Highlights from Honduras

My second weekend adventure took me to the green and humid hillsides of Copan, Honduras to visit mighty Maya ruins. (Fast Fact: the word Mayan is only used to describe the language of the Maya people) We left Antigua long before the sunrise and I tried to sleep while we bumped and twisted along the Guatemalan “paved” roads. When I awoke we were in the lush and green rolling hillsides of eastern Guatemala. Maybe it is because of all the car trips I took growing up, or maybe it is because I spent most of my childhood in the back of some old car, but watching the countryside whiz by in a car will forever fascinate me. I’m not sure if there is a better way to encapsulate, understand or get the feeling of a place than to drive through it and watch people, towns, landscapes and lives roll by. I observed that Honduras is an incredibly beautiful country but with a slower paced energy than Guatemala. The air was cleaner and the country much greener.

On our four day trip I was able to visit the amazing ruins of Copan. Walking into the entrance of this park, we were greeted by a dozen perched macaws and two wild large rodents scavenging in the lush forest around the ruins. I am not trying to sound romantic when I say that the sight was truly spiritual. As we walked down the path, butterflies with iridescent blue, bright yellow and spotted orange wings danced by (butterflies always remind me that Tina is nearby) and the ruins rose into my view as the forest thinned. As I came into the clearing, there was such an energy in the air. Ruins tens of feet tall gripped the forest hills and surrounded the clearing. There was plaza after plaza of ruins, and the thought that I was standing in a spot where people had lived, died, loved, lost, prayed, and strived thousands of years ago impacted my core. Photos really won’t do it any justice, but none the less here a few...

In addition to visiting the ruins, we rode horseback alongside a river and climbed through the forest to the top of a mountain to look down upon the town and ruins. My horse, Manzanita, was definitely the most spirited of the group despite being the skinniest horse I had ever ridden on. She insisted on galloping on every level path and I didn’t fight her. I just let the wind play with my hair and tried to match her rhythm. Afterwards the group laughed and told me that I was sexy on a horse.

Later that day, Chrissie and I flew above the Honduran forest floor on a cable zipline. It was an incredible adrenaline rush to be suspended hundreds of feet over the ground flying through the air like Tarzan. The longest cable was over 1 meter long and easily 300 feet in the air. Being the adrenaline junkie that I am, I tried every trick that they let first-timers do, upside down and superman style.

The next day we all piled into the back of a pickup and rambled over the Honduran hills to swim in a natural river hot springs. Once again Tina gently reminded me of her presence, and in the middle of the lush jungle ravine, without any villages nearby – a true fairyland, we passed a lone white horse lying down next to a stream. As we passed I asked everyone, “Did you see the unicorn?” When we got to the hot springs we piled into a little cove where the boiling hot spring water mixed with the cold stream water, making a comfortable warm natural Jacuzzi to swim and splash in.

Being there in the small town of Copan Ruinas felt like being in a beach town in southern California without the ocean. The people were incredibly easy going and every hotel was equipped with hammocks for napping and lounging. However, in this beautiful and low key town there were more stray dogs than I have ever seen anywhere. Packs of small lap dogs yapping, packs of large dogs barking, female dogs in heat with four males following close behind, and terribly sick and skinny dogs. I actually burst into tears my second night in town because of a sickly skinny dog which I saw. She was nervously pacing back and forth in the street desperately looking for someone to give her some food, and when she came close and turned her head I saw that one of her eyes was popped out of its socket and hanging there. It was so upsetting to me, so unnecessary – a simple operation and some food could save her easily – but the locals just kicked her away. To them she was nothing more than a nuisance and ugly bother. She will undoubtedly die a slow death from an infection, and I just couldn’t help being affected by the needlessness and grotesqueness of it. Until visiting this town I didn’t know how I felt about the termination of animals by animal shelters, but I understand now the alternative, and realize that fewer animals with worthwhile lives is far better than a rampant overpopulation of suffering animals.

It is the small things like this, that make you realize all that you take for granted. Living in a country which provides services like animal control, free neutering, spaying and, if necessary termination of strays isn’t something you think to be grateful of, but it should be appreciated. I can easily list things which I have been reminded to not take for granted within the past few days: having a country with a stable economy, where you can go to the ATM and withdraw your money when you want. The banks here literally ran out of money for a week and half. They just didn’t have any, and if you didn’t have some saved up – too bad. The banks were waiting for a shipment of money to come in from - get this - Canada and Spain, where it is printed. Having water and electricity that turn on every time. Even though my family pays for both, there just wasn’t any water for five days; showering, cooking, and flushing toilets had to be done with reserves. Having clear and punishable road laws. Driving in a third world country is dangerous everytime, and it makes me think differently about our own traffic lawes. My complaints about traffic tickets instead should be thoughts of gratefulness that we have viable law enforcement to protect drivers (sometimes from themselves). The list goes on… I guess one of the things that is hard to not take away from living here is an appreciation for the real and actual difficulties of the lives of the people here and how much more they have to deal with. We try to trick ourselves, in the US, into believing that we live stressful lives, and that we have so much to deal with, so much work; there is almost a sentiment of a duty or even entitlement to anxiety. But these people live alongside the probability of sincere danger to their lives and well being everyday, and yet, maintain a calmness and passivity. Their lives are not without stress, on the contrary, but they have such clear and natural understanding of what is important and what actually matters – making family and friendships their first priority and leave the worrying to God or to something greater than themselves. Some people say that this passiveness is the result of decades of war, but I think it is more a preexisting characteristic of the national psyche. If I could learn to take make one part of their lives a part of my own, I would like to uphold the same level of clarity and continuous appreciation that most Guatemalans so naturally possess.