“Don’t do that to me! Come on, please, just a little bit more. I won’t be long, I promise.”

I looked up to the showerhead, pleading for more water. Don’t you talk to your shower? I do sometimes. Especially when I have soap all over and the water flow is drying dramatically and I need to rinse my hair.

As mysteriously as it was lost, the water pressure came back and I was able to rinse properly.

Taking a shower in Central America is often a small adventure. Some have good water pressure and some don’t, some have hot water and some only have one tap—a sure sign that hot water isn’t on the menu. My favourite are the “widow maker” showers. The widow maker is a small electrical fixture attached to the shower to—in theory—provide hot water. You step into the shower, turn the unit on (bonus for all the exposes wires and for being bare feet) and hope for lukewarm water. The more water pressure, the colder the water gets so it’s usually a trade-off between hot water and water pressure.

In La Ceiba, we bunked into a very old wooden home—hence the low water pressure I guess. It was one of the first hotels that actually felt like a hostel. For most of the trip, we often ended up being the only guests in the hotels we picked. But this time, there were actually quite a few travellers drinking and smoking in the lounge.

Like San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba has a bad reputation when it comes to safety but I didn’t find it that bad. The downtown area is less sketchy than in San Pedro and people seemed pretty relaxed. Businesses didn’t have bars on windows—a sure warning that you enter a dodgy barrio. We even felt comfortable to walk back to the hotel after dinner. Still, we didn’t take much with us when walking downtown and I left the DSLR at the hotel. No point in risking losing it.

I found a new addiction—jugos naturales (juices). In Honduras, there are quite a few franchises that offer fruit juices for about $1.5—my favourite is toronja (grapefruit) without sugar. I love the sour taste!

My other addiction is the pan de banano (banana bread) available in most panaderías. After all, Honduras is one of the main producers of bananas. On the road from La Ceiba to San Pedro, that’s pretty much all you see: banana trees and palm trees.

I’m getting tired of U.S. fast-food chains though. Hondurans are huge fans of the American way of life and in the main cities, there are dozens of Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, etc. Is either that or baleadas and as good as they are, I wouldn’t mind something a bit less fast food-y and something that doesn’t include a tortilla.

La Ceiba
Parque Central in La Ceiba
Look at these wires!
Look at these wires!
La Ceiba Shoreline
Juice Addiction

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3 Comments

  1. Nigel January 25, 2012 at 5:15 am

    Those wires could easily be in India as well.

    Reply
    1. Zhu January 27, 2012 at 8:54 pm

      I’ve seen it in Asia too.

      Reply

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