Copan Ruinas
We are now in copan ruinas. i am in a small internet cafe and so far am unable to figure out how to capitalize letters. hm. i can turn on caps lock, but i FIGURE THAT WOULD LOOK WAY WORSE than just doing all lower case. so please bear with me. i also haven{t figured out how to type a colon or an apotstrophe. this could get ugly...
our bus trip yesterday was fine. hassle free. but as i mentioned in the last post, it is quite interesting bringing soren to a place like this. for example, here is a conversation we had on the bus...
SOREN...Mama, arent those mountains beautiful. (sheesh, seems like the question mark is missing too...)
me...yes, they sure are.
soren...but you know what i hate
me....uh, what (we have been working on the hate word lately, but i guess it hasnt quite sunk in.)
soren...all the garbage!!! why do they have so much garbage everywhere
hm, i didnt really know what to say. why do they have so much garbage. is it too much to explain that these people are so poor that the last thing on their mind is whether or not the neighbor hood is tidy. is that even true. i just told him i didnt know.
later on last night he was eating a granola bar as we walked through town. he had the wrapper in his hand and i could see the wheels of his mind spinning.
soren...mama, it is ok if we make a mess of honduras.
me....no, actually it is not, we like honduras so we will put our trash in the trash can.
soren...oh, ok.
another interesting conversation from the bus was when he noticed the ramshackle houses along the road. mud brick, or cinder block, or maybe some corrugated aluminum. pretty tough conditions. soren pointed out all the OLD houses. he even made a point of saying that people dont live there anymore. when i told them that people did live there, he just flat refused to believe me. no way. those houses are too old, no one lives there.
today was a really great day. we woke up early and got a running start against the heat of the day. we had a lovely breakfast and then walked over to the mayan ruins of copan. they were really spectacular. soren was great. he loved climbing all over them and exploring everything. he really had a great time. i do suspect though that our conversation from yesterday about the old houses could continue for awhile...on the walk to the ruins he kept pointing out peoples houses and asking if those were ruins too.
we are staying in a lovely hotel. it is actually funny to watch how our travel habits change with Soren. pre soren, we were quite content to get one of the cheapest places in town. truly, perfectly content. we didnt sleep in disgusting, or filthy place (well, not too often) but we would always choose the cheapest place that was safe and clean. so while walking around town yesterday looking for a place to sleep, it was hard to break out of that habit. i found plenty of acceptable places for $25 to $30 a night. Peter and i would have jumped at them years ago. but with soren wanting to play with his cars on the floor, or climb on everything we just require a bit more. and with him we spend more time in the room too. we used to say why spend money on a hotel that you barely use...but now we are there for a few hours for his afternoon nap, and for 12 hours at night. so it adds up. anyway, it brings us to wanting to step up a bit. the funny thing is how hard that is for me! it isnt like we{re staying at the ritz or anything, but weve found ourselves a lovely, clean, safe, airconditioned $50 per night hotel. it is funny to watch us adjust to these changes.
One other interesting thing to observe is sorens reaction to the armed guards that are so common. they are outside banks, but also some restaurants, bus stations and less likely place. they all have big scary looking guns. so of course soren wants to know who they are going to shoot. oy. i told them they were there to help people, but he just wasnt going to be satisfied with that. so i said that if people were being mean that the guards would make them go away. he wanted to know if they would shoot them. so, i said yes. since then hes been asking where the bad guys are. peter told him that they all left town when he got here.
tomorrow we are heading out to a coffee and cardamom plantation. it sounds really great. it is a run as a small guest house so we will sleep and eat there and theyll take us on tours of the farm and surrounding countryside. cant wait.
p.s. i was hoping to be able to upload some pictures from my camera here tonight. but i think i may be working on the actual original first personal computer ever made. i don{t think it is quite up to the task of a usb download! perhaps in one of our future stops. for now a description will have to suffice...we are all a bit dusty and sweaty, but we are all smiling.
our bus trip yesterday was fine. hassle free. but as i mentioned in the last post, it is quite interesting bringing soren to a place like this. for example, here is a conversation we had on the bus...
SOREN...Mama, arent those mountains beautiful. (sheesh, seems like the question mark is missing too...)
me...yes, they sure are.
soren...but you know what i hate
me....uh, what (we have been working on the hate word lately, but i guess it hasnt quite sunk in.)
soren...all the garbage!!! why do they have so much garbage everywhere
hm, i didnt really know what to say. why do they have so much garbage. is it too much to explain that these people are so poor that the last thing on their mind is whether or not the neighbor hood is tidy. is that even true. i just told him i didnt know.
later on last night he was eating a granola bar as we walked through town. he had the wrapper in his hand and i could see the wheels of his mind spinning.
soren...mama, it is ok if we make a mess of honduras.
me....no, actually it is not, we like honduras so we will put our trash in the trash can.
soren...oh, ok.
another interesting conversation from the bus was when he noticed the ramshackle houses along the road. mud brick, or cinder block, or maybe some corrugated aluminum. pretty tough conditions. soren pointed out all the OLD houses. he even made a point of saying that people dont live there anymore. when i told them that people did live there, he just flat refused to believe me. no way. those houses are too old, no one lives there.
today was a really great day. we woke up early and got a running start against the heat of the day. we had a lovely breakfast and then walked over to the mayan ruins of copan. they were really spectacular. soren was great. he loved climbing all over them and exploring everything. he really had a great time. i do suspect though that our conversation from yesterday about the old houses could continue for awhile...on the walk to the ruins he kept pointing out peoples houses and asking if those were ruins too.
we are staying in a lovely hotel. it is actually funny to watch how our travel habits change with Soren. pre soren, we were quite content to get one of the cheapest places in town. truly, perfectly content. we didnt sleep in disgusting, or filthy place (well, not too often) but we would always choose the cheapest place that was safe and clean. so while walking around town yesterday looking for a place to sleep, it was hard to break out of that habit. i found plenty of acceptable places for $25 to $30 a night. Peter and i would have jumped at them years ago. but with soren wanting to play with his cars on the floor, or climb on everything we just require a bit more. and with him we spend more time in the room too. we used to say why spend money on a hotel that you barely use...but now we are there for a few hours for his afternoon nap, and for 12 hours at night. so it adds up. anyway, it brings us to wanting to step up a bit. the funny thing is how hard that is for me! it isnt like we{re staying at the ritz or anything, but weve found ourselves a lovely, clean, safe, airconditioned $50 per night hotel. it is funny to watch us adjust to these changes.
One other interesting thing to observe is sorens reaction to the armed guards that are so common. they are outside banks, but also some restaurants, bus stations and less likely place. they all have big scary looking guns. so of course soren wants to know who they are going to shoot. oy. i told them they were there to help people, but he just wasnt going to be satisfied with that. so i said that if people were being mean that the guards would make them go away. he wanted to know if they would shoot them. so, i said yes. since then hes been asking where the bad guys are. peter told him that they all left town when he got here.
tomorrow we are heading out to a coffee and cardamom plantation. it sounds really great. it is a run as a small guest house so we will sleep and eat there and theyll take us on tours of the farm and surrounding countryside. cant wait.
p.s. i was hoping to be able to upload some pictures from my camera here tonight. but i think i may be working on the actual original first personal computer ever made. i don{t think it is quite up to the task of a usb download! perhaps in one of our future stops. for now a description will have to suffice...we are all a bit dusty and sweaty, but we are all smiling.
How do you guys find these places?! (cardamom plantation) Seriously. I am interested in how you do it. Is it just through the internet, books, what? I gotsta know!
ReplyDeleteI loved reading your description of your Honduran adventure thus far. Soren's comments were classic! I would agree with everything you said about travel...and kind of most things when you have kids.
ReplyDeleteWhen Clara was a newborn we went to the coast for a weekend. Bub booked a cheap hotel online...when we walked in that place was sick! Back in the day it would have been borderline acceptabel, but with a toddler and a newborn...Mama bear stepped in and demanded better for her little cubs (with both Dad and the hotel managers). We were at the Holiday Inn in no time!
Facinating comments from Soren! I honestly wouldn't know what to say. It's hard to 'splain things like that to Sociology 101 students, let alone toddlers. It's interesting to see what he notices, and how he puts 2 and 2 together.
ReplyDeleteSo Honduras is where my old Comador computer went. Hmmm.
Soren has some good questions! I can't wait to see some pictures of your adventure.
ReplyDelete