Monday, January 16, 2006

Our cab driver dropped us off right in front of two of the three hotels listed in the book. At the first place we tried, a guy came to the gates and the first thing out of his mouth was that the rooms with double beds were all taken. Michael wanted me to ask about rooms with separate beds, but I didn’t feel like it. I mean, who runs a business that way, where the first thing said is “we can’t accommodate you?” How does he even know we want a double bed? We said thanks and moved on.

We were discussing this event when a little boy walked by. Even after he passed us, he was staring at us (mostly me) so hard that he missed a sudden step up in the sidewalk and went sprawling. Then two teenage girls giggled by, staring at my hair the whole time.

We went into the second hotel. Yes, they had rooms. How much? The old lady in charge looked at me for a long moment and then said, “Doscientos ochenta lempiras.” Two hundred eighty lempiras is about $14.75 USD. The LP quoted $5.75. I know things change, prices go up, yadda, but nothing else has gone up that much in the two years since the book has been out.

A room without baño was Lps. 150, more than we paid for a room with bathroom in touristy Copan Ruinas. I had a really bad feeling, so we got out of there and tried the third place, getting stared at all the way. It was crazy expensive. It looked fancy enough to merit the price, but that was moot since it was way out of our range.

So we had to go crawling back to the second place and take the room without a bathroom. David, the boy who showed us the room, spoke perfect English. Michael asked him if he’d spent time in the US, and he said he had not, that he attended a bilingual school. I was truly impressed; I didn’t think it was possible to achieve that level of fluency without total immersion.

I was not in a good mood. The staring of the townsfolk on top of the first guy’s seeming unwillingness to work with us and the second hotel’s tripling of the price gave me uncomfortable suspicions. Plus our room had ants in the beds.

But my suspicions turned out to be unmerited. Some other gringo backpackers checked in shortly after we did. They tromped down the hall complaining about the idiocy of the guy next door, something about him not knowing how many rooms he had. On top of that, they had been quoted the same price for rooms with bathroom as we had. So, no need to take it personally; I guess the folks are just capitalizing on their LP listing and lack of competetion in the budget category. Well, good for them I guess.

David is a cool fifteen-year-old. I can’t stress how good his English is. We chatted with him for a while and he was very excited when he found out I’m a writer. He loves to read and has been devouring something called the Left Behind series. He showed me the one he’s working on now and it seems to be some kind of Christian science fiction.
He asked me, “What kind of stories do you write, science fiction? Adventure? …Love? I told him travel stories, but he ignored all that. He really, really wanted me to be a science fiction writer. We had a small bonding moment when we both agreed we can’t wait for the last Harry Potter book to come out.

David recommended we eat at a place called Tzots. (There is a good chance I’m spelling it wrong.) He said it was just like Friday’s. Apparently there is a Friday’s in Tegucigalpa, which is a cool place because it has three malls whereas San Pedro Sula only has two. We didn’t really see anything else nearby and we were pretty hungry, so we decided to treat ourselves and check out Honduras’s answer to TGIFriday’s.

It was expensive, but if you’re going to do something, go ahead and do it, right? The décor was the familiar mixed kitch, oars and washboards and photos of baseball teams and such. Three TVs, each showing something different. The menu was in Spanish, but all the items had English names. So “Hot Wings” was described as “alitas de pollo con salsa picante” or whatever.

We ordered a Hot Wings appetizer. The wings, coated with a mild red sauce, were each topped with a dollop of honey-mustard and came with a small bowl of tartar sauce for dipping. I guess if it’s all foreign to you, creamy white tartar sauce makes just as much sense as creamy white blue cheese or ranch.

When we got back to the hotel, David seemed eager to hear our impressions of Tzots, and we told him we liked it. And I mean, it was pretty good, but man it was expensive. (Expensive = $40 USD for two entrees, appetizer and beers.)

We didn’t sleep too well since it was freezing (way too cold for the cold water showers down the hall) and I had to wake Michael up a few times in the night since he’d banged his head so hard and could have had a concussion. I didn’t really know what to look for, but he seemed normal and he lived through the night, so I guess he’s fine.

Today we had pupusas for lunch. At about $2.50 for the entire meal, pricewise they were much more like it. The only problem was that all they had was mixed chicharron and queso. Chicharron is pork fat and while I do love pork fat (do not read any sarcasm into that, I’m completely sincere… mmm, bacon) I found the chicharron to have kind of a weird strong flavor that I didn’t love. But the pupusas were good and hot and we got to feel very cool knowing exactly what we were doing.

And it’s a good thing we did know what we were doing, because all eyes were on us for every bite and sip. It’s making me feel self-concious. I have no problem being looked at – I’m fully aware that we’re foreign, we’re different, Michael’s huge, I’m rocking a fro and dirty boots, we’re a mixed couple, etc. Go on ahead and look… after all, we’re here to look at you; we’d be hypocritical if we minded being looked at in return.

But we have never yet been stared at with this much continuous, conversation-stopping, slack-jawed intensity. I mean, a kid fell off the sidewalk for crying out loud. And they’re not responding very well to our smiles and greetings either. I’m not really feeling this town. We probably won’t stay long.

 

Post a comment:

Name:
Email:
URL:
A pig says:
Comment: (HTML is allowed)

Santa Rosa de Copan's Cathedral.

Santa Rosa de Copan's Parque Central.

Pupuseria Paty's.