Good-byes

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Yesterday was the last day and since we had plans to leave at 4:00am, I figured that it would be easier to not go to sleep at all, as did Rob and Elissa for a period of time at least. We went into town and I got my picture taken with various people, and then said good-bye to those I would not see in the morning, and Elissa and Hannah and I walked around for a little bit. Eventually we went to Alexander and Raina's house upon their invitation, and had a nice visit with all of them for a while, and then we began to get tired and rather cold so we decided to go back to Buenavista. We met up with Johannes and Noel and his friend Daniel, so we all walked back together. I didn't feel like just staying there and trying to be quiet enough to not wake up the others, so I suggested we go to this place where they have a cross on the mountain. The mountain was small and there was a path going up it, and gives a nice view of the town. (Unfortunately my camera's batteries were dead so I didn't get a picture.) Anyway so Rob, Elissa, Noel, Daniel and I all set off back towards town to this hill. They kind of slowed and stopped for a time once we arrived in the town, but then they apparantly decided to come along with us anyway, because they kind of felt that they should look out for us since sometimes random people can come into the village and not be nice to those who are foreigners, so that was kind of them. Anyway we made our way up the hill, being as quiet as possible so as to not wake up all the millions of dogs that there are, but our efforts were quiet in vain and we did not manage to go through without the warnings of a zillion dogs going up loudly. We arrived at the top and spent some time sitting there and talking, and it was quite lovely and I wish I could have taken a picture of it all...Anyway then we descended after some time, and went to the good old street corner where many like to sit, disturbing some more dogs on the way. Daniel parted ways with us, but Noel stayed on, because he was waiting for his cousin for some random reason, so he just stuck around with us. We sat there until it once again started to become too cold, and then we went back to Buenavista. Rob and I stayed up for a little while longer, but then I began to drift toward the edge of sleep and decided that I should probably get a couple of hours in. It turned out we were supposed to leave at 5:00am instead, and so that time rolled around and I woke up and packed everything else into my suitcase as quckly as possible, then after we had said some more goodbyes we took off on the walk from Buenavista to El Suyatal for the last time, for now at least. It was all very said and I wished I would have had more time to stay and get to know people more, but it was nice to have seen some of them before we had left. We had a prayer with all who had gathered at the bus to see us off, and then we loaded in and took off.
Today almost became a replay of approximately 1 month ago – except today we travelled for 9 hours by bus rather than by plane. Let's just say that by the end of it I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to walk normally again. Being cramped into a little bus (although it was comfortable) for 9 hours was a bit much to say the least. I was on the verge of insanity I think by the time we arrived here, and where we are I am not exactly positive of the name, but I believe we are outside of San Pedro Sula by a slight bit.

We are staying in 3 cottages, fairly nice buildings which are about a 700 metre walk from the beach. It is a nice location, and they have their own little small scale zoo type of thing. There are a couple of ostriches, a cougar, a jaguar, oceletes, monkeys, cappyberras, a wild hog, waterbuffalo, sheep, and the best of all...A TAPIR!! I was walking down the place where the animals are, and all of a sudden I beheld the tapir, and my day was immediately made complete! I went over the cage and it being curious came over to the fence, close enough so that I poked him on his nose, and then touched him on his back as well, which was surprisingly hard, kind of like a shell underneath some fur. Anyway it was awesome, and I took about a billion pictures of it because it thrilled my soul so greatly.

Then after supper/lunch we wanted to go swimming, despite the lack of sunshine and overabundancy of the clouds, it was a very nice time – the water was so warm, and there were some fairly nice waves as well. The view is incredible when you are in the water – if you look back towards the shore the beach streches for kilometres and behind along the horizon there is a mountain range of beautiful green-covered mountains, plus the palm trees in the foreground. Beautiful.