Better late than never.....Abbie and Lindsey's Visit to Honduras

So....over 2 months ago (Oct.13), my two friends and old roommates from San Diego came to visit me in Honduras. Our very first official visitors! An added bonus was that we were going to be able to celebrate Lindsey's 25th birthday together in Honduras! I was pretty excited about them coming to visit, after living together for over 5 years in San Diego, they decided to move to New York, and I hadn't seen them in over a year! They flew into San Pedro on Saturday, Oct. 13, and I met them at the big bus station there. From there we headed to Lago de Yojoa, if you remember a blog that I wrote a while back (in September), Sara and I had already been there. We had so much fun, that I ended up taking Abbie and Lindsey there a month later! We stayed at the same place , D&D Brewery, and the plan was to do a little hiking, see the Pulhapanzak waterfall, and then they were going to come back with me to Tela for a few days, then after that, fly out to Guatemala to see the ruins at Tikal to finish off their trip to Central America. So here's what we did:

SATURDAY:

I met them at the bus station in San Pedro (about 2 hours away from Tela) bearing "welcome to Honduras gifts." Really, they were just rambutans (those little sea urchin- looking things in the two small pictures above). The wierd thing is that they're really rambutans, but everyone here calls them lychees (I just found out there real name thanks to my sister!), they are really good, and are sold everywhere in Tela. Then we caught a bus to the D&D Brewery. Our first night there, the crazy owner Bob, messed up our reservations, and instead of getting a private cabin, we had to stay in the communal cabin that Sara and I had stayed in. Since there was three of us, Abbie and I slept inside one of the private rooms in the cabin, while poor Lindsey offered to take one for the team and tough it out on the tiny, hard, sofa in the communal living room. Luckily the next two nights, we were upgraded to a much nicer, private cabin (which is what we had asked for in the first place) with our own little patio complete with a hammock and chair (the four small pictures below).

SUNDAY:

We decided to go hiking at Cerro Azul Meambar National Park. Learning after the mistakes Sara and I made the first time we came to visit the park: instead of coughing up the $6 to get a ride in a car up and down the huge hill leading up to the park which is just over 4 miles one way, we hitchhiked up, and decided to walk back down, but it ended up getting dark and started raining, plus we missed the last bus to our hotel, so we ended up paying more than the $6 to get back home! The picture below shows us getting a ride up to the park. Abbie and Lindsey rode on the back of the truck, while they let me ride inside because of the really bumpy, winding roads, plus the crazy way the guy was driving, my motion sickness couldn't have handled it! This just goes to show how unpredictable the weather is here...when we first started out in the morning, it was sunny, and as you can tell from the first picture, and then the one after it, it started to pour only after we were already riding up to the park! Abbie and Lindsey were soaked, all while sliding and bouncing around in the bed of the truck. We were laughing so hard, I HAD to take a picture of them, from my warm, and covered seat inside the truck!:)We finally made it to the park, and luckily the rain let up a bit. We weren't able to do the longer, 4 hour hike, because it was already pretty late, and we didn't want to miss the last bus back to the hotel, like Sara and I did last time, so we did the shorter hike, and stopped by one of the freezing cold waterfalls to go swimming. After that, we headed back to our hotel, where we enjoyed some good food and beer. I had my very first hamburger since living in Honduras, and it was delicious (of course there's a picture of that too)! The other picture below is of Abbie and Lindsey under the freezing waterfall, and a picture of us with Bob and some other guests eating dinner and talking.

MONDAY:

Today was Lindsey's 25th Birthday!! After breakfast, the owner of the D&D, Bob, took us on a tour of the plants around his hotel. He showed us different kinds of orchids, ginger, and many other plants. He even cut a piece of actual ginger root for me taste, and showed us another type of ginger that you could wash your hands with, it left your hands smelling really nice (the picture of Lindsey to the right shows that plant).

Abbie's sinuses had been bothering her all weekend, and when Bob heard about this, he insisted that she try his home remedy which he swore would fix the problem. I figured it would be some weird plant to eat, or to grind up and put in tea or something....... but this was far from it! We were completely grossed out to find that this "home remedy" was to eat termites! Before we even realized what he was doing, he stuck a twig into one of the huge, black termite nests in his garden, and when he pulled it out it had dozens of termites crawling around the twig. Then he proceeded to eat the termites off the twig as if it were completely normal! We couldn't believe it! Needless to say, Abbie, Lindsey, and I turned down his offer to try the nasty little things! After this, we began to call him "Crazy Bob".

Bob's tour was far from over. He took us to his little "museum" (the picture above)where he showed us his many ancient artifacts he's found in the area while digging to build pools (in the glass case behind him). In the picture, he's asking Lindsey for a piece of hair. He put it on that flat stone paper press in the background. The part that looks like a rolling pin rolls back and forth on the hair, taking off all the pigment, and leaving behind only a flat, twisted, white hair. He makes all his guests do this. Just another reason why the name Crazy Bob suits him so well! Then he offered to give us a ride up the mountain, to see a great view of the lake, and drive us through one of the nearby villages called "Las Vegas", yes, that's the real name! The first picture on the top of this blog is a picture Bob took of us, you can see the beautiful lake behind us. Then after we drove through Las Vegas, he took us back to the hotel, where we left to go see the Pulhapanzak waterfall.I also wrote about this waterfall in my September blog, Sara and I came to visit it last time too. If you remember, I hiked behind the waterfall with a group of friends we had made at the hotel, so this time I thought Lindsey and Abbie would have liked to do the same. When we got to the park, we found out that they now offered a zip line tour that went straight across the top of the waterfall (a 43 m/ 140 ft drop)! Lindsey was brave enough to try it, especially since it was her birthday, but Abbie and I decided to stay behind and watch, we weren't quite ready to take the plunge. Below you can see a picture of Lindsey before the zip line., with the massive waterfall behind her. Below that picture, is a one of her on the zip line. (you have to look closely at the top to see her tiny body dangling way up high over the waterfall) After the zip line, we walked down the waterfall a bit until we got to a platform where we were going to start the hike behind the waterfall. Everything started out ok, but as we started to head closer to the waterfall I realized that the water was coming down a lot stronger than the last time, it it was a lot harder to see( the guide explained that it was because of all the recent raining). Lindsey and Abbie weren't too happy with me for a few minutes as we stood there under the gushing pressure of the water, yelling at each other, not even being able to see in front of us! Haha, I thought they were going to kill me for dragging them into this, but then, we turned around to go back to the more calm parts of the waterfall, and we were ok. We even got to jump off some of the boulders and into the small swimming holes like I did last time.

After we left the waterfall, we walked back towards the main street where we waited for the bus to come to take us back to our hotel. We were planning to eat an early dinner at the D&D, then head back to Tela, I had to teach the next morning at 11am. While we were waiting by the side of the road, a truck pulled up and offered to give us a ride back to our hotel, which was really close by. I know that many of you may be thinking how dangerous that can be, but MANY people here, girls included, hitchhike, and I figured, there was 3 of us, and we weren't going very far, plus it was in the middle of the day. So, we hopped into the truck. When they found out that it was Lindsey's birthday, they insisted we stop by a "merendero" (a small food stand/restaurant) and let them buy us drinks to celebrate her birthday. After a few rounds, they took us back to our hotel, and even offered to give us a ride to San Pedro (where we needed to catch a bus back to Tela). They were very nice guys, not creepy at all. The only thing was that it was getting really late(around 2pm) and San Pedro was at least 1 1/2 hrs away, and the last bus to Tela from San Pedro left at 5pm. So, after some debating back and forth, we decided it would be better to stay an extra night at the D&D and just catch an early bus (6am) back to San Pedro, and then to Tela the next morning. Plus we didn't want to push our luck, and take a ride with them, while it would be getting dark.

TUESDAY:

We woke up bright and early the next morning, (6am) to start our trip back to Tela. Crazy Bob was nice enough to offer us a ride to San Pedro, he had to go there to pick up something for the hotel in anyways. After a short ride in his truck, he dropped us off at the bus station and we got on a direct bus to Tela, which took about another hour and a half. We luckily arrived in Tela by about 10am. When we got back to my house we were greeted by a not so happy Sara. Rightfully so, she was a little upset about the way she found the house when she got back from San Diego. She had arrived the day before(Monday) afternoon, to find the house completely flooded...and all because of me!!! That's right, stupid me!I had left to meet Abbie and Lindsey in San Pedro early Saturday morning. The water was shut off all day Friday, until I left Saturday morning. Apparently, I had turned the knob on the kitchen sink (to on), and had forgotten to turn it back the other way. So when the water finally turned back on (probably later that Saturday) the water came gushing out. Let me remind you, I had already left for the weekend, and Sara didn't come back until Monday afternoon....so that means the water had been left on for almost 3 full days!!! As you can imagine, there was water everywhere! What was worse, is that poor Sara, had to come home Monday afternoon to a flooded house! She had to sweep all the water outside, by herself, and clean up everything that had been damaged by the water!!! How she was even talking to me when I got back home, I'll never know!!! Luckily, she was really understanding(even though a lot of her things were ruined because of me). Let's just say I learned my lesson!!

Wednesday:

Lindsey and Abbie took a day trip to Punta Sal (Sara and I went there a few months back and I wrote about that on an earlier blog too), while Sara and I went to work. The picture below shows them at Cocalito Beach (a stop on the tour to Punta Sal).

After work, we all went out to dinner and then came back to the house to have some Birthday cake.

Thursday:

Abbie and Lindsey left in the morning to go back to San Pedro, where they were going to take a flight to Guatemala. The picture below shows them at the beautiful Mayan Ruins in Tikal. After staying in Guatemala for about 4 days, they headed back home to New York.I had so much fun with them while they were here. It was really nice to be able to see them again, and meeting in a different country made it that much more fun!!! Hopefully there will be many more visitors while Sara and I are here!!!! *hint*hint* :)