Honduras May 1, 2007

We crossed the border into Honduras yesterday afternoon, near Copan ruins. Every border crossing should be that easy! It was smooth and fast! We then drove a few kilometers to Copan and spent some time looking at the ruins. I love ruins, they are so fascinating to me. I am intrigued by the people who built them, how they lived, what they were like. What languages did they speak and what motivated and inspired them. It’s like walking back into time when I visit them. Copan was very neat, despite the challenge of visiting it with small children, (“I’m thirsty, I have to go potty, I’m tired, I don’t want to walk, It’s hot, Carry me!”) It was cooler than when Greg and I visited Chichen Itza, but it was still plenty warm.

After visiting Copan, we headed toward San Pedro Sula, where we arrived after dark. Because Greg had been sick, combined with a lot of elevation climbing and swimming, his ears had been unable to pop for quite a few days. (While in Puerto Escondido he woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating pain in his left ear.) His ears still hadn’t popped, and as we were nearing the city, there was so much pressure in his head, he started to plug his nose and blow trying to relieve it. Instead the pressure just kept building and building, but wouldn’t release.

Suddenly, something happened, he completely lost equilibrium and everything started to spin fast to the right. He yelled for Kevin to grab the wheel and then started to fall over and lose feeling in his arms and legs. Kevin pulled us off on the side of the road and Greg managed to brake, even though he was completely collapsed over and couldn’t see straight. He became extremely nauseated (naturally), but after closing his eyes for awhile, at length was finally able to regain his equilibrium and we continued on our way, only to stop a few hundred feet down the road for him to throw-up.

We stayed at the very nice Intercontinental Hotel. I thought the Conquistador in Guatemala City was nice, but this surpassed it! San Pedro Sula is a large manufacturing area, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and many other company’s have manufacturing plants there, so there are a lot of business travelers—this hotel is geared toward them. Greg picked up the phone while we were in our room and heard, “Hello Mr. Denning, what can I do for you?” He wanted a pizza, and they called every pizza place in town to see if one was open. All of the staff went out of their way to learn our names, the bathroom was all travertine and the beds were overflowing with pillows and had down comforters and suede bedspreads. It was very posh! I loved their slogan, “Do you live an Intercontinental Life?”

Livin’ the Dream Baby!

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