After an entire month of loving on climate change all day, every day, the COP16/CMP6 climate conference in Cancun has finally come to its long-awaited end. As we all expected/feared, it didn't end neatly on the evening of Dec. 10 as the program suggested. Instead, it ran clear through Saturday until around 7 a.m. Three reporters (including moi) and a production team stayed behind to cover the conference throughout the night.
I had the extreme pleasure of fulfilling all my journalistic dreams and working on a video from an informal plenary session in which we edited out all the content with value and selected only the sound bytes where delegates praised and lauded Mexico and the COP16 President for the magnificent, marvelous, stupendous job she played in creating a "transparent and inclusive" environment throughout the negotiating process. As such, I didn't even really learn about what happened until I edited the translated copy of another reporter's stories on the final conclusions...a series of agreements called the Cancun Accords...Google it, I already forget it all. Bolivia provided the evening's entertainment by denouncing the entire process and all the agreements reached, although I think I missed the juiciest parts, because all the texts and Gchats I received from friends highlighted something interesting that I didn't see.
I was already tired throughout the day since on Thursday we stayed out until 3 a.m. getting tacos (we meaning everyone else, I tried to sleep in the car but failed). Then I got up at 8 to get to work by 10, and then stayed until nearly the next day. I believe I looked incredibly gorgeous after all that. Once we got back, I crashed, hung out by the pool and drank tequila with coworkers, got lunch, crashed again, and now I'm all clean and sparkly and ready to get my ACE OF BASE on!!!!!! That's right, the Swedes/Danes/Fins/(who knows?) you loved from 1992 are back and bigger than ever, performing at a free concert in the climate conference's village for civil society (i.e. us). I've decided that I will storm the stage and tackle them if they refuse to play the classics and try to impress us with some new album that no one wants to hear.
Now I have just a little over a week left in Mexico, and I may or may not hide in a Mayan pyramid and never come out.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Mexico's own climate conference
Things have started to balance out a bit as we all adjust to working together, working crazy hours, eating Chips Ahoy! for dinner and being paged like doctors at all hours of the day. There are good days and crazy days...like on Wednesday, when my first assignment wasn't until 6 p.m. and I got out of the office by midnight, or the time I had to cover 3 consecutive events (which means 3 videos, 3 text stories and 3 photo slideshows...which, thanks to the help of my news team, got done relatlively fast), or the time I spent 10 hours in a Playa del Carmen conference center watching bloggers, media experts and Mexico's most famous scientist ever, Mario Molina, sit in panel discussions.
The latter event was actually very interesting from a journalist point-of-view. The panelists talked about the role that media play in educating and influencing the public on climate change topics. Even in the climate stories I've written prior to the COP16, I struggled to find the delicate balance between celebrating efforts and initiatives and criticizing the fact that (surprise!) none of them have been implemented, or they don't reall work. Climate change is real, it is affecting us, and we must all change our lifestyles to lessen our impact, but how exactly does that translate to a run-of-the-mill news story whose purpose is not to preach or take a side?
Despite supposedly being the voice of an international conference filled with 25,000 participants and delegates from 193 countries, all of the stories that we cover at the COP16 news center have to do with the Mexican government. Really, I should feel stupid for being so surprised that a semi-official news center would actually just tow the national line, especially here. Every event is hosted or co-hosted by the Mexican government, and all of the interviews that are scheduled in advance are Mexican officials, scientists, environmentalists, you have it. But what is actually the most irritating is the quality of the website. We pour hours into making videos, photo slideshows and stories. The video and photo editors hardly eat or sleep because they spend all day in their freezing cold studios working, and the reporters are under pressure to file stories for an immediate turnaround. And then you look at the website, and you can't find things, or the organization is uninviting to random viewers, and it's disheartening to see that.
Anyway, that's my daily dose of bitching. It's Saturday, so I must be working!
The latter event was actually very interesting from a journalist point-of-view. The panelists talked about the role that media play in educating and influencing the public on climate change topics. Even in the climate stories I've written prior to the COP16, I struggled to find the delicate balance between celebrating efforts and initiatives and criticizing the fact that (surprise!) none of them have been implemented, or they don't reall work. Climate change is real, it is affecting us, and we must all change our lifestyles to lessen our impact, but how exactly does that translate to a run-of-the-mill news story whose purpose is not to preach or take a side?
Despite supposedly being the voice of an international conference filled with 25,000 participants and delegates from 193 countries, all of the stories that we cover at the COP16 news center have to do with the Mexican government. Really, I should feel stupid for being so surprised that a semi-official news center would actually just tow the national line, especially here. Every event is hosted or co-hosted by the Mexican government, and all of the interviews that are scheduled in advance are Mexican officials, scientists, environmentalists, you have it. But what is actually the most irritating is the quality of the website. We pour hours into making videos, photo slideshows and stories. The video and photo editors hardly eat or sleep because they spend all day in their freezing cold studios working, and the reporters are under pressure to file stories for an immediate turnaround. And then you look at the website, and you can't find things, or the organization is uninviting to random viewers, and it's disheartening to see that.
Anyway, that's my daily dose of bitching. It's Saturday, so I must be working!
Monday, November 29, 2010
Crazy times with Climate Change
After Cuetzalan began the first day of the rest of my life (ok, month). For those who don't know, I'm one of five reporters in the COP16 News Center, which is a semi-official function of Mexico's Foreign Affairs Ministry. The COP16 is the UN-organized conference where diplomats and delegates get together to not reach any binding agreements regarding greenhouse gas emissions, alternative energy, and programs to mitigate and adapt to the effects of man-made climate change (i.e. global warming). This year it's in Cancun!
For the first week and a half, our team of 10 (reporters, editors, translators and the like) met for 10 to 12 (or 13) hours a day to practice, practice, practice producing multimedia reports for our website. We stalked people on the street, in parks, in their offices, to produce somewhat mindless videos and written stories on climate change, mostly to practice our production skills and familiarize ourselves with the language of the business.
Last Wednesday (Nov. 23?), we flew out together to Cancun. We're staying at an all-inclusive resort at one of the best beach spot's in the Caribbean city. It's incredibly bizarre to wake up each morning dressed to impress, laptop strung across the shoulder, stress levels set to explode, and see a bunch of lobster red, overweight tourists in tank tops and flip flops enjoying the beach and buffet. Our first afternoon, at least, we got to join them. Since then, however, it's been hectic, and as today (Nov. 29) is the first official day of the conference, it's only going to intensify.
Sunday was a very go-go-go kind of day, but I enjoyed it. My production team (cameraman, camera assistant, photographer and slighty-nuts production assisant) and I were rushed out of our bedrooms without breakfast to head north up to an archeological zone, where who knows what was happening. Once we arrived, not even the security guards knew what was happening, but as we walked past the gates, the camera dudes went racing up a sandy hill to where a huge group of people was standing. I scurried along in my pretty gold flats as they filled with rocks and sand. When I got up, I saw that the leader of an indigenous Mixe community from Oaxaca was performing the ritual sacrifice of a wild turkey to bless the inauguration of a Foreign Affairs-organized campsite for NGO workers and indigenous groups participating in the COP16. In retrospect, it was a little psychotic of me to ask that the cameras cover the actual slaughter, because of course we couldn't put that in my video, but at the time the ridiculousness of it all made me hysterically amused. Luis, the photographer, has an excellent picture of the neck and head splayed across a rock.
After the butchering, the Mixe leader passed around cups of mezcal, and the Foreign Affairs Secretary poured some on the turkey like any proper gangster would do. We hung around for a while waiting for an official to grace us with his presence, and finally bolted back to Cancunmesse, a convention center and one of two headquarters for high-level talks and events. There, we dropped off the van and caught a COP bus to the Moon Palace Hotel, the other HQ and home to our News Center. Which is in a basement. The space is normally used for training and hiring service personnel for the hotel (like cleaning ladies, waiters, cooks, etc). To get to the bathroom, we essentially walk through their complex, and it's still silly to me that when I take a break from a story and rush to pee, I run past neatly dressed Yucatecos in squeaky white sneakers and crisp uniforms.
Today, I've been blessed with a 10:30 a.m. work call, which can only mean that I'll be in the office until 2 a.m.
Check out our stories here!
For the first week and a half, our team of 10 (reporters, editors, translators and the like) met for 10 to 12 (or 13) hours a day to practice, practice, practice producing multimedia reports for our website. We stalked people on the street, in parks, in their offices, to produce somewhat mindless videos and written stories on climate change, mostly to practice our production skills and familiarize ourselves with the language of the business.
Last Wednesday (Nov. 23?), we flew out together to Cancun. We're staying at an all-inclusive resort at one of the best beach spot's in the Caribbean city. It's incredibly bizarre to wake up each morning dressed to impress, laptop strung across the shoulder, stress levels set to explode, and see a bunch of lobster red, overweight tourists in tank tops and flip flops enjoying the beach and buffet. Our first afternoon, at least, we got to join them. Since then, however, it's been hectic, and as today (Nov. 29) is the first official day of the conference, it's only going to intensify.
Sunday was a very go-go-go kind of day, but I enjoyed it. My production team (cameraman, camera assistant, photographer and slighty-nuts production assisant) and I were rushed out of our bedrooms without breakfast to head north up to an archeological zone, where who knows what was happening. Once we arrived, not even the security guards knew what was happening, but as we walked past the gates, the camera dudes went racing up a sandy hill to where a huge group of people was standing. I scurried along in my pretty gold flats as they filled with rocks and sand. When I got up, I saw that the leader of an indigenous Mixe community from Oaxaca was performing the ritual sacrifice of a wild turkey to bless the inauguration of a Foreign Affairs-organized campsite for NGO workers and indigenous groups participating in the COP16. In retrospect, it was a little psychotic of me to ask that the cameras cover the actual slaughter, because of course we couldn't put that in my video, but at the time the ridiculousness of it all made me hysterically amused. Luis, the photographer, has an excellent picture of the neck and head splayed across a rock.
After the butchering, the Mixe leader passed around cups of mezcal, and the Foreign Affairs Secretary poured some on the turkey like any proper gangster would do. We hung around for a while waiting for an official to grace us with his presence, and finally bolted back to Cancunmesse, a convention center and one of two headquarters for high-level talks and events. There, we dropped off the van and caught a COP bus to the Moon Palace Hotel, the other HQ and home to our News Center. Which is in a basement. The space is normally used for training and hiring service personnel for the hotel (like cleaning ladies, waiters, cooks, etc). To get to the bathroom, we essentially walk through their complex, and it's still silly to me that when I take a break from a story and rush to pee, I run past neatly dressed Yucatecos in squeaky white sneakers and crisp uniforms.
Today, I've been blessed with a 10:30 a.m. work call, which can only mean that I'll be in the office until 2 a.m.
Check out our stories here!
Stupendous Spelunking in Cuetzalan
With my work on the COP16 News Center looming ahead, I made sure to make the most of my last weekend of freedom. Grant, Nick and I left DF at the splendid hour of 11:58 p.m. and headed 5 hours north to Cuetzalan, an ancient city in the state of Puebla. The name comes from quetzal, a beautiful bird whose peacock-like feathers were prized by the Aztecs. According to my 12 year old tour guide, quetzales are now extinct, but only since the 1980s. Way to go, cultural patrimony.
When we arrived around 5:30 a.m. to the posada, we awoke a sleeping man at the reception, who let us into a room with two double beds. Being a princess, I naturally got one to myself, but Nick was a little nervous that Grant would get the wrong idea, so in the morning, we went downstairs and asked for a triple.
We thought it would be obvious not to pay the full price on the double room, as we'd only slept in it for 3 hours. Wrong. We started bickering in Spanish with the lady at the front desk, who was like "hellz no," but fortunately Nick shifted approaches and asked gently if we couldn't reach a compromise. And it worked! Half price for the first night, and full price on a triple with ridiculously high ceilings and a bathroom with a shower head facing the toilet.
Later in the morning, we wandered around the tiny pueblo up steep streets and through a maze of market vendors.
Then we hired a 12-year-old gentleman to lead us down the highway, through a small annex town and out to Las Brisas, a beautiful waterfall whose natural wonder is amplified by the michelada (beer with spices) carts. 
All in all, the perfect way to spend my last sweet drop of freedom.
When we arrived around 5:30 a.m. to the posada, we awoke a sleeping man at the reception, who let us into a room with two double beds. Being a princess, I naturally got one to myself, but Nick was a little nervous that Grant would get the wrong idea, so in the morning, we went downstairs and asked for a triple.
We thought it would be obvious not to pay the full price on the double room, as we'd only slept in it for 3 hours. Wrong. We started bickering in Spanish with the lady at the front desk, who was like "hellz no," but fortunately Nick shifted approaches and asked gently if we couldn't reach a compromise. And it worked! Half price for the first night, and full price on a triple with ridiculously high ceilings and a bathroom with a shower head facing the toilet.Later in the morning, we wandered around the tiny pueblo up steep streets and through a maze of market vendors.
Then we hired a 12-year-old gentleman to lead us down the highway, through a small annex town and out to Las Brisas, a beautiful waterfall whose natural wonder is amplified by the michelada (beer with spices) carts. After Grant threw rocks at a hole in the waterfall's rock wall for a good 15 minutes, and after Nick skipped rocks with our guide's 10-year-old brother, the five of us went up and around to a second waterfall. Once we headed back into town and tipped our escorts, we went to a well-regarded restaurant across the narrow street from our posada. I thought I picked a winner when I ordered crepes with mushrooms, but it turns out, they had a different kind of mushroom in mind. They were long, chewy, earth-tasting strips in a blanket of crepe batter. At least the beers were cheap! 
On Sunday, we met up with Dario, who friends had recommended that I call about a spelunking excursion. For 250 pesos each, we got equipment, a 4-hour tour and an "esnack," which I think is amazing. From Dario's house, we headed past a landscape of tropical green hillsides and down to the entrance of a cave. We climbed through the narrow walls, slithered "Matrix"-style along rocks and cannonballed into icy, icy waters. It was an impressive amount of fun, especially since all the other caves I've been to before are grandiose mammoths where well-lit paved paths with handrails invite families to gaze at stalactites. At the end, we each enjoyed a Negrito (or, "little black person"), essentially a Twinkie stuffed with chocolate filling, exactly the kind of snack you'd expect to be handed after an outdoorsy, athletic adventure, right?
Next, we cleaned up at Dario's house. I had brought a small hand towel on the trip just in case, so I used it to wipe the mud off my legs. Then, I realized I was wearing a bathing suit, so I could just rinse off my entire body! Then, I realized that the towel I had been planning to use was streaked with mud, so I had to air dry for a bit and wipe off with my soggy clothes. Sexy. For lunch, more micheladas at a seafood restaurant, and then a later afternoon departure for DF.
On Sunday, we met up with Dario, who friends had recommended that I call about a spelunking excursion. For 250 pesos each, we got equipment, a 4-hour tour and an "esnack," which I think is amazing. From Dario's house, we headed past a landscape of tropical green hillsides and down to the entrance of a cave. We climbed through the narrow walls, slithered "Matrix"-style along rocks and cannonballed into icy, icy waters. It was an impressive amount of fun, especially since all the other caves I've been to before are grandiose mammoths where well-lit paved paths with handrails invite families to gaze at stalactites. At the end, we each enjoyed a Negrito (or, "little black person"), essentially a Twinkie stuffed with chocolate filling, exactly the kind of snack you'd expect to be handed after an outdoorsy, athletic adventure, right?
Next, we cleaned up at Dario's house. I had brought a small hand towel on the trip just in case, so I used it to wipe the mud off my legs. Then, I realized I was wearing a bathing suit, so I could just rinse off my entire body! Then, I realized that the towel I had been planning to use was streaked with mud, so I had to air dry for a bit and wipe off with my soggy clothes. Sexy. For lunch, more micheladas at a seafood restaurant, and then a later afternoon departure for DF.
All in all, the perfect way to spend my last sweet drop of freedom.Madre y Padre come to visit
It's been almost a month since Madre y Padre came to visit me in Mexico City, but it still deserves a dignified mention on my blog. My parents stayed at an excellente bed & breakfast, the Red Tree House, just south of Parque Mexico and about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. Mornings started with a delicious breakfast (I know, I was there eating all the pan dulce), and evenings ended with a wine happy hour and, if he had the better half of a glass, my dad serenading the room on the piano.The first afternoon they arrived, I took them on a walking tour of Roma and Condesa and to all the pretty parks in the neighborhood. At the last park, my dad admitted that his back had been killing him and that he can't walk for extended periods like that. Oops. On Sunday, we headed up to the Chapultepec Castle (where Matt proposed, how darling), then over to the beloved Anthropology and History Museum, where we skipped lunch and slammed chile-covered peanuts instead. At night we had a super fancy dinner (at a restaurant that was so fancy I'll never get to return) to celebrate John & Gretch's 29th wedding anniversary. Also darling.
Monday we took a road trip to Tepotzlan, in the state of Morelos, which was pleasantly free of DF crowds and angsty groups of adolescent students. Despite complaining of back pain earlier in the trip, my dad bested my mom and I throughout a steep, hour-long hike up to an Aztec pyramid. Fortunately he reminded us on various occassions, lest we forget :) After my parents devored a giant slab of salty cecina meat (pork? beef?), and I a soggy enchilada disappointment, we caught a coach bus back to DF and took a proper siesta. In the evening, the padres treated my friends to an evening of tacos and beer, and Lord help us, the Browns were playing.
Tuesday began with my parents waiting on me as I interviewed a source for a freelance story, then we headed to the Pachuca street market, where fruits, veggies, flowers and spongy cow stomach tissue are deliciously displayed. Next stop: Centro Histórico. Unfortunately, the grandeur of the Zócalo plaza and the billowing Mexican flag had been put aside for endless production equipment, which I later found out was for a crazy light show to celebrate the centennial of the start of the Mexican revolution. We passed through a labrynth of security to get to Mexico's Bicentennial Museum (this time for Mexican independence), which offered a very interesting but very long foray into Mexican history.
We put off lunch to have an early dinner at one of my favorite places to eat, whose name I can never remember. In Mexico, most restaurants have lunch menus, where you can get soup, rice, a main dish and dessert, plus fruit water, for 40 pesos. This place costs 85 pesos, but is infinitely more fancy. On Wednesday, the padres last day in DF, we headed south to Coyoacán. To my delight (I swear I didn't plan it) we had lunch at a vegetarian sidewalk café then checked out the Casa Azul, where Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera lived and got all Communist on each other. A walk through Coyoacán's historic little plaza ended with a mountain of pistachio ice cream for all. Qué rico.
Our last supper, if you will, was at the Taco Ladies, the infamous sidewalk eatery where the tables and chairs are plastic and foldable and the roof is a plastic tarp strung over a plastic tube framework. They actually serve quesadillas on their portable stove, but they're known universally as the Taco Ladies. And my, do they make a mean tortilla.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Hunger in Puebla, mishaps in Cholula
Fun title, huh? As my stay in Mexico is winding to a wistful close (Dec. 22 is my departure date), I'm trying to make sure that each weekend involves some sort of special Mexican adventure. Three weekends ago, me, Paul plus a handful of Mexicans, Frenchies and a New Zealander went to Malinalco, in the State of Mexico. The town really is a hidden gem. Craggy green mountains tower over the city center of two-story concrete buildings painted eccentric shades of red, orange, blue and yellow. Narrow streets lead mostly in the same directions: back onto the highway, through a crowded food market, or to the archeological site, where Aztec warriors came for spiritual training centuries before the Spanish "offered" Catholicism as a religious alternative.
The next weekend I partied like the college student/Mexican I am no longer suited to be, and last weekend I met up with Texan Grant in Puebla, the capital city of a similarly named state about 2 hours east of Mexico City. It's a city that's so close to Mexico and such a standard stop along the tourist route, that somehow I managed to put it off until the very end. I hopped on a bus Saturday morning to Puebla's bus terminal, then rode a public bus through clogged traffic to the center. Grant and I (mostly I) marveled at the painted ceramic tiles (or azulejos) that bedazzle all the historic buildings around Puebla. Floral patterns and symmetric designs painted in deep blue glaze are most common, while others are yellow and green and equally mesmerizing. We stopped in the Alfeñique Museum, which details Puebla's history through maps, paintings and fancy French-influenced gowns. The ornate white molding on banisters and ceiling lends the museum the title alfeñique, a technique for making cooked sugar decorations, like those on a wedding cake or Day of the Dead skulls.
Next stop was a beautiful colonial church whose interior was nondescript, but whose facade was covered in more of the shiny ceramic tiles. By then, it was 1 p.m. and I was starving, but we were waiting for Grant's girlfriend to get out of a dentistry conference to get lunch with her and her classmates. So I bought a giant bag of popcorn covered in Valentina salsa from a little stand by the entrance, while Grant purchased the world's largest taco. Seriously, it was an entire serving of steak and fries, plus refried beans and cheese, on a mammoth tortilla. We headed into the Zócalo and dropped by the Casa de Cultura and the giant cathedral. The conference ran over, so we stopped by the Museo Bello and checked out Señor Bello's extensive collection of everything - keys, locks, chests, music stands, Chinese porcelain, oil paintings, bronze kitchenware, etc. - in his ritzy colonial mansion. I might've lessened the value of some pieces by leaning on them or touching them absentmindedly, but no one yelled at me, so at least I got away clean.
Finally, it came time for lunch. Well, for the others, at least. Just as had been the case on Friday night at a post-party taco joint, this taquería served only meat tacos. Usually a taco place will at least have tacos with boiled cactus (nopales) or mushroom fillings, but not this one. Just strange cuts like brain, tongue, intenstines and a mosaic of mystery meat. Defeated by hunger, I ordered a simple quesadilla. When it came with spare chunks of unidentifiable meat, I picked them out and forged onward. When it started dripping with oily, grayish meat juice, I sent it back. Just as I stood up to clarify I didn't want another one, a fresh quesadilla was served. It was speckled with red beef. The waitress and I eyed each other as I explained that a new meat-covered quesadilla was still not vegetarian friendly. She slowly pushed the meat around with her fork, as if to show me that it was removable (I know about the juice, lady!) before I walked away and left her plate in hand.
When the dentists left Puebla and returned to Mexico City, Grant and I headed to the crafts market so I could salivate over talavera pieces (a white and glazed type of earthenware, says Google). Of all the flower vases and mirrors and tea sets I fondled, I went home instead with a pocket-size candle holder. With my genetic disposition to shop fulfilled, we took a public bus to Cholula, a small city nearby. We wandered in the dark to the Zócalo, a very lively and charming place to be on a Saturday night, and got our bearings. We headed out to find a hotel that a Cholulan friend of a friend had recommended. Instead, we find a row of abandoned buildings on a street with no lights, and decided to use my guide book instead. The first place we found was pretty dingy, with just a double bed and a bathroom whose wall didn't quite reach the ceiling. The next place we tried was fancier, but completely booked. Apparently there was some sort of convention in Cholula that weekend. The receptionist made us a reservation at another hotel, and we walked around for an hour with no luck. Finally a cab driver we had asked earlier ran up to us with the directions and drove us there.
Our hotel was decent, but a bit much. Every room was really a suite, so for the two of us we had two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room with concrete couches built into the wall. Then Grant read a follow-up text from our hotel-suggestor saying that the hotel was in San Andrés Cholula. That's when we realized that the city has two municipalities, and we were in San Pedro Cholula. But it was 10 p.m., I still hadn't eaten and Grant's head cold was increasing with every sniffle, so we stuck with the Zocalo and watched some "Evita" before bed.
Sunday morning was far more successful. We ambled through an indoor market, pointing disgustedly at pig snouts and giant vats of cow head soup, then visited a cathedral, a history museum and a convent whose chapel has nearly 50 domes...crazy! Probably one of the most unique religious spaces we've seen in Mexico though. From there, we headed up to the giant colonial church sitting hilariously on top of a massive Aztec pyramid. Unfortunately, the pyramid is still buried, so the true irony of the matter isn't as obvious. Around the pyramid's base, however, is a well-kept archeological site with temples, palace walls and a courtyard for people in Aztec costumes to dance in a big circle while gringos take pictures.
Determined to see the second municipality - which is populated more by university and exchange students, plus hippies - we walked the lengthy journey to San Pedro. We ordered pizza at an eclectic restaurant around the city square, which naturally came with pork rinds on top (the 15-year-old waiter misinformed us that tlalitos was an Italian lettuce). After lunch, we asked a lady at an ice cream stand in the street if she could point out the taxi stop. Her customer then whipped out a walkie-talkie mid scoop and called us a cab. We're still not sure if she works with the cabs, or if this is a normal occurance.
We made it home in one piece, however, and then I tried to make veggie burgers as a battle cry against all carnivorous encounters I'd had that weekend. Absentmindedly I blended the ingredients into a veggie burger pancake batter that refuses to cook on the stove or in the oven.
Maria: 0. Meat: 4
The next weekend I partied like the college student/Mexican I am no longer suited to be, and last weekend I met up with Texan Grant in Puebla, the capital city of a similarly named state about 2 hours east of Mexico City. It's a city that's so close to Mexico and such a standard stop along the tourist route, that somehow I managed to put it off until the very end. I hopped on a bus Saturday morning to Puebla's bus terminal, then rode a public bus through clogged traffic to the center. Grant and I (mostly I) marveled at the painted ceramic tiles (or azulejos) that bedazzle all the historic buildings around Puebla. Floral patterns and symmetric designs painted in deep blue glaze are most common, while others are yellow and green and equally mesmerizing. We stopped in the Alfeñique Museum, which details Puebla's history through maps, paintings and fancy French-influenced gowns. The ornate white molding on banisters and ceiling lends the museum the title alfeñique, a technique for making cooked sugar decorations, like those on a wedding cake or Day of the Dead skulls.
Next stop was a beautiful colonial church whose interior was nondescript, but whose facade was covered in more of the shiny ceramic tiles. By then, it was 1 p.m. and I was starving, but we were waiting for Grant's girlfriend to get out of a dentistry conference to get lunch with her and her classmates. So I bought a giant bag of popcorn covered in Valentina salsa from a little stand by the entrance, while Grant purchased the world's largest taco. Seriously, it was an entire serving of steak and fries, plus refried beans and cheese, on a mammoth tortilla. We headed into the Zócalo and dropped by the Casa de Cultura and the giant cathedral. The conference ran over, so we stopped by the Museo Bello and checked out Señor Bello's extensive collection of everything - keys, locks, chests, music stands, Chinese porcelain, oil paintings, bronze kitchenware, etc. - in his ritzy colonial mansion. I might've lessened the value of some pieces by leaning on them or touching them absentmindedly, but no one yelled at me, so at least I got away clean.
Finally, it came time for lunch. Well, for the others, at least. Just as had been the case on Friday night at a post-party taco joint, this taquería served only meat tacos. Usually a taco place will at least have tacos with boiled cactus (nopales) or mushroom fillings, but not this one. Just strange cuts like brain, tongue, intenstines and a mosaic of mystery meat. Defeated by hunger, I ordered a simple quesadilla. When it came with spare chunks of unidentifiable meat, I picked them out and forged onward. When it started dripping with oily, grayish meat juice, I sent it back. Just as I stood up to clarify I didn't want another one, a fresh quesadilla was served. It was speckled with red beef. The waitress and I eyed each other as I explained that a new meat-covered quesadilla was still not vegetarian friendly. She slowly pushed the meat around with her fork, as if to show me that it was removable (I know about the juice, lady!) before I walked away and left her plate in hand.
When the dentists left Puebla and returned to Mexico City, Grant and I headed to the crafts market so I could salivate over talavera pieces (a white and glazed type of earthenware, says Google). Of all the flower vases and mirrors and tea sets I fondled, I went home instead with a pocket-size candle holder. With my genetic disposition to shop fulfilled, we took a public bus to Cholula, a small city nearby. We wandered in the dark to the Zócalo, a very lively and charming place to be on a Saturday night, and got our bearings. We headed out to find a hotel that a Cholulan friend of a friend had recommended. Instead, we find a row of abandoned buildings on a street with no lights, and decided to use my guide book instead. The first place we found was pretty dingy, with just a double bed and a bathroom whose wall didn't quite reach the ceiling. The next place we tried was fancier, but completely booked. Apparently there was some sort of convention in Cholula that weekend. The receptionist made us a reservation at another hotel, and we walked around for an hour with no luck. Finally a cab driver we had asked earlier ran up to us with the directions and drove us there.
Our hotel was decent, but a bit much. Every room was really a suite, so for the two of us we had two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room with concrete couches built into the wall. Then Grant read a follow-up text from our hotel-suggestor saying that the hotel was in San Andrés Cholula. That's when we realized that the city has two municipalities, and we were in San Pedro Cholula. But it was 10 p.m., I still hadn't eaten and Grant's head cold was increasing with every sniffle, so we stuck with the Zocalo and watched some "Evita" before bed.
Sunday morning was far more successful. We ambled through an indoor market, pointing disgustedly at pig snouts and giant vats of cow head soup, then visited a cathedral, a history museum and a convent whose chapel has nearly 50 domes...crazy! Probably one of the most unique religious spaces we've seen in Mexico though. From there, we headed up to the giant colonial church sitting hilariously on top of a massive Aztec pyramid. Unfortunately, the pyramid is still buried, so the true irony of the matter isn't as obvious. Around the pyramid's base, however, is a well-kept archeological site with temples, palace walls and a courtyard for people in Aztec costumes to dance in a big circle while gringos take pictures.
Determined to see the second municipality - which is populated more by university and exchange students, plus hippies - we walked the lengthy journey to San Pedro. We ordered pizza at an eclectic restaurant around the city square, which naturally came with pork rinds on top (the 15-year-old waiter misinformed us that tlalitos was an Italian lettuce). After lunch, we asked a lady at an ice cream stand in the street if she could point out the taxi stop. Her customer then whipped out a walkie-talkie mid scoop and called us a cab. We're still not sure if she works with the cabs, or if this is a normal occurance.
We made it home in one piece, however, and then I tried to make veggie burgers as a battle cry against all carnivorous encounters I'd had that weekend. Absentmindedly I blended the ingredients into a veggie burger pancake batter that refuses to cook on the stove or in the oven.
Maria: 0. Meat: 4
Overnight Climate Change Expert
While I've always had a particular interest in environment-related issues, I've never paid too much attention to climate change policy. But now it's my job to know these things, so consider me an overnight expert. Last month, I signed a contract to participate in a news team for the official web site of the COP16 climate change summit in Cancún. I'll spend about 2.5 weeks in the city of spring break fame reporting on the various conferences and revelations, all while bossing around a photographer and cameraman to oblige my journalistic whims. The entire project is a month long, which means I get two paychecks, which means: Yay. All expenses are covered, and we get an allowance for two beers a day, naturally.
To reiterate my position as an expert, I wrote my first paid freelance piece for a non-Mexican publication last week. Read: Yay. It's for SolveClimate News, an online service focused on all things environment and climate change, and the story was also picked up by Reuters.
Read the story here.
To reiterate my position as an expert, I wrote my first paid freelance piece for a non-Mexican publication last week. Read: Yay. It's for SolveClimate News, an online service focused on all things environment and climate change, and the story was also picked up by Reuters.
Read the story here.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Honduras: Home at last
FYI, sand fly bites are delightfully itchy and unsightlyTuesday, July 13, 2010
Ahh, the ripe hour of 2 a.m. Such a wonderful time to stash my life away into a backpack and grab a ride to the bus station. I actually got there before it opened, but the guards let me slouch on one of the cushioned seats in the lobby and watch some weird, weird movie about a fictional high-profile kidnapping in Mexico City. It's like the guards knew I was heading home and wanted to send me off just right. Solitary grandmothers and Garífuna families slowly filed in for the 3:30 bus, which meant we all got to enjoy the soft core porn scene between the sexy kidnapped lady and her brawny, gentle captor. That'll wake you up.
We passed through heavy construction but made our way into Tegucigalpa by 10:30, giving me ample time to catch my flight. On the way to the airport, the cab driver assured me that all flights had been canceled for days. I said "Hmm, I didn't get an e-mail yesterday from Taca so let's keep on keeping on." Ten minutes of silence later, he giggled to himself and noted that not even a single aircraft had flown overhead that day. We pull up to the airport, and everyone is unloaded suitcases and grasping boarding passes and passports - life as usual. After eavesdropping and eventually asking, I concluded that an unscheduled construction project was underway earlier that morning, so they temporarily shut down the airport while they figured out what to do. Not as exciting as the rumors I'd heard that someone had brought weapons into the airport. Booooring.
I spent my last L17 on a coffee, excited that I managed to leave Honduras without annoying change in a foreign currency. Then, to my obvious delight, I learned there was a $37 airport fee for international flights. You had to pay in dollars, and they didn't accept credit cards. Oh, and the ATMs (despite their lying screens) don't carry dollars either. So I had to withdraw lempiras, walk over to a currency changer with a fanny pack full of bills and get $42 back. Naturally, half of my change at the fee booth was in lempiras, so I bought some poundcake to spite them all.
On the flight home, I sat next to the regional coordinator of the United Nations Development Program, so he had a lot of fascinating insight on Latin America and all its woes. By the grace of Dios, I zipped through immigration and customs in D.F. and grabbed one of the first taxis out of the airport. I got to the apartment at 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday and passed out on the futon (was renting out my room) only to wake up at 7 a.m. and start the first of several months spent on the guide. Then on Thursday, I flew home to Ohio for 2 weeks. Never a dull moment!
El Fin.
The mighty Río Plátano in the heart of the reserve.
The mighty Río Plátano in the heart of the reserve.Honduras: La Mosquitia Day 5
Monday, July 12, 2010
Carlos graciously woke me up at 2:30 a.m. to catch my boat to Batalla. The water taxi, however, took its precious time in arriving, so I nearly hyperventilated with stress while waiting on the riverbank in the pitch black. Eventually, the owner of the ecolodge emerged from her room to wake up a young man (perhaps her cousin?) to run to the property next door and tell the captain (also a cousin?) to get a move on. Grumpily he rolled up on the shore at 3:30 and hurried me onto the boat, in what I'm guessing was his sassy response for my previously sassy response to getting stood up. Stupid men.
We shuttled around the lagoon for about 2 hours with only the moon and powerful flashlights to guide us as we picked up nearly a dozen passengers on the way to Batalla. Macjeck (a genuine Polish name, and sadly, not spelled "Magic" like it sounds) came to greet me at the truck depot. They had already negotiated with a driver - 250 lempiras for the 3 to ride in the back, and L350 for me to ride up front (this time not on the lap of a creepy Honduran molester). The driver had discovered the annoyingly repetitious sounds of Mexican "banda" music , and proceeded to play two CDs over and over again at an ear splitting volume the entire 5-hour ride back.
The heavy rains meant that our maniac beach driving was interrupted by a newly formed lagoon, so all the trucks had to wait in line as we boarded a raft one at a time and made it to the other side. I spotted the driver L100 to pay for the raft, expecting to recuperate my donation later.
When we finally reached Tocoa, however, confusion ensued. I asked the truck driver to drop me off at the Cotuc bus station - yes, I knew that this bus takes longer than other lines, but I also knew that it cost a lot less. As we whizzed past the indicated bus stop, he ignored my complaints and proceeded to drop me off at the more expensive line with everyone else. He was in a mad dash to get to the central market, so he all but chucked me and my pack out of the truck cab. In this crazy exchange for my change, in which I should have received L350 back (as I'd already paid L100), I got L250 back, as I would have if I'd never paid the raft fee. I yelled at him a lot in Spanish - "Pero ya te di 100 lempiras!!" ("But I already gave you 100!!") - but since I'm basically a 7-year-old when it comes to math, I couldn't quite figure out what amount I should be getting back.
They sped away and I defiantly walked 15 minutes down the dusty highway to reach the one-room "station" for the cheaper bus line. As I peeled back the lid on my last can of tuna, I realized that I wound up paying L450 instead of L350. This means I lost $5, which isn't very much, but I was so furious that I was too stupid to figure this out on my own, that I hyperventilated once more as I shoved flaky bits of mush into my mouth. I decided that in the way that some travelers carry a pocket Spanish dictionary with them to foreign countries, I should carry a pocket calculator. I left my bag in the bus station and paced alongside the highway trying to talk myself down from the proverbial ledge.
The bus came 1.5 hours later and dropped me off almost directly in front of the La Moskitia Ecoaventuras office in La Ceiba. I hung my smelly, moldy clothes up to dry on the line in the back and showered off the stench of swampy rainforest. Then I walked a ways to an expat restaurant for a celebratory, end-of-the-road dinner (which involved a large piece of carrot cake and beer). Customers can make free calls to the U.S., so I let my loved ones know I was still alive before attempting a superficial amount of work on my first guidebook chapter. I stared warily at a group of 30-something American expats who either brought their newborns to dinner or talked incessantly about them. I thought, "Please, God! Not me! Not yet!"
I leave you kind folks with a video clip I took during the truck ride on the beach. I hope it makes you nauseous just looking at it.
Carlos graciously woke me up at 2:30 a.m. to catch my boat to Batalla. The water taxi, however, took its precious time in arriving, so I nearly hyperventilated with stress while waiting on the riverbank in the pitch black. Eventually, the owner of the ecolodge emerged from her room to wake up a young man (perhaps her cousin?) to run to the property next door and tell the captain (also a cousin?) to get a move on. Grumpily he rolled up on the shore at 3:30 and hurried me onto the boat, in what I'm guessing was his sassy response for my previously sassy response to getting stood up. Stupid men.
We shuttled around the lagoon for about 2 hours with only the moon and powerful flashlights to guide us as we picked up nearly a dozen passengers on the way to Batalla. Macjeck (a genuine Polish name, and sadly, not spelled "Magic" like it sounds) came to greet me at the truck depot. They had already negotiated with a driver - 250 lempiras for the 3 to ride in the back, and L350 for me to ride up front (this time not on the lap of a creepy Honduran molester). The driver had discovered the annoyingly repetitious sounds of Mexican "banda" music , and proceeded to play two CDs over and over again at an ear splitting volume the entire 5-hour ride back.
The heavy rains meant that our maniac beach driving was interrupted by a newly formed lagoon, so all the trucks had to wait in line as we boarded a raft one at a time and made it to the other side. I spotted the driver L100 to pay for the raft, expecting to recuperate my donation later.
When we finally reached Tocoa, however, confusion ensued. I asked the truck driver to drop me off at the Cotuc bus station - yes, I knew that this bus takes longer than other lines, but I also knew that it cost a lot less. As we whizzed past the indicated bus stop, he ignored my complaints and proceeded to drop me off at the more expensive line with everyone else. He was in a mad dash to get to the central market, so he all but chucked me and my pack out of the truck cab. In this crazy exchange for my change, in which I should have received L350 back (as I'd already paid L100), I got L250 back, as I would have if I'd never paid the raft fee. I yelled at him a lot in Spanish - "Pero ya te di 100 lempiras!!" ("But I already gave you 100!!") - but since I'm basically a 7-year-old when it comes to math, I couldn't quite figure out what amount I should be getting back.They sped away and I defiantly walked 15 minutes down the dusty highway to reach the one-room "station" for the cheaper bus line. As I peeled back the lid on my last can of tuna, I realized that I wound up paying L450 instead of L350. This means I lost $5, which isn't very much, but I was so furious that I was too stupid to figure this out on my own, that I hyperventilated once more as I shoved flaky bits of mush into my mouth. I decided that in the way that some travelers carry a pocket Spanish dictionary with them to foreign countries, I should carry a pocket calculator. I left my bag in the bus station and paced alongside the highway trying to talk myself down from the proverbial ledge.
The bus came 1.5 hours later and dropped me off almost directly in front of the La Moskitia Ecoaventuras office in La Ceiba. I hung my smelly, moldy clothes up to dry on the line in the back and showered off the stench of swampy rainforest. Then I walked a ways to an expat restaurant for a celebratory, end-of-the-road dinner (which involved a large piece of carrot cake and beer). Customers can make free calls to the U.S., so I let my loved ones know I was still alive before attempting a superficial amount of work on my first guidebook chapter. I stared warily at a group of 30-something American expats who either brought their newborns to dinner or talked incessantly about them. I thought, "Please, God! Not me! Not yet!"
I leave you kind folks with a video clip I took during the truck ride on the beach. I hope it makes you nauseous just looking at it.
Honduras: La Mosquitia Day 4
Sunday, July 11, 2010Today was not nearly as tragic as the twilight downpour might've implied. The river rose drastically and took lots of branches and grass with it, but since we were traveling downstream, it didn't affect us much. Light rains in the early morning thankfully switched to clearer skies, which created an amazing landscape as we passed through swampy canals out to Laguna de Ibans. Of course, all of our cameras were stowed away in dry sacks (picture to the right is from the way to Las Marías, but you get the idea). Spindly roots in the mangrove channels reflected off the river like a mesmerizing pattern of zigzags. Glassy waters on the lagoon perfectly mirrored the distant mountain range and the puffy white clouds above. For the first time in a while, we were dry, warm and able to look out from under the tarp to see the impressive biosphere before us.
When we returned to Raista around 2 p.m., I was desperately eager to hang my soppy clothes out to dry, to shower and to eat something other than tortillas and oily, orange-y tuna. Team Hippie instead carried on to the neighboring Miskito village of Belén to catch the World Cup finals. I don't particularly care for televised sports, but I had been following the "Mundial" as closely as I could throughout my Honduras trip, and even earlier on before I left Mexico. It gave me some semblance of normalcy, plus it was a good excuse for forced bonding with the strangers around me (like the beer-guzzling Germans in Guanaja at 8 a.m., for example). So, after getting back to the ecolodge, I was sufficiently envious of my traveling counterparts for watching Spain claim victory over the Netherlands. That, and I had literally nothing to do except sleep in a hammock, sleep in my bed and foster a lingering cold.
For reasons unknown to me, I skipped out on dinner and instead slammed the remaining crumbs in my sorry bag of shelf-stable granola. Later I watched the lobster-diver-studying anthropologist and Carlos, an NGO worker with Rainforest Alliance, eat some green chicken soup. Carlos was very interesting to listen to, especially when he talked about Tío Mike, or Honduras' version of Mexico's billionaire businessman Carlos Slim, about an alliance of 11 Arab families who essentially run politics in the country (according to Carlos), and about the presidential coup in 2009. Who knew?
My three compatriots headed from Belén to Batalla, the Garífuna town where the pickup trucks dropped us off, as to avoid waking up at 2:30 a.m. to catch a water taxi to the truck depot (which, by the way, is a great time to wake up).
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Honduras: La Mosquitia Day 3
Saturday, July 10, 2010
I blame the chunky glue milk for my early morning stomach "issues," which is ever more pleasant when squatting over a crooked toilet. My intestines pulled themselves together, however, and in the late morning my guide, Julio, came to pick me up. We trekked through muddy paths and light rains until it became evident that my old running shoes just wouldn't do. So we stopped by a house so that a teenage boy could remove his tall rubber boots, hand them to me and slip into an old pair of Crocs. I felt pretty bad, but just for a second. His boots were great.
The 20-minute hike continued to a second boat landing on the Río Plátano. Two young men were waiting for us there - they were my pipante pushers. A pipante is a narrow dugout canoe that is pushed upstream by driving long wooden poles into the riverbed and propelling forward. The river is especially thick and choppy during the rainy season, which I presume sucked more for the boat pushers than for me, who sat idly on a bench while thinking "Another boat ride?"
My guides pushed upstream through rapids before pulling over on the side of the river for Julio and I to disembark. We hiked through the thick of the rainforest for about an hour as Julio slashed his machete right and left with no particular reason. This sounds horribly stereotypical, but my previous suspicions that Julio was gay were reaffirmed by the dainty flick of his wrist as he chopped at a leaf here and swooshed at some branches there. Dainty and machete are a hilarious combination, by the way. More importantly, the rainforest is astoundingly beautiful. So many shades of green never imagined cram themselves into a mural of leaves, vines and tree trunks. Benches covered in moss and a condemned observation tower offered a reminder of previous tourism initiatives that had gone by the way side. As you've probably gathered by now, getting out here is a long and arduous journey, so it takes a lot of time, money and manpower to do absolutely anything productive. Which is why I assume that upkeep and repairs just never happened.
During our trek, Julio explained that I was his second hike in the last few years. About a year ago, he came down with a life-threatening illness and could barely function or leave the house. His family hauled him all the way to San Pedro Sula, on the opposite side of the country, to seek professional medical care, but not even the doctors there could figure it out. He returned home, condemned to die, until a local medicine man prepared him an elixir, which promptly cured Julio of all his illnesses. Turns out, according to Julio, than an indigenous man had looked at Julio and cursed him because the indigenous man was jealous and envious. The elixir lifted the curse. Who am I to say what's real and what's not, but it's interesting to me that something I consider completely ludicrous is a convincing and adequate explanation to another.
The hike reached a dead end and we turned back around to find the pipante. One more hour upstream, and we finally reached the mighty, grandiose, imposing, impressive, awe-inspiring Walpaulbansirpe petroglyphs.
Clearly I am just kidding. Look at this thing. It is a rock. A rock. One. It took us like 2 hours to get here. And yet it is the biggest tourist attraction of Las Marías (not even I tried to dispute that fact in the guide). The rock carving is at least 1,000 years old and the civilization who left such traces is unknown. But you know what? Teotihuacán was built by an unknown civilization before the Aztecs rolled up and did some remodeling. Take that, Honduras. By the way, this photo is slightly crooked because the main screen on my camera is broken, so you have to look through the old-school view thingy to take a picture. Except Julio decided to look through the tiny, centimeter-wide view thingy from a distance. He did pretty well despite the fact, I must say.
The area around the rock is usually a nice sandy beach area where you can relax, picnic and enjoy some time out of the boat. But all that rain had flooded the beach, so my 3 guides and I sat around on the rocks for a while fulfilling this scheduled recess in the itinerary. Julio said it was his birthday that day, so we sang various rounds of "Happy Birthday" in English and Spanish to him. It was delightfully awkward, but I loved it. I then tried to sing him "Las Mañanitas," the Mexican birthday song, before realizing I only know about three verses, and not in order.
Riding back was a far easier ride (for the guides, it was the same for sedentary ole me). Julio took to the front of the boat with a short paddle for guiding, while one of the guides did some occasional pushing in the back. We stopped at another random person's house on the riverbank so I could eat some more tortilla and tuna slop and also muddy up the kitchen floor. I took a splashy bucket shower when I got back, then hung my soggy clothes up to dry on the balcony banisters and went to bed at 9 p.m. Matt would've been proud.
Crashing thunder and ominous lightning brought in another monsoon with heavy winds. I dreamed that I was walking in a creek until I awoke at 2 a.m. and realized that rain was pouring in from my open, screenless window and sprinkling my feet. I rushed out to the balcony and saw that not only was my clothing soaked, but some of it had fallen off into a mud pit below. I ventured out into the rain anyway to salvage the renegade articles of my 7-item wardrobe before heading back to bed and thinking "tomorrow is going to suck."
I blame the chunky glue milk for my early morning stomach "issues," which is ever more pleasant when squatting over a crooked toilet. My intestines pulled themselves together, however, and in the late morning my guide, Julio, came to pick me up. We trekked through muddy paths and light rains until it became evident that my old running shoes just wouldn't do. So we stopped by a house so that a teenage boy could remove his tall rubber boots, hand them to me and slip into an old pair of Crocs. I felt pretty bad, but just for a second. His boots were great.
The 20-minute hike continued to a second boat landing on the Río Plátano. Two young men were waiting for us there - they were my pipante pushers. A pipante is a narrow dugout canoe that is pushed upstream by driving long wooden poles into the riverbed and propelling forward. The river is especially thick and choppy during the rainy season, which I presume sucked more for the boat pushers than for me, who sat idly on a bench while thinking "Another boat ride?"
My guides pushed upstream through rapids before pulling over on the side of the river for Julio and I to disembark. We hiked through the thick of the rainforest for about an hour as Julio slashed his machete right and left with no particular reason. This sounds horribly stereotypical, but my previous suspicions that Julio was gay were reaffirmed by the dainty flick of his wrist as he chopped at a leaf here and swooshed at some branches there. Dainty and machete are a hilarious combination, by the way. More importantly, the rainforest is astoundingly beautiful. So many shades of green never imagined cram themselves into a mural of leaves, vines and tree trunks. Benches covered in moss and a condemned observation tower offered a reminder of previous tourism initiatives that had gone by the way side. As you've probably gathered by now, getting out here is a long and arduous journey, so it takes a lot of time, money and manpower to do absolutely anything productive. Which is why I assume that upkeep and repairs just never happened.During our trek, Julio explained that I was his second hike in the last few years. About a year ago, he came down with a life-threatening illness and could barely function or leave the house. His family hauled him all the way to San Pedro Sula, on the opposite side of the country, to seek professional medical care, but not even the doctors there could figure it out. He returned home, condemned to die, until a local medicine man prepared him an elixir, which promptly cured Julio of all his illnesses. Turns out, according to Julio, than an indigenous man had looked at Julio and cursed him because the indigenous man was jealous and envious. The elixir lifted the curse. Who am I to say what's real and what's not, but it's interesting to me that something I consider completely ludicrous is a convincing and adequate explanation to another.
The hike reached a dead end and we turned back around to find the pipante. One more hour upstream, and we finally reached the mighty, grandiose, imposing, impressive, awe-inspiring Walpaulbansirpe petroglyphs.
Clearly I am just kidding. Look at this thing. It is a rock. A rock. One. It took us like 2 hours to get here. And yet it is the biggest tourist attraction of Las Marías (not even I tried to dispute that fact in the guide). The rock carving is at least 1,000 years old and the civilization who left such traces is unknown. But you know what? Teotihuacán was built by an unknown civilization before the Aztecs rolled up and did some remodeling. Take that, Honduras. By the way, this photo is slightly crooked because the main screen on my camera is broken, so you have to look through the old-school view thingy to take a picture. Except Julio decided to look through the tiny, centimeter-wide view thingy from a distance. He did pretty well despite the fact, I must say.The area around the rock is usually a nice sandy beach area where you can relax, picnic and enjoy some time out of the boat. But all that rain had flooded the beach, so my 3 guides and I sat around on the rocks for a while fulfilling this scheduled recess in the itinerary. Julio said it was his birthday that day, so we sang various rounds of "Happy Birthday" in English and Spanish to him. It was delightfully awkward, but I loved it. I then tried to sing him "Las Mañanitas," the Mexican birthday song, before realizing I only know about three verses, and not in order.
Riding back was a far easier ride (for the guides, it was the same for sedentary ole me). Julio took to the front of the boat with a short paddle for guiding, while one of the guides did some occasional pushing in the back. We stopped at another random person's house on the riverbank so I could eat some more tortilla and tuna slop and also muddy up the kitchen floor. I took a splashy bucket shower when I got back, then hung my soggy clothes up to dry on the balcony banisters and went to bed at 9 p.m. Matt would've been proud.
Crashing thunder and ominous lightning brought in another monsoon with heavy winds. I dreamed that I was walking in a creek until I awoke at 2 a.m. and realized that rain was pouring in from my open, screenless window and sprinkling my feet. I rushed out to the balcony and saw that not only was my clothing soaked, but some of it had fallen off into a mud pit below. I ventured out into the rain anyway to salvage the renegade articles of my 7-item wardrobe before heading back to bed and thinking "tomorrow is going to suck."
Honduras: La Mosquitia Day 2
Friday, July 9, 2010I finally got to wake up after the 5:30 sunrise today. Following a hearty breakfast with awful instant coffee in the comedor, my foreign companions began a relentless negotiation with my boat driver for their fare for the Las Marías ride. (I had to pay for transportation in/out of La Mosquitia and meals, but my internal boat fares, hotel and guide fees were all taken care of by the national tourism institute - sweet!). This incessant haggling was apparently a knee-jerk reaction for them anytime money came up. It was mildly annoying, especially when you consider that the $5 you're bartering with is literally the driver's only salary for the day.
Guide books (and now mine) will warn you against traveling to the rainforest during the rainy season. That's because if you take a 6-hour boat ride up the mighty Río Plátano into the heart of the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, you will undoubtedly get poured on. On our narrow little cayuko, we were completely exposed to the elements. Plastic tarps covered our packs, and eventually we used one to cover us as well, despite the smells of mud, burned trash and manure. I had a rain jacket on, but even that started leaking.
Before the monsoon, we stopped to run some errands with the driver. He was picking up a load of homemade cheese and milk for his neighbors in Las Marías. I had a sip of the homemade milk, and it tasted a bit like drinking chunky glue. Mmmm. We stopped again to "dine" in the kitchen of a man who lived alone on the riverbanks. I packed a lunch of corn tortilla and canned tuna with veggies. It all fell apart into one giant tuna mess which I slopped up with my hands before getting charged by a goat near the latrines. Fortunately a neighbor was nearby to beat it in the head with an umbrella before he could get to me.
The rain had mostly stopped when we reached Las Marías, a Miskito and Pech community of 100 families that is increasingly attracting more ecotourists for its access to great hiking and the Walpaulbansirpe petroglyphs (or rock carvings). Within minutes of our arrival, a flock of local artisans came up to visit us and show off their bracelets, pouches and wall hangings made from dyed bark fibers. We bought bracelets from one lady before five others showed up with the same products. One woman even had ojo de venado, or BUCKEYES! Rainforest buckeyes look a little different than ones from O-H-I-O, but I still brimmed with joy nonetheless. The Polish boys then went off to join an incredibly muddy game of fútbol with the local boys while I played the part of proud soccer mom on the sidelines.The sacaguías, or head guide in Las Marías, then paid us a visit to determine which trips we'd be making so he could trek around the village and find the appropriate guides. Around 150 men and women have been trained as guides by international NGOs to provide an economic alternative to the underdeveloped town, which is great, but my guide on Saturday said I was his second client for the year.
Dinner involved traditional Honduran fare of rice, beans, cheese, egg (in place of chicken) and fried plantain chips. The lodge was nice, but still can't rival the one in Raista. Namely because the shared bathrooms was one latrine divided into two parts: the first was a small toilet without a seat and with bucket flush, and the second had a concrete floor and giant tub of rainwater with small buckets for bathing. It takes a lot of rainwater to wash this fro, let me tell you. Mosquitoes and other bugs dive-bombed into my netting for most of the night, which was lovely.
Honduras: La Mosquitia Day 1
Well, it is now almost two months to the day since I began my ventures into La Mosquitia, "Honduras' side of the Mosquito Coast, an expanse of rainforest and indigenous societies shared with neighboring Nicaragua," according to my author self. (In the previous post I wrote 'Moskito Coast.' There are variety of ways to spell it, but in the guide I used 'qui.')
Thursday, July 8, 2010
This last leg of my Honduras venture was by far the most stressful part - mostly because I didn't figure it out until the day before. After returning to La Ceiba from Utila on the 6:20 a.m. ferry, I settled the score with the kind benefactors at the Honduran Institute of Tourism and prepared for an even earlier wakeup call - 3 a.m.
(There are two ways to get to La Mosquitia: take a 50-minute flight to Brus Laguna, or a day-long truck taxi to Batalla. The latter was the cheapest option, so naturally, by truck I traveled).
A yellow schoolbus dropped me off in the town of Tocoa, about 2 hours outside of La Ceiba and 1 hour to Trujillo. We stopped along the highway, where a group of pickup trucks anxiously waited to call dibs on us. The tour operator I traveled with had given me a specific name to ask for, so when I asked one of the drivers if he knew where Señor So-and-So was, he said, "It's me!" I thought, "Wow, that was easy!" We drove into the central market, where we waited for other passengers and packages to fill the truck beds until they piled to dangerously high levels.
About an hour of lingering later, another man revealed that he was, in fact, Señor So-and-So, and that my driver was, in fact, not. The second guy was actually working for Señor SAS but introduced himself as such anyway. Regardless, I stayed put, because we were all heading to the same place anyway. Both later insisted that I follow a pack of white hippies and speak to them in English to try and lure them into our trucks (more on the foreigners later).
My fellow passengers were quite a colorful bunch. The first I met was a tall, pot-bellied Idahoan with a perpetual smile and ruddy face. Not even five minutes from introduction, he explained that he was in Honduras scouting out potential properties to buy because, he said unironically, that in 2011 that United States would collapse into a police state and all its citizens would be forced into Nazi-like concentration camps. I think he took my incredulous expression as belief and fear, so when I said, "Oh," he exclaimed, "I KNOW!!!" Despite my belief that he was the worst of all hick farmers, he was a financial trader. His client was the other man in the truck, who was helping Mr. Apocalypse look for land while dishing out racist comments on Obama and complaining about the government wanting to touch his money.
The third man was No. 2's Honduran friend and their fixer for the trip. Unfortunately I had the displeasure of sitting on his lap for the entire 6-hour trip from Tocoa to Batalla, which involved the driver speeding as fast as possible, flying over potholes and speed bumps before ultimately zigzagging across the beach once the highway ended.
Things got really weird when lightly stroked my shin and stated that, "Yo quiero una gringa" ("I want an American girl"), and I had to fight back to urge to punch him/vomit on him/cry. Sexual harassment aside, at least I wasn't riding in the bed of the truck on a wood plank, with the only safety belt being the grip of your hands. It would have also sucked to have been the 3-year-old child whose mother sent him without a chaperone, and who laid down on a pile of packages for the entire ride.
We ended at a boat landing in the tiny Garífuna town of Batalla. I forked over L500 (or $10) and, this time, I actually found the boat driver assigned to me by the tour company. About half an hour later, enough time for me to pee in a roofless latrine and gather my gear, my motley crew and I boarded onto a cayuko, a motorized canoe with removable wood benches and a propensity to threaten to tip over. Two more glorious sedentary hours later, we arrived at the indigenous Miskito village of Raista in the Laguna de Ibans. The town has a few jungle hikes in the area, but since I arrived in the late afternoon, I settled for lingering around the Ecolodge - considered one of the best in the entire Mosquitia region,
and I agree. The lodge is built from wood planks, has a thatched palm roof and stands on stilts. Each room has a private nook of the shared wraparound balcony and - the kicker - modern bathrooms. The L-shaped strip of rooms is attached by a small footbridge to the shared facilities, which have private stalls for clean toilets that flush AND have seat covers, real sinks with soap and wall mirrors, plus private stalls for cold-water showers. This is paradise. The rooms were very cozy too, and the mosquito netting managed to fulfill some previously unknown princess fantasy of mine.
In retrospect, bringing a book (or any kind of reading material) would've been a great idea for an area with no electricity and limited activities. Instead, I just stared into space and later took a walk through "town." The single dirt path led me past a jumble of similar-looking wood plank homes on stilts, roaming cattle and poopy chickens, a mango farm and a couple of contradictions. La Mosquitia is heralded as some Neolithic society 100% removed from the modern world. It is certainly a world away from what I call home, but still, plastic Coke bottles and empty foil chip bags littered the path just like any decent town in Latin America. A flat screen TV flashed images of raunchy music videos from inside a dilapidated, one-room house as a weathered old man in a dirty tank top watched from his seat on a hammock. A motorcycle even zipped past me and the cows at one point.
In the past couple of decades, La Mosquitia has become a prime drop spot for South American drug runners moving their goods up north. The region is largely autonomous, and so spread out and vastly unmonitored that it's fairly easy to get in and get out. I wondered if the unusually bizarre luxuries like the TVs and motorcycles that I saw could have anything to do with it.
Finally, it was time for dinner in the comedor, or informal dining setting. I shared a surprisingly tasty meal of spaghetti with black beans with an anthropology student, who is in Raista for a year to study lobster divers for her dissertation, and a traveling family from Oklahoma, who apparently go to awesome places together every summer break. I also ran into the white hippies again - two Polish men and a Chilean lady, all in their late 20's - and we arranged for them to join my 6-hour boat ride to Las Marías. Back in my room, the complimentary matches were too damp to light, so I laid in the dark for a while before I forgot about the roaches crawling on the ground below.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
This last leg of my Honduras venture was by far the most stressful part - mostly because I didn't figure it out until the day before. After returning to La Ceiba from Utila on the 6:20 a.m. ferry, I settled the score with the kind benefactors at the Honduran Institute of Tourism and prepared for an even earlier wakeup call - 3 a.m.
(There are two ways to get to La Mosquitia: take a 50-minute flight to Brus Laguna, or a day-long truck taxi to Batalla. The latter was the cheapest option, so naturally, by truck I traveled).
A yellow schoolbus dropped me off in the town of Tocoa, about 2 hours outside of La Ceiba and 1 hour to Trujillo. We stopped along the highway, where a group of pickup trucks anxiously waited to call dibs on us. The tour operator I traveled with had given me a specific name to ask for, so when I asked one of the drivers if he knew where Señor So-and-So was, he said, "It's me!" I thought, "Wow, that was easy!" We drove into the central market, where we waited for other passengers and packages to fill the truck beds until they piled to dangerously high levels.
About an hour of lingering later, another man revealed that he was, in fact, Señor So-and-So, and that my driver was, in fact, not. The second guy was actually working for Señor SAS but introduced himself as such anyway. Regardless, I stayed put, because we were all heading to the same place anyway. Both later insisted that I follow a pack of white hippies and speak to them in English to try and lure them into our trucks (more on the foreigners later).My fellow passengers were quite a colorful bunch. The first I met was a tall, pot-bellied Idahoan with a perpetual smile and ruddy face. Not even five minutes from introduction, he explained that he was in Honduras scouting out potential properties to buy because, he said unironically, that in 2011 that United States would collapse into a police state and all its citizens would be forced into Nazi-like concentration camps. I think he took my incredulous expression as belief and fear, so when I said, "Oh," he exclaimed, "I KNOW!!!" Despite my belief that he was the worst of all hick farmers, he was a financial trader. His client was the other man in the truck, who was helping Mr. Apocalypse look for land while dishing out racist comments on Obama and complaining about the government wanting to touch his money.
The third man was No. 2's Honduran friend and their fixer for the trip. Unfortunately I had the displeasure of sitting on his lap for the entire 6-hour trip from Tocoa to Batalla, which involved the driver speeding as fast as possible, flying over potholes and speed bumps before ultimately zigzagging across the beach once the highway ended.
Things got really weird when lightly stroked my shin and stated that, "Yo quiero una gringa" ("I want an American girl"), and I had to fight back to urge to punch him/vomit on him/cry. Sexual harassment aside, at least I wasn't riding in the bed of the truck on a wood plank, with the only safety belt being the grip of your hands. It would have also sucked to have been the 3-year-old child whose mother sent him without a chaperone, and who laid down on a pile of packages for the entire ride.We ended at a boat landing in the tiny Garífuna town of Batalla. I forked over L500 (or $10) and, this time, I actually found the boat driver assigned to me by the tour company. About half an hour later, enough time for me to pee in a roofless latrine and gather my gear, my motley crew and I boarded onto a cayuko, a motorized canoe with removable wood benches and a propensity to threaten to tip over. Two more glorious sedentary hours later, we arrived at the indigenous Miskito village of Raista in the Laguna de Ibans. The town has a few jungle hikes in the area, but since I arrived in the late afternoon, I settled for lingering around the Ecolodge - considered one of the best in the entire Mosquitia region,
and I agree. The lodge is built from wood planks, has a thatched palm roof and stands on stilts. Each room has a private nook of the shared wraparound balcony and - the kicker - modern bathrooms. The L-shaped strip of rooms is attached by a small footbridge to the shared facilities, which have private stalls for clean toilets that flush AND have seat covers, real sinks with soap and wall mirrors, plus private stalls for cold-water showers. This is paradise. The rooms were very cozy too, and the mosquito netting managed to fulfill some previously unknown princess fantasy of mine.In retrospect, bringing a book (or any kind of reading material) would've been a great idea for an area with no electricity and limited activities. Instead, I just stared into space and later took a walk through "town." The single dirt path led me past a jumble of similar-looking wood plank homes on stilts, roaming cattle and poopy chickens, a mango farm and a couple of contradictions. La Mosquitia is heralded as some Neolithic society 100% removed from the modern world. It is certainly a world away from what I call home, but still, plastic Coke bottles and empty foil chip bags littered the path just like any decent town in Latin America. A flat screen TV flashed images of raunchy music videos from inside a dilapidated, one-room house as a weathered old man in a dirty tank top watched from his seat on a hammock. A motorcycle even zipped past me and the cows at one point.
In the past couple of decades, La Mosquitia has become a prime drop spot for South American drug runners moving their goods up north. The region is largely autonomous, and so spread out and vastly unmonitored that it's fairly easy to get in and get out. I wondered if the unusually bizarre luxuries like the TVs and motorcycles that I saw could have anything to do with it.
Finally, it was time for dinner in the comedor, or informal dining setting. I shared a surprisingly tasty meal of spaghetti with black beans with an anthropology student, who is in Raista for a year to study lobster divers for her dissertation, and a traveling family from Oklahoma, who apparently go to awesome places together every summer break. I also ran into the white hippies again - two Polish men and a Chilean lady, all in their late 20's - and we arranged for them to join my 6-hour boat ride to Las Marías. Back in my room, the complimentary matches were too damp to light, so I laid in the dark for a while before I forgot about the roaches crawling on the ground below.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Honduras: Trujillo to Utila
I think this is a great way to describe my relationship with sand flies: When I look down and see that I've been bitten, and I realize that it's a mosquito bite, I'm happy, because a mosquito bite will go away in a day or a two. A sand fly bite will stay on me for four (and counting) days, slowly spreading across my body like a colony of itchy warts that refuse to cease in their mission to make me miserable. While I'm normally allergic to spider bites, those haven't even registered on my itchy scale. They just sit placidly on my kneecaps like giant red lumps passively observing the raging fire on my hands and feet. If my stomach and upper thighs weren't totally spared (and unevenly pale), I might otherwise assume I'd gotten chicken pox again.
Where was I? On the 4th of July, I woke up early with the caretaker family, dined on warm oatmeal with fresh fruit and granola (delicious curveball, Hondurans) and headed up into town in the family truck. They dropped me off in the central park while they went off to attend the sermon, and I marveled at how quiet a pious town is early on Sunday morning. I zigzagged across the town under a blazing hot sun, with little order as to what places I visited. I had a quiet giggle to myself at the crumbling grave of William Walker, the American so-called pirate who in the 1800s made himself president of Nicaragua for a couple years. When he tried in Honduras, they shot him at the Fortress of Santa Barbara. They even marked off the exact spot for tourists! His headstone also clarifies that he was ¨fusilado,¨or executed. Way to go, Bill. I was hungry, but put off my feeding until I swung by Cafe Vino Tinto, which sounds utterly charming by name alone. Cute hand-painted placards point visitors off the park and down a neatly maintained gravel road to the garden-patio restaurant. Apparently everyone else in the state had the same idea, because it was so crowded I couldn't even figure out what was going on. My delicious meal of tapas and pasta ended up being another plate of...yes, fried fish. Granted this fried fish was the best I've had in the country, prepared with gourmet saucs and nicely garnished. But fish? Again? Por favoooor.
The family had offered to give me a ride home from town to the resort, but since I didn't have a phone and was already on the edge of the city, which I considered to be close to the resort, I figured I'd just walk home. That way they wouldn't have to swing all the way back into town. Turns out it was about an hour-long walk along a very dusty, swervy and apparently not-so-safe road for lone pedestrians (in terms of mugging). I of course only got whistled at, so I wasn't aware of this danger until I got home. It also turns out the family was waiting in town for my phone call, and didn't realize this until they called another relative who was there to see if I'd come back. My bad. Around the dinner table that night, I asked mama caretaker for another delicious boal of oatmeal for dinner. The family and I sat around for hours talking about her Catholic faith, the men's belief in local witchcraft practices, and my uncomfortable "yes, I agree with that" and "no, I don't think the world will end in 2012."
In the late morning, I backtracked across the coast, grabbing a bus to La Ceiba and a taxi to the ferry for Utila. This westernmost Bay Island is mostly known as a backpacker's paradise, as it has some of the cheapest diving courses in the world and an overall young, scrappy vibe. So I wasn't too shocked to see that almost all of the other passengers looked like me. On the fancy ferry to Roatan, many of the travelers were spiffed up Hondurans and foreign families, kids and all. In the wood dock, no credit card-taking ferry to Utila, most of us donned some form of shorts, be it athletic shorts, board shorts or nasty-smelling cargo shorts. Most of us had teched out backpacks with an excessive number of zippers, straps and ropes that never seem to find a function. Many of us probably needed a shower.
Once I got off the boat, I was greeted by the French bartender at an exclusive dive resort out of town and further south on the island. From their dock, we took a truck down a coral-lined road that was covered in scuttling blue and yellow crabs. They live underground, so when it rains, they come out of their holes and make constant mad dashes across the land. So, it goes without saying...crunch. After a shower, I grabbed a delicious glass of wine with some of the owners and other guests, and then we had a very gourmet filet of breaded chicken. Just kidding, of course it was fish. Still more delicious, however, was the homemade vanilla ice cream topped with cinnamon-covered roasted bananas. I might have cried at a second serving. Once the guests went to bed, the bartender, his Italian girlfriend and the resident dive instructor, a sassy Honduran, and I stayed up for a while enjoying the fruits of the bar. I thought it was midnight when I went to bed. Turns out it was 10.30. Aside from the raving backpackers, that's mostly what I observed island time to be. Wake up around 6, go to bed around 9. Matt would love this place.
On Tuesday morning, I made the very stupid decision to not take the instructor up on a discovery dive session for beginners. I was worried that if I went out with the group, I wouldn't have had enough time for my mad dash routine. However, everyone was so incredibly accommodating I'm sure I could've made it work. Instead I (finally) snorkeled and marveled at the brilliant colors and textures of the fish and coral, all while brushing back bits of log and trash. After a heavy rain, all the trash that mainland Hondurans dump into rivers or into the ocean floats in a giant mass toward the Bay Islands, arriving a day or so later and washing up on the beach. Most resorts and beaches have people clean up the debris, but inevitably it will come back. Almost all of Honduras' tourism is based on its natural offerings, so it's really a shame to see that the government isn't helping to protect one of the most important economic sectors. Then again, it sounds about fitting for one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere.
Anyway, pretty stuff. After the snorkel, I had lunch on the Upper and Lower Keys, just off the main island. They have a similar feel to Guanaja's Bonnaca - a community that was once built on stilts and waterways is now a crazy urban playground in the middle of the ocean. People from the keys consider themselves (and are considered to be) different from Utila residents, and the crazy cluster of more than 300 people mostly stays where it's at. Like the main island, people there principally speak Creole English and have suntanned English features. From the keys, I headed into Utilatown, the central hub of activity around which almost every dive center, bar and restaurant operates. A local real estate agent graciously offered to drive me around the island on his golf cart. We stopped at hotels and restaurants, vacation rentals and beaches, and as a 6-year resident on the island, he gave me great local insight and anecdotes for each place. Then I realized, just as in Guanaja, that is absolutely the best way to do ambush travel writing - have someone who knows the place well drive you around.
After our tour we met up with his wife and group of friends for an informal Utila bar hop. Utila being about 8 miles long, of course they knew almost everyone at every place we went. At a small martini bar, we devoured delicious bleu-cheese stuffed olives and cream cheese-stuffed jalapenos. I was disappointed in myself when the jalapeno was too much spice for me to handle. I've been out of Mexico too long. For dinner a had a - what? a fish burger? really? - and then we went to a treehouse bar at the hotel where I was staying. The hotel-bar can only be described as magical. The owner is an artist who specializes (quite obviously) in blown glass. Throughout the botanical garden he has built sculptures from shattered bits of glass plates, glass bottles, shimmering glass beads, tile mosaics, etc. He's built tunnels, steep staircases, oval-shaped pagados, sculptures. It is truly impressive. Personally, blown glass is my favorite artisan treat. I one day hope to own a lot of it. It will probably break, so maybe I can take a cue from this gue and glue-gun it back together into some kind of Yellow Submarine-like madness.
As with most places that I've stayed at, from luxurious jungle lodges to Bali-inspired cottages, I only had about six hours to really soak in the hotel's beauty, and I spent it fitfully sleeping. At the ripe hour of 5 a.m. I awoke to wash up and purchase a ticket back to La Ceiba on the 6.20 ferry. On the way I grabbed possibly the best biscuit ever (sorry, Mom and Pillsbury), so hot and fresh out of the oven that I had to hold it in a bag before I could devour its buttery goodness. Back on the mainland, I headed straight to a tour guide office to settle the craziness surrounding my trip to the Moskito Coast that has been plaguing me ever since I got here. I took a nap in a big dorm room with 8 single beds that the operater offers to clients for the night before a trip. When I arose a couple hours later, we had everything settled, including the part about the Honduran Institute of Tourism absorbing some of my trip costs.
So what's next? A five day adventure into the Moskito Coast, where I will purify my water with a little eyedrop bottle full of chemicals, pee in buckets, and probably offend the indigenous peoples. And then...MEXICO! And one day later...OHIO!
Where was I? On the 4th of July, I woke up early with the caretaker family, dined on warm oatmeal with fresh fruit and granola (delicious curveball, Hondurans) and headed up into town in the family truck. They dropped me off in the central park while they went off to attend the sermon, and I marveled at how quiet a pious town is early on Sunday morning. I zigzagged across the town under a blazing hot sun, with little order as to what places I visited. I had a quiet giggle to myself at the crumbling grave of William Walker, the American so-called pirate who in the 1800s made himself president of Nicaragua for a couple years. When he tried in Honduras, they shot him at the Fortress of Santa Barbara. They even marked off the exact spot for tourists! His headstone also clarifies that he was ¨fusilado,¨or executed. Way to go, Bill. I was hungry, but put off my feeding until I swung by Cafe Vino Tinto, which sounds utterly charming by name alone. Cute hand-painted placards point visitors off the park and down a neatly maintained gravel road to the garden-patio restaurant. Apparently everyone else in the state had the same idea, because it was so crowded I couldn't even figure out what was going on. My delicious meal of tapas and pasta ended up being another plate of...yes, fried fish. Granted this fried fish was the best I've had in the country, prepared with gourmet saucs and nicely garnished. But fish? Again? Por favoooor.
The family had offered to give me a ride home from town to the resort, but since I didn't have a phone and was already on the edge of the city, which I considered to be close to the resort, I figured I'd just walk home. That way they wouldn't have to swing all the way back into town. Turns out it was about an hour-long walk along a very dusty, swervy and apparently not-so-safe road for lone pedestrians (in terms of mugging). I of course only got whistled at, so I wasn't aware of this danger until I got home. It also turns out the family was waiting in town for my phone call, and didn't realize this until they called another relative who was there to see if I'd come back. My bad. Around the dinner table that night, I asked mama caretaker for another delicious boal of oatmeal for dinner. The family and I sat around for hours talking about her Catholic faith, the men's belief in local witchcraft practices, and my uncomfortable "yes, I agree with that" and "no, I don't think the world will end in 2012."
In the late morning, I backtracked across the coast, grabbing a bus to La Ceiba and a taxi to the ferry for Utila. This westernmost Bay Island is mostly known as a backpacker's paradise, as it has some of the cheapest diving courses in the world and an overall young, scrappy vibe. So I wasn't too shocked to see that almost all of the other passengers looked like me. On the fancy ferry to Roatan, many of the travelers were spiffed up Hondurans and foreign families, kids and all. In the wood dock, no credit card-taking ferry to Utila, most of us donned some form of shorts, be it athletic shorts, board shorts or nasty-smelling cargo shorts. Most of us had teched out backpacks with an excessive number of zippers, straps and ropes that never seem to find a function. Many of us probably needed a shower.
Once I got off the boat, I was greeted by the French bartender at an exclusive dive resort out of town and further south on the island. From their dock, we took a truck down a coral-lined road that was covered in scuttling blue and yellow crabs. They live underground, so when it rains, they come out of their holes and make constant mad dashes across the land. So, it goes without saying...crunch. After a shower, I grabbed a delicious glass of wine with some of the owners and other guests, and then we had a very gourmet filet of breaded chicken. Just kidding, of course it was fish. Still more delicious, however, was the homemade vanilla ice cream topped with cinnamon-covered roasted bananas. I might have cried at a second serving. Once the guests went to bed, the bartender, his Italian girlfriend and the resident dive instructor, a sassy Honduran, and I stayed up for a while enjoying the fruits of the bar. I thought it was midnight when I went to bed. Turns out it was 10.30. Aside from the raving backpackers, that's mostly what I observed island time to be. Wake up around 6, go to bed around 9. Matt would love this place.
On Tuesday morning, I made the very stupid decision to not take the instructor up on a discovery dive session for beginners. I was worried that if I went out with the group, I wouldn't have had enough time for my mad dash routine. However, everyone was so incredibly accommodating I'm sure I could've made it work. Instead I (finally) snorkeled and marveled at the brilliant colors and textures of the fish and coral, all while brushing back bits of log and trash. After a heavy rain, all the trash that mainland Hondurans dump into rivers or into the ocean floats in a giant mass toward the Bay Islands, arriving a day or so later and washing up on the beach. Most resorts and beaches have people clean up the debris, but inevitably it will come back. Almost all of Honduras' tourism is based on its natural offerings, so it's really a shame to see that the government isn't helping to protect one of the most important economic sectors. Then again, it sounds about fitting for one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere.
Anyway, pretty stuff. After the snorkel, I had lunch on the Upper and Lower Keys, just off the main island. They have a similar feel to Guanaja's Bonnaca - a community that was once built on stilts and waterways is now a crazy urban playground in the middle of the ocean. People from the keys consider themselves (and are considered to be) different from Utila residents, and the crazy cluster of more than 300 people mostly stays where it's at. Like the main island, people there principally speak Creole English and have suntanned English features. From the keys, I headed into Utilatown, the central hub of activity around which almost every dive center, bar and restaurant operates. A local real estate agent graciously offered to drive me around the island on his golf cart. We stopped at hotels and restaurants, vacation rentals and beaches, and as a 6-year resident on the island, he gave me great local insight and anecdotes for each place. Then I realized, just as in Guanaja, that is absolutely the best way to do ambush travel writing - have someone who knows the place well drive you around.
After our tour we met up with his wife and group of friends for an informal Utila bar hop. Utila being about 8 miles long, of course they knew almost everyone at every place we went. At a small martini bar, we devoured delicious bleu-cheese stuffed olives and cream cheese-stuffed jalapenos. I was disappointed in myself when the jalapeno was too much spice for me to handle. I've been out of Mexico too long. For dinner a had a - what? a fish burger? really? - and then we went to a treehouse bar at the hotel where I was staying. The hotel-bar can only be described as magical. The owner is an artist who specializes (quite obviously) in blown glass. Throughout the botanical garden he has built sculptures from shattered bits of glass plates, glass bottles, shimmering glass beads, tile mosaics, etc. He's built tunnels, steep staircases, oval-shaped pagados, sculptures. It is truly impressive. Personally, blown glass is my favorite artisan treat. I one day hope to own a lot of it. It will probably break, so maybe I can take a cue from this gue and glue-gun it back together into some kind of Yellow Submarine-like madness.
As with most places that I've stayed at, from luxurious jungle lodges to Bali-inspired cottages, I only had about six hours to really soak in the hotel's beauty, and I spent it fitfully sleeping. At the ripe hour of 5 a.m. I awoke to wash up and purchase a ticket back to La Ceiba on the 6.20 ferry. On the way I grabbed possibly the best biscuit ever (sorry, Mom and Pillsbury), so hot and fresh out of the oven that I had to hold it in a bag before I could devour its buttery goodness. Back on the mainland, I headed straight to a tour guide office to settle the craziness surrounding my trip to the Moskito Coast that has been plaguing me ever since I got here. I took a nap in a big dorm room with 8 single beds that the operater offers to clients for the night before a trip. When I arose a couple hours later, we had everything settled, including the part about the Honduran Institute of Tourism absorbing some of my trip costs.
So what's next? A five day adventure into the Moskito Coast, where I will purify my water with a little eyedrop bottle full of chemicals, pee in buckets, and probably offend the indigenous peoples. And then...MEXICO! And one day later...OHIO!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Honduras: Gone to Guanaja
(<-- View from my cabin porch)Guanaja was a welcome surprise along my trail of travels. The island is the lesser known and least-celebrated stop in the Bay Islands. I arrived on Thursday with my standard itinerary and gut-clenching nervousness that something would go wrong and foil my calculated plans. In the end, however, I left wishing that I had accidentally allotted 5 nights here instead of two. Not that I could stand another second of the sand flies, but let me wax romantic for a second.
After I’d successfully crossed off my list for La Ceiba, I woke up early to pack and grab a “busito” to the airport. Walking up to the airline counter and purchasing my ticket on the spot was slightly horrifying, as I’ve become accustomed to buying plane tickets two months in advance and considering that last minute. I grabbed one of the remaining spots on a 15-passenger propeller plane to Guanaja, and as I waited in the lobby, I eyed the strange man in the neatly pressed khakis, cowboy belt buckle, Panama hat, slick leather shoes and a button-up black linen shirt that looked like it was worn for the purpose of unbuttoning to the navel. In Mexico, I automatically judge anyone dressed like this to be some kind of drug runner, and I didn’t make an exception for him. Naturally I glowered at him when he came near as I waited in the Guanaja terminal after a 30-minute flight. Finally he approached me and, as it turned out, explained that he was my ride. He’s the close friend of the hotel owner whose place I stayed at, and he’d come from La Ceiba to fish for three weeks. His strong English and tycoon-esque outfit I assume are the results of 30 years spent working in the Louisiana oil business. His crazy Caribbean English-Creole whatever-it-is, however, I give to Guanaja.
When our boat docked at the hotel, which is actually a private cay off the mainland, I approached the owner with a hurried hello and explained that I’d like to put my stuff down, see the place and leave immediately for the island to explore its accommodations. He didn’t understand a word of what I said, and when I spoke again slowly, he laughed at me and explained that I could see New York City in that amount of time. He said I didn’t need to hire a water taxi, that my new friend would whisk me around tomorrow at my whim. Finally, nothing to do!
I walked to my 3-bed cottage facing the calmer side of the cay and starting cheering to myself with excitement - turquoise, deep blue, seaweed green waters all outside my bedroom window. After a monstrous plate of breaded wahoo and french fries, I went for an awkward breaststroke just five steps outside my room…the water was only a foot deep in some places, but spiky bits of shell were too much for my princess feet to handle, so I just kind of bobbed until the wind picked up and I was too lazy to put up a fight. I walked to the other side of the cay along a path of dried black coral bits, then turned down a two-plank dock that lead to a thatched roof shelter with two fishnet hammocks facing more turbulent waters. I took a nap, and once the sand flies got a little too friendly, I headed back to my cottage to take a nap on the porch swing. When that fetal position got a little too cramped, I went inside and sprawled out onto one of three beds, taking another nap and retreating from those damn bugs.
Dinner was again a monstrous plate of seafood and pasta, and I polished off two Salva Vida-brand beers while the bartender and I watched Mexican telenovelas together. When he told me he was 20 the next day, it all made sense.
In the morning, my tycoon friend and I set off around the island. First we stopped in Bonacca, a city that is as densely populated as Hong Kong. What tour guides once deemed “Little Venice” for the charming canals that cut through the island city has now become a series of narrow concrete alleyways that zigzag like a labyrinth with little rhyme or reason. Far less quaint than little gondolas traversing through waterways, but I’m sure the city residents were like ‘Man, do I really have to get in this stupid boat again?’ and decided to pave them over. Like every place I’ve been here, there are no street addresses or numbers anywhere, just the main street, which is really a glorified alleyway.
Next we zipped by several shuttered dive resorts. When Hurricane Mitch ripped through the Caribbean a few years ago, it destroyed millions of dollars of tourism infrastructure in its path. With the financial crash and coup in Tegucigalpa essentially erasing all tourism to the area last year, many people couldn’t or decided not to rebuild.
We had a Port Royal-brand beer at a beach resort on the other side of the island at 11 a.m. It made me pretty sleepy, but hey, I wasn’t driving the boat. We stopped by a couple of places that turned out to be closed, then we headed to a bar-restaurant run by a German couple. And there we stayed for 5 hours, while I sampled tasty Franziskaner beer and wine fermented from a local fruit whose name I didn’t write down, plus homemade split pea soup. I chatted about Utila with a young fellow who I convinced myself to be a heroin fiend – mysterious black stuff under his finger nails, a nervous, shifty way of speaking and that one time he told me how he smuggles California weed into Honduras by way of peanut butter jars.
The German man who provided the local wine also brought along dried mangoes that he’d made at his nearby organic, self-sustaining farm. And my escort, predictably, unbuttoned his shirt one button at a time with every glass of that special wine he had. He made me play him in pool and, after cleaning the table before I took a turn, confessed that he used to do this for a living. Of course. Me and heroin fiend played darts for a while until it was evident that I would never come close to the bullseye.
By the time 5 p.m. rolled around, it appeared that for the second time I would miss out on some of Honduras’ best snorkeling. We had brought a mask and tube along in the boat, but something told me I might drown at that point. Back at the private cay, I had another hearty plate of pan-fried grouper and baked potato. A millionaire couple that owns a nearby cay, helicopter and charter plane had stopped by for a drink with the owner, and we looked at proud pictures of when Jimmy Carter and his wife had swung by Guanaja last April for a fishing trip. The woman explained that he had brought a 23-man Secret Service detail along with him. Before I could give a generic, “Wow, that many?” response, she threw up her hands in exasperation and cried, “And that’s with our money!” And then I immediately became very bored at the prospect of talking taxes and scratched my bubbling sand fly bites instead.
A 10-hour night’s sleep helped wear off that devilish Guanaja wine, and I got up early to watch Germany play Argentina in the quarterfinals with a bunch of enthusiastic Germans who stared at the TV like boys playing a video game. I was sad to go when it came time to leave, but didn’t have much time to dwell. After my 3-person flight touched down in La Ceiba, I took a collective cab to the bus “station,” a single concrete room with a man behind a computer and watching reggaeton music videos. From there, it was a 3-hour ride to Trujillo, and a very expensive cab ride out to my resort painfully outside of town.
The Canadian owners at the place I’m staying only come down a few times a year, so I’m mostly in the hands of the Honduran family who looks after the place. Tonight at dinner, while my new 6-year-old friend showed me pictures of the pet monkey on her mom’s cell phone, the mother explained that she had bought tickets to see famed Catholic missionary Salvador Gómez speak on Sunday, but that she couldn’t go since she had to look after me. It wasn’t as passive aggressive as it sounds, and it took a little while to convince her that I wouldn’t even be here during the day. Tomorrow is my day to run around like a crazed gringo scribbling in my soggy notebook with a dried up pen. So they’re dropping me off in town on their way to the community center, and then we’re all going to have a big 4th of July barbeque and set off sparklers. Not.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Honduras: Cayos Cochinos
Known in English as the Hog Islands, the Cayos Cochinos form an archipelago just off the northern coast of Honduras. I had scheduled a trip weeks ago with a tour agency, and up until a few days ago was set to go by myself. Be that as it may, me and 70 Honduran Adventists taking a church trip to the Palmas Real Resort in Sambo Creek all went together on around 6 motorized "lanchas" (also known as launches, whatever those are). It took around 45 minutes of zipping across the choppy waters to arrive at Cayo Menor, where all guests are required to watch an educational video about protecting the islands. Our head guide made a lot of sex-related jokes, but the Adventists seemed to giggle just the same. For example, "What fish do men most prefer?" In Spanish, "pez" is fish. So when he said "pezones," at first I thought he said big fish. Then I remembered that "pezones" means nipples. Jajaja.
After the talk, I got a very VIP private ride on a motorized canoe around the Cayo Mayor to visit two places to stay. The first is a community project built in the middle of a 50-person Garifuna village. Five percent of earnings from the two-cabin setup go toward supporting the local school. My guide was both the "hotel" manager and the schoolteacher, so he took me around both facilities as little kids popped their heads out from palm-thatched houses to see who the weirdo with giant sunglasses was. After touring the second, I spotted the mass of Adventists boarding the boats from around the cove. My canoe had already taken off, so I raced through some jungle paths to meet them on the beach. I hopped in the last departing boat just in time. Then I saw the boat I first took pull up to the short at the second hotel to pick me up. Oops.
The following stop was at the Chachahuate Island...which sounds remarkably like "cacahuate" (peanut). Rather than buy bottled water, many Honduras (and presumably Central Americans) drink purified water from plastic baggies, exactly the same kind as those gross milk pouches we got in elementary school that often tasted like rubber. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to drink from the hole I'd chewed without splashing water all over myself. Eventually an elderly woman with ginormous breasts and an exposed bra that was shredded and sans elastic sat down close to me and starting drinking from a pouch. I studied her intently, then tried out her trick of grabbing the bag in a fistful and squeezing it upward. Genius. I also purchased a piece of "pan de coco" (coconut bread), a ubiquitous Caribbean favorite that I had yet to try. It was good, it was warm and freshly baked, but it mostly just tasted like...bread.
I should note that the reef encircling Honduras' coast is part of the 2nd biggest reef in the world, next to Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Cayos Cochinos is said to have such great snorkeling and diving that the dive instructors who work on Roatan and Utila (two of three Bay Islands) come to Cayos Cochinos for fun. That said, I was too busy running around to get more than ankle deep in the turquoise waters. I didn't really want to see some of the world's best snorkeling anyway.
After we came back to the boat drop off in Sambo Creek, I fell asleep at a plastic table in the adjoining seafood restaurant. Today made me incredibly sea sick, and even right now various hours later I still feel like I'm swaying. Cool vertigo gene, thanks Galluccis!! Then I had fried fish with slices of fried plantain and the famous dish "rice and beans" (oh wait...that's what it's called in Spanish, too). After the tour guide dropped me off at my hostel, I hopped in the shower, repositioned my drying undies and took back off into La Ceiba. And I just polished off a personal pizza while watching Latino music videos.
Tomorrow, it's off to Guanaja! Let's hope my plane ride tomorrow doesn't give me too many funny things to write about!
After the talk, I got a very VIP private ride on a motorized canoe around the Cayo Mayor to visit two places to stay. The first is a community project built in the middle of a 50-person Garifuna village. Five percent of earnings from the two-cabin setup go toward supporting the local school. My guide was both the "hotel" manager and the schoolteacher, so he took me around both facilities as little kids popped their heads out from palm-thatched houses to see who the weirdo with giant sunglasses was. After touring the second, I spotted the mass of Adventists boarding the boats from around the cove. My canoe had already taken off, so I raced through some jungle paths to meet them on the beach. I hopped in the last departing boat just in time. Then I saw the boat I first took pull up to the short at the second hotel to pick me up. Oops.
The following stop was at the Chachahuate Island...which sounds remarkably like "cacahuate" (peanut). Rather than buy bottled water, many Honduras (and presumably Central Americans) drink purified water from plastic baggies, exactly the same kind as those gross milk pouches we got in elementary school that often tasted like rubber. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to drink from the hole I'd chewed without splashing water all over myself. Eventually an elderly woman with ginormous breasts and an exposed bra that was shredded and sans elastic sat down close to me and starting drinking from a pouch. I studied her intently, then tried out her trick of grabbing the bag in a fistful and squeezing it upward. Genius. I also purchased a piece of "pan de coco" (coconut bread), a ubiquitous Caribbean favorite that I had yet to try. It was good, it was warm and freshly baked, but it mostly just tasted like...bread.
I should note that the reef encircling Honduras' coast is part of the 2nd biggest reef in the world, next to Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Cayos Cochinos is said to have such great snorkeling and diving that the dive instructors who work on Roatan and Utila (two of three Bay Islands) come to Cayos Cochinos for fun. That said, I was too busy running around to get more than ankle deep in the turquoise waters. I didn't really want to see some of the world's best snorkeling anyway.
After we came back to the boat drop off in Sambo Creek, I fell asleep at a plastic table in the adjoining seafood restaurant. Today made me incredibly sea sick, and even right now various hours later I still feel like I'm swaying. Cool vertigo gene, thanks Galluccis!! Then I had fried fish with slices of fried plantain and the famous dish "rice and beans" (oh wait...that's what it's called in Spanish, too). After the tour guide dropped me off at my hostel, I hopped in the shower, repositioned my drying undies and took back off into La Ceiba. And I just polished off a personal pizza while watching Latino music videos.
Tomorrow, it's off to Guanaja! Let's hope my plane ride tomorrow doesn't give me too many funny things to write about!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Honduras: Back on the mainland
Suicide watch following the failed catamaran has since been lifted. My extended stay in Roatan ended up being fine. After spending four hours sulking in the resort lobby, I arranged a stay at a cottage-resort in Sandy Bay. The manager of the first place I stayed at in La Ceiba (the fancy one) had previously worked at this place and earlier had given me the contact information. He happened to be staying there the same night with his girlfriend.
Aside: My first night in La Ceiba, the 3 of us went out to La Casona, a giant discotheque in the Zona Viva where I danced with a Honduran manchild who said he was 25 but looked 19. Just how I like 'em.
Anyway, the 3 of us went out again with the second resort manager and her fiancee, who also works there. The manager is an Argentine lady who was born on Oct. 29, 1985 - wow!!! We had Thai food and wine at a place I'd previously visited, which is set on a dock along the strip of bars and restaurants in West End, the biggest place for going out in Roatan. I'm so trendy.
After a night of listening to weird bug sounds and a scratching gecko thing crawl around in the lampshade, I woke up early to catch the 7 a.m. ferry back to La Ceiba. Manager #2 had arranged for her go-to cab driver to pick me up last night. He was supposed to show at 6, so by the time 6:15 rolled around, I almost started crying. I just wanted to get off that damn island! By 6:20, I stepped out onto the highway and grabbed one off the street, and he zipped me to Coxen Hole right in time. The boat ride was far smoother than the first (the first involved a tropical storm, though). I still wore my sunglasses, but this time I was put upstairs in first class, where there's less movement and U.S. sitcoms in English! Naturally the ferry pulled into the dock before I got to see if the boy who had been kidnapped by his father after his father stabbed his mother managed to escape. Good family stuff.
I'm back to my roots now and staying at a backpacker hostel. This afternoon I took a colectivo cab out to Sambo Creek, where a few bed & breakfasts and restaurants have popped up. I also took a 25-minute walk to a big resort down the beach. On the walk back I was fairly convinced I would die in the beachfront cow pasture. However, I managed to get glasses of ice water from every subsequent place I visited. Technically these places popped up east of Sambo Creek, because I later went into the real Sambo Creek and it's pretty "blah." That's how we describe things in the business. I took a school bus back into La Ceiba and got off at a private hospital, as I had earlier been instructed to find the hole-in-the-wall sushi place across the street. It was tasty, but I think everything in Honduras just melts by virtue of it being so unfathomably hot here. I have a soggy dinner napkin in my pocket that I've been using all day to wipe the dripping sweat off my face. I feel like a 300-pound creepy gringo man who wears unbuttoned Hawaiian print shirts by the pool as he sips scotch and follows local girls with his eyes. Post-sushi I walked home, got lost, it turned dark, I got scared, and then I found the place. It took a few screams of "Bueno!!!" to finally to get someone to open the gate. Now I'm going to wash my underwear in the sink. Hopefully they'll dry by the time I get back from my snorkeling trip to Cayos Cochinos tomorrow, but probably not, since everything here stays damp and humid foreeeeever.
Aside: My first night in La Ceiba, the 3 of us went out to La Casona, a giant discotheque in the Zona Viva where I danced with a Honduran manchild who said he was 25 but looked 19. Just how I like 'em.
Anyway, the 3 of us went out again with the second resort manager and her fiancee, who also works there. The manager is an Argentine lady who was born on Oct. 29, 1985 - wow!!! We had Thai food and wine at a place I'd previously visited, which is set on a dock along the strip of bars and restaurants in West End, the biggest place for going out in Roatan. I'm so trendy.
After a night of listening to weird bug sounds and a scratching gecko thing crawl around in the lampshade, I woke up early to catch the 7 a.m. ferry back to La Ceiba. Manager #2 had arranged for her go-to cab driver to pick me up last night. He was supposed to show at 6, so by the time 6:15 rolled around, I almost started crying. I just wanted to get off that damn island! By 6:20, I stepped out onto the highway and grabbed one off the street, and he zipped me to Coxen Hole right in time. The boat ride was far smoother than the first (the first involved a tropical storm, though). I still wore my sunglasses, but this time I was put upstairs in first class, where there's less movement and U.S. sitcoms in English! Naturally the ferry pulled into the dock before I got to see if the boy who had been kidnapped by his father after his father stabbed his mother managed to escape. Good family stuff.
I'm back to my roots now and staying at a backpacker hostel. This afternoon I took a colectivo cab out to Sambo Creek, where a few bed & breakfasts and restaurants have popped up. I also took a 25-minute walk to a big resort down the beach. On the walk back I was fairly convinced I would die in the beachfront cow pasture. However, I managed to get glasses of ice water from every subsequent place I visited. Technically these places popped up east of Sambo Creek, because I later went into the real Sambo Creek and it's pretty "blah." That's how we describe things in the business. I took a school bus back into La Ceiba and got off at a private hospital, as I had earlier been instructed to find the hole-in-the-wall sushi place across the street. It was tasty, but I think everything in Honduras just melts by virtue of it being so unfathomably hot here. I have a soggy dinner napkin in my pocket that I've been using all day to wipe the dripping sweat off my face. I feel like a 300-pound creepy gringo man who wears unbuttoned Hawaiian print shirts by the pool as he sips scotch and follows local girls with his eyes. Post-sushi I walked home, got lost, it turned dark, I got scared, and then I found the place. It took a few screams of "Bueno!!!" to finally to get someone to open the gate. Now I'm going to wash my underwear in the sink. Hopefully they'll dry by the time I get back from my snorkeling trip to Cayos Cochinos tomorrow, but probably not, since everything here stays damp and humid foreeeeever.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Honduras: No Manches
So that 4-6 hour catamaran I was complaining about doesn't exist. I checked my e-mails with the middlewoman, and they all confirm the trip for Monday the 28th at 1:30 (be there early!) Except when I arrived and no boat was at the dock, the hotel driver who took me called the captain and he said he usually leaves Thursday or Friday, and never once in his life at 1:30. After screaming "Que mierda!!!" at the driver, who then laughed at me, I decided against racing to take a ferry to La Ceiba and a second ferry from La Ceiba to Utila, which would wind up costing me $70. So here I am, another night in Roatán. I'm hoping to get some last-minute lodging at another resort, and also take the ferry company up on their initial offer to give me a round-trip ticket from La Ceiba to Roatán. And I'll just have to figure out when I can get back to Utila. In the end, I hope it turns out to be a blessing. When I do reschedule the Utila trip, I'll make it for 2 nights instead of one frantic hellish morning of racing to get everything done before the afternoon ferry. The only problem is figuring out when I'll get to do this, since my adventure to La Moskitia has yet to be confirmed.
I just rode 45 minutes to the dock, spent 5 minutes whining and took 45 more minutes to get back. And here I am at the resort from this morning, trying to figure out what to do. Of course this would be a great opportunity to get done all I didn't before, if I weren't in some peaceful, tranquil place (read: middle of nowhere).
Que mierda.
I just rode 45 minutes to the dock, spent 5 minutes whining and took 45 more minutes to get back. And here I am at the resort from this morning, trying to figure out what to do. Of course this would be a great opportunity to get done all I didn't before, if I weren't in some peaceful, tranquil place (read: middle of nowhere).
Que mierda.
Honduras: Tela, La Ceiba, Roatán
Just visited the place, but it sure is pretty.That said, I told myself I shouldn't complain. I could be in Afghanistan with Marie working dawn-to-dusk shifts as mean scary men increasingly attack my base. So yeah, I'll shut up.
Where did we leave off? My second night in Tela was also spent at an all-inclusive resort, where I lamented having unlimited cocktails and no one to drink with. I did have a caipirinha by myself at noon, but it just made me a little loopy for the bus ride to La Ceiba. I mostly just covered the neighborhood of El Naranjo in La Ceiba, which is tucked away from downtown in the jungle and facing the Pico Bonito National Park. It is absolutely beautiful out there. The first luxury lodge I stayed in was incredible...you'll have to read my later description about it, but my room faced a gentle waterfall, and a private trail on the grounds led to a bigger fall with a swimming hole. I was a little disconcerted when the manager told me to watch out for poisonous snakes. My only encounters have been with wimpy garter snakes, and even those made me feel like Indiana Jones (in the crippling way).
The next morning, I woke up early and moved down the road to an adventure lodge. I joined in on a rafting trip down the Río Cangrejal with two girls from California, and despite my concerns that I would die, it was a lot of fun. Exceptionally better than my first and only other rafting trip, which was down a lake-like, chocolatey brown river in Mexico. One of the girls and I then rented bikes and rode up and down the dirt path visiting lodges and sweating profusely. My jeans and tank top were completely soaked from all the beads of sweat dripping down my...everything. In the evening, the owner of a yoga retreat lodge invited us to dinner for some raw food sushi, which was amazingly delicious. The meat/seafood/cream cheese replacement was a nut paté made from blended almonds, onions and other stuff. Dessert was some kind of vegany raw food pudding, that was also delicious. I have to say, I felt great afterward. Stuffed, but not painful. But I practically drink olive oil for lunch and dinner, so maybe it's only a short-lived love affair.
On Saturday, I took a ferry from La Ceiba to Roatán. It had been pouring down rain since the time I'd gone to bed (courtesy of Tropical Storm Alex, that jerk), and so the ride was pretty rocky...although one of the rafting guides who happened to be going at the same time said that he had seen it far worse. I put on my sunglasses, closed my eyes and inhaled/exhaled deeply for an hour. I didn't puke, but I did have a raging headache for the entire day. Can't wait to ride again for 4-6 hours! My first day on the island was kind of a waste. It took me two hours to rent a car, and when I did, it was a giant red 4x4 Nissan pickup truck that was $30 more than a sedan (since they were out). I did a little driving at night to the West End, but since there are no streetlights and the hills are super curvy with steep grades, I counted my blessings that I didn't die on my first go and retired for the evening.
Yesterday, I spent about 9 hours driving all the way around the island, and I still didn't finish my work. But I had to turn in the car (I may/may not have damaged the bumper, but the inspector didn't see it. Fine, I backed up into a barbed wire fence...twice...I admit it), and the next resort had sent someone to pick me up at the same time. So here I am, sweating inside my air conditioned room and looking out at the pristine waters I have yet to touch. In an hour, I'm being shuttled back to the West End where I'll await that damn catamaran ride. I can't believe I have 2 more weeks left. Dios mio.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Honduras: Tales from Tela
What’s the best way to start the day in Honduras? With a baleada. Take a tortilla or slices of toasted white bread, smother with refried beans and top with cheese with chile and one egg dripping with oil, and breakfast is served. At least that was the case at my hostel in San Pedro this morning, where I sat gleefully at the kitchen table alternating sips of coffee, guanabana juice (I think the fruit is sour sop in English, ever heard of it?) with bites of baleada.
Hedman Alas is the first-class, top-of-the-line bus company for many routes cutting across Honduras. Knowing that, I figured it would be expensive for my trip to Tela, so my cab driver recommended a cheaper line that was still allegedly nice. My first warning should have been the $3.50 fare to travel 2.5 hours…a bit too much of a bargain. Alas, no a/c and trash shoved between the seat cushions. We also stopped every 10 minutes to pick up various peddlers pushing cellophane-wrapped hamburgers, holistic creams and candies.
I walked around a lot today in Tela's old town, leaping over the giant concrete gutters separating the sidewalk and street and making my dutiful rounds. In the last three days, I’ve had a bit of an issue with my perspective. I think I’m a little tired of seeing all the grit and urban planning nightmares as I’m fresh out of Mexico City, and it’s made me utterly unimpressed with what I’ve seen so far. But today I managed to coach myself out of that funk and remind myself that I’m not in Mexico, but rather I’m in a brand new country with lots left to see. It also helped that the beach is really pretty here. And the culture is very different, despite my natural tendency to brush it all of as "Mexicany."
Tonight I dined at a small beachfront eatery run by an Italian couple, savoring my vegetarian pizza with each bite, and drinking my lemoncillo in a glass of ice to make it last longer. The lady owner and I talked for nearly an hour about her move to Honduras, me looking like I'm 20, my washed out Italian descent, food, etc. She has the same close-cropped curly coif as my Grandma Gallucci, except this lady's was sandy blonde. She also sported the same Harry Potter-esque glasses that I did as a hermaphrodite 10-year-old. And then, if all of that didn't make her sound cool enough already, she didn't charge me for the food. I'm sure it had something to do with my mission here, but it was nice to not have to ask for once. My new best friend said that when she's bored or stressed, she experiments and creates thing. Today she happened to experiment with frozen flan, and she gave me a cup for dessert. Muitto delicious.
If it sounds like I'm rambling on my blog, you should hear what it's like in my head after I go long hours without talking to anyone.
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