Honduran Adventures

Hannah and I had a fun trip to Honduras, she turned 10 recently and we went off to see the "Worlds' Homicide Capital", as Honduras is sadly known these days. The country is quite frayed at the societal edges - lots of poverty and violence. If you can navigate those significant issues, the people are quite nice and there are some amazing things to see and do. We didn't make it up to the Bay Islands, but I think we hit most of the other significant sites in the country. A fun time was had by all!

We stayed and travelled with the Wooley family, who are awesome personified. Stuart and I were BYU roomies and it was nice to see that - against all odds - he ended up with an amazing wife and a gaggle of awesome kids! He is teaching there as a Fulbright scholar; the family has been there since December.

Copan is a terrific place, definitely worth the hype and its listing as a World Heritage Site.

The scarlet macaws flying everywhere in the wild were a nice feature of Copan.

Hannah and I trying to figure everything out without a guide (no intrepretive signage anywhere), we finally hired "Armando", who did us a great service.

Another great Mayan structure.

Mayan stonework...symbolizing the cycle of life - birth images up above, life images along both sides, and death and the underworld below.

The lower right glyph is the symbol for "18 Rabbits", one of the 16 consecutive kings of Copan, and one of the big expanders of the City. Cool dude, silly name- but a neat way to write it (each bar equals "5", add them up (and the dots) to get 18.

Scarlet macaw deity imagery in stonework everywhere, along with a lot of jaguars.

"Chaac" the rain deity, where the rain spews out of his nose (the kids and the less-mature adults such as me liked that!).

Hannah was an awesome travel companion during the whole trip, it was a lot of fun travelling around with her! I had to eat her share of bananas though, which worked for me.

Hannah befriending local wildlife.

Hannah happy (with a terrified father) to do a 16-stage zip-line canopy adventure down a mountain. Safety equipment was sketchy at best, and some of the runs were literally a kilometer long. Don't believe, check out the next video and note how long (and high!) it was! We survived, and Hannah was smiles the whole time.

Pulling up to a Texaco to get gas, chatting with the friendly guard with the AK-47, keeping us customers safe from the bad people.

Awesome fruit everywhere. I love fruit.

Awesome scooter taxis everywhere.

Early morning Honduran commute to work, machete in hand. Machetes are standard equipment, used for about anything. Nose-picking is not recommended.

Alternate commuting method, where neither bus nor normal taxi service can be obtained. Saw lots of this, enterprising truck owners meeting the needs of the transportation marketplace.

Cool guy on horse, cantering through a town.

Old-school farming, plowing and fertilizing as you go. "Here comes the ox-cart, oh how slow...". We had a great time; it was fun travelling with Hannah and hanging out with the Wooleys. Honduras is clearly rough around the edges, but worth seeing.