THE BEST PART ABOUT OUR VACATION!!!!!

This post highlights what was my favorite part of the trip. Although, I must admit I never thought I would say that. We did a zipline tour in the mountains near Copan and I seriously think that no one should leave this existance before doing a zipline!!! The guide put us(Nate, me and his friends) in the truck and drove and drove and drove up a mountain until I didn't think he could drive anymore, and then he kept driving! YIKES!! I was getting very nervous about how high it would be. In fact, I couldn't even eat that day in anticipation of what was to come. I thought it would be horrible and scary, but I was SO wrong. It was GREAT!!! Once at the top of the mountain, they put us in a harness and connected us to the first zipline. It was a fifteen zipline tour. We went from one platform to another. One zipline was a kilometer long and about 200 feet high. The views were breathtaking and beautiful. We could see everything. At the end of each leg, there was a guide to catch us and make sure we were safe. In this picture you can see him wating for me.

Nate's expression in this picture pretty much sums up how we felt about the tour. He did it last time he was visiting and told me we just HAD to do it. I'm so glad we did.

I like this picture because it show how pretty it was! Everything was so green.

Here we are waiting for our turn in our gear. We were loving life.

A visit to the Mayan Ruins

One of the most interesting things we did on our vacation was go the Mayan Ruins in Copan. At this point, we met up with some of Nate's friends that were down there at the same time. We hired a tour guide and it was very informative. Unfortunately, we don't have pictures of them from the ruins. Maybe in another post. The ruins are just outside the city and they are said to be the 'Paris' of the Mayan cities. In this first picture is the Heiroglyphic staircase. This picture does not do the size of this thing justice. It is enormous. Each little stone in the staricase is individually engraved. They are in the process of restoring it and so it's covered by a canvas to protect it from the elements.

Here is our tour guide, Antonio. He was very knowledgable and also very funny. He actually gave a tour to Spener W Kimball about 20 years ago. When he told us that, we knew that we wanted him as our tour guide. He's not LDS, but he has read the Book of Mormon. He knew everything there was to know about the history, the ruins, the Mayan culture. Here he is with what he says is his brother because they have the same teeth. Only 2 on the bottom with a big space in the middle. He was a crack up.

This area is actually an arena where they played sports.

Just an arial veiw of some of the ruins. All in all, the place was a lot bigger than I expected it to be and it was amazing to think of what into building all of this so long ago! Definately a must see if you're going to Central Ameica.

Some intersting things at the Ruins

On our way into the ruins, they have a spot that has a bunch of parrots that were so pretty! I loved their bright colors and thought this was a cool picture.

Our tour guide showed us this Ceiba tree. It was such an amazing tree! These little spiny things grow out of the tree and then fall off. He said the tree produces cotton that apparantly isn't used for anything.

Here is a close up picture of what the spiny things look like.

Technical difficulties

Hey everyone! Just wanted to give a little update. We are currently on the island of Roatan and it is an ISLAND PARADISE! I never want to leave. There are tons of pictures that I am dying to post, but the connection on the island is awful, so I am having a very hard time downloading the pictures. On top of that, we can barely even get our wireless to come up at our hotel! We are having the time of our life and will post some fun pics as soon as we can.

Horseback riding to the Mayan Village

We hired a tour guide and went horseback riding to a Mayan Village. This was very cool and also very informative. Our tour guide, Francisco was alot of fun and knew alot about the area. Here we are next to our horses. I know the hat is a little ridiculous, but I needed something to sheild my face. Lol.

These are some pictures we took along the way. That town in the distance is Copan.

I love this picture that Nate took. He is definately enjoying the camera we bought for the trip!

Mayan Village

When we got to the Mayan village, Francisco took us into a hut that a local family lives in and they gave us beans and tortillas. They make their homes out of mud and sticks and apparantly the houses last for about 8 years. We look like giants next to this woman. She was the one who fed us. The hut is just one room and the whole family lives there. It is about the size of a regular famly room in utah. It was really cool to see what their culture is like!

I couldn't resist taking this little boy's picture. He saw us and came running with his bow and arrow and was showing off for us by shooting it all over the place. I pretended to be scared and hid behind Nate and he seemed very amused by it.

This is Mirna, she is quite the persistant little thing. The second that she saw us come into the village, she ran and got he cornhusk flowers and wanted us to buy them. I told her, "tengo no dinero" so she pointed to Nate and said, "el". It was pretty funny. It didn't take her long to figure out where the money was. Then she followed us aound the village for about an hour. She only lost interest in us when she saw other Americans coming. We see how it is!

Here is Mirna with some of the other kids in the village. They were very cute and happy to see us.

We made it!

This picture expresses the way I feel about our LONG journey to Honduras! It started with a short one hour flight to LA, with a seven hour layover(as stated in the last post), a six hour flight to Panama City, a one hour and fifteen minute flight to Costa Rica, a one hour and fifteen minute flight to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, a five hour bus ride to San Pedro Sula and then another three and a half hour bus ride to Copan, Honduas. WHEW! Don't forget about all the layovers. By the time we got to San Pedro Sula, it had been about 26 hours of traveling and I WAS DONE!!!! We stayed over night in SPS at a nice B&B owned by a very sweet lady named Sandra. We then took the bus in the morning to Copan. I have never been so happy to arrive somewhere in my life! That afternoon, we were kinda beat, so we wandered around town and took some pictures. The area is very hot and humid, which makes it very green. It's gorgeous. This picture is taken from the roof of our hotel.

We went into the town square and they were having a huge festival with kids so took some pictures of them jumproping. I thought it was cute.

This gives a better idea of what the streets look like here. It is a very hilly town, covered with nothing but cobblestone, so we are getting our exercise. Don't you think they did a great job organizing the telephone and electric wires....or not!

That night, we met a friend that we made on the bus for dinner at a pizza place. Her name is Alicia(and of course we forgot to take a picture) and she is down here on her own working for a nonprofit organiztion. It's a childrens organization and she is doing a food survey. Since the flour, sugar, salt, cornmeal and basic foods down here don't have proper nutrients, alot of babies are born with spinabiphida and cleft pallets. So they are trying to pass a bill with legislature to put the nutrients in the food so that pregnant women will be getting the nutrition without even knowing it, and will be more likely to have healthy babies. It was really interesting to be able to talk to her. We also go to talk a little about the church and our missions and inform her that Mormons are not polygamists :)

We're on our way!

For those of you who don't know, we left for Honduras on Thurdsday night. It has already been an adventure. Since it's hot here, every once in a while we need some down time in the air conditioned hotel room, so I will be blogging some of our adventures while we are on the trip. The night we left, we had a layover in LA for about 7 hours. Luckily Nate has a friend, Nate Goodrich who lives in Huntington Beach, who was good enough to take us around. First things first, Nate G. had a city league basketball game and needed an extra guy. Nate quickly agreed and we spent the first hour at a local high school. It was fun to see him play. After the game, we came back to Nate G's apt,(which is 2 blocks from the beach) where they showered then we headed out for an evening on the town. The best part was we rode some beach cruisers over to downtown Huntington Beach. It was amazing! The weather was perfect and it is so beatiful there. I felt like I was in a dream world!

We walked out the edge of the pier to see the ocean and eat at a local hamburger place called Ruby's, but by then it was about 9 o'clock, so it was closed. We had a tough time finding an open resaurant, but finally found a little mexican place right across from the beach. By the time dinner was done, it was time to get to the airport back in LA for our 2 am flight. Ugh!