Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Adios Amigo!


This morning I had this vague feeling that I haven't had the entire time I've been in Honduras. And then it dawned on me...I have to put on long pants and socks and shoes for the first time in a month and return to the "real" world.

I've become friends with this guy named Corvin who's the captain of one of the dive boats I've been out on several times. He's completely deaf and doesn't speak at all, and I haven't seen him interacting much with anyone other than the staff and the dive masters. He's pretty gregarious with them, but pretty shy around the gringos.

He and I communicate with grins and handshakes and fist bumps and thumbs up and the random squeaks he makes that kinda sound like bird calls. He saw me at a restaurant the other night and came over grinning ear-to-ear and shook my hand like I had just won the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes and gave me a big bear hug.

I talk way too much anyway.

Adios, mi amigo!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Sour Grapes


Most mornings I’ve been wandering down the dirt path that leads from my hotel to a place nearby for a big breakfast dubbed “The Canadian”: two slices of yummy French toast swimming in butter and syrup and two eggs cooked any way you want. I'm trying to find out what the upper limit of cholesterol really is.

The owner and I have struck up an acquaintanceship, and usually he sits at my table and chats while I gorge myself like a boa constrictor unhinging its lower jaw to eat a chicken. He’s been telling me the ongoing saga of the "hotel guest from hell" who has been his nemesis for the past month. He’s kicking himself because he should have known better, given the 37 e-mails she sent him prior to her arrival, inquiring about everything from what the “quality of light’ would be in her room to whether or not she should bring an umbrella (during the rainy season in Honduras!!)

He feels like he’s bent over backwards to accommodate her, but he’s at the end of his rope. Today he learned from another guest that before she left, Miss Sourpuss was trying to give away a complimentary bottle of wine that was in her room when she arrived. She had consumed the other bottle, but didn’t want to leave the remaining one behind “after the way she’d been treated”. The intended recipient politely declined her offer.

Turns out the bottle of "wine" she drank was actually a decorative bottle of tap water with pink food coloring that had been sitting there for about a year. Like they say..."What goes around comes around", and something tells me this one’s gonna be coming around for the next several days.

Mother Teresa is Alive and Well....


...and living in Roatan, Honduras. She goes by the alias "Miss Peggy" and she runs a joint called Clinica Esperanza.

She does good things for poor people.

If you're feeling cynical today, do yourself a favor and visit her website....there are still some truly selfless people out there, and she's one of 'em.

You know when you're in the presence of goodness....and believe me, she's the real deal. One way I know that is because she doesn't take herself too seriously. I'm pretty sure I heard her say "shit". But don't quote me on that...just file it under "What Saints Look Like".

Monday, March 9, 2009

Lunar Landing


Last night when I got back to my cabin after checking my e-mail, laptop in hand, I climbed the short flight of stairs to the front porch and noticed that a swimsuit I had hung over the railing to dry was gone. I looked down, and could see the white lining of the bathing suit on the ground below...the only source of light being the moon.

I walked back down the stairs, still holding my laptop, and stepped down about 18” from the sidewalk into a recessed area where my bathing suit had landed. What I had forgotten, and couldn’t see in the dark, is that the sidewalks are built directly on top of coral which over the past several million years has hardened into jagged rock.

My flip flop got hung up, and I fell forward into the darkness. The next sensation was my toe, and then my shoulder, ribcage and wrist hitting what felt like broken glass. Amazingly, I managed to hang onto my laptop, and I sustained only a few minor scrapes and cuts, the main one being to my upper arm, which bled through the first nice shirt I’ve worn in about three weeks.

By the time I managed to extricate myself using my one available hand (the other one was holding the laptop) and get back up on the front porch, I discovered that in my fall I had dropped my door key. Keep in mind that it’s as dark as all get out, and I gotta go back down there and try to find my key, which is attached to a dark piece of wood about the size of a matchbook.

Not really knowing the extent of my injuries, but feeling blood start to drip from my extremities, I did manage to locate my room key after about five minutes, during which I completely exhausted my extensive vocabulary of profanities. But not before I stood up and banged the back of my head on the underside of the deck. Even though it hurt like hell, I busted out laughing, hoping the neighbors didn't come outside and see a madman howling at the moon.

A couple of things have been confirmed on this trip (besides the fact that I should probably just stay home and wear a helmet, mouth guard, knee pads and steel-toed boots at all times):
1. Physical pain, although not a lot of fun, is a great reminder that you're alive. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to go very long between reminders.
2. The ability to laugh out loud, even while experiencing discomfort, really comes in handy. (Note to self: Keep this in mind when making a big deal out of nothing.)


Footnote: I'm sitting outside the hotel office uploading this blog entry as a middle-aged woman in a bathing suit is rushing inside holding a bloody towel to her elbow. The locals have nick-named this "The Iron Coast". I guess the name "Broken Beer Bottle Coast" must have already been taken.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Snapshot

Silhouetted drummers
against a pink sunset riding on the waves.
An old man dances
and a little boy on a bike with training wheels grins at me.
Passing cars honk and passengers crane their necks
to see the source of the sound.
An innocent girl smiles sweetly as I stop to listen...
Captivated.
Tapping my finger on the tailgate of a truck
in sync with the rhythm of every human heart.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Feliz Cumpleaños a Dana

Today is my friend Dana's birthday.  So I decided to accost everyone I encountered throughout the day, many of them random strangers, and ask them to wish her a happy birthday. Somehow I managed to find representatives from China, England, New Zealand, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Honduras and the U.S. 

Here's the video:



La Cascada

What Honduras lacks in water pressure, it more than makes up for with its many spectacular waterfalls. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's why there's no water pressure....all the water is gushing down scenic gorges and not out of the faucets.

Yesterday I took a 3.5 hour hike to Pico Bonito National Park to see one of the most magnificent waterfalls I've ever witnessed. I arrived at the ranger station where the woman behind the desk took my 130 limpiras, then unfolded a well-worn piece of notebook paper to reveal a hand-drawn map of the route. This is apparently the only copy in the entire country, so you can't take it with you. I felt like I was a soon-to-be-released prisoner being told by a fellow inmate where the buried treasure was. You'd think that for 130 limpiras somebody could run into town and stop by the KwikCopy.

The only hitch was that the 2 minute "orientation" was entirely in Spanish, and I didn't want to "cheat" by asking her to repeat the instructions in English, which I'm pretty sure wasn't an option anyway. I did manage to glean that the hike up to the falls took about an hour and a half each way, and that I needed to keep a sharp eye out for the turn-off from the main trail.

The hike begins with a 100 yard long bridge, suspended at a dizzying height above the roiling waters and gargantuan boulders below. I'm talking about the kind of bridge in an Indiana Jones movie, that gets more and more wobbly the further out you walk. And then they cut to a closeup shot of a frayed cable about to break, and the next thing you know, Harrison Ford is hanging on for dear life while the crocodiles lick their chops.

I had been told by the folks at Omega Lodge that there was really no way to miss the turn-off to the waterfall. Any time someone gives me directions that include the phrase "You really can't miss it" or "There's only one way to go", I feel like one of the children of Israel about to wander off into the Sinai desert for 40 years.


About 45 minutes into the hike, right about the time I was starting to wonder if I had missed the turn-off, I encountered a couple of sweaty hikers coming down the trail towards me. They were trying to explain to me in broken English something about "turning to the right path….very difficult…the cross…something something something". I was beginning to wonder if they were missionaries, when I realized their accents were French and I blurted out “Parlez-vous Française?” To which they responded “Oui!...Trés difficile...tournez a droit…la croix est jaune…je ne sais quoi." Thank goodness for Miss Crichton’s high school French class...I remembered the word “jaune”... which if you’ve ever seen anyone with jaundice you will recognize as the word for “yellow”.

It all came into focus as I realized they were saying that the sign marking the path to the waterfall was a yellow cross that was very difficult to see and when I did see it I should turn to the right. So they weren’t missionaries after all…simply two good Samaritans trying to prevent me from becoming a lost soul. I kept my eyes peeled, and sure enough, about 30 minutes later, I came upon the cross, which Hiawatha would not have been able to locate with a GPS.


It was all worth it in the end, however, because I did get to see a truly magnificent sight, and I made it back to the lodge in one piece before nightfall.


And speaking of waterfalls…the following day I took the ferry from the mainland back to the island of Roatan. You know you’re in for a rough ride when the lady at the ticket window hands you your change and a complimentary Dramamine® tablet. I’m dead serious.

I didn’t take the motion sickness pill, since the trip was less than an hour and a half in duration and I wanted to be coherent when I arrived.  After about 45 minutes, I actually drifted off to sleep but was awakened by a combination of my own nausea and the awful sound of half the people on board puking their guts out. It was like listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with a case of amoebic dysentery.

I can just imagine the conversation on the playground:
“What does your dad do?”
“He has a brand new job…he works on the ferry boat to Roatan. The guy before him quit after only 3 days!? How ‘bout your dad?”
“My dad just quit his job…He heard they had an opening at the zoo cleaning up after the elephants.

Monday, March 2, 2009

After The Deluge


Last night we had a “gully washer”. Even Noah would have been looking for higher ground.

It started about 2 a.m. and continued throughout the night….an absolute torrential downpour that lasted about 5 hours. Because my room has only screens instead of windows, for most of the night the wind was howling through the cabin, the curtains were parallel with the floor, and the room was filled with a fine mist. And because the roof is made of corrugated tin, with all the falling branches and sticks and fruit and what-not, it was like trying to sleep in a firecracker factory with the sprinkler system on.

Today the rain has abated somewhat, but the temperature has dropped significantly, and I have no long pants or socks, having left them at the hotel I'll be returning to on my way back home. Thankfully I do have a fleece pullover and 2 (moist) blankets I can crawl under. The humidity is 150%, and the weather forecast calls for more of the same, so the chances of anything drying out anytime soon are slim to none. It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes the soaking wet t-shirt I hung out to dry yesterday afternoon to turn into a biology experiment.

Under Pressure


Look closely. There are three people in this photograph, not two. If you squint your eyes, you can see someone in the front of the raft whose head is being removed from their neck. That’s me…the guy who has somehow mistaken a class IV white water rapid for a drinking fountain which dispenses water at a rate of 347 cubic meters per second. I won’t be thirsty for quite a while.

At one point during the trip we stopped for a breather. When I was a kid, if I complained that my friends were getting to do something that I wasn't, the response was often "If everyone else was jumping off a cliff, would you want to do that too?" Apparently the answer is "Yes". Having faced my terror of heights the day before, I went first, adding more bruises to my previously pulverized posterior.

At the end of our thrilling three hour trip down the river, we were hauled back to the lodge where we regaled each other over hot plates of spaghetti with tall tales of our death-defying adventures. See if you can guess which guy in the photo below is NOT a tourist.