Gracias

After the cigar factory, we took a bus to the next town..Gracias. The bus ride was beautiful, through some amazing mountains. The town is in a valley and as we descended into the valley, we could feel the temperature rising. There was an adorable little girl...maybe around 4 years old in front of us. For the entire ride, we played a game where she would peek over the seat and stare first at me until I smiled and then at Rob until he smiled and then she would laugh hysterically and hide and then do it again. It was pretty entertaining and helped the time pass.

We arrived in town, hot and sweaty and walked over to Finca Bavaria which was recommended in the guidebook. It was an interesting experience. When we finally got the lady to the counter, she refused to let us see a room without making a reservation. She kept insisting that the rooms were nice with hot water but when she wouldnt show us a room, we decided to hike all the way across town to another recommended hotel...Hotel Guanacaste. As we arrived at the hotel, we realized we still had to walk up 2 flights of stairs to find the reception/restaurant. We stepped into the restaurant red faced and dripping with sweat but welcomed by 2 smiling English speaking customers. We got our room which was very nice and headed back up to the restaurant for a late lunch and some wonderful conversation. The older lady, originally from Washington state is a missionary in the nearby town of San Juan and the younger girl, from Montreal is on her 2nd year here as a teacher at a local private school. They were both at the restaurant to use the internet but lucky for us it was down and instead we had some very intresting conversation about the area and the political situation. I ate an interesting local dish...I think it was called anaje...which is served in a ceramic dish which contains a candle underneath and an interesting bean/cheese fondue mixture with chips and sour cream. It was delicious. After they left and we finished eating, we came back to our nice cool room to escape the heat. I ended up passing out on the hammock outside while Rob read and then napped on the bed inside. We awoke at 5:30 to a wonderfully cool breeze. We rubbed our eyes and came to and wandered the town for a few hours. We were finally able to see the charm of the town once the temperature cooled down. Its a beautiful place...it looks a lot like Copan Ruinas but lacks the droves of tourists. I think we will stick around and enjoy it for a few days. Hopefully the internet and TV will come back up tomorrow (I think the dutch owner returned to town this evening) since it is so hot during the day.

There are a few things to keep us busy...the restaurant at the hotel has a wonderful view of the town and I bet its a great place for a morning coffee. There is a castle up the hill above the hotel. There are some hot springs that are supposed to be great to visit in the evening once it cools off and there is a national park nearby with beautiful cloudforest if we can find someone to take us up there. Other than that we can enjoy this beautiful small Honduran town surrounded by mountains, watching the cowboys. I have a feeling that this is what a lot of people think that Texas is like and it probably is a lot like west texas was many many years ago.