Barenas en Tela

Alternatively to be titled "Best Day Ever".

We went to a village near Tela del Mar called Triunfo del Cruz with three of the SHH folks (Bobby, Samantha, and Christian) where for about $10 you can drink beers on the most beautiful white sand beach you've ever seen and float naked in the clear water of a totally deserted beach. (No fish took the worm, gracias a Dios.) That also included a great fish I had, which had been caught that day and fried up (Fiesta Cove-style) with the head still on him. These are the first photos I'll send back when I can, though I doubt it will reassure UVA that its funds are being well-spent.

Rodrigo observed that you could hold the bottle of Barena (Honduras's Corona) up against any background in sight, and it would look like a commercial for the most fun anyone was having in the world. A few of the local black children brought over their bongos and convinced our fearless leader, El Boludo, to dance La Rumba. By all accounts he failed to shake his hindquarters adequately, and the negritos were not at all impressed. Therefore he had to pay them 5 lempiras.

The road to Tela is one of the most notorious sites for kidnapping in Honduras. (Which in the second most dangerous country in the Western Hemisphere is pretty badass.) This sort of sordid business happens when you have to stop to cross a temporary one-lane steel bridge over a beautiful gorge. We made sure to do both in daylight, and everything went smoothly except for a red pickup truck with a yellow tarp (presumably whose melons were filled with cocaine) that got pulled over at the heavily-armed police checkpoint.

More dangerous was the traffic. The major highways in the country are two-lane roads where you pass over the yellow. Ideally when there is no oncoming traffic, although most Honduran drivers are oblivious to the possible health risks of a head-on collision. We saw approximately six close calls and the remains of a police truck that had no miraculously narrow escape.

Tonight we declined to go out to the club (although Saturday night is where it's at, apparently...) after the Honduran-U.S. soccer game which we watched in a crowded theater (the entire megaplex was sold out and showing only the game). Even though Rodrigo wanted to grind on this orphan. Mostly because tomorrow we'll wake up at 4:30 to catch the bus out to the Mayan ruins at Copan.