Happy Valentine´s Day from Honduras!

Dear All who are taking time to read of our fun,

I hope everyone feels some love today in honor of St. Valentine, the patron saint of lace doilies and glitter hearts.

Judy and Maria enjoyed another night of tropical birds screeching, dogs barking and roosters crowing while Britta and Pam seem to be sticking to their story about sleeping like a couple of logs through the whole thing. Last night we noticed there was an additional noise provided by a neighbor who decided to do some home improvement project starting at 10:00 p.m. Fortunately it was a low tech project that only iovolved hammering rather than the full power tool complement. We are fully expecting that tonight he will decide to spend time ¨bustin´up that old chiffarobe¨at about midnight!

But in spite of the local auditory ambience....

We had another fun day here with the morning spent at another location of the Mayan ruins that was basically the residential neighborhoods rather than the Mayan downtown. Britta repeated her feats of daring as we all clambered up and down the heights of the homes and altars of the ancients and looked into their tombs and kitchens. Another good guide who spoke Spanish and Pam and I did our best in the simuultaneous translation department but Britta and Judy are really developing an ear for the language since they have strong backgrounds in French.

After a couple of hours doing the Mayan version of chutes and ladders Britta and Pam returned to the cool of the hotel to rest and Maria and Judy hitched a ride back to the other site of the ruins and just lounged around like a couple of sacred jaguars soaking in the atmosphere and people watching. The Honduran kids are so gorgeous and they all shyly look at you sideways with those liquid brown eyes and silky cocoa complexions. I guess I should say with the exception of the 12 year old girl who tried to sell Maria and Judy some weed on the main plaza last night while we were enjoying an ice cream cone. I guess she did not notice the gray hair in the dark!

Then we hoofed it back to town in the steaming heat and sun and treated ourselves to some creamy pineapple and banana smoothies. We picked up our laundry on the way to the hotel and my only comment to future travellers is to spend the extra 5 minutes and hand wash your underwire bras because they do not tolerate whatever system was used to, basically, re-wire the garment and remove all the fastener clasps!

After lovely cool showers we felt human again and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon reading and catching up on more coffee drinking and lounging. Tomorrow we have the ¨Mother of All Travel Days¨that will begin with a 5:00 a.m. bus ride with one connection to get us to La Ceiba and then a taxi to the ferry station and a ferry ride to Roatan Island where we will be met by Enrique at 6:00 p.m. and we will have a grocery store stop en route to the cabana.

love to all,

Maria and fellow adventure women, Pam, Judy and Britta