amy aaron

Today we ate breakfast in the courtyard of our B&B, then walked through town and down to the Mayan Ruins. We had a very knowledgeable guide, Cesar, who toured us through the various temples and statues. There were tons of birds at the ruins--we brought our binoculars so we could check out the macaws, parrots and orioles in the trees. A lot of the actual statues and stella in Copan have been replaced with replicas and moved to a museum on the site (so they don't get ruined by acid rain, etc.). We walked through the museum, then walked about 1 mile down the road to Las Sepulturas, another archeological site. This is where the elite of Copan were thought to have lived, and was excavated in the 1990s. It was a long, hot walk ... read more

Today we said goodbye to Roatan and took the ferry from the island over to La Ceiba. From there we took a dirt road up to Omega Jungle Lodge to do some rafting on the Cangrejal River. The water level is quite variable on the river, and it was a little low when we were there, but luckily we could still go rafting. The river was very pretty, clear and a nice temperature for swimming. The lodge consisted of several open-air and screened-in buildings, nicely landscaped, set in the jungle. It was very laid back, with a fridge of drinks and beer that you could help yourself to and a kitchen that served good and reasonably-priced food (nice, since they pretty much have you trapped there, and could charge whatever they want). We stayed in ... read more

Today was Amy's last day at the pediatrics clinic. There was a preemie baby born today in the early morning, around 700 grams. The doctor overnight estimated that the infant was around 20-22 weeks gestation and felt that it was not viable. But when we arrived in labor and delivery to examine the newborns the nurses asked us to look at the baby because she was about 4 hours old and still living. They had called the pediatrician to come in but she hadn't gotten there yet. Basically nothing had been done, except for some blow-by oxygen. Thankfully, she seemed to be doing pretty well. We estimated that she was more like 27-28 weeks. She had a little cyanotic episode, which resolved (we had some difficulty bagging her with a leaky bag and mask, we had ... read more

Today we went to Anthony's Key Resort to see the Dolphin show. AKR is a nice diving resort just a few miles down the road, in Sandy Bay. The cabins are on stilts on a little cay off from the mainland and they have water taxis to shuttle people back and forth. It's quite a complex, with an institute of marine sciences, as well as a medical clinic with a decompression chamber. They also have a little museum on coral reefs and marine life. There is a daily dolphin show, which is free to watch. We've been doing some nice diving--Aaron dove El Aguila, a wreck that was sunk off of Anthony's Key and now provides a home for various sea creatures, and Amy has been doing some afternoon dives after work. ... read more

Amy finally took the camera to work so now we have some pictures of the public hospital in Roatan. The hospital is in Coxen Hole, a town about 15 mins by taxi from West End. The pediatrics clinc is run by Global Healing. There is a Honduran doctor who works alongside the global healing volunteers. We get to the hospital around 7:30 am and see the newborns that were born in the last 24 hours. There is no newborn nursery or NICU, the babies co-sleep with their mothers. After examining the babies, we round in the pediatrics ward with Dr. Jackie, one of the pediatricians. The pediatrics ward has about 8 beds and 2 isolettes. The patients usually have respiratory problems or skin infections, but we had a patient with HIV and one with malnutrition/failure ... read more

We had a "cold front" last Friday, with winds and very choppy seas. We were supposed to be doing a scuba easter egg hunt but it was rescheduled because the water was too rough to go out in the boat. We were able to to it on Saturday though, and it was a lot of fun. The divemasters hid eggs in the sand around the reef at one of the dive sites. It was fun looking for them because you had to get very close to the bottom, and you could see lots of fish hiding under the coral. Sunday we went to West Bay beach, thinking the crowds from Semana Santa (a big holiday in Honduras and most of central america) would be gone...we were wrong. It was pretty crowded (the picture doesn't really ... read more