Honduras

So, back to the 14.5 hour bus journey up through Nicaragua, into Honduras.  Our plan had been to get dropped off at La Guama and then catch a local bus to our hostel near Pena Blanca, on the lake.  However, due to a serious traffic accident and road works, we arrived 2.5 hours later than expected.  It was dark, there were no buses, no taxis, no hotels and the bus conductor dropped us with a warning about the bad local boys hanging around.  We were in somewhat of a bind.  Luckily, although not for the 2 angry truck drivers involved, there had been another traffic accident and the police were at the scene.  We approached them to ask what our options were and the president of the little town came over.  He thankfully spoke some English, and was able to help.  He persuaded the police officers to drive us the 12km to our hostel and after 20 minutes rattling around in the back of the police van with traffic cones, we arrived safely at D&D Brewery.

D&D Brewery was located in Los Naranjos, a little village by Lago de Yojoa, about 4km from Pena Blanca.  The establishment is owned by a guy from Oregon who brews his own beer in a microbrewery on the premises.  Needless to say Le Roux tried all of the different beers many times over!  The owner had also perfected a chocolate cake recipe and it was so good that I had to have it every day we were there – best cake I’ve had in a long time!  I even asked for the recipe so will be baking it as soon as I have the required equipment to do so.

The area is known for its birdlife and there was a resident twitcher at D&D – an eccentric old English guy called Malcolm who had crazy long white hair and a plaited beard – quite a character!  He was very knowledgeable and was able to identify a lot of the random birds we’ve photographed, although I have forgotten most of the names already!  We headed out into the local countryside for a number of walks to see if we could find and photograph more wildlife. The scenery was lovely - rolling green hills, plantations of sugar cane, coffee, and bananas, and lush forest with little rivers running through it.  The air was heady with the jasmine-like fragrance of the coffee blossoms.  There was, however, a very large ant population and on one of our walks through a coffee plantation in flip flops we were both bitten by some large black ants – they sting and itch a lot and my feet became all puffy and swollen!  Lesson learned – closed shoes required on forest walks!  We also came across a few snarling dogs which were pretty scary so Le Roux took to carrying a couple of rocks just in case!

One morning we hired a rowing boat from a local called Oscar, and Le Roux and I, along with Jason (a lovely Canadian guy from Vancouver we’d met at D&D) rowed down the river and out onto the lake for a spot of bird watching and fishing.  The bird watching was more successful than the fishing, but the lake was beautiful so we enjoyed some lovely scenery while floating around.  We saw the fish jumping, including the much desired black bass, but they weren’t biting for either Le Roux or Jason so no free dinner for us! 

Besides the lake, the other thing to do in the area was to visit Pulhapanzak falls, about 18km away by local bus.  The waterfalls were definitely more impressive than the ones on Ometepe which made the trip somewhat more worthwhile.  However, the best was yet to come.  We had read about a tour you could do behind the waterfall to a little cave and as it didn’t cost very much, we decided to do it.  It would definitely not have met UK health and safety standards as we clambered and slipped our way through mud and over rocks to the base of the waterfall and then waded through the falls themselves, to get to the middle and the small cave at the back.  We were deluged with water and had to hold hands, keep our heads down and breathe through our mouths – scary and exhilarating at the same time!  Our guide found a little bird stuck behind the waterfall, so he carefully picked it up and carried it out from behind the falls before letting the very grateful bird fly away.  Having safely made our way out of the falls, there was an opportunity to swim in a rock pool and to do a 10m jump off the rocks.  Needless to say, Le Roux and Jason did the jump a couple of times while I took the photos.  Overall a really fun and exciting experience!

It was time to move on again after 4 nights at D&D and our next destination was Copan Ruinas, by the Guatemalan border on the west side of Honduras.  To get there involved a chicken bus followed by a more civilised luxury coach.  The chicken bus should have taken a maximum of 1.5hrs, but somehow it took 2.5hrs to reach San Pedro Sula.  We stopped at every person on the roadside, even if they were only 20m apart, and they all seemed to have either lots of shopping or lots of kids, which required assistance from the conductor to get everyone and everything on board.  We even had a disco on board as the driver had installed a serious stereo system and was pumping out the tunes at quite a volume as we drove along.  To start with it was all quite fun and interesting to watch, but as time ticked by and the last bus from SPS to Copan grew nearer I was wishing we could speed up a little.  My wish was granted at the 2 hr mark, when our bus driver became a racing driver and we hurtled along overtaking everything in sight regardless of any blind bends or hills – it became a white knuckle ride and I was relieved to have arrived in one piece with all of our luggage in time to catch our next bus.  After a very uneventful 2^nd leg, we arrived in Copan. The final mile to our hostel was a bit far to walk with all of our luggage so we decided to take a moto-taxi.  At first the driver was pleased to have a fare but that was until he saw how much we needed to fit in his little vehicle.  I honestly don’t know how we squeezed everything in, but we did and then we had to negotiate the steep hills up from the bus terminal to town.  At one point the taxi skidded back a little as it rounded a corner on the steep dirt road and the driver had to have a second attempt at making it up the hill.  We felt sorry for the guy as we’d probably taken a couple of years off the life of his bike so we tipped generously!

Copan Ruinas is a lovely little town with cobbled streets and nice buildings, however, it is pretty touristy as you would expect, with many souvenir shops, hotels, bars and restaurants to cater for the wide spectrum of people visiting the nearby world famous ruins.  First stop was obviously the ruins where we bumped into Larry and Fred again, two Canadian guys doing a motorbike road trip for 3 months (Le Roux is very jealous!), who we’d met at D&D Brewery a few days before.  We wandered round the ruins with them and took in the various temples and stairways, which were pretty impressive.  It was a beautiful setting with trees all around and a number of scarlet macaws and other birds flying around.  What struck us was how few people there were and consequently how peaceful the place was - we had got there quite early to avoid the tour bus rush, but it never came thankfully.  That night we met up with Larry and Fred again for dinner and had some lovely food in Twisted Tanyas accompanied by some good Argentinean wine, which I’ve been missing recently.  The night before we’d had some of the worst plonk I’ve ever had so it was a relief to have something enjoyable to drink.

Our next activity was an overnight trip to Finca El Cisne, a farm about 25km from Copan.  We were picked up from town by Carlos, the owner and host, in his pick up and we had to squeeze 10 of us and our luggage into it, so 5 of the group had to stand in the back for the hour long drive over terrible roads – a hair-raising ride for them, but luckily I was squeezed in the front seat with the fresh veggies and my day pack!  After being shown our rooms, we were given a tour of Carlos’ share of the farm where he talked about a wide variety of plants, including his new cocoa plantation, which was very interesting.  Carlos gave unsuspecting Le Roux one of the little round chillies the size of a peppercorn he was growing and it nearly blew his head off – the hottest thing he’s ever tried!  



Next was the 3 hour horse ride down the road at the main farm.  Le Roux and I have had some disappointing horse riding trips so far, which involved sitting on the horse and following nose to tail in a very specific order.  Luckily this ride was different.  The horses were well schooled but had minds of their own and Carlos allowed us to actually ride them.  We were each given a cowboy hat and a horse - we rode Cleopatra and Luna (mother and daughter) who were keen to go and so we had to hold them back at times.  It was great being able to canter across sections of the farm – such fun to finally ride properly.  

Halfway we stopped to rest the horses and Carlos harvested some coconuts and we had fresh coconut water to drink – lovely and refreshing.  On the way back to the farm one of the Belgian lads on the tour who was a less experienced rider didn’t manage to steer his horse around the bamboo bush and he ended up with a deep cut in his arm – I didn’t realise bamboo was that sharp.  Luckily Carlos’ sister is a doctor so she came by the farm to stitch up his arm.  


After a lovely lunch of some homemade local food we were given a tour of the coffee production plant.  We also got to see a ripe cocoa bean pod, taste the sweet coating on the raw beans, and then try the dry beans before they are roasted.  It was interesting to me as a chocoholic to find out that the inside of a cocoa bean is actually purple and white marbled, with the quality of the cocoa bean being indicated by the proportion of white – the higher the better.  

The day was rounded off by a soak in the natural hot springs nearby - I still find it odd to see a hot steaming waterfall.  After more lovely local food for dinner and breakfast we were taken back to Copan.  We ate a great variety of things during the three meals we had at the farm, including a rosti of a local root vegetable drizzled with ginger marinated in honey; a stuffed fritter made from the puree of a square banana filled with mashed salty black beans; and spiced tamales wrapped around moist chicken. A great 24 hours on the farm and I’d highly recommend the trip to anyone. 

The last thing we visited in Copan was Macaw Mountain, another bird sanctuary, focussed on parrots and macaws, unsurprisingly!  We seem to have developed a bird fetish and are now borderline twitchers!!  We saw a vast number of rescued birds, including scarlet macaws, green parrots, various types of owls, and two types of toucans.  My favourites were obviously the toucans, including the new blacker ones we’d not seen before.  I also particularly liked Polly, a crazy moon walking, talking, head bobbing parrot who lived in the gift shop.  It was sad to read that a lot of the birds are seized by the police from illegal traders, but it takes them too long to get the birds to the sanctuary and as they don’t know how to look after them a significant proportion die en route.  

There was an area at the sanctuary where we could get close to the birds outside of their cages and we got some great pictures, although we did have to put up with the incredible noise that they made altogether!  We dragged Jason along with us as he’d just arrived in Copan, but luckily he really enjoyed the place too.  We had a nice lunch at the sanctuary which was set in a beautiful river/forest location a couple of kilometres outside of Copan.  


That evening, our last in Honduras, we met up again with Jason for a Yarniff rematch – unfortunately things didn’t go to plan and I lost badly, but we had a nice evening.  We’ll have to play again when we reach Vancouver!

And so our short time in Honduras came to an end as we caught a shuttle bus early in the morning to Antigua in Guatemala. We both really enjoyed the places we visited and the people we met – so friendly, welcoming and helpful.  The farm stay was a particular highlight and I’d highly recommend Honduras to anyone.