Copan Ruinas

 

Kim: We are in the quiet town of Copan Ruinas in Honduras. It is a town that was established when the Mayan ruins started being excavated in the late 1800’s. There are not too many other tourists here, especially from the USA! We are staying at a beautiful and simple bed and breakfast where we have a delicious breakfast every morning with a view of the smoky and hazy valley. Coffee is grown AND served here. Normally the good stuff is exported, but luckily for us, not here. There has been a lot of smoke from a volcano that is erupting in Guatemala.

We have wandered the Mayan ruins just outside of town with a guide, and afterwards sat under a 200 year old Guanacaste tree and drew and wrote with hardly anyone else in sight! There were wild scarlet macaws making a racket in nearby trees while the day heated up. The ruins are still being excavated, but there are many examples of intricate carvings on stellas, big stone pillars, staircase facings, and buildings. The Mayans recorded their history with detailed hieroglyphics. Many of the kings built new temples atop existing ones, and we were able to go into archeologist’s tunnels to see the buildings below existing structures!

We went back two times to a Macaw Reserve that has many scarlet macaws, as well as blue and green ones, parrots, toucans and owls. Marino and Lucia were able to collect feathers, play in the river, and have the birds sit on them. The grounds were cool and lovely and filled with local tropical plants that we strolled about for hours the first day.

Yesterday we went to some aguas termales, some nearby hot springs where the water comes out of the ground at 90*C! Beautiful cascading pools have been built into the hillside leading down to the river and the agua caliente mixed with the cool river water to create a variety of temperature pools. Some were too hot to even stick your toe into! We covered ourselves with warm mud from the river and then soaked it off. The hot springs were covered by a lush green canopy up in the mountains and the afternoon was cool enough that soaking in hot water seemed reasonable. I slipped and fell at the end of the day on a slimy rock and am really hurting, but nothing is broken at least!

Today is our last day in Honduras, our home for the year! We depart for la Cuidad de Guatemala on a bus this afternoon and by evening will be swimming in the pool at our hotel!

Parents travel letter

A letter we sent to our parents and family, but wanted to share with you all!

April 22, 2014

Hello parents

We know you are probably quietly concerned that we are traveling in Honduras with our kids, so we are sending this email to reassure you that we have arrived in the lovely town of Copan Ruinas, Honduras. It is located near the border of Honduras and Guatemala and there are beautiful Mayan ruins here. Dan and I visited here 14 (!) years ago. We are staying in a house that is bigger than our Roatan home and very lovely! As we transition from our island, we knew we would need a gentle environment.
We had a 12 hour travel day yesterday that included a ride from friends, a ferry, taxi, bus, and finally a tuk tuk (pronounced took took). The kids did great as did the parents and we all fell into bed exhausted!
We are spending four nights here and hoping to visit the ruins, go to some hot springs, wander town, and go to a macaw bird sanctuary. Coffee is grown around here and is deliciously strong. We then travel by bus to Guatemala City for one night to rent a car for 9 days. With our car we are driving to Tikal in northern Guatemala (more Mayan ruins), staying near rivers and lakes to swim in (since we have all become part fish!) and then going to Lake Atitlan where we have rented a house in San Marcos for five weeks. It is a quiet town where we will study spanish swim in the lake, be mellow and volunteer. Then to the USA for the "Back to USA Grandparents Tour 2014".
We will stay in touch as we are able! Our phone will continue to be working in Guatemala and is good if there is an emergency. Our number is 504-9717-5055.

Leaving Roatan was emotional and bittersweet for all us. It will take awhile to process our experience there. 

Love to you all,
Kim, Dan, Marino and Lucia

Island Departure

April 20, 2014- Island Departure

            Dan- We will be leaving the island of Roatan this Tuesday, 22^nd of April. We have been here for ten months. It is a bittersweet departure. There are many things that we will miss, and many things we will not.

            Kim and Dan will miss the spectacular Caribbean Sea and all that goes along with it.  We have embraced the sea in every way possible. Snorkeling almost every day, diving, fishing, long walks on the beach, sunsets on the dock. Yesterday we snorkeled for 1.5 hours to the “wall” of the reef. It was breathtakingly beautiful and vast. So much so that Kim started crying and filled up her mask with tears. Kim will miss the wonderful families and children that she has worked with throughout the island.

            Lucia says she will miss being able to go to the swimming pool (almost whenever she wants) for free.  She will not miss the bugs. She will miss friends and kittens. We found homes for all of the six kittens that we had…whew.

            Marino will mostly miss the power outages…really? No, not really. We think he will miss friends, fishing and the sea. His parents will miss seeing him in the sea. Today he “free-dived” to 27’!

            Our adventure does not end with leaving the island. We will continue home-school as we travel through main land Honduras and Guatemala over the next 2 weeks. We will end up back at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala and reside there for 5 weeks. We hope to study Spanish, hike and explore the surrounding volcanoes, swim in the lake, and volunteer with local agencies. We fly back to the States in early June. Our final traveling has us visiting parents and grandparents for the “Back in the USA-Grandparents tour”. Finally, we return to Santa Fe on July 1.

            Hopefully we do more blog posts in the months to come, but this will probably our last from Roatan. Life is Better on the Beach, sometimes, not all the times, and it is always different than what you expect. 

 

A visitor's view

A recent visitor, our friend and neighbor Ken Hughes, saw Roatan with a fresh eye. His vision is beautiful and magical.

https://picasaweb.google.com/112962273940039563553/Roatan?noredirect=1#5997525112859567058

Turtle...on the beach!

On the Beach!

On March 18 of 2014, I was going to go and set my new traps for fishing and our friend Ellen was on the beach cleaning. She told us there was a dead turtle "over there". We went over to see where she was pointing and there was a baby turtle. At first we thought it was dead, then we touched it and it started flapping it's little flippers at us. For about 20 minutes, we watched it rolling in the waves. Then I thought, we should call the Roatan Marine Park, so I ran to my dad at the house and said "There is a baby Hawksbill turtle on the beach, so we should call the marine park!". I ran back down to the beach with a bucket to put it in and my mom asked me, "Whose idea is this?" and I said, "Papa's idea".  I put the turtle in the bucket with some sea grass. We waited and looked around and there were tons and tons of horse eye seeds on the beach. They are usually rare and we find about one a week. There were lots of them and I filled a whole cup! Then we saw some rope tangled in a bamboo branch in the waves, so we took a knife and chopped off all the rope. Next we took the rope and put it in the trash. We were still waiting for the marine park.

The turtle had a greenish reddish shell and instead of one big shell, it had different plates together. Then papa came down from the house with Lucia because she wanted to see the turtle. When the Marine Park came, they said that the turtle wasn't hurt and they were going to bring it to Maya Cay. The Marine Park said we could contact them if we wanted name the turtle. Then they took it to Maya Cay. The end.

Marino and I went down to the beach to see the storm around 6:30am. Ellen was already down there scouring the shore for trash. She mentioned she had seen a baby sea turtle! Marino and I walked down the beach and discovered a small Hawksbill turtle the size of Marino's hand. It had been washed up to the high edge of the surf AND it was alive! We gently picked it up and placed it into the surf. We watched it get washed up turned around repeatedly. He didn't seem to be injured! When the waves would come he would lift his arms over his head and it looked like he was protecting it. Marino got a bucket to put him in, Dan called the Roatan Marine Park, AND we all waited and observed the turtle. Lucia timed how long he was holding his breath under water, Marino documented his discovery of a new to him species of a blue jellyfish, I collected colorful bottle cap trash, Ellen stretched, and Dan finished breakfast at the dock, all while we waited for Jocco from the RMP to arrive.

            When he came, he told us the tiny turtle was just a month or two old and would be taken to Maya Cay to be protected so that it reach maturity unharmed. It would be returned to our beach in about a year! We were welcome to name him, check on his health, and maybe even visit him. Marino and Lucia were thanked for being such good stewards of marine life. What an awesome start to week 2 of homeschool!

Seeing Green

April 25, 2014- Sandy Bay Alternative School

Dan-My 7^th & 8^th grade students wrote short, descriptive writing essays using as many adjectives as they could. First, they sat somewhere outside and wrote down what they saw. Next they added adjectives, and finally wrote a paragraph or two. Here is my writing from the exercise.

Seeing Green

            The view in front of me is lush and green. There is almost every shade of green possible: bright green, pale green, faded green, vibrant green. Most of the green is attached to leaves and there is every type of leaf. I see broad flat leaves, as well as long thin ones. There are short, round leaves and incredibly long, lanky leaves.

            Everything in sight is oversized; the obvious result of plentiful rainfall.

            I come from a land of brown, where there is almost every shade of brown: dark, bland, pinkish, earth, and rich, chocolate brown.

Now I am surrounded in a sea of green.

Lucia's Birthday Party

Lucia- Yesterday was my 9^th birthday!!!!!! I invited all the girls from my class plus my friend Camila and my teacher. Only two people didn’t come so there were 5 of us.  It was a beach and pool party. First, we went to the dock. Next we went to the pool. When we went up to the pool, we stopped by the house to get the home-made cupcakes. We went up to the pool and had cupcakes then played water games. Next, we came back to the house and broke open my Strawberry piñata.  We all had so much fun!