Day 3 Roatan, Honduras

There is a gauntlet to be walked through when getting off the boat and the first time, in the morning, when all things are still possible for the day, is the most difficult. Locals, men mostly, are yelling and waving signs, selling tours and taxi rides and jungle adventures. There are small booths on either side of the walkway and it is difficult to know where else to go besides through it all.

The port itself has security to keep out the more independent of the hawkers, and so once at the gate there is a second crowd to get through. “Hey Mama,” they yell, “where you going today?” “Hey Honey, what are you looking for?”

“Cheap internet,” I reply and I am already on track because I have seen a sign from the boat for the Straw Market and it does have internet, $2 for all day. I check on things and then return immediately to the boat to ditch my computer and get ready to walk. Thus, back out through the gauntlet.

Roatan is a big enough island to have everything including many American cars, trucks and SUVs, but there are many many scooters and bicycles. The main street of Coxen Hole is falling apart. Like Bridgewater, it has mostly turned its back on the water; stores and bars and houses front the street and give no access to the water. A boy begins to walk with me. He seems very nice; his name is Justin. When he tells me he earns money on the hustle I tell him there will be no hustle with me and he might as well turn back and try somebody else. I say that if we see each other later we can get a Coke.

I walk on. A hardware store: yippee. To astonishment of the clerks I walk through the aisles, admiring galvanized this and that; plastic tubs and giant pots. Many tourists (and we are the ones who did not book an excursion through the boat) have a boy glommed onto them, nattering away.

It is very hot. I stop at a tiny café and get a Fresca, which here is a sugared drink. I walk on until all the other tourists are gone. I stop into small grocery stores, toy stores, shoe stores, just to see what is on the shelves.

When it gets too hot I go back to the boat and shower and change my footwear and then go out again. Justin is indeed there and I tell him I’ll give him five bucks for a bit of a walking tour and the first thing is a cup of really good coffee. I get the coffee and he chooses a can of juice. I give him the $5 and the change from our drinks. We walk and chat. He is 12 and the oldest boy in his family. He has four siblings. There’s a girl older than him but she doesn’t go out on the hustle. We pass a bar with handsome sturdy women hanging out.  I ask Justin if they are prostitutes and he says yes and they get a lot of business from tourists off the boats. We talk about his future and his holidays and fishing. Justin is fluent in English and Spanish; interesting and a bit of a charmer.

We are walking back towards the boat, intending to walk the other side of it, away from the hustle and bustle. Somehow the conversation turns to where it feels natural that Justin asks me for a apple from the boat. Apples don’t grow here and they are not in the stores, the ones I’ve seen anyways.

I say sure, and at the entry to the port area he says he will wait and I say for him to not worry – even if it takes me 20 minutes I will be back. The gangway is at level three, then my room (I need to get a bag to hide the purloined goods) is on deck seven and then the buffets that I will pilfer from are up on 11 and all this will take a bit of time.

So I get my bag and go from one buffet to another picking green apples and red apples and pears and casually slipping them into my bag. I grab some Norwegian Cruise Line pens and pads of paper. There are signs telling me not to remove food from the ship etc. etc. but I am on a mission of international goodwill and can’t get caught.

Outside Justin is not there. I walk the gauntlet twice looking for him and I am annoyed. What the hell? I was being all high horsey and stealing for this kid and he’s not even here? I go out to the street and some boy says, “Hey Mama, where you going?” I have heard this just once too often today and just now I am hot, bothered and have the strap of a santa sack of fruit cutting into my shoulder. I stop and turn to the boy. “Do. Not. Call. A fat old woman ‘Mama’.”

“Why?” he says.

“Because,” I say slowly, “it makes me want to say ‘fuck you’.” From the look on his face this is not what he expected to hear. Another boy wants to know what I am looking for today. I tell him a boy named Justin and he says, “Justin? I just saw him walk down the street with some tourists. He’ll be back in 20 minutes.” Jilted? Steamed. I shouldn’t have paid Justin his lousy five bucks before the transaction was finished. It’s juvenile but I feel pissed.

I start to walk the second way, away from town, where there are no stores or gutters, just weird little dilapidated docks and lapping water and strange run down fences. There are a few locals walking from here to there and I give every child I meet an apple or pear and I do it until they are all gone.