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Friday, April 9, 2010

Lets Climb This Mountain...

Greetings again from Honduras. All is well in the land del Catracho. Last week was “Semana Santa.” We all know it as Holy Week. Here in Honduras, and most of Latin America, it’s the biggest travel time of the year.

Most people have the whole week off and everyone has Wed - Easter Sunday off. A lot of people go to the beach. But myself and a group of friends decided to do something else. More on that in a sec.

Before I left on that mini vacation, a new organization I am working with, AMPRO (A membership organization to better the profits and quality of small business owners and agro producers with micro-loans), requested I help them with a new label for there coffee. Score! I had been wanting to get involved in coffee for a while. A women’s group makes the coffee and it scores as some of the best in Honduras.

Below are some pics of the coffee and the women’s group displaying their product at a recent coffee fair in my town of Santa Rosa de Copán. Good times!







Alright, so for Semana Santa a group of us traveled out to Elisabeth’s site to climb a mountain there…one of the highest in Honduras called Picucha. Well this was no hike for jamokes (if you don’t know what a jamoke is, you don’t know me well). This was a 3 day two night hike that consisted of climbing mountains, scaling trees, and camping out in the jungle.

The great Calixto, a Honduran who lives in the hills of Catecamas, and his 12 year old son, guided us. That’s right he was 12, and is one impressive little guy.

So we climbed this beast and let me say, it was quite an experience. This was not a hike as much at it was a steep inclined climb and workout for 3 days. I felt it for days after.

For sleeping we had three tents, one of which was a 2-man tent that we crammed 4 into, and we were sleeping on hard earth and one night a tree stump. I didn’t sleep much at all. Not so fun at the time but hilarious as I think of it now.

In the end, we reached the top of the mountain. It was all worth it. Below is a picture of our guide and I at the top.



You can check out more pictures of the trip here

It wasn’t the relaxing semana santa vacation most have, but a challenging one with great friends. Just another reminder that during this experience, it’s not necessarily the places I go, but the people I am with, and the people that support me that makes all the difference.

To top it off, the end of this month marks a momentous occasion. My best boys from San Fran are making the trip down to visit and celebrate my birthday at the end of the month. We will scuba dive, relax, catch up and just have a good time. The dogs are comin'. Watch out Hondu.

…Until next time

1 comment:

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