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.