Blogs from Western, Honduras, Central America Caribbean - page 36

And, what, you may ask, could THAT be? Listen my children and you shall hear.... From Santa Rosa de Copan there are two types of buses that go to San Pedro Sula- that being my destination for today- as I fly out very early on the 17th to go to meet my travel pal, Val, in Guatemala. The taxi from the hotel pulled into the bus station and before I knew what was happening two boys had grabbed my bags and were running across the street. They were yelling " a lado! a lado!" I paid the cabbie and ran after them. They were running towards a big white bus that was headed our way. They flagged it down, threw my bags in the overhead racks and took off-after I gave them a tip. I pulled ... read more

After my 2 week stay in Copan de Ruinas I decided to have a little R & R. I picked the little colonial town of Gracias which is located in the department (or state) of Limpira. Gracias was founded in about 1536 by Capt. Juan de Chavez- a Spanish conquistiador. Apparently he had been looking for a long time for a flat enough place to build a city. When he came upon this place he supposedly said " Gracias a dios que hemos hallado tiera llana"- thanks be to God we have finally found flat land. So that is how the town was named. The town became the administrative center of Central America in around 1544. Sorry to say it has been all down hill from there. Today it is a sweet, dusty town with an ... read more

Last Friday morning during class I kept hearing a voice blaring throughout the town with some sort of annoucement. I assumed it was some politican. Next thing I knew my teacher jumped up and told me to come. We went out to the park and stood there. I asked what was happening. " The candidates for Queen and Princess of the Copan Fair are in a parade." Ok. I've seen some great parades: 4th of July in Plymouth,MA; the German- American parade on 5th Aveune in New york City; and the grand daddy of them all, the 16 hour ( you read that right) Cusco Day Parade in Cusco, Peru. This was not the Rose Bowl. It wasn't even the puny Memorial Day parade in Shelburne Falls. First, there was the pick-up truck with the loud ... read more

You've had to read enough horror stories about my transport throughout Central America. Today the travel Gods were smiling down on me. Today everything went right. Surprise! surprise! I left my sweet hotel in San Salvador at 5:30 this morning for an 8:30 flight to Honduras. I was checked in and waiting at the gate by 7 A:M that may not sound like anything special, but trust me, it is. Anyone who has flown out of a South or Central American airport knows that when they tell you to be there 3 hours ahead of flight time, they aren't kidding. Even though it looks like there are more than enough agents to process a football stadium full of people, the lines still move agonizingly slow. Not only did the flight leave on time but I had ... read more

It was still raining this morning when I awoke. I went with my instructor to the ruin museum and read the signs in Spanish out loud. The museum contained many Mayan artifacts. Sculpture and objects with hieroglyphs were everywhere. I was particularly interested in the Mayan calendar and the dates thereupon. The artwork was astounding too with such detail and imagination. The head dresses that they adorned were incredible and amazing. There were human bone artifacts as well. There pottery I think was just as good in many cases as that of the Greeks but sometimes tend to be a little less perfected in balanced shape. A lot of the descriptive signs were in Spanish and there was no English translation. I still have not visited the biggest ruins. I don’t know why but I ... read more