Copan, Honduras

 It has been five months since I arrived here in El Salvador. One might be tempted to say I have been stuck here for 5 months but this would not be accurate.I am having a great time and the time here has flown by very fast and in one month I will be sailing out of here to continue my cruising. I wish I could leave now but the weather this time of year would not make that a smart move. I have visited much of the Central Americans countryside and cities and it hasn't ended yet. I and two friends are leaving for Nicaragua next week to visit areas around the Capital. Last week I visited Copan and enjoyed the small town and surrounding area. I could not resist the temptation and went zip lining again. This site was much larger and the runs were longer reaching up to 1 km.

I know all of you have seen bananas in the grocery store. How many of you have seen them still in the tree?

Here are my partners in Copan, ready to ZIP.

This blog would not be complete without a shot of my ugly mug.

Here I am coming in for a crash landing. You can see the eyes of the operator waiting for me looking like he is thinking " This guy is crazy!" This was the line that was almost a mile long. I waited a little too long to apply my brakes and needed two hands to stop before I was an imprint on the side of the tree. WOW! an 'E' ticket ride

I took a movie of the couple I was with as they head down the line screaming as they go?

We rested and licked our wounds the remainder of the day. There was a great couple from Texas that was on the zip lines with us. They also had a great time. The young woman was on a quest to concur here fears. She was successful. The following day was time spent at Macaw mountain. This is an exotic bird sanctuary. Injured birds, birds that people no longer want and birds that are taken from people trying to smuggle them out of the country are sent here. The birds are in cages making it difficult to get a good photo. Some of the birds were out at the end of the tour where you could get up close and personal with them.

This is one lazy bird!

That should be enough photos of birds for now. The next day we went to a butterfly reserve. The photos were difficult to take in the shadows and they didn't cooperate with us and land on a branch long enough to get there photo. These are butterflies that can be found in Central America.

Not much of a blog this time. Sorry about that. I am going to Nicaragua next week and hope to come back with more stories to tell and photos to share. In the mean time take care and be safe out there.

Zip Lines and Surfing

It is time again to add stories and photos to my blog of my latest adventures and visits.

Let's have a quiz before I go into the meat of the blog. Who can guess what this is?

 

Here's a clue. It is a fruit. The meat in the middle is pulled from the outer shell. Pop it into your mouth and you taste the moist sweet meat that is around a small seed. Use your teeth to remove the meat from the seed. It tastes great and report ably is very high in vitamin 'C'. I bought a dozen of these in a central market for a quarter.

As you all know, Central America is in the tropics and in the topics you get a lot of rain. You can expect some rain every day around late afternoon or early evening. Most of the rain fall is gentle with an occasional big storm with brief high winds and heavy rain. Here are some photos of a big one approaching our area. This thunder storm reminds me of storms that came through my home in Minnesota.

As bad as this looks it was no more than heavy rain. The winds were strong for only a few minutes and none of the boats at anchor dragged anchor.

One more item has been crossed off of my bucket list. Zip Lining! This area was smaller than some but was still fun. I am going to Honduras to again visit Copan. The Zip lines there are much longer and steeper. That means I can go faster. Let's hope they don't find an image of my body against a tree trunk.

This is a map of the area and the path we took. We were an average of 30 feet off of the ground as we crossed over the trees below.

Here we recieve instructions from our guide.

Photo of the cruisers that I went with. The area were we at is on a volcano just outside of San Salvador.

Here we go. The first few lines were short and not far off of the ground. The last two were longer and higher. You slow down by pulling down on the cable with a gloved hand which you place behind your head.

Coffee is grown in the area where we were. The quality of the coffee is best when it is planted at higher altitudes. Harvesting is in November. The beans now are green and turn red when ripe. Flowers like these grow wild in the hills and mountains above San Salvador.

The area were we were is on a volcano near San Salvador. We had a good view of the city below and a path around the rim of the volcano gave us a view of the large hole. The mound at the bottom is formed by the vent.

Next stop is Surf City, El Salvador. The small town of La Libretad is East of where we are anchored is a well known surf spot where suffers from around the world come to visit.  I joined other cruisers for a long weekend. Three of the other men are surfers and they had fun in the waves. I used a buggy board and joined them in the water. Yes I survived the BIG ones although I did swallow half of the ocean.

We stayed in a hostel the first night. Three of us shared this room which is smaller than the main cabin on my boat.

Here we are relaxing.

 

It is hard to capture the size and shape of the waves without a good camera.

That is it for now until the next time. Until then, be safe out there.