Hi friends!  I hope you’ve enjoyed your weekend.  We enjoyed a boozy brunch in the city on Saturday and went to see Deadpool (loove Ryan Reynolds!) this morning.  I can’t remember the last time I watched a 10am movie in the theaters.  I most definitely was a kid.  It was a fun way to start the Sunday and the movie was pretty good too!

So now on to the important stuff….Honduras Trip Recap Part 2 (if you missed Part 1 of the recap check it out here)!!!

One of the things that I loved the most was the layout of Mami Olga’s house.  There is no A/C, so several windows are left open to let fresh air in.  They use ceiling fans to keep it cool (just ask Hoch, I love me a running fan).  There is only a screen door that connects the living room to the courtyard.  Let me repeat that, there is a courtyard.  And the Petit family pretty much owns the entire block.  The back of Mami Olga’s house connects to a small private alleyway in the center of the block that has back entrances to other family that lives there.  So instead of walking around the block to their front door, you could just walk through the alleyway to their back door.  I tried to zoom in on their block in Google maps to take a screen capture to show how cool it is, but the image was super blurry, plus I think you get the idea.

One of the perks of living in this Petit block is that everyone shares food more often!  It is like they take turns cooking different dishes and would just stop by to drop some off.  I am sure we were getting special treatment since we were visiting, but I think this is something that they do on the regular.  We ate very well (AKA nacatamales on the daily) and tried several traditional Honduran dishes along with some fruits and vegetables that you cannot find in the states.

Here are some pictures of the delicious food we ate: (click or hover over them for a description)

Honduran Enchiladas

Port Royal

Lunch stop at Lake Yajoa

Mango and Honey Dessert

Shrimp Fettuccine with Salad and Garlic Bread

Sopa de Res (a traditional Soup)

Atol de Elote (sweet corn and milk drink), Nacatamal

Empanadas

Empanada Shot

Spicy Jalapeno Sauce

Nacatamal!

When Mami Olga used to visit us when we were younger, she used to make us nacatamales (Honduran version of Mexican tamales) which are my favorite.  So my one request while we were visiting was that she show me how to make them.  Boy did I get a lesson.  One of my mom’s cousins was a cook and used to have to make 500 at a time for work.  She and Mami Olga showed me how it was done.  It was a lot of work and took all afternoon, but the results were as expected. Amazing.  I took the recipe along with a traditional “Sopa de Res” soup.  I want to try and recreate them here.  I am sure it will be more difficult without their help, but I will keep you posted on how that goes when I do try it. 🙂

Those of you who know me well, know that I like a nice, cold beer (or 3).  Honduras has four main beers: Barena, Salva Vida, Imperial and Port Royal.  Of course we tried all of them.  Barena being the smoothest beer and Salva Vida and Imperial were slightly stronger.  Port Royal was somewhere in the middle.

(Photo Source)

The first night we were in Comayagua, our uncle came and grabbed David and me and took us to a nearby “pulperia” (convenient store) that was owned by a good friend of his.  We sat out front and tried our first Honduran beer.  I had a Barena and David had a Port Royal.  Not only were they our first Honduran beers, but they were our first “caiguamas” (pronounced kaiwama), which is a 32 ounce bottle.  Several people walked by saying hello.  Everyone seemed to know everyone and were so friendly.  We went back to that pulperia several times during our visit, sometimes to have a beer there and other times to purchase caiguamas to take back to the house.

As far as night life goes, we did not really get too crazy.  The trip was mostly about family time, however we did make it out on the town one night.  We planned to go to a club on Saturday night.  It was right down the street from Mami Olga’s place and very convenient which is part of the reason we picked it.  We grabbed a table and I purchased the first round of drinks.  We ordered 3 margaritas and about 6 beers and the total was approximately $23!  Coming from NY in which one beer usually costs $7 and a cocktail is more like $14, you can imagine my excitement.  It is easy to get used to NY prices and traveling anywhere else, even in the states, is a nice break from the madness.

The club we went to had a younger vibe and filled up pretty quickly.  I used to be into that when I was 19, but now I usually would prefer a salsa club or something a little different.  The adults (my mom, uncles and aunts) left once the club became really busy.  I stayed with David and my cousins.  We ended up having a great time and since it was the weekend before Fat Tuesday, the club had a Mardi Gras celebration.  There was a guy on stilts, the girls were all dressed up with headdresses, and they were dancing in a tango line.  Someone even had a huge beer bong that people were drinking beer from.  I definitely did not partake in that. 😉 I did not bring my phone with me so I have very little pictures of this evening except what my cousins sent me or posted on facebook.

Well that is all I’ve got for this recap.  We really enjoyed every moment of our visit and already want to plan another one.  I keep telling everyone that we should plan a family reunion.  It would be awesome to all be together at the same time.  I know it is a lot of coordination and you can’t please everyone, but maybe I will take this task on.  Petit Family Reunion 2017 has a nice ring to it. 😉

Oh and I wanted to share one more photo with you.  My uncle still uses this car to drive around town.  It is 47 years old!  All of the neighborhood kids loved it and were following us around on their little bikes screaming in awe.

You felt like you were sitting on the ground when riding in it.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got for now, hope you have a good week!

Kimberly

P.S. David brought his gopro and took a lot of videos.  He will be editing and sharing those here on the blog soon so be on the look out for that!