Saturday, February 20

My parents and I had breakfast at the hotel, checked out and then started to head towards the bus terminal when one of our friends from Gracias called saying they were coming to San Pedro with their big van and could take my parents and I back instead of taking the buses. We thought about the offer, but in the end decided it would be better overall for my parents to take the buses. One for the experience, second because we would still arrive in Gracias earlier with the buses, and third then my parents would have experienced the buses so they could do it on their own when they went back to SPS to go back to the States. We met Kirsty at the bus terminal and found the bus line we wanted to take to Santa Rosa; we had to wait an hour for it to arrive, but since I knew this line was nicer, I was willing to wait. My parents just took it all in: all the craziness of the bus station, the people constantly asking them if they want to buy things, the heat and smells. A few buses came that we thought were ours and weren’t, but finally ours arrived. We got back towards the back of the line and ended up sitting towards the back. Kirsty and I were in the very back, while my parents were a few chairs in front. My poor dad had to sit in a chair that over-reclined and wouldn’t sit up for the whole ride! And behind him was a lady with some kids so he couldn’t even sit back in the over-reclined chair if he wanted to. I got to talk to Kirsty the whole time, which was great to catch up on more than surface level stuff in our lives.
We made it to Santa Rosa, made a quick stop while me and Kirsty found a bus to Gracias, and then headed out. For me and Kirsty, the bus was a normal ride to Gracias in a normal bus. For my parents it was an old school bus on a windy mountain to Gracias. My dad handled it ok, but my mom was done when we finally arrived in Gracias. They’re so great and brave for doing it! We dragged their suitcases to their hotel (new ones by the way, they’re not so nice and new now!) and I helped them get settled in. Their hotel is one of the best in Gracias and they really liked it. We all went to Bella Celaque where they had a tipico cena, their first Honduran meal in Honduras. They were wiped out after that, so I headed back up the mountain with Kirsty and found Laura Beth trying to fix our sink.

See our sink has been broken in some form since we got here, but now the pipes were basically holding up the sink and the thing holding the sink into the wall was loose. So Laura Beth took it upon herself to try to fix it (since we were having company J), but she was having some trouble. There was a pipe that water was constantly coming out of and since we didn’t know how to turn off the water, she had to hold that pipe at all times to avoid water going everywhere. Well it had happened a few times already so our bathroom floor was soaked. I felt bad and went in to help her, but changed into my bathing suit first J We tried to fix this thing for an additional hour or so, but the sink wouldn’t stay up on the wall, which meant the pipe with water couldn’t go into it. We finally stuck the pip in the outgoing hole in the wall and kept the sink on the floor. Our neighbor Juan Carlos finally came and showed us how to turn off the water, but not after our floor was literally flooded. It took another hour to clean up the water. It was a sight to see though, two Dutch girls holding their thumb on this pipe to keep the water from coming out and trying to fix a sink and limited tools. At least we’re becoming resourceful here in Honduras.