Beach Holiday!

Friday morning we were picked up by Sarah (Honduran lady who works with a mission out here and goes to the same Church who was organising our trip) and Mario (our driver for the weekend) and set out on a 6 hour cosch journey to San Pedro which is on the North Coast of Honduras. When we arrived on Friday afternoon we met Don Hector (the husband of our host) who had sorted out accomodation for us. Don Hector happens to be a Colonel in the army so we were staying in army barracks on an army base! It was a really beautiful place, accomodation was basic but that was to be expected... They had filled our fridge with a few bottles of coke and had some buscuits and coffee for us which was really sweet. We had a quick bite to eat and drink with the Colonel and then went to Puerto Cortez Navy base which was about an hours drive away. One of the big wigs in the Navy came to meet us and gave us a quick tour of the base and of a ship aswell. It was great fun looking around the place and then we went to the Navy Base´s private beach and had a swim in the Carribean sea. It was amazingly warm just relaxing in the water but was still refreshing compared to the heat outside (the North coast is much hotter than Tegucigalpa which is in the south of the country). We watched the sunset in the water after taking some amazing pictures of it from the land.

Sunset from Puerto Cortez

Me and Heulwen in the sunset from the ship

When we got out it was dark (obviously because we watched the sun set...) and we went to get some Baleadas for dinner (tortillas with frihollis, chorizo sausage, sour cream and salsa) which are really tasty. That night was swealteringly hot so sleeping wasnt pleasant át all but I managed to get some eventually.


Saturday we spent all day at the beach. We were picked up in the morning and drove for about 2 hours to get to a nice beach. The initial reaction was a bit dissapointing. All the sand had huts built over it because no one ever sits out in the sun, and there was really loud music playing. We walked along the beach for a little while until we found a spot which had a little biut of sun with some tables and chairs and some sand, with no music. Needless to say we were in the sea in a matter of seconds, lounging about and chilling in the sun. We swam along the beach a little bit and when we went around a very lttle rocky headland, we found a gorgeous little deserted sandy beach/cove. I went up and sunbathed on that a bit and then we sat in the breakers letting them push us up and down the beach. The disaster struck.. One particularly big breaker rolled over me and ripped m,y glasses off my face. I panicked and told everyone who was with me in the cove. We all stood in the shallows (about 7 of us) looking through the water with our hands for a couple of minutes, and praying, but none of us could find anything. I gave them up for lost (i have a spare pair) so we all stopped looking. I walked back to the others and just at a whim, reached down, put my hands in the sea, and my glasses were right there, where i had put my hand in! It was an absolute miracle! Thank God! Lesson learnt though - remember to bring my lenses whenever i swim...


Ever since we arrive here, Guy and I have been trying to buy some cowboy hats which everyone wears and are incredibly cool. We saw some in the market ages ago but they weren´t very good. A guy was walking down the beach on saturday and we saw that he had some, checked them out and bought a couple of good ones. We managed to knock the price down from 120 lempiras to 70 lempiras which i was pretty proud of. They are amazing!

Hats!

Sillouetted Hats

We went back to where everyone else was sitting on the beach and had lunch. Cue begginning of rant about food... I had a ham sandwich which was very nice but quite small. When Guy´s full English breakfast came out I was quite jealous. He was still hungry aswell afterwards so we went back to get more food. He got a BLT and I got the full english. Thing is we both fancied the pancakes aswell so we shared some of them aswell :-) So for lunch we both had 2.5 meals each but it was so worth it...

We chilled out on the beach and in the sea for the rest of the day until sunset where we all took ridiculously large amounts of picures, before heading out to a mall to grab some dinner. Most of us, myself included, were too tempted by the Subway so had some subs and then the most amazing fresh fruit smoothies.. We then went home, had a group prayer session, and then went to our much needed beds. That was until Katy found a huge cockroach in her bed. For the next 10 minutes Luke and I tried to capture this suprisingly elusive monster while Guy played intense music on the guitar and Katy and Heulwen stood their letting out sporadic screams. Eventually we managed to trap the beast and i took it outside and with a bit of cricket bat action made sure that it didnt bother us anymore.

Sunset from the beach

Katy

Sunday morning at breakfast the colonel gave us all presents. He said that they have a tradition of giving gifts to anyone who stays there. They had got some Honduran army uniform T-shifts made up with our names on which are insanely cool!! We went to Donya Blanca´s sisters house for lunch and we set up`a party because Sunday was Blancas birthday! It was great fun, with lots of balloons, singing, sweets and presents. We also celebrated the birthday of 4 of our team members who have birthdays in April. After that we went to a beach and played some frizbee (which im getting pretty good at) and just relaxed before going home. That evening we had the most epic game opf monopoly. We played for about 4 and half hours until 1.30am which was so much fun - there are plenty more games to come im sure! I didnt win this time but only because i wanted it to be a good game (i could have won easily but wont bore you with the details)...


Monday we went out for breakfast and smoothies and then chilled out at the army base for a few hours before heading back to the barracks to pack and take the 6 hour coach journey back home.

Me and Claire


I have just tried to upload some pictures onto facebook but the internet is rubbish today so will do it another time. I just realised that you can upload pics onto this blog so have done that and will probs do it more in the future.


Thank you so much for all your messages, please keep praying for us that we stay safe and healthy.

The Team. Back: Guy, Matt, Pastor René
Me, Heulwen, Helen, Hector (Blanca´s Son)
Rachel, Blanca, Claire, Sarah
Anna (Hectors fianceé), Pamela (Blancas daughter), Faye, Kossy
Luke








Joel