We haven’t been out very much since we’ve arrived in Portland and I have a sneaking suspicion that we might be regretting that in about three months. What usually tends to happen is we’ll go out to one of three or four places only–and there have got to be at least forty million great places within walking distance of our apartment. One of the places we seem to frequent a lot lately is, um, a doughnut shop. (It might be the pregnant lady’s fault.)

Voodoo Doughnut is a small downtown shop populated by hip tattooed counter folk and sporting a general mayhem behind the counter that makes it look more like a crowded print shop rather than a bakery (except for the smell). Other ways Voodoo Doughnut is not like your average doughnut shop: They have slogans like “good things come in pink boxes!” They have Bacon Maple Bars! Their fryer gives free Swahili classes Monday nights at the shop! They do weddings! They are open 24 hours/day!

We managed to go twice this past week during Michelle’s visit because Michelle is a person who can appreciate the culinary finery that is a Bacon Maple Bar.

Since we were driving to Ashland to see a play, we decided a pink box for the road was in order. We got a Bacon Maple Bar—just to be different, an Apple Fritter (pregnant ladies need their vitamin C), a Cock & Balls (triple-cream filled), a Blood-Filled Voodoo Doll, and a Dirty doughnut (with peanut butter and crushed Oreo cookies on top).

Michelle is pleased with the selection.

A sensitive portrait of a half-eaten Voodoo Doll. The inside gore is raspberry. The stake through the heart is a pretzel stick. I’m not sure who ate the right arm.

Sadly we didn’t get any photos of the Cock & Balls—it broke apart when handled and was unsuitable for photography.

We mentioned that shortly after anchoring in Alacran, we were visited by a scruffy but adorable little birdie who, after maybe thirty seconds of initial hesitation, entered our cabin and totally made himself (herself?) at home in our boat. Strangely, he was not worried about us at all, even when we moved around, and a couple of times he landed on our arms or knees. He explored the entire interior of the boat and settled into a lap pattern: cockpit to sink/galley area, where we had a squeezed lime sitting on the counter, pick at the lime (working on the scurvy), hop around and then make the short flight to the settee table, give Joshua the eye and then hop across the table flying up to the aft window shelf/ledge, start at the basket of shells/beach debris looking for insects, move onto the plastic lid I made a water dish out of and splash water all over the cabin, move on to the basket with pens and miscellaneous crap and look for bugs, tuck into the far corner hidey hole for maybe two seconds before emerging and making way back to cockpit, spend some time in cockpit and then enter forward cabin, do some stuff (we weren’t in there) and return to aft cabin around three minutes later to repeat the entire process over and over again. He never even pooped on our stuff either, or at least we never found it. Not yet.

About a day after we left Alacran, we were visited by another small bird; this time a swallow. It was a beautiful bird with iridescent blue/purple head feathers, long clean and smooth wing and tail feathers, a rust-colored throat fringed with a bit of black, and a pale gold breast. He landed on our boat and sat for a bit on the foredeck, then moved closer, closer (trying to get out of the wind), and finally perched on the edge of the cockpit before falling asleep. While asleep, we had total immunity and could move freely within inches of him; when awake, we were more careful because sudden movement of massive bodies freaked him out a little. He slept on and off for hours and nearing dark, crawled into the cockpit cubby to sleep. All night long we wondered if he was still inside the cubby because we never saw him fly away but in the morning, he was gone. (This one was a pooper though and our sail bag, which was stuffed in the cockpit locker, suffered.)

We saw a number of migrating swallows, among other birds like egrets, “songbirdies,” etc., all flapping madly for the southern US coast. Nobody else stopped to rest though.

All this friendly bird action reminded us of a photo we took in 2002 of what happens to little birdies who lose their inhibition. This is a street-snack stand that would appear in the evenings in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

[Click the image to see the full photo.]

Cancun, Mexico

We had no plans to visit Cancun, but we had to go pay a port fee which could only be paid at the Banamex in Cancun. It cost us $16 for ferry and bus fare to pay the $20 fee. So lame. We took the opportunity to visit an incredibly large grocery store where we spotted these boob shaped pan dulce. We remember blogging about other pan dulce resembling body parts in La Paz. This should also feed the prepubescent sex crazed googlers out there. “boob” (probably not used in the expected way) has recently surpassed “porta-bote” in our search engine statistics.

Lemons. I haven’t seen them since La Paz when the CCC Grocery store had Eureka lemons for shockingly cheap. So there they were, a modest pile of them spilling over a cardboard box in the local Rey supermarket. I couldn’t believe my eyes and nearly caused a scene. Picking one up. Smelling it. Yes, it isn’t just a yellow lime (I have been so fooled). Looking around wildly like I intended to secret it into a pocket (actually I was looking for Joshua to totally freak out on but he somehow disappeared right at my moment of discovery). I found a market person to talk to: “What is this?” (“Limon Importado”) “How much is it?” (“$0.49”) “OHMYGODDOYOUKNOWWHATTHISMEANS???” (Actually I didn’t say this but I looked it and she gave me a blank stare before turning to less scary business.) Joshua finally found me and took a photo.

Beers are in order of preference, more or less. All beers are lagers unless otherwise specified (n/l).

MEXICO

Negra Modelo – Choice; our all-time favorite. Dark Amber in color. Excellent with a small bit of lime juice. (n/l) (Modelo Especial is NO comparison.)
Bohemia – Choice. (n/l)
XX Amber – Choice. Infrequently available in our experience along the coastal route. (n/l)

Victoria – Our favorite of the cheapies. Amber in color. (n/l)
Indio – Infrequently available; interesting flavor. Another favorite. Amber in color. (n/l)
XX Lager – Good. For a lager.
Pacifica – Standard lager, okay with lime. Excellent graphic design.
Tecate – Okay, actually tastes different than the other lagers of its class.
Modelo Especial – Really not very especial.
Sol – Blah; watery. I like the clear bottle.
Corona – My least favorite beer of all time, particularly when you take into consideration the hype. Acceptable in flavor ONLY with copious amounts of lime juice. Why oh why would anyone order this when there are so many other better beers out there?

GUATEMALA

Gallo – Lager; decent.
Bhrava – Indistinguishable from any standard Central American lagers. And, what’s with the spelling?

HONDURAS

Port Royal – Good. Our second favorite Central American lager. Order this beer anywhere in Honduras, unless you are in a cowboy bar, in which case, order ‘beer’ and take what you get.
Salva Vida – Standard, indistinguishable lager.
Imperial – Nasty. What you’ll likely be drinking in some cowboy bar in the middle of BFE in order to keep from looking like a pansy.

*** Despite being at the bottom of the list, the D&D Brewery deserves mention; it’s not a standard Honduran beer. It tastes like Oregon. You have to go to the source, the southwestern corner of Lake Yojoa (near the town Los Naranjos), to find this beer but you will not be sorry. D&D is a brewery/guesthouse run by an ex-pat from Oregon and his Honduran wife and he always has a handful of hand-made microbrews at all times. My favorite was the raspberry ale and porter mixed half and half. When we visited, he had hefeweissen, amber, porter, raspberry ale, mango ale, and blueberry ale (blueberries come from a nearby farm). We liked them all except for the mango ale (we didn’t try the blueberry).

BELIZE

Belican – One fine beer. Excellent. We love this beer.
Belican Stout – Stout! My god. What more can you ask for?
Belican Light – Why on earth would you order light beer?

EL SALVADOR

Pilsener – The one-dollar beer of choice. Excellent with lime. Our third favorite Central American lager.
Regia – Kind of weird; not bad though. Fragrant.
Golden – Indistinguishable typical lager.
Bahia and some others… they all taste the same anyway.

NICARAGUA

Toña – Far and above the more desirable beer. Our favorite of the Central American lagers.
Búfalo – Rare but a pretty good amber.
Victoria – Order Toña.

COSTA RICA

Imperial – Okay. Maybe the better of the CR lagers. Freaky graphics make you think the Kaiser was coming to stick one of those pointy helmets up your butt.
Pilsen – Startlingly similar to Imperial.
Rock Ice – God-awful graphics that unfortunately affect the flavor in a non-desirable way. Available in lemon flavor.

PANAMA

Panama – (4.8%, 355ml bottle)
Balboa – (4.8%, 285ml bottle)
Soberana – (3.8%, 355ml bottle)
Atlas – (3.8%, 285ml bottle)

Four nearly indistinguishable lagers, Atlas perhaps being a little waterier. All four come in battered recycled bottles with the graphics printed directly on the glass. Based on the above stats alone, Panama is the clear winner as far as your $0.75 is concerned and I have to say that I liked the taste of Panama maybe just a little more than the rest. The graphic design of the bottles is interesting. We liked the contrast of the green Panama bottle with the red, blue, and white label, although I was partial to the vintage cartoon feel of the Atlas logo. The Soberana bottle appears to be going for elegance with a crystal clear bottle and scripty fonts; I get the feeling this is supposed to be a chick beer. And, what’s with the name? Soberana. (Oh, it actually means “sovereign” but for us Englishy types, the apparent meaning is greatly amusing.) We had to check to be sure it was even alcoholic—which is what led us to check the alcohol content for all the rest and reinforced our opinion that Panama was the beer of choice.