Planes from LAX to Honduras leave at 1:50 am and after 15 hours of flying, we’re here! As you may or may not know, I do not love flying so I enjoyed my favorite blue friend, a nice Tylenol PM to put me to sleep through most of the flight to El Salvador. Before passing out and performing my flying ritual*, I met an interesting and funny woman with a great name (Zariah). She immigrated from Argentina to Italy with her parents, in order to escape Peron, because her family was Jewish. She is now a Jew for Jesus and was [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Copan and began asking cabs about the cost to get to La Casa de Café hotel. You have to set a price with the cab drivers before you get into their taxi, or they might try to cheat you and charge you a brazo(arm) and a pierna (leg) when you get to the location. A Honduran woman speaking Spanish, offered us a ride, but because of our past travels we have learned to trust no one. Unfortunately, we assume that people are trying to take advantage of us, because we have been burned before. So, we ignored her and [View Full Entry]

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RANDOM OBSERVATION UNO: You know that you’re in a third country when a beer is cheaper than a coke. RANDOM OBSERVATION DOS: There is a constant haze in Honduras because they spend much of their time burning trash in order to get rid of it. This of course is not really the best or most environmentally friendly way to dispose of trash, but apparently they don't do it enough because the country is quite dirty. This trash-filled and hazy country could be helped by a single word. Recycling. RANDOM OBSERVATION TRES: I wish my parents pushed me more to do some [View Full Entry]

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1. If you like bees the size of a child’s fist… 2. Sweat dripping from your head, down your back, and into your nether-regions… 3. Being sore beyond belief… Then the Celaque mountains are right for you! Unfortunately, I do not like any of these, and Celaque kicked my gringo ass or as they say in Honduras, mi nalgas de gringo. Celaque is the tallest mountain in Honduras, but I’ve done a lot of hiking in my day, and even ran the L.A. marathon so I wasn't worried. Sure, I have a bad leg, but I figured a 5 hr hike [View Full Entry]

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LEMPIRA After all this talk about Lempira (Honduran currency), you are probably wondering where the term Lempira came from. Well, it’s named after the country’s first hero, Lempira, (“Man of the Mountain”) who led the Lenca (original Honduran people) in a war against the Spaniards, when the Spaniards came to conquer Honduras. Lempira was the last surviving chief because the Spaniards tricked the other chiefs to come and discuss a “compromise” to avoid more war. Those chiefs were all hung when they arrived at the compromise meeting. Lempira was the l [View Full Entry]

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BUS LESSON UNO CERO UNO: 1. Get to the bus early so you can get a window seat. You will want a window seat. I repeat, you will want a window seat because it gets muy muy stuffy. 2. The seats are built to fit two people, but they pack them in so be prepared to feel some other person’s moist body part on you. 3. Make sure it’s a direct bus. You do not want to be on a bus with no air conditioning, sweaty limbs, and body odor that stops every 5 minutes to pick up passengers who have [View Full Entry]

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On the way from the Roatan airport to our hotel, we passed Coxen Hole which has great ocean front property without the nice properties. They are shanty houses made of wood and metal sheeting. This area is dominated by the Garifuna* people. We arrived late (obviously) to our hotel, the Kefeito’s Inn, run by Phillip, a Central American Chong (from Cheech and Chong) clone. Since there was no food available at the hotel, we walked, starving, with flashlights on the dark beach to the nearest restaurant. Crabs blanketed the beach and there were so many, you had to watch where you [View Full Entry]

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I don’t think there are two more relaxing words in the English language than, “Hammock nap”. Chong’s place had two hammocks out on the porch that overlooked paradise, with the green forest and exotic birds singing their ever-loving beaks off. I did not see any other people staying at the Inn, so we had this wonderful place all to ourselves. It was hot, but to lie in a hammock after a shower and feel the breeze hit, felt like I was knee-deep in a Jimmy Buffet song. Between naps, I contemplated the world generally and life specifically. I think that happens [View Full Entry]

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Our guide book said it was going to be $10 to get into the Gumba Limba park, but they were charging $20 and didn’t take credit cards. We told the girl at the ticket counter that it was more expensive than we thought and after a minute of discussion, we decided not to go. We weren’t so much cheap, rather worried, because we didn’t have a lot of cash left and didn’t know if the ATM’s would ever work. If that were the case, we’d need to reserve the rest of our money for Chong. So we left. Danielle and I [View Full Entry]

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Went diving the next day, and to be honest, I was underwhelmed. The water is warm and there’s a good amount of marine life, but I just expected there to be more. It’s like going to a Dodger game, and they’re out of Dodger dogs. I would still have a good time, but I’d be left wanting. I heard about Roatan having amazing diving, but it was sparse. I saw a lot of coral which is not what you want to remember about a dive, and compared to Hawaii it paled. I got heat rash on my feet, that looks like [View Full Entry]

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