The plan was simple.
But it was April 1.
It was also Honduras, and things sometimes operate a little differently there.
It began well enough. My sister Charity and I were staying with our friend Maggie, who teaches English at a private school in Siguatepeque. Her friend Jami, the only one of us who had a car, agreed to drive us to San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in Honduras, so we could go to the beach the next morning.
On our way out of Sigua, we stopped for milkshakes at a local place called Circle Shakes. A great start to things.
The drive up to San Pedro was two hours of windy mountain roads, beautiful mountain vistas, a picturesque lake, and crazy drivers.
Driving really is crazy in Honduras—construction, overcrowded pick-up trucks, rickety buses, dust, and wild dogs provide plenty of interesting things to see, while roadside sellers yell and bang your vehicle windows to show off their wares whenever things slow to a stop (which happens quite frequently).
Needless to say, we had an interesting drive until about 6:00p.m.
We had just entered the city limits of San Pedro, and dusk was quickly falling. The mountains to our left added to the darkness of the rapidly departing sun. And that was when the drive abruptly ended.
A loud and sudden thunk happened under the car, as if something dropped from its belly. Quickly Jami pulled to the side of the road and flipped on the hazard lights. She and Maggie hopped out to inspect, but could see nothing amiss. Hoping it was just a branch or other debris, they got back in and Jami turned the key.
Nothing happened.
The car was unresponsive. She tried several more times with no success.
We were stranded—four girls, alone, in the dark, in 100+ degree heat, in San Pedro, which is also the second most dangerous city in the world, as I later found out.
And we needed the bathroom. The nerves weren’t helping.
We couldn’t leave the car. We also were too afraid to keep the doors open. The men in the area are notorious.
So we sat in the heat while Jami made phone calls. First to a friend in San Pedro, then to the mechanic he suggested (whose phone happened to be turned off), then to the men in Sigua who had “fixed” her car, then her friend again, and so on.
Meanwhile, a drunk man stumbled onto the sidewalk from a dark building next to us, set up a stool, and plopped down on it, just feet from the front of our car. Now we really didn’t want to have the doors or windows open. And we really had to use the bathroom.
Finally, Jami was able to get hold of a local mechanic—one that her friend knew personally. But because Honduras doesn’t really do addresses, she was unable to give him our exact location. It was fully dark now, and the only real landmarks were the mountains and some buildings to our right. Stumped, she hung up, promising to call him back soon.
We needed help, but the only person around was completely inebriated. However, Jami bravely decided to ask him for directions, even though none of us liked the thought of relaying that we didn’t know where we were.
She was outside for a few minutes, and when she returned, she actually had a clearer picture of our location—thanks to the drunkard.
Eventually, she again reached the man who could tow our car to his shop and described where we were. He promised to be there soon.
But in Honduras, “soon” can mean anything. The culture there is quite relaxed about its perception of time. We dearly hoped it really would be soon. And so did our bladders.
Around 7:30p.m., an hour and a half after we broke down, the tow truck arrived, much to our relief. The men towed the car onto the bed—with us in it—and we set out, our spirits now quite high.
Riding on top of the tow truck was a blast. We rolled the windows down and enjoyed looking down at everything.
“Just to warn you,” Jami cautioned us on the way, “the area they’re taking us to is very, very ghetto. So keep your phones hidden and…just be careful.”
After a loud, bumpy ride, we pulled into the mechanic’s shop. Thankfully, it was surrounded by walls and a gate, and we didn’t have to leave the vehicle until we were safely inside.
We met the pajama-clad mechanic, and he kindly drove us (yes, in his pajamas) to where we were originally headed—a local mission house owned by friends of Jami’s.
We disembarked quite relieved and slightly slaphappy. To celebrate our safe arrival, we went out for tacos. During our triumphant feast, a bat swooped above us, leaving a parting gift on Maggie’s shoulder.
At that point, everything was just hilarious.
Since said car was not ready the next morning, we ended up getting a lift back to Sigua in a Hummer 3. Jami’s sweet roommate Jaden kindly drove down to pick us up.
Later, a friend texted Charity asking if she had pranked me for April Fool’s (as she normally would have). She responded that life had actually pranked us this year.
Jami’s car would agree.
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