Tela, Honduras

I made it to Xela (Quetzaltenango) and stayed there for about 5 days. The chicken bus experience was not as bad as I´d expected, although sometimes splurging on a shuttle and avoiding the 5 people to a seat on an old US school bus is worth it. Also, I wasn´t sure why they´re called chicken buses, but there´s no uncertainty now; I sat next to an old woman and her turkey. It´s polite to greet your seatmate, and also her chicken.

Xela is a nice city, even more overrun with foreign students than Antigua! But it was really nice, and I met lots of people and have been travelling with 2 of them since then. We made it to Honduras a few days ago, after some delay due to a bus driver strike, and stayed in Copan Ruinas, a cute town that people pretty much just go to to see the Mayan ruins. Hence the name. The ruins were beautiful, and I´d post pictures of the ruins, my new friends, the beach, and even more if the internet here didn´t take (literally) 10 minutes to open one page. Now I´m in Tela which is a beach town, and near some Garifuna villages which I´ll visit eventually. I haven´t tried the seafood yet, although it´s looking more and more tempting every day. I also haven´t eaten meat yet (that I know of)...but as it turns out I REALLY like ice cream :-)

Honduras is really hot, compared to Xela which was in the highlands. In Xela we were cold every night (especially with all the rain...), and people were even buying sweatshirts and jackets. But here in Tela it´s really humid and hot, not that I´m complaining! Today we walked to a beach and then bought some bread, cheese, tomatoes, avocado, and hot peppers and made sandwiches. It´s great to use the money here (in Honduras they use Lempiras) because I always feel so rich buying things that cost 100 of anything. A dollar is about 18 lempiras, and a Cola light (they´re everywhere! It´s fantastic!) costs about 15 lempiras. Not too bad.

I think the people here in Tela are friendlier than in Guatemala...just very helpful and eager to chat. My spanish is improving (I think) and the people I´ve met from Central or South America seem to think my accent is pretty good. Amusing, but good.

My hour of internet is up (getting the blog to open took about half of it!) so I´m going to go get some ice cream and take a nap before the salsa dancing begins!

-Jessica