Hanging Out On Bonaire and Hashing with the Hash House Harriers

I’ve been on Bonaire a couple weeks now. I really haven’t been doing much other than writing and trying to do some consulting. I went snorkeling a couple times and I saw an octopus! I know that everybody is going to give me crap about not diving while I’m here, but I am just not in that space right now. It’s neither here nor there.

One thing I did do, however, is went on an adventure with the Hash House Harriers. For those of you who don’t know, the Hash House Harriers are an international organization that is basically a running group. It has morphed over the years into a “Drinking Club with a Running Problem.” For more information about Hashers or Hashes, go here to the Hash House Harriers Wikipedia.

I have found Hashers all over the world in my travels. The last group I hashed with was in Malaysia back in March of 2017. It’s really just a great club that enjoys drinking and running/walking and being completely irreverent and having a few hours of debauchery with friends.

The way it works, is there are hares and hounds. Hares are people who go ahead of the rest of the group and lay out a trail with flour, making symbols and marks on the ground that allow the rest of the group to follow a trail. They sometimes lay false trails and will try to trick you into going one way or another and it’s your job to split up and figure out where the true trail is and then stay on it. That aspect of the event is a lot of fun and you end up getting a lot of extra exercise trying to figure out where the trail goes.

And of course, as the slogan of the club implies, there tends to be a lot of drinking. We typically start the event with a beer or two and wait for the hares to have a head start. Then we chase after the hares and somewhere along the line there will be different things to do. There’s typically a beer check, (see photo with BC in the sand) where there will be beers or other drinks to consume before moving on. And at the end there is circle of shame where people are called out for silly things they did on the hash and made to consume more beer. All in good fun. There are tons of songs and those who know them sing along.

The hash we went on was quite spectacular. Here are some of the photos from where we were hashing.

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Just another thing to do while traveling and a great way to meet local people wherever you go. Make sure before you travel to your next destination to check and see if you can find a local hashing group that might have a hash on the dates you’ll be there. Visitors are always welcome and it’s a great way to meet friends who can tell you what’s going on locally.

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