- Around
Sharon and I in the back of a pickup, going to the airport to catch a light plane to the island of Utila. I spent two weeks there getting my Open Water and Advanced Open Water diving certificates.
After utila I went to the Ruins of Copán in the west. These are evidently some of the most southern Mayan ruins, indicating the spread of their civilisation. The photo here is a stelae portraying one of the rulers of Copán, built around 700AD.
TEGUCIGALPA
Arriving in the capital city, Tegucigalpa, I saw the devestating effects of Hurricane Mitch, which had hit Central America eight months earlier.
This system of houses was home to many families. You can see the house still standing on the second floor, but the buildings actually rose to three stories, only evident now by the framing still attached to the wall of the large building on the left.
Stairway leading to the 2nd floor inside the houses. The inside of this house, and many of the destroyed houses I would guess, reak of the stench of excretory - maybe from the homeless who have found a new place to stay, or maybe from the people who used to live there and don't have any other family to stay with.
The walls of the cheaper houses are made of earth, with a weak concrete exterior lining. So when the water came roof-high through the streets and ripped away bits of the lining, the earth turned to mud and slumped. You can see white wall of the next house that buckled under internal pressure.
Needless to say there was a lot of looting shortly after the floods.
Stairs leading to nowhere (I was tempted to use the title of the Led Zeppelin song, but thought it corny).
The water rose way up over this bridge, and at least half the height again, dragging with it trees, parts of houses, cars etc. In fact the cars evidently did quite a bit of damage smashing into buildings and telegraph poles, and ripping the power lines down.
The force of the water washed tons of dirt from the river walls, widening it considerably and undermining nearby houses.