We left San Pedro Sula in the morning with the last cool breeze
of the day and headed for Copan, one of the ancient Mayan cities. Harry
hates to travel, just hates to. I had nagged and saved until I had
enough for our nine- day Ecotour and I was determined to enjoy every
minute of it. As a writer, I knew there was a fortune to he made from
the trip. Travel articles, a setting for a best-selling romance, nature
pieces for children’s magazines using pictures of the cute monkeys and
big spiders, or as the location for a screenplay about espionage, drug
traffickers, and the CIA. I knew this trip would he a gold mine and I
planned to deduct it when and if I finished and sold anything. Harry is
really a skeptic about such things and just laughed at me and complained
about the heat.
I’ll give you an example. He saw the amazing ancient Acropolis and
pyramid as just a pile of rocks, and couldn’t understand why they didn’t
mow more often since everyone knew there were poisonous snakes hiding in
every tall clump of grass. It stole some of my excitement and distracted
me from imagining the primitive, beautiful Mayans going about their
daily tasks.
The next day Harry argued for the Thermal springs and a nice soak,
instead of a horseback ride across the river to more ruins. Actually. I
would have preferred the tour of the coffee bean plantations, hut it was
beautiful and relaxing, and I collected brochures about the other site
where the Mayan women always went to give birth, sort of like Baptist
hospital back home.
In the afternoon, he complained that the ruins and museum were just
another tourist trap and told me we didn’t need any jade or stone
carvings. As I said, Harry is cheap and a spoiled sport. That’s why I
think he turned his ankle when we were in the Pulhapanzack rain forest.
No one else fell or turned anything. The way he complained you would
have thought the mosquito bites and heat rash were nothing compared to
his big baby routine about his ankle.
Of course we were with a first class tour group. The tour guide gave me
the neatest pencil and paper and asked that I write down whatever we
needed. I couldn’t think of a thing so he told me to save them for
later.
They had us airlifted back to San Pedro, and driven to the hospital. I
could have told them it was just a sprain, but they insisted on x-rays.
When Harry was released, they put us up in a first-class hotel and
hooked a flight for our early return to the states.
I was furious. I had counted on our tour of the Bay Islands, and the
exotic setting of the Last Resort Inn. It had all sounded like Fantasy
Island, but not to Harry. He wouldn’t listen to me, just said there
were sharks and stinging jellyfish and that no one our age or complexion
needed to he lying under a tropical sun.
I had the pencil that the
Indian guide had given me and my tablet for writing, so just went out on
the balcony and stared at the lush tropical rain forest behind our
hotel. In the darkness, I could see monkeys swinging from vine to vine
as they settled down for the night, calling out to each other like the
Walton’s. Only there were even more monkeys than John Boys and Mary
Ellens so it went on for quite some time. I grasped my magical
green-wrapped pencil with its red wool tassel, and let my mind glide
over the disappointment of our trip. All that planning, scrimping, and
saving, for three-and-a-half days of Harry at his worst.
I only meant to write a few notes about the beauty of the waterfalls,
the secret darkness of the jungles, you know, background material for
later books. But I kind of began to write about all the places we
didn’t see, and all the things Harry worried about at each. You know,
little chapters of horror. At the pyramids, Harry sat on a low monolith
with several clumps of grass surrounding it. Only this time a brightly
colored snake, more like an ancient hieroglyph than a jungle animal,
slithered across the stone and hit his wide, pink ass. Of course he died
in writhing agony.
From inside the room, I heard Harry moan and call, but I waited and he
stopped fussing. The first chapter was fun, the second was even better.
We were on horseback crossing the Copan River at a gallop when a huge
fruit bat flew out of the curtain of vine-draped trees on the other
side, and Harry’s horse reared. He fell backward, cracking his head on
a large, sharp boulder and before the guides could even reach him, the
piranhas were dining on his head, literally biting through the scalp to
get to the blood. It was horrible.
Again, Harry moaned, but I was caught up in the excitement of writing as
never before. There were the mosquitoes that carried an Ebola-like
strain of virus, not the innocuous ones that had tormented him at our
stay at Las Sepultures. Of course in my story, I cried when they took
him away for isolation and blood tests before his horrible demise.
Since they wouldn’t let me near him, and I was afraid to stay in our
room, I had to take the Coffee tour at finch Santa Isabel with the most
romantic young Indian as our guide. He was very comforting when we
returned and found Harry had died within hours of being bitten.
Poor Harry. I could hear him thrashing about in bed, moaning terribly.
I opened the glass door and called into his room. “Harry, darling, do
you need a drink or something?”
He just gave a little gurgling moan and drifted back to sleep. I
figured it must have been a nightmare. This time when we were in the
mountains and valleys along the --banks of the Copan River, we rode
donkeys to the top of the Pulhapanzack waterfalls. We could see
children swimming in the natural pool below the falls, an arc of rainbow
above their heads in the mist of the rain forest. We were allowed to
ride into the forest to explore and enjoy ourselves.
I guess it was the jaguar that startled Harry’s donkey. I screamed for
him to look out when I heard its terrible growl, but Harry never listens
to me. The donkey bolted back along the trail, with the cat tearing at
Harry’s back and leg, digging into the flank of the crazed animal with
its powerful hind legs. It was inevitable that its wild stampede would
take it back over the waterfall. Fortunately the cat escaped unharmed
and my donkey was only slightly shaken. At least none of the children
below were hurt; they swam away at the sound of the screams. But poor
Harry, he was crushed beneath the weight of his beast on the big rocks.
It was probably a kindness, since the jaguar had managed to rip his arm
off and carry it away into the green jungle. He would have bled to
death if the fall hadn’t killed him.
I tiptoed back into the room.
Harry was sweating profusely, his legs tangled in the damp sheets. I
made him sit up and drink some water. After all, I had five more days
of the trip to write about. I wanted him to enjoy every minute of our
imaginary tour. There were still the trips in old biplanes to the
small, rocky emerald islands; the kayaking among killer whales; the
snorkeling along stony coral reefs with hammerhead sharks and great
whites, who would show up to accompany Harry.
I couldn’t wait to write about the white sand beach where I would rest
under a huge umbrella, flirting with the beach boys in their thong
swimsuits, just sipping Pina Coladas while Harry tried wind surfing. I
wanted to enjoy his surprise at the Portuguese men-of-war. Day rafting
down the swollen Rio Cangrejal Gorge, the spray of water in my face as
Harry’s raft capsized; sky diving from the cliffs past the breathtaking
cloud forest and looking back to see Harry captured by a nest of
bird-eating spiders. So many adventures, so much to dread.
I wondered if Harry could be having some kind of reaction to the
medication. His skin was blotchy and red, and his eyes looked a little
yellow when he opened them and stared at me. His breathing was labored,
but he was still breathing. I patted his hand and went back outside to
write.
It was a sad trip when we finally flew back to Miami airport. The
Ecotour group sent us home first-class, me in the front of the airplane,
Harry below in a mahogany coffin. It had taken another day, but Harry
died there in Honduras. The doctors were not sure what caused his
death, but they wrote heart failure on the death certificate. It
worked for me.
Now I recommend the Magical Ecotours to all my friends. Especially
those with husbands like Harry.