Pre and in the middle of COVID

Hello Friends....

My new morning workspace.

I am going to try to get the blog up and running again. This will be my FaceBook replacement to post pictures and thoughts about being untethered here in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. 

Right now though, I am feeling very tethered. We have been in quarantine since March 15th and finally things are loosening up a bit. Our required measures between March 15th and now were:

• We got to leave the house once every 2 weeks to get supplies and do banking. 
• Masks required everywhere.
• Feet (and bodies sometimes) disinfected prior to entering a place of business.
• No one could leave the house on Saturday or Sunday. 
• Airport closed
• City limits locked down no one leaves the city. 

Now with the measures "loosened up", We get to:

• We get to leave the house once every 2 weeks to get supplies and do banking and some other stores  open to 20% of their work force
• Masks required everywhere.
• Feet and bodies sometime disinfected prior to entering a place of business.
• No one can leave the house on Saturday or Sunday. 
• We might be able to take a trip if our IDs match our dates of travel.
• The city is not absolutely locked down like before. 
• Airports opening soon. I think August 17th.

It's kind of the same but we get to shop in a few more places. 

So as you can imagine the last 5 months have been rather difficult, but also rather boring. We do feel that the measures that we have been forced to take, have kept us safe and have kept others around us safe as well. So while we are bored we don't feel like it is a such a terrible thing for us to do in terms of the social impact. Here are some pictures of us trying to get through the quarantine with a positive attitude. Mostly it's boring though. 

Finding new places to relax in the house. 

Playing games 

Watching movies

This was our first restaurant delivery. Seafood Pallea yum..

 Kerry trying new recipes.

Helping the poor through this.

Kerry doing a crossword puzzle..

Playing more games. 

Sitting in different places around the house. 

Early quarantine, when we couldn't go anywhere, the people would come to our community and sell vegetables, chicken, and bread. Kind of in a vegetable line here. Very socially distanced.  

We had a group grocery store delivery sent to us and the teachers, this is us organizing the bags of groceries for the teachers. 

We were also lucky to have an opportunity to have our friend Joel out to have a proper vacation right before the country locked down. I have some pictures to share. 

Joel came to visit on March 6th. We picked him up from the airport and headed directly out to a place called Pico Bonito. It is a wildlife nature area sort of compared to Up North. It is a destination for hiking, playing in the Congrejal River,  mountain biking and much more. It is near a town called La Ceiba which we will also be returning to see another time. 

A basket to cross the Might Congrejal River

The Campers at our Cottage. 

Being pulled across the Mighty Congrejal by a student they pulled out of class from the local high school 

Looking across the Mighty Congrejal 

Mountain Biking with Joel

Transportation up the mountain to mountain bike down. 

Joel Relaxing in the Pool

Crossing a suspension bridge before our hike.

Success, we made it to the waterfall. 

Kerry crossing the river. 

Crossing the suspension bridge over the Mighty Congrejal. 

Our cottage on the river.

Pool at the cottage

Pico Bonito Water Fall view from the cottage. 

We returned to the house on Tuesday the 10th of March, Joel had a couple of days to see the school, and relax by the pool. 

We went to Copan Ruins on Thursday right after school. In Copan, we saw enjoyed the City for an evening and then explored the Mayan Ruins. They are amazing. 

After the Ruins, we checked out of the Hotel and made ur way to Macaw Mountain which is a Macaw and other bird reserve. They take the Macaws and rehabilitate them until they can release them to the Copan Ruinas. They stay there a while until the eventually are reintroduced to the wild. 

We left the Macaw mountain and headed up a super treacherous road to the Jaguar Luna Hot Springs. 

We enjoyed them for a couple of hours and then made our way to the Finca Cisne which is a coffee farm. They have an amazing farm house that we rented for the evening. They made us breakfast in the morning before our horse back riding tour through the coffee farm. After the tour we had a typical Honduran farm lunch before we made the three hour journey home.   

The farm house

Farm Transport

The coffee farm. Finca Cisne...

Cacao Beans....  The seeds are delicious.....

After tour lunch set up. It was delicious. 

The next day we took Joel to the airport and the country closed. We have basically been locked in since then, only going out for groceries and the bank. 

We will always remember the trip because of the the closeness it has to COVID Pandemic. We also feel fortunate to have had the time right before the lock down, it has definitely mentally helped us through the lockdown.