Quien dice "no" a los ... Belgians?

Another day in Honduras down. Yesterday, we went to the "Enchanted Wings" butterfly and orchid garden. In New York, I would try to go to the orchid exhibit every year when it came to town, so to see that some species of the flowers were native to Honduras was especially exciting to me. Not everyone's scintillating cup of tea, I know, but I was pumped.

So swinging ourselves through the hodgepodge trapezes of directions given by friendly strangers along the way, we finally arrived at our destination. It was 100 lempiras to enter, which is about $5 a person. After ringing the cowbell before the locked gate about four times and deciding how long we would wait before taking off, a young woman bounded up what we soon saw to be quite a few stone stairs separating the entrance from the actual butterfly facility.

The "tour" started with a brief introduction of the life cycle and stages of a butterfly, from egg to pupa to cocoon to full-blown butterfly. For some reason, a guy was filming us with a sizable video camera as we learned about a day in the life of a caterpillar, so look for us on a Honduran instructional butterfly video coming soon, no doubt, to a theater near you. After this brief and interesting lesson, we were released into the screened-in butterfly habitat, which was accented by fountains, lush vegetation and...of course...butterflies. I got a few good photos, but couldn't quite capture the smell of hot, wet, old bananas on plates as "tempting" nectar for the butterflies with my lens. If you need it recreated, close your eyes and imagine three days' worth of sweat accumulated on the shoulder of a high school gym class student. The smell wasn't omnipresent, however, and the overall experience was beautiful and worth it. But there were cubbyholes in the exhibit -- before I pinpointed the actual source -- where I was convinced Tony was overworking some pretty sour and powerful sweat glands upwind.

After the butterflies, we asked the woman who had let us in about the orchids. She led us through the butterfly house to a back door, which led to a wooden bridge that traversed a creek. On the other side of the bridge was a kind of greenhouse, again beautiful and including its own robust plant life (...obviously) and dripping water source. While there were dozens of pots with growing orchids...about three of them could be considered "in bloom." Apparently December and March are better months for these plants, neither of which are remotely close to the end of July, in case you're not close to a calendar.

After leaving Enchanted Wings, which is owned by an American man and his Honduran wife, we headed to a cafe off the town square where Tony and I "shared" a Honduran cigarillo...aka I had about four puffs) over two rounds of Sprites, coffee flavored granitas (like slushies) and Gin Rummy. No big deal; I killed Tony twice. It's what I do.

After watching our waiter shamelessly hit on a Canadian Spanish student in intervals for about 20 minutes, we finally received our bill and paid it just in time to catch the opening drops of what turned out to be one heck of a downpour. By the time the skies opened up, however, Tony and I were tucked safely under the porch roof of our hotel with two of Honduras' national beers in hand. This, by the way, is the only way to spend rainstorms; feet wet, watching stray dogs getting shooed from one dry spot and another, sipping refreshnig drinks. This was at about 4 p.m. yesterday, and Tony and I got to bed at about 2 a.m. this morning. We stayed up all night chatting over more beers and what I think were called "Chupaquenos" (Sprite with local rum) with a couple going to Med. school in Wisconsin. After our hotel's bar closed down, we were invited by Dirk, one of the three Belgian owners of Cafe Via Via (our hotel) to sample his newly opened wine bar. Who says "no" to Belgians at 12.15 a.m.? Surely not Tony nor I.

The wine cafe was nice, but what was better was being huge nerds. Tony and I spent the majority of our time there shrugging off the soft lighting, hip music and decor (and in Tony's case a very direct lady of the night), instead asking Dirk and his Honduran girlfriend all the questions about Spanish (and French) grammar we had been wanting to ask our non-Anglophone teachers in Xela for the past month. And this was better than class; this was over glasses of Cabernet Sauvingon...and water.

So today is our last full day here, and while we originally planned to go on a three-hour horseback ride, we decided to hang up our wallets and our chaps and just enjoy a leisurely day here. We leave for Guat. City tomorrow at noon, so I may not be able to write until I return to American soil. See you all soon!!