Tela Beach: The Long, Quiet Vacation

Tela Beach part 1

Upon their arrival in Honduras, the soldiers put their suitcases in a room on the main base, a tarpaulin was thrown over the suitcases to protect them from dust, and the room was locked. After that, the men used their duffel bags, issued in Basic Training, dragging them from one place in Honduras to another. But now, because it was time, the musty suitcases were removed from the room and replaced with the duffel bags. Now that the duffel bags were stowed, the men turned their full attention to their suitcases.

With one hand, Ross felt the weight of his single piece of luggage by lifting it up and down a few times and then brought it over to a bunk. He had forgotten all about the bag. As he unzipped his bag, he tried remembering packing it months ago.

In addition to the civilian clothes he was wearing, here was a suitcase packed with civvies. The contents he carefully removed. Neatly on the bed were all the new clothes he had bought for the trip, Hawaiian shirts, pastel collared shirts, a white polo shirt, a blue polo shirt, shorts, khaki slacks, a belt, white briefs, and socks. In a plastic bag was a pair of inexpensive brown dress shoes that contained a small bottle of cologne that had leaked. He had paid Ellis five bucks to fold his clothes because Ellis could fold clothes, and now he was glad he had spared no expense.

That afternoon, the afternoon of the free luggage, the platoon sergeant made a short speech, "Just remember you are ambassadors to the people of Honduras. How you dress and comport yourselves will influence their impression of the United States. After you check in to your rooms, you can wear shorts and flip flops. And when you are outside, you must have on collared shirts at all times unless you are near a body of water, such as a pool or ocean."

Soon after, the medic gave a speech. And then everybody exchanged US Dollars for Honduran Lempiras, in turn gaining colorful, thin bills. Their wallets were thick now, many bills, many different colors. Everything was set now—the platoon was to depart the base the next morning, via a Humvee and a mottled Honduran bus.

The caravan rolled out of the base and, once past the gate, turned right down a dusty, grey road and, not more than a mile later, picked up a paved road. The bus and the Humvee, still in single file, followed this paved road as it snaked through the countryside. The countryside was sunny but for the banana plantations, which were dense and dark. The walkers were here, near the plantations, and were close to the road.

As the road reached the mountains, a stream was taken on for its shoulder. The mountains was where the women were seen working and even bathing. Clothes were laid upon the rocks and strewn along the edges of the stream. Tiny huts were nearby, and there was much shade in these parts.

The bus and the Humvee stopped at a restaurant on the edge of a mountain pass. Inside, the small restaurant became overrun. Soldiers, dressed in formal civilian clothes, ordered seafood and French fries and cold concoctions masquerading in heavy old glass Coke bottles. All of this they could afford. Within a day and a night, they were all rich.

Hours later, they finally arrived at Tela, a small beach town on the Caribbean coast. The bus pulled in to the resort on the outskirts of the city limits and stopped. The men and the luggage methodically made their way off the bus and formed a line that led inside a one story glass building and stopped in the front desk lobby. Only a few men could fit in the lobby, but it had air conditioning. The men outside waited in line, with the sun rising and the humidity trapped in their clothes. The line moved and the men got rooms. Some weeks ahead, the stay was planned out with the resort, and there were plenty of available rooms this time of year. Some men got their own rooms all to themselves, but others shared rooms and so saved money. Everyone paid with Lempiras.

All of the men went straightaway to their rooms, all with the exception of Sergeant Gott. He headed directly for the resort's cantina—the cantina was situated on the side of the restaurant, not far from the pool. There, at the cantina bar, with his luggage by his feet, he ordered a lime margarita. He looked around the place a good deal before and after he got his first drink. He had a hard time staying on his wicker bar stool, and he talked to the waitress but she did not speak any English, to him. After she went in back, he peered around the bamboo stalks so as to get a glimpse of whoever was at the pool. No one was there yet.