The Rhino Returns

I've returned from Honduras - mostly intact. It was a great 4 days and there is much to write about. Many cigars were smoked, gallons of rum drunk, and many miles walked by 17 stalwarts of Cigar Camp (The first rule of Cigar Camp is ...). The weather was gorgeous.

As I'm still recovering from my return (which was 17 hours of HELL) today's post will be a few pictures and brief commentary. I'll follow-up with more detail and a lot more pics in the days ahead.


Picture taken outside of the Tegucigalpa airport ... that would be a Pizza Hut A Burger King and a Church's Fried Chicken. Goooooooo Capitalism!


A "Pulperia" or small market on the road side. These things are everywhere. I thought this one looked cool - so there you go.


Kidnappings and such are on the rise in Honduras ... so we had to have an armed guard with us at all times - we named him Senor Pistola. Here he is on the right (on the left is Mike "2-Bell" Patel - no relation to Rocky Patel, our host) - I'll get to why we called him 2-Bell in a future post. In hindsight, I suppose it wasn't the best plan to to ply Senor Pistola with rum. Oh well. More importantly, he stood guard over the cooler on the bus and passed around "cerveza, hace frio, por favor".


We stayed at a different house than the last trip. The accommodations were outstanding. All of the rooms of the house, including the bedrooms, opened directly onto a courtyard that had a pool, cabana thing, an outdoor kitchen, full bar and couple of seating areas with couches and chairs. There was also an indoor kitchen and dining room as well. Above are some of the guys chilling in the bar seating area.


A view of the pool and cabana area.


Guys maxing and relaxing in the cabana.


The fountain area and circular seating ... very relaxing.


We ate well ... above are the kabobs that we had for lunch one day. Pork, beef and chicken. Served with rice & beans, plantains and fresh tortillas. Awesome.


My new bestest friend Senora Cook. We had a thing going on ... OK, so she looks a little afraid of the huge gringo standing over her. But I made her laugh a lot and she kissed me on the cheek before we left.


Hey, I needed to all of those calories ... the dusty boots will testify to that fact after tromping around acres of fields and barns.


Steve and The Rhino in the tobacco fields.


Guys hanging tobacco in the curing barns. I offered to climb up and help ... but they deferred. Don't know why ...


Of course I needed something to get all of that dust from the fields out of my throat ... and here was just the thing: Flor de Cana rum from Nicarauga. So smmmooooooth and just perfect by itself over ice. $5.00 American per bottle.


The aftermath of consuming too much Flor de Cana.


A little slice of heaven. Racks and racks of cigars in the quality control room at the rolling factory.


A picture of my best buds and our host at the rolling factory. From left to right: Mike Beazley, Rocky Patel (our host and owner of Rocky Patel Cigars), The Rhino, Steve Parrish.

Anyway ... please excuse this for being short and sweet tonight.

Even though I ache from head to toe it really is good to be the Rhino.