Honduras: Home at last

FYI, sand fly bites are delightfully itchy and unsightly

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Ahh, the ripe hour of 2 a.m. Such a wonderful time to stash my life away into a backpack and grab a ride to the bus station. I actually got there before it opened, but the guards let me slouch on one of the cushioned seats in the lobby and watch some weird, weird movie about a fictional high-profile kidnapping in Mexico City. It's like the guards knew I was heading home and wanted to send me off just right. Solitary grandmothers and Garífuna families slowly filed in for the 3:30 bus, which meant we all got to enjoy the soft core porn scene between the sexy kidnapped lady and her brawny, gentle captor. That'll wake you up.

We passed through heavy construction but made our way into Tegucigalpa by 10:30, giving me ample time to catch my flight. On the way to the airport, the cab driver assured me that all flights had been canceled for days. I said "Hmm, I didn't get an e-mail yesterday from Taca so let's keep on keeping on." Ten minutes of silence later, he giggled to himself and noted that not even a single aircraft had flown overhead that day. We pull up to the airport, and everyone is unloaded suitcases and grasping boarding passes and passports - life as usual. After eavesdropping and eventually asking, I concluded that an unscheduled construction project was underway earlier that morning, so they temporarily shut down the airport while they figured out what to do. Not as exciting as the rumors I'd heard that someone had brought weapons into the airport. Booooring.

I spent my last L17 on a coffee, excited that I managed to leave Honduras without annoying change in a foreign currency. Then, to my obvious delight, I learned there was a $37 airport fee for international flights. You had to pay in dollars, and they didn't accept credit cards. Oh, and the ATMs (despite their lying screens) don't carry dollars either. So I had to withdraw lempiras, walk over to a currency changer with a fanny pack full of bills and get $42 back. Naturally, half of my change at the fee booth was in lempiras, so I bought some poundcake to spite them all.

On the flight home, I sat next to the regional coordinator of the United Nations Development Program, so he had a lot of fascinating insight on Latin America and all its woes. By the grace of Dios, I zipped through immigration and customs in D.F. and grabbed one of the first taxis out of the airport. I got to the apartment at 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday and passed out on the futon (was renting out my room) only to wake up at 7 a.m. and start the first of several months spent on the guide. Then on Thursday, I flew home to Ohio for 2 weeks. Never a dull moment!

El Fin.

The mighty Río Plátano in the heart of the reserve.