Thanksgiving with the Sandinistas

Well, we made it to Nicaragua and back over our four-day Thanksgiving break. We took off after school on Wednesday and drove until midnight to reach Leon. Leon is a very historic-feeling city as the city itself dates back to the 1600's and it has maintained much of the colonial architecture (including many old churches) from that period. Tegucigalpa, like most of Honduras, has the colonial buildings but they are not as well taken care of and it is not easy to find the old churches in Honduras. Although Nicaragua has been beaten about pretty bad by earthquakes overe the centuries, they have managed to keep their churches mostly upright. Some are in ruins but still present, unlike Honduras which seems to believe that anything newer is better.

Leon also has murals painted everywhere - mostly testaments to their revolutions and revolutionaries. The party colors for the liberal party are also present nearly where ever you look - especially in the countryside where lightpoles, bridges, medians and just plain rocks are painted in the red and black of the Sandinista party.

The traffic in Nicaragua is much more sane than in Honduras - apparently they enforce laws and therefore, people drive in their own lanes and usually only pass when it is safe to do so. Much easier to drive although I don't recommend doing so at night as the guantlet of cows horses, dogs, people and the occasional opossom make the crater-like pot holes even more difficult to spot. Luckily we have a beast for a vehicle and it has grown accustomed to absorbing the bumps and jolts of driving in Central America.

Olimpia vs. Motagua: Championship Game - May 8th, 21010

We get to the area surrounding the National Stadium after dark but plenty early for the 7:30 start time for the championship game of the Honduran professional soccer league. The crowd was already buzzing and had been for several hours as the vendors and police arrived earlier in the day in anticipation of the near sell-out crowd that began pouring in hours before game time.

After parking in the large space that is typically reserved for the local food market, we begin winding our way down the street surrounding the stadium to score some tickets and get inside as quickly as possible. Everyone in the know has warned us that the stadium gets pretty chaotic before any game but this is not only the championship for the season but also pits the biggest rivals - Motagua and Olimpia - versus one another, so is assured to draw not only a rowdy crowd but the usual array of delinquents that come out for any crowd in anticipation of a quick score.

With the stadium directly in front of us and one last lane of traffic to cross, I suddenly find myself standing toe to toe with some young guy who looks like any other 20-something year old milling around the crowded street - shabbily dressed and trying to look tough.  He is literally inches away from me and as I try to step to the side to let him pass he steps directly back in front of me, blocking my path once again. At this point, I make sense of the phrase he is repeating to me - something about "dinero" and I instantly realize he is demanding my money.  As he has his hands in front of him and he is taking a very aggressive stance, I recognize that he isn't holding a weapon but he is bracing for some kind of altercation.  So before he can react, I raise my right arm placing my forearm against his chest and push him backward with all my strength, lifting him up and launching him about six to eight feet across the road and away from us. With a few distinct swear words and a roaring "NO", I remove any doubt on his part that I am not going down without a fight and the smaller man decides it best to back down but not before issuing a few insults at me and the people I am with.

We continue our path into the stadium and the relative safety of thousands of screaming Hondurans. Being a gringo in Latin America is never easy.

Pre-game activities - heavily guarded field.

Lots of activity on the field before the game begins.

The trophies arrive amid ceremony.

Fireworks from the stands before the game

The National Anthem

Game action - Motagua won 1-0 but lost the championship on points.

Our interview with CNN en Espanol during the second half.

Statues From Around Tegucigalpa

Relaxation is puffing on a good cigar while hanging out in a Honduran village - on the way to the next watering hole.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorius triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

I Survived Comayaguela

Between the visits to Pollos Jimmy (our new favorite total dive bar as opposed to simply a dive bar) and the angry traffic cops, I think I have had my fill of Comayaguela for a little while. 
I stumbled across the little red building on the corner of the block as Keeley and I cruised out of the weekend market in Comayaguela a couple of months back.  The mere mention of Tegucigalpa's "twin city" strikes fear into the hearts of even native Hondurans who have never known the city when it was not the poor little crime-ridden collection of barrios on the wrong side of the Rio Choluteca.  But me being the person I am, I am always looking for those places that inspire a closer look even if only due to their reputation of being forbidden.  So it was no surprise to me that we found ourselves pulling up along the crumbling curb outside this odd little building in the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon.
Elsa, Keeley and I had headed up the northern hills earlier that morning to check out the view from Picacho (where the giant Jesus statue surveys the city) and see what creatures call the nearby zoo home.  While there we ran into a few of our friends from the school and offered to give them a ride back into town.  So with Kallie, Mike and Mavis aboard, I navigated the Montero down the narrow, curvy streets to the bottom of the hill and into the neighborhood know as El Centro.  When talk of grabbing an afternoon beer surfaced the perfct opportunity to check out a new watering hole was on the table.  I maneuvered our ride through the busy streets of the Camayaguela market and up the hill to "Jimmy's." 
With trepidatious looks and comments from everyone in the vehicle it seemed as if I was making a grave mistake but I soldiered on into the dimmly lit bar and sized up the happenings within.  There were a few tired looking men sitting along the walls on each side of a small, undecorated cement room.  They were each occupying their own red, plastic table with varying numbers of empty bottles standing in front of them awaiting the final tally from the waitress who gave the impression she would rather be anywhere else but had no where else to be. We sat down at the only table in the center of the room and collected enough plastic chairs to seat the six of us - ordered a round of beers and took in the atmosphere of the place.  This trip was uneventful other than the inital rush of adrenaline from hanging out in a part of town we had all heard warnings of.  The beers arrived at the table and we all chatted up a nervous storm while we finished them off, all the while listening to the American rock music that was suddenly playing on the miniature juke-box that stood near the counter.
Upon leaving, everyone began commenting in disbelief that they had braved this seemingly dangerous part of town and actually enjoyed themselves in the little "hole-in-the-wall"amid the other patrons that gawked at us the entire time.

Red Sox Open Season in One Month!

Spring Training has begun and while those exhibition games are just two days away from commencing, the real thing begins in about a month.  Oh, and by the way, the Sox start off the season as MLB's game numero uno against the ever-hated Yankees in ESPN's Sunday night game.  Should be an exciting start to an exciting season.

I am beyond eagerly awaiting the opening pitch as the Sox look to be a contender once again, especially with the off-season additions at center, third and on the mound.  These new Sox along with returning studs such as Pedroia and Youkilis are going to be part of a killer line-up when you include Victor Martinez for an entire season. 

Throw in the usual crew of horses such as Beckett and Lester, a re-stocked bullpen and a once again rabid Papelbon and the 2010 Red Sox are looking like they could wind up with their third World Championship in seven seasons.

And, as always, Yankees suck!

Photos From Around Amapala

Middle of town (Amapala)

Old casino in ruins along the shore

   B&E with Nicaragua behind us

Colonial building near the shore

El Tigre from nearby island

Elsa relaxing in hammock

The Island of El Tigre...Amapala, Honduras

Our weekend retreat from the city was El Tigre Island off the Pacific coast of Honduras.  The small, volcanic island is home to the village of Amapala, a quiet fishing community just a short boat-ride from the coast of both El Salvador, to the north, and Nicaragua, to the south.  The boat from the mainland takes about 30 minutes to arrive at Playa Grande on the far west side of the island.  As we slowly drift closer to the shore, the giant volcano that is the island begins to loom larger and the rocky shoreline unveils why this island is not crawling with tourists: there is little beach and a lot of black volcanic rock.  After passing the village of Amapala we carefully make our way through the treacherous rocks that are now underwater at high tide and arrive on the sandy beach in front of a collection of make-shift shacks.  "Big Beach" will be our home of sorts for the next 48 hours as we relax and soak up the ambience of Honduras on the Pacific.

The shacks that line this part of the island have gradually sprung up as more and more people begin to flock to El Tigre for a little r-n-r from the busy city of Tegucigalpa just less than three hours drive from the dock in Coyolito, the village that serves as the docking point on the mainland.  We arrive on a Friday so we have nearly the entire place to ourselves until early Saturday when many Hondurans begin to show up.  Until then we make ourselves comfortable at a little "restaurant" that serves up the freshest of seafood and the cheapest beer we can find.  This weekend our travel-mates are Mike and Mavis (a Canadian couple from Toronto who teach 5th and English), Collin and Elisa (another couple from Tennessee who teach history and English) and our usual compadre, Keeley (a biology teacher from Stanford, Montana.)  The seven of us set out early in the morning in our silver Montero and are now enjoying the first cerveza of the day before the noon sun.  A few more of these and we begin to order our first delicious meal of fish and shrimp straight out of the Gulf of Fonseca (the waters that surround the island.)  We finish up our first day at the ocean by taking a two-hour tuk-tuk ride around the perimeter of the island, stopping frequently to inspect the neighboring beaches, take in the views of Nicaragua to the south and watch a passing herd of brama cattle pass down the road on their way home.

The following morning begins early as we awake before dawn to head back to the beach and catch a boat for a morning tour.  However, our friend, Keeley, begins his day in the room next door to us with a little surprise. After turning on the shower, his bathroom quickly begins to fill with bees until he must escape the buzz and stuff towels under the door to keep the swarm from spreading out into his room.  Fortunately, the family who runs our hotel is also up early and someone is available to help him move to a new room.  Life in Honduras.

After breakfast we start our day with a ride in the back of a pick-up from our hotel in Amapala about 10 minutes from the beach.  We arrive at Playa Grande around 7:30 am in time to catch our boat, captained by a dark, lanky guy named Ramon and wearing a Dodgers cap along with his sidekick who would remain nameless were in not for our dubbing him "Gilligan" after his obvious inability to properly navigate his own boat.  By the time we ship out, the wind has picked up and we will now spend the following two hours bucking the tides and being sprayed by the salty water on our way to the mangroves on the north shore. 

Our excitement to view the mangroves is cut short as we approach the green coastline only to find that low tide means we will have to get out of the boat and walk at least a mile or more through the shell-strewn mud to reach them.  After about 15 minutes of trudging we wisely give up and return to the boat while getting in some shell hunting.  Elsa's favorites are the sand dollars and the little curly-cues that often contain little creatures unwilling to give up their homes.  But she climbs back in the boat with muddy feet and a pocket full of new shells for her ongoing collection.

The rest of the morning is spent puttering around the islands before we stop on a long sandy beach for a little swimming and some snacks before launching back to our home base and the comfort of yet more Honduran cerveza. 

We spend the afternoon lying in hammocks and eating seafood with our friends and trying our best to stay out of the hot sun as we have had our fill from being in the open boat all morning.  Luckily, the combination of sunscreen and salt that covered us after our wet ride have prevented any serious sunburns and we can kick back for five or six hours of staring out at the sea.  Our view contains plenty of children playing in the surf as well as the ever-present volcanoes of El Salvador that line the horizon to the west. The latter half of the afternoon are spent in the company of three little boys who we treat to some cookies and pepsi.  They insist on lingering around our little, blue table in the sand in hopes of getting some spare change but we resist their requests and stick to feeding them and engaging them in some conversation.  Jose, Nemo and PeeWee eventually give up their quest for cash and slump down in the plastic beach chairs to enjoy their sodas and snacks.

We ride to our hotel just after sunset in the back of the pick-up once again to enjoy some dinner on the second floor balcony of our little hotel which clings to the side of the steep volcano.

Sunday morning is the same as the day before except we are allowed to sleep in a little and no one awakes to a hive of bees in their bathroom.  We get back to the beach around 9 am and have a couple of hours to wait for our friends to return from a hike and captain Ramon to appear at the beach with his boat, The Mary Jesus.  The name of the boat must be the reason it is still afloat as Ramon does not appear to have any greater navigational skills than "Gilligan" who is mysteriously no where to be seen this morning.  Jose, the little boy from the day before, is there to help us put our bags in the boat and finally earn his coveted dinero.  We wave good-bye to him and he flashes us a big, white smile as we shove off for the mainland and our drive back to the city.

Mystery in Triangulo

I have been spending a little time lately wondering who has moved into the apartment building across the street from us in the Triangulo neighborhood.  Roughly two months ago, we were on our way to school and as we backed our SUV into the street we noticed a uniformed policeman standing in the middle of the three-way intersection outside our front door.  It was strange to see him there as we live in a small neighborhood between two major traffic areas in the northeastern quadrant of the city but it is an upscale location and there is virtually none of the commotion that you commonly find in the rest of Tegucigalpa.  Later that day, we arrived home to find that he was now absent from his morning post.

That night, I happened to look out the bedroom window on my way to bed and noticed our policeman back in the middle of the street but this time he seemed to be joined by two men who were dressed in the customary bodyguard/security guard garb which typically includes a pocketed vest like you often see on cameramen or fishing enthusiasts.  Day after day this trio became common place in front of our building - mostly during the early morning and late night but occasionally at various other points in the day.  It has only been on rare occasion that I happened to spot the center of all this attention: a young looking, seemingly Honduran man who is always dressed in athletic style gear.  This, along with his slight stature, has led me to assume he is involved with one of the various soccer teams that are immensley popular throughout the country, possibly the national team which recently qualified for the World Cup and set off a frenzy throughout Honduras. 

Another peculiar aspect to the mystery man's presence over the past two months is the fact that the vehicle in which he is transported each day has never been equipped with license plates. The very clean Toyota Prado SUV has highly tinted windows like many vehicles around the city and seems to be the vehicle of choice among many of the extremely well-off Hondurans we see every day at the American School. Armed bodyguards are also nothing unusual around here but seeing two armed men in plain clothes teamed with a uniformed policeman who is packing a shotgun and a handgun is a slightly less common sight.

Today we had a sighting of the mystery man as he left his building around 4:30 pm with his three handlers.  This time I was fortunate enough to be able to capture the entire episode on camera.

It's interesting to have a little neghborhood mystery once in a while.  It's just a little unsettling that it involves a crew of men with some serious firepower.

  

My Favorite Things About Teguc (so far)

My Five Favorite Things About Living in Tegucigalpa:
1. Driving here can be quite the adrenaline rush - it's like being in a video game: The streets are not that busy (nothing like Cairo) but they are a little on the lawless side.  There are traffic lights but that doesn't mean you always have to follow them.  There are stop signs but those are obeyed even less frequently.  There are buses and taxis which all function on their own agendas.  And then there are the potholes.  Some will swallow you alive, such as the sink hole just around the corner from us, and the jagged craters that can sprout up overnight.  The only thing I worry about are the police checkpoints because you never know what that might entail.

2. Coffee, coffee, coffee: You can buy a pound of really good Honduran coffee for about $1.50. Since my mornings tend to revolve around my coffee intake, this is a source of happiness for me.

3. Cuban cigars and cheap beer: The Honduran beer is pretty good - there are about four or five kinds that we have tried and all are good.  My favorite is the slightly darker and heavier Imperial.  And Cubans are available throughout Central America and not that expensive (the cigars, not actual Cubans.). 

4. Travel, travel, travel: Even a short day trip to a nearby town is exciting when you've never been there.  We are within a few hours of both El Salvador and Nicaragua as well as the Pacific coast of Honduras.  So far we have ventured to Guatemala, the Caribbean coast, the Mayan ruins of Copan, Lake Yojoa, and several towns and villages within a few hours of Teguc. We have trips planned to the Pacific and Costa Rica in the next two months.  I am also hoping we can get to Cuba and Peru over the next year.

5. Tropical weather: The sun shines almost every day and the temperature never seems to get below 75 degrees. Luckliy, we are inland and up in the mountains (although they are quite low in elevation for mountains) so it doesn't get all that hot most of the year.  It seems like we have had six months of days in the 80's and our "winter" consisted of nearly a week of windy, cool weather with a little rain.

Downtown Teguc

Here are a few pictures of some old, colonial-era buildings in downtown Teguc that have arcitectural as well as historical interest.  I have been searching for old photos of Tegucigalpa to see what was standing in the old part of the city (Teguc has expanded considerably in the past 50 years) then I go out in search of the location to find what is present today.  I always wish I could have experienced cities like this long ago, before they were over run with outside influence (and American chains.) 

So now, whenever I get the chance to pass through downtown, I take my camera along to snap pix of anything I haven't yet seen,  Every trip I discover something new - there are lots of old details in these buildings.  Most of the buildings are not being taken care of properly so they aren't always easy to spot and most will likely be gone in the coming years.  So this is my effort to catalog them while they are still around.

A Trip to the Zoo

At the top of the mountains ringing the northern edge of Tegucigalpa stands the giant statue of Jesus which overlooks the city.  To the rear of Jesus lies an interesting little zoo with many quirks.

Entrance to the zoo is a great bargain - 5 Lempiras per person which equates to around 26 cents American.  The price belies what waits inside the gates.  The first building is dubbed the "educational center" of the facility.  Inside lies the horror of animals everywhere: a display of local animals that have ended their lives as examples of poor taxidermy.  The monkeys and other critters who at one time were possibly thriving and adorable as hell are now dried up, mangy, dilapidated relics that appear to have been stored in this building far beyond their shelf lives.  The fur is falling off the cats, an ear is missing from a coyote and a couple of monkeys have lost a finger or two over the years.  The best (or most disturbing) part of the entire display is the crazy expressions on each animal's face - all very unnatural but entertaining as each has two things in common: a smile and eyeballs that are obviously marbles. 

As we walked around the small, dimly lit display, I realize that for some unknown reason the room is lined with old, beaten to hell school desks.  Apparently they are here for when the educational center is in full swing teaching children about the circle of life.

Honduran Presidential Inauguration 2010

We had the day off from school today as the 27th was Inauguration Day for the new president, Porofino Wolf. After watching the news coverage early this morning we thought we should go down to the stadium and see if we could get in to watch the ceremony.

As we got within about 6 blocks of the National Stadium the road was blocked by soldiers and police. They stopped us and an officer asked us if we had tickets to get inside the stadium - when we told him we did not but we wanted to enter the section for the public, he looked at me, a knowing smirk smirk and told us we could pass. We kind of sensed this might be a sign to be concerned as I seemed to get a kick out of a big, bald gringo wanting to sit in the public section at the stadium. But we drove on and found a parking spot three blocks away.

The area around the stadium is not particulary nice and we would not take a stroll typiclly (especially somewhat dressed up for the occasion) through this part of town but there seemed to be a huge military and police presence so we felt unusually safe. We entered the stadium through the public entrance and found a very crowded grandstand filled with typical Hondurans but everyone seemed to be in a festive mood - I took off my tie and unbuttoned my dress shirt to look a little less conspicuous, though I'm not sure it did much good.

The ceremony was about to begin and we lucked out by finding a perfect spot * along the fence directly across the field from the podium where everything important would take place. Elsa took a spot a few rows up on the concrete seating and I stood at the fence next to a soldier, as an extra security precaution. A few minutes later a slightly older man, who was very friendly, stood to the other side of me so I could feel a little less Concerned about protecting my camera and my pockets from the pickpockets who are often about. (* Apparently some large animal had passed through before the crowd arrived as there were two massive piles of shit about 6 feet on either side of the three of us. - This may have been the reason that my spot was vacant in the first place but I was too excited by the event to worry about the stench ... which seemed to grow as more people accidentally stepped in and slowly tracked the massive piles into slippery trails!)

The ceremony was exciting as it began with deafening fly-overs by four jets, getting the crowd energized before the new president would take the podium and give his 30 minute speech. The infield of the soccer stadium was filled with soldiers from every branch of the Honduran military and standing at attention in full gear. Following the speech, President Lobo got into a Hum-Vee outfitted as a parade vehicle and stood in the rear with his generals as they conducted a review of the troops in formation - it definitely gave the ceremony more of a third-world feeling when coupled with the huge military presence in the grandstand.
We hung out in the stadium to take in the 30-minute music and dance ensemble that ended the ceremony and then waited until most of the crowd had worked their way out into the streets.
When we left the stadium there were soldiers everywhere as they had to exit the stadium and began Congregating at differnet points around the busy streets. People dressed in Honduran-blue and vendors selling food and souvenirs walked about everywhere you looked. We noticed some obvious VIPs taking pictures with some of the locals outside another entrance - they noticed us as we were walking by and Mistook us for VIPs. The woman, who is apparently a senator in the Honduran Congress, made a bee-line for Elsa and latched on to her arm asking her who we were with. Elsa told her we were not with anyone, just Americans living in the city who came down because we knew this was an historic event. The senator posed for a couple of pictures with Elsa and then Thanked us for being there.
We wandered around the area taking in the whole scene and then headed back home. An hour later, the deposed president, who had been hiding out in the nearby Brazilian embassey for the past four months, left the country on a private jet bound for the Dominican Republic.