As I sit here on the balcony drinking my pina colada watching the girls swim and the boy sleep I will go over the past couple of days.

Our last day in Copan was spent zip lining and then enjoying a tasty meal at Twisted Tanya’s (our favourite place to eat and drink in Copan as the food is great and their lovely nanny watches the boy while we eat!!).

Tanya had set up a nanny for the boy so I got to go zip lining with everyone and it was a blast. There were way more cables than in Costa Rica or Guatemala. Lena and Jade both tried the “Superman” pose and of course Jade had to try it upside down and backwards, too. I thought I would be nervous watching my babies fly through the air but actually had a great time because the girls went first and were a great example.

The guides asked if we wanted to go upside down on one of the lines and we did. I went first and didn’t completely let go of my hands because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to grab the line in time to stop. Jason (of course!!) let go of his line and hung completely upside down. Yeah, it sounded like a great idea, however, it is actually very difficult to grab the line while flying through the air upside down. Jade and I were clipped onto the platform at the other end and Jason came flying at us so fast that we had to jump out of the way but we couldn’t get completely off because we were clipped on! The poor guide (1/2 Jason’s size) had to try and stop the crazy gringo cruising directly at him!! Thankfully Jason got a nice gash on his leg and learned a little lesson (otherwise he would have tried and tried until he figured out how to fly completely upside down on the zip lines, endangering the whole bunch of us!!).

It was a great way to end our stint in Copan and the next day we were off to Tela (on the North Caribbean Coast of Honduras) via Hedman Alas (the first class bus system). It was a rainy morning as we headed to the bus station, a perfect day for traveling. The folks at the bus station promptly took my boy from me and the rest of us took care of buying tickets and snacks for the trip. We were getting ready to board when all of a sudden we realized that none of us had the boy! A couple of panicked seconds later, the fellow loading our bags told us Reed was already on the bus.... They have stewards on the bus handing out snacks and drinks and that is what my son was doing ... only in Central America! The bus ride should have been uneventful, however the bus is quite far off of the ground and the road bumpy and curvy, so in the middle of the Bruce Willis movie, Lena gave me the now familiar look and grabbed the handy vomit bag in front of her. Enough said.

We had to do a little bus transfer (always fun with 3 kids and barely useful Spanish) and then we were on our way to Tela. We had rented a 2 bedroom apartment for a couple days and it was nice to be able to cook our own meals, but the weather was yukky so we decided to check out the town to see what else was around. Tela is right on the ocean, but it is a tad dirty and we are told not too safe. During our trek we found an all inclusive resort completely out of our price range. We ask to see a couple of rooms and weren’t all that impressed.... until we ask to see one of the “pool side rooms” and we saw the fantastic made for kids pool with water slides, bridges and paddling pool for the boy! And it is all on a stretch of lovely white sandy beach with free boogie board rentals. Yeah, screw the budget!

So that is why I am sitting here on our balcony watching the girls play in the pool and the boy wiped out and snoozing from his morning swim. Now this is what I’m talking about!! Ah look at that, another pina colada just showed up :o)

Oh, Jade just lost a tooth!!

Hot Springs in Copan

Well, we had our day of culture yesterday and decided to have some relaxing fun for a day (although there is a nice big bathtub in our hotel room which is a great luxury). We went to the travel agent around the corner from us below the restaurant "Twisted Tanya's" and Tanya offered us the use of her minivan to take the kids to the hot springs. She has a 9month old and an 8 yr old so she could feel our pain!! Jason was more than a little excited to get to drive again!

So, at the crack of noonish, we were off in the rented minivan. The drive out to the hot springs was lovely. There were villages all along the way, we had to drive through a little creek that went over the road and the valley was all green and lush. We almost drove right past the hot springs, but Jason caught the sign out of the corner of his eye and we all piled out. There were 2 man made pools full of the water from the hot springs and then you could go down to the river where the water was coming out the side of the mountain in a waterfall of boiling hot water. They re-arrange the rocks in the river to adjust the temp of the water as it is steaming hot right out of the waterfall!!

While we were in the man made pools, we had the requisite Honduran cuties in bikinis come by to scoop Reed and take pictures with him. I swear, every time I turn around someone I have never met is holding him. Pretty fantastic because he has become a squirmy little thing and I am thankful for the break...

I skipped out on Jason and the girls to check out the Jaguar Spa which is set just above the river. I only had an hour, so no time to indulge in a massage, but the pools were lovely and I was the only person there. I could have spent a few hours there, but it wasn't as much fun all alone, who would have thought?!?!?!

We headed home just before dark and the girls and the boy crashed hard. Tomorrow we are going ziplining :o)

Copan Ruins

Today we have decided to go to the ruins to learn a little about the Mayan culture. The ruins at Copan were built a couple thousand years ago and the process of unearthing them started a hundred or so years ago. They aren't as big as the Guatemalan ruins of Tikal, but they are fantastic as well and because of their size, are easier to navigate with 3 kids!

I am constantly worried that we aren't "teaching" the kids enough about the history and culture of all these countries we go to but it is tricky to strike the right balance so that they don't get bored and tune out. Ruins are the perfect balance of fun and history. The girls now know that the games played in the ball courts present in every Mayan ruin were not that great of a game. The game ended with a sacrifice of one of the players and the girls seemed fascinated with this fact. Copan has some really great carved stellae so that was interesting for everyone. Totem polls of the Mayans!

The most memorable for the girls, though were the macaws and the half rat half pig things running around (coatamundis I think). There are about 10 scarlet macaws that hang out at the entrance to the park so you get to see them right beside you sitting on the fence and flying around you on the way in. Very cool!!!

Tonight we are going to figure out our next move. So stay tuned!!

Hello Honduras

After an uneventful border crossing we have found ourselves in Honduras, although just barely. We are in Copan which is just a few kilometers into Honduras.

Copan is known for its ruins, but we have found a lot more to do here as well. Our first full day here we spent at Macaw Mountain which is a bird sanctuary located just outside the town. They have 150ish birds that have been rescued or donated from people that started off keeping the birds as pets and then no longer could or wanted to care for them. The cages are huge and filled with foliage and everything a bird could want. Our entrance fee included an English speaking guide which was fantastic as he works with the animals everyday and has been for the past 4 years. The first "cage" we went into was the size of our house and full of scarlet macaws. They were flying around us, but seemed worried we were going to hurt the baby macaw, so we moved on before they ate my baby... I am surprised at how big the macaws are and I can't believe the colors!

The whole sanctuary is in a jungle, so just walking around is amazing. I have to say that the favorite birds for the girls were the toucans. Jason and I had seen green toucans in Costa Rica, but these toucans were so beautiful. We got to go right up to them which was fantastic because their beaks are very cool to look at.

There was also a cage housing birds that were stressed out from living in small boxes or cages prior to their arrival at the sanctuary. These guys had plucked out a lot of their feathers due to stress and were recovering. It was an excellent way to teach people about the effects of keeping wiild animals.

There was also a very cool swimming hole on the river that was in the sanctuary. It was a gate built over a small dam in the river and when they want to fill the pool up, they just close the gate. It takes about 10 minutes for the pool to fill and then they can just open the gate to let the water out. It wasn't full when we were there, but I took some pictures of it empty. Cool idea.

That is it for our day at Macaw Mountain. Tomorrow it is the Copan Ruins.

Pacaya Volcano – Guatemala

With a month of travel under our belt, we are feeling pretty confident about this whole travelling thing. We have learned 4 or 5 useful Spanish phrases and are pretty sure we are ready to move onwards from Antigua to Copan, which is in Honduras. There is just one thing we keep on talking about but have yet to do... climb a volcano in Guatemala. One of the most popular volcano climbs has to be Pacaya. It is close to Antigua and for $5 each, we really wanted to do it.

I have asked a lot of people here if they think it is a good idea to climb Pacaya with kids. Most people have said “No way” but a few have said “Go for it!” ... so off we went.

Jason and Lena were going to go first and then Jade and I the next day. I like to send Jason out first to feel things out (not to mention that the shuttle left at 6am and I wanted to sleep in). So Jade and I hung out in the market and just wondered around while Lena and Jason climbed Pacaya. On our way back to the hotel Lena came running down the street jumping up and down she was so excited about the volcano climb. She and I ran back to the hotel so that she could show us the pictures and the video of the lava flowing!!

Very cool (or hot, I guess) and Jade and I couldn’t wait to go ourselves. So, the next morning at 6am we stepped outside our hotel and click, the door locked behind us. So, we were now stuck outside our hotel in the dark on the street in Antigua. No big deal ... for the first 20 minutes! Eventually someone started calling my name and said something in Spanish that I assumed was get in the car. So, Jade and I hop in the strangers car in the quiet morning of Antigua. I was completely freaking out thinking that this guy was going to kidnap us or something, when a few minutes later he stopped in front of another hotel and picked up another tourist on his way to Pacaya. Apparently this was the car that rounded everyone up and took them to the main shuttle bus. I won’t even get into how many people were crammed into the shuttle or where my 7 year old daughter sat for 1 ½ hours up a crazy mountain road.

Well, we made it safe and sound to the bottom of Pacaya where we were met by a bunch of kids wanting to rent us walking sticks. For .50 we got a couple but kindly refused the others that were offering a taxi (a horse) up the volcano. The hike to the lava was a bit challenging, but nothing crazy. Walking on the lava fields was another story. It was very sharp and quite brittle. We were happy to have those walking sticks because you had to kind of poke around at the lava to make sure it was stable. There were spots where you could feel the lava under your feet, but couldn’t see it. We got so close to the flowing lava that the guide stuck Jade’s stick into it (because she wanted to do it and I was a little nervous about the whole molten rock sucking my baby down). Anyhoo, as soon as he stuck the stick in it caught on fire. It was so hot standing near the lava it was like sticking your head right next to a campfire.

A very cool day and one that none of us will ever forget. The views were amazing, too because you could see 3 other volcanoes from the one we were standing on and one of them kept on spewing ash into the air. Unbelievable!!

Ahhh Antigua

After 6 days of sun, sand and upset tummies, we have landed in Antigua. Although it is tourist central, we are very happy to be here. It is full of amazing ruins, gardens and yummy easy on the tummy restaurants. The weather is great and no mosquitoes! It is like going to Banff and being able to afford to stay at the Banff Springs and eat anywhere you want. Even the shopping is great.

Our first night we stayed at a cute little place with access to the kitchen, but it was tiny and one thing we have learned is that a little space makes everything better. We looked around at quite a few places and decided on a beautiful old mansion called the Posada de Don Rodrigo. Jason checked in while I waited with Lena at the Central Plaza (the town square where all the action is) to get a braid weave thingy in her hair. An hour later I was ready to see our room and it was huge! There were stairs to the bathroom upstairs and more stairs to the shower downstairs. Everything was beautiful and spotless (important when Reed is all over the floor). The hotel is quite a landmark and tourists would be walking through all day. There are 2 courtyards and traditional music played by 7 men in traditional costumes all day and through the evening. I was getting used to this!

The reason we are here is to take some Spanish lessons. We were all going to do a home stay, but 5 of us in someone else’s house for week just sounded like a disaster. We have started our Spanish lessons, but are flashing out on the hotels instead of the homestay. As I was off to my lesson this morning, the front desk told me they didn’t have a room for us tonight, but that they had an Annex just up the road if we wanted. I had to run as my class started at 8AM so I left Jason in charge of finding us a new room.

I came back from my Spanish lessons at 12:30 to find Jason reading his book in the gardens, Reed crawling around in the grass and the girls blowing bubbles they were given at breakfast. Check-out time in 30 minutes and my family is living like royalty completely oblivious to our impending homelessness!!

Of course there was nothing to worry about as the Annex is beautiful and the girls love this room, too. It has 2 stories with a spiral staircase going up to the girls’ loft. There is also a playroom up there.

So, at the moment Reed is having a nap and Jason and the girls are at their Spanish lessons. Jason and the girls are studying in the afternoon and I go in the morning. Reed and I have just returned from lunch in this fabulous cafe set in a garden with fountains and cobblestone. I’m not sure I want to go anywhere, but I have to go pick up the girls from “school”.

As I said.... ahhhhh Antigua.

Beach Bums

It is now Jan 4th and we have done nothing for the past few days except hang out on the beach and lay by the pool. After our 1 night of ick, we decided we really needed to find somewhere else to stay. We all got up in search of our new home and started walking down the beach. It was unbearably hot and humid and Jade had a bit of an upset tummy. Because of this, we had to make a fast exit to the nearest bathroom. Jason, Lena and Reed kept on walking down the beach and Jade and I were going to catch up with them.

Well, 45 minutes into our search for Jason we decided to ask someone on the beach if they knew where Dos Mundos (the hotel we were looking for) was. He pointed way back to where we had come from! Yikes. Sure enough, I saw Jason at a very lovely looking hotel ordering a fruit drink. By the time Jade & I met up with them, Jade was quite ill. The good news was that they had a room available and Jason had already booked it, phew!

The rooms are actually individual casitas with 2 king beds and 1 twin, a huge shower with a rain showerhead, and a thatched roof 20 feet above us. Very nice indeed. Oh, there are also 2 swimming pools and of course the ocean is just steps away. The grounds are also very lovely with grass and palm trees everywhere.

It is because of this that we have stayed for 4 nights. The service is actually terrible and the food has made us all quite ill, but the place is nice to look at and there are worse places to feel yukky.

Anyhoo, we are all off to the beach right now to light off the rest of the fireworks. Reed is actually beating Lena over the head with a firecracker at the moment because she accidentally bumped him.

So, if you don't hear from us in a week or so, you will know that the fireworks went horribly wrong.

Happy New Year and All the Best for 2008!!

New Years Eve

We are off again to sights unseen. This time we are going to one of Guatemala’s Pacific beaches. The guidebook doesn’t have much good to say about it, but we have some time to kill before starting our Spanish lessons, so off we go to the beach.

We had the folks at our last hotel make a reservation for us because we knew New Year’s Eve would be busy. They called all of their contacts with no luck, so they tried our guidebook. When they told us we were in luck, we were happy not to have to sleep on the beach for New Year’s.... my how things change.

We arrived at our “hotel” Jonny’s and after finally finding someone to talk to us, we asked if we could see our room. It wasn’t exactly what we had expected. There was 1 double bed and one single bed, no windows a dark low ceiling, bugs everywhere, an old wooden door that barely closed and a couple of flimsy mosquito nets. When I told them again that we had 3 kids, they said to put all the kids in the double bed...Happy New Year! Our driver didn’t speak any English and my Spanish sucks, but we somehow communicated that we wanted to look at another hotel.

Long story short, we got another hotel room with 2 double beds and a fantastic view of the ocean. (I will not mention the cockroaches or giant poo we found on the windowsill (definitely not gecko poop), nor the zillion mosquitoes that sat on our nets the whole night. I know because I was awake the whole night worried Reed was going to get Malaria .... oh right I wasn’t mentioning any of this). Jason and Lena went out and bought a whole bag full of fireworks and the 2 girls and Jason went to light some of them off. As it was still only 9 and we had 3 hours to go until midnight, the girls had a nap. At midnight when Jason tried to wake them up they said “No Way!” So New Year’s Eve 2007 Jason and I watched the fireworks from our double bed under the mosquito net on either side of Reed trying our hardest not to touch the $%#$ mosquito net.

And so we begin 2008!

Waterpark and Guat Disneyland

Two of the places I wanted to go to in Guatemala were Xocomil and Xetulul. Strange names, but amazing places to take your kids although nothing at all to do with Guatemalan culture. Xocomil is a waterpark and Xetulul is an amusement park. Although I had read about them in guidebooks I had no idea how fantastic they would be.

Xocomil
The water park was so huge that we didn't even get through all of the water slides in 1 day. They have 2 huge wave pools, about 30 water slides (Jason calls them water rides, not slides) of varying shapes and speeds, a few kiddie parks, an obstacle course over the water, beach volleyball and a bunch of restaurants. It was amazing.
It started to get cloudy around 2pm and everyone started to leave which was perfect for us because that meant no line-ups. We did the now standard I stay with Reed and then we switch routine. This time there was a little change to our plans, however. I did my tour of duty with the boy and we did the switch after lunch. After a few crazy rides with the girls I decided to walk back to check on my baby. Well, I found Jason having a snooze and NO baby! When I asked where my baby was he pointed in the direction of the wave pools. Jason said he just saw Reed float by in a boat a while ago!
Strangely enough, as soon as I returned a cute Guatemalan girl in a bikini shows up with my son. I have no idea what she said, but Reed was happy. I'm thinking we should have asked her to come with us for a few days to babysit.

Xetulul

The next day we hit the amusement park. It was almost empty so no line-ups for any rides. Everyone tried out the first few rides and then Jason couldn't stand it and made us go to the rollercoaster (the biggest in Central/South America). We got there and there was no line-up, but you had to be 14yrs old to ride. Jade was ticked off, but there was no way we could get her a false id in time. We watched Jason's head rattle around on the back of the coaster for about 15 seconds and then he was done. At least there was no line-up. It was really hot, so we were all moving very slowly. We did hit all of the rides, but it was soooo hot we were ready to go home when our driver arrived at 6.