Tela
Tela here we are, and the morning is here too so I woke up in our bunker cave and saw just the light from the Chantal mobile illuminate the darkness, what one think is normal for the middle of the night, just it was before 8am. What a sleep in the dark chilled cave, no wonder the bears like to hibernate in dark cold caves, I slept like one and as much as I do not use and do not like the Air Condition I had to admit is help to sleep in the heat, especially when no windows are available.
Walking around the town before 8am, we realized that most of the life i.e coffee shops are opening at 8am so eventually we stumbled to the local corner café shop full of locals with the cakes in the display unit that looks like poison cakes or at least artificial plastic ones made from the PVC and colors you cannot made naturally. On the street side there was grill with food to be served as breakfast. After initial shock of all the locals what the heck tall blond gringo is doing there we settled at empty table and ordered coffee and baleada with avocado and eggs. Coffee was really good, dark and not too bitter but tasting well and the baleada, hmm nice thin base tortilla and freshly made eggs with avocado on beans paste, best so far I had.
As we were stipulating what we will do, as we could not arrange diving over text messages all day before, Chantal received message that we are expecting on the other side of the town in 20 min as we are booked for dive. Woo Hoo little bit short notice but we are ready to go with baleada sticking out of my mouth and my tongue burned by hot coffee. Thankfully the taxis are everywhere like the mosquitos so grab the gear bags and hail one. Antal who we came to see and talk to was expecting us and in traditional Caribbean style, no rush we had prepared the gear and hopped on boat for our first dive at Tela reef.
Not wanting get into details we were diving in what used to be the best reef alive, used to be is the correct term as not much was left but the thing that was left was nice and different than what we saw at Roatan. The diving is nice and as Antal explained we are lucky as there was no run off from the main land so that the visibility was good. However the main surprise was talk with Antal and the people who are trying to conserve corals or better say keep the seed bank of corals. Lots of information like spider web connecting many aspects of life to the ocean. The interconnection of things is amazing and after talking with Antal I was glad that someone see it and trying to teach others to see it too. Only when we understand that the world and nature is more interconnected than we are knowing we could just say that we don’t know enough to meddle with nature even if the goal is noble.
The TELA MARINE aquarium and restaurant is absolutely amazing thing, trying to help local people understand the nature and life connections and teach them to be proud of such amazing country they are living in. Talking with Antal was exhilarating and his passion was contagious, we already discussed option to go live in Tela and work with him on educating the population on importance of nature and protection of that feeble thing that is so amazing that we are in awe what it can do if we will disappear. There is no point to type too much about diving but had to say that staghorn coral colony we saw was absolutely amazing and apparently this is only small portion of what was once there. Usually when we see staghorn corral at Roatan it is like light house, point of orientation.
So after diving it is time to get a little nap and explore the local town, get some local food and see the real Honduras. The streets are filed with shops selling clothes, shoes, food etc and after coming from Europe or states where the shopping malls are main point of gathering people it is a great to see so many individual shops that gives streets its variety. Here and there are the coffee shops kind of European / American style but they are like out of place like LEGO block in the old crumbling brick wall. Street food is another thing, lots of pots cooking corn, eggs, baleadas and other items ready to sell. As we walked in the local neighborhood I saw couple cooking something so I stopped, looked at the pan and ordered the thing that was on pan with my botched Spanish. Eggs with some sort of cubed meat,neatly put in taco with fresh veg, bit of cheese and al for $1.5 what a delicious food. However as we were walked around neighborhood we noticed the very tall fences with barber wire on top and looks of some locals what could be translated like ‘wtf are you doing here before sunset, gringo organ donors’ and we made unanimous decision to return to tourist center near the beach.
After the dinner we walked across the bridge to walk of the food and we stumbled on the party part of the Tela what was full of bars, street food for drunken people and tourist, kind of Las Vegas of Tela. Just the night before we were wondering why the main tourist destination is so quiet, now we discovered that smartly, they moved all the noisy bars and drunks out of town so that you can sleep if you want or party but without interaction of those two. Damn we were tired from diving and food, or just plain old farts, as we walked back to hotel and crashed to beds.
However the last day was easy and me an Chantal went to TELA MARINE again and Omar decided to relax in the room or town. After another very interesting talk with Antal and exchanging of book titles to read we saw the aquarium and walked to the botanical garden. At the gate, the staff asked where is our car, we said we are walking, what cause their eyeballs nearly popped out as from the gate to the start of botanical garden is 3km distance in heat of the middle of day, not mentioning dust from all those cars passing by. We were well covered in dust that we actually did not need sun block as there is no chance anything can penetrate the layer of dust that stuck to sweat like good stucco in Italian homes.
However somewhere in one and half hour of the walk, I suddenly remembered that we need to pick up our gear as they are closing dive shop at 4pm and it was now past 3pm. I believe that we were just few steps from the entering that fantastic botanical garden, when we turned back. Just little tip , if you want to hitchhike in the jungle it is good to have good looking girl beside. Not that all cars stop, but the time from sticking thumb up to sitting on the back of pick up truck was really short. THANK YOU Chantal ! Local travel with local people to main road, where we need to catch local taxi was full of dust and views. However the taxi stopped and gear collected, it is time for last dinner in Tela.
Unanimously decided by Chantal, as usual woman is in charge we went walking in direction of party part of Tela where should be the Italian restaurant, selected for the last dinner of this short trip. Nice red and white checkered table cloths on the tables outside with white chairs under the canopy could easily be anywhere in Italy. Door locked and opened only after careful look down from the lady proprietor to determine if we are worth the hassle of unlocking door, we stepped in really nice true Italian trattoria. White walls with the decoration of photos and knick-knacks remind Italy plus the staff in nice uniform as well as the good looking owner lady, make this place really upmarket in contrast with others restaurants. Food was truly amazing and Italian in true sense. Luckily I was able to visit Italy few times and the memory cells were fooled into believing I’m in Luca, Positano or anywhere in Italy. The only one slight point I have against it, was that tiramisu had not been soaked in alcohol and coffee a bit longer 😊 but that is just subjective opinion of my taste buds. Thanks to Omar generosity, we have experienced delicious food and thanks to electric outage we had romantic dinner by candle light and free sauna. Have to say it was long time ago, when I had dinner by candle light but the atmosphere is priceless for sure. And to add, that Negroni was defo real Italian with orange slice and tasted heavenly.
Time to do last lap of the party part of Tela and hit the bed as tomorrow is the time to leave.
