From Copan to Leon to Esteli

 

The following days in Copan, Honduras I did as much of the touristy stuff as I could. I wanted my inner gringo to shine! So the first thing I did was go to the hot springs. TOTALLY boring. We were left there for 3.5 hours. So naturally I put mud on my face and body and pretended I was Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now:

 

 

But that only lasted for a few minutes and I was bored again!

 

The next day was cooler because I went horseback riding up a mountain and got to see a tiny village. 

 

You can't hear this in the pic (I don't think) but my horse was all "Lay off the bacon fattie," and so I was all, "Neigh off the grass, you whore-s."

 

And then I went ziplining which was my hands down favorite:



 

 

 

Yes I am upside down in this:

 

My guide was like "Okay, now upside down" and pushed my head down and I was like "What?! Okay?!"

 

I started to become so at one with the nature in Copan the birds and beasts of the forest flocked to me.

 

And then I ate them.

 

Speaking of eating, their snowcones are beasts:

 

I love you.

 

Then I went to see the Copan ancient Mayan ruins. 

 

I prefer drywall, personally.

 

Then I headed to Nicaragua. I passed through San Salvador but this ended up being my ONLY picture of it: 

 

 

VANILLA COKE!!!!

 

And I made it to Leon, Nicaragua to visit this gal!

 



 

This is Ariel, my friend from college. She's really good friends with my sister Carla but I was able to enjoy her despite that! (Kidding Cai Cai!)

 

As if ziplining, horseback riding, and hot springs survival wasn't extreme enough, we went VOLCANO BOARDING! TO THE XXXX TREME !!!!

 

Step 1: Climb the volcano.

 

 

Step 2: Take XXXXXX TREME selfies all along the way with an EXTREME lip curl!

 

 

 

Step 3: Take your volcano board and slide down that bizlatch:

 

[picture of me volcano boarding to come. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of someone who's not me and imagine it's me.]

 

 

Leon was a fairly cool place.

 



 

 

The fashion there is to be really sexy and also leashed to a wall by your neck: 

 

 

Now I know what you're thinking: 

 

It seems like a Pizza Hut ripoff, but it's not, because Pizza Hut is actually already a rip-off of real pizza. 

 But as much as I liked Leon, I was ready to move on, for the neighborhood wizard wouldn't even grant any of my wishes:

 

And then there's actual bull crap like this: 

 

Seriously?! F you, Nicaragua. How does that crap fly here? Who would even enjoy a cock fight? "Oh man I had such a hard day at the office. So stressed out! I just REALLY need to see some chickens stab each other to death and just CHILL, you know?" F you!

So Ariel and I headed to.... We didn't know!

 

 

Ariel needed to get back to Esteli and so I decided to continue to pester her there! But the bus for her city had already left. So a guy in Spanish yelled at us to get onto another bus and we obeyed! This is us packed into a "chicken bus" they call them (I wonder if they make their chicken busses fight each other for sport too?) having only a faint notion of the name of the town we're going and no idea of its direction. Here's us transferring to the bus in this mysterious town where we have no clue where we are:

 

 

 

Turns out it was called San Isidro. We found out after we were brutally robbed and left to die. The scenery was BEAUTIFUL!

 

And we finally made it to Esteli. I'll be here the next few days:



 

 

 I even got to see another friend from college, my old friend Danny:

Thanks for reading! I'll leave you with this ADORABLE video of me being followed by one of the Guatemalan children from the construction site last week (the kid is really cute, too)

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello (I just made that up)

On Friday we finished the motha flippin house!

2 weeks ago we started here:

 

 

 

And after all the hard work that started on day 1:

 

 

 

We ended up here with the FINISHED house: 

 

 The kids really attached themselves to me on the project.

 

 

One day they actually asked me to take them with me when I flew back home! Oh Lord. They also asked for something to remember me by so I made a collage and printed 2 copies of it, framed it, and gave it to them on the last day:

 

 

 

I signed the back and left my mailing address and email if they ever wanted to write me. They loved it. 

 

So time to talk about how amazing I am (furthermore amazing than what you're already thinking). You'll notice there's also a stuffed dog in the picture. That was not for the kids. It was for their DOG. They have 2 dogs, one of which is a little puppy named Bebé ("Bay-bay"). It was tied up the entire time we were there. It would cry for hours, almost never have any water or food, and the family would ignore it. It was flat-out neglect. Disturbed by it, everyday I bugged the family about it more and more. I continually asked them to give water to their dog. I brought food for their dog. I explained to the family the reason their dog kept crying was 'cause it needed more attention. By the end of my stay there, they gave their dog a little wicker-basket bed (it was sleeping on concrete before) and had water for it all the time. The other volunteer, a lovely young woman named Anita, who's awesome, and I spent 30 minutes just picking out ticks from the dog before we left. There's so much ignorance about the way Central Americans treat dogs. That, and minors working, are the hardest things to take here. But at least Bebé loved his (first) toy:

 

 

I can only hope that my intrusiveness on how they treat their dog sunk in with them.

 

So after a long hard 2 weeks, I headed out for the last time:

 

 

And I found myself with 1 more day in Antigua! I was ready to leave but felt like I was ditching a long friend. I've been in this city an accumulative 4 weeks of my life!

And those entire 4 weeks (1 week in August, 3 for this trip) I've just worked. In August I did construction also, the first week of this trip I finished my book Lord of the Fries ("a riot, a blast, a masterpiece!"), and the last 2 weeks were building this house. So I had 1 day left to do all the touristy junk I've neglected!

So I visited one of Antigua's old ex-convents, the Iglesia y Convento Santa Clara. Highly recommended!!

 

 

 

 

Pictures can't capture the feeling that exists there. It was a convent (nunnery) in the 1700s. There's an incredibly strong energy there. It's as if you can still feel the nuns walking around and praying. Seriously. It's unreal.

 

I was so moved by the energy here, I prayed in this underground are that had been gated off (in the video below you can see the gate that I opened, it wasn't locked). And after I prayed I took this video where I discovered this dark underground passageway I hadn't seen before. It just turns out black in this video, but I go far into it, then totally wuss out and run back to the entrance: 

 

 

 

You'd think the graffiti would take away from its charm but it only adds to it. It's cool to see the culmination between the new and old generations. Above says "Chinese guy and Reyna." Aww. Hopefully someday she'll be Mrs. Chinese Guy.

I also went to several other old sites that have been turned into museums. They were cool too, but they've built a huge hotel right on the same grounds and so they didn't have that same intense old energy that Santa Clara had. I'll never forget it.

I'm going to miss a lot of things about Antigua. One of them is this restaurant, El Café de Santa Clara (which, you guessed it, is near the ex-convent):

 

I was obsessed with the Club Sandwich there. It's got grilled chicken, mortadella (which I still don't know what it is, but the mystery adds to the sandwich. Shout out to whichever animal I have no idea I'm supporting getting slaughtered in a manner I also have no idea of. You did it for me.), cheese (which I get without), lettuce, and tomato. I get the side of grilled vegetables. This will turn you gay for sandwiches:

 

 

 

They also just happen to have a market right in the middle of the restaurant (which is awesome because I was staying 2 blocks away. They had avocadoes when NOWHERE else in town did one day). They ALSO have a bakery. Yes. You could live here. 

 

That's actually another thing I love and will miss about Antigua. All the double-businesses. Take a look:

 

 

We're a bakery ("panaderia") but we also book travel tours!

 

You can't see this because my camera sucks, but the above photo is an pay-per-minute internet lounge but they also sell water, beer, and sweets. 

 

We sell primarily food but also a heap of diapers. Why not, your kid's gonna crap their pants eating our food anyway, right? 

 

After buying some flowers, aren't you the mood to rent one of our scooters? Basically, we're the whole "Europe" experience.

 

 

 

We're a Spanish school AND we'll do your laundry! Don't ask questions.



 

This is my favorite. We're an pay-per-use internet/phone lounge that also does photo copies and certain times of the week, we're a medical clinic too! We offer a Facebook-breast exam package rate! 

 

 I will also miss the plantains, although they will be available all over Central American probably. 

 

 

Fried plantains with tons of sugar. The first one tastes great! The second one also tastes great! The third one is like, wow there's a lot of sugary fat sloshing around in my mouth. The fourth is like: 

 

Think of it like their version of Krispy Kreme.

 

I'm also going to miss the randomness of Antigua. Anything goes there. One example is this very pushy Mayan woman who tried to sell a scarf to my friend, the other volunteer Anita, while we were in the town square.

"Come on, hurry. No sale, no business. 23 dollars. You take it." I was thinking, wow, what a sassy Mayan! "Name price. No sale is no business. Let's go. No sale, no business." Only a couple decades ago, the Mayans in this country were the victim of a government-perpetrated genocide. So all I could think was, You go, Sassy Mayan.

Here's another example of what I mean:

 



 

Looks like two sweet ladies sitting down, chatting, right? Think again! Take a look at the bottom board game: 

 

 

That translates to "Sexual power." My only regret of this trip, nay, my life -- is that I didn't get to play it with them.  

 

And this... I don't know why they're white, I don't know why they're so poorly superimposed, and I don't know why the husband is so sad while the rest of his family skips in a field, but I don't care. I love it. 

Where else but Antigua would you meet such a mash of different people (save for any given AA meeting)?

Goodbye Antigua! 

 

And hello... Honduras!

 

Wow!

I arrived to Copan, Honduras today via a 4am bus ride from Antigua. I like it better than Antigua already because it's smaller and feels more like the country:

 

 

 

 

 

This man showed me this relic camera on his front porch, which he said was the very first camera ever to record the Copan Ruins -- the Mayan ruins that the town is famous for. He then admitted he was drunk after I took this picture! (no joke)

 

Honduras' currency, the Lempira.



 

Makin it lightly drizzle yall! 

 

When I got here, there was no power and no running water for 7 hours, so I did what any other person would do and began forming a tribe. By noon I had half the town underneath me and we killed the others to survive. Once the power came back on, we felt a little silly. But there's no regrets. NO REGRETS.

 

The power/water outage really did last for 7 hours (probably longer because I arrived in the middle of it). My hotel management (which I love -- Hotel Don Moises is great!) told me it happens 3-4 times a week.

 

During the power outage, hordes of locals flocked to this bar, which has a generator, to watch soccer: 

It wasn't even a live game... That's cool.

 

Always nice to see a middle-school age boy working on a Sunday selling knives. It just goes to prove, education is for wusses.

 

I'll be here in Copan for three days before hitting the El Salvadorian beaches. Thanks for reading and keep checking back to see what kooky adventures your author winds up falling into next! Oh ber-other!