3-26 Copan Ruinas. For some reason, the whole scene in Copan Ruinas wasn’t nearly as appealing as the first time we’d come through. It was okay, but uninspiring. Since we were now looking for a place to stay for a while, maybe we were looking at it more critically. In any case, it failed to enchant us, but we were both too sick, tired and disoriented to jump on another long bus, so we dug in at the Posada Honduras for a while.
The days went quickly in Copan, partly because we slept a lot. Our stay was filled with many minor hassles that added up to a bad time. For one thing, it seemed like a lot of people were trying hard to rip us off. Not just the normal gringo price type of treatment, but hardcore ripoffs. For example, one morning we went to the market for some cheap breakfast. This rather large woman hailed us from a tiny stall and asked if we wanted to eat. We said we did, and she ushered us inside. Yes, she could make us a vegetarian breakfast, sit down, sit down! So we did… After the hour it took her to laboriously find, clean, chop, and boil some vegetables, we got plates of boiled veggies and rice. No salsa; she was out. The “orange juice” turned out to be glasses of ice with a splash of juice over them. In all, the meal was worth less than a dollar all up. She charged $8, an absurd amount. Yes, we had forgotten to haggle over exactly what we would get and how much it would cost. I made the mistake of trusting that the nice fat lady would only slightly overcharge us. After that, I was just pissed off at the constant hassle of people trying to see how badly they could gouge us, and even though I didn’t really want to, I started treating all the Hondurans like potential ripoff artists, which was unfair, but effective. After a few days, Maryse started feeling better, and I had regained the spring in my step that said I was ready to travel again. Honduras had been a disaster, basically, and we wanted nothing better than to leave, and quickly. With Semana Santa over, we should be able to travel quickly and without hassles, so we started planning our next move.
Back to Guatemala was the consensus. Although we’d heard a lot of good things about Nicaragua from fellow travelers, it was a long way south, and we decided to leave it for another trip. We began the process of girding ourselves for chicken bus travel once again.
I had developed an obsession with machetes for some reason, but every machete I saw was cheesy, with a crappy leather sheath obviously mass-produced to be sold to tourists. I couldn’t find an authentic looking machete anywhere. Several times I asked campesinos where they had gotten their very authentic machetes, but received little in the way of help. Finally, one kid suggested I try the ferreteria, the hardware store. Ah…
At the local ferreteria, there were several machetes hanging on the wall in the typical cheesy leather tourist sheath. Actually, most of the real campesinos just walk around with their naked machetes gripped in their callused hands. I didn’t want to go quite that authentic, preferring a leather sheath. Struck out at the hardware store. But wait! What’s that, behind and between all those new machetes? May I see that one? No, not that one. No, to the right. No, to the left. No, rightfrigginthere! Yes, that one. Yes, the old one. Please, may I see it?
After convincing the improbably young, cute, and personable girl at the counter that I really did want the old beat up one, I examined the prize. Old, oiled leather sheath with lots of braided tassels, embellishments, and rusting hardware. The machete itself was actually made in Honduras rather than El Salvador or China, and came to a wicked point, with an overall pleasing, balanced and unique shape. Score! I had found the last real Honduran machete in the country as compensation for all my other difficulties. Paying less for it than I would for a generic Chinese machete back home, I tucked my new toy, along with a sharp new file, in my backpack. “Ustedes son bien armada ahora,” (You are well armed now) commented the bemused clerkette on our way out. Well, the machete does make one hell of a short sword, it’s true…
Back at Posada Honduras, I set myself to putting an edge on the blade, which turned out to be a major task. After six hours, I had made the uneven and totally blunt edge into a perfectly angled, smooth, straight, razor-sharp instrument. It shaved the hair off my arm without any trouble. Success plucked from the jaws of failure.
Now fully psychologically prepared for departure, Maryse and I spent a couple more days enjoying our leisure before traveling again. Sad to say, we spent more and more time in the air-conditioned coffee shop of the nicest hotel in town, watching CNN and generally taking refuge from Honduras and Hondurans. Clearly, we were in the wrong place, but we’d do something about that soon enough. For now, we were content to sit back and sip some really good coffee while we watched the Pope pass into the next world amidst much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not his, of course.