Honduras - June 21st

On our first morning in Roatan we slept in a little since we were coming off of a long travel day. We had been to the grocery store the night before, so we had food to make breakfast at the hotel. Actually, in Roatan we stayed in the penthouse of the hotel we were at. It was pretty much a two-bedroom condo, with a kitchen, living room and balcony that overlooked the Caribbean. We were only about a 10 minute walk from the beach, so that is where we went mid-morning. As soon as we found a spot, these girls were wanting to braid hair and give massages. Kyle got his hair braided (it fell out when we were snorkeling later that day) and Dad got a foot massage.

This beach was great - and we were there in a slower time so it felt like we had the beach to ourselves. Christmas is the busy tim on Roatan, or if there is a cruise ship there - which there was the day we were leaving.

The water was so clear. This is a good Facebook profile pic :)

This was Dad's first time snorkeling - he actually did better than I thought he would. And he enjoyed it too.

We stayed at the beach for a few hours - Kyle took Dad out snorkeling, and he also took mom out snorkeling as well. Then Kyle and I went out. After we had our fill of the beach (for this morning) we came back to the hotel and took showers and got ready to go get lunch.

This is the entrance to our penthouse suite.

We were staying in West Bay, and we wanted to go to West End for lunch. It was about an hour walk to get there, or we could take a water taxi. We opted for the water taxi.

Trying to decide where to eat lunch (and Dad looking like a tourist).

Eating lunch at a restaurant called Lighthouse.

This is a banana tree - see the bananas just where the trunk ends and the branches start.

Back in West Bay walking along the beach.

We decided that we were just going to hang out at the hotel on Monday night. Since we had been to the grocery store, we had food so we made egg salad sandwiches for dinner. We watched the sunset from the balcony.

After we had dinner, we decided to go down to the pool for a little while - it looked pretty cool at night.

After we were done swimming, we came back up to the hotel and Kyle and I figured out the real reason Mom and Dad didn't want to do anything on Monday night. The Bachelorette was on, so we had a family Bachelorette watching party. I had not seen any of the season (and neither had Kyle obviously) but Mom and Dad had been watching all season. Kyle and I were surprised but we watched the 2-hour long episode (it seemed like it would never end). Watching that one show got me hooked, but I will miss the finale this Monday night as the Pfizer earnings release goes out on Tuesday morning so I will be at work. Oh well, I am sure I will not miss much...

Honduras - June 20th

This day was a LONG day of traveling. We left Kyle's house in Ocotopeque around 3:30am and walked to the bus which left at 4am. We took the longer way to the bus for two reasons - first, because it was paved most of the way and therefore we could roll our suitcases and second, because Kyle knew for sure we may have had dogs chase us on the shorter route. When we were walking home the night before, these two dogs were laying in the street. When we walked by them, Kyle told my mom and I not to get mad at him if he threw rocks at those dogs the next morning. I guess some of these dogs get mean at night when no one is out walking around. One of the things Kyle learned in Peace Corps training was to always carry rocks with you if you were out in the middle of the night so that you could be prepared in case a dog tried to attack. So, we tried to avoid these dogs, but Kyle still had all of us carrying rocks to the bus just in case any dogs came after us.

We got on the 4am bus to Santa Rosa, and then from Santa Rosa we got on another bus to San Pedro Sula. We had a couple of hours to kill at the bus terminal in San Pedro Sula, and then we took a Hedman Alas bus from San Pedro to La Ceiba, where we caught a ferry to Roatan.

Everything was right on schedule until our bus broke down from Sen Pedro to La Ceiba. We were going along on the Hedman, and the AC went out on the bus and then we pulled over. A belt broke on the bus so we were stuck for a while. The driver tried to fix it, but he could not figure it out.

Everyone on the bus was trying to help him out. It was so hot and the poor guy was wearing a tie and a long-sleeved shirt. Kyle walked to the store and got him some bags of water and he drank two of those - I think he was pretty thankful someone thought to get him water.

We had a ferry to catch, and Dad was starting to stress out a bit. Another bus came by and stopped for a minute, so we quickly jumped on that one. This was the worst ride of my life - while we were waiting for the other bus to get fixed, I also drank a water bottle and a bag of water. If he Hedman had been fixed (which is what I was counting on) there was a bathroom on that bus. Well, when we got on this other bus there was no bathroom and that was a VERY long hour and a half ride after drinking that much water.

We did make our ferry just fine, and arrived in Roatan on Sunday night. We stayed in the penthouse of the SeaVue, and they had some drinks waiting for us when we arrived.

We went straight to dinner as it was getting late and restaurants were going to close. This was Father's Day, and Kellyn had sent some cash with me to pay for dinner. We had a nice dinner at The Beach Club to end the day.

Honduras - June 19th

Saturday was our second day in Ocotopeque - we pretty much had a relaxing day around Kyle's house.

This is the pila in the backyard - this is where the water is held and just to the right of this is where Kyle washes his clothes.

Another view of the pila.

The town of Ocotopeque.

We went to the co-op where Kyle works with the Peace Corps.

These are some of the people from the co-op (notice how Kyle towers over everyone).

We were walking around the market and this little girl kept coming up to me and grabbing my camera. Kyle asked if she wanted to take a picture. After we took the picture, we showed her the picture and I put her down. Her dad said that she was "muy contenta".

Saturday night Kyle made veggie stir fry and we ate on his back patio. This is also a good shot of his kitchen - it is MUCH bigger than my kitchen in Manhattan.

I ended my night with a bucket shower. The smaller bucket consists of boiled water mixed with some cold water. You just use that little blue bucket and dump it on yourself. I asked Kyle why he didn't clean his shower and he said that he scrubs that thing but it gets dirty so fast since the water is not clean. So thankful for running water :)

We went to bed with our alarms set for 3:15am since we were catching a 4am bus the next day to start our journey to Roatan (the islands).

Honduras - June 18th

On Friday we travelled from Copan to Ocotopeque, Kyle's site. This was the busito that we took from Copan to Santa Rosa, and then we transferred to another bus there to Ocotopeque. It was about a 3 hour ride from Copan to Santa Rosa, and the bus would make various stops for people to get on and off. Throughout the trip, there were probably about 50 people packed into this little busito.

These were some school kids I saw while riding in the bus. They were all carrying large rocks down the street to their school.
Once we arrived in Ocotopeque, we took moto taxis to Kyle's house. No matter where you get picked up or where you want to go, it is always 6 Limps for a moto taxi (remember, 20 limps equals $1). I was in a moto taxi here, and we were on our way to Kyle's house. We followed these cattle most of the way.
After we got settled in Kyle's house, he and I walked down to the market to get some food for lunch and dinner. This is the vegetable market.
We got enough vegetables to make a veggie stir fry for dinner (for all 4 of us) and we only spent $1.50.
On our way back, we saw this little boy running around with no shoes on playing with those two water bottles he has in his hands. Kyle said "Hola William" and he came running over. Kyle talked to him for a while - William thought that I was his novia (as did a lot of the kids there) but he explained to him that I was his hermana. Kyle also gave William 20 Limps so he could go get some food. Once William ran off, Kyle was telling me that William's parents don't really take care of him. He said that William never wears shoes and is always hungry. William also says that he doesn't go home some nights - he will just sleep in the park.
We saw these kids on our walk back to Kyle's house - they all came running to Kyle and said "Hola, Carlos!" "Kyle" is difficult for them to say, so he tells them that his name is Carlos. They had a pet pigeon - they offered for me to hold it but I told them I would just take their picture with it.

A lot of the families would just sit out in front of their house like this all day. Their houses are so small and they don't have AC so it is better outside. This family just had a dirt floor inside their house.
Once we got back to Kyle's house we had lunch out on his patio. Kyle says that he does a lot of sitting on this patio.
Mom and Dad took a nap after lunch, and Kyle and I were hanging out outside. These kids came up and were talking to Kyle. They said that they had some firecrackers so we told them to go their house to get them and that they could set them off. My dad jumps at loud noises, so Kyle and I knew that this would be quite funny. They set it off, and sure enough, my dad jumped out of bed from his nap :)
I also wanted to see what it is like to cut the grass "Honduran style" - i.e. with a machete. I put on Kyle's boots and took a couple of wacks at the grass. I would rather push a lawnmower. Kyle said that he will sometimes hire someone to cut his grass because in order to do the entire front and back yard it usually takes 8 hours (his backyard is not that big). And it only costs Kyle 150 Limps to hire someone.
Later in the afternoon, Kyle took us to meet Bertita who is the librarian that Kyle works with.
We also went by the school where Kyle does the World Map. He is working with the sixth graders to draw the entire map of the world on this wall and then they are going to paint it. They were still in the process of drawing all the countries in.
After we were done at the world map, we took a moto taxi back to Kyle's house. There was only one around so Kyle asked the driver if we could all get in one. It is illegal to have someone sit in the front seat with the driver, and there is only room for 3 people in the back. The driver said ok, so I hopped in the front with the driver and everyone else got in the back. Two seconds later the policia were next to us and they pulled us over. The driver went up to talk to them and then Kyle decided to go up there as well. Kyle told the police that his family was there visiting him and that they didn't speak Spanish so we were trying not to get separated. The policia let the driver off the hook. If he had gotten a ticket, it would have been $50, which would have been about a week's worth of wages.
When we got back to Kyle's house, these kids were all outside playing with this turtle. I assume they just found it somewhere. The kids were always outside playing together. None of them have TVs or Wii's to keep them inside.
We then walked to Central Park (yep, Ocotopeque does have a Central Park but it is much different than the one in NYC) to watch Kyle play basketball with some guys.
Kyle organized a basketball team and signed them up for a league. They went 7-1 for the season so they did pretty well. Although Kyle is much taller than the Hondurans so that helped I am sure. My whole family was quite tall in Honduras - we got a lot of stares walking around town (especially in Ocotopeque) but I guess the people are not used to see 4 big white gringos walking together :)
We ended our night with baleadas in the park. A baleada is just a tortilla with beans inside (and eggs if you want). William was hanging out in the park so he had dinner with us. He said The Lord's Prayer in spanish and sang us the Honduran national anthem. We were teaching him some english - he had "Hello, how are you" down pretty well.

My First Attempt at Some Superfood Goodness

A couple of months ago, I bought the below book based on the suggestion of a friend. I started reading it after I got it in the mail, but only got through the first chapter. That chapter discussed the health benefits of eating goji berries, and I have been eating goji berries on a regular basis since then. When I was in Honduras, I saw a lot of the superfoods growing there, so that got me to re-open the book. Also, some friends have ramped up their superfood use, and I have been seeing recipes that they have posted on Facebook.

Tonight was my first attempt at making a superfood snack. This is the recipe I was following for energy balls:

¾ cup raw cacao powder

2 cups ground raw almonds

¾ cup raw agave nectar

1 Tbs. organic coconut butter

Pinch of Celtic sea salt

1 cup shredded, dried unsweetened coconut flakes

Combine all the ingredients except for the coconut flakes in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Roll up your sleeves, take a small amount of the mixture, and roll small balls between your palms. Add your love! Dip each ball in a separate smaller bowl containing the coconut flakes.

I used all the above ingredients, with the exception of the almonds. I thought that I had some almonds here at my apartment, but when I went to use them, I realized that I had walnuts instead of almonds. Also, I had walnut chunks, so I just used my Blendtec to grind them up. I literally only ground them for about 5 seconds, and I was close to making walnut butter. I guess the heat from the grinding turns it into butter pretty quickly.

This is all of the ingredients prior to mixing.

After mixing.

These are the ingredients that I used (as well as the walnuts and sea salt).

The finished product. Before I rolled the batter into the balls to roll in the coconut, I put it in the refrigerator for about a half hour to harden it up a bit.

Yummy...I already had 1 and a half tonight.

They turned out quite well...although this would be a difficult recipe to mess up. This will be a much better/healthier dessert than my Newman's Oreos that I love :)