Happy Valentines Day!
I know many people had extended weekends recently thanks to midwinter
breaks and other holidays. We were
no exception and all of us teachers were very excited to get away from La Union
and do some traveling and adventuring.
For one of the first times besides Christmas all of us teachers were not
traveling together. Harriet and
Beth ventured towards El Salvador and Guatamela, Kara and Lenny relaxed in
Gracias and Cassidy, Brooke and I ventured to Gracias also but we hiked Celaque
which is Honduras’ highest point.
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| Our sleeping arrangement...all huddled together on the wood floor. |
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| The trail straight up to the top. |
We arrived in Gracias by bus and made our way to Hotel
Guancascos, where we stayed when we first made it to Honduras and had
orientation. Frony, the owner, had
set up a guide for us and transportation out to the national park. We said our good byes to Kara and Lenny
and ventured off. After the half
hour ride, we spent the next 6 hours hiking the most grueling trail I have ever
attempted. The trail to the top is
about 5 miles long and covers nearly 10, 000 ft of elevation. There are 2 camps along the way and we
had been informed by previous climbers that the second one is the better option
as far as timing and convenience.
When we arrived at the first camp, out of breath and already exhausted
our guide, Santos, informed us that the most difficult part was yet to
come. We ate some trail mix and
granola bars and decided to continue on.
What we realized was that Santos was not kidding. Shortly before the second campsite was
a section that ventured across a rock face and was nearly a straight
vertical. At this point we were
completely exhausted and had no strength left. I will gladly admit that I may have crawled through parts of
this because it was so challenging.
We finally arrived at our camp though and enjoyed being able
to drink water straight from the stream (we didn’t have to have bottled or
filtered water). Santos built us a
fire and we relaxed and stretched for the afternoon. As eveening drew near, another group arrived at the camp
which included an older couple from Spain, I was very impressed that they had
made it up, a guide and 2 young Honduran men. They began setting up their tents and as it got darker we
all had dinner around the fire.
Then the moment of truth came, they asked if we wanted help setting up
our tent and when we replied that we didn’t have one they were all shocked and
didn’t know what to say. The site
offers a shelter which we knew about, but shelters here are different than in
the states. Here the shelter was a
woodfloor with three wooden siides that had gaps between them and a tin
roof. We were definitely
questioning our decision about the tent but when we retired to bed, our
sleeping bags under the shelter roof, we just huddled together and it was just
fine. The night was a little cold
but we didn’t get wet. Of course
the wooden floor was hard and we didn’t sleep all that much so when morning
came we were excited to get a move on.
We climbed for about an hour and a half without our packs to reach the
top. It was a partly cloudy day so
there wasn’t much of a view but it was still pretty to be in the clouds and to
know we made it to the top. Santos
then guided us back down to the camp and we grabbed our gear and began the hike
down. It took us about 5 hours to
get down. There were numerous
parts that seemed to steep going down that I couldn’t believe we made it
up. When we finally made it down
our legs were like jello and our feet were very sore.
Since it was only Friday we planned on spending the rest of
the weekend relaxing and eating good food, so we met up with Kara and Lenny at
their hotel in Gracias and got a room.
We were very grateful to have the opportunity to shower which was even
extra amazing because it was a real shower (not the kind with the electricity
running through them to heat the water).
We all went out for chinese food which was served family style with huge
plates. We greatly enjoyed the
food and told stories of our journey, but since we were so exhausted we retired
back to the hotel early and went straight to bed.
The next morning we woke and not surprisingly we could
hardly move. My body was so sore,
and still is, that even just flat walking was difficult. We enjoyed breakfast at the hotel and
then caught a bus to Santa Rosa.
We have been to Santa Rosa before but since it is slightly larger than
Gracias it has a few more things to offer. We had lunch at Weekends, the great pizza place we enjoyed
when there before. We then visited
the teacher store and did a little other shopping. The afternoon was spent relaxing at a coffee shop while it
rained outside. When it slowed
down, we made our way to the big grocery store where we found a lot of things
that we don’t have here in La Union.
While there we caught up with Harriet and Beth and together we all made
our way back to Gracias. We spent
the evening at a restaurant called Café Kalil. They had delicious wings and bruschetta and even had
brownies with ice cream for dessert.
We enjoyed all catching up and spending somet time together again. Sunday morning we relaxed in bed
because the power was out and then once it came back on we had breakfast,
watched some TV and then ventured to the grocery store. We were able to pick up some dairy
products, mostly cheese and yogurt, before we headed to the bus station to make
our way back to La Union. The ride
went well except that because of the rain our bus struggled to make it up some
of the hills. Of course it was
Albin (our landlord and the owner of the buses) to the rescue, he used one of
his larger trucks to help pull the bus up the hills. We finally made it home though and got all unpacked.
While many people were off relaxing on the beach, I spent
the break climbing a mountain, which I severely underestimated. While it was very challenging and there
were many moments of self doubt I am very glad that I did it. I also got to enjoy a lot of time
relaxing and eating great food, which makes coming back to La Union much
easier.
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