Crossing Honduras

I decided to leave the jungle lodge after the first night. I met this Canadian couple who were going in the same direction as me, and we all decided the lodge was a bit on the pricey side. Not compared to Canadian prices of course, but just relative to how much we could be spending elsewhere in Honduras. We took the lodge's transport to the mega mall where I again availed myself of a frosty and fries from Wendy's. My new friends were a little to enthusiastic in their order and they ended up not  feeling great all evening. We spent an evening at a hostel in the Garifuna part of town. We didn't have much desire to go exploring there, especially because the entrance of the hostel was very air conditioned and that wasn't a delight we had been exposed to in a while. So we sat around, played cards, and drank weak Honduran beer. As the evening went on, a few more groups of travelers came by, most of whom were Canadian! I haven't met a ton of Canadians on my trip, just a few here and there, but everyone else always tells me that Canadians are everywhere. So it was fun to have a bunch of Canadians to hang out with. We left the hostel early the next morning to get the bus to Copan.

I have been in Copan for 2 nights, staying at this lovely little hostel just on the outskirts of town. Copan is a colonial mountain town, so it feels a little like Antigua or San Cristobal, but much much smaller. Like those two cities it also has amazing coffee, so I have been drinking a lot. The coffee in Utila was horrible. However, unlike those other two cities it is HOT. I thought I was used to the heat from Utila but its different somehow, more opressive. I guess because you don't have the breeze off the ocean. But also there are no sand flies, so its a trade off I guess. Most people come to Copan for the ruins. I hadnt seen any mayan ruins in over a month, so I figured it was about time to see some more, before I leave Mayan territories for good. The ruins in Copan aren't particularly spectacular, but the carvings are pretty awesome. Its incredible to think about people carrying these giant blocks of stone over any distance. I also visited a bird sanctuary where they are working on reintroducing macaws and other parrots back into the wild. They had a huge collection of birds in a beautiful park. Some of them we could hold! Today I went to the butterfly sanctuary, which was pretty unimpressive compared to the one in Niagara Falls, but it was still nice. I learned a bunch of new words in Spanish.

Tomorrow at 4am I am leaving on a shuttle for El Salvador. I wasn't going to go there, but I have a few days before I have to start my job on the beach in Nicaragua so I think I will check it out. People who have been there have raved about it. I was going to take the shuttle directly to Leon, Nicaragua, but it would take 16 hours and the shuttle goes through El Salvador so I figured I am paying the entrance and exit fees anyway, I might as well take a break from traveling for a few days. I am going to stay over in a surfing town called El Tunco with another friend I met in the hostel here.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle

I wish I could say I saw a lion but that would be a lie. Apparently there are jaguars here though, but they are understandably hard to see. They are probably sleeping. Just kidding I don't know. I am in the middle of the jungle, but its only 30 minutes from the town of La Ceiba so its not that wild. I am in one of Honduras' national parks, this one is called Pico Bonito. It features the beautiful Cangrejal river passing through the mountains on its way to the Caribbean. Yesterday I went white water rafting! It was awesome. The river is full of enormous smooth grey boulders and I jumped off of them into the river. Apparently during and after the rainy season the water rises to cover these boulders, which are 15+ meters high. Rafting at that time of year is much more intense. But it was still exciting for me, fast water, rapids, beautiful scenery. The water is really warm too! I have never been in such a warm river before.

After the rafting I went for a hike in the national park with this guy I met from Houston. I figured we would see some wild animals. At least a snake. But no, only spiders and geckos. Probably for the best that there were no snakes. I'm not sure how I would respond to a strange snake. Probably not well. Anyway it was a great hike through the jungle. I swung on some vines. Seemed like an appropriate thing to do. When we got back to the lodge I was exhausted so I had dinner and went to sleep. Today I am going to hang around for the morning, resolve some things over the internet that I haven't had a chance to do, then this afternoon I am going zip lining! I will leave tomorrow for Copan. There is a Canadian couple here who are also going that way so it will be nice to travel together.

I was sad to leave Utila, but I was ready to leave the "farm". I did make a significant contribution there - the holes I dug will allow them to bring in electricity! I did some actual gardening in the last day I worked with them. We planted a bunch of seeds. I am not too sure if any of them are going to come up though. The farmer didn't quite think things through, so if anything sprouts it will be a credit to his optimism. 

I felt bad about leaving early when I had committed to two weeks, but the couple didn't seem to mind. The farm felt really isolated even though it wasn't that far from town (about 45 min walk) but because of the lack of electricity the farmer frequently went to a friend's house in town and his wife was working for the Semana Santa (a massive holiday, leading up to Easter) at a bar in town so I was alone a lot. I had been spending the occasional night in town through the week. I made some friends in the dive school who were still around so I went in after work in the evening and then crashed in any empty dorm bed because I didn't feel comfortable walking back to the farm in the dark. I could take a taxi to the airport, but then from there it was still a 5 minute walk through the woods.

I was planning on staying in the jungle lodge one more night, but I am realizing how much money it is costing me so I think I will leave this afternoon. Its not expensive, but because its in the middle of nowhere they can charge whatever they like for food and drink. I was going to do ziplining today but that is also $40. I will find another place to do it in Central America I think!

Scuba and Gardening

I finished my scuba course on Wednesday with an amazing dive out on the North side of the island. The reef there is more diverse and populated with more fish species. It was beautiful. Then the boat captain got word of a whale shark sighting just a bit further north, so we took off to find it! The  best clue of a whale shark is a school of tuna feeding on plankton near the surface. This was cool to watch in itself. After 30 minutes of (nausiatingly) slow navigating around the feeding frenzy finally the captain started yelling at us to jump in the water. I jumped in with my fins, mask, and snorkel and when I opened my eyes the whale shark was directly below me! Probably about 15 meters or so, so not very close, but it is really hard to determine distances in the open water where you have no points of reference. Shortly after the whale shark appeared, it disappeared into the depths. But I am super psyched that I got to see it! 

After the dive I had to get my stuff together and make my way to the farm I am volunteering on. Well its not really a farm. And I haven't been doing much even in the way of gardening. I am working for and staying with an American couple, about 40 years old I would guess, who have been on this little (1/4 acre) of land in Utila behind the airport for 4 years. They built 3 mandala gardens, round gardens with pie-shaped segments, and planted some trees. The goal is to make it into a forest garden, but it looks to me like they are moving pretty slowly on getting other plants. Of course, its difficult to buy plants here, but still. So the main 'farm' project is building the soil up with organic matter, or compost. So every day I go out on the trails around the farm (there are no roads here) and collect several wheelbarrows full of fallen leaves. These I bring back and dump on one of the pie-shaped garden plots. I have also done a bit of weeding and a lot of carrying water. They do not have running water because they do not have electricity, so I have to go fill jugs with water from a nearby well. This is not water to drink, but for watering the plants and showering and washing dishes and such. 

I really like the couple. What they lack in acreage the make up for in enthusiasm and idealism. They have big plans to spead permaculture around the island, then around Honduras, then Central America. Utila is a beautiful place for it, apparently the island used to supply the mainland with lots of its food. And then the United Fruit Company did its banana research here, I have been told. It would be great to see the island embrace permaculture and become food secure, because the veggies you can buy in town that come in on boats are pretty sad looking. Anyway its just not clear to me if the two of them really have a plan to achieve their dream. They have lots of ideas, but not much in the way of implementation. I understand that they don't have much and whatever they need is hard to come by on the island, there is no Home Depot after all. But I just thought in 4 years they would be farther along. Their website implies that the operation is a bit more established than it is, www.fincatresanillos.com

I was originally going to stay here 2 weeks but I have decided to move on after just 1 week. I will be heading west, first going to the ruins at Copan and then onward to Nicaragua!

Island style

I love islands. I realized when I arrived at the dock in Utila that it has been over 6 weeks since I was on an island, and it feels good to be back. En route to Utila I stopped in Livingston, Guatemala for one night. It is also an island on the Caribbean at the mouth of the Rio Dulce but I didn't really like it there. Utila is great! Its not really authentic Honduras, there are tons of backpackers and expats here. The main reason for coming to Utila is that is has the cheapest PADI scuba diving courses in the world. Under $300 for the open water certification which allows you to dive up to 18 m, anywhere around the world. I am starting my course this afternoon, we will watch a few videos first. Apparently the videos are really bad, but everyone has to watch them. I imagine they will be similar to the videos I had to watch for my first aid training or my ski instructor training. Tomorrow morning we get in the water, not too deep yet, just in the shallows to learn how the equipment works and how to breathe and such.

I've made a friend/dive companion. Her name is Sarah and she is Irish, but she has been living and volunteering in Guatemala for the past few months. We were on the same bus from Semuc Champey, then the same boat down Rio Dulce to Livingston. In Livingston we figured out that we were doing the same thing so we booked the shuttle to La Ceiba together. We got to La Ceiba on Wednesday afternoon to discover that the ferry to Utila would not be running due to high winds. Along with the 3 other people in the shuttle we found a cheap hostel to stay the night. Not much to do in La Ceiba, so we went to the mall! A very american mall with all sorts of american fast food. We ate at Wendy's because there is no Wendy's in Europe, so it was a noveltly. I shared my childhood love of Wendy's french fries dipped in a chocolate frosty. I know it sounds gross, but it was yummy when I was a kid and its still yummy now. The next morning we got to the ferry, about 2 hours early because the guy working at the hostel said we would need to be there very early. We didn't. Anyway I forgot my motion sickness medication until just when we boarded the boat, so the first 20 minutes were rough. It was all good in the end though.

When the ferry arrived in Utila we were accosted by representatives of all the different dive shops, because as I said, this is why people come here. Sarah and I walked down the Main Street checking out different dive shops. It was impossible to choose so we just went with the one that we thought had a good 'vibe' haha. But after we were second guessing out choice... I'm still not sure we went with the right one. We had some issues with the price because they quoted us a price and neglected to tell us about the tax that was on top of that price. Then the exchange rate they use from dollars to lempira (honduran currency) was really high. So we had to argue with them and deal with some awkwardness, but we had already signed a 'contract' (which surely is not legally binding) so we couldnt really get out of it completely... anyway we got them to drop the tax so it all worked out.

Today we borrowed some snorkel equipment and walked down to the end of the island where the reef begins. Scuba diving is going to be so awesome.