Last/Random Images from Copan Ruinas

...Procession on Good Friday...

Someone loves mangos

Linnea and Nirmala in a TukTuk

Birds and an altar the kids made in front of our "home" in celebration of Viernes Santo.  That's Ernesto, our host.

 Last morning in Copan.

 ... our ride to the bus station...

 Pretty driveway

 Someone brought a gas oven to the river for the 3 day holiday of Semana Santa.

Field of tomatoes.

Sawdust Carpets of Copan Ruinas

We spent the week of Semana Santa in Copan Ruinas, in the western mountains of Honduras.  Semana Santa culminates with Viernes Santo, or Good Friday.  We walked with our teachers two blocks from the school to the central plaza where the sawdust carpets had been dutifully made the night before.  These alfombras, or carpets are made from dyed sawdust that is used to make elaborate religious pictures.  The street is measured and marked with twine the evening before.  Then a layer of wood shavings is laid out and leveled.  People work on the temporary carpets all night long to have them ready for Good Friday.

Here in the first panel of the alfombra, there is a mix of religious symbolism 

and Mayan numbers and symbols, too.

                                Watermelon vase for the flowers.      

This is how the kids viewed the carpets... they took these pictures.

People also created altars in front of their homes...

When we returned to our house later that day, the kids were inspired to create their own little altar in front of the house with things they could find around the street and driveway.

In the afternoon, a procession walks over the carpets and they are swept up the next day.

Guacamaya Language School, Copan Ruinas

  We spent our Semana Santa in Copan Ruinas, near the ancient Mayan ruins of Copan.  We all went to brush up on our Spanish at Guacamaya Spanish School.  We stayed with a local family and attended classes each morning from 8 to noon.  After, we would meander through the streets of Copan Ruinas, visit the swimming hole at Macaw Mountain, or the ruins.  Completely relaxing, entertaining and... educational! The adults of this family can attest to the pleasure of improving our Spanish with a one-on-one tutor.  The kids spent the morning with their teachers practicing their Spanish in a more playful way with games and physical activities.

Linnea and her teacher, Emma

Dempsey and Sarah

                         Field trip...        

 

             Pretty door on the way to school.     

Linnea in front of our house before school one day.

Stay tuned for more pictures of las alfombras de viernes santa, horseback riding, and the ruins.

Mc Mariachis

We love these guys.  We've driven by these well-dressed gentlemen countless times on Bulevar Morazan as they wait for a gig.  I assume that they are hoping to get hired to play a party rather than serenade the patrons at Mc Donalds.    Anyway, we passed by one weekend night and we had a camera in the car.  We stopped, chatted them up, and asked to take a picture.  They obliged and we gave them a tip for their time.

Refugio de Vida Silvestre Cuero y Salado

About 30 kilometers west of La Ceiba is a marshy wildlife refuge lush with mangroves, a maze of estuaries and lots o' birds to look at and listen to.

Getting to this coastal wildlife reserve was half the fun.  We drove by car to La Union and parked when we saw the train tracks.  There were about a dozen men from the Policia National milling around the train tracks, too.  They were in the know and knew that the train would not be coming for at least a 1/2 hour.  As we waited, we learned that the guys use the little train to get to their base on the coast.  So as we waited for the narrow-gauge train to take us out to the wildlife reserve, we talked politics with the guys (very "light" political talk is  recommended... you never know who's on Mel's side and who's not) and bought malnutritious/tasty chips from the pulperia on wheels.

Our train arrived and we were on our way.

I snapped this photo from the train, intending to get the lush foreground with the mountains and clouds in the back.  This heron landed just as I took the picture!

Riding on the train...

       We made it! 

The 40 minute ride took us past homes, futbol fields, cattle pasture, marshland, and eventually the system of estuaries that make up the reserve that supports 196 bird species (about a quarter of all the bird species in all of Honduras) and 35 mammal species. The Cuero y Salado reserve was designated a protected wildlife area in 1986 to protect its endangered manatee population.  We didn't see any manatee on this day.  But we saw bats, howler monkeys, white faced monkeys, fish jumping sideways out of the water and birds.  Thanks to my parents for identifying (and recording) the 22 different birds that we saw, you too can appreciate the abundance of avian delight:

Osprey

Wood Stork

Herons: Little Blue, Great Blue, Yellow Crowned Night, Boat Billed and Tri-Colored

Jacanua

Neotropic Comorant

Kingfishers:  Belted, Green and Amazon

Egrets:  Cattle, Great and Snowy

Anhinga

Royal Tern

Pie Billed Grebe

Grackle

and

Vulture:  Black and Turkey

Crested Caracara

The Jacanua, or "Jesus Christ Bird" because it can walk on water.  This is the father bird with his chicks.  They're eating from the water plants.

                  Mangrove Trees

Can you see the 5 or 6 bats on this tree branch?  Our guide saw them and it took about a minute for all of us in the boat to focus our eyes on them.  We were about 8 feet away from  us and they tolerated our quiet whispers for about a half a minute before flying away.

As our boat tour ended, we went back to the visitors center to wait for the train to return to take us back to La Union.  We missed the boat, or the train, so to speak because we ended up waiting about an hour for the little engine to return.  In the meantime, we made friends with the local dogs, retrieved errant soccer balls for the local boys playing in a nearby field and visited another pulperia to buy more chips and drinks.  The kids entertained themselves by fencing/sword fighting and stalking chickens.

¡Por fin!   Our train arrived and we made our way back.

Yes, little D looks thrilled. 

Zip Line Reviews

Recently, we toyed with the idea of quitting our jobs and becoming zip line raters.  We got a good start into our new venture over the winter break on Roatan and in Pico Bonito.   The kids seemed to like the hands free-style zips where acrobatica and shenanagins were normal fare.  The adults preferred the faster, higher, canopy style zips where braking was necessary...

Zipping over Rio Cangrejal.  Notice the jumbo-sized glove he's wearing.  

 This was his break and he wasn't too keen on it.

One thing that was really cool about our zipping near the Cangrejal River was that we stopped 

by our guide's home and talapia farm.  Here we're all munching on sugar cane, but behind us is 

one of four ponds where he raises talapia.

Above the pond was a tree laced with oropendola nests.  The oropendola is a bird that makes its nest out of grass and soft sticks that is gracefully woven and hangs from the branches of a tree.  To be more specific, the male birds make the nests.  These nests can be used over and over for generations.  Seeing Wilmar's farm, the oropendola nests, and this crazy, ominous bird...

...made the zip line near Rio Cangrejal a big thumbs up for the adults.

However, the kids preferred the zip line near West End on Roatan.  Unfortunatley, many of our action shots from that day are currently unaccounted for.  But here's a look at all the fun we had BEFORE even getting on the cables...

Equipment check for the under-50-pound rider.

Getting to the zipper.

The critics.  

Sorry that we don't have any footage of our aerobatics and shenanigans.  Upside down, superman-style and tandem-craziness were all allowed.  Hopefully those pictures will show up someday.  You'll just have to take our word for it that it was great for the 7 and under crowd - but also a lot of fun for the 30+ crowd...