Rupert and I got back at 1 a.m. Sunday morning, after an exhausting and exhilarating trip to Honduras. We’d promised ourselves a treat with our ultimate favorite reward: a peanut butter milkshake. Alas, the milkshake emporium was closed at that hour.
The trip with Andy Garrott’s mission team has become an annual adventure for us. This year we worked and stayed in the town of Copan Ruinas, near the ancient Mayan ruins. The town is quite touristy, with visitors from all over the world who come to see the famous ruins.
The first night we were there at the Hotel Patty (no clue why the very un-Honduran-sounding name), very late that night, a woman started singing. I thought she was in the courtyard below, and that she was some sort of floor show to impress us gringos who had taken over the hotel.
She had a pleasant voice but she was singing in Spanish and I had no idea what the songs were about. On and on she sang. Loudly. She was moving around I could tell. Eventually she left or I fell asleep.
The next morning there were sleepy-eyed missionaries at the breakfast table in our third-floor open air dining hall. Most of us had heard the concert, which definitely was not sponsored by the Hotel Patty.
She didn’t return the next night, and I forgot about her.
One afternoon Cindy McCurdy and I were out shopping in the little town when we were accosted by a woman who carried a plastic bag and an empty Coke bottle. She had long, flowing hair, and a plaintive expression. She wanted something.
She was shaking the Coke bottle at Cindy and me and saying something. Our Spanish is very limited and we didn’t know what she wanted. Maybe our plastic water bottles, I thought.
We just walked on, but she started following us.
Somehow I realized that she was the strange woman who’d been singing outside our hotel.
“Rita, speed it up,” Cindy said.
The faster we walked, the faster she walked. And talked. And jabbered.
Finally we lost her when we crossed the street into a park.
Sitting on a monument in the park were two older guys who were laughing. At me and Cindy.
Apparently we had encountered one of the town characters of Copan Ruinas.
On the last night we were there, she came back for an encore performance. By then I’d realized that our innkeeper put a priority on safety, and that the gates were securely locked at dusk.
Through the open windows I heard her singing. I could tell she was walking up and down the streets by our hotel.
I wanted to jump up and run to Cindy’s room.
“Cindy, she’s coming to get us!” I wanted to yell.
But Rupert was sleeping soundly through all this and I was somehow settled by his calm snoring.
She left. I went to sleep.
If only I spoke Spanish I could have asked the guys in the park if her songs are available on iTunes.