Morazánicos

"Um, so, Lily, why exactly did you have a five day weekend?" Semana Morazánica, my friends. The Honduran national holidays of Fransisco Morazán's Birthday (October 3rd), Discovery of America Day (😬, but traditionally October 12th), and Armed Forces Day (😬😬, October 21) were bundled to the last Wednesday-Friday in October in 2014 to encourage tourism. In 2015, the long weekend was moved to be closest to Morazán's birthday. Hence, the Morazán Holidays!

"But who's this Morazán guy?" Well, let's step back a little bit. Central America declared independence from Spain in 1821 and formed the Federal Republic of Central America in 1823. Francisco Morazán was from the state of Honduras and served as the president of this nation from 1830-1839, enacting freedom of speech, religion, and the press. The nation was disestablished into its constituent states in 1841. Ever wonder why the flags of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica all look so similar? It's because they're all modeled off of the flag of Central America. If you're interested in more FRCA history, it makes for an interesting Wikipedia sesh.

So, Wednesday I headed down to Tegucigalpa. Keyla and ASJ had the whole week off, but Kara didn't have any holidays given that week (odd, since AFE is a school and most students in the country had the whole week off including Valeria, Kari, and the reps' kids... but AFE'd had all of Independence Day week off so I suppose it evens out). Keyla had invited me to stay at her place, but the first night her friends invited us to a pizza party/sleepover!

Construction

It turned out super tasty

Noche de muchachas!

The next day, Keyla and I explored the centro. We went clothes shopping and found some nice articles at good prices.

Armed Forces Day display in the center plaza. They were just standing there all day!

On Friday, we headed up into the mountains surrounding the city to another coworker friend of Keyla's who lives near La Tigra National Park. We went on a nearly seven-kilometer hike and saw some great vistas of the city.

La Tigra National Park

Kirsten, Katie, Allison, Comfort, me, Keyla

In the pines, in the pines ❤️

View of Tegus from the mountain

As the weekend proper arrived, we could finally meet up with Kara! We spent Saturday in El Picacho National Park, known for its statue of Christ.

Some nice panoramas from this park, too

They have a plaza honoring Confucius

"Hemos llegado a los pies de Cristo" — Keyla

At 150 lempiras each, the Canopy (zipline) was a deal not to be missed!

Wheee!

The next day, I headed back up to SPS. This past week I felt rejuvenated from my vacation and found that I'm no longer feeling the need to just zonk out at 9pm, which is nice. Maybe my brain is finally getting used to the constant interchange between languages, or maybe it's a temporary stamina boost from a relaxed vacation. Either way, I'm grateful for it!

Highlights from this week are that I bought a bike (Gustavo actually offered to sell me his at a pretty decent price, so I just opted for that) and finished translating the CODESO article (Spanish will be available at the same link pretty soon).

Gotta get ready for church now! Catch ya later.