You see, just like the book says, most travellers tend to fly through, or skip, Honduras, except for the cheap diving courses on the Bay Islands. So we thought that we would head for the North coast´s Garifuna villages to get off the gringo trail and find paradise - and we kinda did.
On the way through the Honduras with Laurent & Laura filling our heads with stories of (his) primitive pastoral lifestyle high in the Swiss Alps, we hit a local bus price protest outside San Pedro (AKA the AIDs capital of central america). After a quick chat up of an off duty minibus driver in yours truly´s awful spanglish, and with Laurent roping in some other stranded Frenchies, we were able to slip through the waning picket line with only a few gruff looks from the protesters. Anna and I then went to Tela, where our room for the night had an open window - altogether we had a cricket, 4 cockroaches and in the morning we found one scorpion (he had stuck to the Heath Robinson gaffa tape device I had tried to block the window with), and we moved on to the randomly chosen Garifuna village of La Ensenada.
The villages dot the Caribbean coast from Belize to Panama and are made of Creole speaking descendents of slaves that were exiled from Roatan back in the day. There is a lot of poverty, basic subsistence living (fishing), basic tourist facilities, a few weekending local tourists, and in our experience, no gringos.
We arrived and did our classic luggage/accom manouver: we piled up the bags and one of us went off to scout all available lodging for the best deal for a week. We do this whenever we can basically because our bags are just too heavy to lug around! After meeting local-man-with-a-certain-quality, Gary, and seeing a mixted bag of overpriced or scummy rooms about three different people had pointed towards the Cuban, the last house on the beach. I came back beaming to tell Anna. I couldn´t believe it. Lovely big house on stilts, garden to the beach, big bedroom, sound of the waves, big kitchen, lounge with TV and stereo, and the owner and his partner who take guests because they have two spare rooms and like the company. And it was cheap (10usd a night). It was too good to be true. This was where coud spend 2, 3 weeks, even longer.
La Ensenada has about 200 residents, one tiny shop, about 5 palapas (shacks) serving food (you can have anything you want as long as its fried fish, rice and beans), most of the locals living in huts (mostly Pepsi sponsored) a couple of nice small hotels (empty) and four nice houses (all owned by the Cuban) on the beach - which, by the way, is a gorgeous arc of sand with rainforest at one end and stretches into the distance.
We lasted three days in the end, including watching the Euro final in the village shop. There was a classic side show when Gary reappeared, very drunk. The village shop had a young scrawny kitten that Anna had been giving some milk too during the footy, and Gary turned up and started getting very dramatic, and very, very camp, with the owner about taking away the cat. He was all swaying head, skinny torso, black painted nails, kitten kidnapping and rolling drunk (warning non-PC section)- and distracting me from the serious business of kraut-baiting. But it was all worthwhile when the shopkeeper leaned over to me and confided in me that Gary was ´batty man´ in rich creole pattoir. Yes, he really was the only gay in the village.
On the second morning we were both in the water looking back at the house, the forest, along at the beach, up at the blue sky; in soft, clear, gentle water; and we really were there. We really had arrived. It was truly magical. But a few hours later Anna came out of the water with a jellyfish sting. I spent some time on the Cuban´s internet to ensure that she about to make proper use of her urine. I didn´t watch. Anna got some bad cramps and muscle aches for a few hours after but no fever luckily. Later that day the true state of the kitchen also dawned on us. It turned out that the Cuban and partner spent all day in bed and drove the half hour to eat in Tela most evenings. They bought a lot of food, and vitamins (you have never seen so many power and pump pill bottles - and the big ones too) but left it to rot. The kitchen stank, there were fruit flies buzzing around black bananas, the floor thick with dust, gubbins everywhere and it was a real struggle to wade in and make something.
On our last morning we had a chat with Alfredo, our portly retiree host, that explained a few things. His partner, to who he lovingly referred as ´This One´ (as in ´not the other one who was 18´) was only 17 when they met, ´a few months ago´. There were five video recorders and no videos in the lounge (why have the videos elsewhere?), there were some fairly graphic images on his PC, ´This One´ clearly had other interests (fitting for a teenager) other than home building, and Alfie clearly only had interests in the bedroom. We felt dirty, the place was dirty, paradise ahd been tainted by an ex-pat exploiting ´their need for a father figure´. And the house, and the beach, and the village were wonderful. It was a bit sad. But funny, for everyone except for This One´s parents, probably.
La Ensenada bussling as ever
The beach backed by rainforest at tusk
The sting
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