Sunday, May 25, 2008
Day 44 Friday May 23
Left Santa Rosa de Copan,
Temp: 36 degrees C
Sunny
The power went out early in the evening and was still out when we left. No fans equals a hot night in a room with no outside window. The good news was that the cooking was done on a gas stove so we were able to have coffee and breakfast before leaving.
The kindness of strangers:
As we were getting ready to pull out a gentleman who was sitting near us at breakfast went out and returned with a bag of fruit for us. “Some good Honduran mangos for you” and wish us a good trip in passable English.
The roads were in reasonable shape so we made good time and made it all the way to La Ceiba before dark, although we hit some heavy rain in the mountains and were soaked to the bone when we stopped for the night.
This was a day filled with unpleasant moments. We had many near misses on the road with crazy drivers forcing us over or cutting us off and witness two serious accidents before we got half way. One was fatal and I’m still struggling to get the picture out of my head.
When we got to La Ceiba we found that there was a big annual festival starting and no rooms were available for miles around except for a sort of backpacker place called The Rotterdam Beach Hotel.
We had it on a list of possibilities to check out from the Lonely Planet book (2007 edit.) which claimed the cost was 255 Lempiras per night, clean and English was spoken there.
Well the last room was available but the owner insisted on charging us 600 lempiras . She was very rude (in Spanish) and would make no effort to speak slowly after I politely asked her so that I could understand her. After we had paid her for the night another couple arrived looking for a room and mentioned that nothing else was available, they had looked everywhere.
When I asked what her check-put time was she got offensive and insisted that we could only have the room if we took it for two nights and practically threw our money back at us.
We didn’t have any choice so we paid 1200 for two nights.
The room was squalid. there were no towels, no soap, no place to put anything or hang our clothes, no hot water and limited cold, holes in the screens and only one window opening properly. Everything was dirty and the sheet was ripped and threadbare on a broken down mattress that had a serious sag in the middle and a resident population of lower life forms…..
nothing really serious, except for the fact that the temps were in the forties and the relative humidity was at 98%! We lay in pools of sweat or sat out on the porch most of the night. At around two in the morning the couple next door called it quits and left for another town hoping for something better. The owner showed up to change the sheets and I asked if we could borrow the fan in the room as the room was now unoccupied and we would return it in the morning. She refused and when I “begged” she brushed me off and told me it was “reserved”! It was still empty the next day….
Kilometers - Daytrip: 338 km total: 11,220
Gas: $ 30.00
Lodging: Rotterdam Beach Hotel $70.58
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