Erin’s 3/7 Update:
Hello all,
Craig had a chance to write a nice long update about our whereabouts and experiences, below, and uploaded many new photos.
I will report less, but in more words (as usual) as I have been spending my Internet time earnestly trying to read my Rotary emails and figure out what information I owe to whom. While I seem to be speaking Spanish fluidly, if not fluently, I still have a lot of pondering to do on the correspondence, and my replies are often time consuming. How the heck I will manage in class baffles me, but I am too excited about the opportunity to actually worry (or I have had too much sand between my toes and I forget how!).
We wrote last from Guatemala, where a teachers strike was shutting down the entire country in various ways, including a take over of the airport and most major roadways, and they were still not gaining any ground in the discussions. From what we have read more recently in the papers, the teacher’s demands have not been met, and now they have lowered their demands. The students are now in their seventh week with no classes.
Guatemala seemed troubled in other ways as well. The amount of garbage on the side of the road, the sanitation conditions, what the newspapers report about the other problems that exist, the news from other travelers about the violence that they had witnessed or heard about, rumors of the Peace Corps considering a complete country withdrawl, a recent denouncement of the Guatemalan President by President Bush, comments that new bars are up in windows in every community, purchasing soda through bars at a tienda in a nice suburban neighborhood of Guatemala City.... The physical beauty of Guatemala – high volcanoes, deep blue crater lakes, the beautiful indigenous costumes that can be seen in small villages and big towns alike – was for us overshadowed by the constant smells, pollution, and seeming need to stay on the “gringo trail” to find food and services that were even suitable at times.
It was almost a complete transformation to cross into Honduras and see how lush it is from the windows of nicer buses cruising on much nicer roads. The lack of trash almost made it seem manicured at times! It seems that the damage done by hurricane Mitch was confronted with a big infusion of investment, and that the dividends of a country re-built are felt in the quality of life of the people. Perhaps I am reading way too much into the situation, and we certainly have not seen all parts of the country, but in the happy hour photo on the website of Roatan you will notice our friends Annie and Guy – the all around toast that evening was to Honduras.
The Copan Ruins, of Olmec than Mayan origin, were some of the best we have seen on the trip. They are not as tall, or grand in mass, but the stelae, or carvings, have remained intact and tell the stories that in other places are left only to the imagination of travelers and scholars alike. The rulers and their empires are recorded in glyph stories, and the names of the rulers are great: King Waterlily Jaguar, Moon Jaguar, Smoke Jaguar, Smoke Shell, Mat Head, Rising Sun, Smoke Rabbit 18... We have spent some time pondering what our names would be if we were rulers in that time (of course we have, what else is there to do on bus rides!).
From Copan we headed East to the Carribean coast, and flew over to the island of Roatan. We heard from people there that the health of the corral reef, the second biggest in the world, is actually better since the hurricane. The snorkeling is fantastic – we were amid schools of fish every day, and swam with the enormous yellow finned tuna, grouper, lobsters, etc that we later feasted on for dinner. What Craig did not share below is that he engaged in full scale warfare to save the tree outside of our waterside cabin from the leaf cutter ants – obstacle courses, water, fire, introduction of other wildlife. At the end of a week, we left and they eat on.
The costs of the trip have been very manageable. We gave ourselves the budget of $1000 per month per person, or $30/day with some cushion. A full month in Mexico left us at $32/day, and Guatemala/Honduras have been kind to us with just $26/day in expenses this last month. The reason I mention this is to encourage more people to take time off when time is presented (I know that it is a rare occasion). We have not had to use the sleep sheets or other Peace Corps budget tricks – we are living pretty large on this adventure, and it seems very affordable to do so.
We miss you all, and are glad to hear from you from time to time. Email access has gotten more sporadic and more expensive, so don’t worry if you don’t hear back from us right away anymore. We are heading to Lake Nicaragua (Granada and then the Volcanic Island in the middle) tomorrow, and from there will cross into Costa Rica for the rest of the month.
Love and prayers that the situation in Iraq is resolved in the best and quickest way imaginable,
Erin Kate
Craig’s 3/7 Update:
Hello:
All is still well; I know it's been awhile since an update. There's been a combination of no USB ports, broken CD drives, and expensive internet
access
for the last 2 or 3 weeks. Now, we sit in a nice, modern mall in
Tegucigalpa not too far from the US Embassy.
We've had a great experience during the radio silence too. A great
market
day in Chichicastenango, although they love their incense a little too
much
for our taste. Next we went to a Mayan Women's clinic and had a lot of
fun
painting (did I just type that?). It was a welcome break from
traveling
because we actually had to think a little bit about getting something
accomplished. The clinic was located near Quetzaltenango (Xela) and
was
virtually all indigineous people who spoke Spanish only as a second
language. Susannah got to help with delivery of a baby which was a
welcome
experience for all of us to hear about.
Next we stayed with family friends of Susannah's in Guatemala City.
Three
of us came down with giardia, so it hampered our weekend there, but is
was
great to have a comfortable place to weather the illness. Not as bad
as I
had pictured giardia being. After we all healed a little bit we all
went to
a Guatemalan coast town and enjoyed a day at the beach.
Then we packed up and took some chicken buses down to the Honduran
border.
It was a hot day and overall not that enjoyable of an experience. We
were
happy to see the much better roads and better buses of Honduras. We
had a
great recommendation for a hostel in Copan Ruinas and it was all of
$4US
each (thanks Kevin and Kate!). The ruins were great and the food in
town
was good, if not a little overpriced.
We then took a plush people mover to La Ceiba where we caught a plane
to
Roatan, and island of the coast of Honduras. The native population is
English speaking, although we couldn't understand much if they were
speaking
with each other. The Carribbean island tongue was fun to hear. The
island
is beautiful ringed by a large coral reef. It was my first time
snorkeling
in a coral reef and Scott got his open water scuba certification. The
town
of West End was great as well, while it exists wholly because of
tourism,
the vast majority of locals are friendly and not solely after ripping
us off
as in many other tourist traps that we've experienced traveling abroad
and
in the States. It was also fun to run into familiar faces of other
travelers that are also running down the gringo trail...
After a week of sun and relaxing, we caught a couple of bumpy flights
to
Tegucigalpa. Watched President Bush's press conference last night from
our
friend Matt's house. He works for a foundation which is bringing
libraries
to Honduras and Guatemala.
So, there's a brief synopsis, probably missed a lot. But please check
out
the pictures.. I sent this out on a
Friday afternoon so you all can have a little urge to come meet us next
weekend in Costa Rica. We will be on the Pacific coast and I will
hopefully
learn how to surf there!!!!
Hope all is going well for you...
Best regards, Craig
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