after mitch

I worried before i came here that i might be hanging out with 19-year-olds who know everything about the world. The sort that tell you about the time they went diving in the Bay Islands and felt really "at one with everything and even saw a whale shark, man". But, fingers crossed, the people I have met so far have been really interesting.

Take the hotelier I met last night. Probably late 50s , with the perma-tan of an established ex-pat, he came out with his wife from France to set up a beautiful hotel in the Caribbean beach town of Tela. They renovated and decorated a house for 3 years. Then Hurricane Mitch came and gutted it. Most people would have gone home, but they simpy re-did it all again. He worked in advertising in Paris for 30 years, and his wife used to be a professional ballerina.

I sat listening to their stories of the storm. Apparently no metereologist knew where it was going, it zig-zagged everywhere. The aftermath sounded like madness. Every country wanted to help but much of the work wasn't co-ordinated or thought through. Efforts were well intentioned but slightly bizarre - one aid package included snow boots! Apparently there used to be 40-metre high palms on the beach. They all fell sick after the floods and died, so now there are replacement mini palm trees a fraction of the height.

After speaking to them, I went to eat with friends I made in San Pedro Sula: a very welcoming and helpful German couple who have lived here several years, and their friend, a Honduran girl who can tell when it is going to rain because she starts to sneeze a couple of hours before hand. So I have been lucky with the company i have kept in these first few days.

But like the littlest hobo, i just keep moving on, and I am about to go to La Ceiba. They have a saying here. San Pedro works, Tugicigalpa governs, La Ceiba has fun. We shall see.

...and the rain has stopped so I better go - it's not all beer and sunshine you know.

Hasta pronto.

Honduras blog begins

San Pedro Sula is one of the most ordered and industrious of Honduran cities. The streets are in a systematic grid. Street locations are labelled (north-west, north-east, south-east, south-west) for geographic dunces (sometimes handy). But a very Latin American chaos hits you almost as soon as you land. It was my taxi ride into town that did it for me (the airport is 10 miles outside of the city, plonked in the middle of banana plantations). Cars with dents for doors (you think a 1989 Renault 5 looks knackered?) swerved in front - indicating is for wimps here. Families stretched out in the back of battered pick-up trucks that were belching clouds of dark diesel fumes. One middle-aged lady ride was riding pinion on a motorbike without a helmet. Nearer the city centre, we waited at the traffic lights behind a scrawny mule dragging a cart laden with bananas and some tired looking coriander dangling over the edge.

Coventry it ain´t. It´s exhilarating, maddening and intoxicating. And a bit of a shock to the system. My plan to hit the ground running involved me going to sleep at 2 in the afternoon on the day I arrived (3-hour queues at the immigration desk at JFK do little for energy levels or mood).

But I have landed on my feet here. The hostel owner Juan Carlos has been a mine of information. Slightly randomly he also offered me a vegemite sandwich (when he knew I came from a land down under). Even more randomly, I ended up at an exclusive party last night held in a car park, celebrating the 10th anniversary of a shopping mall (Juan Carlos and his wife Angela play in a band and were performing for the great and the good of the San Pedro commerical elite). Fun in a bizarre way.

I also got my first linguistic gaffe out of the the way early. At the very good restaurant just opposite the hostel, I asked for ´ironed chicken´ (pollo planchado) as opposed grilled chicken (pollo a la plancha). The waitress very politely corrected me. On the scale of things, not quite as bad as the time I said ¨thank you for eating me¨ after a friend´s grandparents in France had invited me round to lunch.

On that bombshell, I better sign off. I have already abused my right to 15 minutes´internet time. Suppose I better keep this blog thing short and snappy.

I´ll probably be on the Caribbean coast next time I write - should be getting the bus there tomorrow. Adios for now.