Friday, July 1, 2011
The final day!!
Today was a day filled with everyone's favorites from the trip, which included: big breakfast, handing out Canadian pencils to the local children and explaining that today is our countries birthday, a quick stop at the clinic, paddle boarding, lounging at infinity bay, snorkeling, drinking, Chicken for supper, playing pool, and packing. Today was probably the coolest of days we have had here on the island sitting at an overcast 28 degrees, we were laughing that we we're shivering at the pool, we are in trouble when we get home !
After five weeks of volunteering, learning another culture, trying to make sense of another countries poverty, and enjoying the beauty of a foreign land, we all come away changed and humbled people. We are all grateful for this experience and will never forget our adventures.
Handing out Canada day presents!
Paddle boarding at half moon bay
Colin snorkeling
A cruise ship that passed as we were snorkeling
Thanks to everyone for reading about my adventures again, it has been fun writing! Until next time . . . .
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
After five weeks of volunteering, learning another culture, trying to make sense of another countries poverty, and enjoying the beauty of a foreign land, we all come away changed and humbled people. We are all grateful for this experience and will never forget our adventures.
Handing out Canada day presents!
Paddle boarding at half moon bay
Colin snorkeling
A cruise ship that passed as we were snorkeling
Thanks to everyone for reading about my adventures again, it has been fun writing! Until next time . . . .
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The hole in the wall/diving
Yesterday turned out to be a super fun day, Ashley and Colin went diving in the morning and while they were down they saw and eel, giant rainbow fish, and surprisingly a 8 foot hammer head shark swam by. The dive master had only ever seen a hammerhead once before in her career so everybody returned pretty excited.
After the diving we headed off to a small restaurant called "The Hole In The Wall". We knew it was going to be a long drive as it was located on the other side of the island so we flagged a cab driver down who said he knew where it was but we were skeptical from the start seeing as his English was very poor, and that he only wanted to charge us 8dollars for a trip that should have been about 20dollars. Then when he tried to drop us off in the middle of the nowhere we were sure he had no idea. We finally got the point across in some well versed Spanglish and continued on, once we got to the town where the restaurant should have been, he just drove around aimlessly trying many different combinations of streets and turns. Finally we saw a white guy driving buy and Ashley leaped out of the cab (while still moving) and the nice white guy pointed us in the right direction.
The little village was called Johnsville which is located about half way up the south coast of the island. It was a beautiful fishing village, and I think maybe is home to people with a bit more income because most of the houses looked like houses as opposed to shanteys etc. We got dropped off at this little make shift dock and taken to a shack on the other side of the bay by a little fishing boat. Once arrived we were greeted by a very friendly old man and his drunk buddies - who BTW all looked like old pirates. Here we had steak, lobster and beer for a minimal price. The atmosphere was amazing, however getting there was half the fun! At this restaurant the going thing is to bring a shirt and sign it then staple it up on the roof, so we did just that, also signing our friends names who had gone to the hole in the wall before us and did not have a shirt. All in all a great day ended with some heated card games, margaritas and snacks at home!!
Today is our last day and we are off to take in every bodies favorite part of the island, so we have a busy day ahead!!
-the little fishing harbor
This boat was selling new lobster traps tot he local fishing boats, as they were all about to head out to start the lobster season.
Waiting for our ride to the restaurant
Group shot
Our shirt!
Hanging the shirt
Our pirate buddies!
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
After the diving we headed off to a small restaurant called "The Hole In The Wall". We knew it was going to be a long drive as it was located on the other side of the island so we flagged a cab driver down who said he knew where it was but we were skeptical from the start seeing as his English was very poor, and that he only wanted to charge us 8dollars for a trip that should have been about 20dollars. Then when he tried to drop us off in the middle of the nowhere we were sure he had no idea. We finally got the point across in some well versed Spanglish and continued on, once we got to the town where the restaurant should have been, he just drove around aimlessly trying many different combinations of streets and turns. Finally we saw a white guy driving buy and Ashley leaped out of the cab (while still moving) and the nice white guy pointed us in the right direction.
The little village was called Johnsville which is located about half way up the south coast of the island. It was a beautiful fishing village, and I think maybe is home to people with a bit more income because most of the houses looked like houses as opposed to shanteys etc. We got dropped off at this little make shift dock and taken to a shack on the other side of the bay by a little fishing boat. Once arrived we were greeted by a very friendly old man and his drunk buddies - who BTW all looked like old pirates. Here we had steak, lobster and beer for a minimal price. The atmosphere was amazing, however getting there was half the fun! At this restaurant the going thing is to bring a shirt and sign it then staple it up on the roof, so we did just that, also signing our friends names who had gone to the hole in the wall before us and did not have a shirt. All in all a great day ended with some heated card games, margaritas and snacks at home!!
Today is our last day and we are off to take in every bodies favorite part of the island, so we have a busy day ahead!!
-the little fishing harbor
This boat was selling new lobster traps tot he local fishing boats, as they were all about to head out to start the lobster season.
Waiting for our ride to the restaurant
Group shot
Our shirt!
Hanging the shirt
Our pirate buddies!
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Thursday, June 30, 2011
An electrifying experience !!
Wow it's been a while since I have posted - no internet access for a while. Let's see where to do I start?
On thursday afternoon Colin arrived in roatan and we spend some time exploring the island on his behalf. Friday was our last day in clinic so we have the last week to explore and have times to ourselves. We all can not believe that clinic is over and we are abut to come home in a few days.
On Saturday we all headed off to mainland Honduras by Ferrie. We had been warned several times that this is a rocky ride and they were right. it's a tiny Ferrie that offers both first class and regular class, we decided we should slurge and try first class seeing as it was only 5 dollars more than regular class and it is probably the only time we I'll ever be able to afford first class. As we made our way to the Ferrie we loaded past all the "regular class " people with smug looks on our faces only to discover that first class is upstairs and air conditioned but the worst place on the boat for motion sickness.
Waiting to board the Ferrie
The old Ferrie!!!!
Waiting for our taxi in la ceiba.
Once we arrived in La Ceiba we caught a taxi to our accommodation, which was an Eco lodge in the mountains of the Pico Bonita rainforest. Everything here is wetter than wet you almost feel suffocated from the humidity. Once arrived we discovered that we were basically staying in a tree house, it was very very cool.
View from our room in the tree house
After getting settled we headed out for our first excursion - white water rafting the Congrejal river!
The Congrejal river!
Now if you remember from my last blog you might recall my blind Australian white water rafting tour - well this one pretty much takes the cake. I was pretty nervous to raft again since my last blind rafting experience, but the three tag alongs talked me into it, so with reserve I foraged on. It started off okay, some small hikes to get to the river followed by a small swim, then we had to climb a fairly large rock just so we could jump off of it, they had to attach us to a safety harness for climbing. I made it about half way up were I lost my grip and basically was just swinging against the rock scrambling to find my footing (thank goodness for the safety harness) while the poor guide had to heave me up the side of the rock until I could find a place to grab on. I did manage to make it the rest of the way with only two bleeding knees, I was glad that i was not the only one who needed a little extra heave hoe up the damn thing.
Dan scaling the wall
Success at the top
Once up after a lot of hesitation we had a 4meter jump off into the warm rushing water below. So here I thought we were at least done with the cliff jumping, but no no we were only just getting started - we then made our way to yet another cliff which the guides called a "full commitment jump" hmmm what could that mean? As we scaled our next boulder the rain started to pour down making the rocks EXTREMELY slippery (exactly what this "sure footed" sportmans needed) and as we approached our next jump I realized that "full commitment" meant run as fast as you can ( along the now extremely slipper boulder) and jump. It was obvious if you didn't run fast enough or slipped on the rock there was certain doom waiting for you at the bottom. So away we started. Ashley and Colin of course went first and made it look easy, I was holding back working up my courage and Dan went next. He started off with a full bodied sprint then his rental shoes failed him at the last second as he slipped and fell and road the rock down like a water slide! All of our faces were held in an exclaimed frozen expression as we watched him execute this ballet. In the end he came up fine with nothing more than a sore bottom, this actually helped me because I knew if I fell I would be okay and I made it off the edge safely.
As the rain picked up the weather turned into a full fledged electrical storm which made rafting kinda neat - the thunder was enhanced as it echoed through the valley, the first time we had a good loud thunder I was sure it was a rock slide starting but the guide kindly told me to clm down it's just thunder!
Into the raft we headed to start our class 3 and 4 rapids. I of course am stuck in the boat with ashley who wants nothing more than to flip the raft in a rapid so I threatened her with her life. The first 4 or 5 five rapids were fine slightly exilierating and scary at times but I still had both contacts so I was feeling pretty good at this point. Then came the biggest of all rapids, it was known to be quite dangerous especially since it had been pissing rain for the last hour now and the river had come up significantly. So after a briefing from the guide we headed into it, as we got closer I realized that it was going to be my edge of the boat that was going to lead into the rapid and before I could thoroughly shit myself in fear I was hanging off the edge of the boat with only my legs still in the boat and water rushing over the top half of my body, I am thinking holy shit I am going over and right in the waterfall part of the rapid too, but with some intense fear I held on to the side of the raft with a death grip. I felt like I was under forever I even had my eyes open and could see everyone struggling trying to row us out of danger, I managed to pull myself up just enough to get a huge gulp of air thinking I had made it only to be hit by another rush of water driving my upper body back down into the river, now I am starting to get worried but just as I was about to give up hope and let go I felt two hands grab onto my lower legs and give me a swift heave out of the water and back into the safety of the boat. Once up I realized that both Ashley and Colin had noticed I was partially missing and grabbed my legs!!! Once I had gathered my composure the raft erupted in laughter at the fact that the one who was most scared ended up falling out of the boat, I personally didn't find it that funny.
Our raft leading into the rapid
Me missing from the raft, I should be in the back right corner across from Colin, but as you can see that corner of the raft is submerged
Our boat getting towed out of the rapid with an emergency line!
Sooo I know this blog is getting long but it was an interesting day so refill your wine glass and keep on reading cuz it gets better!
After the class four rapid of death we continued on through the rest of the rapids, then our guide kicked us all out of the boat to swim last few meters to the shore before our trip ended. This went against my better judgement due to the intense electrical storm taking place, but no one else seemed worried and I decided to not be the worry wart and get out and swim. We were no sooner in the water floating along in ignorant bliss when a huge larger than life lighting crack hits just ahead followed almost immediately by an intense electric shock that jolted us all out of the water a few inches! YES PEOPLE WE WERE HIT BY LIGHTNING!!! Or I guess the lightning hit the water and we were electrocuted. It felt like all the muscles in your body contracted really hard at once which kinda made us jump out of the water a little bit. It was funny because we all screamed at the same time when we got hit but then it was followed by silence as we all processed what had just happened, then Colin said to our guide "hey we were just electrocuted" and his was response was " I know get in the damn boat". it was weird cuz we all felt funny afterward, like my right arm and leg was tingling and kinda numb and colins knees hurt and another girls hards and feet felt numb.
After this electrifying experience we all headed back to our lodge for beer to laugh about our day.
The next day we headed our for a relaxing hike in the mooring, but after the first hour of almost straight up I realized that this hike was sooooo beyond my fitness level and we we're still very far from the waterfall at the end of the hike, with a sense of worry and extreme fatigue we foraged on, at one point. My heart rate was 192bpm, I shit you not I checked it because I was feeling a little dizzy. We lost two from our group along the hike, one girl turned back and Dan sat on the trail and waited for us to return. FINALLY we made it there - it took about 2 hrs. Ashley and Colin and some other members of the group were able to get down and sit under the water fall in a little pool but old shorty here couldn't make it over the last set of rocks (damn short ass legs) and had to wait further upstream, I did find a small off shoot from the waterfall that I could reach.
Half way through the hike - slightly drenched in sweat (just after I took my heart rate)
The 60 meter waterfall at the end.
During the afternoon we thought we would try our hand at horse back riding which was sooo fun and after that hike I was quite happy to have something lug my ass around the rain forest for a while. We did look a little funny though getting used to our steeds, turns out they are fairly competitive and after one horse bit another horse who tried to pass, and one hose kicked another horse in the face we were well on our way. It was a rather calm adventure considering our lest few, my horse tried to sit down in the stream we were passing - that was a little tense for a few moments but after a quick jab in the ribs he was back on his way again. We toured through small local villages and some trails in the rain forest it was beautifull.
We ended the night with a solid German meal ( the lodge had German owners) and lots of beer and headed to bed in our tree house!
The next day Ashley and Dan headed off further into the main land to tour the city of Copan and it's Myan ruins and Colin and I went to Utila. We spent the last few days in Utila wandering the streets and relaxing on the beach. Our ride home on the catamaran was a bit intense as the swells rose higher than the boat at times, we were tossed around like a toy - it made for a long and wet and nauseating 4 hr ride home.
This morning Ashley and Colin are diving and we are off to a restaurant called the hole in the wall this afternoon, we have to take a boat to an island somewhere and then we get all you can eat shrimp and lobster yummmm!
Can't believe we leave on Saturday!
Hiking
Bringing our rafts down to the river mouth
A giant frog - which come out in droves at night
View from the beach in Utila.
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
On thursday afternoon Colin arrived in roatan and we spend some time exploring the island on his behalf. Friday was our last day in clinic so we have the last week to explore and have times to ourselves. We all can not believe that clinic is over and we are abut to come home in a few days.
On Saturday we all headed off to mainland Honduras by Ferrie. We had been warned several times that this is a rocky ride and they were right. it's a tiny Ferrie that offers both first class and regular class, we decided we should slurge and try first class seeing as it was only 5 dollars more than regular class and it is probably the only time we I'll ever be able to afford first class. As we made our way to the Ferrie we loaded past all the "regular class " people with smug looks on our faces only to discover that first class is upstairs and air conditioned but the worst place on the boat for motion sickness.
Waiting to board the Ferrie
The old Ferrie!!!!
Waiting for our taxi in la ceiba.
Once we arrived in La Ceiba we caught a taxi to our accommodation, which was an Eco lodge in the mountains of the Pico Bonita rainforest. Everything here is wetter than wet you almost feel suffocated from the humidity. Once arrived we discovered that we were basically staying in a tree house, it was very very cool.
View from our room in the tree house
After getting settled we headed out for our first excursion - white water rafting the Congrejal river!
The Congrejal river!
Now if you remember from my last blog you might recall my blind Australian white water rafting tour - well this one pretty much takes the cake. I was pretty nervous to raft again since my last blind rafting experience, but the three tag alongs talked me into it, so with reserve I foraged on. It started off okay, some small hikes to get to the river followed by a small swim, then we had to climb a fairly large rock just so we could jump off of it, they had to attach us to a safety harness for climbing. I made it about half way up were I lost my grip and basically was just swinging against the rock scrambling to find my footing (thank goodness for the safety harness) while the poor guide had to heave me up the side of the rock until I could find a place to grab on. I did manage to make it the rest of the way with only two bleeding knees, I was glad that i was not the only one who needed a little extra heave hoe up the damn thing.
Dan scaling the wall
Success at the top
Once up after a lot of hesitation we had a 4meter jump off into the warm rushing water below. So here I thought we were at least done with the cliff jumping, but no no we were only just getting started - we then made our way to yet another cliff which the guides called a "full commitment jump" hmmm what could that mean? As we scaled our next boulder the rain started to pour down making the rocks EXTREMELY slippery (exactly what this "sure footed" sportmans needed) and as we approached our next jump I realized that "full commitment" meant run as fast as you can ( along the now extremely slipper boulder) and jump. It was obvious if you didn't run fast enough or slipped on the rock there was certain doom waiting for you at the bottom. So away we started. Ashley and Colin of course went first and made it look easy, I was holding back working up my courage and Dan went next. He started off with a full bodied sprint then his rental shoes failed him at the last second as he slipped and fell and road the rock down like a water slide! All of our faces were held in an exclaimed frozen expression as we watched him execute this ballet. In the end he came up fine with nothing more than a sore bottom, this actually helped me because I knew if I fell I would be okay and I made it off the edge safely.
As the rain picked up the weather turned into a full fledged electrical storm which made rafting kinda neat - the thunder was enhanced as it echoed through the valley, the first time we had a good loud thunder I was sure it was a rock slide starting but the guide kindly told me to clm down it's just thunder!
Into the raft we headed to start our class 3 and 4 rapids. I of course am stuck in the boat with ashley who wants nothing more than to flip the raft in a rapid so I threatened her with her life. The first 4 or 5 five rapids were fine slightly exilierating and scary at times but I still had both contacts so I was feeling pretty good at this point. Then came the biggest of all rapids, it was known to be quite dangerous especially since it had been pissing rain for the last hour now and the river had come up significantly. So after a briefing from the guide we headed into it, as we got closer I realized that it was going to be my edge of the boat that was going to lead into the rapid and before I could thoroughly shit myself in fear I was hanging off the edge of the boat with only my legs still in the boat and water rushing over the top half of my body, I am thinking holy shit I am going over and right in the waterfall part of the rapid too, but with some intense fear I held on to the side of the raft with a death grip. I felt like I was under forever I even had my eyes open and could see everyone struggling trying to row us out of danger, I managed to pull myself up just enough to get a huge gulp of air thinking I had made it only to be hit by another rush of water driving my upper body back down into the river, now I am starting to get worried but just as I was about to give up hope and let go I felt two hands grab onto my lower legs and give me a swift heave out of the water and back into the safety of the boat. Once up I realized that both Ashley and Colin had noticed I was partially missing and grabbed my legs!!! Once I had gathered my composure the raft erupted in laughter at the fact that the one who was most scared ended up falling out of the boat, I personally didn't find it that funny.
Our raft leading into the rapid
Me missing from the raft, I should be in the back right corner across from Colin, but as you can see that corner of the raft is submerged
Our boat getting towed out of the rapid with an emergency line!
Sooo I know this blog is getting long but it was an interesting day so refill your wine glass and keep on reading cuz it gets better!
After the class four rapid of death we continued on through the rest of the rapids, then our guide kicked us all out of the boat to swim last few meters to the shore before our trip ended. This went against my better judgement due to the intense electrical storm taking place, but no one else seemed worried and I decided to not be the worry wart and get out and swim. We were no sooner in the water floating along in ignorant bliss when a huge larger than life lighting crack hits just ahead followed almost immediately by an intense electric shock that jolted us all out of the water a few inches! YES PEOPLE WE WERE HIT BY LIGHTNING!!! Or I guess the lightning hit the water and we were electrocuted. It felt like all the muscles in your body contracted really hard at once which kinda made us jump out of the water a little bit. It was funny because we all screamed at the same time when we got hit but then it was followed by silence as we all processed what had just happened, then Colin said to our guide "hey we were just electrocuted" and his was response was " I know get in the damn boat". it was weird cuz we all felt funny afterward, like my right arm and leg was tingling and kinda numb and colins knees hurt and another girls hards and feet felt numb.
After this electrifying experience we all headed back to our lodge for beer to laugh about our day.
The next day we headed our for a relaxing hike in the mooring, but after the first hour of almost straight up I realized that this hike was sooooo beyond my fitness level and we we're still very far from the waterfall at the end of the hike, with a sense of worry and extreme fatigue we foraged on, at one point. My heart rate was 192bpm, I shit you not I checked it because I was feeling a little dizzy. We lost two from our group along the hike, one girl turned back and Dan sat on the trail and waited for us to return. FINALLY we made it there - it took about 2 hrs. Ashley and Colin and some other members of the group were able to get down and sit under the water fall in a little pool but old shorty here couldn't make it over the last set of rocks (damn short ass legs) and had to wait further upstream, I did find a small off shoot from the waterfall that I could reach.
Half way through the hike - slightly drenched in sweat (just after I took my heart rate)
The 60 meter waterfall at the end.
During the afternoon we thought we would try our hand at horse back riding which was sooo fun and after that hike I was quite happy to have something lug my ass around the rain forest for a while. We did look a little funny though getting used to our steeds, turns out they are fairly competitive and after one horse bit another horse who tried to pass, and one hose kicked another horse in the face we were well on our way. It was a rather calm adventure considering our lest few, my horse tried to sit down in the stream we were passing - that was a little tense for a few moments but after a quick jab in the ribs he was back on his way again. We toured through small local villages and some trails in the rain forest it was beautifull.
We ended the night with a solid German meal ( the lodge had German owners) and lots of beer and headed to bed in our tree house!
The next day Ashley and Dan headed off further into the main land to tour the city of Copan and it's Myan ruins and Colin and I went to Utila. We spent the last few days in Utila wandering the streets and relaxing on the beach. Our ride home on the catamaran was a bit intense as the swells rose higher than the boat at times, we were tossed around like a toy - it made for a long and wet and nauseating 4 hr ride home.
This morning Ashley and Colin are diving and we are off to a restaurant called the hole in the wall this afternoon, we have to take a boat to an island somewhere and then we get all you can eat shrimp and lobster yummmm!
Can't believe we leave on Saturday!
Hiking
Bringing our rafts down to the river mouth
A giant frog - which come out in droves at night
View from the beach in Utila.
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
All in the name of research!
Today Dan and Ashley's charge was to start a dental check program in the schools and make records of all the kids dental health. They are then going to use the data collected to try and fundraise for money from big companies like colgate to fund programs for the dentists to start going into the schools and cleaning and filling the teeth for the children. So we started with a local tiny little two room school house - packed to the brim with smiling children (smiling with slighty rotten teeth - but smiling none the less) I got to go to record the data for them. We also handed out Canadian pencils and note pads and crayons to the kids!! It was lots of fun.
After we finished the kids in that school we headed to the beach to do some paddle boarding which BTW is my new favorite sport and I think I need to purchase one of these for the lake. An excellent workout - and tons of fun taboot!!!
The school - leaves much to be desired, but the kids are all happy to be their
My first drink in a bag. So these people drink everything out of little baggies here, we have been laughing at it since we got here. And today the little kids brought us each one. I will tell ya there is a reason why these children have rotten teeth - it was diabetes in a bag!
All the kids after being checked holding up there Canadian pencils.
This was so funny, I was entering this little boys info into the computer and I spelt his name WAY wrong, he got tired of trying to tell me how to correct it so he just got in there himself and corrected it for me!
It was so hot and this was what Ashley looked like after checking the teeth, we are coining this one swaist (sweaty waist), and you thought there was only swass and switts!!!
Paddle boarding
Ashley and I trying to stand together on the paddle board
Success!!
Ashley got cocky and tried to head stand - that's as far as she got btw!!
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
After we finished the kids in that school we headed to the beach to do some paddle boarding which BTW is my new favorite sport and I think I need to purchase one of these for the lake. An excellent workout - and tons of fun taboot!!!
The school - leaves much to be desired, but the kids are all happy to be their
My first drink in a bag. So these people drink everything out of little baggies here, we have been laughing at it since we got here. And today the little kids brought us each one. I will tell ya there is a reason why these children have rotten teeth - it was diabetes in a bag!
All the kids after being checked holding up there Canadian pencils.
This was so funny, I was entering this little boys info into the computer and I spelt his name WAY wrong, he got tired of trying to tell me how to correct it so he just got in there himself and corrected it for me!
It was so hot and this was what Ashley looked like after checking the teeth, we are coining this one swaist (sweaty waist), and you thought there was only swass and switts!!!
Paddle boarding
Ashley and I trying to stand together on the paddle board
Success!!
Ashley got cocky and tried to head stand - that's as far as she got btw!!
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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