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Honduras |
These are the notes I (Stefan) wrote down during our trip. The journal is unfinished, but I've posted it here anyway in case I never finish...
Background: Renée and I flew from Seattle to meet my high school friend Rajeeb and his girlfriend, Julie, in Honduras. Rajeeb has family in Honduras. They were all incredibly nice to us - they drove us around, showed us Tegucigalpa, gave us a place to sleep, prepared meals for us, and overall demonstrated that Honduran hospitality is really, really nice.
4/8/05 Fri 9:30p finished packing for ~7th time & drove to Renée’s dad’s.
4/9/05 Sat 12:10a boarded flight to Houston, 1st class! Seats were wider + with more leg room, but there wasa big console between us, so we couldn’t lie on each other. Slept a little, lightly + uncomfortably, maybe 2h. 1st class service, but no cookies + no meals.
Got to IAH terminal E, where I spent lovely time getting stuck on way home from Gulf Shores in July. Nice terminal, but bad memories. Found gate, slept on floor under seats for 1h. Woke up, very bright sun coming through windows. Slept fitfully due to incessant broadcast on CNN (!) of Charles and Camilla wedding. Woke up feeling like I had a British accent. CNN people were named Becky Anderson and Anderson Cooper. Went for breakfast, sat around for rest of 3h layover. Surprised not to see many adventure tourist types on the flight.
Flight to TGU – 1st class again (board first). Great fruit platter with mango for breakfast (also spongy French toast). Watched “After the Sunset,” kinda fun. Landing into TGU was very interesting: flight path goes through very hilly area, plane stays very close to ground the whole time (ground is also descending); plane must make several banking turns that put left wing scarily close to ground; just before touchdown, flight path is carved out of hill just 150 ft away on right; houses are very close to plane the whole time; pretty bumpy. Renée luckily distracted by woman nearby, so she wasn’t terrified. Snapped some pics through window. Old airplanes sitting at TGU – Toncontín airport. Customs at TGU/immigration relatively simple. Computers in use for immigration, but many things written by hand. Went through X-ray for bags on way out. Rajeeb & Julie & cousin Alejandro were right outside waiting for us. Alejandro has a Pathfinder. We put our bags in the truck and then went back into the airport to buy tickets to Roatán. No one came to the counter, so we tried another airline. Rajeeb paid for all 4 after some confusing back-and-forth about what times, what dates.
Sat 4/9/05 1:15 (Turns out Honduras is on US Mountain time zone, so it’s 1h earlier than I thought. This is because they don’t do daylight savings.) We drove to the Miraflores house, where Rajeeb’s aunt Carmen, grandmother (his mom’s mom, who used to live with them in the US and whom I’d met before – but I don’t think she recognized me), cousin Carolina, Carolina’s husband Dennis, & Carolina’s children Dennis & Denise live. They have a Dalmatian, who is lazy in the heat and knows to stay out of the house, and a Siamese cat that they keep on a leash. In the back by the laundry (a concrete basin with built-in, concrete washboard) there is another apartment whose entrance is on the 2nd floor – but there is no floor for the entrance. You have to take a ladder up and somehow jump in. Rajeeb’s other cousin Nestor lives there. In the laundry area are 2 small “rooms” full of junk & unfinished construction. Rajeeb says they plan to turn them into usable rooms. I don’t know how many bedrooms the main house has for the 6 people, but I think 2. Immediately on our arrival (almost – first there were many introductions & kisses), Carolina handed us glasses of water with ice. My first thought was, don’t drink the water…but I drank it anyway – I was thirsty – and I never got sick. I get the impression that most people here drink bottled water too. Then we got watermelon – yum – and went outside to eat it. (The area between house & street is a fenced in area with small garden & car spot, which holds Nestor’s car.) At this point I still didn’t understand who was who or where we were staying. In fact Renée and I spent most of the time rather bewildered about everything – who’s who, what’s next, where are we going, etc. More on this later. At any rate, our bags were still in the living room, so it seemed like we probably weren’t staying there…and in fact Rajeeb explained then that we would stay at another place, where his cousin Josué lives, but he wasn’t available yet, so we went to Miraflores first. We would go to Josué’s after eating lunch.
Sat 4/9/05 2:00p So…we walked down the street and through the neighborhood to a pulpería (corner store) and bought some food – chicken, avocado, some tamale-like things wrapped in banana leaves, soda. Then we walked back home, where Rajeeb’s aunt & Carolina prepared everything for us. We ate (with Rajeeb & Julie), but they (aunt/cousin) did not eat with us. At no time were we ever in the house – then or later – when the TV was not on. In fact this is true of every place we went, including one bar (but not the Pupusería on Sunday…).
Sat 4/9/05 4:00p Alejandro finally came back from trying to get his driver’s license (it was stolen) (but the office was closed, so he did some other errands – he took a long time) and took us to Josué’s, where we would sleep. Josué is another cousin. His parents live in San Pedro Sula, where he says it is very hot – over 40°C. He is in medical school in Tegús. He’s 21? Or 24? He learned his English in London, so he has a British accent. Rajeeb & Julie think that is very funny or strange. Apparently American English is the respected form in Honduras – kind of how they respect British English more in Europe. Josué has a room in a house with 6? other people. Some are “cousins,” I think all are also in med school. He allows us to sleep there while he sleeps in the living room – very nice of him. There is no A/C, which we said before leaving would be OK. Rajeeb insists that we will at least need a fan, so we buy one later at the mall – more on that later. The biggest issue with Josué’s place is that the shower doesn’t work. There is a shower, but it’s broken, and no one seems in any hurry to fix it. What you do instead is fill a bucket with water from a hose, and then you pour it on yourself using a plastic bowl. The water is cold, but that doesn’t matter because you’re hot. I had trouble figuring it out at first. Two tricks: armpits are hard, because you have no hands free (you lift one, pour with the other), so instead splash out of the bowl; never rinse something off directly in the big bucket, because then it would be soapy.
OK, I’m running out of time for rambling like this. I’ll switch to note form.
Arrive 11:40a on Sat
Go to Miraflores, eat lunch
Hang out, wait for Ale
Drive to Santa Lucía, see church, see Ale’s family’s house
Drive back
Hang out more
Drop off stuff at Josué’s
Go to dinner with Vanesa & Nestor & his girlfriend (?)
Sleep at Josué’s (Nestor gave us a ride there)
Wake up 6:40a Sun
Cockroach on Renée’s shoulder!
Get ready for hike
Eat melon from Josué
Rajeeb & others are late to pick us up
Tío René picks us up, takes us to Maribel’s
Leave for the hike around 9:30 (had agreed on 7:00)
Car overheats
Hike at La Tigra
Get home ~5:00. too late for fútbol game
Shower at Josué’s
Rajeeb picks us up – walks from Miraflores
Plan to take bus, but can’t because they’re not running – Sunday night
“Ask someone,” who turns out to be Rajeeb’s friend, invite her to dinner, whole family comes with us
Drive to pupusería, pick up Nestor’s brother on the way (Avilio)
Eat pupusas
Go home to Josué’s
Pack up
Sleep, starting 11:30p?
During night, Renée woke up thinking there were bugs everywhere
Wake up 6:35a Mon
Get ready
René & R+J are early (!) to go to airport
René’s birthday, give leatherman
Ride in back of pickup to airport
Check in
Confusion at airport
Flight is late
Old plane, medium-sized to La Ceiba
Transfer on tarmac
Very old, small plane to Roatán
Gas leaking, smelly, hot!
Taxi to resort
Check in
Beautiful house #1!
Diarrhea, not bad
Lunch in town
Smoothies
Grocery store
Renée headache
Hang out, watch sunset, think moon will be smaller tomorrow
Dinner at house
Hang out
Sleep, use mosquito net, starting 10:30p
Wake up 8:30a (ah!) Tuesday
Breakfast, including powerbar
Sign up for snorkeling
Jog with Renée to town to find underwater camera
Jog back, Renée gets heat exhaustion, get on boat anyway
Renée recovers, but doesn’t snorkel
Snorkeling, take 18 pics
Should have had food for Renée
Lunch
Write journal @ pool
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Swim out to reef from beach to go snorkeling
Impressive that Renée does so well swimming so far
Water is cloudier
Too shallow, Renée touches coral & freaks out
Swim in pool
Back-and-forth underwater – I beat Julie with 7, then she beat me with 8 laps
Shower
Hang out, watch sunset, disappeared early, moon is bigger
Walk to dinner in West End
Went to place out on water
All restaurants have only outdoor seating. One place rakes the sand in the dining area.
Had grouper with “shrimps.” Not bad
Back to house, using headlamp
“played” with headlamps on dock
Played cards (phase 10) phases 1-5
Sleep
Talked with Renée about the assaults she’s experiencing – bugs, heat stroke, small planes, swimming, roaches, diarrhea, …!
Woke up 8:30 on Wed
Didn’t sleep as well – not as tired as night before, weird noises
Overcast
Macro photography with Renée – fun
Occurs to me that I spent time in Tanzania wishing I could take a trip like that with Renée. In Honduras, Renée is with me. Dream come true!
Snorkeling again at 11:00
Go near resort, near where we swam to
Beautiful
Funny, tiny brown jelly fish
Renée takes a rest ½-way through, but has a good time
Beautiful wall of coral – from 30 to 10 ft deep
Saw barracuda about 20 ft away, didn’t tell Renée till later
Man on boat (captain) doesn’t like to snorkel more than 15 min
Rajeeb snorkeled a long time
Julie got stung by jellyfish; previously gotten by sea lice – itch for rest of trip
Came back, had lunch @ Luna, OK
Julie got headache
Relaxed, waited for Julie
Renée & I went kayaking (Julie felt bad)
Finding kayaks difficult
· woman at Luna front desk told us they could pick us up in the morning (we wanted to go today), gave bad directions for place in West End
· first few places we stopped had none
· asked a guy after he ignored us for a long time; after waiting & negotiating he told us we couldn’t go now
· finally found a spot with a nice girl
· walked to kayaks through home area
· funny conversation between girl & british woman – Randy was drunk and in a fight
kayaked from North end of West End to just past our resort & back
nice, relaxing
bought groceries & ice cream on way home
great afternoon
dropped off groceries & went down to watch sunset, take photos
sun was red disc, OK to look at directly
showered
got ready to go for dinner
pre-packed
did laundry (2 underwear)
decided to eat leftovers instead of going out
ate
didn’t go to bar – too tired
lay on floor
Played phases 6-10. 1-5 more fun
Slept 10:15
Woke up 7:30 Thu
Got out of bed 8:05 with Renée
Breakfast – eggs, toast, watermelon
Wrote journal on upstairs deck
Packed
Internet – no D2x shipped
Taxi to airport
Very slow on dirt road
Pretty slow on roads
Through town Coxen Hole
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Very hot plane to La Ceiba; woman says they are “good planes”
La Ceiba airport – A/C!
Flight to TGU
Renée has very hard time with turbulence & with TGU approach. Says she won’t do it again
Land early in TGU (left RTB 20 min early)
No one to pick us up
Cell phone doesn’t work at first
Rajeeb uses pay phone
René picks us up after Renée & Julie eat Wendy’s kids meals
René takes us to restaurant outside town – been going there 20 years. Carne asada – good but salty
Drive to “market” for souvenirs
Nothing good
Empty of customers
Get woven straw baskets & trivets
Drive through city
· René’s favorite park
· Very busy, traffic jams
· Las Leonas park
· Plaza de España
· Great video & photos from back of pickup
Go to Mirabel’s, no one home
Go to miraflores
Wait for people to show up
René tells us he wants to export 10,000 lbs of coffee every year, highest quality. Also limes (500,000/year)
Everyone comes
We 4 + Nestor + Josué go to Taco Taco for dinner
Get home (Josué’s), go to sleep 11:30ish
Living there is just like camping, only with nicer mattress & no tent (but just as hot, bathroom gross, brush teeth with Nalgene, …)
No shower
Get up 7:35 on Fri
Didn’t sleep super well – too hot, too loud. Good thing for fan!
René & R&J get us at 8:10 or so
Breakfast @ Miraflores – plátanos & quesadillas
Go to market (real market) for beans (supermarket), cheese (stand made of pickup), coffee (supermarket)
Go to René’s house
See his stuff – lots!
Look at pics of farm on computer
Get orange wine
Uncovered manholes in road!
Go back to Miraflores, get our luggage
Drive to airport
Check in, no problem
Wait in line to pay exit tax – very long line
Flights to Seattle!
Notes/reminders for what else to write:
· city
· pollution
· houses
· hilly
· infrastructure American
· buses
· mix US/Asia influence
· clothes on plane, cut belt
· weird aunt
· general confusion
· new backpack
· mall & American chains
· character studies
· layout of Roatán/West End
· differences from Tanzania. Important one: Renée is with me!
· Roach on Renée
· Elaborate on Renée’s assaults
· Black birds, sound like grackles + shriek, larger
· Julie not a morning person, Rajeeb is
· Lightning rod
· Next time take more pens!