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!

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.

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.

Honduras: Tela, La Ceiba, Roatán

Just visited the place, but it sure is pretty.

Fell off that blogger bandwagon there for a bit. Let me sum up my life right now: I'm sitting in my bedroom at a private all-inclusive resort in Roatán with a balcony view of crystal clear and turquoise waters, white sand beaches and pale blue skies. Yes, I'm inside. I've been logging all the info I collected yesterday and preparing for my trip to Utila. This trip, unfortunately but perhaps it's necessary, has been all about growing pains. For instance, picking a 4-6 hour catamaran ride to from Roatán to Utila instead of asking a ferry company who already gave me complimentary passage to Roatán for a spot on their 2-hour shuttle ferry. Oops. And allotting about half the time that's needed for each destination, meaning that I work round the clock and still don't get it all done. At least I can brag to you all that I've been to the Bay Islands, but I wouldn't necessarily say that I've gotten to enjoy them.

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.

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.

Honduras: ...and back to San Pedro

I spent all day covered in a thick sheen of sweat. I even had to remove my shirt and pants in a hostel bathroom just to cool off. Now my bed is directly facing the world's strongest air conditioner, and I have goosebumps. I'd go outside if my bug repellent hadn't run out this morning, but alas, there is only so much space on my feet and ankles for mosquito kisses.

Today was for the most part relaxing. I spent the morning writing and researching in Omoa while the rest of the town shut down to watch Spain beat Honduras 2-0. A restaurant ownergave me a ride to the Puerto Cortés/Omoa junction, where I picked up an erratic bus to San Pedro Sula. After the bus zipped past the exit for my stop and dropped me off at the end of the route, the bus money taker boy tried to charge me 5 extra lempiras. I must've given him a great look, because he let it go and then pointed out the smaller combi I'd need to take to get to Las Galerías, the marvelous three-story mall by the hostel I first stayed at. That combi zipped around the ugly streets of San Pedro before arriving in my prettier (er, and wealthier) destination.

I opted for the shared 6-person dormitory, for obvious economic reasons. The room, however, consists of three double beds. A British couple is staying in one of them, and I'm just here to ruin any anticipated intimacy. If the hostel honestly expects me to share this bed with a stranger, then I will raid the cash box, get my lempiras back and sleep in the bathtub.

I wanted to cook dinner tonight, so I walked down to the Dilex grocery store. All plans for fresh produce and healthy ingredients were dashed when I saw mold-covered bananas and wrinkly, fly-covered bell peppers. One 30-cent package of pasta, a bag of sauce and a can of tuna later, I had me some tuna slop! Except the tuna tasted like the can it came it, so if my babies come out with 4 eyes, we'll know why.

I fear I must leave you now to venture back out to the Dilex. Girl needs her chocolate.

Honduras: Puerto Cortés

Somehow I’ve already spent $100 in my first two days on hostels, meals and bus trips. No individual purchase has ever topped 20 bucks, and my most expensive meal was the equivalent of $6. I suppose my goal of spending only $500 on this 3.5-week excursion is now near impossible. Fortunately I have several free stays at hotels up ahead of me, but some nights are still just a series of question marks on my computer calendar. Le sigh.

I had originally scheduled today to be a tour of Omoa, but after realizing I’d seen the whole town in one afternoon, I turned my overnight stay in Puerto Cortés into a day trip, and tomorrow I’ll be writing a bit and then spending the night again in San Pedro Sula so I can take an early bus to Tela. I’m really happy about the day trip decision, by the way. While Puerto Cortés – the biggest port in Central America, wow! – encompasses a lot of land, very little of it is suitable for foreign tourists. Cieneguita and the Coca Cola municipal beach (yes, that’s its real name) are by far the nicest. I, however, started in Travesia, a Garífuna beach to the east of the town center.

I followed signs to the Hotel Costa Azul, which I’d heard was the nicest lodging in the area. After walking down a very long, very empty, very shade-free dirt road, I turned left at the beach and stumbled across a rusty sign reading “Costa Azul.” There was no hotel to be found, just a dingy abandoned shack and a beach filled with branches and trash (turns out the hotel had moved to another beach. Turns out I’d even written all of that down before leaving in the morning). It was incredibly humid and sunny, so I figured this part was a lost cause and it’d be best to get on with my bad self. After walking along a parallel road back to where the city bus had dropped me off, a Garífuna man in what is the definition of “jalopy” drove by and stuck his head out the window. I figured he was just getting a good look at my hot cargo shorts, but then he turned around, passed me again and reversed. Super creepy. Now that I’ve got you thinking I was violated, the man ended up explaining that he lived in New York for most of his life but had returned recently to live in his hometown (for “being a badass,” he said), and that he had never seen a gringa walking alone by herself in these parts. Oops. He gave me a ride in his beat-up sauna to the central bus stop and told me to take the Coptul (so the yellow school buses have names?) line west to Coca Cola.

Somewhere along the way I’d lost my pen, but when I tried to steal one from the receptionist at every hotel I visited, she always reminded me to give it back. On my exit out of Coca Cola, I stopped at an ATM to take advantage of it (Omoa has none) and grab a nutritious lunch of trail mix. I finally snagged a pen at a restaurant on a dock in Cieneguita from the waiter as I was drinking an icy cold Balena beer with the owner. He’d studied in Puebla (east of Mexico City) for six years, and had perfected his snobby “fresa” accent to the tee. This “chilangringa” was impressed. When we tired of each other, I took a Coptul ride back to Omoa, where I immediately crawled into a patio hammock at my hostel and rocked until mosquitoes got my neck. Dinner was an astoundingly large plate of pasta with a mysterious red seafood-esque sauce. Yum!

Can’t wait to see what’s on tonight!

Honduras: Omoa

Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” just popped up on my flatscreen TV. Can I just be him yet? The place I stayed at in Omoa didn't have WiFi, so I wrote this blog entry in a Word document first before copy/pasting it into Blogger. Such third world horror!

This morning I hopped on an early bus to Puerto Cortés, stopping off at the junction to pick up a yellow school bus to Omoa. I arrived here a little before 10 a.m. and dropped off my stuff at the hostel. By 3 p.m. I became fairly certain that I had already covered everything I needed to cover. Once an up-and-coming beach town, the city has lost a lot of its tourism after the nearby gas company changed the current and flooded its beaches. Hostel owners said they’ve gone consecutive months without a single client. And it looks like I’ll be staying here two more nights! Having booked some other hotel rooms in advance, I can’t really push those reservations back. I’m trying to figure out how to enjoy this and make the most of my time…so far, I’ve discovered cable TV. And tonight it rained really hard, so my 6 p.m. nap turned into an evening in, thus saving me money on dinner! I took a Tylenol for my hunger headache…is this a bad pattern?

I’d read about some charming waterfalls in my pre-trip research. They sounded relatively easy to get to – a 45-minute hike down a path, maybe ask the locals if you get confused along the way. It took me about an hour and a half to realize I couldn’t find them and that the Honduran rainforest might not be the best place to be after sunset. On the way back to where I started, I asked a super smiley man who lived in a wood shack at the entrance if I had been headed the right way. Then he offered to take me there, so we walked along a small, hidden path (he smiled the whole time, I wondered then if it was because he was thinking about what he was going to do to me). I gave him two lempiras (less than 10 cents…I’m nice) for his help, then I walked via log across a creek and upriver until I approached the swimming hole. It’s a pretty swimming hole, I’ll give it that. But waterfalls? Maybe it’s really dry right now. On the way back, I walked with a family to the main road. Awkwardness ensued when the mother asked if I’d heard of Jehovah’s Witnesses before. I think I was more scared then than when a strange smiling man lead me into the forest. Her husband soon shamed me but telling the woman “never mind, she doesn’t care,” but, well, he's right.

And here I am, now watching “The Devil Wears Prada” (no Law & Order in this backwards country!), and I have a strange red rash on my chest. It doesn’t itch or burn, it’s not sensitive…it’s just there. Tomorrow I intend to have a large breakfast at a B&B reviewed and take advantage of their WiFi. Then it’s on to Puerto Cortés for a day trip.

Oh yeah, I’m really lonely right now. TV til midnight it is!

Honduras: 17 hours later...

There's nothing quite like crashing in bed at 1 a.m. after indulging at a wine-and-cheese engagement party, only to have to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to finish packing and get yourself to the airport. But I've never been one for an adequate night's sleep before a flight anyway.

When my cell phone alarm starting bleeping ominously this morning, I barrel-rolled out of bed, shoved some toiletries into my backpack, put on my embarrassingly gringo-esque weatherproof cargo pants and disintegrating tennis shoes and stumbled into the elevator. Fortunately my friend Azul and her boyfriend Salvador had offered to give me a ride, so I hopped in their backseat and passed back out for a bit. I made it to the gate just a few minutes before boarding time and settled into my seat on the plane to Panama City, which touched down at 11 a.m. - precisely 10 minutes before my connecting flight to Tegucigalpa was to take off. Somehow I managed to sprint across the airport to my gate and thrust my boarding pass at the airport lady just before they closed the door. A few of my fellow passengers stared nervously as I walked down the aisle panting heavily and smiling like I'd just won a million bucks.

Once I landed in Tegucigalpa, I paid a gummy old man in the parking lot $1 to find me a safe street taxi (is that an oxymoron?) to take me to the nearest bus station. Once the 2 p.m. bus to San Pedro Sula rolled into the one-company station at 2:30, we headed 4.5 hours northwest to Honduras' economic capital and third largest city. From there, Oscar, a taxi driver hired by the hostel I'm staying at, picked me up at the food court and took me to my dwelling place. Along the way, he assured me that Matt would find another girlfriend while he's away on Warped Tour. I countered that that would be impossible, as I'm (clearly) the best woman (girl?) to ever exist. He begged to differ, then laughed again at my imminent heartbreak and despair. I tried to impress him with my "...but I live in Mexico City!" line, but he countered that by saying that he hated Mexicans because all they do is kill, fight, do drugs and kill some more. All 100 million of them.

The hostel is a cozy place, and functional WiFi is possibly the hugest plus (besides free transportation to/from the bus station). As soon as Oscar dropped me off, I headed out into the well-lit middle class suburb where I'm at in search of dinner. I came across a three-story shopping mall and swung by the Sushi Itto to get some Japanese franchise goodness. I might've thought I was still in Mexico if all the waiters weren't wearing Honduran soccer jerseys and speaking in a Central American accent.

Tonight it's early to bed. Tomorrow it's early to rise and a crappy combi bus ride to Omoa.

Honduras: Pre-departure ranting

It's 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 17. This time tomorrow, I'll be making a layover in Panama City on my way to Tegucigalpa. In most of my traveling experiences, some pre-trip planning is required, but concrete itineraries are tough to pin down when you don't know what to expect or what you'll find. Although I generally get stressed in the days or hours leading up to the trip, I eventually find a way to relax (I call this way "wine"). Point being, I'm in the stressed out part of my trip.

The irony here is that I'm writing for a travel company that's geared toward 40 to 50-year-olds with steady incomes and presumably ample savings. As for me, my last year's income didn't reach the U.S. poverty line - which, strangely, put me on par with most middle-class Mexican heads of families. When I'm not being graciously afforded a free night's stay in a hotel or (hopefully...please God hopefully) on a packaged tour, I'll be traveling like a smelly hippie backpacker with a limited budget and three changes of clothes.

I've mapped out my itinerary for the first three cities along my Caribbean coastal route, but I didn't realize until now that just getting to the coast could be tricky in itself. After flying into the capital city's airport, I'll need to take a cab or a "colectivo" to the bus station in Comayagüela, a notoriously dangerous district in Tegucigalpa (yay!) From there, a 4.5-hour bus to San Pedro Sula, where I'll be spending the night in a hostel before taking a bus to Omoa and beginning my journey.

Money-wise, it's good that my schedule is restricted by my already-booked trip home to Ohio on July 15. I'm heading back out of Tegucigalpa on July 13, so I need to cover as much as I possibly can in this time frame. Dysentery, malaria or any other time-consuming illness is not an option, as I can't afford to lose any days (that and I don't want to get malaria).

It's now 9:50 a.m. Is it too early to start on that wine?

The magical town of Chipilo

Paul and I decided last weekend to take advantage of the sunny Sunday and set off on one last Mexican adventure before I head off for six weeks - four in Honduras, and two in the exotic state of Ohio. He'd heard about this strange little town just south of Puebla city where the residents are descendants of Venetian farmers who were invited by then-dictator Porfirio Díaz to get up out of their Italian poverty and come make some cheese in Mexico.

A slice of Italy in the heart of Mexico? Pues, vamos!

One 2-hour bus ride to Puebla later, we took an unexpectedly long ride into the town of Chipilo on a rickety, bouncy "pesero," the gray boxy buses from what is likely the 1970's and that chug puffs of sour-smelling toxins as they speed down streets and break suddenly for the ubiquitous speed bump. The pesero driver dropped us off at an Oxxo convenience store along the highway, and a nice young couple pointed us down a wide muddy alley, up around a corner and onto a road, then past a couple houses before we stopped upon a yellow-and-red cathedral. In many Mexican plazas and Italian piazzas, the largest church signifies the city center, a core from which life disperses infinitely outward. I really had to pee, so there was no time for questions such as "Where is the rest of the town?" or "Uh...is this it?"

We crossed the two-lane street in front of the church and zipped into the Italian Coffee Company café, a natural franchise selection for an Italian sister city, right? After nature ran its course, we zipped back across the street and headed right of the church and into an Italian restaurant recommended by the ICC barista. As I twirled my packaged pasta and tuna combo, and as Paul happily peeled rabbit meat from its little twig legs, we struck up conversation with the waitress. I'd read about "el centro" on my brief Google investigation earlier that morning, where all the young kids get together on Sunday afternoons, so I inquired - where is it? "It's here...this is the 'centro,'" she replied, bemused. A church, thoroughfare and a strip mall of six restaurants.

Would we have the time to explore it all in just one afternoon?

The waitress recommended us a great cheese shop within walking distance, so we took off down a very nondescript road. There were one-story houses, some painted in bright colors like any decent Mexican pueblo. There was a mystery pile of dirt and trash. When we came across signs for "Quesos de Luis," we followed the arrows around the corner and into a barn, where big mama cows and little lady cows munched happily at a trough. Our presence inspired no concern among the farmers there, so eventually we had to ask where the store was. We pushed past a plain white door and met Luis, who offered us manchego, quesillo (like string cheese) and natilla (creamy dessert goodness) from behind his refrigerated counter. Luis had fair skin, blue eyes and sandy blond hair. He responded with "chi" instead of "sí" and gave us a look like "Why in the Pope's name are you in Chipilo?" We polished off a cup of natilla back out in the barn amongst the poop-covered cows, then went off in search of our next discovery as the rain clouds rolled in.

Next up was "La Nave Italia," another cheese shop that also sold cured meats, homemade pastas, gelato and olive oil. [Ignore that four-year-old time stamp].

The lady who runs La Nave was another Venetian-looking blondie who was kind enough to humor my request to speak in her Venetian dialect. She rambled off a few things in her Italian-Spanish tongue, and explained that most of the town's 4,000 residents only speak Spanish to outsiders (i.e. us). Paul and I only ever saw menus, signs and church programs written in Spanish, but I never got to ask if the dialect had a written form as well.

Next on the guide book-worthy agenda was a glass of wine at the town's second Italian restaurant as we waited out the rain storm. Young Eurotrashy waiters took our order and swept up the fly carcasses on the floor. The town had a lot of flies, which is probably natural for a farming town, but when this restaurant tried to fumigate its interiors, it just made the flies a little, well, retarded. Either that or the flies genuinely enjoy spinning on their backs in endless circles like someone about to whop a piñata in half. The waiters said that they'd be cheering for Italy - not Mexico - in the World Cup, and when Paul told them that I'm Italian, one flour-covered man started speaking to me in Italian. Then I hung my head in shame and clarified, "sólo de ascendencia" ("only by descent"). This happens a lot.

We wandered around for about 10 more minutes trying to find some other gem when the pesero back into Puebla stopped in front of the church. Assuming that we'd seen all there was to see, we hopped on and headed back home.