HatCat | Eric Chaffee | Travel Blog

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Banksy

Banksy is one of my favorite artists.  Check it out his new exhibit promotion, it’s worth the five minutes it will take.  His art is either “love it” or “hate it.”

What is a home without love?

Karina and I are back from the luna de miel and we have the cool garifuna jewelry to prove it.  I bought a necklace, but the shells gave my neck a rash so I had to take it off.  I think that is about as “un-cool” as I can get, but I’m married now and that means I don’t need to be as cool as I was before.  I hear that once I become parent  all my remaining cool goes out the window; I see this neck rash as a pre-game scrimmage, just preparing me for the super bowl of un-coolness.

Like I said, I’m fine with it.  The honeymoon was plenty cool for me, we stayed in quite a few breezy beach towns.  First we left Comayagua to meet up with tio Tom and tia Barb, in a little town called Peña Blanca.  If you are ever passing by La Guama, near the lake, Peña Blanca is worth a night’s visit.  Karina and I looked all over town to find a place to stay and finally settled on La Finca Hotel.  It was right on the main road and pretty comfortable.  There was no water in our room so the guy gave us a 50 Lempira price cut.  Peña Blanca is surrounded by tall mountains; Tom and Barb told us that they had explored some of the jungle in the national park there.  They both said it was clean and well taken care of.

After Peña Blanca we all piled into a bus and went to San Pedro Sula to catch a bus to Tela.  It was a couple long bus rides, on which Karina and I slept most the way, but we eventually got to Tela.  Karina and I checked into a pricey hotel, 450 Lempira a night, while Tom and Barb looked for something cheaper.  I guess at the cheaper hotel there were drunks singing and partying all night, outside their room.  Our hotel wasn’t quite as loud, but definitely not worth the 450 Lempira a night.  If your ever in Tela give me a buzz and I can give you a run down on all the places to stay; Karina and I must have checked rooms at every single hotel in that town looking for a better deal.

We ended up finding a place right on the beach and rented a room.  We spent the whole day back and forth from the beach to the room, swimming in the ocean and then washing off all the sticky salt water.  I hate the feeling of salt water when it dries.

We never ended up sleeping at the beach hotel in Tela because Tom and Barb called and told us they were in Tornabé, and that they had found a beach hotel for 150 Lempira.  So Karina and I ditched on our Tela hotel and took an 80 Lempira Taxi ride to Tornabé.

The hotel in Tornabé was a very simple concrete room, with only the bare necessities.  There was a bed, a fan, a table, a place to wash, a toilet and a bucket to flush it with.  I was happy there because it was cheep; Karina was happy there because we were right on the beach.  Tornabé is a nice town, because it is quiet and the beaches are clean.  We were also visiting during the off season, when tourists stay at home.  Not to mention the current political situation.  At night we were able to sit on the beach and we spent all the next day in the water.

I was content in Tornabé, but Karina wanted to move.  That was fine with me, all the beaches look the same so I’m happy wherever you put me.  She didn’t want to leave because she saw how much I liked Tornabé, but I told her that people from Buffalo will love any beach you take them to as long as it isn’t lake Erie.  So we decided to head over to Triunfo de la Cruz for our next leg of the trip.

At Triunfo we found a third little beach hotel with AC and it was very comfortable.  The owners were grumpy, but I’m used to that attitude when it comes to the North coast.  Karina said that they might not like seeing crackers and brownies together.  However, there were a few really nice people in the places where we stayed, especially in Tornabé.  What the Triunfo Hotel lacked in friendly service it made up for in location.  Karina and I were able to walk out to a big rocky point and take pictures.  After that we swam some more and then went out to dinner.

I think we ate fried fish the entire time we were on the honeymoon… I’m still craving a little right now.

After Triunfo de la Cruz we headed over to San Pedro Sula to stay with Fany and Alfredo for a few days.  Fany is Karina’s sister and Alfredo is her husband.  We ended up staying there until the next Monday, I think we were there for about five days.  It was nice being with family, but by then I was ready to come home.  I was starting to miss our house in Comayagua.  Karina said I just missed the Nintendo and she is partly right.

So we eventually made it back to Comayagua, the bus ride took us four hours, and when we arrived we both collapsed on the couch and passed out.  The honeymoon was fun, but it was a lot of ocean swimming and sun soaking.  I still feel a bit worn out.  Karina and I are thinking of taking a serious staycation to recover from the vacation.

Married

Well well well…  Karina and I are married and settling in to the home.  Mom and Dad took us out for some serious shopping and the old bachlor pad now resembles a cozy little home, fit for two.  We are both very happy here in Comayagua and in the next few days we will be going up north for our Honeymoon.  We are thinking of going to Tela, Triunfo de la Cruz or Tornabe.   I won’t be blogging until I get back.

In fact the only reason I am blogging now is because Karina is playing MarioKart…  But the only reason she is playing MarioKart is because I stole the computer away from her…  Any-who while we are off enjoying Central America take a gander at Julie Chen’s flickr page.  Julie is my sister in law and she took all of our wedding photos.  She did a fantastic job and really captured the life down here.  I will post a few stories in a couple weeks.  Just let me get settled into a nice rut and I’ll be back online in full force.  God bless!

Earthquake

Last night I was sleeping, soundly in my humble Honduran abode. I was having a dream about my hat, one of my favorite things to dream about. I find that dreaming about my hat is the second best thing to actually wearing it. Sometimes it’s even better, seeing as how my forehead never sweats in dreams. However, last night’s hat dream was different. One could even say it was a hat nightmare. The problem was that the hemp used to weave the Scala, from Sri Lanka, was all falling out. All that was left was some wire. The wire confused me, because there is no wire in my hat, but in my dream the hat was clearly supported by a firm wire cage. I was explaining to the science teacher, Alfredo, that the hat just simply couldn’t serve it’s intended purpose and just when I was about to put it on my head (to prove my point) the earth started to shake and I woke up.

Here is what happened: My leg was hanging off the end of the bed and it felt like it was being tossed around by one of my older brothers. That is what woke me up. If any of you have older siblings and have ever, at any point, shared sleeping quarters with them then you too wake at even the slightest tug of a toe. After waking to my jiggling leg I realized that the entire house was moving back and forth, which is weird because it’s never done that before. My bed felt like it was on top of an old busted hydraulic lift. It was moving back and forth and hitting the wall. The power moving the bed was big, even though I was still in the daze of my waking moments, I could comprehend the mammoth scale of what was happening in my bedroom.

At that point I was pretty much frozen on the spot; it was only 2:30 AM, I was just waking up, and already the entire world was convulsing in protest to itself. At that point two things brought me peace and reassurance. First and foremost, I saw my hat hanging from the dresser. That meant I was just imagining the whole hat catastrophe and I was guaranteed at least one more day with my dear friend. Second, I heard people screaming in the streets. That meant I was not imagining this geological agitation. “Well,” I thought, “I still have my hat, so it’s not a complete disaster.”

I remained on the bed, motionless and listened to the city tremble. I could hear the ground moaning and growling beneath me. Next door I heard glass fall off my neighbor’s table and brake. Out in the road a drunk was screaming, “¡Levántate, levántate!” The quake must have lasted a good 30 seconds. It was strong for about 5 to 10 seconds and then it seemed to fade away, but it still shook everything pretty fiercely. It made my concrete apartment feel like I was on top of shaky scaffolding. Once the tremor had stopped I was left in silence, sitting in the dark like a scared hamster who’s cage had just been bumped by a clumsy kid with red curly hair and thick glasses.

I started to think about some of the week’s events. The ant swarm in my room and the few mosquito bites, in combination with this earthquake, all started to seem less like every day life and more like some personal plague brought down on me. Before you judge me you should know that it made sense in the dark while the house was shaking. I figured if anyone is getting left behind it will probably be me, so I called Karina to make sure we were all still here. However sleeping beauty didn’t feel a thing in Paradise, so when her crazy boyfriend called at 2:30 in the morning the call was ignored. It wasn’t until later on this morning that she answered the phone. “Oh that’s why you called at 2:30 AM!” was her response.

Such was my first earthquake; 7.1 aint so bad for a rookie I guess.