San Pedro Sula - The Big City (and roommate news)

On Saturday, Christina and I sat around all day hand washing our clothes (you really wouldn't believe how much energy it drains from you just to do one tiny load), reading, and watching a movie on my computer. So we decided on Sunday we needed to get out and explore something new.

We woke up at 5:00am on Sunday, got dressed, applied sunblock, ate our pancakes, and walked up the street to catch the bus to San Pedro Sula. San Pedro is the 2nd biggest city in Honduras. The bus came quickly and was half empty. Honduras uses old school buses from the US for public transportation here. Often they do not even repaint them so they are still yellow and display names of various US school districts on the sides. The ride was $1.50 and took about 2 hours to get to the bus depot in Progresso. The scenery was amazing: just lush green hills and valleys with a few rivers and streams and small villages thrown in. One hilarious (or possibly annoying if we knew more Spanish) part of the ride was a woman who stood up, faced the passengers, and began preaching a sermon for about an hour. The she walked around to try to collect money. The weirdest part was we randomly happened to get on the bus with her again on the ride home and she repeated the whole act. Luckily, I had my iPod. When we reached the bus station in Progresso, we had to transfer to another bus which was about $0.75 and took a 1/2 hour to get into the center of San Pedro. From there, we walked over to the Parque Central (central park- where everyone just hangs out and people watches. Most cities here are built around one). It was quite crowded with mostly men, a preacher, some photographers, and even a clown making balloon animals. They even had a lovely waterfall. One of the guide books proclaimed this the most beautiful park in Honduras. Although it was fairly small, I have to agree compared with those I have seen so far.
Then we walked across the street to the cathedral. It had extremely high ceilings, stained glass windows, and nice paintings, statues, and altars. It wasn't as impressive as others I have visited but still very pretty.
Then we walked over a few blocks to the Museum of Anthropology and History. It is free the first Sunday of each month (which was one of the motivating factors in making the trip today). They had many interesting displays of artifacts with descriptions in Spanish and English. One display contained some preserved animals: armadillo (they are so cool), lizard, and turtle.
Another display contained human skull remains. The teeth shown had some designs and alterations made to them which was apparently a popular way to decorate your body many years ago (maybe this is when "grillz" originated). Wacky! They had some well preserved statues:
The museum even had two life-size huts they built to simulate those used by the original people here.After the museum, we walked around the city awhile. Unfortunately, San Pedro has imported numerous US food franchises. Within a few blocks we stumble across: Popeye's Chicken, KFC (complete with a statue of the colonel sitting on a bench in front), 2 Pizza Huts, Little Caesars, Baskin Robbins, McDonald's, Wendy's, and even a Cinnabuns. It was very overwhelming. Instead of these imports, we decided to eat lunch at a more authentic, local outdoor market that even had live band playing. It was delicious. Some of you were shocked to see my students eating pizza. Here is proof we have actual delivery available also (not that Christina and I could ever afford it. On our salary, we get to eat a cheap dinner out only on Friday. The rest of our week is basic food like Top Ramen, pasta, bean burritos, eggs, pancakes, cereal, I even found soy milk (yippee!), and PB & J).
Then we explored the local outdoor market. It was pretty much like a swap meet: some junk, some useful items, and some food to try. The market was huge and just kept twisting and turning endlessly.
We then hopped on the bus and repeated the journey home, with the preacher woman and all. Unfortunately, our bus broke down only about 30 minutes into the trip and we had to switch buses. The new bus was extremely crowded and we had to stand for half the trip. The leftover US sign on board read "84 people maximum". I counted over 100 squeezed in. Overall, the bus ride was very enjoyable, mostly because of the lovely scenery.

On other news:
We also got our new roommate and co-teacher (for less than a week). Our new roommate, James (originally from Connecticut but taught for 2 months in El Salvador last year), arrived and moved in on Monday. He seemed really nice. He began teaching on Wed. and he really enjoyed the students (he was teaching Literature for 7th - 11th grades - They graduate in 11th grade here ). On Friday night, we went to dinner with him and another volunteer from our school, Kim (originally from Belgium, she has been here 3 years now and is engaged to a Honduran). At dinner, James mentioned he wasn't sure if this was the place for him. He was considering moving to Nicaragua to teach in a smaller village but he wasn't sure yet.

Well... when we came home from San Pedro Sula, he was gone with only a note left on the table. He had taken most of his things (and left a few random items for us to throw away for him) and he had apparently flown off to Nicaragua. We were upset with him because he didn't even have the respect or courage to tell the school he was leaving. We had to call the principal and let her know. We both thought it was very inconsiderate and rude. I didn't even have a chance to get a photo of him. So it is now back to just the two of us and we have a spare bedroom now (want to visit? or even better, come teach here with us???). So here is our only remembrance of him: