ColorRun in San Pedro Sula!

This morning we did a 5km color run.  It was the race either of us had ever done, and definitely the first color run.  It was supposed to start at 7 am, but given that nothing in Honduras starts on time, we had our doubts that we would be running right at 7.  We walked over... The start was only half a km away, with some other girls doing the run too. We all started out at the giant Gatorade arch listening to reggetone music and watching some dancers on the stage.  The entire section of the city was blocked off, and we estimated there were about 10,000 people there.  At 7:10 we started out, which was pretty impressive punctuality for Honduras.  It was so packed we had to walk for about 5 minutes, but then it thinned put and we got to run.  At each km they pelted us with a different color.  TJ and I both ran the whole thing, which was my goal.  By the end of the race we were totally covered in colors from head to toe.

When we got home we had to scrub for quite a while to get everything off.  I still have some blue and orange lingering around my legs and T has a bit of a red beard still.  

We were both really amazed about how organized this was and how smoothly everything went.  Typically, there are not many outdoor events in San Pedro because of the security factor. During this run though, we saw so many people out, supporting their city and raising money for the local hospital. We are very proud of our city today and how everyone came together.

Congratulations San Pedro Sula on a great event!

Into the Dwarf Forest.....

This weekend we took our second trip into Cusuco National Park.  This time, we had a long weekend, so we were able to hike further I to the park and up the mountain.  Our hike was set to lead us I to the dwarf forest- a special type of forest at high altitudes in the tropics where all the tress are smaller.

We set out on Saturday to La Hamaca hostel where the guides work out of.  In true Honduran fashion, we waited around for a while before we set out.  We finally set out. A truck up the mountain, hitching a ride from a coffee farmer who was bringing his product down the mountain that morning. It was aboout an hour up to a village called Naranjito (I think this translates roughly to "little orange") Then we walked to the last village, Buenos Aires.  It was dark by the time we got there.  We stopped here for a delicious traditional meal.  After dinner, in one of the oddest guiding decisions I have whitnessed, we started to hike into the nationaal park (it was 11:00PM at this point).  We were all pretty tired when we arrived at our campsite at 1:00AM, but it was worth it.  We were staying at  an international research station, that was carved out on the jungle, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  Apparently it was built to study the wildlife of the park, and was frequented a few times a year by the scientists.  We camped there that night.  We were originally set to go further into the park, but there were too many poisonous snakes. (Also, I think we would have mutinied).  

We slept in late the next morning and had a questionably thought out breakfast of roasted onions and coffee.  It was pretty good, but not much sustenance.... Luckily we all brought lots of snacks.  We hiked for about three hours up into the Jungle.  It was a good hike, pretty solid uphill, but not too bad.  When we hit the dwarf forest, the vegetation became really dense and nearly impossible to even stick your hand away from the trail: not that you would want to... because of the snakes.   

It didn't look like we were imagining it originally.  We all had though it would be a bunch of tiny knee high trees on the top of a mountain.  Pretty much a forest of bonsai trees.  The trees were smaller, but still about a foot or two over our heads.  A few of us climbed a tree to get a nice view out over the mountains. 

We headed back down, and the trip was a lot shorter.  We are all pretty hungry at this point as we had only eaten onions so far that day... Almost back at camp, we came across a tiny house in the middle of the national park.  There was an elderly man living there, who had been forgotten about when all the other families were told they had to leave the park.  It was such a picturesque cabin, covered with flowers at the edge of a stream.  We bought some pataste from him which he was growing on a tree beside his house.  Pataste is kind of like a legume that tastes like broccoli stems... It's actually pretty good.

We got back to camp just as it was getting dark.  We relaxed for a bit and then had our second meal of onions (seriously, planning for these trips need to improve).  Luckily, we also had pataste this time.  We might have been a bit more irritated had we all not brought at least one box of wine, which we drank about 12 of collectively.

We had another great sleep outside, and got up early-ish the next morning.  We did a hike to a waterfall, and then went back to Buenos Aires for a real breakfast.  As it was the first real meal we'd eaten in two days, we were pretty psyched.  It was delicious as usual.  

We grabbed another truck ride down the mountain and ended our awesome adventure.  All in all, it was a beautiful and amazing trip.  Although I don't think that any of us will eat an onion for a while.

Utila in September 2013

Well, we went back to Utila again.......  No matter where else we go, Utila just seems to have a hold on us. This was the 5th time we went and it was still great to go.  It was a huge group of teachers that went this time.... I think almost 30.  We all stayed at different places, so it wasn't too crazy.  We stayed at underwater vision again.  It is nice there with a big sandy spot out front and a dock for jumping off. The staff is nice fort he most part and the rooms are pretty nice.  We do miss diving at Alton's, where we got our first certification, but since the owner sold (a Canadian!), we don't feel bad trying other places.  It was a pretty typical trip.  A day at the private beach at the end of the island, drinks at the dock.  Of course we came home with a few new t-shirts....(4 shots at a bar means you get a free t-shirt... I think TJ has 9 now......).  One highlight was a friend of ours losing her sandal under the dock of one bar and wading around under there to find it. (This was also after she earned one of her t-shirts....)

We didn't get out diving this time unfortunately.... The water visibility wasn't great given that it was September ( I guess it's a bad month for diving here).  

Overall, it was another great trip to Utila.  Although we did miss some friends from last year, it turns out this new crew of people is even more wild.... Maybe a little too wild for us. (We are the old ones now....)

A Good First Week Back

We have officially been back for a week.  The students got here yesterday and it was good to see some of the old faces from last year.  TJ is teaching 8th grade science again, so he feels a bit more prepared than this time last year.  His students seem a lot more manageable than last year too.

So far I am really enjoying my job. I have an amazing office this year, and am doing a lot of administration stuff like parent meetings, updating documents and helping teachers make accommodations for students. 

Honduras is still Honduras.... A little bit crazy, with many things that don't make sense to our Canadian brains, but it has been smooth coming back.

It is hard however, wishing we could be with family right now, and not being able to.  Thinking of all of my family right now- I am there in spirit, if not in body. Love you all. Xoxoxo

Welcome back!

Well, after a long and amazing summer, we had to say goodbye to Canada and hello to Honduras.

It was a pretty hard goodbye this time, but luckily we were both so tired from our cottaging at Macmillan's with the Moscos that we were pretty much in a daze until.... Yesterday.

I managed not to cry once (a feat for me you all know!), although it almost happened saying goodbye to our new dog Story. (For everyone shocked by this statement, Story is not actually our dog, she is my parent's dog that they are trying- quite successfully to pawn off onto us.). Saying goodbye to Mom and Dad at the airport was hard too..... Although I think maybe TJ was closer to shedding a tear than I.

Our travels here here smooth, all on time, and only a mere 12 hours and 3 planes! We had both said that we knew how hot I would be here, but it does seem even hotter than we remember.  Although, we have managed to keep the AC on only minimally.

We were also welcomed back by nearly 25 new foreign staff, which is a big group, and a lot of new faces to learn.  The girls next to us seem great, although we miss the Marquardt-Cices a lot.

Although we haven't started school yet, I am really excited for my new job as the head of the resource department, and TJ is looking forward to finally getting to teach the same thing two years in a row.

We are looking forward o the next few weeks, and getting to meet many new faces.  Although we really didn't want to leave Canada, it is good to be back, and it's shaping up to be a great year.

Miss everyone back home, can't wait to see you at Christmas!

Girls weekend in Copan

This trip was the last girls excursion of the year.  There were about 20 of us, including two baby girls!  It seemed like the EIS teachers took over Copan for the weekend.

It was a pretty casual trip..... We left Friday and stayed until Sunday, and didn't do too much except each good food, drinks good drinks and enjoy each other's company.  Most of the girls stayed at the hostel, Iguana Azul, which is one of the nicest I have seen.  However, some of us decided to live in luxury, and go next door to Casa de Cafe. There are beautiful gardens here, a delicious free breakfast, free Internet and the nicest staff of anywhere I have been.  It was a bit pricier, but well worth it.

We at at San Rafeal, Twisted Tania's, and the pizza place, whose name escapes me now.

Of course, we also visited Thomas in the German brewery.  As always his beers were delicious, and he had some trouble fitting us all in an already packed bar!  We also visited a new place called Costes, and went to the always popular Papa Chango's dance club.  

We had lots of time to relax in hammock and get some reading done as well.  The gardens at tho hotel were perfect for this.  We got back to San Pedro Sula refreshed, and feeling a little sad that we would soon have to say goodbye to many of our friends.

Jessica's Wedding Weekend in Canada

The weekend finally arrived that we have been planning for over a year and a half - Jessica and Mark's wedding!  Jessica and I had spent the past 18 months buying dresses, choosing flowers, visiting the hall.  I didn't realize how much work I would have to do the year before the wedding.  I even had my students make 200 white and pink cardboard hearts over the year.

Then ... Everything came together this week!  TJ and I flew home on Tuesday morning.  Four flights and small delay later... We arrived n Ottawa around midnight.  We feel pretty lucky that mom has a house in the city now, so we had a lovely late night pickup waiting for us. (Thanks mom!)  we were surprised how cold it still was! 

We did some errands in Ottawa and then we went home.  The next few days were mostly wedding errands and last minute decisions with Jess.  Luckily my dress still fit me..... I bought it over a year ago!

Friday was more of the same..... Most of my day was occupied with putting flowers together for the tables.... 

Cusuco National Park Camping Trip

Last weekend TJ and I went on a hiking trip just outside of San Pedro Sula.  We drove straight out of the city on a 4x4, and immediately started up a mountain.  It got cooler really fast.  We took a local truck for about an hour and went by a few villages.  We got out at the last stop for the truck, and then walked for another couple hours up to the next village, called Buenos Aires.  There, we at a delicious dinner before heading up into the park.

It was dark at this point, so we were hiking up to the park in pitch black.  There were no lights past the village, and the clouds made it so we couldn't even see the moon.  It took us about an hour to get to Cusuco, which actually means armadillo in spanish.   Despite its name, we didn't see any armadillos, as they are hunted extensively for food.

When we got up to the campsite we set up our tents, and put some warmer clothes on.  It was freezing! We even got to have a fire.  We all hung out a bit together, but we were pretty tired from hiking all day, so it was an early night.  It was the first time TJ and I have camped since we've moved to Honduras, and it felt so nice to be back sleeping outdoors.  We didn't see much fauna, but TJ did see a crazy green snake on the way to fill up our water bottles at a nearby creek.

The next morning we hiked backed to the village and got some fresh coffee and fritas (similar to sweet pancakes) from a local woman named Marita.  It was some of the best coffee we've ever had.   Our guides told us that Marita's family pick, clean, dry, roast and grind all the beans themselves.  It was so delicious.   It was really cool to get to see some more traditional Honduran culture and use our spanish with some people who didn't know a word of English.  We actually found that the people up in the mountain had much clearer Spanish than people in San Pedro Sula.

After another delicious breakfast in the village, we went back up into the park to hike to a waterfall called Toucan waterfall, aptly named after all the toucans in the park.  The hike was about three hours, and went all the way down a valley and then back up.  It was a challenging hike, but it was worth it.  We got to see some amazing views of the mountains, mountain coffee fields and an amazing waterfall.
When we  got to the waterfall, we went for a swim, and it was FREEZING!  The mountain river definitely cooled us all off.

After another quick hike down to the lower village and an hour or so in the truck, we arrived back in the city.  It was such a great trip, and we can't wait to go back for a longer trip next year!

Feeling the End of Year Blues

Around this time of year, I always seem to get a bit anxious for the school year to be over. Since we are trained to expect the end of the school year at the end of April in university, these last two months of teaching are always the hardest for me. Both TJ and I are definitely having trouble getting excited for work lately.

Although we only have two months left, they seem never ending right now. However, we do have several things to look forward to! This weekend we will be hiking in a nearby national park. In two weeks we have a tournament. In three weeks we are having a girls weekend in Copan, and then for my birthday weekend we are traveling with a few friends to a lake about an hour away.

After that we both get to go home for Jessica's wedding. We are both really excited for this!
But most of all, we are looking forward to going home for the summer.... 7 weeks of laying by the pool, relaxing and visiting friends and family.

Can't wait to see everyone.

Costa Rica Vacation!

On Sunday we arrived home from our first international vacation in Central America. We have travelled a lot around Honduras, but this was the first other country we have travelled to so far this year ( if you don't count airport stopovers!)

We flew from San Pedro Sula on the Saturday of our spring break (here they call it Semana Santa... Translating into Holy Week). We flew straight into Costa Rica which was great, however, TACA, also known as Take A Chance Airlines, left all of our luggage in Honduras because the plane was too heavy. Although they informed us it would be sent to our hotel that night, we didn't see our bags for three days. Luckily, our friends lent us a lot of clothes (Thanks Ash and Chris!).

After we got into San Jose, we had to take a regional flight. It was pretty shocking when we first saw our plane...called ti-box. It didn't look much bigger or sturdier than its name sake. After a tense flight for TJ with only 7 of us on board, we landed in what appeared to be a farmer's field. The cows did not seemed too alarmed.

After a typical Central American drive (fast, bump and slightly disorganized) we made it to our house rentals in Playa Santa Theresa. This area is a small surf town with lots of restaurants and shops, and we were only about 50 metres from the beach. At the house that night we met up with our friends from home, Chris and Ash, and Mark and Kelsey's friends from Philadelphia. There were 17 of us in total!

At the beach we got to hang out by the pool, play in the HUGE waves, and even try surfing. TJ and Chris picked it up pretty quickly... I was slightly less coordinated.

One day, we took a shuttle to Montezuma, and hiked up to a series of awesome waterfalls. They were really beautiful and had some gun cliffs to jump off. The hike was a little treacherous, but the destination was worth it.

Another day we took a boat ride to Tortuga Island. Although we didn't actually see any turtles, which was the draw, the beach was beautiful and on the boat ride we saw a humpback whale and two dolphins!

In addition to great days at the beach and day trips, we also had some pretty awesome nights. One night we found a karaoke bar and brought the party there. Our personal favourite was a bar called Coco Loco, where we went to a full moon party. Lots of neon, dancing and tequila.

After four days in Santa Theresa, we rented two cars and started our drive across the country. We were sad to say goodbye to the beach, and to our new Phily friends, but also excited for our first driving adventure in Central America. The beginning of the drive was really dusty and bumpy, but very beautiful. After a while we hit save nice paved roads.

It took us about 6 hours to drive to Arenal Volcano. We drove around the lake, which was also really beautiful. We got to our hostel to find that it was just as great as our houses at the beach, and quite a bit cooler. At some points, I was actually wearing my sweatshirt.

We got up early the next morning to hike one of the Volcanos. We hiked up Cerre Chato in the fog and the rain. There was a crater lake at the top of the Volcano, but by the time we got up, we were too cold to go swimming. TJ did go for a quick dip though. Although there wasn't a great view from the top, it was pretty cool to get all the way up what was one of the more challenging hikes I have done. It was also our first time in the rainforest, and it was definitely rainy.

In the afternoon we went to the Balti Hotsprings. They were a little more commercialized than we had thought, and packed with families and kids on spring break. We still had a great afternoon relaxing and a good free dinner.

On our last day in La Fortuna, we had even more adventure. In the morning we went to the Venada Caves to go cave exploring. Although we didn't have high hopes for this, it was one of the coolest things we did on our trip. We walked about 600 m around the caves, which included walking, crawling, swimming, going under waterfalls, and squirming through one particularly small hole called the birth canal. My favourite part was all the adorable little bats!

If the caves weren't enough adventure, we went zip lining in the afternoon. It was some of the best I've ever done. The longest cable was almost a kilometre and over 120 metres high. We went up into the canopy, saw a waterfall and saw some traditional Costa Rican culture. It was definitely a day of adventure.

The next day we had to leave early to get to the airport in San Jose. We drove through the edge of the cloud forest, where it was so cloudy we could barely see the car in front of us. We got there and dropped the cars off. It was a bit depressing not to be able to drive anymore, it is definitely something that we miss, living here in San Pedro.

We caught our flights in the evening and were back in Honduras by 9:00. We were all sad to have it end, but it was a once in a lifetime vacation with great friends and adventures.