Trujillo

Hey all,

I hope that Minnesota has warmed up over the weekend. IT is STILL hot in Honduras. I went to the local gym for the first time today. A monthly membership is 350 lempiras ($19.50???). It's certainly not the best facility I've been to, but at the same time its all that Tocoa has to offer, so there we go. The gym is only open from 5:30-8 AM so I need to be there around 6 if I want to exercise in the morning. I had my morning class today at 8 AM, we worked on simple present verb pronunciation. They are a bunch of sharp kids, even if they can't sit still for 2 minutes.

After class i took a nap in a hammock. This is turning into one of my favorite activities. But it rained for 20 minutes before I woke up so I had to go inside. And I don't like having my air conditioner on during the day, so its pretty hot in my room right now.

Yesterday I went with Orlin and his friend Carlos to Trujillo. Its this little town about 45 minutes north east of Tocoa. It was the place where Christopher Columbus landed in Central America in his last voyage to the America's in 1502. Trujillo is on the Caribbean sea, so I was able to go swimming in the ocean for the first time in my trip. We ate at this place called La Perla del Caribe. I orderd this Sopa Marinera, and what I got was this. Yes those are fins and yes those are crab legs in my soup. It was a veritable seafood extravaganza (plus lobster, shrimp, etc.)!

Then we went to The Fort of Santa Barbara, a 400 year old fort that the Spanish built to protect Trujillo from Pirates-unsuccessfully, but it was still pretty neat. The fort was in a poor state of disrepair- 7 million lempiras (L18=$1) had been given to its restoration but it has already been spent. Pretty interesting though, I saw the place where the 19th century filibust William Walker was executed after he tried to conquer Central America.

Then we went to this old museum, or more accurately an old building that was the American HQ in the early 20th century. Inside were a bunch of artifacts from ships and trains and Mayan culture, a bunch of rusty chachki's, really.

I read or heard somewhere that
Next week there's a carnaval in Trujillo. I think that I'd like to go to Ceiba instead.