This weekend I just so happen to be among one of my favorite things: Mountains. I love to see them, climb them and ski them racing like wildfire down the terrain. There is something so magical about mountains. I will always find them mesmerizing.
Here are some photos from my first day skiing at Copper Mountain in Colorado. You will see that it was a magnificent day with brilliant sun and perfect powdery snow. I embraced every minute of it and let the exhilaration saturate my soul.
This post was written in response to Where’s my Backpack’s travel theme: Mountains. To. See more posts click here.
Author’s note: This post is part of my series on my recent trip to Honduras. To read past posts on Honduras, click here.
Perhaps the best thing about my volunteer trip to Honduras was the home stay. Going into the trip I was a bit worried. I had no idea what to expect. Would the family be nice? Would I be able to communicate enough in Spanish? Would I feel comfortable inside a strangers house for a week? And would I be able to sleep at night?
Memories of barking dogs and restless roosters from a previous home stay in Guatemala swam around my head. I had to be honest. I was nervous.
I also had no idea what to expect of the town I’d be living in for a week. I knew nothing about La Ceiba, a port town along the coast of Honduras. All I knew is what I’d read in Lonely Planet. That it was the third largest town and described as rather ugly. I also understood that it was probably going to be a bit more dangerous than Guatemala and that I probably wouldn’t be doing much exploring if any on my own. Thus, it was even more important that I liked my host family as I would be spending every evening inside the house with them and as we all know, nights can be long.
Looking out across the street from Gloria and Hugo’s house in La Ceiba.
Author’s note: This post is part of my series on my recent trip to Honduras. To read past posts on Honduras, click here.
I arrived at the port of La Ceiba around half past three with a jittery stomach. I was a ball of nerves worrying about my ability to communicate effectively in Spanish and curious about what my host family would be like. It felt odd to just be dropped off all alone at the ferry station and have no idea what to expect. But I reminded myself I’d done it before and it turned out fine.
My first major culture shock had to do with the luggage collection. The hundreds of suitcases and bags were unloaded onto carts and wheeled into a large rectangular holding pin where one by one you had to yell out in Spanish what bag was yours to the three or four baggage handlers. You can imagine the difficulty trying to get my black piece of luggage! I was the last one standing until I finally got my belongings.
Author’s note: This post is part of my series on my recent trip to Honduras. To read past posts on Honduras, click here.
When I arrived at the ferry station and saw my fellow passengers, it was the first real indication that Roatan and the mainland of Honduras were worlds apart. Unlike the jam-packed United Airlines flight from Houston loaded with passengers dressed in their country club best, 98% of the ferry passengers were Honduran. I was the only blond-haired blue-eyed person on the entire ship of a couple hundred people.
As a mother, blogger and avid world traveler who annually travels alone, I’ve been following the story on Sarai Sierra, the missing New York mother of two, with interest and fear. I first heard the story from my parents who sent me an email with the link and told me that it concerned them. You see, in some ways I’m like this woman. I’m a mother, a solo traveler to what some would call dangerous places and share my life with thousands of strangers through my blog and other social media outlets like Twitter, Pinterest, Google + and Instagram.
Yet, in other ways I’m different. I have been out of the country many times and whenever I do travel solo, I’m not truly alone. I am always going through a volunteer organization based in the US that organizes the entire trip for me including contacts to meet and greet me at the airport, deliver me safely to a trusted and approved host family where I stay and keep in regular contact with me throughout my stay.
Sarai Sierra. Photo Credit: AP
Sarai had never been out of the country before and went to Turkey alone (after her friend canceled) to practice her photography skills. She had over 3,000 followers on Instagram, many whom she communicated with on the site.
I always like to follow the news on places I’ve visited before. It just so happens that China has been in the news big time recently and not in a good way. Apparently Beijing has been impacted by some of the most dangerous levels of pollution in history and it isn’t going away anytime soon. The pollution is at such hazardous levels that the Communist Governement has declared emergency measures to try to decrease the horrendous black soot in the air that is unhealthy for people to inhale. The air quality is so incredibly bad that people are advised not to venture outdoors.
Per today’s New York Times article titled Smog Blankets China’s Capital, “In the past three decades, China has adopted a growth-at-any-cost attitude to build its economy, and the resulting environmental damage is now widespread and severe”.
I was in Beijing a little over a year ago and had been shocked by the thick layer of pollution and smog blanketing and strangling the city like a murderer. Every single picture I shot while in Beijing was a huge disappointment given the pesky pollution that wouldn’t budge. It was slightly better in Shanghai yet still worrisome.
As more Chinese move up the ranks into the middle class and buy more cars, there is bound to be more problems with pollution and the damage to the environment will be unbearable. It points again to the need for all governments to come together and agree on how they should address climate change and the impact that over 7 billion people are making on this earth. Of course, Americans with their big, gas-guzzling cars need to help out too. We all do. But I hope something is done before it is too late.
I’m leaving you with a few photos I took while in Beijing last year and processed them with a new filter app called PhotoForge which I love. I’ve also been experimenting more with Instagram as well. If you are interested in checking me out there, I am under Thirdeyemom.
Author’s note: This post is part of my series on my recent trip to Honduras. To read more, click here.
My last morning in Roatan was a short one. I only had a few hours to explore before catching the early afternoon ferry over to the mainland where I would began my volunteer work and spanish courses the next morning.
Despite my hesitation, I decided to go check out the nearby Gumbalimba Park. Diane, the owner of West Baby B&B, highly recommended it yet I was a little concerned it would be a tourist trap. The admission to just the park was $30 and in my opinion is relatively expensive especially for Honduras.
I read a few reviews online and did a google search on the park which is known for its zipline canopy tour. The first thing I found in my search was a 2008 article about a cruise ship passenger who fell to her death from the zipline during an excursion to the park. I know that things like this can happen anywhere but it unnerved me. I decided to just go check the park out for its flora and fauna and pass this time on the canopy tour. All in all, the fun encounters with the monkeys and parrots made the park definitely worth the while and the photos made my children laugh hysterically. Check them out for yourself!
It must have been a sign of fate that I happened to be paging through the resort brochure the last night of my stay at the lovely Barefoot Cay and saw the two-page spread on Clinica Esperanza. Instantly I was taken by the story and by a stroke of luck the next morning, thirty minutes before my departure to the United States I found myself interviewing the very doctor who has dedicated the last several years of his life to helping build the clinic.
Author’s note: This post is part of my series on my recent trip to Honduras. To read more, click here.
After the sun dipped below the sea, it was time to take a walk along West Bay beach and scope out a place to eat. Diane from West Bay B&B had given me a little hand-made drawing of the beach and listed all her favorite places to eat. As a lover of Argentinian food, I decided to try the Argentinian parrilla or grill. But first I wanted to explore a little further down the beach and snap a few more photos especially because the crowds had died down and only a few remained to catch the last rays of light of the day.
Author’s note: This post is part of my series on my recent trip to Honduras. To read more, click here.
“Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven”. -John Lubbock
My first afternoon in Roatan was rather rushed and not really relaxing. I tend to get overly excited when I arrive at a new place and run a hundred miles an hour trying to cram in as much as possible. Unfortunately that tends to be my personality. But there was one thing that I wasn’t going to miss: The famous sunsets along West Bay. I had read that West Bay is the best place on the island to catch sunset over an icy cold beer and Diane at West Bay B&B even told me the perfect place: The Bananarama Bar and Grill. “Make sure you snap a shot of the sun setting through the palm trees” Diane said with a brilliant smile. “It can’t be missed“.
Roatan is in the largest and most popular of the three Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras and surrounded by the second largest barrier reef in the world: The Mesoamerican Reef that stems all the way down to Belize making it a diver’s paradise. Roatan is more touristy and developed than its neighbors Utila and Guanaja, yet this long narrow island of 50 km long has a little something special for everyone.
I opted to spend my first day and night in the lovely West Bay, located at the southern tip of the island and awash in picture perfect white sandy beaches and amazing snorkeling just steps away from the beach. It was a wonderful welcoming to such an amazing place!
This short path lead directly to the beach. It was less than five minutes from my hotel.
Author’s note: This is the fourth post in my series on my recent trip to Honduras. To read more, click here.
My volunteer work in Honduras was based in La Ceiba, the third largest city in the country, a port town located only an hour and a half ferry ride from Roatan. While researching my trip, I had read that Roatan was a beautiful place and since my flight to Honduras landed there, I thought it would be a good idea to check it out before heading over to the mainland. My plans were to spend a night and morning in Roatan in West Bay and spend another two nights on the island at the other end before my return home to the States.
I did my research and discovered that West Bay has the most spectacular beaches on the island with excellent snorkeling, restaurants and bars right at my fingertips. I didn’t want to spend much so I used TripAdvisor and found the perfect place, West Bay B&B. It was affordable and the location was perfect: Only one short block to the beach!
West Bay B&B, a great find for economically-minded tourists.
