Have Internet Will Travel Traveling the world, wherever there's WiFi. The adventures of two freelance digital nomads.

More interesting flavours from interesting places. This time, we’re posting our review of the beers of Honduras and Belize. Honduras was a surprise after Costa Rica’s range of very similar lagers. We found Honduras had 4 distinctly different lagers that were readily available just about everywhere. Belize was also a hit with two light lagers and a stout.

HONDURAS

Salva Vida

A pale lager brewed by Cerveceria Hondurena in Tegucigalpa (as are the other Honduran beers), ‘Salva Vida’ translates to ‘Life Saver’ in English. It’s the most popular beer in Honduras and you’ll find it everywhere for a dollar in local shops or two dollars in tourist priced areas. With a slightly skunky aroma and a metallic finish, it’s thin yet malty. Darker than the other available lagers. Overall an easily drinkable beer. 4.8% Alcohol. Read More…

In Costa Rica it’s safe to drink the water, but why would you when you’ve got all these other choices? ;) Costa Rica has one major brewery called Cerveceria de Costa Rica which is owned by the Florida Ice and Farm Co., but they brew a variety of beers locally. And there’s a few other canned beverage alternatives too. It’s the local custom to have your beer in a glass with ice, but as gringos we rarely had to ask for it without (‘sin hielo’).

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As a tourist in Costa Rica, you can stay for a maximum of 90 days before you have to exit the country for 72 hours before reentry. Shortly before Xmas, our first three months in Costa Rica were coming to a close. Nicaragua is considerably nearer to Tamarindo than Panama, so we opted to head to Nicaragua for a quick visa run. Being so close to Christmas, many dates for the buses to Nicaragua were already fully booked, but luckily we were able to book a couple seats on the Ticabus (around $40 each) to and from Nicaragua as opposed to the ‘chicken bus’ where you walk across the border and catch another local bus on the other side.

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Kelly and I are fans of sharing the big beer with a couple small glasses. It’s something we picked up in Brazil at the many restaurants where you get a seat at a plastic table in the middle of the sidewalk or sometimes in the middle of the street. You even get a giant beer cozy to keep it cool. It’s often a little bit cheaper, and there’s something very communal about it. 1 beer/2 glasses is often one of our first translations into the native tongue.

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After almost a month with an over heating video card stuck in 640×480 and $600 later, I’m back online. For most travelers it probably would have been a non issue till they got home using internet cafes in the meantime, but I have a number of client projects on the go and I’m usually not more than an arms length from my PC unless I’m underwater. Luckily I bought an iPod Touch before leaving Canada! I’ve often pooh-poohed how the iPhone and Touch are bulky MP3 players with not quite enough built in features to be true PDAs, but man was I thankful for the WiFi, browser, and email applications these past few weeks, not to mention the countless hours spent playing solitaire when the power was out. I was able to stay on top of client issues and steal Kelly’s Mac for emergencies. It took UPS almost 2 weeks to ship a new video card from New Jersey to Koh Tao in Thailand via expedited shipping. At least I didn’t have to install it with my Swiss Army knife screwdriver… I ended up finding a repair shop locally that had the proper tools, something of a rarity on some of the smaller islands.

So what does a nerd do offline in a tropical country? He stays hydrated…
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With a week left before we head to Thailand, we’ve attempted to mark off the last few random things remaining on our Philippines checklist…

#1. Try San Miguel Strong Ice

We’ve never seen anyone drinking it. Is it a cider? Nope, it turns out that it’s yet another pale pilsen. This time its ice filtered and packing a bit more of a punch. 6.3% alcohol, making it a close second to Red Horse Strong Beer.

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It’s likely due to our limited time left in the Philippines that this week we attempted to be a little more social with a few of our local friends. We’ve been busy working and preparing for the next phase of our trip, but no excuses! Parties must be partied…

Early in the week we had Patrick from Dive Society over for a lasagna dinner accompanied by a few bottles of wine. He’s given his notice at the dive shop where he works as a dive instructor and will be becoming a nomadic yogi rambling through Bali in the near future. We hope to meet up again in Thailand in a couple months. Patrick is also an illustrator. Check out his portfolio site if you’ve got a minute.

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How cheap you ask? Well, at today’s exhcange rate of 39 Philippine Pesos for 1 Canadian Dollar, it’s a mere $0.71 for a can of Pale Pilsen from the supermarket. Now the question isn’t my beer budget. It’s how many situps I need to do to burn off 6 cans of beer. :)

We’ve been in the Philippines for 3 months now. Since we’ve finally settled we decided to throw a little housewarming party at our new place and invite a bunch of people over to celebrate. We started out the week by heading into town for party supplies. Off to Hypermart in Dumaguete, we loaded up a shopping cart full of Mexican food supplies, and another cart full of beer, rum, gin, and soft drinks. We nearly cleared the shelves of San Miguel. The grand total? About $200. I love how cheap food and beverages are here. Unless you’re wanting specialty items, nearly everything is 50% what we pay back home. Booze and beer is even cheaper with no government taxation like in Canada. Read More…

Well, what else is there to do on a Sunday? Here’s our review of the locally produced Filipino rums. Well, everything that was available… Except for the white rum, which doesn’t count because its invisible. ;)

** Note, this taste test is amateur at best. There was no rinsing of glasses. No spitting. No extended pinky fingers… and no monocles.
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