No, I don’t want your big wad of cash.
There aren’t really a whole heck of a lot of buses leaving Gracias a Dios heading south through the mountains. The roads are bad, the towns are small, the scenery is breathtaking…sounds like the perfect route to Tegucigalpa. The main method of transportation south is by jalón, which literally translates to ‘pull’ in english. Essentially, you just hop in the back of pickup trucks who are going in the same direction as you. Some people earn their living this way, others just take the extra money when they can get it, and others just have no problem allowing people to sit in the back of their pickups while they just do their thing.
I went down to the bridge at the edge of town, where I was told you can get a ride, and waited for a while, half wondering if it was in vain, though my sources of information seemed pretty reliable. Soon enough, a pickup lined with benches in the back pulled up. I, along with some others (all locals) who were waiting, inquired about price and destination and it was all good, so I hopped in. We waited a short while until the back filled up, and we were off. I talked to some of the people along the way, who were all very nice, including some men with briefcases (I don’t know if they were conducting business or whatever, but they looked slightly out of place in this pickup). By the time we got to the final destination, I was among an entirely different set of faces. A woman got on with her baby, who just slept the whole time, which even I thought was impossible, and another guy got on with his daughter who was just holding on to her daddy for dear life. Meanwhile, the scenery passing us by was just lovely, beautiful mountainous terrain, deep canyons, and thick forest.
I was dropped of at San Juan, a place I considered stopping in but really felt the need to get moving to Tegus (I wanted to change my flight to Brazil to allow myself more travel time, and I felt it was getting a little late). I stood at this fork in the road, where I was supposed to wait for another jalón, when I saw a boy ask some man getting into his pickup if he was headed to La Esperanza (which was exactly where I was going), and then he jumped in the back. Huh…this little boy’s on to something. Maybe I’ll ask. And I did. Sure enough he was going to La Esperanza, and he didn’t even want anything for the ride. Sweet. Free ride.
The boy got out of the truck after not too long, and the driver asked me if I wanted to go up front. I didn’t really…I enjoyed the actual ride in the back of the pickup and the view was by far superior. We got into town less than an hour later, the guy stopped in the town center, and I jumped out, thanked him, and found a bus to Tegucigalpa.
Tegucigalpa lies in a valley, surrounded by mountains, so I had a nice view of it as we approached, not that there’s too much to see. I think I preferred the view from the road leading in. Getting off the bus, I was, as per usual, overrun by taxi drivers offering me rides. I’m pretty sure the one I opted for way overcharged me again, but it was a long day of traveling and I wasn’t too worried about it.
The next day, after having my ‘free breakfast’ of tea and toast, I went to the main square to start checking out the city. I saw a Dunkin’ Donuts and sure enough, I went in, embarrassingly excited about indulging myself with my favorite medium cream and sugar coffee. (For the record, I’ve been living on instant coffee, which wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t smack in the middle of coffee country, which I can smell from the highways, but never have the chance to try). I wasn’t entirely disappointed, the coffee was almost the same. The medium, however, was probably really a small (perfect example of portion sizing in the States), but it was good enough for me. I took my coffee, bought a newspaper, and went out to the square to read my paper.
Now, when I read the paper in Spanish, I always have the dictionary sitting out next to me, looking up all those words that are crucial to understanding what’s happening. Sometimes it takes me a whole 15-20 minutes to read one story, but it’s so gratifying once I’m done. So I was sitting in the square, reading the paper, when some guy came up and started talking to me. “Pleased to meet you”, he said, in Spanish. I ignored him, not really knowing if he was talking to me. He said it again. I looked up, said hello, and returned to my paper.
“Busco skdfsdh” (I’m looking for (something incomprehensible)). I look up again and he’s trying to hand me a huge wad of cash. I recoiled slightly, and said, I’m sorry, I can’t help you. Again, he repeated, “Busco sksdlkfj”, and I swear I could not understand what he was looking for. I asked him again, so maybe I could look the word up, but I didn’t even know where to start. I think he then told me to open my bag a little. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I can’t help you.” He tried again to give me this money. There was a lot of money here, and I pushed his arm away, making sure not to touch the money, not to make anything look like I ever touched the money. There’s lots of police/army people (I can’t tell the difference) with huge machine gun-like things hanging around the park, and I surely don’t need any of them to see me touching this man’s huge wad of cash. He then tried to lift my coffee cup up to put the money underneath it. I pushed his arm away again, took my coffee, dictionary, and paper, and left. I stood there, completely dumbfounded at what the hell just happened. I looked back toward where I had been sitting, and scanned over the square and I swear I could not find this man anywhere. Hmm…welcome to Tegucigalpa.
Tegus (as the locals called it) doesn’t seem like a dangerous city, though I was staying in the slightly better part of town. Me and one fo the guys at the hostel joke whenever we leave that we’re “going out to make more friends”, because it’s nearly impossible to be left alone there. I was single-handedly stopping traffic just walking down the street…the guys here whistle, smooch, hiss, and say things in both English (bery nice, lady, bery nice) and Spanish (mmm…mamacita, mi amor). Taxi drivers tend to be the worst…first of all, these taxi drivers honk more than anywhere I’ve ever seen. They honk to try to get a fare, they honk when stuck in traffic, they honk when they see a friend, and they definitely honk when they see a lady they like. I think sometimes they honk just to hear themselves honk because none of the aforementioned criteria are readily obvious.
So, these taxi drivers…yeah, they honk and I just ignore them because I don’t need a ride. They slow down, and I can see them looking out the window at me. Then they start hissing to get my attention. By this point, traffic behind them is starting to honk. Finally, as they pass by, you hear a big smooch. After days of this (because I was there for many days too long, waiting out Hurricane Beta), I was just exhausted with it all. Going out for a walk became tiring. I considered that maybe I should stop to talk to one of them, and then just sock him one, hoping that somehow the word would get out to all the men of Tegucigalpa that this is what awaits them if they continue to harrass women.
Even sitting in the park reading a book, a normally relaxing activity, was an effort. Without fail, within 5 minutes of sitting down, some man would come up to me and try to talk. Then one morning, really quite down about the amount of time I had wasted in this stupid city waiting out stupid Hurricane Beta, I came up with the most brilliant, yet so very basic solution. I don’t speak Spanish! I mean, really, it’s beyond perfect and I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner. And then, if they try to speak English (because that small minority that does really likes to practice), well, I don’t speak that either. Nobody knows where I’m from…I could be from anywhere (consequently, I’ve been getting a lot of people asking me if I’m from Germany) And my little trick worked like a charm. “You espeaka spanish?” No. “Oh, only espeaka english”, to which I didn’t reply. The man sat there for another minute and then left, and I could hardly contain myself.
Tags: Honduras, Tag Index
Tania
November 12th, 2005 at 6:36 am
yes baby, you do want my wad of cash. big cash. super cash. and while you’re at it i want you to polish my old khashilnikov rifle. this one was used to kill mongols right on the border during the war. the great war. not this flimsy, unweildly conflict of ego and self-gratification cum haliburton. cheney and rumsfield shoot wad, ask middle class and below to clean up. news on the ones.
so you espeka the travel, huh tania. chroniceling the everyday, which becomes extradionary when filtered through the veneer of immortality or fleeting immortality. tv makes anything sexier, so do blogs.
on the front here, there is one less thing that you can make fun of me for. 30 and 6-figures is now a reality. just in time and just in number. got the gig that i was talking about with graham. more importantly the mcdonalds client, one of them told me that they usually use me as an example of innovative thinking. that’s huge. i feel that with work and life, i’m almost back. pretty good for crashing in the parents’ basement last september.
i have to admit i miss you. we all do. but we’re extremely proud that you’re doing all this; having the adventure of a lifetime. what can be better? more pumping, that’s what could be better.
stay golden pony girl, stay golden
ruks
December 12th, 2005 at 7:39 am
Congratulations to rukallstar for getting the coveted gig, er, salary.
Boo to fukallstar for exploiting Tania’s blog to brag about himself. So very tacky.