lo hice por ti...y tu hermaaana. tales from honduras - pt. 1

"i made it for you...and your siiiister," said the shy 8 year girl holding up some beaded wooden bracelets. we were in copan ruinas, a town about 15 miles from the guatemalan border. it was about 6:30 - and we had just arrived after a very long day of travel which included 2 flights, a couple hours of waiting around, 2 busses, some lost luggage, and a lot more spanish than i've spoken in a long time. by the time we got squared away at our hotel (and took a trip to the pharmacy for $35 worth of essentials to tide us over until our bags arrived on another bus the next day) we were hungry. we smelled meat. a lot of meat. we sensed there may also be beer in close proximity to the meat. this seemed good. as sweet as the little girl was, (and really, she was just a bit of a huckster. we saw her all over town the next few days, all doe-eyed) we politely but firmly declined.  there was meat to eat, beer to drink and locals to meet. this made me very happy...

copan ruinas is an adorable mountain town. clay-tiled roofs, cobblestone streets, cowboys with machetes in the square,  little motorized "tuk-tuk" taxis, and, of course, armed police at the atms.  the views of the valleys and mountains, shrouded in mist, were lush, green and absolutely gorgeous. condors swooped by overhead, the air was crisp and clean, but still warm. the next day, we waited at the bus station for our luggage - which miraculously arrived, and then we went to the ruins. copan is the second largest mayan ruin site in the world. since it was off-season, we pretty much had it to ourselves. these don't really do it justice - but they're the best ones i've got.
the site is massive, and we only saw a part of it, but we were allowed to clamber all around. virtually no part was off-limits. i kept thinking - "here are is our priceless national treasure - please, walk all over it." bizarre, but wonderful.

thursday we left for roatan. we had decided to hire a car (service - you do *not* want to drive here) to take us from copan to la ceiba, where we could catch the ferry to roatan. had we elected to take the bus, it would have meant a 5:30am departure (back to san pedro sula) a 2.5 hour wait in sps, another 4 hour ride to the la ceiba bus station, and then a taxi to the ferry. i said no gracias to that, and instead found an enterprising local to drive us. we were meant to leave at 8am for the 8 hour trip. the phone rang at 7:30 as we were packing up. "hay un problema" said the gentleman on the phone. " uh-oh. i went downstairs to meet ramon. as i mentioned, copan is in the mountains. and on a river. it had been raining for a week before we arrived, and rained intermittently while we were there. the bus ride into town featured some pretty muddy terrain, and there was a section of road that had eroded away into the river. no one really seemed to mind - there was some clucking, but no cause for alarm as far as we were concerned. however, while rob and i were communing with ruins and nodding politely at machete-wielding cowboys on crack, the roads were continuing to degrade. copan is a relatively major tourist site, and everything in town gets trucked in. by semis. the day of our departure, one had tipped over or spun out or who knows - i didn't learn those words - ever - but i understood the jist - we were not going to make our ferry this way. ramon suggested we wait a couple of hours until the truck was removed and the (building) traffic dissipated before leaving. while we were waiting, we popped next door to the internet cafe and looked up flights to roatan from san pedro sula. we decided it might be better to drive just as far as san pedro sula and then see if we could fly to roatan. 

10am rolled around and ramon came back. we set off for sps. the trouble was on a huge hill just on the outskirts of town. a semi was stuck in the mud. a huge bulldozer was literally pushing it up the hill. 3 lanes of traffic spontaneously formed (2 lane road, btw...too bad for the suckers trying to get *into* copan...) about an hour later, we made it through. once the bulldozer got the semi up, everything smaller zoomed right on through the gap. witness: 

we finally arrived in sps at 2...ramon waited in the car as we tried to get a flight to roatan. the plane departed at 2:30. it was full from la ceiba to roatan, but we could fly to la ceiba (a 40 minute flight - but a 4 hour drive...pesky mountains!) we gambled that we'd have enough time to get from the la ceiba airport to the ferry terminal in time to catch the ferry to roatan at 4:30.

we walked out to the tarmac and saw 2 planes. rob and i looked at each other. "it has to be that one, right?" i asked, pointing at the small, 30 seater to our right. "no..." he said. "this is exactly what you said you said you didn't want, isn't it?" he said to me, as we headed for a plane approximately the size of a butter dish. "one here, one there" said a member of the ground crew. "here" was in front. i mean - next to the pilot. that was to be my seat. a kind honduran man seated next to rob laughed as i recoiled, and said, "you're sitting shotgun!" the hell i was. i asked if he would mind swapping with me so i could hold my husband's hand when we plunged to our inevitable doom. this photo shows the pilot from our seat, about a centimeter in front of us. i took other photos, which i think better show how tiny the plane was, but apparently, even though the camera is completely automatic, my photos aren't in focus. despite the heavy clouds and rain at the end of the short flight - it was completely smooth, and other than being really loud - the coolest flight i've ever been on. beautiful (and some tragic) views - lots of green, but lots of flooding too. the whole country was hit hard by the recent rains, and more than a few pineapple fields were completely flooded. we made it to the ferry in time - which was a huge blessing - la ceiba did not look like the kind of town we'd have liked to spend a night in...like a lot of port towns, it looked grim, poor, overcrowded and desperate. no bueno. we caught the ferry for roatan - as planned - despite a late start. thank you sosa airlines! 

stay tuned for roatan - part 2...