Honduras Trip (December 28th 2009 - January 31st (?) 2010)
After a really long 6 months without seeing my new daughter Angelina, I'm finally headed back to Honduras and details of the whole trip are below with the most current info near the top of this page and the beginning of the trip located at the bottom. As most are aware of, internet access is limited here so it may be several days between updates.
Map Of Honduras
Other adventures I've been on can be found HERE
I made it to La Ceiba no problem on the 30th and had diner at Expats then home for a short sleep before the taxi driver picked me up at 5am for my 5:45 bus ride to San Pedro Sula. The bus trip went ok with no delays and I arrived at the airport around 10am. Checked in no problems and had a baleada at the new stand next to Wendy's. It was really good so will be eating there again for sure! Anyway, no problems on the flight home either except for the fact they lost the same bag again! It was delivered yesterday though with everything intact. The weather up here is obviously cold with temps probably in the 20s so not liking it much and looking forward to the next trip South!
One strange note... as I'm typing this, a fire ant is crawling around on my laptop screen! It must have been in the computer when I packed it and although I normally kill those when I see them (they sting), I feel a bit sorry for this one being all alone so far from home so am going to let it be. Watch it mate with the ants we have up here and make some mutant strain like the killer bee thing!
In a couple minutes I'm out of this internet café and on a bus headed for La Ceiba to spend the night. If anything else interesting comes up, I'll post again before I'm back home.
Waiting for a bus by the mango stand.
One note if anyone down here thinks about buying the cheaper zip lock type bags (in light/dark green box, probably from China or somewhere close) instead of the more expensive ZipLoc ones... The zipper on the cheap bag does work really well so I guess that's what they meant on the box when they said “superstrong”. The problem is once zipped, the bag rips apart before you can get it unzipped! That wouldn't be too bad except they come zipped and you go through a couple before you can get one open to put something in it! If you need a bag for food storage, spend the little extra and get one that works.
I went into La Ceiba yesterday for some last errands including buying my Hedman Alas bus ticket for Sunday morning. No first class was available on the bus this time but it's still a nice ride and gets into the San Pedro Airport around 10am. That leaves plenty of time to kill since the flight leaves at 12:45pm. Since when I landed back in December, I noticed the Duty Free in the SPS airport appeared to be out of business, I also had wanted to hit the Duty Free store located in La Ceiba in the La Quinta motel but for some reason they were closed. Hopefully they'll be open tomorrow or I'm out of luck I guess. Anyway, the plan is to head to La Ceiba tomorrow afternoon and I'll be sleeping on Ricks couch tomorrow night (all his rooms are taken) then getting a cab to the Hedman Alas station for the 5:45am bus trip. I'll probably post one more time before I head out.
The mushroom ordeal... This morning I decided to make scrambled eggs with onions, cheese and mushrooms. Mushrooms are hard to find in Honduras in cans and about impossible to find fresh. Anyway while at the supermarket in Ceiba last week, I saw they had some Giorgio canned stems and pieces so I bought a couple cans. This morning I'm cooking and grab the can to use in the eggs. Not a surprise but it turns out there's not a can opener in this house. So now I improvise and hack it open with a knife which isn't an easy task with this quality Chinese cutlery we have here. Now that they're kinda opened I drain them and go to pour about half into a baby food jar I previously cleaned just for these so I can keep ‘em for later. I know this is going to sound strange but remember the 7 shovels I got before the shovel broke? That's EXACTLY how many mushroom pieces were in the can! It must be my lucky number. Anyway, on the can it says “since 1928” and I would guess that's because they really make a profit selling a can of mushrooms with only 7 pieces in it! The pieces did do ok though after I chopped them up enough to spread out in the eggs. Guess I'll be looking for a different brand next shopping trip!
Seven mushrooms per can... what a bargain!
Today the rain is finally gone and it's nice out again with hardly a cloud in the sky and warm. I'm starting to gather the things together that I'm taking back home to the cold on Sunday as well. I haven't got an exact plan yet for getting to San Pedro Sula for the flight out but I'm either staying at Ricks on his couch Saturday night and taking the Hedman Alas bus Sunday or I might also head to SPS Saturday and stay at the Villa Nuria Sat night. Once I get an exact plan, I'll post it.
Tomorrow if the weather holds I'm headed to La Ceiba for a bit of shopping and to bring a storage case I have at Ricks back here. While in Ceiba I also hope to stop at my buddy Steve's bar on the beack for a couple. If I do, I'll try and get some pictures to post.
The weekend here was really nice with lots of sun so I had planned on going to La Ceiba today to take care of some shopping but of course now it's crappy and raining again so I guess I'll be heading to the big city tomorrow instead. I also never got my hammock installed due to the fact I realized the front porch has sun on it the whole day. I guess it will be going in the back yard instead. Since I don't have much time left on this trip though (still coming home on the 31st), the hammock will have to wait until the next trip.
As for other plans for this week, not much going on but I think I'm staying in La Ceiba Saturday night so I can take a very nice and comfortable Hedman Alas bus direct to the airport in San Pedro Sula on Sunday morning. In the past I have taken the cheaper direct buses and it broke down once plus another time we almost hit a horse doing like 60 on a curve. The Hedman guys are more careful and reliable so that's the plan this time!
My favorite bread... wonder why?
I made it back to the house last night but not without some excitement along the way. I once again took one of the cheap school buses to San Juan and at about Santa Ana, I started smelling something burning. Since it's Honduras I didn't think much of it but by Maseca, the bus driver and his helper got out and were looking at the rear wheel near where I was sitting. I'm watching them and they apparently squirt water on the rim and lots of smoke/steam comes up. I didn't think much of it but when I turned around, most of the people had run off the bus! Normally I wouldn't be concerned but now I'm thinking “do they know something I don't?” so I start to grab my stuff and bail too. Then apparently the crisis is temporarily over and the passengers and driver get back on then we're on our way again. The rear is now making some ugly noises though and they end up stopping several more times before I finally get to San Juan. What should have took 45 minutes basically took an hour and a half!
Having lunch at Chef Guitys on the beach in Zona Viva, La Ceiba.
Today I'm not up to much but may head out to grab some chain so I can install my new hammock on the front porch. It's hot and dry now here so I see hanging out in the hammock with a cold beer in my near future! Also worth noting is that they finally installed the cable so I may be able to watch the AFC and NFC championships now and even though they'll be in Spanish it's better than no football!
After being fed up with no water most of the time in the new house, today I decided to do a similar fix as I installed in the old house. The first problem I had to tackle was the fact that some brilliant Honduran decided to bury the water valve under 2 feet of dirt and rock in the back yard. So I took a walk to the main road and bought some more PVC parts and a shovel to dig up the valve. After back at the house, I started digging. I got about 7 shovels full of dirt before the $7 shovel broke in half!
That comes to about $1 per shovel full of dirt. Now I'm thinking instead of the Brazil shovel, I should have paid the $10 for the Chinese one. Anyway, a broken shovel wasn't going to stop me so I kept digging. I never knew how out of shape I was until after probably two hours digging a 2' deep hole with a broken shovel. Anyway, once I got that done, I cut the pipe and installed my new on/off valve and one way check valve (if you have very low water pressure like here you need to remove the check valve spring or you won't have any water). I also built the works so it is now about 6” down instead of 2' in case I need to service the check valve or shut the water off again. After I finished that I plumbed the pump to connect to the cistern outside so it can be removed when I'm not using it. That way it doesn't walk away like things tend to do. Once that was complete and connected, I powered it up and tested the system. It worked great so I filled the hole back in and finally took a shower when no one else in the neighborhood could. That was well worth the aches I now have!
This evening I'm now in La Ceiba and spending the night here. I'm also having that meeting with the guy with the ferry business so if he has anything interesting to say, I'll post tomorrow.
One other note... not sure if they have them in the States but I found a really tasty small watermelon here. It's about the size of a cantaloupe and seedless. I'll have to look for those next time I'm shopping back home!
After being annoyed by the neighbor's music and wood cutting, I finally had the last straw yesterday and moved the bedroom to the other room and away from the noise. It also has the advantage of being farther from the property behind us since they cook with wood fire and the smoke sometimes entered the other room.
Today I'm headed to La Ceiba for some supplies and to meet up later at ExPats with Rick and the guy who owns the ferry to Utila so will be spending the night at Ricks as well. If anything interesting comes out of that meeting I'll post.
As of Saturday I'm back in San Juan Pueblo. It's been over a week now and there still is no cable in the house so yesterday I had planned on heading into La Ceiba early for breakfast at ExPats and then to watch some NFL playoffs. I also was planning on having an impromptu business meeting with Rick (my buddy who is part owner of Expatriates) and a guy who runs a ferry now to Utila from La Ceiba. His shuttle service is doing really well so he wants to expand and add another boat to service another island too. Rick and I are curious about what he has to say. My idea for a while now has been to run a high speed taxi/ferry servicing the international airport in Roatan back and forth direct to Guanaja and Utila resorts so that may fit in with what he does and make us some extra bucks. As has been the case often on this trip though, the weather didn't cooperate and it rained all day so instead I hung out in San Juan but at least caught the Chargers Jets game at the neighbors.
This morning at 7 am when I was awoken to the sound of the neighbor chopping wood with his stereo playing some really annoying Spanish music loud, I decided to take a shower to wake up and that's when I found there's no water. So today I plan on buying a shovel so I can dig up the back yard and find the water valve the owner for some unknown reason apparently buried. Once I find it, I have a one way valve I'm installing in the line so I can connect my pressure pump and a water reservoir (probably a 20 gallon trash can). That way I can get water for more than just early in the morning or late at night since that's getting really old fast. Also a funny thing... as I'm typing this at 9am my time, the power just went out so why didn't that happen at 7am when I could have appreciated it?!
Also worth noting... finally Saturday evening a couple workers showed up with the decorative security bars for all the windows and installed them. I feel a little better now about leaving town for extended periods with those on as well as leaving the window doors open while we're here. The neighborhood isn't bad but people will steal anything here if they can reach it!
We're in La Ceiba today and planning on heading back to San Juan tomorrow. Today wasn't what I would call a “fun” experience to say the least. We needed to register Angelina's name with the gov't so we took a taxi down to the place. It's located near Expatriates (my buddy Ricks Bar/Restaurant) and once we drove past, we saw that it was closed for lunch from 12:00-1:00 pm. We happened to be there right around 12 so we decided to head to the doctor for Angelina's now bi-monthly checkup instead of standing around for an hour. Of course the doctor was at lunch too but luckily he came back early and we were out of there fast. She checked out fine and weighs 19 pounds. From what I thought I understood the doctor to say, that's what a 1 year old here should weigh so she's healthy at 7 months I guess!
Next we were headed back to the Registrar and got there by around 12:45. I should have started to worry when we first went by and saw probably 20 people waiting to get in at around 12. Now there are probably 50 people and since it's Honduras, there's no type of order whatsoever. Once the doors opened everyone basically rushes the office and gets into the appropriate line for what they're there for. It turns out they only register newborns on Monday and Thursday from 1pm to 4pm so we lucked out by hitting it at the right day. I blasted through the crowd and got in the right line and received my number... number 16 to be exact. So two hours pass and finally we're up and done. I half expected it to take longer! So she's registered now but it took so long we're staying one more night at Ricks place. I'm guessing my next update will be on Saturday so check back then!
The weather here is still crap but we got a little break today and saw some sun. Because of that, if it holds this afternoon all three of us are headed to La Ceiba to stay the night and try and get Angelina's name registered with the government tomorrow. Updates on that will be coming soon.
Well we ended up moving into the new house the night of the 8th. It was quite an unplanned rushed thing since all of a sudden the house was available as well as a truck for the move. Since the rent on the other house was due on the 8th, my suggestion was to pay the rent on the house we were in (1000L / month) ($50 / month) so we could have a more leisurely move but she didn't want to do it that way. Ana wanted to move out and into the new asap so we grabbed several kids to help and hauled everything in about 4 trips over a 2 hour period then were out of there. The new place has it's good and bad points...
- It's new which is good but since it's concrete it's still curing and is damp so that's bad.
- It's good that it's next to two stores but they close really early. The store next to the old house was open until probably midnight.
- Ana knows most of the people which makes it maybe less likely to get broken into but the guy next door chops wood for about 8 hours a day with a machete and that gets old!
- We don't have cable yet but that isn't a big deal since most programs are in Spanish anyway. The crappy cable does have FOX sports though and they show the NFL Playoffs which I missed last weekend.
- Since the house is new, the walls are of course new too with no holes and although we're hesitant to make some in them, we need somewhere to hang things up! I'm about to get the concrete nails out...
- It's really nice to have a brand new bathroom but the way they do things makes me wonder. There are no outlets which makes plugging my hot water heater in there impossible. Glad I brought a heavy extension cord!
- The metal roof seems to be not as noisy as the old house when it rains to that's a good point.
Below are some pictures inside the new place...
I also have spent several days now fighting with the bathroom plumbing I installed for my hot water heater. I believe the problem lies with a piece of PVC pipe I bought from the local Ferreteria. Although it says PVC, it's grey instead of white and many of the joints I glued using it sprung some leaks and a few even came apart so I basically had to re-glue all. I've never had problems with PVC here in the past but in the future I'll spring for the $4 can of primer and hopefully avoid these problems. I also have a high tech really cool water filter that features a built in on/off valve that also was giving me problems. I had to take it apart and found out it's got a defect where the pressure release seats so I reassembled and it's not leaking now but I can't use the on/off feature for fear of starting it leaking again. Note I had to filter the water going into the hot water heater since the water here comes from somewhere in the mountains and when it rains hard, some dirt is in the water and you don't want that in the heater. Below are pictures of the installation...
As for what's happening with us now, we have had basically nothing but crap weather since New Years. It's really cold with highs in the low 70's today and although I'm sure that sounds good to some people, with the rain and the fact that we're in a damp house with me not really bringing any warm clothes (I only have one pair of socks!), this weather bites. Plus when it rains you can't do laundry and I'm running low on clean clothes too.
If we get a break in the weather and can get out of here, we plan to head to La Ceiba later this week to try and get Angelina's name registered with the government. That was supposed to be done months ago but since I didn't get here until now, it had to wait. Hopefully we don't run into any problems with that and I'll give details on that process once we're into it.
The rains have stopped finally! We're still waiting for word on the new house we're supposed to rent but I would guess all the rains over the past week have slowed the progress on finishing it up. We just looked it over though and it looks like they're working on it so I would expect to hear something soon. They've poured a concrete step on the side door and have cleaned up the construction debris. They've also put a new barb wire fence around it too. A picture of the outside is below...
The new house we'll be renting soon
IF IT DOESN'T STOP RAINING SOON I'M GOING TO START TO SERIOUSLY CONSIDER A NEW CONSTRUCTION PROJECT... AN ARK!
I had planned on updating this page much sooner but we've had rain for at least the last five days and apparently the internet doesn't work when it rains. That's life in Honduras I guess...
Not much happened for New Years but didn't get much sleep since about every kid in town had pockets full of firecrackers ad used them pretty much all night long. It seems also that the porch here amplifies those so they really enjoyed tossing them on here then hiding. We really loved that too. It's funny though the difference in culture. Parents don't seem to care one way or the other if their kids play with those. I know I saw some kids that couldn't have been a day over 5 yrs old lighting them then waiting until the fuse burned way down then throwing them. They have way more faith in cheap Chinese firecrackers than I would!
Not much happened on the 1st either so we basically hung around the house. We did at one point check out a brand new house I may be renting soon for Ana and Angelina. It's almost finished and will cost $100 a month but is much nicer and probably quieter than this one. It's right behind Ana's sisters house and that has it's good and bad points. It's good she's closer to her sister and it's bad since there will probably be much more visitors raiding my fridge constantly. If I do rent that one, I'll of course update and post pictures.
On Saturday the 2nd I finally made it into La Ceiba for some shopping and to have a couple beers at the Bacalau and catch up on what's been happening while away. I found out my buddy Bill and his business partner Linda are taking over the cafeteria at the local Cintas factory so that hopefully will make him some good money. Another buddy Jack had a baby boy on Sept 12th so hope to get out to see him soon. On a not so happy note another acquaintance David who owns West Peak resort on the west end of Guanaja found out he has cancer so is in California now getting treated. I'm wishing him good luck on that.
Sunday the 3rd it pretty much rained all day so we were stuck in the house all day. Luckily there were a couple movies I found on TV that weren't in Spanish and I also found Fox Sports with a couple NFL games. They were commentated in Spanish but at least it's football! My Steelers won but I'm not sure if they made it to the playoffs since they didn't say in the Spanish coverage. They instead spend most of the time explaining the game since most here don't understand it.
Monday the 4th I headed out to the main road to find some parts to get my plumbing done so I can get some hot water. With the rains and colder temps in the 70s the last couple days I'm avoiding taking cold showers as much as possible! I also went to use the internet and that's when I found out it's been out for the last three days.
Anyway I got my parts and finally got the flash water heater installed and working (see picture below). I pretty much rigged it temporary by the shower since as was mentioned previously, we're planning on moving to a brand new house and it will go with us. Once to temperature, you can take a hot shower and still have warm water once done so it's a great addition and well worth the $150 I spent for it on ebay! If anyone else living here wants one, it's made by Ariston (find info at www.boschpro.com) and is a model GL4Ti with a 4 gallon capacity. They sell new at Home Depot for around $200 if you don't luck out on ebay and find a better deal like I did. Note though it does draw 1500W so make sure your house wiring is ok before plugging it in Also the 4 gallon model was the largest I could fit in my shipping case (XXL Storage Trunk from Menards) but if I can get a bigger case next time, I might bring an Ariston 7 gallon since it still only draws 1500W and would probably be better for supplying a Honduran house with its hot water needs.
One final note on the 4 gallon heater... I did jack up the thermostat a bit so the 4 gallons will make it through a whole shower since it didn't last as long at the middle setting from the factory. It does recover pretty fast though and I believe only took about 15 minutes to get hot again once finished with my shower.
On Tuesday I did pretty much nothing stuck indoors again due to constant rain all day. The 60+ Spanish channels on the pirated cable are starting to wear on me too. Occasionally I find a movie in English but most are Spanish and some are even Spanish with Spanish subtitles. That makes sense. Would it hurt to put one English news channel on occasionally? I think not! Now don't get me wrong and think I'm one of those “you need to speak English” people but back in Mansfield Ohio where there are very few Spanish people, we at least have one all Spanish channel!
Today the non stop rain was like Chinese water torture at about 5:30am and I couldn't take it anymore so I got up and made some coffee. After surfing through those 60 channels again and finding absolutely nothing in English, I decided to work a little more on the plumbing situation. With all the rains, there's basically mud coming out of the faucets and shower. Although I set the pump up the other day so I can draw clean water for a shower from there, it's getting low since we've been using it for washing dishes and laundry for the quite a few days now. If I fill it with this water, it will be nothing but mud so I decided to modify my filter system so I can reverse it when needed and filter the water that I'm putting into the cistern. That seemed like a good idea but once completed, I fired it up and in about 30 seconds the water was nothing but a trickle. There's so much clay mud in the water now that it instantly plugged up the filter! So the final conclusion is I'll be only filling the cistern when the water is clear. I wish there were gutters on this house... I would never run low on clean water!
Now I'm fed up with the constant rain so called a cab to pick me up at the house and take me to the main road where I can catch a bus to La Ceiba. I'm low on some groceries and need a couple hardware items to make life a little easier here so will update if anything interesting happens after this post.
The pressure pump with a cup of that fresh mountain tap water... mmm tasty!
This weather is for the birds... chickens too!
I spent all morning and afternoon yesterday waiting for my other bag to be delivered to me but it never showed. The guy from San Pedro Sula finally delivered it this morning and that was a good thing since I was about out of patience on the water situation here.
If I haven't mentioned before, the water pressure drops to nothing during the day, which is the hottest time to take a cold shower (no hot water in the house). Although I brought the pump and also a hot water heater, Ana showed me a brand new house right by her sister Rosa and she wants to rent that since it's more secure and less noise at night. This current one is next to a late night store with probably one of the few video games in the whole town and also since I've been here the kids hanging out there have been setting off firecrackers throughout the day and night. That's starting to get old. Since we may be moving soon, I don't want to connect all this plumbing but I did connect the pump system this afternoon since I'm tired of no pressure during the day. The system isn't exactly how I wanted it but it works for now to pressurize the system for a shower or other water needs if the water totally quits (that happens too).
Also in my missing bag that's now here is a play set that I finally got to set up and Angelina really liked that (picture below). Until now her main play area has been a stroller so she should enjoy the extra space at least for now. The way she's moving around though, I would bet it won't be too long before she's crawling then she's out of that play set.
Anyway, not much planned for tonight but if anything interesting happens, I'll post on the 2nd (internet café closed on the 1st).
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!
I finally was on my way and the 5:45am flight out of Cleveland went off with no problems until I arrived in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. As soon as we landed I quickly found out two of the three Honduran phones I keep now have invalid phone chips. I never thought about it but Tigo apparently swipes money off the chip monthly if you don't use the phone and after 6 months, only one card had money left and only 7 Limpiras (about 30 cents worth). My main phone number is now no longer good and from what I understand, can't be renewed once it's gone so I guess I'll be using the only one I have left for my main number.
Anyway though, once off the plane I breezed through customs and then went to retrieve my bags. Note I said “bags”. That's two bags. Unfortunately only one was there though. Missing was a large canvas dive bag that contained about all my shorts for the trip, baby shoes, baby clothes, some toys, some important tools, wiring and the new 110v demand water pump I bought to convert the house in San Juan Pueblo so we have water all the time instead of about half the day every day. So I filed a baggage claim and when (if) they find it they're supposed to call Ana Margarita's phone to get directions to deliver it. Then we finally get to San Juan Pueblo and Ana tells me she's out of minutes. I gave her some money to get her more and some for the only phone I have left working but it turns out for some reason everyone's out and she can't get more. She's guessing it's due to the holiday and that sounds about right for where we're at.
In San Juan we picked up Angelina from her sisters house and man she's grown! We spent the night just playing with her and it was a great experience. She's a really happy baby and not much crying at all. We even slept through most of the night when I was expecting her to be keeping us up. I'm sure that will change once some teeth start coming in and as she gets older and more mobile.
Anyway... so as of right now I'm on the internet trying to buy cell minutes that way and hopefully it's gonna work so I can get my bag back soon! This morning I already ran out of water about ½ way through a cold shower this morning and I don't want to deal with that the whole trip!
