Hondo Part Uno

This is what I sent in for posting on the corporate intranet.

JT in our Portland office recently traveled down to Honduras for a little bit of fun and some volunteer engineering work.



In J's words



" I traveled from December 12 through the 23rd flying to San Pedro Sula, meeting up with friends from Sacramento in Tela and exploring areas nearby like the Punta Sal (Exit Point) Jungle Preserve for a nature hike, snorkeling, and fresh fish lunch and a tour of the Garifuno village of Miami for another lunch of freshly caught fish with rice and beans, and fried plantains.

Next caught an early morning bus to La Ceiba, but my former co-worker and I stopped mid-way to look at landfill project in La Masica. The property for the landfill had been purchased, but the funding window had closed to construct the landfill, so he will attempt to resubmit the proposal for funding from a Non-Governmental Organization and provide design for the landfill. Meanwhile, the nearby cities have been dumping trash on the dirt road that goes through the property and an old man who was squatting there prior to it’s purchase has landfill leachate running through his shack, not a pleasant situation. The other problem is that there is a small stream that goes through the valley into a small marsh, it may be possible to reroute the stream and use the marsh for leachate treatment. My friend in Honduras is worked with Engineers Without Borders on projects in the States and used those contacts to do engineering design for landfills, water and wastewater projects on a voluntary basis for towns around La Ceiba. I am also involved in Engineers Without Borders and visiting the yet to be constructed landfill and meeting with locals knowledgeable of the proposal documentation and talking informally with a government leader about the next steps was a really great opportunity to see how some other projects are developed; it was also interesting to listen to the technical issues being discussed in Spanish, I have only had 2-years of high school Spanish, but I was able to comprehend a lot of it with help from our translator.

From there, met up with the rest of our group who took the later bus to La Ceiba and explored that bustling city’s street markets, a park built by Standard Fruit (Dole), and getting a donut at Dunkin Donuts. Our group took a ferry to Roatan (Isla de Roatan) to relax on the beach, snorkel, and eat local food. Roatan has such clear Caribbean water to look down at some really pretty reef formations and colorful fish.

Then back to La Ceiba for a night then over to this place called the Jungle River Lodge for rafting on the Rio Cangrejal and a nature hike through the jungle, part of the Pico Bonito Jungle Preserve, across the river from the lodge. We slept there a few nights in wood bunk beds, met some other travelers, and played Uno by candle light. Our trip was over, back to San Pedro Sula for a flight to Portland and a foot of snow! I had an absolute blast! "

Uno by candle light is tougher than it sounds, it's really hard to differentiate the blue, red, and green cards. We had to double check before putting every card down when it got really dark.