We just got back from a 6 day hike through the jungle, farms, native villages, and rivers to the Lost City. The destination was moskito-filled ruins of the Tayrona Indians discovered only about 50 years agos. There were beautiful sites along the way. Liz slightly injured herself and needed to go on horseback the last day (she doesn´t read my blog so no one tell her I put this up). We were heading out to the beaches of the Parque Tayrona, but instead had to go straight to Ecuador.

I have left Central America and am now in South America. My sister has made it safely down and so far we are getting along and she is helping to keep me from getting lost. We spent the day bathing in a mud pool on the top of a volcano outside of Cartagena, Colombia.


Before we toured the Mira Flores Locks, part of the engineering feat of the Panama Canal. We also were able to travel down the canal entrance to a beautiful island with empty beaches, fish, and pelicans.

Flying through the water
I spent this morning scuba diving in the ocean, first to a wreck site and then to see some colorful coral. It's amazing to just float by and observe a whole other world! So I'm going again tomorrow:)

I left Panama City today and flew over to Bocas de Toro, a group of islands off the north coast. It seems like a nice island, and I am going to go scuba diving in the morning! But I think it must be the off season because I followed signs to an Indian restaurant and it said closed to July. Then I went to a pizza place and they said they didn´t have pizza this month. But I did eventually manage to find an open restaurant and the hostel has a pancake breakfast, so I´m all set. I'll be heading back to Panama City in a few days to meet my sister!

I finally left Honduras for good and am now in Panama City. It's the first time that I'm traveling by myself (until my sister comes in less than a week!!) and I've found that people are friendly and helpful. The lady I was sitting next to on the plane even gifted me a model house after I said I'd never been to Costa Rica, where she was from. Panama City is much bigger and more modern than I imagined and I'm very excited because I can even drink the water write out of the tap!

Tomorrow I'm leaving Honduras and flying to Panama. I just got back from my friend's wedding yesterday. It was a small and simple wedding and reception with some fun and interesting cultural exchanges. The groom couldn't figure out why we were hiding his bride from him until the ceremony started. Crystal has been a great friend during my Peace Corps service and I wish her all the best in her married life!

Lago de Atitlan back to Antigua then back to Honduras
I'm now reaching the end of the first part of my trip. I've finished up travelling north of Honduras and am now heading back to Honduras and specifically to La Esperanza to finish some things up and attend my friend's wedding. Even though I've only been travelling for a little more than 2 weeks, it feels kind of nice to return 'home' one last time before undertaking the majority of my trip. We had a wonderful time at the lake and I should add pictures of some of the beautiful views soon.

Around Coban: Caves and swimming
Yesterday, we headed up to the serene town of Lanquín where we stayed in the loft of a thatched hut next to the river. From there we headed out for the day to the caves and swimming adventures of beautiful Semuc Champey. We swam and climbed through a cave carrying a candle (I somehow managed to keep it lit the whole time!) and then jumped off a swing into the river before tubing down it. In case that was not enough adventure for one day, we proceded to hike over to the pristine pools, climbing up to a wonderful lookout point and then swimming through the natural pools and going down the waterfall with a rope ladder and finally jumping into the cool river. It was a great day, but I'm a little sore today from all that climbing. We're staying in Antigua tonight and tomorrow heading out to Lake Atitlan.

The Travel Continues:
Guatemala to Belize and Back to Guatemala
After spending a few days in Antigua, we headed on to Belize. We took about a 5 hour bus ride to Puerto Barrios to cross by a small boat into Punta Gorda, Belize. After a night in the small beach town, we heading on to the island paradise of Caye Caulker. We went out diving at the blue hole, gradually submerging to a depth of about 120 feet, swimming under a cave with stalactite hanging down, and emerging on the other side to shark filled waters. We spent a few more days snorkeling with stingrays, turtles and sharks, chilling on the beach, and watching the beautiful sunsets before heading back to Guatemala. From there we camped out in the middle of the jungle in Tikal and woke up to watch the sunrise from the tallest temple in the Mayan Ruins where we were greeted by spider and howler monkeys and an array of birds including toucans and parrots. Now we are in Coban and heading out to a supposedly bueatiful swimming place in the morning. Travelling so far has been a great life. Pretty much everyone we've met has been friendly and helpful and the sights have been absolutely amazing. I should get some more pictures posted soon.

Here's just a few things I've noticed have changed for me after spending 2 years in Honduras and now interacting with other foreigners.

Results of living in Honduras so long

• Someone asks you what US bands you like and the only thing that comes to mind is Shakhira and Mana


• Every meal you eat is the best meal you've ever had


• You stare at foreigners and have to remind yourself not to pick your nose in public


• You're immensely impressed by paved roads and think that Burger King is a special treat


• You expect to be the center of attention


• You feel a meal without tortillas is incomplete


• You can ask directions and follow them but a map is impossible to follow


• You forget how to use a credit card


• You can cross barbed wires and streams, but a road with a little traffic throws you off


• You say inappropriate things in English thinking no one can understand

Hasta la proxima.

Life Beyond Peace Corps

I've just finished up my 2 years and 3 months of Peace Corps in Honduras!! Before heading back to the US, I'm taking a few months to travel starting now in Guatemala, heading to Belize then back through Honduras and south ending up in Chile and getting back to the US mid August.It's hard to believe the 2 years have already gone by. There were times when it seemed they would last forever, but now it's time to move on. I spent yesterday climbing a volcano (Pacaya) and actually got to walk on lava that dried the day before and poke live lava with a stick, but it was just a little warm. The architecture in Antigua is absolutely amazing with several of the colonial buildings in tact. What I've seen of Guatemala so far seems to be far more develloped than Honduras as far as the infrastructure goes. But of course, I'm also not living with the locals now but am travelling with the tourists. It's nice to have no responsibilities anymore and just have some time to relax and see the world.


Pictures from Antigua




In front of colonial Antigua

Pacaya Volcano

An Uninvited Guest
Last Thursday, after having some friends over for dinner, I was going to watch the dishes when I noticed an unwanted helper. After a slight alarm, I brought the cat over to chase the tarantula next to my sink and eventually managed to get it outside.

It’s been a while since I last updated my blog. Now I have just over 2 months left of my Peace Corps service in Honduras. From there I’m going traveling around Latin America for a few months, and then probably back to the United States to work. I’ve had a great experience here and I know I’m going to miss many things, but I think I’m ready to move on to the next adventure, wherever that will be. I’ve done some decent work and learned a lot about myself and the world, but there have also been many frustrations. I wonder if anything I did will really have a positive long-term effect. But it's been a fun time and I've met lots of great people and had great experiences and I'm glad I did it. And I still have a couple more months to finish everything.

May the ground be solid beneath your feet and that the path slope slightly in your favor

I walk up with a group of men with machetes, a few kids, and a few dogs to observe the water source at the top of the mountain. I struggled to keep walking. The first hour we walked from one town where they were going to get the new water system, to the neighboring town, about 6 km away on an impassable dirt road. There the community members were arranged and an agreement was reached between the two communities to allow the use of the water source for a fee of about $1000. Before the contract could be signed, we had to view the water source, a task much easier said than done. I was still tired and covered in mud from the hour walk out to the village, but if everyone else wanted to do it, the engineer couldn´t refuse giving her professional opinion of the water source. So we started on the 2.5 hour hike up and down and up the mountain. I don´t know how I made it to the top. One of the villagers offered to carry my backpack, and another cut me a hiking stick which I definitely needed as a third foot to make it up and down the muddy slopes. Somehow I mustered up enough strength to make it to the top. I was able to have a little rest when we made it to the top. There was plenty of water at the source and it was well-protected. We took a measure of the flow rate, and then it was time to descend the mountain and return to the village. It was going to be a struggle to make it down the muddy mountain, and I was already past tired, but I didn´t have any choice but to continue. But then it started to rain. It quickly became pretty much impossible to walk, and after sliding down for a while, someone cut me another stick to try to give me some more balance. I was now skiing down the mountain. The community members were accustomed to walking in such conditions, and only I and the mayor´s representative seemed to be struggling. Somehow I made it back to the village; I was soaked and covered in mud, but fortunately without any serious injury (my camera did not fare as well). They wrote up and signed the agreement and we walked the hour back to town, where my ride was waiting for me to drive the hour back to La Esperanza. I got home just after dark and ate a big supper. Then all that remained was to do the 18 km study of the water line, beginning the next day. Somehow I managed to back it back out there the next day and begin and we finished with the study 2 weeks later. The following week we finished the report, and are now waited for funds from the government through the Strategy to Reduce Poverty. I don´t think I have ever been so sore or tired in my life, but if the project gets built and the 130 houses get water, it will be worth it. And when else can you go hiking on paths where no one else travels, where the path is cut right before you measure by your small army of men with machetes.

The other week, we had the biggest cultural event of the year in La Esperanza, the Potato Festival. There was plenty of street parties with music and dancing, and even a potato parade and a potato queen. I still don´t know where all the people came from for the festivities. But it was a nice change of pace from the normally quiet atmosphere.

It no longer feels so much like I´m living in a foreign country, it feels more like normal life. But even so, there are still plenty of new experiences, and I feel privileged to be able to really live here. I went out to San Miguelito last week to do a water study. Just getting to the water source was quite an ordeal. When we finally got a ride out in the back of a police pickup, we drove about an hour on a narrow, rocky, dirt road. From there we had to hike 3 kilometers up to the water source to begin our measurements. We had a group of men with machetes going out in front of us to cut the line so we could measure it. It was quite a way to go hiking on an untravelled path with an amazing view and a group of ´tour guides´. While of course I slipped a good number of times at the muddy parts and got some wet feet, fortuneately I didn´t fall off the side of the mountain.

I am struck by the level of poverty I find when I leave La Esperanza and go out into one of the small surrounding communities. If you go into someone´s house there, even someone who is relatively well off, you find that all the people usually sleep in one room. If they are lucky, maybe they have a concrete floor and a bench or a couple plastic chairs, but that is about it. There are usually no decorations on the wall except maybe one random photograph that someone has given them or a diploma from some workshop. You see the children running around, 8 or more in one family, often only half dressed and with their stomachs sticking out from worms. You are forced to realize what you take for granted when you see people who really have nothing. It is easy to become overwhelmed by the poverty and think that it is too great to do anything, but then again if you can do anything small it can make a huge difference.

Life in Honduras is quite different from life in the US. Things do not happen at the same pace and are much more dependent on the surroundings such as weather. I have to wait to shower until there is enough water pressure. Catching a ride in the back of a pickup truck is not the best idea when it is pouring rain. I think a lot more about what I throw away when later I have to burn it in the backyard. The walk into town also seems too long in the rain. A 4 hour bus ride seems short and potentially luxurious is the road is paved and you have a seat. Time is relative. Now half of the country is on daylight savings time and half the country is on the old time, with no real certainty as to who uses which time. Some buses follow the old hour and some follow the new hour, but in either case nothing happens on time. The other day I was eating ice cream (yes, we have one small ice cream parlor in La Esperanza, but it was unfortunately raisins and not chocolate chips in my ice cream) and I realized that I no longer felt self-conscious when people stare at me, because it is such a common thing here. The saying that it´s not polite to stare does not apply to Honduras, and a gringa is something that everyone stares at. The other day I went out to do a topographical study. I had arranged to be at the community at 8 (and had specified the new time), but had to wait around at the office until 10 for a ride. I finally got out there, after being delayed 5 times along the journey by cows in the middle of the road, around 10:30 where the members of the water board had been waiting an hour and a half. I went out with the community members to see the water sources and existing tank (a nice hour hike where I learned about quick mud, twice, and that waterproof boots are not useful when the mud comes in from above).
Here in La Esperanza, I´m pretty lucky to have access to many modern conveniences. We usually have electricity and water and even have a telephone in the house. We don´t have a television (which makes us rare here) or a washing machine (so I am getting good at pila washings, but now that the rains are starting it´s hard to get your clothes to dry). There are numerous internet cafes with decent connections when the skies are clear. We have a wonderful vegetable and fruit market where Lencan people with colorful head scarves come from all the surrounding villages to sell their produce (from strawberries to broccoli and now even wild mushrooms) at pretty cheap prices without bargaining. The market used to be a few blocks away, before it was burned down on Christmas last year (the day when no people were there) for some political reason I don´t understand. Now the vendors have taken over the street in front of my office, which has created an interesting traffic situation.
Sometimes it feels that the cultural and language barriers make it too difficult to accomplish anything, but then at the same time I am doing things here in Spanish that I probably wouldn´t have been willing to do in English. Gringos here stand out no matter what, and for better or worse are automatically seen as being some sort of great authority. Still I wonder if I will really ever fit in here or fully be able to communicate in Spanish. But the people are welcoming and it is heartening to walk toward my house with the neighborhood kids calling out my name and running up to give me a hug. And the work here is exciting and useful. I am able to go work in communities where there is a real basic need and actually help them to fulfill that need.

It´s hard to believe I´ve already been settled in my site for a month now. I´m pretty accustomed to the sights of sounds of the ´big´city of La Esperanza. The rains are starting to come, which is good because it gives my eyes a break from the dust, but it´s not a whole lot of fun walking in the pouring rain either. I´ve had a plethora of experiences already in the first month, from teaching physics in Spanish to translating for a dentist extracting teeth to examining water systems for expansion. I am now a pro (más o menos) at maneuvering over, under, or through barbed wired fences.

After a 3 month whirlwind of training in Santa Cruz and Santa Lucia ending with us swearing in at the US embassy in Teguc, I have arrived permanently to my new home in La Esperanza. I moved in last Friday, and have been settling in, meeting people, figuring out what I am going to be doing for the next 2 years. The first week has been a somewhat atypical experience, since the group I´m working for, World Vision, had it´s yearly regional conference in Tela, which happens to be located about 5 hours away on the beach. It was a good introduction to the people I´m going to be working with, though not much work was accomplished and following a schedule is a foreign concept. I met too many people and know I won´t be able to keep anyone straight for a good while. Fortuneately the volunteer I´m replacing is still here for another week and has been great at showing me around even making up a cheat sheet of people´s names for me. And then yesterday, I went up to one of the villages for a Lenca cultural day, involving some skits, speeches, and traditional food and dancing. Getting out to the community was an adventure with a one hour drive on a little dirt road in a car that had seen better days, and then a one hour hike through the mountains. Fortuneately it didn´t rain leaving the mud roads unpassable.
La Esperanza seems like it will be a great place to live, with fruit and vegetable markets abounding and pretty much all the basic necessities and trivilities are available in town. It´s nice to be settled down with a home base. This week I´m going to be getting introduced to some of the villages with water projects in various stages. I´m also going to start teaching a physics class which should be interesting considering I´m still struggling with the Spanish. I´m looking forward to 2 great and challenging years and hope that I can do a decent job and have some success with the water projects.

I am currently in La Esperanza, my home for the next 2 years. It is a small city of about 20,000 people located about a mile up in the mountains, making it about the coldest place in Honduras. I´m returning to Santa Lucia tomorrow to finish my last two weeks of training, before moving in here permanently. Training has been great, but I´m excited to finally be settling down and beginning working on water systems.
My time in Honduras has been full of excitement and adventure, which is partially why I haven´t really written anything on the blog until now. Some of the highlights are cliff-jumping behind a marvelous waterfall, hiking through forests and through barbed wire fences to follow existing water systems, drinking cerveza and playing games with other volunteers and Hondurans, constructing pilas and latrines, living with 2 wonderful families, being unaware of what´s going on around me since I couldn´t understand Spanish, and eating baleadas, platanos, and other Honduran specialties.