Trujillo

I managed to get some more time on the internet so I will finish about our Trujillo adventure. After spending 2 weeks straight at the orphanage just the 4 of us volunteers we decided we deserved to take a weekend away so we could actually sleep in, hopefully get a warm shower and if we were really lucky, get a room with a T.V.! We decided to hitch to Trujillo a small town about 3 hours east of La Ceiba. Trujillo is where Christopher Columbus first touched the mainland in Central America on his final voyage to the America´s. Alison, one of my roommates, had been wanting to go to Trujillo before she left which was this past Friday and had not been able to make it. Bethany, Yessenia, Alison and I packed our stuff and decided to leave early Saturday morning and hitch to Trujillo for a nice evening away and hitch back Sunday. We woke up to pouring down rain and decided to wait it out. We waited until about 10:30 when the rain eased up a bit and headed out for our journey. We got our first hitch in a nice truck with an Islander from the island Guanaja. The other girls made me sit in the front. I got in the truck and sat down and looked at the emergency brake where he had a huge gun. I don´t know anything about guns but this one was a big silver gun that he referred to as his 45. He told us that he carried it for protection because in his words, "in Honduras, killing a man is like drinking a glass of water." He was a very nice man who was really interested in talking world politics. He took us to a small village along the way where he stopped to donate so money to a family there. He gave us his number and told us if we needed any help to call him. He took us about half way and we got another hitch with a group of 3 men, driving 2 trucks, working on the cell phone towers along the way. We got to visit one of the cell phone towers with them which was a roller coaster truck ride across a river and up the steepest muddy road I have ever seen in my life. We learned while with them that the bridges were out to get to Trujillo and we would have to take a 3 hour detour. One of the men offered to drive us because he still had to visit a cell tower in Trujillo and didn´t want to drive home and back out Monday. Pablo drove us to Trujillo and what was said to be a 3 hour detour took no longer than 1.5 hours (he thinks they meant 3 hours by horse). We checked into an awesome hostel on the beach for $6-night that had hot water, t.v. and an all you can eat breakfast cooked by the German owner. Unfortunately the electricity was out so we headed out for a walk on the beach and to find some food. We got to a restaurant on the beach all lit up with candles because the electricity was out in the entire town and sat down to eat a nice meal. Each of us was served an amazing seafood meal which we all took the time to savor as opposed to how we eat with the kids, like it is the last meal we will ever eat. We invited Pablo to meet up with us so we could buy him a meal or some drinks to repay him for the ride. He offered to give us a ride home the next day and hang out in town until we were ready but we told him we would find our own way so he wouldn´t have to hang out in town longer than he wanted. We finished our meals and headed back to the hostel while Pablo headed out to check out the night seen. We explained to him that since we life at an orphanage we are all exhausted by 9 pm and it was only about 7:30 while we were eating and we were all yawning.

We headed back to the hostel and our electricity was back on so we turned on the TV and all fell asleep watching My Best Friends Wedding. I was routing for Prison Break reruns but was outvoted. We got up the next day and walked around Trujillo and then decided we should head home. We got a hitch right away and it was the worst hitch ever! A white van pulled over for us and we check and the man was going all the way to Saba which is half way and where we got dropped off on our way out. So we jumped and the chance and got in not noticing the pictures of cows and pigs on the side of the truck. At least I didn´t notice. Inside the van was a huge cooler that we think was carrying a dead cow without any ice. The van smelt worse than anything I have ever smelt. It smelt like dead rotting carcass. I was lucky enough again to be in the front and I had a window, but it was pouring out so while I kept the window open to help get some fresh air, I was getting soaked at the same time. My poor roommates were in the back squished against the meat cooler that was leaking blood. We were SO happy to get out of that van. We thanked the man and offered him some money which he denied like every hitch I have encountered. We then jumped on a bus that took us about 20 minutes towards where we were headed. They dropped us off and didn´t charge us, I am thinking because they just wanted us to get off the bus since we stunk so bad.

After about 10 minutes we jumped in another hitch, myself up front again with a man who owns a hotel in Olanchito but lives in La Ceiba. He had a son my age and a daughter a couple of years younger. Whenever I feel the slightest bit nervous I begin talking to our hitches about their families. This man again had a huge gun resting on the emergency brake. He gave us a ride all the way to the Hogar and dropped us off and we were home safely but smelling like dead cow. Ohhh! I forgot to mention the awesome breakfast we got. Sunday morning the German man Gunther stuck to his word and made us a pancake breakfast that was amazing. We got all we could eat pancakes, toast, German sausage, and eggs. It was delicious. We even got strawberry jam to put on our pancakes which was perfect because the other option, the honey jar, was filled with ants. Guatemala has awesome honey that they sell here in Honduras and it is more common for pancakes, honey as opposed to syrup, but the honey jars are always filled with little ants. But we eat it anyway.

Other than the kids, my favorite thing about my time here has been getting to know the locals through hitching. We always share our stories about our hitches and all joke about how we should all start hitching journals. The meat van was by far the worst!