It was my first meeting with Central America and I had no idea what to expect. I literally entered that world with a clean slate....
I remember having to promise my grandmother in the airport that I would come home again in one piece. But the worst part was that I had to promise my dad that I would call as soon as I got to London and again when I arrived in Miami on Skype...and then he started crying....
My Dad never cries :-/ ....I'd travelled many times before, but never this far away again I guess...so I had an emotionally tough beginning to my journey...
I travelled from DK to Heathrow, London, Heathrow-Miami, Miami-San Pedro Sula in Hoduras...and when I got there I had to spend the night at a hotel and then take the bus to La Ceiba. On the bus I met an american missionary, a young girl Nicole, who worked as a teacher for other Missionaries in the Jungle....She'd been home in the states for a visit and was returning to La Ceiba where she would be picked up by the father of the family she was working for and travel with him the rest of the way.
To this day Im so thankful that she chose to sit down next to me and began talking to me, because when we arrived to La Ceiba there was nobody to pick me up!
I was standing in foreign country where almost nobody spoke English and nobody understood my spanish....Apparently there are to kinds of Spanish...there is Spain Spanish....and there is latin America Spanish...Two very different languages with very few similarities.
I'd been promised there would be someone to pick me up when I would arrive at the bus station in La Ceiba, but there were no one there! 30 minutes went by.....60 minutes....90 minutes....
Frantically I borrowed Nicole's phone and called my contact person/ boss in the environmental organization to ask where the heck the person was....turned out they'd mixed up my arrival date and they still hadn't found any place for me to live in....A bloody nightmare!
Finally I got picked up by someone from the office who spoke english, Jorge, and it was decided I could rent the small apartment under the office. It had a bed, air-condition, a table and chair and thats about it.... But hey, jet lagged and slightly pissed, the basics were more than enough...I just wanted to sleep...
I spent the the next two days in bed where I just slept. On the third day, my boss arrived and showed me around La Ceiba....Honduras is such a beautiful country. I never expected it to be so....green! If you're a nature fan like me, you'd love it...!
This is a Ceiba tree....these huge trees used to surround the city and the city was therefore named after the city. I was lucky enough a class mate of mine had lived in Honduras before and was doing her internship about 30 km from La Ceiba, so I knew at least one person there! :D The nature really is so darn green there and the houses are all painted in neon bright colors or with a huge advertisement on them. Of course there's a lot of poverty, but the people I met were in general in high spirit. They celebrate and live life every day. Something we in the West tend to forget sometimes.
The one thing I wasn't all that crazy about was the fact that cockroaches were EVERYWHERE! I didn't even want to cook in office kitchen because of all them...and they were HUGE! Im not joke....I say some of them that were at the size of my fist! The fuckers had wings! :-/
I had a bodyguard in form of this little guy
Although he wasn't that helpful when I discovered a scorpion while showering....But he quite often would his way into the bathroom and hallway so I sort of Adopted him and named him Frederick. :) The Scorpion....died a horrible death as I screamed so loud that the building's guard broke down the doors, thinking I was being attacked, saw the scorpion and killed it with a huge knife. I was fine....the only thing hurt was my dignity and pride from the guard seeing me butt naked.... :-/
The violence and the 'everyone carries a gun everywhere' was another thing I wasn't to thrilled about. Sadly Honduras is a very corrupt and drug filled country so there's a lot of violence in the country...I saw people get shut :(.....shoot up and people taking bribes in broad day light...but the good things far out way the sad things. I met some wonderful people where as well. People are generally nice and even though they didn't always understand the little Danish gringa, we communicated through sign language of sorts and laughs. You can get far with a smile :)
Sadly I got Tropical fewer and had to leave Honduras after a couple of months, but Im def. going back one day. I did not see or experience all that I wanted to so one day I'll be back...I might even stop by and say hi to Frederick ;)
I would love to to travel through all of the countries in Central America simply for the history and the nature....but ultimately, I want to return to the wonders of Honduras
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