Well, hello again everyone! Our taxi arrived at 4:45am here at CASAS last Thursday to take us to the bus station. We just had one problem...we were locked inside CASAS! So we had to wake up our professor, and the guard who helped us get it unlocked. After traveling on a bus all day, we were in Honduras but the battle wasn´t over yet. We didn´t change our money at the border so we needed to find an ATM, we hadn´t eaten anything, and all of the sudden the bus driver called ¨everyone off for Tela, Honduras!¨ but we were at this random gas station in the middle of nowhere! The bus people told us to get into the 2 taxis they had waiting, but we didn´t know how we were going to pay for them, or where we were going! Thankfully, the lady from the bus company told us that the taxis were paid for and they were taking us to our hotel. Phew!! What a relief!
When we got to our hotel, we were able to find an ATM and a grocery store nearby. In addition, our hotel was so nice! We had 2 rooms with plenty of beds, 3 tv´s, a fridge, stove and kitchen area, couch and a computer in another area with somewhat functioning internet. We spent most of the week at the beach, which was 2 blocks from our hotel and not terribly busy. The rest of the time we spent relaxing in the hotel watching tv and playing cards. Breakfast was included, and the rest of our meals we either cooked ourselves, or went to the local pizza place. We also threw one of the group, Heather, a surprise birthday party and celebrated with cake and pizza because her birthday is today. The last night, we went out to a nice restaurant and enjoyed fish and shrimp!
We also went kayaking in the mangroves, or swampy areas, and since there were 7 of us, I ended up kayaking with a Canadian man. He was leading about 15 Canadian high school girls who were pretty obnoxious and annoying during our trip. In the beginning, I started talking to him in Spanish, but he didn´t really respond, so then I tried in English and I got a reply I could understand. He spoke English enough to know what to say and make small talk, but as soon as he finished saying something to me, he would speak to one of the girls in French, or something like that. It was interesting to say the least. After the kayaking, we ate lunch and relaxed on the beach in a Garifuna village. The Garifuna people are from Africa and there are several communities ranging from 200 people (the size of the one we visited) to 4,000. The culture there shows up often as the women working in the house and in the banana fields with the men relaxing, even thought that is not always the case. After lunch, we experienced some spur of the moment dancing, singing and drumming by the Garifuna people. That was quite an experience! The singing and drumming was fabulous and the dancing...well, it was a little bit vulgar, but also cool to see the traditional dance style. Our guide told us that when a woman dances, that means she´s ready to have a baby. It was really interesting to see a different culture than the ones we´ve been experiencing on this trip so far.
On the way home, we left the hotel at 5:30am and were planning on getting back to Guatemala City at around 7pm. We ended up arriving at 8:30 at the bus station and were planning on calling a cab from there. But we ironically ran into Rigoberto, a staff person from CASAS who works here and gives students rides after school. He was picking up someone else and taking them to CASAS so he just happened to be there!! We were shocked and he was joking about each of us paying $100 to get a ride. But then he explained that of course we could come with him for free, so we piled into his truck and away we went! He told us that we must have a lot of luck, and we told him either that, or God is with us. :)
Wow…I´ve already written way too much, but I just wanted to throw one more thing out there. We leave for Mexico tomorrow morning!! We are leaving here at 4:30am and plan on arriving in Puebla, Mexico around midday. We are meeting our host families right away, and spending the weekend with them. Nothing like jumping right into it! This time, it will be a little different because 2 students stay with a family together. I´m staying with Kelsey, who is pretty fun and has actually been my neighbor since Freshman year. She´s at a much higher Spanish level than me, so hopefully I will learn some things from her. It seems crazy that we are leaving Guatemala tomorrow. We had a meeting to talk about what to expect in Mexico, and there are a lot of exciting things to look forward to! Here we go again!
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