Tela and Triunfo de la Cruz, Honduras [Jeep Madness]




Garifuna Family-Triunfo Honduras

We couldnt get a rid of the kids anywhere cuz the jet sky!





Garifunas Reggae Bar in Triunfo


Toni Bullet Boy!



My friend Antonio Blanco Rodriguez






Garifunas Comedy &African Chants

As soon as we were getting into the little Village 'El triunfo de La Cruz' through a narrow path off the main road that goes to La Ceiba, I saw this wee little blond fella pulling a trolly behind him.

Triunfo de la Cruz town entrance

He looked at me and smiled, like everyone seems to do in this country.

Too young to work isn’t it? Thought he should be in School instead, but maybe they were on school Holidays?

Toni driving the jeep

We drove towards the beach which was pretty close, the little town looked like empty and my friend Tony wanted to try again his Jetsky.
There was absolutely no one on the beach to be seen, it was about 1 pm, the sun was strong and we were the only ones around.

Tony placed the jeep on the sea shore, and I helped him to put the Jetsky in the sea.

But suddenly we realized we couldn’t get the jeep out! The more my friend pushed the gas pedal, the more the wheels were digging into the sand.

We tried and tried, but nothing. The sea was starting to swallow the car, waves were getting a bit stronger, so my friend told me to go to the town and try to find some people to help us.

I left him there with his attempts to get his car out of the water, making sure we were not losing the watercraft either, because the waves were staring to get bigger and bigger [Typical].

The village was near the beach , but there was no one on the streets!

Is it siesta time? Where are the people in this ghost town?

But Hey! Hang on a minute, isn’t he the blonde kid I saw before?

Erzun

I asked him what his name was and he replied 'Erzun', which sounded like a basque name to me. To be honest he didn’t look like a Caribbean-Garifuna either.

I told him if he knew any people around, maybe some young lads willing to help us. It was an emergency and we needed help!

We were even willing to give a little amount of money for the help.

He ran and disappeared into a back street.

As I didn’t know what else to do, and the streets were isolated, I decided to go back to help Tony.

Maybe he managed to get the car out?, or maybe the car was lost for ever?

Unfortunately things were getting worse. I had to put our stuff out of the car on the beach, just when I saw the waves getting into the car seats.

Some kids gathered as chance spectators, mesmerized by the show.

Tony looked pretty calmand relaxed to me. If it were my car I would be panicking!

Hope is the last thing you lose.

Suddenly 4 or 5 guys turned up on the beach ....Herzun managed to find some people!

Great!

We tried to pull the car with some ropes, but we didnt have any improvement at all.

We needed more people to help.

My friend chatted with one of The Garifunas, he was wearing a hat and a white t shirt and a big collar? of the rasta god 'Halie Selassie'.He seemed the leader to me.

Tony offered him some more money if he could bring more people to help.

Garifuna Kids peeping

Locals helping

Meanwhile, I tried to call the insurance company of my mate's car, he was fully covered, but didn’t have much luck and I couldnt get through, as all I got were those sort of annoying answering machines: 'if you want to renovate your insurance press 1', ' If you need xxxx press 2', etc etc.... fuck! the only thing I needed was some assistance!

I had my doubts that would work though, as the nearest city was probably 2 or 3 hours away...so by the time they got here the car would be scuba diving in the Atlantic ocean. I thought it was better to leave it, and focus on helping my friend [And take some pics of course]. :-D

More people came, they brought big wooden sticks to try put below the front wheels.

After another long 15 minutes, ...Hurrah!! the car was back on the sand!

Tony then, as promised paid them in the local currency [Lempiras].
At first it was getting a bit chaotic as they were arguing who helped the most, so the bloke looked like the leader offered to be the one to 'distribute' the money fairly to all of them. Good job lads!

Antonio Blanco Rodriguez-Tony

Antonio Blanco dealing with the locals

We didn’t give them that much money [According to European] standards, but they seemed content with the amount, my friend Tony knew what would be a fair deal.

I would have been clueless.

Beautiful unspoiled beaches in Tela town Honduras

In the afternoon I saw this black lad searching the beach sand where we took the car before. He said he lost his watch while helping, and they even didn’t give him any money!

I felt sorry for him and gave him 10$ as I didnt have any Lempiras left, the local currency.

Tony discussed the issue with me, telling me I shouldn’t, do that as maybe he was lying or cheating. 10$ is a lot of money in Triunfo de la Cruz, I will never know if he said the truth...

I didn’t care

Thank you, Garifunas!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tela.

End Of Part 5