WHAT KEEPS A TRAVELER ON ROAD? FOOD.

Nothing much has really happened since the last post, but I just want to write here something before we travel to Roatan, where using the internet costs fortunes. Today was full of traveling, as we bussed all the way from San Salvador to La Ceiba on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. We first took one bus from San Salvador to San Pedro Sula in Honduras, and then a connection to La Ceiba. Although we spent totally 12 hours on the road and made a trip from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, the trip was actually very pleasant. The first bus was a bit of a luxury one, and although the second one was cheaper the journey was very relaxed. In San Pedro we did´t even have to walk much, as all the bus companies had been gathered around in one terminal, where a young bus company worker helped us to the right bus while we bought some food and used the ATM. Easy. Now we are staying in La Ceiba for the night, eating and drinking well, before we catch a ferry to the island of Roatan tomorrow morning.

As that was all that I had to say, we want to dedicate this post to a topic that has been in our minds for some time. Here is some little observations about the food in Central America.

- There is a saying in Guatemala, that a Guatemalan eats breakfast like a prince, lunch like a king and dinner like a beggar. That really was the daily rhythm of eating in Guatemala, and we got used to eating quite a lot in the morning, a lot in the afternoon and have a tiny snack before we went to bed.

- According to the creation myth of the Mayas, the humans were created from corn after earlier experiences with using land and fire as the substance went wrong. This is how serious the relationship with corn is here. You get it in all the forms and definetely with every meal of the day. (Check the next observation.) Only one form of corn has been a bit rare here. We haven´t encountered corn as we eat it in Europe, as canned version used in salads for example, nearly as often as we thought. Some of the street vendors sell it as corn-on-the-cob, but it is often sold with cream, which makes a traveller´s stomach go wild, so we have mostly avoided it.

- There seems to be a beer brand that is totally dominating all the advertizing in nearly all Central American countries that we have been to. In Guatemala it is Gallo and in El Salvador it is very creatively named Pilsener. You can definetely buy these brands from all the bars and tiendas (little shops), and that is very easy to notice as they have huge painted logos of these brands on the walls. Finding some other brands can be a bit trickier sometimes. Only in Honduras it seems that the beer brands don´t advertise as aggressively, we have mostly seen huge Pepsi and Coke signs here.

- In Mexico meat seemed to be the essential ingredient of every meal. (Just check the insane photo with a pile of meat in our photo gallery.) But in other countries we have visited, we haven´t eaten it so much. Although vegetarianism is a pretty unheard concept in this part of the world, meat is a part of luxury for the ordinary people. In Guatemala we ate mostly vegetarian food, getting meat only every once in a while. And in El Salvador I ordered a chicken soup where there was only one little piece of chicken - I think it was the liver. But who cares, the soup and all the other stuff have been excellent.

- So where do the people get their proteins from? Frijoles, frijoles y frijoles - yes, beans. Beans come in every form, and from the breakfast to the dinner during the whole day. But they are a bit different in different countries. In Guatemala they were of the dark variety while in El Salvador they were red. We don´t really mind this, but we met a Guatemalan in El Salvador, who complained that she feels homesick as she doesn´t get to taste the strong, dark flavor of the Guatemalan beans.

- From beans to coffee beans. Although coffee is brown gold here and it forms a significant part of some countries´ GDP, the premium quality beans go totally to export - leaving ordinary citizens drink cheaper stuff. This was the case at least in Guatemala, where we noticed this thing in two ways. One of the examplary sentences of my teacher in one of the Spanish classes was: Para ser café Guatemalteco, esto es muy malo. We also played an interesting game every morning with Michelle when we had breakfast with our host family - we guessed was the hot stuff in the cup coffee or tea. Usually we could tell by the smell, but that tells a lot about the coffee. I think that some coffee puritanists in Finland (like Michelle´s mom) would have difficulties coping with this sad fact, but fortunately our taste is that amateurish that we like everything.