The picture above shows the beach at La Ensenada, it's my favorite picture from this weekend trip. 
This past weekend Sara and I went to visit two of the closest Garifuna villages to Tela. The Garifuna people are descendants of the Black Caribs (a race formed from Island Caribs and African slaves), who settled on the northern coast of Honduras and the Bay Islands in the late 1700s. One village is named Triunfo del la Cruz and the other, Ensenada. We left Tela about noon on Saturday on one of the local buses, and about 20 minutes later arrived in Triunfo de la Cruz. This was a more developed, quiet village of the two (the picture below).
The beaches were very pretty, but a little gray because of the recent rain and the waves were a lot stronger than in Tela. We found a little, quaint hotel and restaurant which had many nice small cabanas just a few yards away from the ocean. Sara and I got a simple room with one double bed and a shower for 200 lemps (about $10/$5 each) a night. For the location and adorable atmosphere it was definitely a good deal! The picture below shows the small restaurant, and to the right you can see a small building with pictures painted in the wall, that was one of the small cabanas.
We only saw one other small group of tourists while we were there, so we pretty much had the beach all to ourselves, except for a few men who were on the beach building a few of the many small huts made of palm leaves that lined the beach (pictures below) and random chickens that were walking along the beach and hanging out in trees....crazy chickens! 
Also, we quickly made friends with four adorable Garifuna girls that worked at the hotel. Before we had even introduced ourselves, they were already giving us hugs and talking and laughing. As soon as they got a hold of our cameras, they couldn't stop posing and asking to take pictures of each other. They were the sweetest girls ever!
After we arrived and settled our things in our room, we relaxed on the beach for a few hours and then walked down the entire length of the beach and through the village and smaller neighborhoods nearby. We came across a cemetery that was only a few yards away from the ocean. We couldn't believe that with all the flooding, they would build a cemetery so close to the water! As we walked around the more we saw many concrete graves above ground, some looked like huge blocks of concrete while others were covered with colorful tiles, but many of the grave sites were overgrown with mounds of sand and wild plants and weeds, and you could tell they had moved around with the flooding because of how close to together and crooked some were.
There were also many random dilapidated crosses that didn't mark any clear graves. We could tell that after many years of flooding, it was very difficult to tell one grave from the next. There was even a random grave we saw that looked more like a mound of dirt with a cross made out of branches than a real grave, and it looked like it had been freshly dug (the pictures below). 
As we walked further were saw many adorable thatch-roofed huts/houses along the beach, it reminded me of Gilligan's Island! Many had clotheslines and hammocks were hanging outside the huts. Peeking inside some of them, I saw that they all had sand floors and most consisted of only had one large room.
We passed a few other hotels on our walk and stopped to get a drink and admire the peaceful view. The picture below is of me sitting under one of the palm leaf huts that lined the beach.
We passed a few other hotels on our walk and stopped to get a drink and admire the peaceful view. The picture below is of me sitting under one of the palm leaf huts that lined the beach.On Sunday we woke up early and ate breakfast at a very odd restaurant near our hotel. They had no menu and the only person who worked there was teenage girl with a huge attitude. To order our food, we had to talk to her through a window in the kitchen and she looked as if she couldn't be more unhappy about having to serve us. She looked so annoyed to have to turn down the radio on the windowsill for the few seconds it took for us to order. After going back and forth forever about what food we wanted and what food they actually had (let me repeat....THERE WAS NO MENU so it was a little annoying), Sara ordered beans, eggs and tortillas, and I ordered tortillas, plantains, and eggs. After this entire ordeal of ordering food, then waiting forever for it to come out to the table, we both looked at our plates and couldn't help but laugh! She brought us both exactly the same thing, cold tortillas and extremely greasy fried eggs, no beans, no plantains. So really, we could have just saved us some time and not bothered ordering food at all because apparently she was only going to cook what she wanted to cook!
After our interesting breakfast, we decided to pack up our things and visit La Ensenada, the other Garifuna village nearby. Since no buses ran on Sundays (we didn't know that) we decided to walk there. It only took about 20-30 minutes, but what made it seem longer was the heat and the fact that many of the roads were flooded over from all the rain. We had to maneuver our way around tons of mud and huge puddles of water, all while trying not to slip and fall right on our butts! While Sara and I took our time balancing on rocks and trying to avoid losing our feet in the mud, we watched other people pass us by wearing no shoes, plowing through the mud and dirt like it was nothing. It eventually got to the point where we really couldn't avoid being ankle deep in mud so I just sucked it up, took off my sandals, and plowed through the gooey, warm mud in my bare feet. Being barefoot was much easier than worrying about our sandals sliding on and off and making it more difficult to pull our feet out of the mud. I guess it's all part of the adventure right?! And I figured if the locals can do it, I can do it! Plus, I did get my tetanus shot, just in case! 
The picture below shows my foot slowly disappearing into the warm, slimy mud, God only knows what was hiding under there!
After our Honduran mud bath, we came across a beautiful, very quiet and serene lake hiding behind the trees and bushes along the road. If it wasn't for Sara pointing it out, I would've totally walked right past it without realizing it was there! This is one awesome thing about traveling here, at any given moment you can unexpectedly come across such beautiful scenery that you would only expect to see on a painting or postcard!
After our interesting breakfast, we decided to pack up our things and visit La Ensenada, the other Garifuna village nearby. Since no buses ran on Sundays (we didn't know that) we decided to walk there. It only took about 20-30 minutes, but what made it seem longer was the heat and the fact that many of the roads were flooded over from all the rain. We had to maneuver our way around tons of mud and huge puddles of water, all while trying not to slip and fall right on our butts! While Sara and I took our time balancing on rocks and trying to avoid losing our feet in the mud, we watched other people pass us by wearing no shoes, plowing through the mud and dirt like it was nothing. It eventually got to the point where we really couldn't avoid being ankle deep in mud so I just sucked it up, took off my sandals, and plowed through the gooey, warm mud in my bare feet. Being barefoot was much easier than worrying about our sandals sliding on and off and making it more difficult to pull our feet out of the mud. I guess it's all part of the adventure right?! And I figured if the locals can do it, I can do it! Plus, I did get my tetanus shot, just in case! The picture below shows my foot slowly disappearing into the warm, slimy mud, God only knows what was hiding under there!After our Honduran mud bath, we came across a beautiful, very quiet and serene lake hiding behind the trees and bushes along the road. If it wasn't for Sara pointing it out, I would've totally walked right past it without realizing it was there! This is one awesome thing about traveling here, at any given moment you can unexpectedly come across such beautiful scenery that you would only expect to see on a painting or postcard!When we finally made it to Ensenada, we were very pleased to find an even more beautiful beach with clear, and much more peaceful, blue water. The atmosphere was a lot better here, it seemed more bright and more the type of village I was picturing in my mind when reading about Garifuna villages. There were many Honduran and Garifuna families, kids, and teenagers along the beach playing in the sun, swimming in the water, and walking around. The area right along the beach had many merenderos (small restaurants), and a few hotels.
Garifuna people are always on the beaches offering to braid your hair and selling delicious "pan de coco" which is basically like sweet rolls with a hint of coconut taste, "tabletas" which is a not so delicious, sweet, grainy shredded coconut desert, and "agua de coco." The women usually carry huge plastic tubs of the bread, coconuts, or tableta on their head, the children walk around selling bags of the sweets, while the men walk around with coconuts and huge machetes to cut them open with. The picture below shows exactly that.
Garifuna people are always on the beaches offering to braid your hair and selling delicious "pan de coco" which is basically like sweet rolls with a hint of coconut taste, "tabletas" which is a not so delicious, sweet, grainy shredded coconut desert, and "agua de coco." The women usually carry huge plastic tubs of the bread, coconuts, or tableta on their head, the children walk around selling bags of the sweets, while the men walk around with coconuts and huge machetes to cut them open with. The picture below shows exactly that. Overall, we had a great time, and were really excited to live so close to these little idyllic villages! It makes the perfect cheap, quick, and easy weekend trip. We both agreed we'd have to come back soon! 
