Honeymoon in Roatan

After it finally occurred to me to ask Marjorie, who lived in Roatan for a while, where to stay, we finally found affordable options that weren't for backpackers. I'd gotten to the point with package deals where I figured it'd be better to save and take a trip sometime later, but Edwin had already asked for the vacation days. In the end, we got a deal on the flights for about $212 a piece on Taca, and found a decent place to stay that was only $55 a night instead of the $140 or so most of the places in West Bay are. That meant we could stay four nights instead of two and have a direct flight back to San Sal on Sunday. And....I didn't want to leave. Roatan was great!

We didn't really do anything special, just rented a moto and got sunburnt. But it was awesome. I forget sometimes how small Central America really is. It was only a forty minute flight from Roatan back to El Salvador on Sunday, from the Caribbean to the Pacific.

IHCI Conference 2008

From May 15-17 I was in Tegucigalpa for yet another conference for English language teachers, this one hosted by the Instituo Hondureño de Cultura Interamericana, another binational center. Cecil, Martha, and Jackie from CCSA were there as well. Safe to say this one was much more fun than the one I'd gone to in Tegus the year before hosted by one of the universities, where no one knew what was going on, where anything was, and where the room numbers were changed randomly during and after sessions. I'd originally wanted to go to this one just so I could spend my birthday in a nice hotel with good food, comfy beds, and "real" hot water. Edwin was supposed to come meet me for the weekend, and another friend was supposed to be in town, but both of those things fell through. Allyson came up from Nicaragua though, and Kay was there from Mexico, so I had a good time drinking and chatting and shopping (bought lots of Lenca pottery that I don't know how I'm going to get home, but now thanks to Carmen from the embassy I know all the good places to go for some day when I have money). It was the best birthday I've had for a while!

I am also the proud owner of lots of pictures of myself looking stupid...sleeping on the bus...blowing out the candles on the cake that they brought to me during one of my sessions at the conference. Digital storytelling, topic of choice this time round, was not that big of a hit, but then again technology never is in C.A. The people at IHCI were wonderful and I hope I can go back to visit again some day. It's always fun to see people that you've met at other conferences and workshops...central america is small in the fact that you see the same people/teachers everywhere you go!

Honduras, ¡que macanudo!

Last Wednesday, I headed to Tegucigalpa, Honduras for yet another conference for language teachers at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Francisco Morazán. I presented on blogging in the language classroom again. Other than that, though, it was a fairly eventful trip.

I had to pay my first bribe to police ever, for not having a fire extinguisher and the organge triangle things in my car. Our conversation went something like this:

Police guy: "Do you have all the tools you need to repair your car with you?"
Me: "Yeah, they're in the back."
Police guy: "Show me."
I get out of the car and show him the spare and the jack.
Police guy: "Where's your fire extinguisher?"
Me: "What fire extinguisher?"
Police guy: "What will you do if your car's on fire?"
Me: "Run the other way and hope it doesn't explode."
Police guy: "What about a cone or triangle? What will you do if you get a flat?"
Me: "Change the tire on the side of the road."
Police guy: "What if the car stops in the middle of the road? How will you get the traffic to stop?"

And so on. I was thinking, 'the traffice wouldn't stop even if my car was blocking the whole road, so what does it matter if I have a traffic cone?! They'd just run me over! And isn't it dangerous to carry a fire extinguisher in the car...couldn't it explode?!' He threatened to take my liscence from me, which didn't matter much to me, since I have my US liscence, too. And then asked for money.

I just about threw my back out again carrying my laptop around on Friday, which meant I didn't get to go to the cloud forest on Saturday, which was disappointing. I did go to Valle de Angeles, a cute little town maybe 45 minutes from the capital. I think I visited at least eight grocery stores in Tegus looking for various foreign food products that I haven't been able to find in San Sal: canned pumpkin for November, various Thai spices and sauces, and so on. Tasty soy milk. Water chestnuts. Bamboo shoots. Yum yum. All the countries I've visited this year have a much much much better grocery selection compared to El Salvador, which means I come back with pickled chilis instead of souvenirs in my suitcase.

The weekend ended with another trip to Ojojona, which has a fabulous climate and more cute things to buy that I'm not sure how I'd ever pack to take home. I bought an anafre for 40 lempiras (next to nothing). You put hot coals in the bottom half to melt cheese or beans on top for a tasty snack. There was a stop in Santa Ana for pupusas (yes, Salvadorans, pupusas are just about as popular in parts of Honduras as they are in El Salvador, and they're just as tasty).

On the way back, I took a wrong turn (not my fault, wasn't marked) and ended up in Choluteca, not far from the border with Nicaragua. Oops! Even with all the random craziness, I still really like Honduras. Besides the groceries, the people are wonderful and the culture has some of the aspects that I'm still missing from life in Caribbean Colombia. Just the music in itself made me want to stay for a while longer...

Semana santa travels

So, this holy week/spring break was spent road trip style in Honduras, El Salvador, and maybe an hour in Guatemala. Opie came down from Detroit, so we packed up my car and headed off to Copán with Edwin, another friend from San Sal, to meet up with ELF Allyson and Malcon. Copán is really very close to San Sal, only about 3.5 hours away, and a nice place. I wish we'd stayed around there longer...they had bagels, and other strange foreign influences for being such a small town. Copán ruins were okay, but I should have brushed up on my Mayan history before going, since we didn't pay for a guide. Getting into the ruins was unfortunately extremely expensive as a foreigner, and the pass only good for one day.

It was then on to el lago de Yojoa, a very nice waterfall at Pulhapanzak, Comayagua, and the capital, Tegucigalpa. In all, it was a great trip in my car, although I wish we could have seen more. What did I learn about El Salvador in the process? (1) the roads are way better here, (2) the tortillas are yummier east of the Lempa River, (3) they spray your car with pesticide when you cross the border back into the country, (4) their police stops actually manage to slow people down for a little bit on the highways, even if they don't have the cute life-sized cardboard cutouts of police officers set up at each stop, and (5) not everyone likes pupusas that much!

Check out the pictures from Honduras below:

Semana Santa 2007