Pages

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Language Barrier and The Beauty of Honduras

Instead of trying to share everything about our trip in one entry, I'll divide and conquer. ....

After arriving in San Pedro Sula we began our 2 1/2 hour ride to Santa Rosa de Copan. My brother stopped for a moment for us to take a "bano" break - aka bathroom break. (I know I am botching the spelling due to my lack of understanding in Spanish and my lack of not knowing how to write the things you put on top of some Spanish words. Sorry if I am and I hope I don't offend anyone.) This station looked very similar to stations in the US. However, I soon learned this station was an exception to the rule. Let's just say, there wasn't another station that I saw with inviting facilities. As I entered the bathroom, a woman mopping the floor smiled and provided me with my first experience in trying to communicate. It was apparent she had something important to tell me by her jestures and words. After a few seconds of trial and error, I determined from her jestures that I was to take some paper towels into the stall with me. ( I later learned that in many Latin American countries, you don't flush the paper. We won't go there at this point.)

While we were taking this break from our ride, I noticed these huge yellow flowers. As it turns out these are called yellow mandevilla, also known as yellow dipladenia. I know we have these flowers in the US but I have never seen such huge blooms. As the week passed, I also noticed that many of the plants we call "house plants" are plants that grow wild and huge.




Pothos aka philodendron with at least 5 inch leaves.



Air plants growing in trees and on electric lines.






Mother in law's tongue growing naturally along a bank in towns and in the mountains.







Banana trees and coffee plants everywhere













Ceiba tree, the Mayan Tree of Life. That is my niece standing in the trunk to show how huge these trees are.
IM000273 IM000321
Honduras is a beautiful country.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Isn't it cool to see our houseplants in their native environment? When I was in the Bahamas, I saw "houseplants" that were huge trees!