Guatemala..The Adventure Begins

I do not have enough time to write about the whole trip right now, but I will at least start. We had to be at the university at 5:15 a.m. on Friday. We waited a while for the bus that was late. Once we loaded all the luggage on top and had people inside, the driver realized that there was too much weight, which meant we had to find another, larger bus. We waited two and a half hours for a larger bus. This bus was a mix of a coach bus and a school bus. There was way more space, but no AC and no t.v., like the other. We got going a little late. On our way we stopped at a Banana farm for a tour. In Honduras there are two large, American owned, banana companies. This farm was of Chiquita Bananas. After we got back on the bus and traveled to Copan, which is on the frontier of Honduras and Guatemala. This hotel was not one of my favorite, because of all the geckos, but it was fine. We at Jim’s Pizza, which is a pizzeria in town, owned by an American, Jim. We got up very early the next morning to have breakfast at a small restaurant. Afterwards we came back to the hotel to wait for our bus. Some girls realized that during breakfast some of their things had been stolen; 2 IPods, 3 cell phones, and a total of 250 dollars. After waiting some time in the hotel we were told that the bus was not working, and we had the afternoon in Copan. We went out to lunch and shopped at some of the small stores there. We returned later to the hotel to find out that we would be spending an extra night, because we had to find a new bus. The group went out to dinner and then to another place to watch a Honduras soccer game. Sunday we got up and got going on a new bus. Most of the day was spent on the bus. We arrived in Panajachel in the evening. We had some time to check out the principle road where all the stores and restaurants were. We got up Monday morning and walked to the lake front. The city is on a lake with many other towns. While walking to the boat, there were these men bothering us to buy these stupid pens. Sara and I were quickly walking down a flight of stairs to get away, and Sara fell, hurting her ankle badly. We got on the boat and went to the first town. Sara had to stay on the boat, because she could not walk. In the first town we went to a fabric company. They make fabric using old-fashioned wood weaving machines. To them it is not really old-fashioned, but to us it is. The fabric was beautiful. We then got back on the boat and went to another town on the lake. We ate at this really nice restaurant. I had a delicious steak. The beauty of the trip was that Calvin paid for ALL food, housing, transportation, and any trip related activities. After lunch we visited the Catholic Church there, and another religious site. We then had time to shop at the markets there. This was our first real chance to practice our bargaining skills. It was hard because we did not know what prices were good or bad for some of the products there, because prices are so different here. There were these two little kids who followed us the whole time wanting us to buy bracelets. It was annoying and sad at the same time. I ended up buy some from them in the end. We went back to the main town, and had the evening to ourselves. We ate dinner at a restaurant on the main road. The whole dinner time people would come up and ask if we wanted to buy their product. Some of us are softer than others, Katie being one of the softer ones. She had a hard time saying no. We shopped a little in the evening. Tuesday morning we traveled to Antigua. We had time for lunch and then met for a 3 hour walking tour of the city. I ended up staying back with Sara, because there was no way she could have walked for that long. Afterwards we went out to some markets. We had a group dinner at a fun restaurant. There was music all night, which made for a fun atmosphere. Later that night some people went to a bar-restaurant. There were some girls who wanted to leave earlier than others, so they left alone. On their way back, some guy tried to rob them, but they screamed and ran. The fronts of hotels are all locked at night, so they were banging on the front door loudly. That is when I came out to see what had happened. They were all alright luckily.

Voy a Guatamala

I leave tomorrow at 5:00 am for Guatamala. I will be gone for a week. I am excited to tell you all about it when i get back.

More pictures

La Playa

Last week was rather uneventful. I had my first history exam. I studied for three hours for a 15 minuet- 2 page test. At least I was well prepared. It is now rainy season, which makes walking quite inconvenient. However, the rain does make it cooler. The other day I was talking with my dad and I told him I thought the day was a little cooler than most, but when he went on Google, the temperature in Tegus was 82. I am scarred to return to winter and snow.

Thursday night, Hope slept over at my house, because it would be unsafe for her to take a taxi by herself in the morning to the bus station. It is amazing how safety can be so inconvenient. Friday morning we left for the beach in Tela, a city on the northern coast of Honduras. I left my house at 4:45, to leave on the bus at 5:45. My mom had arranged for a taxi to come to my house, because it’s much safer to have a taxi driver my family knows when it is so early in the morning. The bus ride was about 5 hours with one stop in the middle. Because we were going through the mountains the whole trip, the bus was always turning and going up hills and down hills. We arrived in Tela around lunch time. We ate at a restaurant right on the beach. After lunch we went and looked at some tents set up for a festival that we going on. Friday was a holiday here in Honduras. The rest of the afternoon was spent at the beach. We got dressed up and went out Friday night to a nice restaurant. The rest of the night we spent on the beach and the hotel patio.

Saturday morning we got up at 6:30 to go on an excursion to a national park nearby, Punta Sal. We took a 40 minuet boat ride to the park. Our little boat got a lot of air off the large ocean waves. Once there we got off the boat and started our hike through the jungle. Our guide prefaced the hike with saying, “If I start to run, do not ask questions; just run with me. I will explain after I feel it’s safe and have stopped.” Of course being a little concerned I asked why we would need to run, and how often does this need to run occur? He responded saying that there were jaguars in the jungle, and running was more or less common. This really eased my nerves, or not. There were sooooo many mosquitoes that I literally spayed my can of bus spray the entire hike. I felt like one of those city girls who was defiantly outside her box. We did not see any jaguars, but we did see some monkeys. Our guide would make a monkey noise, and the monkeys would all then make a bunch of racket. It was a beautiful park. After the hike we got back into the boat and went to the other side of the peninsula. The guide dropped us off a bit away from shore, and we snorkeled our way back to shore. It was very cool to see all the ocean life. Once on the beach we had lunch. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, fish was for lunch. The whole fish sat on my plate staring me down. I do admit I did try it, but I really am not a fan of sea life as my meals. After lunch we had two hours to just relax on the beach. Because no one is allowed to live there, besides the two families that lived there before the land was a park, we pretty much had a private beach. We returned to the mainland after. We went out for dinner and then spent the evening again on the beach and hotel patio.

Sunday morning I got up early because I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful sunny day. After spending all morning at the beach we got some lunch and got ready to go. Once at the bus station, Katie told me I should call my parents to let them know at what time I would be returning that evening. When I went to get my phone, I realized that I had left it at the hotel. I do not know how, but one of the girls in our group remembered writing down the hotel number on our travel information sheets four days before. I called the hotel and asked if anyone spoke English, but of course not, so I had to explain the situation in Spanish. I told her I had just left the hotel, but I thought I left my phone in the room. She said she would go look and I should call back in 5 min. I had Katie keep calling my phone to help them find it. The women picked up, and asked if I were going to come back for it, but I did not have time to return to the hotel and then back to the bus station before our bus would need to leave. I told her that I would pay someone to bring it to me. Just as we were getting on the bus, she brought me my phone. It was soo close. We had a nice bus ride home. When I got home I was tired and went to bed. I would defiantly return again.

Just alittle something i noticed is the grand difference of the pictures currently on my blog- poor Honduras village compared to tourist hotel beach..i definatly am experiencing alot.

Tela

I am not sure the order the pictures will come up in but here is what they are: Our room at the hotel. The curtains are closed but out our window we saw the beach and ocean. One of the pictures is our view. We went on an excursion to a national park. There is a picture of our hike through the jungle. The group of us on beach at the park. The view of the hotel from the beach. I will write more later.

Address

Someone asked for my address, so i thought i would just put it up for everyone

Julianna Felker
Apdo 30676
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Central America