Valle de Angeles

Today we rented a great little diesel powered Pugeot and traveled to a nearby town called Valle de Angeles. Valle, as the locals call it, is about 18 km from Tegus and it is a great escape from the hustle and bustle of the big city. It was very nice to drive up into the mountains and relax in the tranquil town. We had lunch outside in the city square and spent the afternoon wandering around, looking in shops and a museum.  We haven't seen many dogs around our neighborhood since we've moved here, but there were a lot more dogs in this rural town. The funny part was that as we walked the calles of the town, we would see the same dogs over and over. There was one happy-go-lucky little white dog with black spots that made an appearance at the restaurant during lunch, in el parque central and then later in the doorway of a little shop. Seeing the dogs made us miss Milo (insert sad face here).

Renting a car meant that we got to have our first Honduran driving lessons. In order to drive in Honduras you pretty much need to forget everything that you learned when driving anywhere else in the world. First off, there are really no rules when driving here. People pretty much do whatever, whenever, and usually for no apparent reason. Driving here reminds me of riding my motorcycle back in the states. You have to be so vigilant here that it is actually pretty safe; everyone is looking out for the unexpected and nobody can afford to relax because there is just too much happening. The roads are so poorly maintained that it is not uncommon to come upon a man hole without a cover in the middle of the road. Sometimes there is tall grass growing out of the manhole, so that's a nice heads up to swerve around it! We wanted to take a picture of the "safety cones" for some road repair that was happening in our neighborhood a couple of days ago, but we didn't have the camera. The workers had dragged large rocks into the middle of the road to prevent cars from driving on the new concrete and they created a slalom obstacle course of boulders and wet cement.