Between the North and South America - Honduras (Part I)

Yeap people. I am back! It was such a torture with limited internet access there. Only got to online twice, the first internet cafe was run by the charity organisation in Honduras, which costs me 2 dollars for 10 minutes. How horrible! The second one was in the tourist area, 50 cents for 30 minutes! :)

My poor diary. Thanks to my forgetfulness this miserable mini notepad has become my diary for 16 days! Imagine how many pages I needed for each day. Lol.



Day 1 (The Flying Day)
A 9 hours flight, followed by a 4 hours flight, and a 5 hours flight after one night laying over in the airport. I was cursing those people who designed the arm rests for the chairs in airport. If it wasn't because of them I could have laid down properly and had a good night rest. Grrr. MAS is actually good in the hospitality - in the sense that, the stewards and stewardesses are young, and fit! Those in Continental airlines are all old and fat! Like, seriously. Anyway, they have a really cool touch screen monitor for entertainment! I was really excited about it. And thanks to that I've learnt a new game - Backgammon! [PK: I watched Twilight II in the plane! Not as good as the first one though] Me and my travelling partners were so blur that we checked in twice for the connecting flights, and printed 2 sets of boarding pass for each. XD

The picture of the day! The flight route before we touched down in Newark.

Day 2
Reached Tegucigalpa! It was so hot! Just like home! But it was really dusty over there :(

I find the buses there really cute! There's another type with the head looking like the lorry's head. XD.

And they are very LONGGGGGGG. (This the one with the lorry head)








Went to visit the famous El Picacho! It isn't as big as I thought though.

Something that you wouldn't expect. I didn't expect that either. They have TGI's Friday, Burger King, Baskin Robbins, Dunkin Donuts, etc. Basically, any fast food restaurant you can find in US, you can have it here. However, all these can only be found here in the capital, and some of them can be found in the tourist area.

The local food: tortilla wraps with red bean paste and cheese. Not my type :S They have lots of fried bananas too. Almost all of the dishes there have fried bananas. (not like our pisang goreng though, it's like the thin and crispy kind of snacks)

Tell me what is the paper clip doing up there on the fan. lol.

*Oh god! It's only Day 2*

Day 3

Oh no since I forgot to mention about this earlier I shall tell it now. There are few things to note in Honduras: You can't drink the tap water there as you can get Typhoid due to some reasons. And you can't flush toilet papers into toilet bowl BECAUSE the diameter of the pipes there are really small so it get stuck very easily.

There were two different organizations presenting two different models to help the poor.

FINCA - A microfinance bank formed by this organisation to give out loans for the poor who are unable to get access to the traditional banks. They even provide group loans for people who don't borrow the minimum amount required. High interest rate but lower compared to loan sharks.

CAJA RURAL - A rural bank formed by the villagers for the villagers which based in that village only. The shareholder invested in the bank, and the bank give out loans for villagers. The loan amount is smaller compared and a reasonably high interest rate applied but still lower compared to FINCA.

Although FINCA claimed that they're a non-profit organization, we still think that they are commercialised. In the evening we were sent to a very nice resort-like place. The driver said we were to use the highway to get there so I was expecting nice and straight smooth road. Mana tau it was just like when we're going to some ulu places in Pahang - with all the curvy roads. =.= At night, I talked to my team mates and I only found out that one of them is gay. I didn't expect something like that and I have never met someone who's not straight so I was quite shocked. (I didn't show it out la of course) But he's a really nice guy to get along with.

Day 4

Woke up at 6am to shower. Freaking cold shower >.< Done showering in 2 minutes? Lol. Departed to the village after breakfast. NOW I KNOW WHY DID THEY CALL THE ROAD HIGHWAY. On the way to the village, the roads were HORRIBLE and BUMPY! Like, for 2 hours of that. The driver was telling me, we're going there *pointing to one of the mountains*. FYI, there were many many many mountains in that area and THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME! Really 佩服 the driver. I felt like I was in a desert because, it was the dry season over there, and all trees are dried, can't really see much green plants. Ok back to topic. Then we arrived in the village. The community welcome us in the church (the only place with electricity in that village besides the school). Sang some of the local songs. Then they brought us to look around the village = climb from one hill to another. UNDER THE HOT SUN CUZ THE TREES ARE ALL DRIED WITH NO LEAVES. Everyone staying quite far apart from each other on the hills. Yeap literally on the hills. You really have to CLIMB to get from house to house. No proper road at all. And I slipped a few times (damn embarrassing). Really steep what, what to do. On the way back to church, one of the locals made some snacks for us.

The locals call this the "dog biscuits" since it's just like street dogs - you can find this everywhere.

Our lunch. With chicken, potato, tomato, carrots and cous cous in it. I only had the vege. Didn't dare to drink the soup because it's not made by filtered water (might get typhoid). Didn't dare to eat the chicken because that area is not really hygiene. But it was nice though.

There was a really cute kid showed us her school when we passed by.

Then back to church and talked to the Caja Rural committee to know how they are doing and what they need.

*It's only Day 4 and it's killing meeeeee*

*Ok stop here. Continue later*