Relief From the Heat aka River Picnic Days

You know it’s hot when the locals comment on it, when the gringos (and others!) climb into story books under fans or air conditioners and whole Honduran families from grandmothers to babies take themselves out to the various rivers for the day.

I’m very fortunate and have been invited to go out to various river picnic sites with my own Honduran family here. One Sunday we went to the Quebrada Zacate and found the most amazing series of waterfalls after a long drive on a very rough trail, following a suspiciously dry creek bed. What a joy and blessing to be able to swim and splash and simply float in very cold water!

 

Another Sunday we went to a picnic site on the river just below Pico Benito Lodge and joined the fun with all the other families out relaxing and cooling off from the heat. At one point I brought a huge plastic container of watermelon slices down to the shallow pools and we wound up floating it from one person to the next as we sat in waist deep water, wiggling our toes, luxuriating in the deliciously cool, clean waters and seeing who could spit watermelon seeds the furthest!

That was also the very same day that the power went out at 6am, turning off my huge fan at the base of my bed – not a comfortable way to start the day as the temperature in the bedroom was still 34C even with the fan on overnight. We finally arrived home just before 6 pm that night, fully expecting the power to be turned on after the 12 hour scheduled maintenance shutdown. The apartment was sweltering, with no breeze and even the cold water shower wasn’t cold as the cistern had heated up to very warm temps during the day!

The power came on but very, very briefly – which was the ultimate in cruelty in my books! The fridge has been off all day, so even though I got a free defrost cycle out of it, there was nothing cold to drink! Sticky, soaked in sweat, feeling quite out of sorts about the heat (which never happens to me!) I decided to take my chair out front, on the second storey patio, to see if I could possibly coax a breeze in off the Caribbean.

No such luck. So I waited, swatting various bugs as they landed on me and listened to the silence of my barrio. Some folks had lit candles in their homes or patios, some folks were just out visiting in the complete darkness, the older teens were hanging out on the wall at the corner and everyone was simply waiting for relief.

I could see lights on the south side of La Ceiba, but our barrios of Miramar, Maestros and La Alambre were still completely darkened. There were no street lights, no house lights and only the occasional passing vehicle head lamps provided any illumination to our little corner of the world.

Simultaneously the lights came on and the cheering erupted! What a glorious relief to be able to turn on my fan, crank up my fridge and hope that the system could handle the surge! Now I truly understand why the locals cheer when the power comes back again….