Honduras and Guatemala

Well, it is raining in Antigua almost all the time. Only in the morning there's a bit of sunshine. That's the winter here. My trip from Nicaragua was accompanied by thunderstorms and hurricanes. But anything is better than that suffocating heat of Cartagena... For me... but for the inhabitants here hurricanes are dreadful because they do a lot of damage. So do earthquakes. I was walking around Antigua today and it seems all churches, and there are many of them here, were destroyed by earthquakes. What remains of most of them are just ruins. I am staying at Mike's house. I wrote about Mike when I first came to Antigua. The house is a very nice colonial house with two patios, a fountain in one of them, and tropical fruit trees in the other. Very nice. Tomorrow I will go with Mike to visit the different charity projects with which he is involved in the Guatemalan countryside. I will return Thursday evening. On Sunday Ann comes from Panajachel so I will have lunch with her and then I will go to Mexico for maybe a week or two.

Regarding the previous week... From Nicaragua I went to Honduras. I spent a day in the country's capital which name is really difficult for me to remember... It was one of these rather big and noisy cities. I just walked around and then I also ended up in a mall in an up-scale district of Miraflores because only there I could get the money out of the ATM - I was told at the bank that other bank's ATMs are not equipped to accept the indented cards. It was the first time where I had problems getting the money out in a big city. From la capital I took a bus to Copan, wanting to get close to the Maya ruins. Since I am travelling without a guide book I didn't know there were three "Copans": Rosario de la Copan, Copan Ruinas and Copan Entrada. The last one is just an intersection at which you can either go to Rosario or Copan Ruinas. The driver asked me where I wanted to be dropped off and since I didn't understand what he meant by "different Copans" he dropped me off at the intersection... I spent the night at a shabby hotel but the people who worked there were wonderful and I ended up talking to them until late at night. Some places in which I got stranded and which were no more than a gas station, a few stores and a hotel, I will remember forever as great places because of the people I met there: intelligent, interesting, and affectionate. The next morning I took a bus to Copan Ruinas which is a nice touristy village. I walked around the village and visited the book exchanges (I found a book in Polish) and galleries with artesanias. The next morning I went to visit the Maya ruins. It is a rather large complex of buildings but it is not as well preserved as the ones I saw in Mexico. It is very interesting, as all of them are, with stellas, piramids, football court, etc. It's always a pleasure to visit the Maya ruins because they are situated in beautiful green surroundings. That same day I took a shuttle bus with an organized tourist group to Antigua - I wanted a break from crossing a border on my own... The softly rolling hills overgrown with trees, also pine trees, which we saw on the way, were very beautiful.

And now about the future... I was thinking and thinking and thining and thinking.... what to do next, coming with different ideas on what to do with the rest of my life... and I decided that what I really want to do at the moment is study herbs. Of all my different interests this one seems to me to be the strongest now and most beneficial to people in the long run. I would like to study Chinese medicine (herbology and acupuncture) first because it seems it's the most "scientific" and well documented of all the old medicines. I wrote to a school in China to ask about the programs and the cost and if it's affordable I will go there. I am going to stay in Central America until the air tickets get cheaper and then I will go to Poland for a few weeks and then to China if it turns out I can afford the school. I will let you know how things go but that's a raugh plan.