Thanksgiving in Gracias

Turkey Day in Honduras

Its only a bit ironic that for the Thanksgiving weekend we spent in the Western Honduras village of Gracias (for those of you who don't speaka the Spanish, 'gracias' means 'thank you.'). After having hit most of the so-called "touristy" places of Honduras it was time for Anah and I to travel a bit off the beaten path.

Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Honduras, but since we are at an international school with many American teachers it becomes a holiday in our small part of the world. A lot of the Hondurans that go to the school readily and excitedly adopt American things (fashions, ruthless capitalism, etc) so Thanksgiving should not be a surprise.

Thursday was a half day of school. At the middle school it was "traditional sports day" where I learned games from my childhood actually have their origins in Honduras (another adopted thing for the US?).

Anah, however, was treated to a "real" Thanksgiving dinner at 10am in her classroom. Moms brought in turkey, mashed potatoes, and other fixings. The bird weighed in at a staggering 8 pounds, which in Thanksgiving lore make it one of the tiniest gobblers ever. But for Hondurans turkey is not usually on the menu let alone one that comes in double digit poundage. The taste of the Turkey got mixed reviews from the first graders I'm told, so it's small size was not a concern. The mashed potatoes were excellent as was the corn on the cob and mini-cupcakes (a Pilgrim specialty).

Santa Rosa de Copan

After school we were off on our adventure. We hopped aboard what could not necessarily be called a chicken bus, but perhaps maybe a "duck" bus as it was slightly fancier than a school bus but still no Hedman Alas. There was puke all over the place, which no one had bothered to clean up, which made us a little nervous as to what lay in store for us.

However, we made the journey without incident and witnessed many beautiful views in our 3 hour ride. Our first stop was the city of Santa Rosa de Copan. Even though it shares a similar name with the other Copan we took PJ and Nancy to, this one is in another part of the country and hold little of the same charm that the other does. Santa Rosa was a bit of a disappointment.

Our Lonely Planet guide encouraged us to check out the "wonder brick oven fired pizzas" of Pizza Pizza owned by an American in SR. I think Lonely Planet just likes throwing bones to American-owned restaurants because their few and far in between in Central America. Or bonus points because the writers are surprise at pizza in a far away place. The pizza was alright, but nothing to garner a top spot in a guide book or our opinions. Its hard to be blown away by pizza (or its availability) when you've got a classy Pizza Hut down the street from your house.

We did meet a nice British gentleman, whom I'm traded barbs with about soccer (he an Arsenal fan, I Liverpool), and shared dinner and a drink with before parting ways.

Anah and I hunkered down in an out-of-place cute bed and breakfast in SR before waking up to a delightful breakfast of Honduran tipico (corn tortillas, scrambled eggs, plantains, beans and fresh bananas). We enjoyed one cup of coffee with our breakfast and went out in search of more before heading to the cigar factory.

Cigars

Before moving on from Santa Rosa, there was one redeeming stop to make. While Santa Rosa lacks colonial charms and other niceties (its not terrible, just relatively uninteresting) it DOES have the Flor de Copan Cigar Factory. Flor is one of the top cigar manufactures in the world making dozens and dozens of brands of cigars for local consumption and the rest of the world. For 2 bucks you can get a tour of the factory.

Unfortunately, we weren 't allowed to take pictures on our tour so you'll have to stick with my word-smithing skills (already worried, huh?). I did manage to find some photos on the Interweb, though).

The amazing thing about the factory is that while this world becomes more an more technologically advanced there are just some things that computers and machines cannot replicate. Cigar manufacturing is one of those wonders.

The first room we passed through was the tobacco rooms where dozens of different tobacco leaves were sorted into the cigars that they would later become. They are sprayed with water and there they sit for four months as the piles of leaves cook themselves through the chemicals that are in the leaves. The smell of all the tobacco leaves gave your nose a combination burning/tickling feeling that shot straight to the brain.

From there we passed through a room where mostly women tore out the petiole (or main vein) of the tobacco leaf. Very important as this does not smoke (or roll) well. Then on to the leaf flattening room. More women, using machines that looked at least 100 years old (and sorta like an ancient typewriter) put leaf after leaf after leaf through a press to smooth out each leaf.

Both of those rooms were not huge, but the next part was this massive room full of hundreds of people sitting at desks hand-rolling the cigars. Taking the perfectly smooth and pressed leaves from the previous room and pack them together into tight packs of tobacco.

It was quite the sight and Anah was loving every minute, the whole experience having appealed to her love of seeing multiple of things. It seemed like a large portion of this room was staring at Anah and I as our "tour guide" wandered through the rows of rolling employees (did I mention we were the only people on the tour and probably the only ones in a quite awhile).

I guess each roller can produce hundred of nearly identical cigars each day. From there it was onto packaging where the different types of cigars get their plastic wraps, rings, and boxes to be shipped around the world.

Despite the fact that we were literally surrounded by thousands upon thousands of cigars (and obviously made with little labor cost) we were not offered one for the road or the opportunity to purchase any (no gift shop! ha!). It was still a pretty cool experience to be able to see something like that produced from start to finish.

Gracias

After the fun with mass quantities, we walked down to the bus station and found a chicken bus to take us to Gracias. Again, the ride was gorgeous as we passed through the mountains, getting a glimpse into the real Honduran countryside.

Gracias holds a bit more colonial charm that Santa Rosa and alongside some serious financial support from the Spanish government the area is trying to push hard to become a center for tourism for those who like old Spanish churches and local pottery. They are also playing a large role in developing the infrastructure of the nearby national park. The organization is called "Colusuca" and seems to be making good and hopefully sustainable progress. It's kinda funny that the Spanish are putting more money into this effort than the Honduran government is. Perhaps some left over guilt?

One of the many colonial churches in Gracias

The city was undergoing a face lift with the central park being totally reconstructed. Our hotel was at the foot of a big hill that held a Spanish fort overlooking the city. The hotel, Guancascos, is owned by a nice Dutch lady, Froni, and is a place where Anah visited during her first trip to Gracias when she was in Honduras the first time in 2003. Since it was her memories of the place that led to our trip, I'll have her tell the story from here on. (You'd all prefer that anyway, I'm sure.)

Part of the restored fort

A Trip Back

Yes, yes, I planned our little jaunt to Gracias. During my summer in Honduras in 2003 midway through my little adventure in Honduran countryside we were treated to a break where we were allowed to spend a weekend in Gracias. Compared to where we were spending most of our time that summer, Gracias seemed like a cosmopolitan mecca. I remember being charmed by its dusty streets and moreso by the lovely little hotel in which we stayed, Guancascos.

Like Dan said, it's set up at the foot of the mountains and has several charming rooms that look out onto the town. It has a very tranquil atmosphere, and plays host to all types of travelers, Peace Corps workers on break, local election officials...all types. When I stayed there the first time I remember thinking that I'd like to come back and stay there again, never thinking it would be a real possibility. Little did I know!

Returning to Gracias was nearly as wonderful as I'd imagined. It provided a much calmer atmosphere than San Pedro and allowed us a nice, if not traditional, time to reflect on what we're thankful for.

The first afternoon we roamed around town, exploring its nooks and crannies and hiked up to the fort to get some nice views of town. The fort is well-maintained and very picturesque. That night we found a decent meal in town and played witness to several 6th grade graduation celebrations as public school was coming to it's school-year end.

A Trip UP

Before ending the day, we reviewed several 'tour' options at Guancascos for the next day at the neighboring National Park, Celaque. They had a nice little brochure featuring several different hiking options, starting a two-hour "novice" hike ranging up to a 3-day overnight hike for those looking for a "challenge". Given our limited time, and assessing our hiking abilities as fair to middling, we chose an eight-hour "tour" (Dan will likely contest that he was less involved in the choice, and that I should take full responsibility but since I am writing I will leave you to make your own judgements). The word "tour" led us to believe it would be a leisurely 8 hours, so we packed adequate water and snacks and went to bed dreaming of the pleasant day that awaited us.

The day began with a lovely breakfast of fruit, granola and yogurt and we hopped in the hotel's truck to get a ride to meet our tour-guide. The ride was bumpy to say the least and came to a halt in front of a adobe shack where we were introduced to Luis, our guide. Dressed in typical campesino-style with a long-sleeve button down, jeans, cowboy hat and machete, Luis looked more than able.

We began our hike, and I began the difficult task of understanding Luis' rambling Spanish. My Spanish skills have proved adequate in San Pedro, allowing me to converse decently with my students' parents and exchange pleasantries with our taxi-drivers, etc. However, they came up woefully short as I tried to understand, and then translate for Dan, our new friend. Although still speaking Spanish, Luis spoke with a very different accent that made it tricky for me to understand- Imagine you've learned the Queen's English and then are sent to the South.

This tree can cure cancer, or something like that.

Regardless of the language difficulties, our hike began pleasantly and from what I gathered Luis told us many things about the local flora, including a lot about the medicinal nature of many of the plants. He showed us several that were edible, including a tasty little citrus fruit that we enjoyed throughout the day. We hiked on, remarking on the similarities of the Honduran countryside with Wisconsin's. The area is full of pine trees and ferns, but then the occasional palm tree or citrus fruit would remind us that there were indeed differences.

For about two hours we felt great. "What a great idea, Anah! This is perfect!", remarked my thankful husband. "Oh, yes, " I thought, marveling at my own travel-planning skills, "What a great idea." Then, during the third hour, as we continued to hike upwards it became clear that perhaps leisure wasn't going to play a large role in the day. Luis showed no signs of slowing down and our mini-lessons on medicinal plants stopped entirely as we struggled to keep up. Although, I'm pretty sure Dan was wondering if there would be any medicinal plants that could help with a sudden heart attack.


Finally, after four hours we breathlessly asked Luis if we could stop for a bite to eat. He tried to tell us that we could stop further up the way, but I insisted that a break was necessary NOW. So, we stopped and munched for awhile on our Nutella and bread sandwiches and washed it down with several gulps of water. Luis regaled us with tales of other hikers, primarily Spanish visitors and how he was glad we weren't "fat" like them because, "they want to rest every 10 minutes! They shouldn't eat so much fried chicken and smoke so much!". Feeling encouraged that at least we were not as out-of-shape as some Spaniards we packed up our foodstuffs and soldiered on. Despite the tough conditions and our burning leg muscles we were enjoying the beautiful hike and saw many amazing views. Also, the weather was nearly perfect as it was about 70 degrees and the dense forest provided lots of cool spots. We criss-crossed several streams and saw many beautiful little waterfalls.

Oh, it's so pretty!

We continued up for at least another hour where we ran into some French hikers who seemed somewhat disorientated and begged us for cigarettes. We of course had nothing to offer, they didn't seem interested in our raisins nor Nutella, but being concerned that they were perhaps lost we asked them if they wanted to join us for the remainder of our hike. When they learned that we were still on our way upwards, they declined which made Luis very happy as he had no interest in taking on the wayward smokers. We did however convince Luis to again let us rest a bit at their camp and we managed to snarf down another sandwich before again hitting the trail.

One of the wider, more well-defined parts of the 'trail'

Given that it had been about 5 hours I was beginning to get a little nervous so I asked Luis about how much longer the uphill climb would continue and he gave the vague reassurance that we were "cerca". We finally reached the pinnacle, and it was truly worth it. The
view was amazing and the different plants we saw around the top were also stunning. The top was full of interesting wild begonias and loads of flowering bromeliads.

This is a bromeliad. No es medicina.

This photo was taken by Luis. Apparently he thought by 'vista'
we meant 'make our faces huge'.

Here's the picture without our faces.

Relieved that the worst was over we happily began our descent. We patted ourselves on the back and started trekking down. It was easier on our lungs, but soon we learned (and in hindsight it shouldn't have been a surprise) that going down was going to be nearly as challenging as going up for our legs. The path was narrow, steep and slippery. Fearful of falling, I was taking my sweet time and getting a little frustrated as it seemed like the end was again painfully far away. Luis, I think, sensing my frustration offered a new strategy, "It is easier if you run". Oh really, Luis? Are you serious? But, giving no time for us to ponder the new strategy- Luis begins a steady jog and starts gingerly leaping over roots and rocks and therefore leaving us no choice but to follow suit. We were afraid our little guide would leave us deep in the Honduran wilderness so we did our best to trot after him, although we were no where near as nimble and certainly looked ridiculous- fortunately there were no onlookers.

But, finally we made it back and now, being a week later and the memory of the leg pain, breathlessness and fear of dying in the wild having faded significantly, I can say it was a wonderful hike and a fabulous idea.

Luckily, this is all I remember.

Our hotel host picked us up around 4 p.m. and we found our way back to Guancascos and enjoyed a few frosty beverages and a feast of food before retreating to our room and crashing. The next day we found a chicken bus back to Santa Rosa, and our friend the Duck awaited us to take us back to SPS.

All in all, another successful trip. Dan learned the valuable lesson of overseeing any decisions regarding added excursions and I found a real use for all those lunges and squats at the gym.