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.

Two documentaries/Shameless self-promotion

Two in-the-works documentaries that I'm indirectly and directly involved in:

The first is a feature-length film that Matt has been working on for the past few months. This past January, he spent nearly two weeks climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with a film crew, an army of Tanzanian porters and two physically challenged athletes - Tara, an amputee with a prosthetic leg, and Erica, who became the first female paraplegic to summit the mountain. The production was organized by and made for the Challenged Athletes Foundation out of San Diego, and they'll premiere the documentary in California and Ohio in May. A full trailer and more info can be found at http://throughtheroofmovie.com/

The second is a short project Matt and I are working on to submit to the ViewChange Online Film Contest, which seeks documentaries reporting how international projects are working to complete any of the UN Millennium Development Goals to eradicate poverty. Once films are submitted, viewers will have the chance to vote for their favorite video from late April to early August. Naturally, I will send you a link where you can vote for OUR video, be it the best or otherwise :) We've selected maternal mortality as the topic of our documentary, as nearly 60 maternal deaths in 100,000 live births occur each year (compared with around 5 in the United States and in Canada). The kicker, however, is that more than 80% of these deaths are very preventable, meaning the woman probably wouldn't have died if she didn't live in Middle-of-Absolutely-Nowhere, México.

To fill you in a bit on the project, last weekend, the two of us traveled to San Cristóbal de las Casas, a beautiful colonial town in the southeastern state of Chiapas (and 3 hours from the Guatemala border). From there, we teamed up with Merit, the local director for Kinal Antzetik, an NGO that promotes maternal health in indigenous communities. She took us on a 2-hour, bumpy, swerving taxi and pickup truck ride to the small community of Carmen Zacatal, where we met with around 10 traditional midwives in the three-room, one-floor concrete home of one of the midwives. Through interviews we learned that these women are essentially the lifeline for pregnant women out there. A proper clinic is hours away, and many times families have to pay a hefty sum to hitch a ride. Other times, über-traditional husbands won't let the women leave the house, especially if it means a strange man will be searching her most intimate of regions. Most of the time, the midwives aren't paid for their work, but they do it anyway because they feel their profession is a God-sent calling.

However, groups like the one Merit works with - and midwives themselves - over the past few years have greatly improved the training and education of midwives through workshops and classes. This way, they can better attend to the women at home and also recognize warning signs, particularly those that require hospital care. Organizations are also working with hospitals to better incorporate indigenous patients and midwives, as many of these women are often turned away based on lingering discrimination and/or an overly-swamped staff and/or under-qualified doctors. The midwives in Carmen Zacatal in recent years have actually reduced maternal mortality to zero, as they very proudly stated.

The women were also very happy to have us follow them on their rounds, which meant us walking into a one-room house with a camera and boom pole and watching the midwife jostle around the patient's fetus from the outside. We even saw the baby's head as the midwife repositioned the body to make sure the niño exited the right way when nine months hit. Of the three mothers whose belly-massages we witnessed, all were my age (24) or younger, and all had two other children. There's nothing really alarming about this from a health perspective, it's just weird for me, as my situation dictates that I can hardly care for more than two houseplants, let alone a human being.

The rest of the trip was very laid back; we interviewed two experts on Saturday and formally interviewed Merit on Sunday. I was hoping to get footage of a house in San Cristobal where women can go to give birth in the care of midwives, but no one was there on Monday. So, instead I just decided to get a stomach virus and mope around town miserably all day until our 8:50 p.m. flight. Next stop on the UN documentary road trip is Guerrero, where hopefully we'll be able to show how traditional midwives and modern hospitals are working collectively to combat maternal mortality.