Reasons to visit Honduras #1

A full week in Tegus :)

This week has been great. Classes have been interesting and we have been learning a lot.This week’s themes were poverty and the education system here in Honduras. We got to visit a public school which was pretty interesting. The room I (Hope) observed nothing was learned and children were running around and yelling chaotically. In the room Zenobia observed a normal math class was going on.

Yesterday a group of us went up to the zoo and El Picacho Park. The zoo was fun (in a you-have-to-laugh-because-this-zoo-is-so-janky kind of way). At the zoo there was a room of stuffed animals that were positioned in ways to look like they were killing and eating each other.Also most of these animals had stuffing coming out of them and were missing body parts (teeth, ears etc…). The animals that are actually alive live on cement slabs in the forest and are constantly bothered by vultures (that are, in my opinion, just waiting for the zoo animals to die so that can eat them). My favorite animals there were the monkeys. They were so playful and cute. Some tried to steal my camera, others were fighting and a few were escaped and running around on the paths and in other animals cages.

After the zoo we walked to the Statue of Jesus that overlooks Tegus. It is pretty tall and is surrounded by beautiful gardens and paths where you can wonder or have a picnic. It was pretty hot so we went in the sprinklers and had a water fight with the bagged water (which is common here and way cheaper than a bottle of water).

Then last night we went to a free concert called El Manifesto. It was a benefit concert to raise awareness about AIDS.

Today we are just chilling and trying to upload some pictures on Facebook (which you should check out if they work!) Soon we are going to church with my sister, Kenia

Pues, no vesmos

Esperanza

Location: Wendy's, Tegus

Lago Yajoa, and other adventures

Last weekend Hope and I traveled to Lago Yajoa. Lago Yajoa is Honduras’ biggest lake, it is surrounded by jungle-type forests and beautiful mountains. We had originally planned to go Friday after our last class, but for the first three weeks of school here we have Spanish class every day until 4pm, so it wasn’t until Thursday afternoon that we found out that the last bus to Lago Yajoa left Tegus at 3:30pm. Needless to say we were pretty bummed, being that it was our first week to travel by ourselves. We found out that there was a bus leaving Saturday morning at 6am so we decided that it would be our best bet because we were not going to let a silly thing like a bus get in the way of our weekend plans.

Saturday we both woke up very early in order to leave our houses at 5am to go to the bus station. The whole trip went off without a hitch; the bus was nice, then when we got to La Guama (the biggest town near Lago Yajoa) we took a little bus (busito) to an even littler town (Peña Blanca) and from there we had to take a taxi (actually we got this cute little three wheeled tuk tuk) to take us to our hotel: The D&D Brewery.

Our little taxi

When we got to the hotel we met up with some girls from our semester that were already there (because they have class earlier on Friday) and decided to explore some “Lecan Remains” (there was a map at the hotel that led to them). To make a long story short we searched all around this beautiful park, and could not find any “lencan remains” we finally asked two local boys that were hanging around if they could show us the remains. They eagerly ran ahead of us and pointed at a hill we had already walk past about a gagillion times, apparently the only thing that remained from the Lencas was a pile of dirt.

The hotel was really great we met a lot of other travelers who were very fun to talk to and we got a lot of traveling tips. All in all it was a very good way to start our traveling adventures in Honduras.

The First Week in Honduras

We are finally in Tegus, and man is it HOT! It is quite a change from the winter we left in MI. Today was our official first day of class, this past weekend was really fun though. We had a retreat in the mountains. On Saturday we went to a camp in a place called Siguatapeque, at the camp there was a high ropes course and a couple of other fear-educing team building activities. The first activity was The Hammock. We had to climb up a shaky ladder and sit on top of a platform that was as high as a telephone pole and then slide off. We were in a harness attached to two wires that basically created a giant swing. The second activity we did was a normal high ropes course with things like tight ropes 40 feet in the air. While at the time we were scared we were happy to overcome our fears and accomplish the tasks required.

So life in Tegus...

We had the best of luck... we are neighbors. I (Hope) live right off a main road and Zenobia lives one ally down from my house. Our families are great, Hope likes the food, Zenobia is not a fan of the cheese or "butter" (montequilla). Classes started today and went pretty well....

We would write more, however we have to go home because we are expected for dinner in a few minutes.

Adios y more to come,

Hope and Zenobia

Location: burger king, Tegus :)