This Week's Adventures

Having a day where I am really missing food from home.  The typical food here is pretty bland as a general rule.  Always tortillas and usually rice with whatever we are eating.  We usually eat the same thing every week: a porkchop with a boiled plantain, rice and tortillas, or spaghetti with rice and tortillas, or a chicken soup with rice and tortillas....you get the idea.  I have eaten Corn Flakes for breakfast for the last 26 mornings IN A ROW, and eggs for dinner for the last 26 nights.  I am making a mental list of all the things I cannot wait to eat when I get home-scrapple, vegetables, Thanksgiving dinner, Chicken Jammies, sushi, etc.

Anyway...On to more important things...

The tiny things at the end are all the fishermen

We have had gorgeous weather here for the past few days--NO RAIN, YAY!!!  So our group from school has been out and about at every chance we get in order to take advantage of these days without rain.  On Tuesday we walked around town so the new girls could get a tour of the city.  

Just an up close shot of how bad the pier was

We went to a few places I hadn't seen yet, like the fishing pier.  The pier is old and dilapidated, but still very much in use by the locals.  Always up for an adventure, I decided to walk out the end.  Well, I only got about half way out before I came to my senses and decided I didn't need to go any further.  The view was gorgeous though, the mountains in the distance amidst the clouds, and the outline of Cayos Cochinos (islands) off on the horizon.

Yesterday we took a bus out to a 200 year old Garifuna village called Sambo Creek (a name that would NEVER be acceptable in the states).  The Garifuna people were brought over to Brazil as slaves, but many escaped and came to the coast of Central America.  There are several Garifuna communities on the coast of Honduras, but Sambo Creek is the largest.  There is a pretty significant divide between the spanish speaking Hondurans and the Garifunas, who are dark skinned and the majority of who speak a native Garifuna language.  

Their culture has remained very much in tact and they are known for their cuisine, style of dance and perhaps most highly regarded for their homemade liquor, Guifiti, a moonshine  of sorts that is made with herbs and alcohol and left in the sun for a week before it is ready to be consumed.  There is also a sweet version that is meant to be taken like a tequila shot with sugar and a grapefruit slice--right up my alley!! Well, I figured since I was there I had to give it a whirl....When in Sambo Creek....

It was a great, relaxing afternoon spent napping on the beach, relaxing in a hammock and walking around the village.  There is a lot of neat graffiti art that serves as public service announcements of sorts. Turtles humping and requesting you to wear a condom....a giant baby with a bottle full of Guifiti saying that kids can't drink alcohol.  Really interesting.  

Just before dark we took a bus back into the city, which is always an adventure in itself.  Sometimes you ride the bus with clowns (terrifying-I hate clowns), sometimes with chickens, and sometimes with old people or young kids selling delicious homemade baked goods.  Sadly this ride had none of the usual entertainment, but there was something wrong with the bus that made it squeak and creak at every bump.  Being as the roads in some parts are pretty terrible, the ride felt like a turn on an old wooden amusement part roller coaster; the kind that hurts more than is fun.  But, like I said, always an adventure nonetheless.