Pulapansak

Today we went to Pulapansak, in Honduras, to see the waterfall there. Absolutely amazing. Breathtakingly beautiful. One of the most powerful experiences on the trip, it´s a must-do, it would never be allowed in the states for lacking any safety standards. The waterfall is 42? meters high, do the math and that´s a lot of feet. The force of nature was felt by all. We took a guide with us to go under and through the waterfall. It felt like we were in a powerful hurricane as we approached it from below. We made a friend, Curli, who brought an underwater camera and that´s how we got some of these pics. We dove off some of the rocks and then incredibly found a moment of refuge from the noise under a cave, under the waterfall. The water was clean, and it was probably the cleanest we´ve been since we first saw a chicken bus. It was pefect.

on top of the world

here are those pics i promised...

climbing santa maria, a volcano that overlooks a (very) active volcano, santiaguito, that we hiked up with the group the day before. without more than an hour´s rest, tom made his way from guate city to quetzaltenango and the two of us left at 11 pm for some hearty soup and at 12 midnight to start the 5-something hour hike to the top. up, up, up -- and undoubtedly worth every effort. we went with quetzaltrekkers, and i forgot how many meters high it is. but it seems to be pretty darn high

tom looking down onto volcano santiaguito, which nearly destroyed us the day before with one of its lahars (read an entry below), it erupts smoke every thirty minutes

here we are with host mom, jovita, a jehova´s witness who taught me everything i know about the bible and blew me away by how open-minded, educated and dedicated she was to teaching the original doctrines of the good book. a wonderful person

here we are leaving san pedro, sick as can be from eating some sort of curry but otherwise content from a nightly outing dining with a giant buddha.