All The Tarantulas I See Are Dead

I remember reading an article one time about tarantulas, and how they come out after rain storms. There was also something about a migratory pattern and massive amounts of them taking off together to go...somewhere.

At any rate, we always only see one. And it's always dead. Usually so dead that I decide it's best to not consider picking it up and frying it, and if it's not that dead, well I don't pick it up anyway, because what would Zach think?

That's the thing about us. He is terrified of spiders. I envision going to Cambodia and eating them. To each their own, I suppose.

I love the street vendors. As we walk down the road, people are hocking everything from food to clothes to bootleg movies, even gum and lottery tickets. Right now rambutan is in season, and tons of people have carts piled up with them. So pretty to see. Since we are obviously foreign, when we stop to buy some, people usually offer us a sample first. Don't mind if I do! I guess they figure we haven't had it before. Today there was even a guy selling strawberries, and they looked pretty good so we picked some up. Usually they look really pathetic here.

The one part I don't like about the vendors is walking by the fish. There's flies, and it's out in the hot sun with no ice usually. The smell, omigoodness, the smell. I try to run past that part. I accidentally started to pull us into a meat market today, that was so very bad. I can't even stand the smell at our butcher shop, or when we walk by the meat section of the supermarket. And yes, I know, I used to help gut dead animals. But those hadn't been sitting in the hot sun for who knows how long.

Today we had a very exciting shopping trip. The store had a small supply of Dr. Pepper, so I picked up a couple. And managed to knock one down so it exploded all over the front of the store. Also, we went down the liquor aisle, just to see what there was, and everything was so cheap! There was a gift pack of a decent sized bottle of rum with a laptop case, for 76 Lempira. That's less than 4 bucks. Last night we were hanging out with some Canadians, and they were telling us how much cheaper alcohol is in the States compared to their home, and then we see this today. Awesome.

I really don't understand the pricing on items here. There are some things that are much cheaper than back home, and some things that cost way more. Sometimes, it's cheaper to buy beer than a soda. Bottled water costs so much less than in the States, even though in the States you can drink tap water (and that's really all bottled water is) but you can't in Honduras (and they actually have to treat the water that's bottled.) Gas costs more. In fact, the gas prices got so high here, that they had to change from stating the price per gallon to stating the price per liter, because the numbers wouldn't fit on the sign.

Of course, when we first got back, we didn't know that, and thought that prices just decreased ridiculously. I was a little sad to find out that wasn't the case.

We went out to a little, well I guess you would call it a restaurant, but it's attached to a person's house, and I think they cook the food in their kitchen. Anyway, it's a place where you order food and sit down and they bring it out to you and you eat it there. I got some really delicious chicken nachos and Zach got meat with beans and plantains, plus we both had refrescos, and it cost like seven bucks. If you don't eat at the American restaurants, a night out is really cheap.

A curious thing that we have noticed, is there are three categories of proteins here. There's chicken, fish, and "meat." Meat is anything that is not chicken of/or from the sea. People will walk down the street selling food, and when you ask what they have, the answer is "meat." Ok, what kind? Meat. For obvious reasons, we don't buy anything from these people, but if we did, I'm really curious what we would be eating. Obviously, there are words in the Spanish language for beef and pork and the other various delicious parts of pig, but in general, they don't seem to be used too often. We have noticed ourselves doing this as well. What do you want for dinner? Meat. That's why I can't tell you what Zach ate at the restaurant. It was from an animal though, I do know that.

Well, I'm pretty sure of it anyway.