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Published: December 12th 2008
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Our guide book said it was going to be $10 to get into the Gumba Limba park, but they were charging $20 and didn’t take credit cards. We told the girl at the ticket counter that it was more expensive than we thought and after a minute of discussion, we decided not to go. We weren’t so much cheap, rather worried, because we didn’t have a lot of cash left and didn’t know if the ATM’s would ever work. If that were the case, we’d need to reserve the rest of our money for Chong. So we left.
Danielle and I stopped to smell the roses, literally just out of sight of the park’s entrance. As I was smelling, I heard laughing, and the voice of the ticket seller coming from the park entrance. She cackled, “It was more expensive than we thought!” This girl thought we were out of ear shot and was making fun of us. This made me angry. We walked back to the entrance and when she saw us, her fat face paled as I asked for two tickets. After giving her the money, I told her that it wasn’t nice to make fun of other
people and she shut up quicker than Mitt Romney’s 2008 campaign. Take that ticket seller biyatch! I wasn’t really that angry, but because everyone in Honduras had been so very nice to us, the one instance of rudeness hit me like a ton of pineapples. A teenage boy walked up to us and asked if we needed a tour guide. I said, “We don’t need anything” as we strolled triumphantly into the park. I didn’t want to give them the pleasure of thinking we needed anything from them. But apparently, we did. More about this later. The park was beautiful and one of the highlights of the trip which is why it was good that we were made fun of because if it wasn’t for the rude ticket seller, we’d never have gone.
There were these little lizards that were mini versions of the raptors from Jurassic park. When they saw you, they would stop, motionless. The second they felt danger, BOOM! They were gone in a flash. Front legs up and back legs torpedoing them to safety. Cute, but they weren’t our goal. The monkeys were. Danielle and I wanted to pet the birds and monkeys. If we
did that, we could leave the park happy.
The problem was that my anger cost us the tour guide from the entrance. The gates to the birds were unlocked and I walked in, but the birds just stared at me. There were parrots and macaws mostly and when I saw their huge beaks, I figured it would be best if I watched them from the other side of the fence, so I left and now saw the need for a tour guide. I cursed my defiance. As if sent from the gates of heaven, another teenager approached us and we begged him to be our guide.
Our guide took out some of the parrots and macaws which look like robots with their choppy yet precise movements. The next chance you get to look at a parrot or macaw up close, do it. You'll see what I mean. From the multi-colored feathers, their massive beaks, and their ever dilating pupils, they really are fascinating to watch. During the day, the birds were given free reign to fly all over the park, and they were trained to come back for meals and stay in at night. The birds were put
on our shoulders and they ate a portion of my Hyundai hat. It was worth the loss.
The Monkeys were frigging cute. Peter was a small white-faced monkey that had a crush on Danielle. It was on a leash and jumped on her shoulder. Another monkey, a larger white-faced monkey named Muneca, liked Danielle as well and jumped on her other shoulder. However, the second my eyes and Muneca’s eyes locked, I knew we had something special. He jumped on my shoulder and I could tell that he liked me more. We platonically bonded as much as two heterosexual primates could. We met Muneca’s son and wife who didn’t want to hang out, and seemed to be angry at poor Muneca. Who could be so angry at such a sweet, kind, and warm creature. Emphasis on the word warm, because that is what I felt as my good buddy, Muneca, emptied his bladder down my back. This is appropriate though because I am a magnet for expelled mammalian bodily fluids as revealed in the...
…FLASH BACK:
Danielle and I were in New York visiting our friends Dave and Natalie who had just had their first baby, Gabriel.
They put Gabriel on my back, “for some pictures”. A few seconds later, I felt a similar warm feeling. Gabriel had thrown up on my back.
END FLASHBACK:
I think I may be the first person in history to say the words “this monkey’s pissing down my back”. After he stopped laughing, the guide said that it was good luck. That’s bullshit! Since when is a monkey pissing on you good luck? Maybe in the town of Oppisiteville, but not here and not now. I appreciated that the guide was trying to make me feel better, but I just felt sticky and yellow. Luckily, with entrance to the park, you get access to the pool of a nearby hotel and I used their shower to get the monkey piss off my back. Sure you can remove the physical aspect of monkey piss, but I will always be psychologically stained with and by Muneca.
I drowned my sorrow in a Port Royal (the best Honduran beer) and enjoyed the Roatan sunset which is always like a postcard. The postcard was shattered when this ballooned and drunkened version of Bill Murray started to talking to us. He was a
shirtless ex-pat who was complaining that he just broke up with his girlfriend. After a few minutes, he remembered that he left his drink in another restaurant and said he’d be back. We left Mr. Murray and found a working ATM (we now can pay Chong!), got some money and went to this great restaurant called Pinnochio’s that had Lobster gorgonzola pasta, which was as good as it sounds. The Port Royal and great food warmed my heart, cleared my mind, and I treasured Muneca’s good luck gift.
No luck can protect you from the…CIRCLE MONSTERS!!!! When we got back to our place at Chong’s we took a look at our legs and arms and we were covered with red circles. These were caused by some of the meanest things on the beach, the sand flies aka Circle Monsters. They seemed to have ignored our insect repellant and their bites left red circles on your skin, hence their fierce name. I don’t like sand flies very much. I do like them a lot more than Muneca.
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Melanie
non-member comment
he's marked you, Eric. You're his bitch now.