Every adventure needs a catalyst, and Vanessa was ours.A fiery pixie of a girl who spoke a tossed salad of 3 languages and laughed easily at the sometimes confusing results, she was traveling solo in Honduras on vacation from her 6-month stint as a volunteer physical therapist at an orphanage in Guatemala, which I suppose was something of a break from her life as a physical therapist in her hometown in Germany.
I don't know where she came from, but after spending an entire day waiting on that dock in La Ceiba, she was a gust of wind looking for some hapless leaves to carry along on a journey to discover whether La Ceiba didn't have something worthwhile in it, and she found us. We quickly formed what would be the second group of 6 for me on this trip, and off we went in our taxis to... some place. Though not the original intention, we did find a nice swimming spot in a lagoon with waterfalls, a run-down motel on the beach, and a decent restaurant for a warm meal and ridiculously loud music to dance the rum off with.
Just as you would expect from the wind, Vanessa's path was unpredictable. She was there and then she wasn't. She went with us to Utila, then disappeared, only to reappear on the same return ferry. And so she came along for the next adventure - the Copan ruins near the Guatemala border - before setting off again in her own direction.
But once again, she breezed her way into my life - our lives - and joined the final group of 6 in Antigua for her last weekend before returning to Germany. Generous, vibrant, easy grace. A technicolor traveler. Sin viento, no hay aventura.
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