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Report 4
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Report 5 - Copan to Rio DulceA Mexico 2007 email report 5 March 17
School is out. Yeah, school's done for the summer. The past two weeks were more than we bargained for. We signed up for immersion school and we got it. Four hours a day, one on one with an instructor, who only speaks Spanish to us and then the workbooks are in Spanish.
Then to get a break, we have breakfast, lunch and dinner with our Spanish-only speaking family.
And to top it off, we only had 3-4 hours of homework a night.
The weekend between our two weeks, I did 17 hours of homework and Chris was just a couple of hours less.
By Tuesday of the second week, we both had reached our mental saturation point. We had to tell our instructors, no mas, only review please. So the last 3 days were slower and I think we were able to retain a bit more.
Chris is/has been a bit more advanced in Spanish than myself but we are still at the beginner level and we were told by other students, it is not uncommon to hit the wall. The good news, is when we get this base of Spanish built, learning will be easier. Oh well, the base won't get totally built on this trip but we do have 4 more weeks on this trip to practice what we have been learning.
Chris & I hadn't given the time immersion would take enough consideration. We thought we would have plenty of time on the weekends to see the local sights. What a joke. Immersion means immersed.
Fortunately, I haven't lost the ability to ask for cold beers or margaritas.
During the past two weeks for some school trips, we went to some hot springs about 30 miles from town. The ride was through beautiful Hondurean countryside. We also went to a butterfly park. There were about 10 or 15 varieties of live butterflies, many mounted butterflies and over 100 varieties of orchids
It is summer here in Honduras and daytime temps reach into the 90's but I also read it is in the 50's in the mountains of Colorado.
The rainy season starts here in May and then it gets really green, the trees leaf out, the flowers bloom and it cools down. Currently, it is still very green compared to what we are used to in Colorado.
This week the power has gone off in town 3 days in a row. Thursday it was possibly the hottest day since we've been here and no power for 9 hours (which also means no water), so we didn't have a fan in our room. What the heck, we went to the local pool and for a $1.50 each, cooled off for a couple of hours and the beers were cold.
When we got to Copan 2 ½ weeks ago, the most motorcycle mechanical issues we've had on the trip showed up. I had a flat tire the first morning in town and after doing a bit of maintenance found out Chris's back brake had somehow gotten stuck and one brake pad had worn to the metal.
I, sort of, have been able to fix my tube. The brake pads were another issue. I emailed our friend and parts supplier in Moab, Fred and asked if he had ever sent parts to Honduras. No was the answer but his program showed parts could get here in 7-10 days, maybe. The maybe part wasn't good. So off we went shopping in Copan to see what we could come up with. I have to tell you, motorcycles our size, so far, are not common in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras. All the bikes have been scooters or smaller (100-200 cc) motos. Except for the larger cities, there are no moto dealers. But, in Copan there are Tuktuks or motortaxis, a 3 wheeled, aircooled, soft top people mover. Packed they can hold 4 people. So off we went to the local dealer to see if they could get us the parts. Communication was an issue (twice we took other students who spoke good Spanish with us) with the one counter helper but after a few days of trying to get something ordered, the owner was in the store who spoke English. He thought he could get the pads from Guatemala in about a week.
Yesterday after our last day in school, the pads were there, installed now and we are ready to roll. Whew.
This weekend in Copan is fiesta. It is actually 6 days long, starting on Thursday and ending on Tuesday. We had to miss Thursday night because we were studying. Friday during school, some of the profesoras took us to the parque central to view the happenings. On this day only, food and other booths were setup. A marimba band played for a few hours. We ate at a few of the food booths. Later in the evening, there were local traditional dancers (in their teens, maybe young 20's) who performed Mayan and local traditional dances. At one point, the dancers came into the audience and grabbed people to take back up on stage. Guess what? My little Chrissy was grabbed twice and taken up. National television was filming this, so I'm sure she is plastered all over Honduras's television sets.
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