Adventures in Tela a beer on the beach

After my trouble with the buses to Tela, I found in the hotel room a magazine with all the bus times. Yippee. With this I worked out that I could get an executive back to Copan via San Pedro Sula but the change would be in their own exclusive terminus so no problem there. I went an bought the ticket on Saturday afternoon after I had got back from Punta Sud. At this point I thought I deserved a beer so I went to a bar on the beach. After I had got over the price (45 lempiras instead of 25 in Copan, there are 36 lempiras to the pound) I settled down to watch the sun disappear. I suddenly noticed a guy who was cleaning the beach (The ticket office was at a resort) running over the sand and shouting. I saw he was shouting at a girl say about 10 to 12 running into the sea with a rubber ring. I looked out to sea and everything seemed to be OK, there was nobody on their own or further out to sea.

The girl was about 100 to 120 metres away. There were also several groups of people in the water near the girl and I could see from the fact that the bathers in front of at the same distance from the sea were standing that the depth was at least OK for adults. So I concluded that the girl had taken the rubber ring to play with her friends and I sat back with my beer to watch the cleaner and other guy in a resort uniform pointing and remonstrating. After about 30 seconds a lady joined the two guys and there was some discussion. I was wondering how they were going to persuade the kids playing to return to the beach.

Eventually a couple of other people joined up and as always on a beach when something happens some other people joined over but they were all standing on the beach. I then saw a couple of guys step into the water and start pulling at a rope or something like that. I then started to think that maybe it was a little bit different. A large crowd started to gather and a group eventually emerged from the water. Now, I was thinking should I go over and join the crowd but gawping is not something I feel comfortable with. But on the other hand, the guys playing football on the beach were carrying on and the swimmers in the sea in front of me were splashing about so I stayed to finish my beer. A guy then come running over to the bar with some message and then another guy ran along the beach with his hands in front of him in a pushing down motion. A pickup truck then drove onto the beach and by now there were many people in the crowd. After about five minutes, the pickup drove past the bar. I could see there was a man lying in the back with another bather beside him. There were also two other guys in the back who I took to be from the resort. As the pickup went by the bather crouched by the man looked up at the bar. The image of the the fear in his eyes is seared into my memory. In the distance, you could hear the sirens.....


_________________________________________________________________________