In Honduras you can’t be in a hurry or have an agenda. You just go with the flow as things work themselves out. A half dozen people will give you information they are certain about, but in the end, sometimes, maybe most of the time, it isn’t even true. Even seemingly “simple” or obvious questions about bus station locations or bus schedules—there isn’t a way to really know.

That said, I went to the beach two weekends ago (yes, I’m trying to catch you up). When flying back to Honduras after Christmas, I noticed this interesting stretch of coastline that created almost a perfect triangle cut into the country. The beach and the forest around this area looked beautiful and untouched. Anna also noticed it, and we decided that that was where we wanted to go for the weekend. We were actually able to find it on the map (the triangle part helped ;)) and planned the bus route. When arriving in San Pedro to get on our first bus, we couldn’t find it. We got directions from people on the streets, and ended up at bus station that didn’t have buses to take us to where we wanted to go. We had an address from a guidebook for another bus station supposedly in existence, but it didn’t seem to be where it was supposed to be. We asked people about this one, but no one seemed to know about it. Finally, we found someone who thought they knew someone who might know where it was…(this seems to happen a lot). But this time he did! We arrived at 4:30, but bus tickets for the 4:45 bus were already sold out. No problem. We weren’t in any hurry. We got some licuados and grilled cheese sandwiches before heading back to the bus station for take two. To make this long story shorter, we eventually got to the beach we wanted to be at. It was so nice and relaxing—a longer than expected trip, but it was so worth it. We spent the day reading, journaling, and dozing on the beach. I must add that I’m not a dozing-on-the-beach kind of girl. I’m way too much of a control freak, also afraid of sunburn, bugs, and rabid beach dogs (don’t worry mom). We went to dinner at a little restaurant down the road, and that is when we first asked about transportation from the village to the beach town where we would catch the bus again back to San Pedro. He said, “Well, sometimes there are buses on Sunday, but sometimes there aren’t. It depends on whether or not the guy who drives the bus decides to…” Ehhhh…well…there was always the option of getting to Tela by cab and supposedly someone would probably be driving around sometime around the time we would want to go to Tela…. It all sounded a little sketch. Later that night Bridget and Lisa went for a walk on the beach. They realized that the village we were staying in I split in two by a lagoon that once in a while floods and covers the road. The place to catch the bus was, of course, located on the other side of the lagoon. At that moment, it was possible to walk through shallow water to get to the side with the buses, but it was unknown whether or not that would still be true in the morning. I pictured us walking through the water with our duffle bags over our heads :) They also found a man with a canoe that would take us across the short distance. Marilyn and I decided to take a walk on the beach and check out the situation for ourselves. It was confirmed that the buses were indeed going to run on Sunday, and that it would only cost us around 10 cents to take the canoe to the bus. But what time? Who knows?! I think they said, “Maybe 7, maybe 8, maybe 8:30…” Lisa and I decided to leave the hotel around 7:30 to hopefully walk to the canoe, boat across the lagoon, and catch an 8am bus. (That might sound kind of early to ya’ll, but I am usually already teaching by then!) We gathered up our things and started the trek to the canoe, only to see a big yellow bus driving down the road toward us!!!!! I checked my watch—7:43am. You just have to laugh, right? So we boarded the bus that would later drive through a shallow part of the lagoon to take us to Tela.

You just never know.