Water Park and Christina's Sister

To celebrate Valentine's Day or Dia de la Amistad (day of friendship) as it is referred to here, our school planned a field trip to a water park. If the students wanted to go, they had to pay 100 Lemps (L) for the bus and 150L for admission (250L - $13.15) and they were strongly encouraged to bring a chaperon (who was also required to pay 250L). We would be going to the water park all day on Friday, Feb. 15. There would be no classes for any students not going.

On Friday morning I put on my bathing suit, sunblock, ate breakfast, and headed off to the school. I arrived at 8:20am and the bus was scheduled to leave at 8:30am. Gradually, more students and teachers arrived and boarded the bus. Based on permission slips turned in, the turn-out was predicted to be low so the school only hired one bus.

As more people continued arriving, the bus became packed. There were as many as 5 kids in one bus seat. A few teachers began bringing in chairs from the Kinder room to put in the aisles for more people to sit. The sign on the dashboard stated: max. 72 people. There were at least 150 on this bus. More sat up by the driver on the gear shift and stairs leading from the door. This would never be legal in the states (nor would going on a field trip to a water park for both safety and non-educational reasons, especially when many of the students here don't even know how to swim). Even with the bus being packed we only had about 15% of students in attendance. What a waste of a perfectly good teaching day.

The bus managed to pull out at 9:00am. We chugged along for about 1 1/2 hours to Zizima Water Park in San Pedro Sula. The nice part was almost all students had chaperons so I was free to roam around the park as I pleased. We paid, I got a locker, and then everyone was off. The water park was just like any in the states. It had about 5 big slides, a wave pool, a kiddie section, a river float, and eating areas. Only 2 of the big slides were open but they were both very fun. Although there were a few lifeguards wandering about it was not nearly enough. One of the big slides had no lifeguard stationed at it to tell you when to go. Kids would just slide down one immediately after another coming out the bottom of the tube with feet almost slamming into the firsts head. Gotta love Honduras.

I think I mentioned on previous blogs that Honduran adults almost always swim with their clothes on. The water park was no exception. Although most adults wore swimsuits, they also wore clothes on top which were never removed, not even for the slides or to swim in the pool. Even the men at the park wore shirts with their swim trunks. So only the kids and I walked around uninhibited and unencumbered in just a swimsuit.

The day turned out well, with no casualties, except a few chlorine reddened eyes and burned shoulders. We hopped back on the bus at 4:00pm to head back to Tela. On the 2 lane highway home, we have to cross many bridges over streams and rivers. The biggest river has been having trouble with the overpass. The original bridge was destroyed before I came. They had since constructed concrete posts holding up metal sections to drive over creating two makeshift overpasses, one in each direction.

Well, during the flooding in the hurricane season, one collapsed. They are in the process of rebuilding it but in the meantime traffic in both direction must share the one remaining "bridge". Thus while the east-bound traffic crosses, the west-bound traffic piles up waiting for their turn, etc. As you can imagine during "rush hour" in Honduras the line waiting for the overpass grows quite long. This is on the main highway and there are no other ways around.

We had to wait about 20 minutes, motionless, before our line began to inch forward. While sitting, I mulled over the idea that we are waiting to cross a bridge next to one that recently collapsed which didn't help my claustrophobia in the sardine-like bus. I was relieved when we finally crossed over. We safely arrived back at school at 6:00pm and I walked home to rinse off all the chlorine.

In the meantime, Christina's sister, Belinda, had flown into town the previous night (Thursday) from New York. Christina and Belinda headed off to Pico Bonito for a rafting adventure on Friday. That evening, they arrived at our house just as I was preparing dinner after my cold, but very refreshing, bucket-shower. I was exhausted from the water park and we were getting up early the next day (Saturday) for another trip so I stayed home and went to bed. They went into town for dinner and slept in one of the beachfront hotels for the night (I guess her sister wanted a real shower with hot water).

We met up Sat. morning at 7:30am to go to Punta Sal. Christina and I had been on this same trip with Garifuna Tours in Aug. and with the jet ski guy just last weekend, but it's the nicest beach in Tela and we wanted to show it off to Belinda. We hopped in the boat in the lagoon, made our way over the sandbar, and rode the 40 minutes to Punta Sal. Click on the link to see some clips of the boat ride: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDZ7giHERwI

We stopped off for a short (40 min.) hike and even caught glimpses of howler monkeys, native to South and Central American forests. Their growls were much harder to miss. Click on the link to hear some growls (hint: that means if you don't have speakers this video is kinda pointless): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFuiJKx8ks8.
Read more about howler monkeys here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howler_monkey Along the hike we had great views of the surrounding beach. After the hike across the peninsula, we emerged onto a secluded beach. The beach was a small cove.While exploring, we spotted animal tracks in the sand. Then we climbed aboard the boat again and rode around the point to another secluded beach, Cocalito. There were two families living in the park when it became a protected area (an area Blanca Jeannette Kawas, or school's namesake, was murdered protecting) and they were allowed to remain so as not to displace them. They have a few wooden, thatched huts on the beach and earn money by making lunch for the tour groups.All our hopes of showing off Tela's best beach were for naught. It was windy, a bit overcast, and the water (normally crystal clear for great snorkeling in the surrounding coral reef) was cloudy and choppy. Belinda seemed to enjoy it anyway (especially since the day she left New York it was snowing there... what a change of scenery).Due to the wind, the boat ride back to Tela was fairly rough and occasionally jarring. Numerous times the waves bounced us out of our seats. Rather than making me seasick, it was actually fun.

After disembarking, we decided to get drinks and pupusas at our favorite restaurant, Paseo Junior 's. We had met an Australian girl, Sarah, on the tour and invited her to join us. She is a doctor in Australia and came to Honduras for a 3-week internship at a hospital in La Esperanza. (For more photos and info. on gorgeous Punta Sal check out the Aug. post: "A Trip to Punta Sal".) That night Belinda slept at our humble abode and got up at 8:00am on Sunday to head off to the airport back to New York. A short trip but it was all her job as a financial analyst would allow. Her job is so demanding, she even brought her BlackBerry (it's is some sort of phone and mini-computer shrunken into a palm-sized contraption) to Punta Sal with her. Those crazy New Yorkers.