Honduras - August 29-September 7, 2023

[Martin Hash]

Entering Honduras was no problem, thanks to my wife, Gwynne, discovering the online entry form the day before. We were supposed to spend the night in a hostel but the logistics didn’t compute, and we ended up in a bush camp with a beautiful view except for raining all night, including booming thunder followed by majestic lightning right over us, turning the ground into a mud pit. It was the heaviest rain yet on the trip, with flooding that forced several tent occupants to seek refuge on the truck. Anything we had in our tent got wet but it’s something we’re used to. That combined with the lack of sleep the previous nights resulted in a profane shouting match over seating among others; I wasn’t involved. My recommendation is to make sure travelers, especially men, are lodged comfortably even if it costs more money.



La Ceiba

We were headed to La Ceiba, on the coast; at least 4 hours away on rough roads, extended by another 2 hours in a traffic jam, but we made it and had an evening stroll along the beach. The town was run down, a combination of old colonial construction and World Bank loans would be my guess. Men in uniforms carrying rifles stood in front of the restaurants along the way. I made me wonder what they were protecting against? We bought beer & chips to eat on a balcony above the water.



Snorkeling

Gwynne scheduled a snorkeling excursion around some of the islands along the second largest reef in the world, some 45-minutes offshore. We were accompanied on the speed boat out by a bevy of bikini-clad local college girls, which added spice to the trip. The swimming was okay because the water was clear & warm but the reef was fished out, and we’d done this sort of thing probably a hundred times. We did see a deadly poisonous snake nestled in the sea grass. Then during a short nature hike, a smallish boa constrictor slithered down a tree branch behind me, for who knows what kind of mischief, before the college girls saw it and pulled me away. We all had a good laugh, so much so that I asked Gwynne if we should get a snake for our granddaughter. (Emphatic, “No!”) The lunch was nondescript & expensive except the village sold a homemade liquor made from fermenting 7 kinds of roots gathered around Honduras that they called “gifty.” We were the only ones to buy a bottle. The boat ride back was the highlight of the trip; the rain was coming so the wind was churning the sea; wave after wave crashing against the bow of the boat, soaking everyone in the splash pattern. I improved the experience by drinking the whole bottle of gifty.



Rafting

Gwynne & I have been rafting on every continent so it’s difficult to get excited about yet another, but we didn’t have anything going on a Sunday so we took the plunge. As is often the case, our muted expectations luckily didn’t match the exceptional reality. To begin, the tour location was a little tourist station ensconced in deep jungle with access to a scenic river. It was the kind of place lovingly built by someone who clearly intended to retire there, everything handcrafted to integrate into the environment with as small a commercial footprint as possible. I thought to myself that I’d like to create a place like this during my retirement, but when I mentioned that thought to Gwynne, she immediately countered that after the first week of finishing it, I’d get bored. Unfortunately, she was probably right so I scratched that particular plan off my bucket list. The rafting itself was okay, nothing noteworthy, but the crawling on top of huge rocks and jumping into the warm water of the river was refreshing. To end the excursion, I jumped off a 20 foot precipice without hesitating even a second.



Kayaking

We spent some more time in a beautiful campground nestled in the jungle around lake Yojoa. There was a gravity-fed pool from the nearby river, a brewery with flights, and kayaking; all while the sun was out but not too hot nor humid. However, by the late afternoon, the storm clouds rolled in, accompanied by thunder & lightning, and the rain poured out of the heavens; it drenched our tent but not our satisfaction.

[C-Mag]

Honduras is run by warlords, at least when I was there.

They have geographic areas of influence and sometimes overlap. I found it quite common that anything of value was guarded by a man with a gun.