El Salvador vs. Honduras

Sorry for the long pause in posts.  We don't take ourselves too seriously as bloggers, but we do know that lapsing for several weeks to post something new is a no-no.  To be honest, perhaps our lack of enthusiasm for all things Honduran is due to our impending departure in 2 months.  We made the decision last fall to have this school year be our last in Honduras.  Our next stop will be Bogota, Colombia (more info later in another post).  We have loved the travel here, the new experiences as ex-pats, and figuring out a city that has minimal street names or directional suggestions.  To be honest, we feel that living in Tegucigalpa has added unmeasurable years to our mental faculties.  Since living here, we have had to incorporate new ways of thinking into our old schemata to simply drive from point A to point B.  You won't see us doing crossword puzzles at 80 or sudoku at 90 just to stave off Alzheimer's.  We've lived in Tegucigalpa!

But just because we're leaving, it doesn't mean that our curiosity for what lies beyond is gone.  We were lamenting that we haven't been to El Salvador yet, so we took advantage of a 3 day weekend in March to go.  We went to the beach town of El Cuco and stayed at a great place called Azul Surf Club.  To our surprise, the owner was a Southern California woman who went to U.C. Berkeley.  In fact, she had just returned from a short trip in California the same day we arrived.  Mind you, this was a day after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan.  The news was warning of possible damage from large waves all along the Pacific coastline, but as it turned out, there was little change in the daily ebb and flow on this stretch of the Pacific.

Getting there was half the (not really) fun.  An hour after leaving the capital, we hit a snag.  Unbeknownst to us, there was a big rig that had overturned on the main highway and we sat in traffic for 3.5 hours.  Luckily some other friends who we also heading out of town were traveling in the same direction and just a little behind us, so we let them cut in front of us in line and we played frisbee to pass the time.

                                                                              We eventually were sent on a detour on a bumpy dirt                                                                                                     .                                                                                                                                                        road where we passed by this rural cemetery.

Finally, after 8 hours of car time (which should have taken only 4), we arrived at our destination.

We have a few new loves when it comes to El Salvador...

1.  Border Crossing
El Amatillo was a dream.  The Honduran's bid us farewell and the Salvadoran's welcomed us with cheery smiles and light chit-chat.  The crossing took 15 minutes, tops.  Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about our beloved Nicaragua.  We LOVE Nicaragua.  But truth be told, we're over the 1.5 to 2 hour border crossing where passports are scoured, superfluous papers are stamped and we wilt in the stifling heat of the midday sun.  We loved El Salvador within the first hundred meters... that border crossing was a dream.

2.  The Taxis
We actually didn't ride in any taxi's while we were there... once we parked the car, we were pedestrians.  But the taxi's are yellow with black and white checkerboard on the side... just like at home!

3.  American Dollars
Now, this was a little weird, but the currency in El Salvador is US dollars.  Did you know that?  We only found out when we moved to this part of the world.  Now, the funny part was ordering food at a restaurant, seeing that it cost $13, then converting that into lempiras (lps. 320!) and saying "That's too expensive!"

Brew Party

To commemorate the many hours spent cultivating tasty beverages, we had a get together yesterday to taste the fruits of Eric's labor.  He has had the help of many people over the months and they converged at the house for a taste.  There were 10 varieties...

The smoky atmosphere makes for a colorful sunset each night.  It also makes for black feet when we walk barefoot on the tile floor.  Yuck.

Brewing up a Birthday Party

We celebrated Dempsey's 8th birthday last week.  Rice Krispies were requested for the school b-day celebration.  In the afternoon we headed to "Bungalow", the (only?) pee-wee golf course in the city.  We played a round, ordered wings, chicken fingers and nachos and D had a friend spend the night for a sleep over.  Woke up in the morning and made challah french toast.  Demspey said it was the best b-day ever.  smile

With all the beer brewing that's been going on around here, the kids were starting to protest.   "When can we make root beer?!"  So Eric ordered some ginger beer extract and he and the kids made root beer last weekend.  After getting the ingredients heated and mixed, there were bottles to wash...

     Then bottles to be filled...
 

 Linnea taking a nip o' the root beer

 The last of it gets put in a glass for a tasting.  It's not carbonated yet, but still tasty!

One week later, we cracked open a bottle and... bubbles!  Good, ol' fashioned root beer!

Who Knew?

As seen at the Guasaule border crossing, Honduras/Nicaragua.

We've used this border crossing many times... how we passed by this choice billboard without taking notice is beyond me.  Who knew Honduras was a world leader in ... I don't know what!?  Are we talking about good larva or bad larva...?

Our dear friends from Sebastopol (Selena, Steve, Talia and Noa) have ventured into Nicaragua for the next month or so and we rendezvoused near Poneloya, Nicaragua last weekend.  S, S, T & N had been brushing up on their Spanish at a language school before meeting up with us at Surfing Turtle Lodge near Poneloya. We have visited this place a number of times and thought it would be a great place to meet up with old friends.  Here the kids would be plenty entertained by: hunting small cats, playing in the waves, digging sand trenches, riding the tides that ebb and flow in the estuary and having sleep-overs in tents.  We were right... the kids were so happy to see each other that they left the adults alone so we could have plenty of time to catch up.

(Background:  For those of you who don't know Selena, we met over 8 years ago when our first borns were in our bellies.  I had an instant attraction to her in our pre-natal yoga class.  Don't get funny ideas here... I don't have a pregnant lady fetish.  She is simply a fascinating person with a wicked sense of humor, wit and intelligence.  It was destiny - I knew we would be friends... I just didn't know that she would travel with her family of 4 to Nicaragua 8 years later to have a chance to visit me.)  Who knew?

Noa and Linnea collecting shells in the estuary.

Dempsey and Talia givin' it to Steve

Sunset over the Pacific on January 22, 2011...                 and Steve, Selena, E and J

Celebrating January 28th a few days early.  Yes, we're having cake for breakfast.

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...

The Doors (and Windows)

 Why are the doors and windows from these Latin American buildings so darn pretty?  We took our 2nd annual trip to Valle de Angeles to pre-celebrate Dempsey's birthday while the grandparents were here.

The doors and windows...

 

 


And the cupcakes were tasty too...