Greetings from Honduras!! Last thursday we moved in with our host families- I really like mine, they are so much fun! But on Saturday I left with a small group to Honduras for spring break. Our bus left at 4 am on Saturday and ten hours later we arrived in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. We then took a taxi to La Tigre, a national park in Honduras. In the morning we went on an amazing hike in a cloud forest! It was so beautiful, we were literally in a cloud. Cloud forests are forests that recieve a majority of their water from clouds because the clouds are so low. Therefore, the trees have plants and vegetation growing all over them, it is a really interesting and beautiful ecosystem.
Later that afternoon we went to La Libertad where we met up with Kat´s friend, who is also in the Peace Corps and has been living here for about a year. It was a cute small town and we spent the night there in her host family´s house. Monday morning we took a bus to San Pedro and then to Tela, our final destination of the trip. Tela is a beautiful small town on the ocean. It is usually not touristy, but during Semana Santa, which is holy week, most Honduran families leave their homes and head for the beaches. But it is not too crowded here, which is nice.
Tuesday we just chilled at the beach and relaxed, tired after all that traveling. On Wednesday a couple of us went kayaking in Mangrove forests. Mangrove forests are trees and shrubs that grow in saline coastal habitats in the tropics and subtropics. It is an amazing ecosystem. We saw Jesus lizards, which are lizards that walk on water. We saw alligators and beautiful birds. We also saw alot of beautiful bright blue butterflies. For lunch we went to a Garifuna village and ate on the beach. Garifuna villages are interesting. The eastern coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua have large African populations. This is beacause during the conquest many slaves were brought over, so now on the Eastern coasts there are interesting mixtures of Indigenous, African and spanish culture.