Part of Your World

Wow, it's already been two weeks since Spring Break! Although this year has flown by, boy was I ready for it. After 10 weeks of no breaks, thanks to snow day make-up days, both teachers and students were itching for one.

And after discovering that I had the same spring break as my best friend, who is teaching in Honduras, I figured it was probably one of the only (if not the only) chance I'd have to go to Honduras, especially with someone who knew what she was doing, spoke the language, and knew the place more like a local than a tourist. So, I booked my tickets and counted down the days until I left.

On Sunday, April 13, I woke up at 3am so I could get to the airport in Charlotte, NC by 5. Everyone who has ever had to deal with me in the mornings knows that this was not something I was looking forward to. But the excitement of seeing my best friend and traveling (my how that itch needed to be scratched) overrode that, so it really didn't feel so terrible. Don't get me wrong, no part of me wanted to get out bed when the alarm went off all too soon, but it wasn't nearly as painful as I'd imagined ;-)

I made it to the airport by about 5:15, and breezed through checking my luggage, security, and my transfer in Atlanta. Even though my transfer time was less than an hour, and Atlanta is an enormous airport, I still made it to my gate before boarding even started. Easy peasy!

Then, I got to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The landing strip in Tegus is the 2nd shortest in the world, and to top it off, you have to fly extremely close to the mountains and buildings on the mountains to make it to the incredibly short landing strip. Luckily I found this out after we had landed, so it wasn't so scary, but boy am I impressed with those pilots now! Once I got off the airport and through customs (again, easy!), I looked for my bag. I didn't see it, so I tried asking a worker who was pulling bags to my fellow plane-mates if there were any more coming. He didn't really understand English, so he took my luggage tag and started looking. After a woman interpreted his question of what color my bag was, he continued looking and determined it was not there (which I already figured, since I didn't see it), so I joined the short but slow-moving line to find my luggage. Eventually they informed me that by bag was still in Atlanta--excellent--and would arrive the next day. Stupidly, I didn't pack any extra clothes in my carry-on, but I was able to borrow a few things from my bestie and we bought some of the necessities.

My luggage came just in time for me to pack another bag for our planned trip (within a trip?) to Copán.

So, we set out on Tuesday morning to Copan. We took a bus to San Pedro Sula (think Coach bus) and another bus (think run-down Coach bus) to Copán. We had to get up early, but with the time difference, it felt like getting up for school, so that was okay. The buses (especially the second) were slow, so we napped, read, listened to music, and played games on our iPhones/iPads. In San Pedro Sula we found out that the buses weren't going to be running on Friday, because of Holy Week. This was confirmed by an English-speaking Hotel owner we met on the 2nd bus, but he further informed us that the buses don't run on Thursday OR Friday. I was scheduled to leave on Saturday to go back to the States, so taking a bus after Friday was not an option. Which meant, that we spent only 20ish hours in Copán. It could have been frustrating or disappointing, except that I went into the trip with no expectations--I only wanted to see my best friend and see her life there. So, once we got to Copán, we laughed it off after a while and found some food for dinner before crashing for the evening. The next day, we saw the Mayan Ruins, which would have been disappointing if we had been unable to see them. They were intricate and ancient, full of questions that I don't know have answers. It's pretty cool to see and walk around in and ON such ancient things! Here are some pictures:

After the ruins, we went back to the hotel room, gathered our things, and headed to the bus station to go back to Tegucigalpa. 

Once back in Tegucigalpa, we went did things in and around the city. We went out to eat and went to a cute little town with lots of shopping and some restaurants. I had a papusa, which is like a Central-American grilled cheese, and later probably the yummiest fruit popsicle ever. She showed me her school and classroom. We also hung out at her house and played games on the Wii and Zumba-ed. We read books and listened to music and relaxed. It was really just nice to be. No school to worry about, nothing we HAD to do. We just got to spend time together. And that's all I really wanted in the first place: to hang out with my best friend and see her Honduran life. Check! :-)