Central America: Fire

Last night there was a fire next to our hotel. An entire restaurant burned down. Interesting that this should happen, because JUST last night I was in a position where I actually thought about how to get out of my hotel room if there was a fire. You see, they have a different system down here for doors. On our hotel room door, there is just a deadbolt, operated by a key on both sides...no way to hand turn the lock like we have at home. It is either engaged, or it is not. Claudia and I are sharing the room, and I told her she could keep the key. Now, what this means is that if we leave the door unlocked for convenience, there is nothing to keep it from swinging open. And, of course, the way the door is hung it does open up wide. So she is in the habit of locking it when she leaves...even if I am in the room (this happened in another hotel, too). I am effectively locked IN to the room until she returns. I cannot get out except by breaking the window. Not a great option, but hey, at least there is a window. At any rate, she went out last night with everyone else, and I stayed in reading and then headed to be around 10. Locked in. At about 2am, there was a fire right around the corner from our hotel. I slept thru it, I am ashamed to say, but all of the others were actually down there helping to put it out, since they had been up partying on the hotel roof and saw it when it got going. They helped bring buckets filled from local house taps. There were two fireman but they didn't have long enough hoses to reach the place, and besides, it was fed from a regular tap anyway. At any rate, I find it odd that in the place that I actually moved the curtains to look at options and had FIRE on my mind, there WAS a fire. The photos below were taken first thing this morning, as the spot was being cleaned up.