Defeat.

 

 The ride over to Palenque was a cold and nauseating one. A five hour trip that felt more like fifteen. Half way into the trip I felt the need to violently vomit all the floor of the bus, or wherever convenient. I looked around for something to throw up in, or on if needed. As I came to the conclusion that my purse was the best and least embarrassing option, my stomach had settled. "Oh thank you God!" I'd announced a little too loudly.

As the grueling bus ride came to an end and I'd gotten off I’d met an Argentinian couple, and split a taxi with them to El Mono Blanco del Panchan (something about a white monkey) a grungy little Hostel conveniently placed in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Literally. We had been dropped off in the middle of the rain forest.  This was definitely not how Ontario Mills Mall had depicted it at Rainforest Café, there were no singing alligators or friendly little monkeys. In fact, the monkeys sounded more like hungry tigers. 

Once we'd found civilization, we'd decided two of us would share a room, as the other had plans of her own, which had worked out perfectly seeing as though there were only two beds available. Until Alejo, my roommate a twenty something year old Argentine, who was tall dark and slightly handsome, abandoned me! He had ran into some friends and planned on bunking in with them instead. So I figured I would move to another room as well (single dorm) which had been cheaper. Cheaper for a reason I'd thought. I've had closets bigger than that…come to think of it, it probably was a closet, and someone had simply decided to throw a bed in it.  "Four dollars a night and not even a toilet or a sink to wash my hands in!" I'd huffed! Why did I even leave San Cristobal in the first place? I'd pondered. Until I remembered, sweet epiphany! Alejo and I had left the back door to our more expensive, cabana open! Which had come complete with both shower and toilet. I'll just sneak in through the back and use that restroom whenever I need to, I'd thought, and it seemed a swell idea until just after I'd snuck in, used the restroom and was on my way out…there it was on the door, a four inch long cockroach twitching her crunchy little antennas right at me…okay maybe she wasn't really four inches, but still, gross enough to keep me hostage in that restroom. She was not there accidentally, and both her and I knew it, she'd been hired. As an attack dog of sorts.

El Mono Blanco del Panchan, Palenque

But, wait! I thought, I'm bigger, smarter even. I still had a chance at victory! I'd looked around the restroom for something to throw at her, to shoo her away, soap perhaps? No too big, too noisy. I might get caught. Another sweet epiphany! Toilet paper! I could wad up pieces into tiny balls and throw them at her.  I had crossed boarders, snuck into ruins, and swam with sting rays and there I was, a twenty one year old woman wadding up pieces of toilet paper to throw at a roach no bigger than my thumb “This is punishment” I muttered. For sneaking into the restroom in the first place. For leaving San Cristobal. I'd thought of my comfy little hostel back in San Cristobal, complete with a restroom, and no roaches. Oh how I longed for it.

Victoriously, after  ten minutes and twenty wads of toilet paper later, I had shooed her away. I had made it out. Alive. With not a scar on me. And when leaving that restroom I had realized that though I had won the battle she had won the war. For because of her, I would never again use that restroom…well at least not at night.


Traveler tip #2: Always, always, always bring toilet paper...you never know when it may come in handy.

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