Honduras Happenings: Cero Azul

Hola Amigos!

The kids and families left for Christmas vacation a couple of weeks ago and will be gone until January 8th. This is actually like their summer vacation because the school year is over. One mother and her three kids and one girl from Guadalupe are still here so we have been spending some good quality time together. This has given me some more free time though. Alicia, a 20-year old girl that works in the APUFRAM office at Flores during the day but lives at the mother's project, invited me to go to a national park called Cero Azul with her. I said "yes."

Alicia gave me instructions as to how to get there. I had to take a bus from Comayagua towards San Pedro Sula and get on in a place called Vaca Dia. Having never been there before, I had no idea what this place looked like and since the smalls towns aren't marked, I wasn't sure how I was going to know when I was there. I asked the guy sitting next to me if he knew where it was and he said yes and that he would tell me when we were almost there. It turns out he had no idea what he was talking about. Long story short- we passed it, I got dropped off in a different town and had to take another bus back to Vaca Dia. I met Alicia and her "friend" who lives in Vaca Dia and was going to show us around. We had to take a mototaxi to his house which is actually inside the national park. His family was extremely hospitable and even gave us lunch.

I had read that Cero Azul was a big tourist spot, so I assumed we were going to see lots of people. But we ended up taking the backwoods tour. We had to hike for 30 minutes through some rough terrain. The views along the way were breathtaking. Eventually we ended up at a beautiful waterfall. If we wanted to, we could have actually stood underneath the waterfall. It was hard to see but if you looked up at just the right spot, you could see that this was actually part of a much bigger waterfall, which made it all the more amazing.

The waterfall was wonderful to see, but what I was most impressed by on this trip was the town we visited. It very much reminded me of a small town or neighborhood in the United States. They were kind of cut off from the rest of the world (it was a 20 minute ride in the mototaxi to get there) but it was not like the other mountain villages I have seen. The houses were probably considered "middle class" in Honduran standards. They were still nothing like houses in the US, but I was impressed by how nice they were. Not to mention that they were located in the middle of this beautiful park with a waterfall literally in their backyard. When we were there, there was a soccer game going on in the middle of the town. It was actually high school girls playing against girls from another town. They had uniforms and everything. Much of the town was watching this game. The other big event was a meeting at the church. I'm not sure what it was about, but many people were going to it to give their opinions about something. It is kind of hard to explain the feeling I had when I was there, but it was definitely one of peace. I have been to other villages in Honduras and not had the same feeling because of the great poverty the people were living in. These people were not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but they had what they needed and they all seemed genuinely happy.

It was a wonderful and adventurous day trip and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to see another part of Honduras. We said we would come back so we could see more of the park and I really hope that we do. The picture at the top of this post is of the actual waterfall. Below are some more pictures from the trip.