Ken and I experienced our first Carnival this past weekend. Although we didn't stay in town for the BIG event on Saturday, we did get to see a few "Carnivalitos" and I celebrated it with my students at school too. It was crazy to see how the town prepares for over 600,000 tourists for this one event! People plan on coming to La Ceiba way in advance to experience the food, music, floats, and parties of Carnival.
On Thursday, my entire school day was devoted to our "carnivalito". We started the school day off with a parade where each class had a different theme. Some classes were "bikers", "princesses and heros", "pajama lovers", etc. It's tradition that the 4th grade class is the body of this huge dragon and 2 seniors carry the dragon head. My kids were so pumped about it and couldn't wait to get underneath the sheet. At the end of the parade however they were so tired and hot from being covered that the couldn't wait to get out of it!
After the parade, each class held a different game or activity that the students could partake in. They ranged in ticket prices and it was basically just a free for all. The kids brought money to school and bought whatever tickets they wanted and went at it. The biggest seller was the "Haunted House" that the 11th graders were in charge of. It happened to be right next to the 4th grade and I was lucky enough to hear screams, loud music, and plenty of kids leave running for 3 hours! It was good business for the Cake Walk though which is what I had put on. It brought back so many memories of the Family Fun Nights at Forest Hills and how Britni would always win 2 or 3 cakes and I never would win any! I had a few kids who probably played at least 7 times trying to win something...finally they both did!
Thursday night Ken and I ventured to the neighborhood of El Sauce which had a large carnivalito. It was full of people and it was really hard to walk at certain points. There were about 6 streets closed off in this neighborhood and within it were 4 large stages with live music and tons of street games and vendors selling food and drinks. We decided to play a BB gun game where we needed to hit little figurines. We got 4 BB's for $1! We hit 3 of the 4 targets and won little trinkets. All of the stages were having punta dance contests, the typical garifuna dance that is popular hear in La Ceiba, and it's always fun to watch. With so many people though we had to be careful not to get anything stolen out of our pockets. The entire time Ken and I basically held onto everything we brought in our hands. Unfortunately, Jenna's boyfriend got his phone taken out of his pocket and he didn't even notice it right away. These people are pros I tell ya. It was a good thing we weren't staying for the big event :)
Friday was a holiday so Ken and I both had no school. With our friends Jenna and Brian we headed to the small town called La Esperanza. It was about a 5 hour drive from La Ceiba and it was on the other side of a mountain range. The weather was dramatically different than Ceiba as well which is one of the reasons why we wanted to go. Not only did a rain for the entire day yesterday, something we haven't seen in 2.5 months, but it was also 60 degrees compared to the 90 we've been experiencing! It was amazing! We rented this little cabin about 20 minutes outside of town with a beautiful porch and a kitchen where we could make our own meals. There was also a sweet old school park outside our cabin with metal see-saws, slides, and swings. The town itself was bigger than I originally thought with about 7,000 people. It had huge markets that sold things from cowboy hats and belts to shoes to fabrics to fireworks as well as large farmers markets that had the freshest produce. There was also an amazing view from the top of this hill that over looked the entire city. It was very peaceful and a great place to relax as we hit the finally few weeks of school.
On our way back to Ceiba today we stopped at the Taulaube Caves which are right by Lago de Yojoa. These caves have a lighted walk way of about 400 meters and they continue to go for another 12 kilometers in the dark! It was very cool to see and a neat place to take a break after driving a few hours. We explored on a few of the dark paths and looked at all of the crystals forming on the ceilings. We luckily didn't see any bats flying (or hanging) overhead.
Now we are back in La Ceiba and just relaxing as we get ready for work tomorrow. The warm weather is taking some getting used to again since we had slept under blankets and wore pants for the last few nights. Ken has 2 more weeks left at Santa Teresa and I have just one week left with my students. Soon enough the school year will be over and we will be on our next adventure....to the island of Guanaja!
P.S. We've been trying to upload a bunch of videos from Mother's Day, Earth Day, Easter, and a few other things we've done this spring but for some reason it's not working...hopefully soon you'll get to see them :)
