Good-Bye to All

Hanging out at home with Mom and Dad today. It's good to be back. I've been spending 3 hours trying to sort out pictures so far in hopes of getting them developed as soon as possible before seeing everyone, but I don't know if that's gonna happen. But I'll keep trying. I'm hoping that now that I've returned to eating normal food my stomach issues will sort themselves out, but if not, I've already been recommended a good travel doctor to see. Ah the pleasures of figuring things out so easily when you speak the language.

Here are some final pictures. I'm getting tired of sorting through them, so there's only a few. There will be more than enough in hard copy for whenever I see each of you.

Geordie enjoying a swim in one of the watering holes we found on one of our hikes

The beach from last weekend

The super cool puffer fish

My favourite view on this trip...I LOVE HAMMOCKS!


Well that's about everything. I hope you enjoyed the blog :)

´Tis the End

Well, it´s my last day in Honduras. I´m currently in the capital, which I´m not enjoying overly much. Sketchy people, nothing to do. My flight is in 4 hours though, so I´ll be getting out of here soon enough.

I spent the weekend in Omoa, another beach town. It was great. The backpackers place where we stayed had a gorgeous yard where I laid a blanket down to relax/snooze. They had super great hammocks set up in a loft where there was a cool breeze. And best of all, there were bicycles that were free to use. It was ridiculously hot out so I didn´t spend too much time in the sun, but I did bike around a bit. Dirt roads that lead to nowhere. I loved it.

I watched some guy catch a puffer fish on the end of the pier. There were a few guys fishing for little fish that were everywhere, but this guy caught a huge puffer. He brought it on deck where it poofed up right away. Being a big ball of spikes, the fisherman couldn´t really get close enough to remove the hook. So we sat there and watched the fish puff up and deflate a few times. Everytime it started to deflate it sounded like a fart at first...hehehe. Eventually a crowd started to gather to look at the cool fish. I thought this was a common event at first since no one was making a big deal of it, but I realize that there was no one around to make it into a big deal. But once a passerby came along craziness ensued and soon the pier was packed with people. Having lost my perfect view I left the scene, so I cannot report what happened to the puffer. But it was cool to see none the less.

I´m super excited to go home. I´m bored of travelling, and don´t really enjoy eating out anymore. I feel like I´ve really gotten to see what Honduras is like, and now I want to go home and start enjoying my summer with family and friends. It was a great experience all around, but I´m glad it´s done. I´ll be sorting out some pictures when I get home, so I´ll post them later this week. Until next time....

Finally Some Pictures

In no particular order:

Checking out the scenery from the boat


One of the views after a 2 hour hike in primary rainforest


Another jungle view

A local futball game with a spectacular view

Hanging out in a river during one of the hikes

More boating in the sun

One of the cabañas we stayed in

A slightly different backround in the boat

And more boat.

There are a lot more pictures that are way better, but they take FOREVER to load, so I´ll be posting them next week when I have more time. For now, these will have to do. Okay, I´m off to the beach. Adios!

In the Jungle, the Quiet Jungle....

I made it! Into the jungle and back. The trip was adventuresome for sure, but in a different way than I expected. We went with 4 other people, 2 of whom spoke really good spanish, and 2 who were a tad better than I. The trip into La Moskitia is the unguided part of the tour, and we definately had some difficulties. After not getting a boat due to a lack of batteries for the local town radio, we followed the advise of some locals and decided to catch a truck. Unfortunately we didn´t get all the details and it turns out the trucks are normally full when they pass the area we were in, so they don´t stop. After that we decided to walk down the beach for what was supposed to be 3 hours with ALL our stuff. This was definately not my idea but when the vote is 5 to 1, I loose. 45 min into the walk everyone decides to turn around because they feel unsafe. A group of gringos with all their luggage in the middle of nowhere with no one around...what´s unsafe about that? Ugh. So. We turned around and went back. I had asked before we left if walking was for sure our only option, and was told yes. But now it seems we could go back and try a different place for a radio. WHAT!?!?! Turns out the spanish speaking girls we were with were not the brightest. They are 16 and 18, and it´s really just a lack of experience that they suffer from. Eventually we got to where we wanted, safely, and the most ¨adventuresome¨ part of the trip was prettymuch over.

We enjoyed the first of many typical meals when we arrived. After 3 months of beans, tortillas, eggs and rice I figured I could definatley do without for a loooooong time. I found the food on this trip absolutely delicious though. Turns out I only needed a couple of weeks bean free. There´s a lot to write about, but I´ll try to summarize. The majority of the trip was spent in various boats travelling on the Carribean Sea, through lagunas, or down rivers both big and small surrounded by forrests in little canoes. The scenery was truly amazing, but the sun exposure was less so. I´m happy to report that I did not get burnt though. I am, however, out of sunscreen...again. Throughout the whole trip we stayed at various cabañas that were basically thatched roofs with entirely screen walls with a view of the stars and night and the sunset in the morning. Incredible. I used a moskito net every night, not because they were overly needed, but because they make me feel like a princess when I sleep :) One of the events of the trip included a crocidile hunt, which was sucessful. We only saw little ones though, but we did see a three footer a couple days later on a random boat ride. We did a couple of hikes through the jungle, which I LOVED! The broad leaf plants and all the vines make it a really unique view. The 3 girls and Geordie all wimped out on one of the hikes, but the German guy we were with and I kept going and managed to do a 5 hour hike in 2.5 hours. Oh baby was I ever sweaty afterwards. There was definately a lack of animals spotted on the hikes though, so that was slightly disappointing. But there was lots of swimming in the lakes and rivers, letting the current take us downstream where the boat driver would come and pick us up. Nothing like floating down a river watching the jungle go by. One of the sites we stayed at looked more like an African Savana than a rainforest area, and the sunset was truly amazing. But there was a sunset last night right over the area where the sea met the beach that was for sure the most beautiful I´ve ever seen. To end our trip one of the local indigenous groups put on a dance for us by a bonfire and we got to dance with them a bit, which was definately a highlight for me of course. We travelled for 12 hours today and have another 8 hours on a bus tomorrow which will leave us on the very western edge of Honduras. From there we may or may not head to Guatemala for a day or 2. I will find time soon to post pictures though, but for now, I´m too busy enjoying the trip to bother to find an internet cafe with the speed and USB capabilities. But soon.

Other random bit of info: the girls called me ¨mom¨ the entire trip cause I was the one prepared with everything; sunscreen, bugspray, aloe vera, afterbite, water purification tablets, and hand sanitizer. Yay, I´ve finally learned how to pack properly!

MONKEYS!!!!

Went for a hike yesterday. Saw a girl fall down some stairs....she smashed her head open and no one knew what to do....I finally realized the importance of railings. Then we continiued along the trail and I saw 2 MONKEYS....so cool. Also saw a toucan, and a really big blue butterfly. Pretty neat. WE swam in a river that we were following to a waterfall. Met some locals at the waterfall who were super friendly and suprised to see foreigners at the waterfall. Aparently most people don´t make it that far.

Today we went to some hot springs that turned out only to be warm...but it was raining today, so the warm water was quite welcome. Tomorrow we leave for La Moskitia, so there won´t be any updates for 1 week, but it turns out that finding a decent internet cafe in this area is rather difficult, so I´m happy about that.

Super exited for the next week....I´ll let you know all about it.

Talkin ´bout a HEAT WAVE!

We´ve moved on to the north coast and are currently in the beach town of La Ceiba. I´ve avoided the beach so far however cause it´s WAY to stinkin hot to be in the sun. Bumming around town is okay, but I think we´ll head out to the nearest national park soon and spend a couple of days hiking.

The other day we went rowing on the Lake. Although the super hot Ryan made rowing look real easy in ¨The Notebook¨, let me assure you, it is not. First off, the oars were attached to the boat by string, which was not super effective. And after about 20 minutes one of our strings broke. Bah. So after Geordie took several attempts to fix the problem, I finally took a try and fixed it immediately with my pant leg (pants that zipper to shorts are AMAZING!). From there on out rowing was okay. It took a while to figure out how to go straight, but eventually we got the hang of it. We rowed out the canal and into the lake, saw some cool birds, found a rocky bit to pull our boat onto and went swimming. We had gone to the supermarket beforehand so we enjoyed a great lakeside picnic lunch. Other than that I haven´t done much the last couple of days. Met some really intersting people though, which has definately been entertainment enough for me. Who doesn´t love hearing stories about travelling with a dead guy or wild conspiracy theories of a super paranoid ex-American?

Seems like there´s a lot going on at home that I want to get back for. Summer seems to be starting without me, but I´ll be back in 17 days. Since travelling started out so slowly with Geordie due to the baggage loss and then the sickness, I seem to have aquired a slow pace at which I want to do things. I dunno if it´s good that I´m relaxing, or bad that I´m not jumping all over the opportunity to see and do tons of cool stuff. Geordie seems to be getting annoyed with my lack of energy, so perhaps it will turn around soon and I´ll cram the funness in for the last 2 weeks.

At a Medium Pace

Hangin out at Lago Yahoa. Staying at the bed and breakfast (which also happens to be a brewery) which we stayed at the last time we checked out the Pulhapanzik Falls. We went to the falls yesterday when it was stinkin hot out, so the hurricane rain and sweeping water was really welcoming. Took some pictures to replace my lost ones, only since it's now the end of the dry season things are looking a little dead around here. But it's still tropical scenery, which is great.

Geordie is currently in bed with what he thinks is food poisoning. We ate at a little street vendor yesterday for lunch. I'm still doing fine however (minus the normal poncho visitations each morning which I've just come to expect) so perhaps I've built up some sort of immunity to the bugs here. So we're gonna stay in the area for a few days till he fills better.