la playa de Tela - Tela beach

I can´t upload pics right now ... I´ll try again later ...

We spent time in Tela this weekend, which was a great break. The city beach was a little dingy (or, as we´ve come to say in tribute to our Australian friend, dodgy), but it was good to spend Thursday afternoon there. Our hotel was definitely dodgy, to the point of disgusting (ants in Kelly´s bed, no door to the bathroom, no toilet paper or hot water), but for $3 a night we were willing to put up with it. On Friday we walked down the beach a bit to Telamar, home to Villas Telamar, apparently the most luxurious beach resort in all of Honduras. The beach there was clean and well-maintained, and there were even little tents for us to rent so we´d be out of the sun (I got a bit burnt anyway). So we spent a delightful afternoon on the beach there. Otherwise, I wasn´t too impressed with Tela. It has potential, definitely - it´s billed in travel guides as potentially being the next Cancun - but for now it hasn´t quite reached that point. We ate at some of the fancier restaurants and were bitterly disappointed by the food, and the outrageous prices of 200 lemps, $10 a meal!! There were resort-y hotels available there as well for $30-50 a night, so they´re definitely catering to rich Honduran families and maybe even some Europeans who are looking for a fancy getaway, as fancy as Honduras can provide right now anyway. On Thursday night I went to sleep around 9pm, but on Friday we went out on the town. There were some sketchy clubs, and we met a big group of bilingual teachers from Teguis, the capital, but they were rather boring actually and the club wasn´t that fun, so we can´t really recommend the nightlife in Tela.

We woke up Saturday looking forward to another perfect day on the beach and were immediately dismayed to find rain. We tried to wait it out, but after an hour or so we realized that without the beach, Tela really had nothing to offer. So, we ended up busing it back to Santa Rosa, where the Peace Corps group that´s about to leave was staging their big farewell party. We had been told close to a hundred people would be there, and the theme was Chavo/Chava, which means cool teenaged boy/girl. Since we weren´t planning on going, Kelly and I had no fun dress up clothes, but when we got to the Peace Corps house around 6pm we saw quickly how seriously people were taking the theme, with sequined tank tops, mesh, and miniskirts in abundance. I had met some of the people before, and it was fun to see them again, and met some of the other people who are going to be here for longer, which was nice. And there was drinking and dancing til the wee hours (I´m telling you, Peace Corps people know how to party).

We hopped a bus back to Ocotepeque on Sunday afternoon (after sampling some of Santa Rosa´s best pizza, homemade by a former Peace Corps volunteer who got married and stayed in town), and were dismayed to find the electricity out! It had apparently been out for several days (Happy Independence Day, Honduras), and didn´t come on until about an hour ago ... It´s fun for a little while here without the lights, like you´re camping out or something with candles and flashlights. But after a while it loses its novelty and I just wanted to go online and drink cold water again. I suppose I could get used to no electricity if I had to do it all the time, but since I´m here in luxury in Ocotepeque I want to enjoy it!!


Bad news on the Peace Corps front - left messages for a guy last week and a lady today asking for an update on the appeal. Then I called back and got connected to Tula´s voicemail, who´s the nurse whose managing my appeal, and her voicemail said that she´s out of town for a few weeks. I left a message anyway, but it looks like this process is going to draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag out indefinitely...

And fun news for you William & Mary-ites: Gwen and Mario Pacella just welcomed into the world a little girl named Clare! Check out her blog at gwenpacella.blogspot.com for adorable photos!