Happy to leave the Caribbean coast of Guatemala in my wake, I crossed the boarder into Honduras and traveled to the sleepy seaside hamlet of Omoa. Halfway between the boarder and the busseling transportation town of San Pedro Sula, Omoa offers travelers a cleaner, safer way point for a stopover. After consulting my guidebook there seemed to be only one real hostel in the area, Roli´s Place, and I
took a tuk tuk there and checked in. I couldn´t understand why my guildbook had called this place, ´the best hostel in Honduras.´ It was just a group of houses clustered around a fenced courtyard. They had also said that the owner, Roli, was a treat to meet, but he had been shot a couple weeks before for his environmental efforts to shut down an oil refinery in the area. He was currently recuperating and his less then inviting wife had taken over the duties of the hostel. She showed me the doom rooms, which looked to be an exact replica of the previous nights accomodations in Rio, with a dark room with bare mattress's and no mosquito netting. My spirits fell as I conceded another sleepless night fighting off mossies when Allan walked in the door.
Allan, an Aussie I had befriended while studying in Antigua, was a funny easy going guy who was always up for a beer. Relieved, I threw my arms around him before he even had a chance to put his bag down. We checked into one of the hostel's much more accommodating doubles. They even had sheets and fans! We waisted no time in walking down the road to a beachfront bar and catching up over a few cold beers.
Returning to the hostel a few hours later I bumped into a Canadian couple I had met in Tikal and a party of sorts ensued. Along with a couple other people in the hostel, and a couple bottles of rum, we all gathered together around a picnic table in the courtyard talking over IPOD music and drinking Cube Libres . Somewhere along the way someone had the bright idea to roll up a joint. A note here, we had seen a lot of fliers and post its up around the hostel warning that drugs and loud noise was not acceptable. But, after hours of loud noise with no complaint we didn´t see anything going awry if we were to burn one down. We were wrong. The landlady came running out with a phone in her had yelling at us in inaudible Spanish. I didn´t get all of it, but I definitely heard ¨no,¨ ¨marijuana,¨ and ¨Policia.¨ We filled in the blanks and apologized saying we would put it out and go elsewhere. She gave us a scowl as we headed out the gate and down the road to the beach.
After a few minutes, Allan decided to go home, slightly high and slightly annoyed by Vince, the Canadian guy with us who decided to tell us how everything was better in Montreal. He took our key, which was needed to open the gate at the entrance to the hostel but Vince told me he had his and the two of us set off for a Discotec down the beach. After about an hour of watching locals shuffling their feet on the periphery of the dance floor to blaring reggaetone, we decided we had taken in enough culture and headed home. Arriving at the gate I waited for Vince to retrieve his key.
¨So, are you going to open up the gate or what, eh,¨ he asked after a beat.
¨Vince man, I thought you said you had your key,¨I replied with unsuppressed annoyance.
¨No man, I said don´t worry, you have your key.¨
¨How would you know if I had my key or--¨
I cut myself off there. I was not going to get drawn into a he said, she said debate with a man who thought that Montreal had the best Cerviche in the world. I looked at my options and came to a logical conclusion. Instead of ringing the bell and waking up the already disagreeable landlady, I would hop the fence and return with the key. I did just that, but, as I came back with the key the landlady was standing there with the phone in her hand yelling at me again for letting in non-guests. Whereas before she was completely warranted in her tirade, this time around I knew she was mistaken and tried to explain it to her in a calm and respectful way. She was having none of it however, an
d after a few minutes I gave up, ¨Fine, call the damn police,¨ I said and went to the front and let Vince in. I returned to my room to prepare my statement, but, as I suspected the police never came. The rest of the night passed without incident.
In the morning, over breakfast, I recounted the previous nights dramatic conclusion to Allan who thought it was a riot. He didn´t however, find it so funny upon our return to the hostel finding our belongings thrown out into the hallway and our room already cleaned for the next guests. The landlady was standing there, arms crossed, waiting for us to say something, anything. We knew better and quietly packed up our stuff in the hallway and left without a word. I didn´t mind the whole thing, but I felt bad for Allan, who in all truth got kicked out because he was with me. He had planned on staying in Omoa for a few days and now, being barred from the only hostel in town, had to move on. He wasn´t sore about it though and even gave a light-hearted laugh as we parted ways and he walked off down the road. My advice this time around is don´t stay in a hostel where the regular owner has been shot and his irate wife is filling in and don´t rely on a Canadian who thinks Montreal is the cultural, culinary, and ecological capital of the world.
took a tuk tuk there and checked in. I couldn´t understand why my guildbook had called this place, ´the best hostel in Honduras.´ It was just a group of houses clustered around a fenced courtyard. They had also said that the owner, Roli, was a treat to meet, but he had been shot a couple weeks before for his environmental efforts to shut down an oil refinery in the area. He was currently recuperating and his less then inviting wife had taken over the duties of the hostel. She showed me the doom rooms, which looked to be an exact replica of the previous nights accomodations in Rio, with a dark room with bare mattress's and no mosquito netting. My spirits fell as I conceded another sleepless night fighting off mossies when Allan walked in the door.Allan, an Aussie I had befriended while studying in Antigua, was a funny easy going guy who was always up for a beer. Relieved, I threw my arms around him before he even had a chance to put his bag down. We checked into one of the hostel's much more accommodating doubles. They even had sheets and fans! We waisted no time in walking down the road to a beachfront bar and catching up over a few cold beers.
Returning to the hostel a few hours later I bumped into a Canadian couple I had met in Tikal and a party of sorts ensued. Along with a couple other people in the hostel, and a couple bottles of rum, we all gathered together around a picnic table in the courtyard talking over IPOD music and drinking Cube Libres . Somewhere along the way someone had the bright idea to roll up a joint. A note here, we had seen a lot of fliers and post its up around the hostel warning that drugs and loud noise was not acceptable. But, after hours of loud noise with no complaint we didn´t see anything going awry if we were to burn one down. We were wrong. The landlady came running out with a phone in her had yelling at us in inaudible Spanish. I didn´t get all of it, but I definitely heard ¨no,¨ ¨marijuana,¨ and ¨Policia.¨ We filled in the blanks and apologized saying we would put it out and go elsewhere. She gave us a scowl as we headed out the gate and down the road to the beach.
After a few minutes, Allan decided to go home, slightly high and slightly annoyed by Vince, the Canadian guy with us who decided to tell us how everything was better in Montreal. He took our key, which was needed to open the gate at the entrance to the hostel but Vince told me he had his and the two of us set off for a Discotec down the beach. After about an hour of watching locals shuffling their feet on the periphery of the dance floor to blaring reggaetone, we decided we had taken in enough culture and headed home. Arriving at the gate I waited for Vince to retrieve his key.
¨So, are you going to open up the gate or what, eh,¨ he asked after a beat.
¨Vince man, I thought you said you had your key,¨I replied with unsuppressed annoyance.
¨No man, I said don´t worry, you have your key.¨
¨How would you know if I had my key or--¨
I cut myself off there. I was not going to get drawn into a he said, she said debate with a man who thought that Montreal had the best Cerviche in the world. I looked at my options and came to a logical conclusion. Instead of ringing the bell and waking up the already disagreeable landlady, I would hop the fence and return with the key. I did just that, but, as I came back with the key the landlady was standing there with the phone in her hand yelling at me again for letting in non-guests. Whereas before she was completely warranted in her tirade, this time around I knew she was mistaken and tried to explain it to her in a calm and respectful way. She was having none of it however, an
d after a few minutes I gave up, ¨Fine, call the damn police,¨ I said and went to the front and let Vince in. I returned to my room to prepare my statement, but, as I suspected the police never came. The rest of the night passed without incident.In the morning, over breakfast, I recounted the previous nights dramatic conclusion to Allan who thought it was a riot. He didn´t however, find it so funny upon our return to the hostel finding our belongings thrown out into the hallway and our room already cleaned for the next guests. The landlady was standing there, arms crossed, waiting for us to say something, anything. We knew better and quietly packed up our stuff in the hallway and left without a word. I didn´t mind the whole thing, but I felt bad for Allan, who in all truth got kicked out because he was with me. He had planned on staying in Omoa for a few days and now, being barred from the only hostel in town, had to move on. He wasn´t sore about it though and even gave a light-hearted laugh as we parted ways and he walked off down the road. My advice this time around is don´t stay in a hostel where the regular owner has been shot and his irate wife is filling in and don´t rely on a Canadian who thinks Montreal is the cultural, culinary, and ecological capital of the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment