Gringas take Tela

This past weekend we had a four day weekend. Entonces...Dee Dee and I went to Tela. Again. This is our second trip to Tela. The first trip was in September and we took an 8 hour bus ride to get there. Well, we've grown up a little since then. THIS TIME we rented a car and drove ourselves there. Awesome!! Until you get pulled over by la policia. In fact, right before we got pulled over by la policia, I was remarking just how awesome it was to have such freedom.

Everything turned out ok, but it was a little scary at first. As we are driving into Tela, we are trying to follow the directions that the hotel gave us. We have stayed there before, but as I said before last time we took a bus. Apparently Tela has a lot of one way streets. That information would have been helpful BEFORE driving in at 11:00 pm. Oh well. No sooner had Damaris said, "I think this may be the one way street they were talking about" did we get pulled over. Sort of. I almost drove right past them. A car/truck vehicle pulled out of nowhere going the opposite way and people in black starting getting out. I thought they were just parking or something. Then we realized we were actually getting pulled over. No one really gets pulled over here, so we didn't have any schema for this. The people in black were la policia. And they were not happy.

So first it's a dude cop. Then a lady cop comes over to help out because obviously he needs back up. They proceeded to speak very fast Spanish and I'm all, "Si! Si!". I hand them the license and registration plus my residency card. They kept telling me how I did a bad thing by going the wrong way. A very bad thing! If I knew better Spanish I would have said, "Yeah. Because everything here is so organized and well marked?!" There was really no way to know it was a one way. Sometimes there are tiny arrow signs in black and white.

I guess she thought we didn't understand the severity of the situation and at one point, I swear to God, she pantomimed handcuffs and said "infraccion!" That's when I started to get worried. Really? This is worth arresting me? With my limited comprehension and her limited patience, this could be bad.

Now all this is happening with Damaris trying to translate, but even she is having trouble understanding what's going on. They are telling me how they need to keep my residency, TX license and card for our rental car. She kept saying how we could get it in the morning and go to the bank to pay the ticket. I was like, I don't think so! I am not giving you my only identification and the only piece of evidence that says I didn't steal this car. At one point I just say, "Por favor! Ayudame!" Like just give me the ticket and let's get on with it already.

Finally they tell us to pull over, they talk it out and decide it's not worth it. So instead of a ticket we got a police escort to the hotel. I guess they thought they better to get us off the road. God forbid they have any more foreigners driving sensibly (minus the wrong way on a one way street). Well, that's one way to find your hotel.

The trip to Tela was awesome. We did exactly the same two tours we've done before. Not to mention the fish. The fish! Needless to say we got our fill of seafood.

Day 1: Garifuna village beach. Totally different vibe than mainland Honduras. It was nice. We were the only two people on the beach. The waves were a little rough, but it was so relaxing. When we got back into town we stopped in to see some animals from the visiting circus. It was actually really sad.
Triunfo de la cruz

Zebra. It's the same in English and Spanish.

One of these guys actually got out of it's leash thing. We didn't tell anyone.

Day 2: We saw some monkeys, blue crabs, and monster waves in Punta Sal. No really, the sea was angry that day. Monster waves. I still feel like I'm on a boat.
Two hundred year old coral

Monkey friend

Fish friend


Day 3: We got to do some amazing snorkeling in Cayos Cochinos on a barrier reef and meet some amazing jelly fish (agua malas). Ok, the jellies not-so-amazing. Yet another Garifuna village and more fish. We even made some little friends that proceeded to ask us for money and ate off our left over apple cores. Too cute.




Island life




Amigos