This last week post-Utila has been awesome! We are just finishing up our internships and will be back in the US by next Wednesday. In the meantime, we’re working on soaking up as much sun as possible while juggling our assignments and group projects that present our respective internships to the group. Although it’s tempting to just get everything done during the day, it’s so hard to resist the 80 degree weather with blue skies compared to the estimated -13 when we return to Iowa, so there has definitely been a fair bit of procrastination…

Something that we all had to try before we go back was making our own baleadas! For those of you who don’t know what they are (I certainly didn’t before coming here), baleadas are a traditional Honduran food that consist of a delicious, thick tortilla filled with an assortment of things including beans, cheese, eggs, meat, or avocado. We’ve all had them made for us in the past, but last night we had the opportunity to shape the tortillas ourselves! It was so much more difficult than I anticipated because the people I’ve seen doing it in the past made it seem so easy, but we definitely had some less than circular tortillas. So once we put our oblong tortillas in the pan, we got to put any kind of filling we wish into them (including some local hot sauce!) and enjoyed them as a whole group.

In addition to these baleadas, some of us also had the opportunity to go to Carambola Gardens yesterday on the island. It’s a gorgeous park that has dozens of species of tropical trees, shrubs, and flowers for anyone to observe and enjoy. The group of us that went were able to hike to the top of the trail provided and saw an amazing view of the oldest resort on the island, Anthony’s Key and all of the ocean surrounding it. Although we have been on the island for some time, the beauty here still astounds me. I have never seen anything like the views here before and I will certainly miss enjoying all of the natural wonders Roatan has to offer.

Over the next few days, we will be saying our farewells to the remainders of our internships and those here that have made our experience as amazing as it was. This weekend, we’ll have the chance to see the local Garifuna perform a traditional dance and learn even more about the local culture.

Have a great weekend, everyone!