abbreviated vacation

What a trip. It’s a bit of an adventure, so buckle up and get ready!

Well, I got up at 3:55am to catch a bus to Teguc and get ready. T, S and I were travelling together, and we got ourselves up and out in order to take the 5am bus. We ended up taking a bus that left at 4:30am, it was driving around town looking for passengers, so we took that instead of walking all the way to the bus terminal. The buses got in at about the right time. Now, here is the thing, T and S needed to go get money, but the ATM at the bus terminal in Teguc was not working, so Sara went in search of one. There is a grocery store next to the bus stop, so she went off, and disappeared. She didn’t bring her phone, and T and I are thinking where did she go? Well, that ATM didn’t work as well, so she kept walking, and the bank was not open! There she kept walking. Finally she reached a ATM that worked and came back.

Now, the thing about Tegucigalpa is that there is no one bus terminal. Every bus has its own terminal, which means you have to travel around the city to find the terminal you want. We ended up finding a cheap bus to take to San Pedro Sula (largest City in Honduras as well as its industrial center). While waiting in the terminal (bus didn’t leave for an hour and a half), two more volunteers showed up. We talked to them a bit. Catch this, one of them is from Wayne, Maine, which is not too far from the parents.

Anways, this is where the disaster begins. I get nauseas, and try to sleep to ignore it for a while, but my stomach would not be ignored. I will spare you the details, but those were not the finest 5 hours of my life.

The bus pulls into the station in San Pedro (which is a very convenient one station has it- buses, all type of place). Now, I get off the bus happy to be not moving anymore. I get off with the other volunteers, and once I see that my sitemates have gotten off the bus, I start walking with the guys. Now, this was so hard to walk. I was so out of it, in pain and nauseas and not wanting to walk. At the clear other end of the terminal I feel my purse vibrating. It’s S, and I walked off without getting my bag from the bus. Yep, I walked off without my bag. Good going Jill! Luckily T and S took care of this for me, because I am not sure I could have walked back there. We could have gotten right on another bus, but everyone was nice enough to wait an hour with me in the station before getting on the next bus. This was a disaster. I just wanted to sleep and not be sick. T carried my bag and her bag all the time because it was all I could do just to walk, never mind carry a bag packed for a week and a half.

The hour did me no good. It felt as though someone was wringing my intestines out like squeezing all of the water out of a soaking we shirt. Not cool. I get on the bus and immediately, oh I said you didn’t need to hear all the details. So, that was another awful 4 hour drive. After what felt like a million stops, we get to town. With luck the hotel owner was at the bus station to give us a ride the few blocks to the hotel. We get there and one of the first things we notice is that there is no hot water. Well, T and S really wanted to go out and party, so they took cold showers and left. I stumbled my way downstairs to tell the owners that there was no hot water. Well, I got permission to use another shower. Eventually I fall asleep for the night. The bar everyone at was across the street so I did get to hear most of the music for the night. Oh, so we also discovered the tv didn’t work, as well as the AC, and the fan was the most broke-#$%^ thing you have ever seen.

The next morning things seemed to be better, I could keep water down (always a good thing). We left to get breakfast, and nearly fainted over the prices. In my town I can get lunch for L15, but it was L70 for breakfast. We met up with a bunch of other volunteers and made plans to visit the Mayan Ruins, for which the town is famous.

The Ruins are awesome, I took every chance possible to sit and rest since I was weak and still a little dizzy from not eating (or at least digesting) anything the day before. We were with a group, so we paid for a guide which could explain everything to us. I have a lot of cool pictures, which I will eventually put up. We learned a lot about the Mayans. For instance, the complex we saw had a rain water drainage system. There were human sacrifices and the rich lived separately from the poor.

Later that afternoon I just chilled out getting my bearings again. This was the night of the fabled Halloween party. Now, I had been looking forward to this since before I left for Honduras (which should have been warning enough, since nothing lives up to its reputation here). I had made my own costume; I was going as a firecracker. I went out to dinner with a bunch of friends, a group of whom were dressed as the teenage mutant ninja turtles.

Now, I feel the need to explain one thing here before the rest of the night can make sense. I hate Honduran men. Not all of them, but the vast majority, yes. We have this thing here, which we call piropos. They are essentially catcalls, and are the most annorying thing. Seriously, if I don’t finish my two years here, it will be because I couldn’t take all of the piropos. You have to ignore every sound on the street. You can walk right past your friend, but if it is a male, you just ignore every sound coming out of his mouth and don’t hear him because he is a male. Now, every female volunteer says it will be hard not to ignore all men on the street when they return to the states. They are loud, obnoxious and sometimes very vulgar. They are also every day, many, many times a day. You shouldn’t have to feel ashamed of being a woman, but you get so much crap, you do.

Anyways, Honduran men literally lined the road to the bar to piropo all the gringas. Then what I thought was going to be a Peace Corps party was invaded by Hondurans (see note later). They are just #$%^&*ing annoying. They don’t understand you would rather chop off your damn ears than listen to their #$%^. As you may be able to tell, I am having a problem with the piropos right now. I have reached the limit of what I can take. So, when my fun party was overtaken by teenagers (there were teenagers plus Hondurans tend to look younger than they are) trying to deliberately ruin my night, and since I had been sick, I was not drinking, well, I had an awful night. The second place we went two had awful music, a bad band topped with awful speakers, and then creepy Honduran men lining the walls of the dance floors. Finally at 2am, we left.

The third day I again had health problems, so I stayed in the room while my roommates went horseback riding. I don’t think sitting on top of a horse for three hours would have improved my dizziness. I was jealous. Most people had left this day, and the town was a lot quieter. We switched hotels to one that had less problems.

The next morning I was still dizzy and nauseas, so I went to the doctors (it was finally Monday, so I could do this). She told that it was better to rest than to go to Guatemala (my original plan was to take off for Guatemala afterwards). Well, after getting a shot in my behind, and a few pills, I felt fine and had no health problems during the ride. The ride itself though was interesting.

The first bus was empty until five minutes before we left, at which time it got packed with people. Seriously, each bus has what you call an ayudante, or helper which collects money and helps people on and off. This guy was making people squeeze together, putting five people where there are clearly only four seats. We get a little down the road enter a small town where most people get off. The bus then goes off the main road to go down the town and get more people. We don’t start up again until we are again jammed packed. From there it was relatively quiet until we reach the point where we need to change buses. The ayudante asked us where we were going, and thus we told him we needed a bus to the next town down a fork in the road. As the bus pulls out, he yells out, “THE GRINGAS ARE GOING TO SANTA ROSA.” This was so crazy. About a dozen guys come running up yelling, “Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa.” Then as they lower our bags (T and I are travelling together) the bags start going in different directions. Now, one of the things our safety and security guy always told us in training is that you need to follow your bag in these situations. So, T and I are trying to get our bags and make a decision on which mode of transportation we are going to take.

She needed to use the restroom, so we needed one that wasn’t leaving right away. And dang did we pick the wrong one. We ended up in a busito, which picture a van that has been stripped and a few benches put in it. It was packed with people. The guys behind us were talking about us not realizing we are fluent in Spanish (not that they would have cared, them thinking we didn’t speak Spanish only meant they didn’t try to start a conversation), the thing is literally falling apart, has far too many people in it, and I wasn’t convinced the driver was sober. It was a very scary situation to be in. The driver was nice in a way though, when we hit the desvio (fork in the road) where we needed to take another bus, we asked if we needed to get off there, he told us that he would bring us to the bus terminal to take a bus, but since the bus was passing, he flagged the bus and they pulled over to let us switch rides. The last leg was thankfully uneventful in a bus that appeared to be fully working and well within its capacity levels.

Then we get to town, and since I had been there, we went straight to our friend’s house and she was near the bus terminal waiting for us. Once we met up, we went to walk around the town, and then went to the cemetery actually. It was day of the dead. Well, here there are two days of the dead. The first of November is for children, the second is for adults. Basically from what I have heard and seen they are days to remember loved ones who have died. A lot of people will go to the cemetery to clean up graves, maybe do a little maintenance. It’s a family affair, and not at all sad. The amount of effort that people put in to make the graves look nice is touching. They really care about their loved ones. Kind of picture a New Orleans cemetery though, not just headstones.

For dinner I had some good alfredo chicken pasta. Now, Hondurans normally cook Honduran food well, but that doesn’t translate to other types of food. I was nervous, I’m not going to lie, but it turned out well. Not even well for Honduras, but well for a Mom and Pop restaurant in the states.

The next day (I have no idea what day of the week it was), T and I went to a local village that is famous for its red Lencan pottery. We started walking there hoping to catch a ride in the back of a pick-up. Eventually we did get one, but got to ride in the cab since there was a backseat. This is how most people get around in the aldeas, and is considered a safe form of transportation in most of Honduras.

The village was not what I had expected. There wasn’t a whole lot to do or see in town if you didn’t have someone who knew the place to show you the good stuff. It was pretty. We walked around for a bit, talked to one lady who does a lot of pottery, ate lunch and visited the museum there. One the way back we got another ride in the back of a pick up truck, I got a few videos of how pretty it was, so maybe one day if I get fast enough internet, I can post it.

That night was the first night I have spent alone in Honduras. It was kind of overwhelming and freeing at the same time. I am always here with somebody since I have a host family. To have a place all to myself was like, whoa. I have a lot of advantages because I live with a family, but I realized how much I liked living alone too.

Following morning I was out the door a little after 5am. I wanted to catch the first bus out. The bus ride was uneventful, I couldn’t even attempt to sleep. I literally got in as the bus to Teguc was leaving. No time to stop and eat. The ride to Teguc has two portions, to the main highway and then to Teguc. They are reconstructing the main highway and what was once a 2 hour drive is now 3. I had to flag down a bus in teguc and I realized that my attitude about taxis had changed.

When I first arrived, I was like “There are driving laws!” as we rolled down the road. This time, there was a long line of cars and buses waiting to merge onto another road, and my taxi driver went around them all. That is when I knew I got a good taxi. Rules and traffic laws are now second to how fast I can get from point A to point B.

I get to my bus terminal, and it was 12:30pm, so I was excited, since the buses normally leave on the hour, I could go get me some Burger King before we left. No such luck. The bus leaves when full. We left in 10 minutes. No Burger King for me.

Arriving back in town I just wanted to relax. So, I ate the leftover Halloween candy I had for dinner. Eventually I did wander over to the grocery store. That day I got a piropo that really just made me want to leave. My vacation was supposed to recharge me, but it ended kind of a disaster, so I was more high strung than when I arrived. Enough time has elapsed that I think I am better now. I am still bummed my vacation didn’t quite go as planned, but oh well, things happen. I think I am going to go to the doctor’s a week before my next vacation and be like “check everything out, I want no problems this time.”