Copan to El Corinto

Sorry about my obvious lack of posts since I´ve arrived in Honduras! Tonight in Pico Bonito is the first night I have had access to the internet in a format that actually lets me view and use the Basis blog.
I have too many stories to tell and only a few minutes to do it in considering its 4o lempiras per minute on these computers! A total ripoff equivalent to about $2 a minute!! santo mio.
The begining of my stay in the Copan Ruins was fantastic. We visited about four different seperate sites of mayan ruins including my favorite, a very underappreciated simple site called Los Sapos )the toads) that Mayan women would trek to in order to pray to the Mayan god of fertility, which is a frog. I was told this after I had been sitting on the frog fertility idol for about 20 minutes. We also visited the village of the mayan kings 18 Rabbits and Water Jaguar.
Once we moved into the center of Copan on the 3rd day was the first time I really realized how many problems this country has. There are more starving dogs and horses wandering the streets than people and the child to adult ratio is roughly 9 to 1, no joke. The poorer the families, the more children there are and most of them are under the age of 8. Although this was a terrible reality check, we also made a lot of progress in Copan. Mr. Mattews sister Jennifer was very gracious to us and we enjoyed having dinner her and staying to talk at their restaurant, Twisted Tanya´s, for hours past closing time. P.S. Mr. M, Jen wants me to tell you she just got a new baby jack russell terrier also. It is very cute, and loco. On our last day in Copan, we visted a place called El Parque de Aves, or Macaw Mountain for gringos. It is a refuge for large tropical parrots, hawks, and owls, that local people have either given up as pets or found injured. I loved it. After the bird park we took a Tuk Tuk, small motorized cars with no doors, no ability to reverse, and very little room, to the Welchez Coffee Finca outside of town. We toured the finca and helped pick coffee berries with the workers.

Our next destination, Tela Mar, was quite a different experience. While its beaches are beautiful white sand beaches covered in palm trees they are also literally covered in trash of every kind. I have yet to see and actual labeled garbage can. Unfortunatley, aside from not being very eco'friendly, Tela mar isn´t very tourist friendly either. The city needs a lot of development and venturing into twon turned out to be very dangerous. However, Meg and I kept stubbornly doing just that and on our last night we paid the price for our belligerence and were mugged coming home on a well lit bridge that had armed poilice on either end, but not in the middle. Despite this I still had an overall eye'opening experience in Tela as we got to go by boat to the Jeanetter Kawas national park here where we snorkeled, swam, hiked, and visited a small Garifuna village. In the village I got to see literally every step of my lunch being prepared, including them telling me to pick my favoroite chicken, then kill it. I´m starting to feel very wild myself as I get more immersed in spanish and go longer and longer without showering. It is an enevitable way of life here.

Tonight I´m writing from within the borders of the Pico Bonito National Park, one of the only Quetzal and manatee habitats here. On a side note, there is a little baby blue hummingbird living in our cabin that follows to breakfast and back. I reallt think hummingbirds are going to be the next dogs. Tomorrow Meg and I will get up at 5am to hike along the Rio Corinto to the Rio Zacate waterfall. Later in the afternoon, we will hopefully take a canoe tour throught the Cuero y Salado Wildlife refuge looking for crocodiles and manatees at dusk. To say the least, I am in heaven here but I still can not wait to come back home and start really putting this trip into motion for Travel Muse.

I miss you all! And you too Devin! Hope the rest of the senior projects are going well.