Thursday, August 18, 2011

Volunteer Visit to Reitoca (Part 1)


Traveling & Bus #1

I feel like I’m getting the hang of this country. On Sunday I traveled to Reitoca, where I am living with a current volunteer until Thursday. From my home in Los Cañadas I brought my hiking backpack with enough clothes for the week and took a bus by myself to Teguz. When I got off the bus stop I took a cab to the airport. I had to bargain the cab ride down from 120 Limps to 90, though I was hoping to only pay 70. My mistake was probably that I took a cab that was waiting right off of the bus stop, and it might have been cheaper to flag another one down.

I felt like I proved to the cab driver that I wasn’t a tourist as we chatted on the ride to the airport. I explained that I wasn’t in fact catching a flight, but rather that I was meeting two other people there. The volunteer that I’m staying with (Patrick) was picking up a friend at the airport that would also be staying with us for the week. It made it much easier for all of us to meet in one place and then travel to Reitoca together.

Patrick showed up a little late (he had a rough night, but I’ll let him tell his story), and at around 11 we were ready to make our way to his site. We found a bus that would take us at only halfway to Reitoca, as apparently the last direct bus had already left. It was a cramped old school bus, but luckily it wasn’t very full and I was able to sit by myself with my backpack. Patrick and his friend Kristine sat behind me. I chatted with them for a bit, but I was starting to get motion sickness from facing towards them so after a few minutes I made myself comfortable in my seat and just listened to music. The first leg of the trip was about 90 minutes, and was a relatively pleasant ride. One intriguing sight in the countryside was a group of giant wind-energy turbines scattered throughout the mountainside. They weren’t operating, but they still looked like something out of a science fiction movie. I would have taken pictures, but I felt it wouldn’t be smart to take out even more technology (besides my MP3 player) to make myself a bigger target for theft.

Bus #2 (The Mountain Pass)

When we got off at our stop, we waited at a pulperia (convenience store) situated at the fork between the main road and our new path. Our next road was not to be quite as luxurious, as it leads up a steep and windy dirt road. The plan was to wait for Pat’s friend for an hour or so and then ride into town on the bed of his truck. However, as fate would have it, a bus for Reitoca showed up after about 10 minutes. In retrospect it might have been more comfortable to wait for our private ride, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to convince my party to do so.

The bus was completely packed, and we all had to stand in the aisle at first. Within about 5 minutes more motion sickness set in. I’m usually not such a wuss, but I think a lack of sleep, odd Honduran food, and noxious bus exhaust chemicals combined for a perfect storm of sickness. I immediately began to plan a vomiting escape route. The windows were wide enough to stick my head out of, but since each seat was crowded there would be no way I could shove the people out of the way and reach it in time. Eventually someone got off the bus and I was able to sit down, and I the man I was sitting next to that I might have to stick my head out the window at any second. As my nausea worsened, I realized that this would not be ideal either.

While I sat towards the front of the school bus, I observed the bus attendants (who collect money from passengers and help people with bags) sitting on the entrance stairs. The bus drove with the door open, so I thought that perhaps I could try to sit there to both get some fresh air and have a place where I could empty my innards without bothering anyone else. I explained the situation to them and I was able to sit at the top of the stairs, though one of the attendants stayed on the bottom step, half hanging out the door as we drove. I would have preferred to be at the bottom and have one less person in between myself and the open air, but it was still an improvement. In reality it was probably pretty dangerous to not sit in a seat and have to consciously hang on to the stair railing in order to prevent myself from falling out and breaking several bones. However, I just thought to myself “only in Honduras…” and continued to hang on.

The road we were traveling was absolutely not the type of terrain that the school bus engineers had envisioned when developing their product. It’s actually quite impressive to see what those bad boys are capable of. The roads are narrow and often should only be considered one-way, and they wind at sharp angles and at times go up very steep inclines. I began to wonder if we were going to be able to make it all the way up a few times, especially with the roads being a little wet and the bus filled past capacity. My doubts were shattered thankfully as the machine managed to continue crawling at a snail’s pace.

After about an hour or so the bus started emptying of passengers here and there, and another twenty minutes later I was able to have a seat all to myself. Sitting down with my head by the window helped me to feel a lot better, and eventually my nausea dissipated entirely. There were several close calls, but in the end I felt proud that I was able to avoid losing my lunch.

Reitoca



Finally, after two hours we made it to his site. We stopped by Pat’s house first, which was a pretty cozy little place. It wasn’t heavily furnished, because apparently there aren’t boatloads of funds for buying furniture. He definitely had almost everything he needed, including a nice hammock in his main room. As cool as it was, I knew I wouldn’t be able to have a place of my own as a result of a new Peace Corps rule. Only time will tell if this will work out for better or for worse.



After a bit we all walked to my hotel to get me checked in. The room was cozy but overall pretty nice. I had my own bathroom, but the running water only worked sporadically. The sink didn’t work at all, and the toilet and shower only worked at certain times of the day. I turned on the shower to see what I had to look forward to in the morning. I was a little let down but not all that surprised when I discovered the water pretty much just dripped down slowly, straight down from the faucet. And of course, the water wasn’t remotely warm.



 

Once I got all of my things in my room, we went to get something to eat. Apparently Pat never cooks for himself, as he can just go to various locations in town and have another family cook for him. While it is more expensive for him to ‘eat out’, it requires a lot less work. Beans in and of themselves can take hours to prepare, thus to me it seems worth it to eat with other families as he does. The pulperia we went to seems to almost be like another home for him in the community. It was fun eating there, and I got in some good practice with my Spanish talking with the family.

Since it had been a long day for all of us, by the time we were done eating all of us were ready to sleep. I went back to my hotel, while Pat and his friend Kristine went back to his place. Thankfully my room had a fan, as Reitoca is much hotter than Las Cañadas. I spent some time sitting in the breeze of the fan and trying to get my internet to work. After a half hour I gave up home that my modem would get a signal and went to sleep at the ripe hour of 7:30PM.

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