We took a charter bus one Saturday morning. The bus was packed, until we made a stop at the airport. When we left the airport for our final destination, there was a grand total of 4 passengers on the bus...Gabrielle and myself, and two other American teachers from a different school. A couple hours and one really dreadful movie later (Wedding Daze...don't rush out to rent it...except Luke...you might like it) we arrived in Tela. The bus dropped us off at a really beautiful/expensive hotel. We ended up staying at one a couple blocks away called Playa Bonita, which was much more affordable, yet still safe and clean. There was a hotel called Playa with rooms for Lmp. 70 a night (that is...about $3)...but there was no address or phone number for it in the book. We think that maybe it isn't a hotel at all, but just the beach ("playa" is Spanish for "beach" in case you didn't know), and we figured that we would skip that option this time. One big draw for the Playa Bonita was that its sign led you to believe there were monkeys on site. At least, that is how we interpreted it. Take a look and let me know what you would think:

Alas, there were no monkeys. But there was really delicious food, an air conditioned room (score!!!) and the beach was literally a block down the street. We hit the beach within 15 minutes of arriving in town, and it was AWESOME. There were pelicans all over the place, and I stood in the water totally mesmerized by them diving for fish for nearly an hour. I had only seen that on documentaries before. One of the most beautiful and amazing things I have ever seen. It made me wish I had my camera with me for a little bit. I had lost that feeling by the time we left, however. As Gabrielle and I were getting ready to go back to the hotel, two young boys came and sat near our table. When we turned around to shake the sand out of our towels the boys grabbed Gabrielle's bag and took off. Fortunately she didn't have anything of value in it, but it did have her book and sunscreen and stuff like that, but we were kind of amazed at the audacity those kids had.

The next morning we took a taxi to Lancetilla, one of the largest botanical gardens in the world, if I translated the brochure correctly. Many parts were closed, although I am not sure if they were closed because it was a Sunday or because we are in Honduras...we did get to see a lot of absolutely gorgeous plants, however. And we also got to eat some lychees and mangosteens that were picked from the garden. I don't think those fruits are native to this part of the world, but they are delicious, and I am glad they grow them here now.

We met up with the other two Americans at the expensive hotel to grab lunch while we waited for the bus home. Apparently Tela isn't the most popular destination for foreign tourists, so we got a lot of stares. I am fairly certain we were the only gringas in Tela that weekend. Aside from the blatant gawking, we had a lot of people come up to us and (very nondiscreetly) take pictures and videos of us on their cell phones. It's like being a celebrity, but without money.

There is a subculture in Honduras called Garifuna. They are descendants of African slaves and a certain Indian tribe, and they are concentrated mainly along the coast. A lot of them make their money selling coconut stuff on the beach. While we were eating lunch, three kids kept walking across the deck trying to get us to buy stuff from them. Pan de coco (bread made from coconut milk) is some seriously delicious stuff, so we had the kids stop so we could check out their stuff. The little boy had all kinds of goodies in his bowl besides the bread. One bag contained dulces de coco, which is basically toasted coconut candy. It was delicious and we all wanted to get some, but there was only one bag between the three of them. We pointed to the bag and said "¿tiene mas?" and before we could finish the word, all three kids threw their bowls to the ground and sprinted off to get some more from their mom or whoever was making it. It was one of the cutest, most hilarious things I have ever seen in my life.

Thus concludes the trip to Tela. I'm putting some pictures below for interested parties. Putting the pictures in the text like I did for the apartment was a nightmare to edit and align...and then Daniel put a new format on my blog (which is really pretty and I love!!!! everyone tell Daniel what a pretty template he found) but that messed with formatting options even more. So...no more artistically arranged photos in the blog for now. I am going to start putting my pictures up on Picasa as well, but due to the technical issues I have been having lately, it may take a little while. In the meantime...here are some pretty flowers, a leaf cutter ant (yeah!! I saw a bunch!!!!! AMAZING!!!!!), some beach, and all the delicious food I got.