It's all the chicken's fault
Diving in Utila was our next goal. One we've been waiting for sometime now. However, Utila being a small island, we needed to figure a way to leave GreenGo behind on the mainland. Thankfully (?), it broke down again, though what else is new, but this time his aim couldn't be better. It got us to the city we were going to, but when we were only minutes away from the ferry terminal, the whole car started shaking violently as Shurik tried to accelerate and we were forced to stop ending up right across the street from a repair shop. Though the man in this garage was not a VW expert himself, he knew one, and soon, we were in his beat up Toyota, roughly GreenGo's age, with its "gasoline tank", a half gallon plastic jug that needed to be filled up for even the shortest ride across town, hanging between Shurik's legs right under the glove compartment. The whole time in the car, Jorge (this our new best friend) ended up quietly questioning me about Shurik's sex life - because "He can't just have one girlfriend, right?" and me assuring him that I am plenty of a woman to handle. Jorge brought us to Luis - an enormous Honduran who towed GreenGo behind his own VW bus to his garage full of Beetles, Buses, and spare VW engines and parts. Luis, just like George had only one favorite subject. Not that we asked for it, but he counted for us (on his fingers) how many local girlfriends he visits on a week, lowering his voice and coyly glancing at the house where his wife and five children were. He blamed it on the chicken. "The chickens here are stuffed with hormones," he explained, "and when these young girls eat the chickens they develop much faster and give it up…" We listened politely to the sexual conquests, while one of his teenage apprentices fiddled with GreenGo, until my impatience got the best of me: anxious to know where will we be sleeping tonight I urged Luis to tell us if he by now knows what is wrong with the car, and how much might this be costing us. "You know about machismo?" Luis lowered his voice again, though now obviously not on behalf of his wife, "It is really not a custom in this country for a woman to 'handle business'. This sort of thing should be discussed among men. I don't have a problem with this, but somebody else might…," he finished with a smile. "OK," I smiled back, swallowed my pride and the roaring laughter building up in my stomach. The men discussed "men issues" whilst I, for the lack of meals to cook or rags to wash, read a book, quietly, out of their way. That night we slept in GreenGo, parked in Luis's garage. Next morning, we left the bus with Luis, who charged us peanuts for storage and repair, and headed to the island.