{"id":1570,"date":"2016-12-15T16:59:47","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T21:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cuppacoldwater.wordpress.com\/?p=1570"},"modified":"2017-04-04T16:38:28","modified_gmt":"2017-04-04T20:38:28","slug":"tela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stripedpineapple.com\/?p=1570","title":{"rendered":"Tela"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember when I said I’d tell you about our flopped beach trip? Well, here you go.\u00a0We have a long-standing tradition of renting the same little cabins every time we visit Tela, since they’re private and cheap, off the beaten track, and the cook that owned them was amazing. However, they seem to have gotten a little run down since the original owner died and left his son in charge, a fact we were going to discover thoroughly.<\/p>\n

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Our first evening there started out well enough, despite having the taxi driver rip us off a little. The double rainbow across the beach at sunset was simply glorious. But alas, do you know what rainbows mean? That’s right, rain. Soon we were going to learn that fact better than we ever wanted to. We took a little walk after our (delicious) dinner, but were soon driven inside by the bugs viciously biting our legs. We had both brought books, so it wasn’t too bad, as we stretched out on the beds and read. However, it gets dark at what, 6:00 there? so the evening stretched on and on, until it fiiiiiiinally grew late enough we could go to bed.<\/p>\n

The next day we woke up to cloudy skies, and a still ocean. I begged Philip to go into the ocean with me, thinking it would be kind of fun to be in the water when there were practically no waves at all. Wrong. We stood in the cold, gray water, with cold, gray rain dripping on us, and no waves to jump, and thought, now what? After standing there until we were shivering and gray and cold ourselves, we decided that was not such a great form of entertainment and went into our cabins to, let’s see, read!<\/p>\n

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Forgive me, long-legged Philip, but this picture is just such an accurate description of the whole vacation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rain began to come down in swirling gusts, and we soon discovered just how holey the thatch and metal on our cabin roofs was, as we dodged puddles and tried to keep our electronics from getting too damp. Taking walks in the calm spots was not to be advised, as the sky would suddenly start hurling drops at you if you tried. One bright spot in our day was the seafood soup made by our host, filled with large shrimp and coconut milk, but even seafood soup can only do so much ministering to a vacation that is diseased.<\/p>\n

One of the tiny cabins we usually rent, and the angry sky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a long day spent in our dark cabins avoiding the rain, we decided after dinner that we needed coffee to warm up, and set out in a rain-lull to find some. But alas, apparently the Garifuna people in whose village we were staying do not drink coffee. So we settled for juice instead. Delicious, but cold. As we trudged along the muddy road, a little ways from the shelter of our cabin, huge drops began to fall. This was beginning to get funny! We dashed under someone’s porch (thank you, stranger) and stayed there until we judged it safe to make it back to our own cabins. And then, another long dark evening, with nothing to do but read. Reading is good. I like reading. I like reading at the beach. But man, there is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear. Lesson learned- when vacationing with just one other person in rainy season, stay in the middle of the city instead of out in the boonies, so that if everything is wet you can at least go to a coffee shop or something!<\/p>\n

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The next day we were scheduled to bus back to Philip’s house, and as if in mockery at our attempted vacation, the sky was bright and the sun shone and the weather was absolutely tip-top, just as we were supposed to leave. We trotted about the city of Tela as long as we dared without missing our bus, drinking our long awaited coffee, eating mangoes and papayas and pollo asado with tortillas, assuring and reassuring the Garifuna lady that I did not, in fact, want corn rows, and enjoying the perfect weather. \u00a0The perfect end to a less than perfect vacation.<\/p>\n