New photos & writing:
How was it?
Well... I wore a bikini and listened to reaggeton for a week straight. I bonded with some fish, including one very special cephalopod, some travelers, a few locals, but mostly with myself. I spent a week scuba diving, staying on a tiny cay, off of a tiny island called Utila in the very south of the Caribbean. Afterwards I barely escaped a throwback techno beach party, fortunately finding a way to a quaint, if touristy, spanish-colonial style town at the base of the mountains of western Honduras, called Copan Ruinas to check out some, yes, ruins. But while there I also enjoyed a crowded semana santa (Easter) festival/procession, a weird water park with a cow museum, a butterfly garden and finally took a horseback ride to a Maya Chorti village, La Pintada, where I received a very special greeting in song from a dozen or so schoolgirls.
Lots of photos from the trip have been scanned and added to the site for what hopefully amounts to your viewing pleasure. I only shot film, save for a few underwater shots, so please forgive my somewhat crappy scanner. view photos
Also, I wrote down some details about what I encountered while there, then wrote about them some more when I got back. Here’s an excerpt:
The first bus ride from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba reminds me instantly of why I keep coming here. Two beautiful, too-young mothers sit across from me with their astonishing children, one a boy the other a girl. The boy plays constantly with his little portable radio for most of ride, displaying it proudly on his belt like a cell-phone when the time comes to exit the bus. The girl bounces from seat to seat, restless, bothering the two young women who wear low-cut shirts, silver and hot pink, jeans, studded belts and high-heels. Traditional Mexican music plays loudly over the speakers for the entire four-hour, four-dollar ride, while a slideshow of scenery, equal parts breathtaking natural beauty and cinderblock squalor, flickers by. read more
and last but not least:
Honduras