29th of june

on friday we got to the lake yojoa. were able to get off that bus at the right spot since a concept of "bus stops" hardly exists, everyone gets picked up by the bus where ever they are walking by the side of the road. the bus stops, the brakes squeek and the ticket selling boy shouts something distantly related to the real name of the destination of the bus. the people get on the bus and it gets more and more crowded. the capacity of the bus seems to have no limits. but getting back to our final destination which was a little village of los naranjos. we got off the bus and could smell that countryside air. chickens running everywhere confirmed that feeling. locals would stare at us. it felt quite uncomfortable at first but then you get used to it, and well since people here like small talk and we're quite fluent in spanish, we´d go along and chat with everyone who´d talk to us. i don´t think i´ve ever engaged in this amount of random talking to random people before. so friday was spent in the village, we were staying at this gringo owned place called D&D and it was a very rudimentally equipped room, but enough for a night or two. in order to spare some space the bathroom was literally inside the room with only a curtain separating it from the beds. that was not so nice, but well a new experience anyway. marianne detected a spider and freaked out but then i gracefully let it out of its misery by applying the force of gravity and a fat guide book called "honduras tips". it was a successful co-operation. the spider was dead. then we also spotted a lizard inside the room and a coutless amount of insects, primarilly mosquitos.

saturday was marked by insanely early wake-up, at 5 am to get in time to our excursion on lake yojoa. our guide was this elderly englishman malcolm who was very friendly and seemed to know awfully lot about the birds and other animals and the plants too in fact. that was the first birdwatching tour i´ve had since highschool when the whole class was freezing somewhere on the outskirts of helsinki supposingly spotting birds, in real life freezing to death and wishing to return back to the bus asap. after the lake yojoa tour it was time for marianne and i to grab that bus again and head to the waterfalls. wow, the waterfalls were amazing, we took some great photos and dipped ourselves in the rather chilly water of the waterfalls. it was refreshing and entertaining. the sun came out for an hour or so and we took advantage of it to the full extent. the evening was calm and the dinner was delicious once again. i think we went to bed at some 9pm already in order to wake up early to hit the road again on sunday morning. it was time to head to la ceiba.

the bus journey to la ceiba was quite long and somewhat stressful because our backpacks were put away in the luggage department of the bus and marianne was constantly keeping an eye on the place where they were put away from her seat by the window. frantic peering is necessary-stuff gets stolen here. the otherwise monotonous ride was spiced up by some mango with salt and chili and vinigar which we purchased from the ladies that come to the bus when it stops by the gas station. that was an interesting experience as well. sweet mango with salt and chili. i´ll definately have to eat this again. and so by 3.30 pm we were in la ceiba. for some reason we expected a proper big terminal like in san pedro sula but instead got a tiny bus stop where we jumped off and immediately were surrounded by young lads offering taxi, dvds, whatever, even marriage :D had to decline all of the above and head to the other bus terminal where the head of our language school would pick us up. bus terminal in la ceiba was all except safe. one didn´t feel very comfortable, and so when rafael showed up with his wife and a child in the back of the car we were glad to leave the terminal and head to our families. in the e-mail i recieved from the school back home it said i would live in a family of 4 people, including a young girl of 5 years old. so last day in helsinki i rush off to stockmann to get a muumi stuffed animal for the babe of the family. in la ceiba it turns out however that the family i´ll live in is completely different. it´s an upper middle class family and there is an 8-months old baby but i think muumi pappa will be more appreciated by someone a little bit older and maybe from a slightly poorer background. muumi pappa is sitting in my bag still and most likely will travel to ruinas de copan in a week to find its new owner there. otherwise the family has a big house with a part where i live belonging to the parents (currently on vacation in USA)of the young man who is the head of the family and who lives with his wife, daughter and a servant on the other side of the house. the lady cookes amazing food and it is served to me 3 times a day. good deal, even though so far there has not beed that much interaction between me and the family. marianne has exactly the opposite situation with a poorer family but extremely sociable house wife to whom we just refer as "mama" of that house who wants to know everything and also tells you everything. sunday night was calm and hot and humid just like la ceiba itself. on monday the classes would begin.