Blogs :: beaches, balls, and banditos

beaches, balls, and banditos

Two weekends ago we decided to get out of this cold climate of a city and find the sun. Weekend trips in Xela tend to start around 7am so we took the previous night off to be make the early trek. Fortunately, Flory (or school's director) picked us up in the microbus in front of our hostel so we didn't have to walk the mile to the school in the 50 degree morning.

An hour into the trip the jackets came off as the weather warmed. We wound our way down from 7,800 ft (the elevation of Xela) towards the coast. It was going to be a nice, clear, peaceful sunny day on the beach. I couldn't wait. From the road, you could see one of the nearby volcanoes erupting in a billow of smoke, clear as day. I wasn't paying any attention, my eyes focused on the car stopped on the opposite side of the road. But it wasn't the car trying to get a good view of the volcano that caught my attention, rather the guy standing in the middle of the road waving us on.

In his hands, a shotgun. Nothing new, we've seen shotguns all over the place, guarding not only the ATMs, but every Dominos, McDonalds, etc. Maybe it was the classic red scarf over his face or maybe it was the classic long barrel, silver 6-shooter his friend was holding inside the window of the stopped car. We passed as instructed and hurried to the nearest town where we all emptied out of the minibus and took a breather to watch the volcano erupt from a safer view. The driver warned the bus heading towards the robbery area and Flory notified the police.

After a few passengers chain smoked a few cigs, we loaded back up for the rest of the rather uneventful ride exchanging stories on who actually saw the banditos and who was sleeping. I asked Flory how many robberies she'd seen and she answered with many. In broad daylight however, it's not that common. It took another 2 hours to go less than 100k due to the permanently bad road conditions, but we arrived safely at a privado (private) beach near El Tulate.

After breakfast we headed out into the ocean. A small lagoon forms in the cove during high tide causing the beach near the eco-hotel to be quite small, so we waded through it to the sand split. The undertow coming out of the inlet was quite strong limiting our swim to only a few meters off the split, not wanting to risk being carried out and down the coast. That left us with playing a game of futbol(soccer) or football, but no one remembered to bring a ball of any time. So in the style of Tom Hanks or Robinson Crusoe (whoever is your favorite), I found a coconut to play with. Soccer was out the question after I'd accidentally kicked a coco earlier and bruised my foot.

We played two games, switching off full-time QBs during each. It was quite an entertaining time and a coconut ball is not that easy to play with we found out. Quite exhausted, we realized none of us had worked out since we'd left our homes months ago. As breakfast had required waiting for the chicken to lay eggs, we headed back to the hotel to place our order for lunch, giving them time to catch the fish and us time for siestas. Following a meal of fried chicken, shrimp with heads, and fish without, it was time to head out before dark fell and the banditos returned.

Flory had arranged an escort by the police for our return trip saying if a Guat gets robbed its no big deal, but if a bunch of gringos go down, its all over CNN. Verdad (True). The escort followed us from the nearest town back to Xela, switching off at random points with other shotgun out-the-window ready police along the way. We arrived back in Parque Central, half expecting a guided walk home, but we headed to Casa Babylon for a few beers and dinner instead. Returning home afterwards, I fell asleep quickly wondering if my first bandito experience was just the beginning...

For Matty's account of the story, click here!