Lauren's Peace Corps Experience in Honduras

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed and experiences described in this travelogue are mine personally. Nothing written here should be interpreted as official or unofficial Peace Corps literature or as sanctioned by the Peace Corps or the U.S. government. I have chosen to write about my experience online in order to update family and friends; I am earning no money whatsoever from this endeavor. Please do not copy or forward any of these contents without my permission.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

*Whew* Taking a breather

Hi friends and family!

Well it's nice to finally have a few hours to myself. It's about 4 pm Saturday afternoon here andI just woke up from a long, much-needed nap. I still feel kinda off but I think a day of rest will do the trick!

We went to ANEDH yesterday at stayed the night. As I said before, it's a youth camp right outside Santa Barbara and pretty much right on top of Aguas Termales, hot springs! I'll get to that in a sec though. We packed the 20 of us into two of the white PC land cruisers and arrived to the camp around 2:30. The girls slept in one room with bunk beds and the guys in another. We spent the afternoon doing the same activities that the staff does with youth, but the theme was HIV/AIDS education, and not the environment like I thought before (they also teach about the environment). The staff are almost all volunteers, and they are all fairly young people that got scholarships to the United States to go to university and now they work with Honduran youth. The view from the camp was gorgeous, very green, rural, and rolling green mountains with pastures and cows dotting the landscape. It was very misty around the tops of the mountains, and from the camp you can see clouds of steam rising from the hot springs below.

After dinner and once it was dark, some of the staff took us down to the hot springs. Now, this wouldn't have been possible in the states because the liability would be too high. We went through the woods down a pretty steep slope with only our flashlights to light the way, holding on to each other for support. It was surreal because we couldn't see the springs, only hear the bubbling and steam as we got closer. We had to wear tennis shoes because if we slipped while crossing the stream we could burn our feet in some places. All of a sudden I realized I was in a cave - the darkness made it hard to see more than a few feet in front of you. The cave goes over the stream and forms a natural sauna, where they have put benches so you can sit in it. It was funny because all the people with glasses had to get pulled through because they were blind from the steam fogging up their lenses. I couldn't even hardly see and it was so warm and steamy I tried to get through quickly. After a few moments of grappling through the fog I felt cool fresh air. We had gotten through the cave and on the other side the boiling stream empties into a river. We crossed on wooden planks which freaked me out a bit because I could hear the bubbling and boiling only a foot beneath my feet and again, it was hard to see. During the day people like to cook eggs or meat in the water - isn't the earth amazing that it can produce things like this? Anyway we made our way to the point where the hot stream meets the river and a staff member tested the water, toasty but not scalding. So gradually more and more brave souls got down to their bathing suits and just floated in about 2 feet of water all together. We giggled and sang camp songs. The cooler river and hot water mixed so sometimes the water going by was hot, sometimes cold. It was funny because I also knew what was coming to me from the Ooooohs and Ahhhhs from the people a few feet upstream (i.e. "Oooooo here comes a nice hot one!" or "Ooooooh cold!" which created a wave effect of sound. But reclining in that warm water was so neat, hearing the rapids and bubbles but not seeing past our little group in the dark.

We eventually climbed back up the slope through the woods to the camp. It was so funny, I felt like we were kids in a summer camp again. The girls all ran to the showers and giggled (young and old) and we made up our bunk beds and told random stories. Afterwards I walked over to the boys' room and played a game of spades before lights out at 10 pm.

This morning we woke up early because of the usual roosters crowing and dogs barking and made our way up to breakfast. We did a couple more activities together as a group. Before we left at 11 am, we got to go spend another hour down at the hot springs. The experience during the day time was completely different. We could see the path down through the woods, which was pretty easy to navigate in the light. I saw the cave for the first time, which looked different than I had imagined. The stream running into it was bright green from the algae that thrives in the heat and large whitish gray rocks make up steep walls the surround the stream. The stream runs into a brown cave with a low ceiling. The cave was filled with whitish steam making its natural sauna. Walking through the cave we saw a beautiful river with large boulders everywhere. We saw the area we had waded in the night before. We climbed over the boulders about 300 feet down the river, which would have been impossible in the dark. I had to tie my camera to my belt buckle so that I had my hands free to pull myself up and down. We finally reached some small waterfalls upstream that were really scenic. Some people went swimming, since it was a deeper area, but I just sat on a large boulder and soaked up the sights. It was finally time to go. Hopefully I'll be able to take some of you all there when you visit, it was really a cool experience!

Now that I am back in Santa Cruz and rested up a bit I can relax. In a couple hours I am meeting some people at a restaurant in town here called Sabor Catracho (meaning Honduran taste) and we are going to eat dinner and drink some beers and probably play a few games of Spades and other card games. I am looking forward to it!

I miss you all and hope all is well back home. Love you all!

1 Comments:

  • At March 8, 2005 at 6:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Mohlie! I am so excited every time I go to your website and see a new post... I miss you like crazy and I can't tell you how much of your friendly voice and bubbly personality come out in your writing. I'm SO happy everything is going well for you. I'll continue praying for you and all of your fellow PC volunteers down there. I love you! Ten cuidado, querida, y diviertete! :)

     

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