After getting a good night's sleep and a great breakfast, we decided to explore our hotel, the Posada de Don Juan. It is a lovely place, and the people that work there were very kind and accomodating. They don't speak English very well, but that's OK -- I don't speak Spanish very well either!! We had some extremely amusing conversations throughout the week, mostly accompanied by gestures, pictures drawn, or grabbing a nearby person who spoke both languages to translate for us!
Pictures of the hotel:
The pool located in the courtyard of the hotel
Kenzie checking out flowers along the edge of the pool area
The door leading into the restaurant
The outdoor eating area, looking towards the reception area (picture taken from steps of restaurant; pool is behind the columns on the left)
Reception desk and lobby
Staircase leading from lobby to 2nd floor rooms
The other (older) end of the hotel; rooms surrounded an enclosed parking area, which had very large wooden gates that were closed unless someone was entering or leaving the parking area.
Outdoor sitting area near the older rooms and parking area
There were many exotic plants all around the parking area. Mackenzie was excited to find a banana plant among them!
Another look at the lobby area
Our hotel room
Desk in room; window looked out onto the courtyard/pool
By noon, the relatives living in Honduras started arriving to visit. It was great having a chance to see them all again after two years.
After eating lunch, we piled into one of the LandCruisers and were taken to visit the Saint Cristobal Fort. I'm not sure there's really anything there of historic value, but the view from the fort is spectacular! The kids had fun running around the fort and playing freeze tag!
Use your imagination to push these 3 pictures together to see the view from one side of the fort!
After driving back to the hotel, we made a quick trip to the dress maker's place for some wedding fittings.......
....then to the grocery store across the street, and after that, we headed up the mountain to my sister's place. The following photos are view from along the drive and from my sister's back door.
While we were there, we decided to experiment with making one small layer of cake. The directions on the boxes of cake mixes always have directions for "high elevation" baking. Since my sister's home is up in the mountains, we decided that it might be a good idea to make a test cake before doing the real baking the next day. When we read the box, it said that the ingredients did not need to be changed; however, it said that at higher elevations, the mix would make 36 cupcakes instead of 24. REALLY?? It would make 12 extra cupcakes?? That seemed like it would not be possible, and we collectively decided that it must be a typo on the box. Surely, they meant 26 cupcakes, not 36!! Well, guess what??? They were right!! I mixed up a layer of cake, filled a small pan to the amount I would normally use here at home, and then we watched as it rose -- and rose -- and rose -- and spilled all over the cookie sheet in the bottom of the oven! What a mess. However, this provided us with valuable information before we headed into the real baking on Friday, and also gave the family a small cake to enjoy eating! The science project did NOT go to waste!!
Later in the evening, we returned to the hotel. In the restaurant, there were three guys playing a marimba, and they were REALLY good. Mackenzie was fascinated, and so we sat there watching and listening for quite a while.
Thus ended day #2. Time to get some rest before the big day of cake baking! More on Day #3 to folllow........
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