Day....fuckit I lost track....about 28 if you go from when she left: hoover time!

Things are still cool here, tomorrow we leave for a weekend in Copan - the city of Mayan ruins, should be excellent, as well as having stuff to do and cool things to take pictures of, there are also about 20 of us meeting there from the initial week in Tegucigalpa. I'm really looking forward to it although I have no idea how we're going to get there, it is cheaper and faster to get buses but traditional to hitch. It depends what the others are doing really, it'll be more fun to hitch with a gang than sit on a bus on my own! That is one of the coolest things here, if you want to go somewhere you just stick out your hand and everyone drives open-back trucks so they stop and you jump on and just bang on the roof when you want to get off! they are totally crazy drivers too, there are no road markings and apparently no road rules either, they are supposed to drive on the right but it's generally which side of the road is flattest. It's practically compulsory to overtake on blind corners and if anyone's coming the other way they have to slow down. Drivers also honk their horns at least every 10 seconds, usually for no apparent reason. If you are in the back of a truck in the mountains it's up to you to hang on - while they slalom around rocks, cows, chickens, huge holes where people decided to dig up enough mud to make some bricks etc.

I'll be back on Monday so I'll mail you then and let you know how well it went. Plus I have my camera now so I can take loads of pics.

Time is really weird here, there is nothing to do but doing nothing really takes up time. Apparently it's known as the La Esperanza time-hoover and it is a well documented fact amongst volunteers here!

Well, it's 1pm here and just getting to be roasting hot, I'm going to wander home, have some lunch and head out to the Save the Children Office (good half hours walk) to photocopy some resources and stuff for Monday, then go out to meet everyone at the bar and make plans for tomorrow. I had another clothes-washing session yesterday so I can pack some clean clothes, I did better this time though, I was only mildly damp and the dogs escaped without getting wet at all, and the clothes are actually clean, although I may have scrubbed my green T-shirt with bleach soap instead of normal laundry soap, I'll find out when I get back and see if it's still green!

Day 11: Climb every mountain.

well, this is an email from an extremely tired Mandy!

The Honduras Tips book we were given when we arrived (called simply the bible) doesn't list much to do in La Esperanza, but it does sevote quite a lengthy column to 'las hoyas' the holes.

Apparently up on the mountain there are a series of holes, 50cm to 1m across and VERY deep. They are perfectly round and nobody know how they got there, theories abound about aliens, pre-colonial obsidian mines  and quite boringly - that some big trees were killed and when their roots rotted they left these holes.

Anyway the book says they are one-and-a-half hours hike away. Quite a nice start for the weekend trips we thought, not too far. hmm.

It took us 3 hours to get to them!

up a mountain.

we are talking about 3000 feet above sea level here!

Then we thought a nice little path seemed to go in the direction of home. so we followed it. I firmly believe we were going in the right direction until a local directed us to 'the La Esperanza road' so we changed directions. And ended up climbing another mountain.

Then we walked solidly for 4 hours up and down gravelly slopes, avoiding drunken farmers with guns and trying not to step in all the cow poo everywhere.  I think I should explain that La Esperanza is in a valley half way up a mountain and it is actually surrounded by mountains, the 'la esperanza road' the guy directed us to went around the circle of mountains, the long way,
over the tops. We could see it stretching out in front of us as far as the eye could see.

then it started to thunder.

We were about to sit down in the rain and let the sun bleach our bones (that's just what the weather's like here) when a nun in a pickup stopped and gave us a lift for the last few miles - we collapsed in the cafe with iced tea until we could move our legs again and I've stopped in at the internet cafe on the way home to keep you updated.

It's been a fun day though, unfortunately, I left my camera in Tegucigalpa because the maid tidied it away and I thought it was in my bag, it should arrive tomorrow with the next lot of volunteers, so I have no pictures of the holes. Richard will email me one from his digital
camera when we get home though! they were quite impressive, you couldn't see the bottom of some of them.

Next weekend we go to Copan, the huge Mayan ruins place, and i will definitely have lots of photo's of there, hopefully I'll get some nice ethnic souveniers as well as La Esperanza seems to have been taken over by plastic american tat, people's houses are full of the kind of ornaments that I can only describe as poundland specials!

All in all today has been a good day, it was an amazing view from the top of the mountain, although quite hard to breathe as we were over 2500 feet and I guess the air was thin. But I took lots of water and sun cream so I'm fine. I really need a shower though, I probably smell and I am covered in dust.

The others were cursing me because I showed them the obsidian that was all over the place and we all picked up loads of it - they reckon they wouldn't have noticed it otherwise and would have had much lighter bags on the way back!

well, I'm off to shower, eat and crash, got to get up for the journey to school in the morning!