Central American Travels and Honduran Life!: December 2013

So my lovelies, I promised you tales of our travelling adventures but my amazing partner Ione is a great wee writer so instead of my rambling chatter I'm gonna post her blog post for you all to read in the faith that you'll love it as much as I do. Please also visit her blog to see some of her previous posts too, she's fab!! http://ionegeorgakis.blogspot.com/

Costa Rica, the land of magic, where beauty surrounds you, where the

people are the main attraction, where fears are faced, friendships

gained and memories made. I wish that I could take each of you reading

this on a tour of my time here and show you some of the wonders that I

have experienced but I can’t so I will give you an amos bouche to

inspire the traveller within, to prod the sleeping long haired, tie

die wearing hippy to jump up and get out of the house and have your

own adventures.

From the moment we arrived it was love at first sight, we stepped just

a few 100 meters from our jungle painted, graffitied funky vibe hostel

into the square to find ourselves avalanched into live reggae music,

street dancing and circus acts, erupting our senses and stimulating

our souls. We wandered the streets admiring the sights; not the

ancient buildings or stone work but the parks lined with beautiful

people, the graffiti work that would put banksy to shame (my personal

favourite being ‘TLC Please don’t traffic human organs’) and the total

creation of Pura Vida.

Pura Vida is a Costa Rican saying that has such a frequent occurrence

in conversations, so many relevant situations and only one meaning,

Pure Life. In this and so many other ways we could learn from this

country. In environment, social dynamics and attitudes towards

behaviours and others Costa Rica differs from Honduras and many other

central American countries, it stands alone in its free loving way and

this shows from the businesses, to the people to the police force.

Unquestionably the lack of a military presence in the country has been

a positive influence on the daily living.

Now down to business, facts, figures, places and faces, we did it all,

we met some strange and beautiful souls, stayed in some wonderful

places and made some lifelong memories.

After 2 days and 20 hours of busses we arrived in San Jose, and went

to our hostel heaven, San Jose backpackers had it all, a pool, trippy

art, a roof top bar iced with fairy lights and lonely planets voted

best burger. What more can a girl ask for? A great selection of other

guests? Check! We met some wonderful people, two brits who were

enjoying all that the world had to offer after finishing university,

Sam and Marcos were a burst of entertaining joy as well as the fact

that we were pretty damb pumped to be meeting some people from the

homeland, as the majority of other people we have encountered on our

travels have been from the United States. Which brings me to my next

category, the Yanks, we met many and they just kept on getting better,

Derik the initial American, very entertaining, enjoying traveling

through central America free styling it on his own and picking up

friends on the way, Eric the big lumberjack (nothing of the sort he

just rocked a lot of checked shirts) and drank A LOT OF PILSEN, then

we have Alex and Jon, bat shit mental but totally loveable both who

had a really rather impressive selection of short shorts and crab

fighting techniques. After a night of San Jose partying with Eric Alex

and Jon accidently ending up in a casino primarily used as a base camp

for the local hookers we decided that we all knew each other well

enough so jumped in a renta car and drove across the country. We hit

the road early in the morning to start the adventure, music blaring

through the speakers, hangovers in full swing and ready to start a new

chapter of the Costa Rican journey. We drove for hours learning more

and more about our new companions and visa versa, we stopped off at a

Soda (little street café) for some pocket beers and food, only to look

out the window and be greeted by a family of 30 cappuccino monkeys

swinging from the trees, jumping through the jungle and causing

mischief. WOW. After the dancing, pool and driving we ended up on the

ferry in James bond style. Literally driving on as the ferry pulled

away!

After a little trip on the boat and another hour or so in the car some

of which Jon spent on the roof we got to our paradise, in the form of

Don Jons hostel, we rented an apartment for the 5 of us and the fun

began there. The hostel was in a place called Santa Teresa, otherwise

known as literal heaven, a slice of pure love and freedom compressed

into a sandy beach, a dusty road and some beautiful people. Holy Moly

it’s the closest to nirvana I have ever experienced.

What started as a three day visa run turned quickly into a 9 day

fantasy world of in-comprehendible crazy joy.

The dates and days and hours and minutes and activity blurred into one

large pot of warm fuzzy memories but I will pick out some of the

highlights of the trip.

1. Tica Train – driving through San Jose on a small, crazily

painted train car playing questionable music, waving as we drove by

and only realizing half way through the ride that due to peoples looks

at us it probably wasn’t a normal attraction. We had fun anyhoo

2. Breakfast beer – Beer, tomato juice, lime, chilli and garlic

hot sauce, and a sprinkle of salt. Pure joy DON’T DISS IT TILL YOU TRY

3. Jon playing Frisbee on a public beach wearing nothing but

Michaela’s itsy bitsy blue bikini bottoms

4. A Mexican who’s artist name was Picasso (think it’s already

been used) who was constantly paranoid about being caught by the

paparazzi?? And who reminded us persistently that the photos we took

of him are worth thousands. £££

5. Our hunter gatherer men going Speer fishing on Thanksgiving

morning catching us ladies some fish and having a local man cook up

the most incredible culinary feast with most of the other guests from

the hostel.

6. Driving on a ‘short cut’ also known as the most dangerous

road anyone has ever driven on to get to some incredible waterfalls in

Montverde, saving some travellers from a ditch, helping a pretty

little chica across a river and picking up a sweaty German couple

making a total of 8 in the car.

7. Getting to the waterfall, scaling a muddy, slippy, hippy, and

trippy path for 30 minutes before arriving at a stunning set of

different level waterfalls, watching one by one everyone jump in from

different levels, the 10ft, 40ft and 130ft depending on their

bravery/craziness.

8. Being the only person not in the water, standing on the ledge

of a 10ft waterfall shaking in my swimsuit while 15 people only 5 of

whom I knew clapped and cheered and chanted for me to jump in,

shaking, sweating and borderline crying I finally made the leap more

for the fear of someone pushing me in. Not a proud moment for Ione but

I’m sure everyone else found it entertaining.

9. Frauline – Now Frauline deserves a whole bullet point, a

local Rastafarian tico who’s name means little girl in German, with

dreadlocks down to his shoulders and tattoos of all kinds. He ran,

lived and played in the ‘La casa surf and chill’ probably aged about

50 still rocking it with the ladies (many and often) showed us all a

very good time. Young spirit, healthy body, wise head and crazy

personality.

10. Beach bonfire, after another fun night of adventures we headed

down to the beach to light up the bonfire the MEN had made a few days

before, all being under the influence of alcohol and white westerners

it didn’t go as smoothly as in the movies that’s until our night on a

white quad bike came to save the day, a vague acquaintance we had seen

once or twice on the island, drove up, looked at our failing attempt

to light the epic fire we had set up, he simply removed his shirt, set

it alight and put it in the middle of the fire, then drove off,

retuned with two logs the size of trees placed them on the now roaring

bonfire and drove away. What a nice fellow.

11. Meeting the stunt men who play Caesar and Koba in the new planet

of the apes and having a private demonstration of how they walk like

monkeys how it works, watching them do 15 standing backflips in a row

and doing yoga, WHAT??

There are 1001 other things that I could list but these seem like the

most significant crazy points from this section of the trip and I

think a great deal of the madness you just had to be there for.

Pura Vida

Hola hola!

Well, where do I start? I am now almost 4 months in to my year in Honduras… a third of the way already!! It’s very surreal because in many senses it feels like this is home now. I’ve established such strong bonds to both the people in the community and the project that I can barely even imagine leaving, so I try not to think too much about how quickly time is passing! We’ve just started our 2 months of Christmas vacations (their equivalent of our summer) and so, by the time we get back to teaching, we’ll be half way through the year!

The school year has just finished, so the past few weeks have been pretty crazy! The students all sat exams which determined if they could continue going to La Providencia in the coming year. It’s strange to think that even at their age these exams are more or less defining their future, their level of education and what they will go on to do with their lives. Although I find that very difficult to comprehend, over the past few months I’ve come to accept that that’s just the way it has to be and has encouraged me further to make sure my students do well. Anyway, despite all of my worrying, all of my second and third graders passed Maths and Science with good marks! Even those who had been struggling really impressed me, which I think was due to the fact I’d been spending a couple hours a week after school with those who were finding the work hard. I was also informed before we broke up for the holidays that in the coming year (which starts in February) I will be continuing to teach Maths and Science but to grades 3, 4 and 5… I’m so excited!!! This also means the majority of my students will be the same as last year which I think will be really good as I feel I’ve developed a great relationship with them. Grade 2 are a bit manic and very lively so it’s sometimes hard to get them to focus, especially when it comes to ‘boring’ parts of maths but after spending so much time with them over the past few months I’ve really been successful in discovering what gets their attention and how I can keep them motivated, which is super rewarding for me! Grade 3 on the other hand are a smaller class and only has 3 boys which makes definitely makes my job easier!! They’ve been a great class to get to know as well and because they’re so well behaved (usually!) we’ve been able to do a lot of fun little activities cause they finish their work with plenty time…. We’ve also invented some really fun games as a class, they’re brill!

Outwith school we’ve kept really busy too and I spend a lot of time talking to our hosts, Luci and Jose which I feel has sent my Spanish abilities soaring! Also I’ve spent a lot of time down in the ‘bodega’ (crafts workshop) at Providencia with the guys who work there. As well as teaching them to dance and them teaching me to make things like desks for the classrooms it’s been a great way of practicing my Spanish as none of them speak English…. Although I’m not yet able to catch all the jokes they fire at me I am now able to hold pretty lengthy conversations and I really enjoy learning as I go… though I’m not sure how well I would do when tested on grammar! I also enjoy speaking to the Honduran teachers at school, people on the bus and, well, more or less anyone who will listen to me!!!I’ve actually made way too many random bus friends and Luci and Jose have told me I have to go by the name Maria so creepy men can’t track me down….. (Because obviously ‘blonde gringa’ wouldn’t lead them straight to me haha). Over the past few months I started playing football for a Honduran ladies team in our village which was super fun but extremely hard work in the midday sun, the locals loved the colour I turn when I’m exercising here! We also went rock climbing a couple times and I have been invited to go with some guys weekly next year. I think quite a few of the guys are bilingual and often do little camping/ hiking trips so they’ll definitely be good fun to be friends with. I'm going to come home fitter than when I left I think!

After some seriously sad goodbyes to Katie, our roommate and best friend for our time in Honduras this year, she headed back to the States after 10 months living here in Aguas del Padre teaching English and PE at the school. Katie is an absolutely incredible, kind-hearted and loving person and I’ll miss her friendship and support here SO much. I’m just so glad we got to spend the time we had here with her, she has truly had an impact on the way I look at life and will forever hold a very special part in my heart!

Now that we’ve finished school we have a 2 month holiday which we will spend travelling Central America, getting to explore and develop our knowledge about the incredible cultures and countries here. We’re currently in Costa Rica (possibly my new favourite country, ever) and in a week or so will head up to Nicaragua. Then we’re going back to Honduras for Christmas and New Year to meet up with the other volunteers. After Christmas we’re heading up to Guatemala and Belize or El Salvador. It’s super exciting and so amazing getting the chance to visit these truly incredible, breath-taking, magnificent countries. I’ll fill you in on our new adventures soon.

Adios, un abrazo, Kayla x

Nat in Honduras with my Grade 2 kids!