Image by Fecke and used under a Creative Commons license.

A storm of blog entries has appeared as Hurricane Felix approaches the Nicaraguan shore. The most recent computer models show Felix hitting the north shore of Nicaragua, its eye moving inland across the mountainous north of Honduras.

Fearful of disaster, the Honduran government evacuated tourists from Roatan, in the Bay Islands, which this morning seemed to be the likeliest target of the hurricane's wrath. Natalie Grace, of Travel Blog , reports on Felix:

The powerful, Category 4 storm spurred Grupo Taca Airlines to provide special free flights to the mainland. Planes were quickly touching down and taking off again to scoop up more tourists. Some 1,000 people were evacuated from the Honduran island of Roatan, popular for its pristine reefs and diving resorts. Another 1,000 were removed from low-lying coastal areas and smaller islands.

The last major hurricane to make landfall in Honduras was Mitch in 1998. An enormous category 5 storm, Mitch parked itself mercilessly over Guanaja for 3 entire days. Miraculously only 10 people died on the island. Nevertheless the images of devastation in the island were terrible. All the trees were stripped of branches and leaves, leaving only bare trunks, like silent totems.

After leaving Guanaja, Mitch raced inland where more than seven thousand people were killed in flash floods and mudslides. Honduras had never experienced a hurricane so far inland. Since Mitch had been so close to Honduras for almost a week, the ground was already saturated with water. No one in living memory could remember a Hurricane striking as far inland as Tegucigalpa, for instance.

Katherine Marrow, who lives in a relatively safe mountain town, wrote about Felix in her blog, Life in Honduras :

Yes …. there is a hurricane heading to Honduras….and yes…I am in Honduras!! Good news is that it will most likely miss us here. Siguatepeque is right in the centre of Honduras and the safest place to be as it is so central and in the mountains. We are expecting it to be a bit windy(!?) with heavy rains, flooded roads, mudslides etc. But nothing as dramatic as the coast is going to be.

La gringa, of La Gringa's Blogicito, says in her blog, “We are taking Felix seriously now.” She tells her readers: “Believe me, opening my email and reading about ‘catastrophic' hurricanes every few hours is more than a little disconcerting − especially for someone who has never been anywhere near a hurricane before.” She adds some comforting words “don't assume the worst if you can't get through” because everyone will be trying to call friends and relatives at once.

Trish, of Sowers for Pastors currently is hosting a mission team, that given their remote location in the mountains of Honduras, might become stranded by mudslides and poor road conditions. She says:

Our greatest concern is that the roads between us and the major cities may be significantly damaged, through road washouts, landslides, floods, and destroyed bridges. If the infrastructure of Honduras is severely damaged, this will certainly affect us.

In an earlier post, she reminisced of her time in Guanaja when that island was recovering after the ravages of Hurricane Mitch. “The island of Guanaja, and the people there, will always be close to our hearts.”, she wrote.

Bob Barbanes, who writes in Helicopter Pilot, moved back to the United States after living and flying his helicopter for a while in the Bay Islands. He details some of Mitch's antics, and volunteers to help in the aftermath. “And if you folks need a helicopter pilot after the storm passes, I'm ready to come back and help.” he wrote.

By the way, who would name a storm Felix? Felix means “happy” in Latin. My fingers clamp when I type its name, wanting to spell “Feliz” instead.

For my fellow Hondurans, please be safe and prepare. Hopefully this storm will quickly pass, and no lives will be lost.

“Welcome to Honduras” photo taken by BurocraciaNeuronal and used under a Creative Commons license

Despite the success of the first two installments, I've indulged in the slightly masochistic guilt of procrastination. But, finally part 3 is ready (weeks late)!

Many young Hondurans are blogging now, and personal blogs in Spanish abound. These defy being pigeon-holed into categories. Many entries are about anything or nothing in particular, the latest movie trailers, family stories, and even raunchy ads. Here's a sampling of the many, many blogs I've been researching.

Los Mercenarios [ES], (mercenario.zoomblog.com), written by Alex Cerrato and Aroni Dominguez, is a mixture of everything that's interesting to a young Honduran technophile. For instance, you can read a detailed review of Transformers, or hear an eulogy for long-defunct Mafalda, whose voice still echoes from the 60's comic strips which Quino drew her in. You can learn to create your own Simpsons avatar, see the brilliant humor of a CD label designer, or witness a battle of titans between two otakus (Japanese anime obsessive geeks).

La vida es Bella [ES] (irina-orellana.blogspot.com) is written by Irina Orellana, and in her words, you can read:

Un poquito sobre lo cotidiano y extraordinario del día a día, visto por los ojos de una mujer que cada vez se convence más, que la vida es bella y vale la pena vivirla. A pesar de los malos ratos y aunque no lo creas, siempre habrá algo o alguien por quien vivir!

A little of the everyday and the extraordinary, seen through the eyes of a woman who is every day more convinced that life is beautiful and worth living. In spite of the bad moments, and although you don't believe it, there will always be something or someone to live for!

You can read about her participation in The March for Dignity, her latest visit to her grandmother and the memories that evoked, Madonna's confessions, and her view of her beloved New Orleans, 1 year after Katrina.

Un Souvenir [ES] (juliagomez.blogspot.com), is written by Julia Gomez, who strives with success to ” share an essence of herself” through posts like, Excuses to Dump a Guy, The Best Diet, and her unfortunate choice of a purple raincoat on a rainy day.

Miguel Muñoz, a professor of theology in the Christian University of Honduras, writes several blogs. His posts include topics such as social justice, James Cameron's documentary about the tomb of Jesus, the Honduran congress' decision to deny a visa to the leader of a cult ( he calls himself “Jesus Christ the man”, and the “Antichrist”).

As with my earlier posts, I've left out many blogs. I hope to be able to bring them to light by highlighting their posts in the future.

In our final installment of Honduran Blogs, we'll examine some very academic and intellectual blogs in and about Honduras.

The average Honduran uber-geek is male, under 30, loves Linux, updates his blog thrice a second, and is a master web designer. Many of these blogs are sleek eye-candy masterpieces, with great content…if you happen to like Kubuntu, Compiz Fusion, or Mac. Beware, all of these blogs are in Spanish.

Cesarius Revolutions [ES] (www.cesarius.net), by César Palma is a treasure trove of “cyber-culture, Linux, Wordpress and free software”. Are you sick of Windows? Do you want Mac-like screen widgets in Linux? Want to punish Ronaldinho? Look no further. César writes with the benevolent air and the knowing grace of a true computer mentor. Any newbie Linux user must read his blog. Now.

Cliosguy Cumulatus [ES] (cliosguy.com), written by cliosguy, is a collection of technological musings, by an anonymous Renault Clio lover. Among the best are how to know if you're being monitored, what to do on your deathbed, and how to know whether you're a geek.

Linux Maya [ES] (www.linuxmaya.com), by José Luis Romero Lagos, a.k.a “Kinich Yax Kuk Mo“, is more a portal than a blog, but still has plenty of content, with articles like Shrek 3 and Linux, Novell hack week, and Venezuela's Linux experiment: Bolivarian Computers. In part 3 we'll visit José Luis's personal blog in more detail

There are tons more sites, but in honor of my readers, most of whom are more mainstream, I'll abstain from mentioning them and instead invite you to the next installment of Honduras blogs: Personal blogs.

Photo by Matthew Hogg and used under Creative Commons license.

The blog phenomenon has been slow to move to Honduras, but it's starting to take root. If you google “Honduras blogs” you'll find that 90% or more are not written in Honduras or by Hondurans. Most of them are written by people from the US. The few Hondurans who blog are usually in the computer science industry like myself, or in their teens.

One might venture to classify blogs written in Honduras into 4 broad categories:

* Expat blogs, written by people from the US

* Tech blogs, written by computer geeky Catrachos like your servant

* Personal blogs, written by young Hondurans

* High culture blogs, written by the Honduran intelligentsia

Notice that I didn't include travel blogs. That is because most travel bloggers blog not only in or about Honduras but everywhere in the world.

By far the expat blogs are the most abundant. Here are a few of them.

Expatriate blogs

La Gringa's blogicito (lagringasblogicito.blogspot.com) is one of the most widely read of these. It tells the tale of a gringa who moved to La Ceiba, Honduras in 2001. Her topics range from gardening to politics, and are full of practical wisdom and culture shock. Her easy-to-read style and sharp sense of humor has made her very popular among the expatriate community. She is vocal in calling for reform in Honduras, and for others to start blogging about the current issues in Honduran politics and society.

Little Wooden Man (www.littlewoodenman.com) tells the tale of a Canadian couple who move to the Honduran outback of Juticalpa, Olancho, and experience the surreal Honduran culture. Their blog is fresh and entertaining, but sometimes serious and philosophical. Many fellow bloggers and I have been drawn to its frank discussions of the pain of losing someone, religion, sexual harassment, wacky humor, and the “strange” customs and language of Honduran people.

Honduras Sprouts (hondurassprouts.blogspot.com) is the ongoing tale of another American lady who has just moved to Honduras a few months ago with her Honduran husband. Her pictures of her adorable family and tales of life in San Pedro make this blog a en excellent picture of expat family life. Topic include local critters, food quality, the fourth of July, and cutting the grass, Honduran-style.

Honduras living (hondurasliving.blogspot.com), by Don Godo, is another great blog, although entries are not as frequent as in the others I've mentioned. Nevertheless, where else would a future expat learn about health insurance, what beer to drink, or whether to try to build a house by “remote control”.

Hondubirding, (hondubirding.wordpress.com), by Daniel Germer. I'm not sure Daniel is from the States, his Spanish is that good, but his blog is written mainly in English. Daniel is a biologist, an aspiring naval officer, and as the title of his blog suggests, a fan of bird-watching. This site has some of the best pictures of the Honduran cloud forest that can be found on the internet.

By now there are more Honduran blogs than can fit into an article of comfortable length, so come again next time for a rundown of the abundant Honduran Tech blogs.