from the desk of stinkpot

ok, i’ve finally downloaded & curated some of the ~1000 or so photos i took during our recent trip to honduras.  so far, i’ve only gone through about the first 36 hours of our trip.

we start off at approximately 1 AM on the living room floor of a hostel in the industrial center of honduras: san pedro sula.  we had arrived at the airport only 3 hours earlier; since we planned on catching a bus out of town the next morning at 5 AM, we thought we might save a night’s lodging costs and sleep in the airport terminal.  sadly, the honduran customs officials didn’t think our idea was so clever (the airport actually closed at night).  several dirty looks and one silent taxi ride later, we found ourselves at the only hostel in a sketchy looking neighborhood.

initially, we thought we had lucked out: the proprietress told us she had an extra bed for us.  unfortunately, she was wrong.  it turned out that the extra bed belonged to an english tourist who was out carousing with some men she had met earlier in the evening.  her acquaintance (who had been awoken by the proprietress) insisted that the bed not be given away, in the off-chance that her friend wasn’t kidnapped by her newfound friends.  thankfully, after much pleading, we convinced the proprietress to let us sleep on the floor.  as we were carrying our full camping gear, i thought this would be a good idea: we get a discount on our lodging (we got the hostel fee halved) and thanks to our mattress pads, we would have a more comfortable night than in some saggy mattress.  of course, i forgot to take into account the cockroaches that scurried across the floor all night, as well as the lack of good ventilation on the floor; it was too hot to sleep in our sleeping bags, but extremely nasty feeling roaches walking on you.

welcome to honduras.

the next morning, my spanish is put to the test as we try and find our bus.  apparently, our bus no longer leaves from where the guide book says it does.  it takes 15 minutes of hiking, 1 conversation with a man who courageously overcame all odds to become drunk by 9 AM, and a lot of wandering to eventually get here:

we quickly learn that transportation infrastructure is not honduras’ strong point.

however, we also notice that san pedro sula’s industrial parks have this bleak beauty to them:

by an amazing stroke of luck, we find our bus.  10 minutes later, we take off towards the city of copan.  our bus makes frequent stops along the road for the next 3 hours, picking up hondurans heading in our direction.  this woman brings 2 dogs onto the bus in little cardboard boxes:

we pass things you don’t usually see in the states:

finally, we arrive in copan.  we find a nice little hotel with a garden in the middle:

i’m sorely tempted, but i don’t buy any street food.

we get on a taxi to take us out of the town, to the local ruins.  the taxis are adorable — these little motorized tricycles, very similar to what they use in manila.

the mayan ruins at copan are breathtaking:

 

we leave the ruins mid-afternoon and, in spite of the falling rain, we decide to hire a guide and take a horseback ride through the countryside. this turns out to be a good idea; not only is it fun to ride horses:

but our guide turns out to a kind man full who’s fascinating to talk to:

he tells us that he’s only 40-something but already has 15 children.  born and raised in copan, he’s held a wide breadth of jobs, including: police officer, farmer, government official, archaeological excavator, and builder.  as we pass through the forest, he points out which tree leaves the mayans would use as analgesics.  he also tells us more somber stories about the devastation wrought by hurricane mitch, a huge storm that took its time passing over honduras.  copan suffered particularly exquisite flooding, as it lies in a valley:

our guide told us that in spite of hurricane mitch happening almost 10 years ago, local agriculture had still not recovered; lucrative strains of coffee and tobacco that once were cultivated in the valley still couldn’t be re-introduced.  tourism, he tells us, has been increasing, but not rapidly enough to offset the catastrophic loss of crops.

excited by having seen the ruins and sobered by our guide’s stories, we return back to our hotel.  we find that our room lacks a window screen.   while we are taking malaria pills, we decide not to tempt fate; we find that the tent we’re carrying fits very neatly on our bed.  we fall asleep watching the honduran national soccer team lose on tv through our tent’s screen door.

chris and i took mit’s free sailing class a couple of weeks ago.  it’s a pretty sweet deal: you get 3 hours of instruction and a chance to take a dinghy out onto the charles.  in return, you wear a life jacket and promise not to drown.

sadly, i don’t have any photos from inside the boat.  capsizing and cameras don’t share much in common, aside from their first two letters.

one boat in our class did actually capsize:

why capsizing into the charles is bad:

boats all lined up:

i found these guys hiding out by the library across the street from our apartment.  sad to think that these guys won’t last much longer; it’s getting so cold outside now, and it’s only september!

chris and i had a garage sale a couple of weekends before we went to honduras.

it was incredible how win-win garage sales can be: we somehow convinced people to give us $125 and we cleared up the clutter in our apartment.  all we had to do was sit down  in the sun and play scrabble for a couple of hours.

interesting garage sale observation: the vast majority of our sales weren’t made to little old ladies — they were made to pairs of middle age men.  it seems that in cambridge, it’s common practice for blue-collar, clearly heterosexual men to partner up and frequent garage sales.  they even play wingmen, goading each other on:

dude #1: what do i need a pressure cooker for?

dude #2: doesn’t matter.  that’s a fine pressure cooker.  buy it.

dude #1: ok.  [hands me $5]

sean even came by to sell a guitar and inspect my bike tires.

will update blog again soon.  been so busy lately with work.  and, just got back from a 2 week adventure in honduras.  many fun pictures and stories to share soon!

chris and i celebrated our 7th anniversary together with dinner this evening at a really steakhouse near copley square this evening.

it took me a while to figure out how many years we had been together.  funny how chris, and even my sister steph, knew immediately when asked.  girl thing perhaps?

in any case, dinner was delicious — and astoundingly wasteful too.  stupid brain thinking too much; the best steak i’ve had in boston loses a bit of its juicy savoriness when you realize that your meal cost more than the average filipino makes in a month.  or, that it was the equivalent of two weeks of groceries.

still, why earn a paycheck at all if you don’t spend your money sometime?  especially when you spend it on steak.

i just lived through a great moment in programming.

this afternoon, i caught a subtle error in a 1023-line (not including comments) program whose results are about to be featured in a publication.  spotting and squashing this bug not only explains one mysteriously anomalous result i’ve been getting for months, but has also likely provides a means for solving the last remaining major obstacle my analyses is facing.  had this bug gone unnoticed, i’d likely have gotten a fair bit of egg on my face when i released my program to the general environmental microbiology community.

in short, i’m damn glad i found this bug.

something does still nag at me though — what’s the appropriate way to celebrate this momentous programming moment?  i’m fairly certain a terrrell owens-like end-zone dance would be considered inappropriate and lead to a fine from christina’s bad-dancing monitoring commission.  but, do programmer’s ever allow themselves at least a small fist-pump?  a low-key yell of triumph?  or how about something the kids would enjoy: a pete-weberesque crotch chop?

i ended up celebrating the way i would imagine most programmers probably do: i ate some junk food and wrote in my blog.

spotted the other night on berkshire st. while on the way to the pub.  perhaps this car’s owner is just very forgetful?

frank fife/reuters

apparently, synthetic drugs aren’t the only banned substances at the tour de france:

Through the first 12 stages of the Tour de France, at least 10 riders have been cited for violating Articles 12 and 29 of the cycling code, regarding correct comportment on the race course. According to the citations, the riders “satisfied nature’s need in front of the public.” The cost was 100 Swiss Francs per rider, or roughly $83.

apparently, tour riders have chafed under these restrictions:

David Zabriskie, a native of Salt Lake City who rides for CSC, was also fined for his actions during the third stage. He said he understood that it was not appropriate to be “hanging out in front of the fans,” but added, “The problem is that in the Tour de France, it’s hard to find a stretch of road with nobody on it.”

still, riders persevere:

“What’s really stressful is when you have to go from the bike” while it is moving, Zabriskie said.

That maneuver is performed by hiking up one leg of the bike shorts and pivoting the hips sideways to allow for relief. Sometimes a rider’s teammate will help steady his handlebars during that maneuver, making sure he is upwind.

god i love the new york times.