I climbed a mountain

Well, I spent the weekend in Villa Verde with four of the other teachers in Vida Abundante. I just love those girls and I had such a wonderful weekend with them. Anyway, as I said, they live in Villa Verde, which is this teeny little community that is literally nestled in the mountains. Fifty feet from their backyard is the entrance to the National Park, Celaque, and when you look out their windows, all you can see are mountains in every direction. The air up there felt cleaner and fresher and crisper than any air I've ever felt. I can't talk enough about the beauty in Villa Verde. It's overwhelming.

We woke up on Saturday morning and headed up the mountain with the Phys. Ed teacher from our school, as well as one of the girls' neighbors, Don Louis. Don Louis is this little man who looks really old, but is actually fifty five. Also, he was in much, much better shape than we were! Anyway, he took us up the mountain. We wanted to get to the waterfall viewing point, which is probably 4-5 miles from the entrance to the park. We hope to actually hike to the waterfall sometime this year, but it's a two day hike and at this time of the year it rains pretty much every night, and we wanted to avoid getting wet-- haha.

Anyway, the trail started out pretty easily, with Don Louis stopping to point out different flowers and plants that can be used as medicines. He also picked really sweet fruit straight off the tree for us to try. It was awesome! We crossed the river in the photo (I fell in, of course), saw all sorts of enormous spider webs, and explored the Honduran mountains! The trail, however, did not remain easy for very long. When I say that we climbed the mountain...we literally climbed the mountain. Toward the end, it was so steep that we were on all fours, using tree trunks to pull ourselves up. I actually thought, towards the end, that I just could not take one more step. We all had to keep stopping, and I had to laugh because I think Don Louis could have sprinted up that mountain. (That's him in the photo, waiting patiently for us as we panted our way up to him). Anyway, when we finally made it to the top, it was so rewarding and incredibly breathtaking. The waterfall was exquisite and we were so excited that we made it all that way!

On the walk back down, it started thundering...and then the rain came. The word "rain" is a bit of an understatement. It was torrential downpour. And all we could do was laugh, because we were so, so wet and there was just nothing we could do about it. It was really fun, I had such a blast.

I had such a wonderful time up in the mountains. I had so much fun playing with the children in the neighborhood and spending time with the girls here. The weekend was a really welcome break from all the politics and messiness that's happening in Honduras right now. It was the weekend I needed.