Day 1 : Friday
During school Caroline, Jess, Heather and I were trying to figure out how we were going to get down the mountain to our bus station in time for our 3:45 ride. Since it was the day we were celebrating Honduran Independence (which is actually Monday—the 15th of September) classes weren’t scheduled as normal. In the elementary school we had what’s called “Day 0” so there weren’t any specials. Susan and I spent our time going to the main assembly, lesson planning, classroom hopping to find lunch (parents bring in delicious Honduran food), and figuring out a ride. Cathy, who works in the same office as Susan and I had some friends she called for us and eventually we decided we’d have a taxi pick us up right after school.
At 2:15 I went down to the high school, picked up Caroline and we brought our bags to the taxi. We waited for Heather and Jess, who both had 8th period classes. As soon as they came, at 2:45, we took off. We got to the station just in time to buy our tickets, check our backpacks and board the bus. Fortunately, we got two pairs of seats together. We drove for two hours, stopped for dinner at a rest stop (which felt a lot like choir tour lunch stops) and then continued on our way. Before dinner Heather and I talked the whole time. After dinner we slept almost the entire rest of the way. 5 hours after dinner we arrived in Ceiba, where the four of us stumbled out of the bus, sleepily collected our bags and got into the first cab we saw without asking the price to take us to Hotel Canadien. That ended up being a mistake, because we paid a lot for that ride, but we were too tired to contest it and we were glad to be at our destination.
At the hotel we paid for the first night and were lead to our room which had 2 single beds in one part and a futon in the other room. We ended up taking the futon mattress into our room so we could all be together. After getting our room settled and turning the air conditioning (because it was HOT), we walked out to the pool/patio area and listened to the waves crash on the shore. Unfortunately we couldn’t go out on the beach because they lock everything up at night for safety.
After enjoying our surroundings we went back inside and thanked God that we were there, that we were safe, and that we had a sweet hotel, and fell fast asleep.
Day 2 : Saturday
When we woke up Saturday morning and ventured out into the hot humid morning, our eyes were richly rewarded. The scenery was breathtaking. Palm trees and tropical flower bushes decorated the hotel grounds. Beyond the hotel fence the blue-green Caribbean sparkled in the morning light and its waves crashed gently onto the sand. From the beach we could see the backdrop of the whitewashed Canadien—lush green mountains and feathery white clouds on a sky-blue canvas.
I just sat by the beach and soaked it all up for a while.
After some quiet time, the four of us reconvened and decided to go for a swim. We spent a long time jumping in the waves, which were getting bigger as day moved on. We dove through the waves, floated on top of them, got knocked down by them, and tried to body surf—which none of us were any good at. All of this made me feel like a little kid. We stayed in the water until our fingers were getting pruney. Near the hotel pools were showers, so we rinsed off in the cool fresh water, swam for a couple minutes in the hot pool and then laid out and chatted. It was one hot day!
Sometime before noon we decided to explore the city, so we got back to our air conditioned room, dried off, and got ready for our excursion. To get to the city, we had to walk 10 minutes down the beach to Sambo Creek, a little village, and walk through that town to the main road so we could catch a taxi. When we got to the main road we found a lot of other people (Hondurans) were waiting too. We asked a girl if she was waiting for a taxi or a bus and she said, “Whichever comes first.” When a bus stopped in front of us we decided to get in. That was a good choice because the ride was 14 limps—$0.75—instead of $3 each that we’d have to pay for a taxi. We weren’t exactly sure about when to get off, so we just got off where most everyone got off, which also turned out to be a good decision. From there we found an ATM, got some money and caught a taxi to take us to lunch. We asked to go to El Centro—the center of town. So that’s where our driver dropped us off.
It wasn’t the most scenic place, and we had a tough time finding a restaurant. When we tried to ask someone in Spanish for a recommendation a guy came over to us speaking in English and led us to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that seemed a little sketchy. But we ate there anyway because we were hot dehydrated and starving. Lucky for us, the food was pretty good and after eating and drinking some ice cold bottled water we were ready for more exploring. The part of Ceiba we were in wasn’t that nice. In fact it was kind of dirty and was crawling with people. We, as gringas—white girls, got hit on a lot and exploring, when you don’t have a clue where you’re going can be a little frustrating sometimes. We did find the street vendors market and did a little shopping, but after seeing all we wanted to see of El Centro, we walked back the way we came to find the mall. It was a hot tiring day and air conditioning and a movie sounded great.
We walked a great while, trying not to look lost, but eventually decided to get a taxi. Our taxi driver sort of looked at us like we were crazy when we asked for the MegaMall, and we found out less than a minute later… WE WERE ONE BLOCK AWAY! All we had to do was walk a little farther and turn the corner—an unfortunate mistake that cost each one of us a dollar.
The mall was crowded and we arrived a half hour after our movie had started and an hour and a half before the next one would start. We decided to wait for the movie and while we were waiting Jess and I bought cold Gatorade and sat on a bench while Caroline and Heather browsed in a guitar store. While we were sitting there I said to Jess, “It’d be sweet if Caroline bought a guitar.” I knew she had been looking for one, and lo, Caroline bought a guitar! Because we were all tired and hungry we decided to buy some groceries for the next day, skip the movie, and get a taxi back to our hotel.
Back at the ranch, we went swimming again and then got cleaned up for dinner, which we ate at the restaurant on the third floor of our hotel overlooking the Caribbean. After dinner we worshipped together, singing songs accompanied by Heather, who will eventually teach Caroline how to play her guitar.
It was a beautiful night after beautiful day. I felt completely at peace. So blessed to be with my friends, Caroline, Heather, and Jess. Such wonderful people. People who pointed me to Christ in their actions and their words. So blessed to be in such a beautiful place. Such soothing sounds and scenery.
Day 3: Sunday
I had banana bread for breakfast again and spent some time swinging in a hammock, looking at the Caribbean at the start of my day.
At 8:30 Caroline, Heather, and I put on lifejackets and got into a boat along with 10 or so other people. Our driver, Omar, took us out a bumpy half hour to the island we could see from the Canadien. There, we registered to be in the national park, signed up for lunch and snorkel equiptment. Then we got back in the boat and drove another five minutes to a small island, with enough space for our towels and bags, lots of washed up sea shells, and a palm tree or two. But the island wasn’t the point, the water was. Gearing up with a snorkel and mask, we set out for an underwater adventure. I seriously felt a little like Ariel and wanted to sing “Under the Sea!” The water was so clear and beautiful. I wished I had a underwater camera. I have never seen such neat fish. There was a lot of coral, colorful fish, a giant starfish, sea anemones, and everything else straight out of Finding Nemo (except for Nemo—didn’t see a clown fish). It’s amazing how salt water keeps you buoyant. Heather, the biology teacher gave us a pop quiz on why salt water makes you more buoyant—has to do with density.
After snorkeling we all got back into the boat and sped over to another small island for lunch. There was some slight confusion here, because our driver had ordered us lunch—which we didn’t mean for him to do—we only wanted to stop for lunch, not buy it, because we packed our lunch. Anyway, we may have gotten Omar in trouble, but at the end of the trip he said, “no problema” so we think that things worked out. Our lunch stop was longer than we needed to eat, so Caroline, Heather and I hoped back into the warm salty ocean and floated around before we all traveled back to the mainland.
Our island trip was enough to tire me out, so when we got back to the Canadien I met up with Jess, while Heather and Caroline went into town. Jess and I laid by the pool for a little while before getting cleaned up and going to dinner on the third floor restaurant again. We brought our books and journals and after eating, just sat and talked, watched the sun go down, and then wrote and read some. When Heather and Caroline came back they met us at our table and we sat and reflected on our weekend before getting down to business. Shortly after that we were down in the lobby, talking with our friend Samirrrrrr (I write his name like that because we mispronounced it at first and he corrected us by rolling his R for like 3 seconds :o) We payed for our last night’s stay and called to arrange a taxi for 8am the next morning.
Before going to bed, Heather brought out the guitar and we sang together at a table right next to the beach. When we got back to our room, all of us had to put on extra lotion to take care of our spotty sunburns. Falling asleep was no problem; we were exhausted and content!
Day 4: Monday
The four of us decided to have a sunrise service so we woke up at 5 and went outside. Since the beach was locked up, we went up to the third floor restaurant and sat out on the deck overlooking the ocean. There were clouds in the sky, but not so many that it would completely block the sun, which came up soon after we arrived, painting the sky yellow, orange and pink. At first we just sat together in silence watching the sky transform. Heather played the guitar and sang a little and before we split up for quiet time, we shared prayer requests and prayed for each other. Then Heather and Jess went for a swim, Caroline went for coffee, and I stayed in a hammock and read and wrote a little. Soon after that it was time to pack up because Martin, who was Caroline and Heather's taxi driver from the night before arrived. With ourselves and our bags loaded in the car, we started down the dusty road. Martin pulled over the car within a minute, and picked 6 hibiscus flowers off a wild bush. Four of them he gave to us, one for each, and the other two he stuck in the sun visor above him. We looked very islandish!
The trip to the bus station was a little tricky because it was Independence day and streets were blocked off for their parade. Finally we got there, but the bus was going to be full, so we went to another bus station and got our tickets. The ride home was hot—really really hot—like I prayed we wouldn’t stop because without the breeze we baked! You could tell we were getting close to Tegucigalpa when the temperature became cooler and we stopped glistening from sweat. At the bus station in Tegu we coincidentally met up with a group of 8 Pinares teachers who had just gotten back from their trip to Tela, another north coast vacation destination. They had planned on having a big van pick them up and luckily, the four of us fit in too—barely! So that was it. We made our way up the mountain and I couldn’t wait to get back to Mrs. Kolmodin’s cooking!
Thanks be to God for our safe, fun, sunny, restful trip!
