So the other day we visited another aldea called Terrero. The drive there lasted about 50 minutes (needless to say it is one of the less accessible aldeas) and most closely reminded me of one of those amusement park rides where you’re on an African safari or running away from a T-Rex in Jurassic park (minus the souvenir photo of course) due to the sloped and often rocky roads we were on (we live in the mountainous/rocky part of Honduras (not to be confused with the jungle/beach part)). So after a rough and bumpy ride, we made it to this aldea and met some pretty amazing people (as a side note, I also received a new nickname, “aldío” (translation: “squirre”), from a little girl (I’m not sure how, but I’m pretty sure Joe had something to do with that one). Around lunch time we stopped in at this one house full of kids to say “hola” (sorry for the long introduction, but I had to set the scene).
After sitting and talking for some time, we noticed what appears to be an animal head on top of the gate we entered through. Upon futher inquiry, we learned that it was, in fact, the head of a small wild cat (apparently it had been attacking their chickens, so they “killed it with a rifle” (translated (I know Giff will like that one)). About the same time one of the boys, Anderson (strange name, I know (especially when you pronounce it with a Spanish accent)), walked up to a girl near us with his hands behind his back. Before any of us have chance to warn the unsuspecting girl, Anderson revealed his hidden contents (the limbs of the recently deceased mountain cat) and delivered them to the girl (near her face area). Thinking this wasn’t funny enough, he then moved on to the head itself. He would shake the gate, watch the head fall off, put the head back on the gate, and repeat. Finally, possibly feeling some regret, he decided to put the cat head out of its misery (by putting it into a ditch and throwing rocks at it). Horribly mutilated, the child then took the head and threw it down a steeply-sloped nearby mountain. We thought this would be the last we saw of the gato... But it wasn’t.
Again, the people in Honduras are very generous, and being as that it was lunch time, we were offered a lunch consisting of soup and tortillas. I’m just going to put it out there right now that this was possibly the worst meal I’ve ever had (ever (made worse by the fact that I has to eat the entire meal as it would have been rude to do otherwise)). The vegetables were old (and thus so hard that I couldn’t even break them apart with a knife), the ratio of liquid : salt had to be about 1 : 1 (maybe more 1 : 0.89), and the chunk of meat present.... well let’s just say we weren’t certain what it was (actually, we did have one theory (see: killed cat story above)). We asked the lady what kind of meat it was, and after some hesitation... she said it was “res” (beef). However, due to the characteristics of the meat (full of tendons, very small and intricate bones (like a cat or small woodland creature), and not much actual edible meat present in each piece), I’m fully convinced we at the same gato whose head a young boy had earlier played with (if I had a nickel...). I wish I had pictures/videos of this to share, but unfortunately I do not. Hopefully the descriptive explanation I’ve provided will suffice.
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