More Honduras Updates

We're now in Northern Honduras, at a small jungle lodge in one of the national parks. Peter went on a great hike up into the jungle today. It was a bit too much to manage for a three year old, so Soren and I stayed behind and did our own mini jungle exploration. The funny thing is that Soren was actually not looking forward to coming to the jungle. I think he had some preconceived notions of monkeys chasing us. But we've not encountered any attacking monkeys so far, so I think he's kind of coming around.

Yesterday was the day of the trip that I was least looking forward to. In order to manage all the things I'd strung together, we had one long day of bus travel yesterday to get one from one spot to the next. We were able to have a leisurely morning and a good breakfast before we headed out, but much of the rest of the day was spent on a bus, or waiting for one. It wasn't bad, just long. As usual though, Soren was a trooper about the whole thing.

We had a few experiences worth noting though,

> On our very first night in the country, we forgot to take his teddy bear when we left the hotel. Somehow poor teddy must have been hidden under the sheets in the hotel, and we missed it when we did our final sweep. Of course, we didn't notice it until it was much too late to retrieve dear teddy. Since then, I've been improvising all sorts of "things to snuggle" for Soren when he goes to sleep. Mostly it has been towels tied in a knot. Imperfect, but somewhat effective. Yesterday in the place we transferred buses there was a big shopping center. Soren and I strolled around while we waited to catch our next bus. At one store they had several HUGE bins of stuffed animals. Score! But as we dug through the pile, it became very clear that these were all used stuffed animals. And as we dug further it also became clear that many of the items had come from US garage sales! Some still had handwritten stickers that said "50 cents! Brand new!" Some were broken. Many were filthy. But we did dig a bit and found one that looked like he hadn't ever been used, tags still on. So I bought my son a used, garage sale reject, stuffed animal to snuggle with for the rest of our trip.

> As we were having breakfast yesterday, a young girl...maybe 10 years old...came by leading her blind father, or grandfather. They were begging. We've seen this type of thing fairly often in our previous travels. Peter, being his very kind and generous self, reached to get some money for them. He wanted to give it to Soren to give to them. But I just couldn't let him do that. For me, the whole idea of begging evokes so many complex reactions. Compassion for sure. Pity. And yet, sometimes it seems that by giving beggars money, we are agreeing with them that the only option they have is to beg for others to help them. That we are agreeing that they don't have anything of value to offer. And that just isn't right. I like buying things that they might be selling, or doing something that allows me to react to them on a more equal level, rather than just living out the haves vs. have nots story again and again. In the end, we didn't give them money. I don't know if it was the right thing to do. They needed money, and we didn't give it to them. So, maybe it wasn't the right thing to do. But not even really understanding my own beliefs on the subject made it too daunting to try to explain to Soren.

> Remember my previous post where I said that I was upgrading our hotel standards for Soren. Well, scratch that. He's now become an indoctrinated member of the dodgy hotel club! It started out in our time on the farm. While that was a great experience, I wouldn't say the accomodations were exactly sparkling. But we did just fine. So when we got back to town, we didn't splash out again for the $50 hotel, but found a clean and very basic option for $15. Welcome Soren to the type of traveling your parents love!

> And also, Soren, welcome to the type of traveling your parents don't love...the kind where you arrive after dark in a dodgy town which means that when your bus arrives you have to grab a taxi and have him take you to a hotel you aren't really sure about. And when you get there, you feel like if it is even remotely reasonable you'll take it because riding a taxi through a dark and dodgy town is even less appealing. That is how we ended up at the Hotel Principe last night. After Soren's bed time. It was the kind of hotel that had lots of locals milling around the lobby, always a bad sign. But it had a good deadbolt, and a Pizza Hut around the corner. Peter ran to grab us a yummy pizza while I got Soren ready for bed. Then we "had a party in our room" to quote Soren. It was actually kind of sweet, all of us huddled around a Pizza Hut box in a dingy hotel room under a dangling light bulb. Tonight, here in our jungle lodge when it came time for dinner Soren said he wanted "to go to Pizza Hut, but not eat it there but just take it back to our hotel room." I guess he does recognize a good thing when he sees it.

So, it looks like tomorrow we'll be heading for our final destination of the trip. Roatan. A fabulous island that is famous for its great SCUBA diving. Soren has been looking forward to the beach the whole time, and Peter and I are of course looking forward to the diving. We'll be there for the last 8 days of our vacation. It will truly be a "vacation" type of stop. We're very much looking forward to it. The one down side is that the Internet services on the island are much more expensive. So, I'm not too sure how much I'll be updating the blog.