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Published: February 6th 2006
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tranquillo Copan
Some of the park and the street where the spanish school is located. 01/22/06
I have just arrived in Copan after a very queasy bus ride experience from San Pedro Sula. I left the team there at the airport to fly back to Richmond. Some of them seemed happy to be leaving others were jealous of me and wanted to stay. I’m going to miss all of them, each one had something special that they offered to the experience of being here and now they are gone. I said goodbye to Jose and Elmer at the bus station and waited for about a half hour for the bus to be loaded. The ride was nonstop curvy and the movie they showed on the bus was horrible, Radio with Cuba Gooding Jr. Arriving in Copan I thought for a moment that I was in the wrong place because the bus station was on the out skirts of town. Stepping out of the station a few young guys in mini taxi buggy cars with three wheels were trying to sell me a ride into to town for 100 Lempiras. I chose to walk and it was only about fifteen or twenty minutes to the center town square of Copan. I found the language school immediately right off the square and walked in to find Enrique a young later twenties Honduran in his office sending me an email to see if I was still coming. He turned around and said my name. I said yes and we greeted. He called the family I’m staying with and said I was on my way. As soon as he hung up we walked out the door and some friends of his were waiting with a little SUV blasting Latin rap music. They took the three blocks away to the house which one room of is the store that the family owns. The house is typical Honduran feel. The room that I’m in has a double bed with a window that looks out onto the back of the next building. I have my own bathroom with no light and a little desk to do my studying. A bookshelf sits empty in the corner and the whole place smells of cats. The couple I’m staying with names are Reyna and Tulio. They have a little girl named Lucy who does house work for them. Reyna fixed me a dinner of huevos, friole, platanos, ham, queso, and café. It was quite tasty in a Honduran sort of way. The kitchen has cobwebs covering the ceiling and seems as though it was used for some sort of commercial purpose at one point. Reyna and her husband speak no English so I spoke to her in my broken Spanish as well as I could. There is a parakeet in a cage that hangs in the corner of the kitchen. The cage has no door. Two cats played around me feet and ran around the room. We tried to chat for a while with some success. After dinner I went out for a walk and said I’d be back around nine or ten. I strolled back over to the middle of town passing the locals who gave me sideways glances. The square was vibrant with local life. There was a big service going on at the pretty Catholic Church just off the square so I stepped in for a moment and scoped out the scene. It was packed with the locals and the few that noticed me in the back gave me inquisitive stares. I stepped back out into the warm dark night and crossed the street back into the square. I waked around for a bit and looked at things, people selling items in the streets laid out on blankets, tourists and local mingling about, restaurants with locals milling around drinking and shooting pool. I stepped into an Internet café and used the computers and gave Krystle a call. The rate was 5 lempira a minute. Afterwards I walked down to the restaurant bar that I think some of the Richmond team had told me about. It was packed with people, mostly gringo tourists. I went up stares and sat alone in the corner and ordered a Salva Vida. I sat and enjoyed the warm night and the new atmosphere. I looked around at the people passing by on the streets. A couple to my left sitting together kept sending me friendly vibes and I smiled at them. After the Salva Vida beer, which in Spanish translates to Life Saver, I decided to leave. I paid up and started to go and the man of the couple asked if I spoke Dutch. I said English and he asked where I was from. “Virginia” I said. They were from Austria and had been traveling Latin America for several months stopping in Copan to see the ruins for one day. We chatted a while about the world, and beer, and music, and traveling. His name was Gerhardt and her name was Anna Marie. I liked them and they liked me. I got some email addresses and then headed back here to la case de mi familia Copan. Sleep now for tomorrow I start mi espanol escuela.
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