Weekend in Tela

Today, I am happy to say, is a teacher holiday and I am spending my day off in Tegucigalpa, but Saturday and Sunday Leah and I were able to spend our weekend relaxing in the small Caribbean beach town of Tela, about 5 hours from our poor urban metropolis.

Tela is located within the state of Atlantida in Honduras. While this area has been a popular beach destination for Hondurans, most travel to the state's capital of La Ceiba, leaving Tela with a sort of small beach town feel to it. Orignially Tela was the home base for the Tela Railroad Company for many years, owners and producers of the famed Chiquita bananas, and the city still retains the air of a true banana town. When entering the city you can see old palm plantations that are still functioning today, and the city just seems to be dripping with tropical humidity and old-world Caribbean style.

Unique to this part of the country are the Garifunas, or Afro Caribes which makes the culture in this part of the country very different from the rest of Latin America. The African influence, as well as being situated next to the ocean, made me feel not quite like I was in Honduras anymore but rather more like the Dominican Republic. Street vendors were no longer selling taquitos and fresh tortillas but rather mangoes and coconut bread, and the music was no longer reggueton (Spanish rap) but punta, which is this crazy-fast caribbean music that requires a lot moves that this whitey is not possible of doing.

We left Tegus early Saturday morning and took a bus to Tela, arriving around 1:00. Leah & I walked around for a little bit and found a hotel about 1 block from the beach for about $15 a night. Normally I wouldn't spend that much (my usual is about $6 a night) but this was close to the town center and was close to the beach. Hotels here are nothing fancy at all....pretty much bare necessities, but as long as you don't want to spend all of your time hanging out at the hotel then clean & safe are all I ever really look for. After checking into our hotel, we changed into bathing suits and walked through the entire town to this really nice beach in front of the Hotel TelaMar, which was the former home and headquarters of Chiquita bananas. Walking up and down the beach were Garifuna dancers, vendors, guys with horses to rent, guys with machetes and coconuts to drink, and quite a bit of people. It was not quite as crowded as Ft. Lauderdale beach, but crowded none the less. Unlike the beaches in the states though, (or at least Florida) there was just so much life and culture that just watching people was half of the fun.

After spending a little bit of time at the beach and walking around, Leah and I slowly made our way back to our hotel to shower, change, and go out for dinner. Along the way we had probably the most amazing licuado of all time (pretty much like a fresh fruit milkshake), caught a futbol game, walked all throughout these neighborhoods, and of course made new friends along the way.

For dinner we met up with some other teachers from Pinares who arrived on Friday night, ate some good fish, and parted ways. Walking through the streets, which were fun and lively with people riding bicycles everywhere, Leah and I decided to go by this other hotel that was renting bikes to check out the price. The person at the counter, a little old Garifuna man, when asked about renting bikes said "At this time? Are you crazy?" Why yes sir, I think we are. It wasn't late or anything...like 9:00 p.m., and unlike the streets in Tegus these ones were safe and people are not confined to their homes once the sun sets. Since we only wanted the bikes for an hour, we talked the guy into giving us an hour's rate, which when we did the math 24 hours/95 lempiras (the equivalent of $5) they came to be about $.21 each.

With our new bikes came newfound freedom, and we quickly joined up with bike gangs of 12-16 year old boys and rode up and down pretty much every paved street in the city. We also made a friend during our ride, who at first followed from a distance but then as we started talking to him we found ourselves an inseparable friend/tour guide for the night. After showing us all around and making small talk, we invited our new friend, Karlo, to come have a coke with us at this fun thatched roof restaurant/bar/hang out spot that showed really great 80's music videos...Whitesnake, Toto, Pat Benatar were definitely the highlights, but there also were some awesomely bad 80's Spanish music videos to nicely compliment their English couterparts.

We headed back to our hotel and were absolutely exhausted from only having 4 hours of sleep the night before (we went to the circus and didn't get home until 12:30a.m., packed, and woke up at 5:30a.m. to get a ride down to catch our bus to Tela) and quickly fell fast asleep. We woke the next morning at 8:00, which was amazing to get that much sleep and went to a little local place for a typical breakfast of refried beans, fried bananas and crema, avocado, eggs, tortillas, and super strong super delicious Honduran coffee--which, by the way, I'm seeing my intake and tolerance slowly increasing during my time here. Leah, being the newly arrived American that she is had pancakes. ....those Americans.

We walked around and took pictures for awhile, my favorite being these at this burnt down/hurricane damaged pier that was a popular fishing spot and jumping off area. For fishing no pole is necessary, only a block of wood with the string attached as well as some bait and we actually some some kids catching some little fish. While on the pier we made some more new friends (funny how easy it is for 2 white girls to make guy friends in Honduras...) who actually spoke English and we spent the rest of our time at the beach together talking about family, life, purpose, and other sort of small talk conversations. Being here and being American people are always curious as to why we are here, and when they find out that we actually live here now and are not just visiting, it begs more questions and gives us an opportunity to talk about what we believe and why, and why we feel it is our responsibility to follow Jesus's commandments and to serve the poor, downtrodden, widows and orphans.

All of these conversations at the beach however makes for a long afternoon and Leah and I pretty much fried ourselves. In two or three days, however, I feel like I will have a pretty nice little tan....yes, I actually am getting one of those now.

Enjoy!

Leah and I actually got authentic coconut drinks where a man with a machete chopped off the top and stuck a straw inside. Do I really get to live this kind of life where I sip coconut milk on tropical beaches for the weekend?