by Dwight Wayne Coop A.
The main reason I go somewhere,” wrote Pascal in his Pensées,
“is to say I’ve been there.” So went the philosopher’s
gentle roast of those people for whom wide travel is measured solely in distances.
Travel — even tourism — is a game of connect the dots, with buses
for pencils. These travelers may not even get off the bus in many of the dots,
but technically, they have been there.
I had been to Santa Rosa de Copán fully 50 times in the above sense.
On my map, I never drew the line to Santa Rosa, but always through it. Until
last month, I never once desbordé del bus - but hey, I’d been there!
The reason is that Santa Rosa puts its smelliest foot forward. The first part
of the town that through-travelers see, and the last that most pay attention
to, is singularly uninviting. Without a second look, Santa Rosa could be just
some oil-stained roadside puckeyburg, long on trash and short on biomass. An
irritation, too, since the obligatory stop delays one’s arrival to a real
destination.
