Utila - Kathy's visit

"I need help calming down." Jenn scribbled on an underwater sketch board to our instructor Dave. We were about 5 meters under water, on our first open water dive off the Caribbean island of Utila. She had already surfaced once and Dave was determined to keep her calm and underwater, taking deep, slow breaths through the respirator. Dave was able to calm Jenn's nerves, and after a few minutes, my friend Kathy, me, Jenn, Dave and another instructor Amanda were off, swimming around the world's second largest coral reef. We saw heaps of cool underwater creatures; crabs, flounder, and an array of beautiful and colorful fish. Our tanks lasted 45 minutes. We surfaced, got back in the boat and went to another point of interest in the reef for a second dive. This dive went much better, as our nerves had calmed and we knew what to expect. We dove to a depth of 12 meters, and got to see the shelf of the reef sloping down behind us, to its seemingly endless depths. 

After our day SCUBA diving we spent the rest our time on the island snorkeling and kayaking. The island is primarily a mangrove forest. Only 15% is developable, buildable land. The rest is a sea filtering, mysterious forest of mangroves. The island was an awesome experience, and a nice break between working in farms. Super fun for us to have a visitor. Kathy was an awesome travel partner for the week! 

Kathy flew home yesterday from San Pedro Sula, and Jenn and I hopped on yet another bus 3 1/2 hours south to Comayagua. We met up with a CouchSurfer named Josue and his uncle Nahúm. Two extremely generous souls. They picked us up from the bus stop, gave us a tour of their city and even took us out for a delicious meal last night.  Try CouchSurfing if you can. It will restore your faith in humanity. 

We are off this morning to work on another farm. We won't have Internet for two or three weeks. ¡Adios!

Copán Ruins

One thing we continue to learn is that transportation in Latin American takes about 3 times longer than in the US. We looked at the map when leaving the farm, intent on getting to Copán Ruins in Honduras the same day. It is only about 200 miles. We would make that trip in Montana in about 3 hours. Not here. About 5 hours into our bus trip we had just crossed the Honduran border (about half way) and decided it was too late to continue. (It gets dark here around 6pm and we didn't want to navigate public transportation after dark). We picked up the journey the following day, traveling another 4 hours to Copán. 

The ruins are considered the Paris of the Mayan world. Lots of ornate carvings, tombs and monuments. The place is practically a wildlife refuge for birds, too. Dozens of scarlet macaws flew overhead while we walked through the ancient site. And I was almost pooped on by one of those beautiful, exotic creatures while admiring from below. Everybody poops.

After spending a couple days at Copán we just arrived today to San Pedro Sula. Tomorrow we will pick up my friend, Kathy Keys, from the airport. She chose to take her vacation to visit us! We'll spend our time together on the Caribbean Bay island of Utila checking out whale sharks, snorkeling and maybe SCUBA diving.

The Bubble

We spent the last couple weeks working at a place called Casa Organica (aka The Bubble) in El Salvador. It's a school/permaculture farm started 8 years ago by a Colombian woman and her Salvadoran husband. They teach the local kids about organic farming and healthy eating in addition to English. Each day we experienced something new. A brief highlight of some our first-time experiences include:

Harvesting coconuts, bananas and plantains straight from the tree

Teaching English

Going two weeks without using toilet paper (post-dump showers were required because toilet paper is outlawed at The Bubble)

Cooking three meals a day over an open flame

Washing dishes with ashes in lieu of soap

Feeding and caring for chickens

Making pupusas (delicious Salvadoran stuffed tortillas)

Bartering tree saplings for basic food staples (rice, beans, etc.) in the market

But better than all of these new experiences was making a new friend, Mario. He is, we'll call it a "boarding student" at The Bubble. Since the age of ten he had been working at a local mechanic's shop. Two years ago (at the age of 18) he quit his job to live full time at The Bubble to escape the daily grind of city life and to learn English. He has aspirations of taking his new-found English language skills to travel the world. At the age of twenty he has never had the opportunity to leave his country (about the size of New Jersey). His positive attitude and love of learning are infectious, and he has a ton of energy. We hope to keep in touch with Mario and maybe meet up with him at some point along our trip.

The outdoor kitchen.

A little afternoon English pronunciation lesson (think about the sounds in "walked" - English is crazy, folks)

We traded tree saplings at the market for supplies, including these two little guys which we named Tom and Jane. People had trouble pronouncing our names, so Tom and Jane are our Spanish nick names.

Jenn walks back from the market with Tom and Jane in a crate on her head. #local

We took a day trip to nearby Lake Coatepeque

Personal protective equipment from falling coconuts  for providing ground support while Mario harvests the coconuts

Bounty of tiny, sweet bananas

El Salvador

The US State Department warns travelers to El Salvador that:

"crime and violence are serious problems throughout the country. Since a rise in violence in the summer of 2015, the current murder rate in El Salvador is among the highest in the world, an annual rate of 103.1 murders per 100,000 citizens for 2015. In comparison, the U.S. rate is 4.5 per 100,000."

The dangerous reputation is unfortunate. If anything, people seem to be perplexed to see gringos walking around, and everyone we've spoken to has been super friendly. The last 2.5 days have been spent couch surfing with Alfonso at his house in Santa Tecla, a city that is basically an extension of San Salvador. We spent yesterday walking all over San Sal taking buses, visiting museums and tracking down pupusas, and we didn't feel unsafe at all.

Prior to coming to Santa Tecla/San Salvador, we were at the beach for two days in El Tunco. El Tunco is the kind of place bros from California and Australia go to hang ten, or whatever surfers do, so a bit out of our league. However, we took a lesson from some guys at Puro Surf, a surf shop, which was super fun, and we both got up on the boards. It gave us a lot of false confidence in our actual abilities, as we merely laid on our boards while they "wheeled" us out into oncoming waves and pushed us into the surf at just the right moment to catch the wave and stand up. Day Two on our own was much rougher going, and I (Jenn) spent a lot of time getting dragged to shore by my surfboard.

Today we went to Juayua, on the Ruta de las Flores, in the hopes of trying iguana and whole frogs at their weekly gastronomic festival, but the most exotic food we could find was rabbit. We also swam beneath some pretty waterfalls and watched teenagers do some sketchy jumps off the mossy rocks midway up the falls. 

Tomorrow we go to La Burbuja, an organic farm, where we'll be working for the next 1.5-2 weeks. There probably won't be Internet, so our next dispatch will be from Honduras in mid-October!