Tajumulco, Honduras, and a New Project!

Hey everyone long time no post!

Well a whole lot has happened since my last post. I have climbed Tajumulco, set up a new project, and been to Honduras and back in the last 2 weeks!

I’ll start with Tajumulco first. This may have been one of the craziest, dumbest, out of control things I have done in my entire life. We asked around with a few of the peace corp workers on the best way to climb Tajumulco. They all made it sound so easy and told us we could easily follow the trail and wouldn’t need a guide. Justin and Laura, the peace corp workers we have been working closely with in Comintancillo, gave us everything we needed to climb; packs, tent, rain gear, wool sweaters. We left from San Lorenzo, where I left the blog last, and took two 45 minute bus rides to get to the base. We were having awesome weather the week before with miles of visibility and no rain. Unfourtunately two days before our climb we had the opposite, rain, cold, and low visibilty. Perfect conditions for a 4,500 foot climb! We met up with two Peace Corp climbers who were working in Coban who wanted to climb with us. The climb started off easy, we had low visiblity but it was warm and dry. I climbed the first half in a t-shirt and shorts. We stopped about half way from base camp after a good 2 hours of hiking for a snack. This is when things got bad. Soon it started to get colder and rain. The rain came with about 20 mph winds and we got soaked even before we could get a rain gear on. We finally made it to camp after about 2 hours of hiking. We had to scrabble and get the tents up to avoid hypothermia. I wasn’t warm for another 3 hours. It was too wet to start a fire and we decided to all sleep in one tent to stay warm. We were asleep by 7 pm as there was nothing else to do and we had to be up by 4 am to summit.

4 am came quick and It was still raining! We put on everything warm and waterproof and headed for the summit. We had trouble finding the trail at first with only headlamps, but we managed to keep a pretty good pace. Soon the sun started to rise and we realized we were not going to get a great view we could barely see 20 feet ahead and once we reached the face of the summit we could barely see each other. We headed down without even staying on summit. We were cold, tired, wet, and disoriented. We packed up at base camp and started out descent. We followed the trail for at least 2 hours, but the rain picked up and we lost trail quickly. This is when things got bad. We were soaked and out of food and water. We had no idea where we got lost and we realized that if we went down the wrong side of the mountain we could end up in the jungle or nowhere near civilization. Deep down I am sure everyone was panicking. We decided to head back up the mountain and try to find the trail even if it meant going all the way to base camp. After about 2 hours of hiking and still no sign of the trail, Kevin spotted in the mist what looked like people. Sure enough it was a guide and two hikers. What a Godsend! We made it down safely with the guide.

The trek wasn’t over though we had no place to get warm and we were 2 buses from home. We caught the first bus easy, but at the second bus stop no buses came. The wind was howling and rain was still intense. We were freezing and miserable. Again out of nowhere an SUV stopped and asked if we needed a ride. He had a full car with his wife and three kids, but they all pilled in the back to make room for us. He drove us 45 minutes right to the front door of our place, and wouldn’t accept any money. A man with his family stopped for 4 soaking wet gringo strangers and there huge packs. I really I amazed at how generous some of the people are here! God shows himself in the most unique ways.

The following week we met with Ruben, the president the NGO we are working with AMMID. We discussed how we could make the best impact possible in our next 6 weeks. After considering our 4 weeks of experience in stove construction, Kevin and I decided to run our own stove project. We are going to use the $500 we raised to build 4-5 more stoves. We would build the stoves for families that are selected by AMMID for their need and participation in AMMID programs. This worked out perfect as it would take at least a week for the families to be selected and Kevin and I would be traveling to Honduras for a week. When we returned would require the families to attend “charlas” or seminars that educated them on the health benefits of the stove as well as cooking methods for the stoves. This will hopefully bridge some of the cultural barriers that cause some of the stove projects to fail. After the meeting we felt excited and content knowing we would have a solid amount of work when we returned.

On Wednesday we started our travel to Honduras, we headed to Xela first. The following day we head to Pananchel, which is a city on Lake Atitlan. Lake Atitlan was absolutely beautiful, it was a lot like Lake Tahoe with mountains all around and the water a crystal clear blue. There is so much natural beauty in Guatemala that I really was not aware of. We met up with Mike and the rest of his friends that we would be traveling with us to Honduras. The next day we headed out onto the lake with some kayaks which was even more beautiful. Later we headed grabbed our buses and began to head to Honduras. Our first stop was Copan, which is just across the border. This also happened to be the day after the military coup occurred in Honduras. At first we weren’t even able to cross the border, but the decided if we paid 20 dollars a person they would let us cross. So we basically bribed the border officials to get across...

The next morning we headed to the Copan ruins. They were huge! The structures there were over 3000 years old and some of the temples still stood 70 feet tall. I took some really cool pictures so stay tuned for those. We walked around for over 2 hours and it still wasn’t enough to see them all. We also saw these huge beautiful birds called MacCaws. I got pics of them too!

We jumped on the road straight from the ruins. The plan was to head to La Seba, a border town about 6 hours north of Copan where we could catch a ferry to Roatan. We had been watching the news at the Hotel and we heard of street riots and we were a bit worried about encountering them. It was weird being in a country that had a relatively unstable government. It was also interesting speaking with some of the locals. They seemed very somber and worried. We take a lot of things for granted in the US but man, I can’t imagine not even being sure of my own government.

We didn’t get very far. We hit a police road block about an hour into the drive. They told us that they weren’t letting anyone through and that the roads into La Sabe had been shut down. Great! We had to find a way to get to Roatan as we had already paid for the villas we were staying in. Mike managed to charter us boat from a port town in Guatemala which I have since forgotten the name of, so we drove back out of Honduras and 6 more hours north to the cost. We arrived at dark and the boat we were taking was leaving at 4 am the next morning. We didn’t even get a hotel. We left before the sunrise on a boat ride that would take at least 11 hours. The boat was also nothing more than a bunch of open air bench seats, again great idea. At first the ride was easy and enjoyable, especially when the sun rose, but then things got bad. The seas got rough and about half of us got sea sick. It was miserable for at least 6 more hours and then things got even worse. The three Guatemalans running the boat said they were lost and low on gasoline. They didn’t have a radio, a map, or even a working compass! Luckily one of us did and we made the decision to head south and hopefully hit the cost. Ha ha I laugh about it now, but we were low on gas with no idea where we were and we couldn’t see land. So yah two impending doom situations in one week! We boated south for about another hour and miraculously we saw land coming out mist, and as we got closer we saw it was Roatan! Ridiculous, we went through travel hell for 2 days and we finally got a break!

We got to Roatan, finally and went into our amazing villas which had a fantastic view of the bay, as well a fridge full of beer and our own private pool! But best of all they had a soft bed! For the next four days we worked on our scuba certification. Roatan is known for its brilliant reefs and sea life. We were not disappointed. Scuba diving is one of the coolest things I have ever experienced. It’s like flying under water and everywhere you look there is something you have never seen before. We saw sea turtles, puffer fish, groupers the size of me, eagle rays, eels, sharks! It was amazing! We spent the whole week diving in during the day, and chilling out and enjoying the beautiful nights with friends at the villas. I loved the vacation, but the end came too quick!

We had to scramble to leave on Saturday because the president of Honduras was attempting to return Sunday and we knew it would make the country almost impossible to travel in. We took the way out that we were supposed to take in. Things went pretty easy, though we encountered two break downs on the buses! We made it across the border by nightfall and spent 4 of July in a small border town in Guatemala. To celebrate the occasion we did the most American thing we could, we ate at McDonalds and then saw Transformers, in Spanish hahahaha. Kevin and I made it back to Xela the next day were I am writing to you know. We will be returning to Comintancillo today and begin our project work next week. I certainly miss the simplicity there and I am excited to go back and see the kids.

So thats 2 weeks in about three pages for you! Sorry for taking so long to get this out. I will be doing these weekly again so stay tuned for more updates, also when I get the pictures together I’ll send out links to those!

Hope everyone had a fantastic 4th!

Adios y Buen Dia!