Honduras! (Part 2)
Trip Start
Feb 10, 2008
1
20
29
Trip End
Aug 06, 2008
La Ceiba,
Honduras
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
I must also apologise in advance, as this is likely to be a very short and boring entry. However I havenīt got much to do today, and I am keen to get "up-to-date" for once.
So, I had just arrived in Tela, and begun openly weeping as all these memories suddenly came back to me. (Whilst I normally prefer to leave it up to the reader to work it out for themselves when I am joking, I feel I owe it to myself to make it clear that no tears were actually shed...) But it was cool to be back, and especially to be back at the hotel where I had previously stayed with the other volunteers for a couple of nights. Although I had remembered it being a bit on the pricey side, I was still taken aback somewhat when the receptionist quoted $46 a night for a single room (Bear (or bare? I never know) in mind that in Guatemala I was normally paying $2-4 a night). Even so, I had my mind set on staying here - I had been planning it for months - and to be honest it wasnīt that much of a departure from my recent habits. Besides, what could I get at home for the extra $36 that Iīd spent to avoid a cheap, dirty hostel? What could I forego to counterbalance this somewhat extravagant splurge? Well, next time I go out in Winch, I could drink four beers less than I normally would and, at 01:00, as opposed to paying a fiver to stand in a drunken silent haze upstairs in Moloko waiting for an attractive woman to come over and talk to me, I could go home and sleep.
View from the hotel terrace
As I sat on the rooftop terrace overlooking the Carribean sea, enjoying the sunset, fresh watermelon juice and garlic spaguetti with prawns, I felt pretty confident that my money was being well spent.The following day I woke up to a beautiful blue sky - what seemed like the first in months - and so decided to forego my original plan of staying just the one night and, having booked in for one more evening, headed off to the beach to do a little sunbathing. Now normally I think of myself as being pretty careful when it comes to sun exposure - with a nose as sensitive as mine one learns from an early age - but unfortunately it seems that the rare appearance of a cloud-free sun roused in me an excitement that overcame my common sense. I must point out that I did put sun cream on (almost) every inch of exposed skin, but it would appear that my upper thighs havenīt seen rays of this strength, or perhaps even any form of daylight, in their lifetime, and so have turned the most pink shade of pink imagineable. The same fate was suffered by a small stretch of skin petween my pubic region (sorry) and the end of my "treasure trail", which presumably hadnīt received the pleasure of my generous application of sun cream. On the plus side my face, surprisingly enough, seemed to turn a colour that was definitely more brown in nature than red, whilst the rest of my body fell into a category that was somewhere between these extremes. The trouble is with sunbathing, you never know what effect the sun has had on you until itīs far too late; when I left the beach at about 16:30 my thighs were looking as pasty as ever, and it was only later that night that the redness showed itīs ugly face.
View from the hotel terrace #2
And the burn. THE BURN. I have since spent most of my time lying around naked and watching TV, as any form of lower body clothing tends to create a friction that is uncomfortable to say the least. In fact it was in this somewhat embarassing position that the hotel maid walked in on me today; a situation that was only made worse by the fact that I happened to be scratching my balls at the time. She made her apologies and quickly exited, presumably shocked that I appeared to be pleasuring myself over Russiaīs victory over Sweden. Donīt get me wrong, it was a very impressive performance, but I think there are more appropriate ways to show oneīs appreciation. Anyway I digress... so yesterday (Tuesday) morning I decided I couldnīt let my pink thighs get the better of me and, having tenderly pulled on some underwear and shorts, hopped on a bus to La Ceiba. This town is the departure point for boats to the Bay Islands, which is after all the purpose of these last few relatively boring days of travel, and so Iīm looking forward to being able to enjoy the fruits of all those hours of bumpy bus rides and stiflingly hot hotel rooms. The thing is, it is apparently more expensive than the mainland, and I feel as though I wonīt really be able to enjoy it fully until my body has returned to itīs normal state. (Itīs quite funny actually, when I look in the mirror I am reminded of those childrenīs colouring books, where each section of a picture has to be coloured in according to itīs allocated number... only in my case the kid has just two pencils - brown and pink - and there are some areas that he is yet to get around to at all).
View from the hotel terrace #3
Having said that there is no point sticking around in La Ceiba, and so after the uneventful day that has been today (though not for the maid), I shall head out to Utila tomorrow. And besides, following the generous application of aftersun, the pain in my thighs has receded significantly (although on the downside I can already feel the onset of the itching, which in my opinion is by far the worst stage).My plans for tonight had been to stay in my air-conditioned room and cover my body in aftersun, but a girl I have just met at this internet cafe has asked me to join her and her (possible boy)friend for dinner tonight. Although one, and indeed I, would imagine that some company would make a nice difference following a few days of lone travel, my shallowness (sheīs no oil painting) and penchant for unfair premature judgements of personality (she just banged on about herself for five minutes) mean that the combination of a bottle of lotion and a couple hours of cable TV is sounding like pretty good company right about now. And I KNOW that you must have detected some innuendo that time, but I assure you that it was unintended.
Right, for the first time in months this blog is 100% up to date! How lovely.
Hope everyone is well
x
P.S. I would love to upload some photos to these last three entries, but I am struggling to find a PC with USB ports that cater to my abnormally wide USB key.
