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.