Thursday, September 16, 2021

Around The World In Eighty Words : 3. LUCK

"You call this luck!", Lucy said with the kind of sneer only a dog could deliver. In her defence, it has to be said that we were tracking through a tropical rain forest in the middle of the day, miles from anyone and with only a few outrageously large insects for company. It should also be added, that she didn't really say it - I'm not that abnormal - but when you are embarking of a tour of the world via eighty changes to your what3word geolocation code, you get desperate for a bit of company. For those in need of a recap, we started at my office desk, changed tall to short and visited Illinois, changed select to selection and dropped in on Libya, and changed logo to luck and ended up where we are now: in the middle of the jungle in Honduras!

Lucy had a bit of a point: a few hundred miles to the east and we might have been sat on a beach of a Caribbean island sipping daiquiris - but miles don't come into it when you are exploring the world by random words - luck brought us here in quite a literal sense, and here we must stay.


"I'm not staying here", Lucy put her foot down - or rather put all four feet down in a way that only dogs can - and refused to move any further through the forest. I tried to point out the illogicality of her actions (inactions) but dogs aren't strong on syllogisms. Eventually I persuaded her that there was a village a few miles to the east and there I was sure we would find a lovely old country inn with a well kept pint of best bitter, a decent steak and chips dinner and a bowl of water for her. "It's called Corrientes", I told her, "and I'm told it's lovely"

As it turned out, the country inn was a grocery store called Pulperia Lily, the village was little more than a couple of houses and a church, and there were still far too many strange looking insects for my liking. We bought a can of Coke to share and asked directions to the nearest city. As luck would have it, the second city of Honduras, San Pedro Sula, was only a few miles to the east. We could cadge a lift in a truck, head for the city lights, escape the biting insects and spend a night of luxury in a posh hotel.


And that is how Lucy and I came to be in downtown San Pedro Sula, hiding behind a garbage truck and desperately searching for a word that would move us on to our next destination. How was I to know that San Pedro Sula had the reputation of being "the murder capital of the world" with a higher rate of daily murders than anywhere else in the world outside of a war zone. At night the streets come under the control of warring gangs, who would happily murder a wandering explorer and his talking dog. 

"We need to move on, quickly", I said with a hint of tension and a bucket full of fear in my voice. "Think of a word, for heavens sake". "You said it", replied Lucy, "let's get out of here fast". So off we go to ///sake.luck.selection - see you there.



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