3/24- A Thursday. We wake up in the fleabag hotel Roselle and pack as quickly as possible, then hike the few blocks to Via Via, which has good international vegetarian food and is run by a Belgian couple or something. They also have a couple of rooms in back, and we score the last free one. It’s a bit pricey but nice, and after we’re installed, I feel better. Breathe deeply, relax, shower, and wash away all the grime and disappointment of the trip so far.
Damn, I had been hoping to find a nice place to chill out, work a bit in exchange for room and board, and have a good time chilling by the ocean. Instead, I picked the most depressing spot anywhere, and it sucked the sweat off a dead man's balls, in Robin Williams' immortal words. I really wanted to believe that the worst was behind us, but I just didn’t feel that nice good vibe feeling one likes to feel. I was off my stride energetically.
Went to Hotel Maya to use the internet. After five minutes by the clock of staring at an Internet Exploder window waiting to load a single page, I told the guy at the desk that something was wrong. He didn’t care. Since at Hotel Maya you pre-pay for your internet time in advance, he didn’t have to care. My half-hour was utterly wasted, and I asked for my money back. He refused, and I insulted him in Spanish. By this time, I was developing a real hatred for Hondurans in general, which just kept getting reinforced daily.
Went and bought some cigars, although I’m not a big cigar smoker. They were cigars, and I got little satisfaction from smoking them. We went to Tunkul, the bar and restaurant next door to Via Via for dinner, had one of their gigante burritos (truly large) with Jerry, Andy, and Diego, a Columbian who spoke pretty good English. After dinner, I filled Jerry and Andy’s water bottles from my First Need purifier (always glad to have a chance to demonstrate my geeky gadgets) because they had forgotten to bring or buy any water and were thirsty. Gave everyone a shot of my mezcal from Oaxaca, they left, and we slept.
3/25- Moved to Posada Honduras with Diego for a neighbor. It was cheap, and not too unpleasant, with a nice courtyard with some shade trees and a little shelter with tables and chairs. Maryse was sick with the shits and general malaise, so we went for breakfast to Licuado Express, just up the street. It was run and apparently owned by a tall, large, and domineering European woman of some Nordic flavor. The “granola” in the licuado turned out to be raw mueslix, and the yogurt was totally unsweetened. The overall impression was of strict Germanic health food. We didn’t plan to return, and lingered over our food only because it was so hard to swallow, literally. Met a cheesy American guy who wanted us to rent a house with him and his silent Honduran (?) wife (?) but he had a bad vibe, so that wasn’t appealing either.
After the cheesy guy walked out, a nice-looking young American couple came in and we struck up a conversation. They had found a job teaching kids just outside of San Pedro Sula through idealist.net. I couldn’t help thinking “idiot.net” as they told us about their basically rotten experience. They said that all the kids lied constantly, stole, and were otherwise difficult. They were physically beaten at home frequently, and would tell any sort of lie in an attempt to get out of a beating. They (the Americans) also said that everyone seemed really lazy and just wanted a handout. Despite their trying to put a pleasant spin on their experience, it sounded awful, and they were committed for another six months. Their place was an oven with no AC, so they just sweltered constantly, etc. Suck city.
Maryse, feeling sick and awful, went to bed early and I went out on the town with the boys, after meeting a crew of locals and longtime tourists in the street who seemed intent on a party. We went to a local’s pad, which looked like the aftermath of Dresden. Yikes. Just a couple thin mats on the floor, crumbling walls, and a bare lightbulb. Half the place was filled with some sort of rubble. Not to incriminate myself, but some of the local guys had some half-decent herbage, and spliffs were puffed by some in attendance. One totally crazy guy had a little tiny drum made out of a dried gourd, in the shape of a miniature djembe, more or less. I played it a bit, and it sounded amazingly good for a drum of its size, better than I’ve ever heard. Jerry got inspired to go fetch his big ashiko, and the party was on.
The crazy local said we should go out to a Mayan altar to drum and celebrate, which sounded like a good idea until we got there and found it surrounded by barbed wire. When I pointed out that it was trivial to get over the wire, the other local guy (names withheld to protect the guilty) told me that the problem wasn’t the wire itself, but the police post just down the way, and the fact that we weren’t supposed to be in there. If we drummed, they would certainly come and bust us, weed and all. Claro.
Local #1 said that the altar belonged to us all, and that the police had no right to keep us away from our common heritage. Although I agreed with him totally, at least in principle, I had zero desire to see the inside of a Honduran jail, and agreed with the majority that we should find another spot. After more philosophical wrangling, practicality won out, and we walked half a kilometer to a nice altar in the middle of a circular clearing that the cops didn’t care about.
I drummed for a while, and we took turn on the big and little drums till 3am. Finally, I made my way back to my hotel while everyone else dispersed. To my surprise, the front gate of the hotel was secured with a padlock. I banged on the gate, and tried a few medium-loud “hola”s to summon the gatekeeper. No joy. Then I walked around the corner, looking for a back way in. Nope. Just as I was walking back up the block to the front, a really angry guy in a pair of tighty-whities came around the corner barefoot and motioned impatiently for me to follow him. I did, and he let me in the gate, totally disgusted. He did not respond to my repeated apologies, but just went back to bed after locking the gate behind me. Oops.
Sleep, the final frontier.