A Bus With a View 6/28/15

The flight from Miami with the rest of our crew arrived around 1:20pm but didn't clear "migration" and customs for over an hour. After some quick introductions is was straight onto a van with out luggage piled and strapped down to a trailer under burlap. The mountains lay in the distance with dense dark clouds warning us off the impending rain. We all piled in and were soon bumping and squeaking along. There were all sorts of homes cobbled together from broken down cement foundations, plywood, and rippled tin sheets for roofs. Children sat with their parents in brightly colored woven hammocks selling massive, interesting looking fruits and vegetables for a small price. There were people of all ages walking along the side of the road while others rode precariously balanced on bicycles and motor cycles. One little girl was perched on the front of her fathers motorcycle with an over large helmet on a long red piece of candy hanging out of her smiling mouth which was full of missing teeth. For most of the ride the homes were pretty spread out with many patches of just banana and sugar cane. Every now and then I saw cows, horses, dogs, goats, and chickens ambling around at the side of the road.

Towards the beginning of the trip we passed this amazing structure that had been built with lots and lots of spare parts. It had many levels to it and looked like an adults playground. The most notable thing was a bridge that was made out of an entire school bus!! It was a bit rusty but looked so out of place and yet so perfect and gave it an interesting child like whimsy. School buses were very common along the road with other advertisements painted on them.

I soon realized that the traffic laws in Honduras are very very different from those in Atlanta. To start with the school buses. Typically one would yield to one of these big beasts but our bus driver and everyone else it seemed, was in the habit of just passing each other at random. A couple of times it seemed like there were 4 lanes of traffic going along the skinny road with us almost hitting the other trucks. All of the vehicles looked as though they were either packed to the gills with people or had their truck beds with whole families riding in the back. One truck we passed had a covered bed and there were two boys that were sitting on stools and drinking sodas. Other times its seemed as though we were going to hit the bikers wending their way along the mountain passes (sometimes it seemed as we only left them inches free from harm).

Every now and then we would come upon a more densely populated area and see small shops or pop up food carts attached to bicycles. Two times we got stuck in some traffic because of military personnel holding up a truck and got to loom down some of the side streets which were often packed with people and thumping music.

When we weren't in these areas we whizzed by homes that were surrounded with concrete walls covered in hand painted advertisements. The houses varied from clean and freshly painted to patched and weathered. Some homes looked like they were part of a larger compound that opened up to a dusty central area. It was interesting that the few billboards that there were, featured Caucasian families but with Spanish on them.

We had a slight delay because one of Thomas's bags got left somewhere at the hotel or either fell out at during the drive between the hotel and the boatyard.

The trusty Melissa

We finally made it to La Ceiba in the later afternoon. We all spilled out of the bus glad to be away from the heart attack inducing driving. We are staying at Hotel Paris in town. It was so bizzare to see a see a burger King and a Pizza Hut right next to all the smaller family run Honduran shops. The majority of the group stayed at the hotel and ate at the restaurant on the bottom floor. My friend Carlos luckily is fluent in Spanish and helped us navigate through ordering and paying for our check in Lempiras (the Honduran currency; $1~21LMP).

We are all dozing off right now or are already asleep. I'm sharing a room with Olivia and Codee (New College students from my year) and Natalie from New York. Tomorrow we are leaving to get on an hour and a half long boat ride at 7:3am to Cayos Cochinos. After we arrive and are settled in we are going out on the water with Professor Gilchrist to get a tour. I'm super stoked but tired even though there's a two hour time difference.

Buenas noches!