La Esperanza.. Wk 1

Trip Start Apr 20, 2008
1
4
Trip End ??? ??, 2008


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Where I stayed
Con Familia Mendez Mesa
(La Esperanza hotels)

Flag of Honduras  ,
Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Our first week in La Esperenza was interesting... It´s loud (really loud.. Hondurans like their tunes cranking) and the majority of the streets are cobblestone or dirt which leaves everything permanantely covered in a fine veil of dust. House building is new and exciting and the family seem happy to have us there helping out. One of their daughters, Miss Dina Christina, is an absolute terror and infinately amusing. We ride in the affectionatly named ´piece of shit´ (officially the least well maintained pickup truck i have ever seen) for a good 25 minutes to and from project. In the course of the stay the POS would crash twice (thankfully not while we were in the back) and the journey would slowly work its way ever closer to 35 minutes... On the weekend we hitch to Gracias with Jorge and Kirsten (two of the other volunteers working in La Esperanza) and chill in the hot springs there. We also take the time to have a walk around the large fort overlooking the town, much to the delight of a group of young school kids who stop listening to their teacher and come to look at us. I overhear the teacher scolding them ¨NINOS.. Gringos no es especial!¨. 
It took two and a half hours to get from La Esperanza to gracias and a full four and a half to get back.. The lesson: Hitching is more reliable on a saturday morning than a sunday afternoon...On the way out we have luxury, lounging around in the back of a fancy new Hilux (it even had suspension, a rarity around here). On the way back we all have a near-death experience in the speed ute of death...we don´t know if the guy was trying to freak out the gringos or what, but unless you have been in the back of a speeding ute tearing around mountain bends with no regard to which side of the road it is on or what the speed limit is, I don´t know if you´ll understand. We all made our peace that day... The second part of the return trip was completed in the back of a cattle truck with a hole roughly 1 foot wide in the floor. Good times so far.
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