Semana Santa or Holy Week is a spring break of sorts for
most of the people that live in work in Central America. Most businesses and schools shut down
for the week to celebrate and be with family and friends. Us volunteers, well, we jumped on the
opportunity to travel. We began
our Semana Santa travels by heading to Copan, Honduras.
Sunday morning (Palm Sunday) our trusty Viktor bus showed up
at the door, to drive us to Copan.
We were surprised to open the van doors to see about 15 other people
from our Foundation in the van ready to go as well. Makes sense, if a bus is going to Copan, might as well
aprovechar and offer a mini-vacay to others. So we began our 12 hour bus ride to Copan with Carlos and
his family, yay spring break with a first grader, goodbye sleeping on the bus,
Rolando (bus driver) and his family (2nd grader), Tony and William
(our trusty handymen), and two teachers from the Special Needs school,
Nazareth.
Monday morning we started the day off with the whole OAF
gang at the Mayan ruins. With our
trusty guide, Mauricio, we dominated those Mayan ruins with our Spanglish and
energy. The Mayans are so
cool. Everything is so ancient and
so well done and preserved. Plus
they think the world is ending in 2012, so I’m glad I made it to see them
before then.
We climbed the ruins and gawked at the beauty of
Honduras. Saw amphitheaters and
explored Mayan tunnels. Learned
about the Mayan sport. A ball game
in which the ball cannot touch the ground so as not to wake the gods of the underworld
and players try to score points by hitting hoops. The Captain of the winning team would be sacrificed by
decapitation to celebrate the win.
Way to go Mayans.
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| OAF does the ruinas |
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| climbing the temples |
We learned all about the Dieciocho Conejo or 18th
Rabbit king. With each new ruler the
Mayans would build on top of the previous structures. The coolest of which was a long staircase type thing
displaying the image of each Mayan king.
Oh and we met the dancing jaguars and sun god, which we obvi
planked.
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| kids are pretty great |
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| planking the Mayan sun god |
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| staircase |
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| first graders are pretty snazzy |
That afternoon we headed to some aguas termales or natural
hot springs. A rope bridge and
short hike into the words we discovered several small pools of natural hot
water. I think after all our
hard work this year, we deserved a spa sort of afternoon.
We started in the “mud massage pool.” In this pool there was natural mud
along the side to exfoliate and massage with. Rolando’s mom gave us each a mud back massage, sooo rico. Then we went to a foot massage pool and
a back/neck massage waterfall. But
mostly, us girls, just reflected on life, this year, and the joy of being able
to relax in the natural beauty of Honduras.
We ended our afternoon playing with the kids and OAF in the
pool. Several Honduran acrobatic
stunts ensued. We also had some
chicken fights, which I can proudly say that Deirdre and I the only girl-girl
team won.
The next day we had the morning left in Copan before heading
to Guatemala so we decided to do one of my most favorite things in the
world—Horseback riding!
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| beautiful farms |
One of the happiest I’ve ever been in Honduras was sitting
on the back of Princesa (my horse) watching coffee, corn, and plantain farms
pass me my as I felt so at home on a horse and awed by the beauty of
Honduras. Katie also kept the 1 ½
hour trek up the mountain interesting with her comic relief as she was
“terrified” of being on her horse.
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| the school |
When we reached the top we got to explore a little village
community called “La Pintada.” La
Pintada is a very indigenous community towards the top of the mountain we were
riding up. We saw a few more Mayan
ruins and explored the village area.
We even got to visit a microempresa where some women do some really cool
weaving. Another highlight was
seeing the school where students in the village learn in Spanish and Quichean,
which is a Mayan language (I think that’s how you spell it).
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| Princesa y yo |
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| horse time |
The ride back down was more horseback riding bliss. One of the reasons why I love horses so
much is because of the personality of each. Luckily, our group of horses was no exception. Laura rode the lovely Chica Loca or
Crazy Girl. She insisted on being
in the lead. She was slow and
stubborn and bit Princesa a couple times for trying to pass her. On the way back Chica Loca once again
was going the wrong way. When she
realized she didn’t turn to the left like everyone else, she angrily trotted
over and tried to bite Katie’s horse for being in front of her…..but instead
she missed and bit Katie’s leg. Womp
womp, poor Katie. Katie claims
that she will never get on a horse again, we’ll see. I mean how can you deny the amusingness of horseback riding?
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| beautiful |
Horseback
riding in Honduras and Mayan ruins, Copan, you were pretty great.
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