Distance wise it is not a long trip but it took 9 hours because the road is dirt and filled with potholes. Needless to say, we were covered with dirt (literally our hair looked gray) when we arrived. We went home on the 4:30 AM bus and the dust wasn’t quite as bad but the trip was still terrible. Our original plan was to hitchhike because it is much faster and less dusty but right before we left a town on the way had a series of 10 murders in a week so hitchhiking in that area was forbidden and the volunteers there were temporarily removed. Peace Corps actually put that road off limits the day after we got back but luckily we made it in time otherwise we would have had to go all the way around Honduras and our trip would have taken two days!

When we got back, our friend Elizabeth came to visit for Shannon’s birthday. Shannon had a great birthday filled with lots of food (good food is hard to come by here)! Kevin and Elizabeth made her breakfast of cheesy vegetable eggs with potatoes, our site mate Biffy made her gourmet pizzas for lunch, we ate some anafre and papas bravas for dinner, and Kevin made her jello cake for dessert! She did not have to lift a finger all day and it was the perfect birthday! Our next door neighbor that used to harass Shannon found out that it was her birthday and the next week threw her a party at our house (sadly Kevin missed it because he was at his project reconnect). He brought a cake that said “Feliz Cumpleaños Shanen” which is the best anyone has spelled her name without seeing it written beforehand. He also brought tons of drinks, a couple of friends, and a boombox with tons of music! It was the strangest night, but fun too!

Shannon’s birthday was also inauguration day. The new president took office without problems and the ex-president finally left the Brazilian Embassy and went to the Dominican Republic. We also have a new mayor in Catacamas which means that most of the workers in the municipality will also change (very productive we know). Hopefully things continue to get better here and the economy and tourism picks back up.

Sadly (and gladly) our retirement is coming to an end as schools are starting next week. Shannon has already been preparing for the new year and it looks like she will be pretty busy working with some of the teachers who graduated from her English class last year. Time to become productive again…

Shools and Snakes

It’s been awhile since we have written but we have been busy! We went to California for Christmas and although it was a short trip (only one week), we had a great time and got to see a lot of people and eat a lot of great food! We got to play in the snow with our nephew and, of course, see our cat Spike. We brought back so much food with us to Honduras that the guys in customs laughed at us! We were only back for one night and then we headed up to the North Coast to spend New Years there with a few friends. We stayed in Tela right on the beach and rang the New Year in watching fireworks on the roof of our hotel. It was very tranquilo and nice. We also went to a nearby Garífuna village. Garífuna are an ethnic group in Honduras and they are predominantly black and live along the North Coast. They have preserved their native language although many speak Spanish and even English as well. It was nice to be in such a cultural location and to eat some of their traditional food like riceandbeans (made with coconut milk) and pan de coco. We stayed right on the beach and had a nice relaxing time.



There are still no classes at the public schools and the University has been out for Christmas break but we have still managed to keep busy. We took a trip up the mountain to a small village where we are trying to help build a school. They had raised money and spent a month building a school but then (we have heard various versions) someone took off with the money and the rains came and destroyed the structure that was made of dirt blocks. One of the new volunteers lives close to this village so he organized this meeting (we had one months ago where we made a budget) and about 20 people came. This village, La Florida, is nestled pretty far up in the mountains (there is only one village higher up). To get there we took a bus for an hour, walked a half hour to our friend’s house, and then hiked 1.5 hours (fast) uphill. There are no cars, not even a road. The other volunteer had the great idea of building the school out of compacted dirt which is much cheaper and supposed to be much stronger. Needless to say, the community members were very skeptical of building a school out of dirt. After a long discussion where we brought up topics of cost (a traditional building will cost about $3,500 versus maybe $1000 for the dirt one) and availability of workers (anyone can work on the dirt school whereas a specialist is needed for the traditional) we finally came to an agreement. They were worried about earthquakes and floods and how a dirt school would hold up in such disasters. We finally agreed to build a small structure first so they can see how it works and if they like it, go on to build the school. Right now it is still coffee season and pretty much everyone in this town is cutting coffee so we plan to wait until mid-February to begin when they will be done and have more time. We had to meet on a Sunday at 4 PM (of course it didn’t start until closer to 5) and then hike back down in the dark because it was the only time they weren’t working. Hopefully this will all work out and a school will be built out of compacted dirt and the community could then continue to build structures in this manner and save money and have safe buildings that will last a long time!



We also helped one of the volunteers in Juticalpa, about an hour away, with training for the bilingual school he helped create. We talked about safety and security, dealing with unwanted attention, and working in schools. It was really interesting to meet these people who had only been here a few days and hear their perspectives on Honduras. It reminded us of our own training so very long ago!



A couple of nights ago, one of our cats brought a present for us into the house. Normally this means a cockroach, maybe a gecko, and at first glance Shannon figuredt it was a cockroach. When she looked at it a little better she realized it was a young snake. It seemed to be dead but we weren’t sure if it was venomous or not. It was red with black on it and seemed similar to what could be a young coral snake. When Kevin took pictures of it the yellow really stood out on it as well. Once we got the cats away and Kevin tried to pick it up it moved and we were then sure it was alive. Not knowing if it was poisonous or not, Shannon wanted Kevin to kill it but Kevin, being the snake lover that he is, did not want to kill an innocent snake so he collected it in a bag and took it to an empty lot and let it go. It will probably be caught and killed by someone or run over by a car anyway but he did his part to save it. When he went to the university he looked up the snake and found out it was a Platanera/Viboro de Sangre (Red Woodsnake or Red Coffeesnake in English) and is definitely not poisonous and is perhaps the most common snake around the area but living in the city we don’t see too many snakes.



The weather is a lot cooler (sometimes even cold especially in the mornings and nights) and we are loving it. It is supposedly due to a cold front but we hope that it will stay and make things a little more bearable. Up next: Trujillo and the MARV meeting.