Fun Firsts with the Family

Just after I passed the halfway point of my SALT year, my wonderful family decided to come visit for a week. Mom came a bit early to do some MCC visits, and I got to tag along with her until the rest came. Family, for this week, consisted of Mom and Dad, Jennifer and Cynthia.

Although my family has experience travelling in the global South, I persuaded them to experience a number of “firsts.” I restricted them to pack one backpack each, and no more. Then I forbade renting a car for the entire week, and said that buses and taxis would work fine. This caused a bit of consternation for some, but they came ready to experience my experiences.

I have had a number of interesting bus experiences so farm, but luckily the buses all behaved for my family. No chickens, no accidents, and only one vomiting neighbour. The best part was counting the number of passengers on each bus. The two records were about 100 people in a school bus, and 27 people on a 16-person van. I say that the 27 were on the van, not in it, because at the peak, four young men were holding on tight and hanging out the door, flirting with the young women standing just inside. Talk about a captive audience!

A few Spanish words characterized our experiences: tranquila/tranquilo (relax, don’t worry, take a chill pill), pena (embarrassment, particularly on my part, at the activities of tourists), and licuados (fresh fruit milkshakes or smoothies). We were all very tranquilo when the bus was late to arrive in Gracias, making us miss the last bus of the day to La Campa. I won’t list the pena J And as soon as we had access to licuados, we had at least one or two per day.

We visited La Campa first. Unfortunately my family couldn’t experience La Campa in its normally tranquila state, as the town was preparing for the major religious festival the following week. The town was bustling with vendors and visitors. We visited my Honduran families, my supervisor, my church, the cemetery, the river canyon, and a pottery artisan.

We then moved on to Copán Ruinas, site of Mayan ruins dating to the 800s. Our guide at the ruins realized that we were keen on learning as much as possible, and so he taught us the base 20 mathematical system of the Mayans, how to read a few hieroglyphs, and much more. We also explored the town a bit, having licuados, and climbing the impossibly steep roads.

Our final stop was Tela, on the north coast. We took a boat trip out to a national park, the majority of which is only accessible by boat, we swam, we drank licuados, we visited the largest botanical garden in Central America, and we read on the porch enjoying the sea breeze.

Each of the three places we visited was very distinct. Charissa, a fellow SALTer, says that you could be dropped down in one place in Honduras and think you know the country, but as soon as you travel a short distance, the country changes entirely. La Campa is a Lenca town, the Lenca being one of the few remaining indigenous groups in Honduras. It is high in the mountains, and so is colder and characterized by pine forest. Right now it is dry, as there hasn’t been a proper rain since December. Copán Ruinas has the Mayan ruins, of course, but is still surrounded by Mayan communities. It is at a lower elevation, receives much more rain, and so is somewhat green right now. Tela is on the coast, is flat, with tonnes of rain, a Garifuna culture, and is being surrounded by kilometers of palm plantations. About 25 km of the highway approaching the city is lined by palm plantations, with nothing else to break the biological monotony.

This wonderful week flew by much too fast, and saying goodbye was hard, of course. But I received a warm welcome back home in La Campa, and am about ready to dive into my final five months.