Honduras

The past week has been spent in a farm called Bonafide, also on Ompetepe. Bonafide has a completely different feel than Inah Inta. It's run by an American named Chris who experiments with different tree and plant species to see which ones are cultivatable for use by locals on the island. It's a much more academic experience than any farm I've ever been in. There is a big emphasis on Permaculture which is essentially the concept of how to live and work with the land in your immediate surroundings. The people here know alot of information about the subject and its a pretty consistent topic of conversation. After a month of being filthy and covered with sandflies though, I'm ready to get back to the real world of crappy Central American hostels and drunk Australians. I guess it's no news now that I leave for the States in less than a month which is a surreal feeling.
I had the most painless border crossing ever into Honduras. I just gave my passport and entry fee to the bus driver and he did everything on both sides. Everyday should be like this. Honduras is actually alot more expensive and developed than I thought. An hour within getting into San Pedro Sula (a city in the upper northeastern corner of the country) I was sitting in a Wendy's eating a double cheeseburger and watching American Football. I don't feel guilty about doing this anymore. I've been eating rice, beans and fried plantains for over a month now. I'm entitled. Anyway, if you're going to kill yourself with oversalted, high fat food I still contest that their is no better way to do it than with American fast food. We're good at what we do. I am, however, still unsure about what the implications are that a Wendy's Cheddarlover's Hamburger tastes exactly the same in Honduras as it does in Chicago.... Regardless, the effects of Globalization are not lost on me. The further north I go, the more things look like, well, America. I wouldn't even know I was in a foreign county here actually unless it wasn't full of short Mayan looking people. Literally every business is American and this isn't relegated solely to food. From my fat assed seat at Wendy's I was staring out at a Payless Shoe Store right next to a Goodyear. I'm not sure if American companies are really just the most efficient and business saavy or if people here demand American products more? Either way, I'd rather not be in a place like this. It's so much more expensive and all the local culture seems to have been blasted off the face of the planet a la San Jose, Costa Rica style. Tomorrow I leave for the Copan Ruins for a few days and then into Guatemala anyway so it'll be a limited experience....