Celaque in English Means Eric Is A Pussy

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1. If you like bees the size of a child’s fist…
2. Sweat dripping from your head, down your back, and into your nether-regions…
3. Being sore beyond belief…

Then the Celaque mountains are right for you! Unfortunately, I do not like any of these, and Celaque kicked my gringo ass or as they say in Honduras, mi nalgas de gringo. Celaque is the tallest mountain in Honduras, but I’ve done a lot of hiking in my day, and even ran the L.A. marathon so I wasn't worried. Sure, I have a bad leg, but I figured a 5 hr hike would be a piece of cake. I was more wrong than Custer. The mountain has 11 rivers flowing through it, hence its name, Celaque means "box of water”. It’s so wet up there that there were many frogs and fresh water crabs just hopping and crawling about. But make sure you have a guide, because it is covered in plant life and you can easily get lost. Thankfully and regrettably, we had our guide. Juan Luis Mascar.

Juan Luis Mascar, has the type of name that you have to say in full, like Mandy Patenkin’s character, Inigo Montoya, in the Princess Bride. He’s not Juan or even Juan Luis, he’s Juan Luis Mascar. Juan Luis Mascar was in his early 60’s, didn’t speak a word of English, and was a short and thin cowboy who reminded me of my Uncle Lou (the Jewish Cowboy). They both wear jeans, a large belt buckle, and a cowboy hat. My Uncle Lou cooks “white fish on a stick” (smoked chicken) and Juan Luis Mascar cooks “white boy on a mountain”. It made being in a non-air conditioned crowded Honduras bus feel like being on an ice rink and I sweated so much down my back, I wanted to give my butt a snorkel.

But enough about sweat. Let’s talk about uphill. I figured on a mountain, it would mostly be uphill, but have moments of flat ground as most mountain trails do. Flat ground however, like my stamina was non-existent. After our first stop, I was wetter than the front row at a Shamu show. I used my wetty and sweaty hat to rub my face to cool myself. Initially, the thought of wiping myself off with my own sweat grossed me out, but it became a necessity.

I thought of my Hebrew school days and my teacher telling the class about a friend of hers who was in the 6 Day War in a tank that was disabled during a fight in the desert. In order to survive, this Israeli soldier had to drink his own urine and ate cigarettes as he crawled his way back to civilization. I’m not implying that my sweat recycling was any bit as heroic as that soldier was, but it is the same basic principle. I then looked over to that bastard, Juan Luis Mascar. Not a drop of sweat on him. I determined that Juan Luis Mascar is not of this world and may have been sent by an alien species to weaken the males of Honduras. In my sweat filled thoughts, I kept on thinking that if this hike is intermediate, I’m sure glad I’m not on the difficult hike. After our first stop, we hit…

The Plagues:

1. Locusts! Okay, not locusts, but the aforementioned bees, wasps, and flies the size of Matchbox cars. There were a lot of them and they had an affinity for ears. You know that sound and feeling of a fly buzzing around your ear? Annoying, right? Imagine non-stop buzzing around your ears by hundreds of these dive-bombers, and you’re afraid to swat them away because they may take a finger. They were everywhere and they were big. The flies actually were the worst because they looked as if they were created by Dr. Morneau. They had the body of a bee, the head of a fly, and legs of a spider. I felt like I was starring in an Irwin Allen film and that Richard Chamberlain was going to show up at any moment. You’re probably saying, “what about bug spray?” I tell you that these demons from hell didn’t care about no stinking bug spray. They probably took shots of bug spray before going out to terrorize innocent hikers. I love my hat, because I doused Danielle’s hair with bug spray and I would look up to see that there were always 3-4 of these buggers on her hair at a time, no matter how much spray I drenched her with. The only benefit of these creatures was that they made me walk faster, because the higher the altitude, the less of them there were. However, the higher we got, the greater the…

2.…Slope! Okay, slopes are not technically one of the great plagues from the bible, but hail would have been greeted more kindly than this never-ending slope. As stated earlier, a hiker expects some slope when climbing a mountain, but also with a mixture of flat land or at least a lesser amount of slope at points. Celaque was just up, more up, and yes, even more up. I’d turn a corner and think, okay, the slope can’t continue to increase can it? And the answer was always yes. And that mocking bastardo Juan Luis Mascar wasn’t even winded. The bugs stopped coming after we hit a certain altitude, and that killed my fear. But that also killed my adrenaline because the fear was creating the adrenaline. This is when the something started to creep back like an old girlfriend, it was the...

3.…Pain! My calf started to swell to thigh-size in my bad leg. My hips started to ache. But the worst pain of all was the pain in my man-pride as Danielle was keeping up with Juan Luis Mascar and I had to stop a few times. I was thinking that she may be impressed by this Juan Luis Mascar’s stamina and Latino-ness. If she decided to run away with Juan Luis Mascar, I could do absolutely nothing about it due to my inability to keep up. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I would have watched them both intently for any signs of attraction.

Three and a half hours later, we got to where our 5 hr. hike was supposed to take us. To see a blip of a waterfall. Whoop dee doo. I got attacked by the Swarm, sweated like a race car driver, and disfigured my lower limbs for a blip. But looking back, this was a good thing in a strange way. Kind of like Rickey Henderson making his last comeback. You gotta know when to call it quits. Even with a previously broken ankle and bad leg, I didn’t know that my major hiking days were done. But because of the bees, the slope, the pain, Celaque, and Juan Luis Mascar, I realize that as Reo Speedwagon once put it, “I believe it’s time for me to fly”.

Downhill - I never thought that I’d want to see my old friends, the bees, wasps, and bee-flies again, but as I headed downhill I knew that when I saw my old buddies, it meant that the hike would be almost over. I welcomed the bees when they started to come again.

You would think that downhill would be easier on the body and on some parts of your body it was. But because the slope was so strong, it was a beast to get down. My knees took a beating as I headed down the mountain, because of the impact. Also, on each step, my toes attempted to escape out of the front of my shoe, as my foot got jammed forward. Gravity as always, has no heart.

At one of our stops, we ran into this young South African guy and his guide (the only other people we saw during our hike). I don’t remember his name, because my ears were sweat-logged and everything sounded like I was in a tunnel. So, I will call him Glen after my South African friend, Glenda. Glen was “on holiday” for the next 6 months and was doing the 2 day hike (he was going up and we were going down). He had bushy brown hair, strong legs, a great accent, and Danielle was in love. Whatever manhood that was left in my body, seeped quickly out my aching toes. Thinking quickly, I whispered to Danielle about the history of apartheid and what they did to Nelson Mandela, and luckily she was mine again. Although, I knew I still had to worry about that bastard Juan Luis Mascar.

CELAQUEND

It was finally over. My hike up and down part of Celaque, and my hiking career. But not before Juan Luis Mascar had one last barb to throw. He made fun of me at the end by saying that Danielle was “mas fuerte” than I was. I would have challenged him to a fight if I had any manhood left, but all my manhood was left up on the mountain. There was some solace though as Danielle and I walked to the car that was to take us back to the hotel. I noticed sweat rings starting to form under Juan Luis Mascar’s armpits. He was human after all.

If you absolutely need to hike and want to hike Celaque, spend the time and do the two day trip because the 5hr trip really gets you nowhere. And if you do climb Celaque to the top, take a picture and send it to me, I’d like to see it.

After the hike there was a much needed shower, licking of wounds, and nap time. After that we went for a beer and Chinese food. Yes, they have Chinese food in Gracias. But not for us, because it was closed when we got there. In fact, because it was past 9:00pm, all the restaurants were closed. Luckily, there was a street vendor selling meat on a stick. It was cheap, it was tasty, it was dumbass moment #2.

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Comments

[Joe Pavoncordero]

Uphill!!
Wow. It doesn't matter that the Juan Luis Mascar can climb. Did you see the size of the leaf required for Senior Eric! Mozzletoff!