The Adventure Begins

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Hola!

Last time I updated you all I was only able to tell you the story as far as exiting Nicaragua - that happened almost 2 weeks ago and I'm now in Guatemala so you guys are way behind. Things are just happening out here and way too great a pace for me to visit internet cafes all the time and write back about it. I've still got almost 2 weeks left but already it's been quite possibly my most eventful and busy trip yet. And for this same reason, I'm sorry but I won't be sending any postcards out to people so this log will have to suffice.

Even the evenings where I plan to have a quiet one have often turned into big nights, as I'll explain below. The socialising has become all too easy and the partying has been taking it's toll - the past few mornings have been very slow and uneventful because of heavy hangovers. So I've decided to take myself away from the thriving backpacker scene here for a little bit, checking myself out of the bustling hostel and moving with a couple of friends into a quieter spot down the road, so I can start being a bit more active in the mornings.

This move didn't really help much in the end, as the couple I moved hotels with told me some big big news which we couldn´t let pass without a celebration. So I still woke up with a sore head this morning.

My trip since my last entry here has been a real roller-coaster ride and I´ve just realised I´ve jumped the gun a little bit here with this log so far, so much to tell I guess I´d best go back and start from my departure from Nicaragua.

On leaving Nicaragua I was a little apprehensive as so many travellers I´d met had told me horror stories about Honduras - how dangerous it is there, how armed gangs run the cities and how everyone carries a gun. Some people had told me how they´d felt so unsafe there they just drove right through the country, stopping as little as possible. With this sort of reputation, I entered Honduras with a siege mentality. Even before I set foot in the country, I already knew I would hate my time there.

I couldn´t have been more wrong. Far from entering into a warzone from the wild wild west, the cities of Choluteca and the capital Tegucigalpa were not too unpleasant at all, although I´m still glad I arrived in Tegucigalpa during daylight hours as it does have a universally bad reputation at night. Moving away from the cities and into the rural areas, I was surprised and genuinely touched by how friendly the Honduran people have been to me, going well out of their way to help me out, without any ulterior motive. Locals would walk me to bus-stops to make sure I got on the express bus rather than the slow one, and I met so many friendly locals travelling on those old school buses.

This felt really far off the beaten track - for my first few days in Honduras (until I reached the coast) I didn´t see a single other traveller and the roads here can be testing, as dust filled the bus as it bounced around on bumpy mountain roads to get to the tiny town of La Union. It was more like a village in size and it seemed like they hadn´t seen a gringo in days, certainly not a Chinese one! The place seemed to be run by children playing football in the dusty streets, as chickens competed with dogs, cattle and donkeys for scraps of food. My hotel wasn´t even marked by a sign, and didn´t have any running water. Things are really basic. Considering that the hiking to be done in the nearby National Park of La Muralla is the main reason anyone comes here, there is a surprising absence of any tourist infrastructure. For example, I had a right mission just to get some mineral water from the trek, finding  five different shops which didn´t sell any. Just when I thought my only hydration on the trek would come from Lager or a bottle of Rola Cola, I found a 6th shop which did have some mineral water, so I bought their whole supply - 2 litres in 3 little bottles!

I´d originally planned to set off hiking early to avoid the worst of the daytime heat but as the wather was overcast early in the morning, I figured the heat wouldn´t be a problem and went back to bed. Eventually waking up and setting off around 9.30, the weather had changed dramatically and the sun was beaming down as strong as ever. The next surprise was when I was told there was NO public transport to the national park - there´s no taxis in the village and the pick-up trucks which my guidebook mentions don´t seem to exist either! Stuck with the prospect of walking to there or missing out on the national park altogether, I began walking along the 14 km uphill dirt-path to get to the park, from where my hike would actually begin!

Although the sun was out, the air was still pretty fresh and being surrounded by wonderful scenery and tall trees all around, it was a pleasant enough walk, although I was led to believe it would take around 5 hours, time I didn´t really have because of my lie-in. I´d been keeping a decent pace but after walking 2 hours up the winding road I still had no idea how much further it was to go, as there were no signs of any kind, let alone any lights - this was something of a concern as if it would take 5 hours just to get the entrance, I´d be hard-pressed to do the hike in the park and then walk back to town before sunset.

The path was totally deserted and it felt like I was truly out in the wilderness - the only noise coming from birds and insects, and the occasional cattle which crossed the path. This tranquility was suddenly rudely interrupted by the noise of a gargantuan Mack truck powering up the path behind me. It wasn´t too bad though as I was able to hitch a ride on the back of the truck which took me all the way to the park entrance. My co-passengers on the truck went only by the names of Dirt and Rubble, but I didn´t care; this had bought me valuable time.

If the journey there was quite an adventure, this was nothing compared to when I actually entered the park. I approached the visitor centre ... a 2-storey wooden house where I figuredI could get a map. The door was closed but I looked through one of the windows but because of all the dust on the other side I couldn´t get a very good view, but inside looked very dark and totally abandoned. I knocked on the door. No answer. I´ve seen too many movies to go any further exploring around abandoned wooden houses out in the wilderness, 14 long kilometers from civilisation (and for La Union I use the term very loosely)!

So I ventured on into the jungle of the national park, choosing to do the Él Pizote´trail - at 3km, this was miniscule compared to my journey there. In parts, the trail was as derelict as the abandoned visitor centre - some sections were overgrown, whilst other parts of the trail had been blocked by fallen trees, meaning that you had to either climb over or duck under. To top it all, there were a series of rickety old Indiana-Jones-style wooden suspension bridges too, with missing/loose bits of wood and all that. The trek was fantastic - my first since the Maderas Disaster, it felt great to be trekking on solid dry ground again. At some points on this trip I´ve been places where I´ve felt like I was the only person thee, but here I WAS literally the only person in the national park. Occasionally I´d hear the breaking of branches on the ground, but these turned out to be little racoon-like rodents who live there. Fortunately I didn´t encounter any of the Jaguars or Pumas that roam these parts.

The trek didn´t take as long as expected, but rather than do another trail I thought I´d best head back to La Union - as there was no guarantee I could hitch a ride back into town, if I left now I´d have just enough time to walk all the way back before dark. As things turned out I was offered a ride after walking oly 40 mins, but I figured I´d have little to do if I got into La Union by mid-afternoon, so I politely declined and walked the full 14 km back. I approached the final stretch back to town just before sundown and had to cross a river via stepping stones. I looked up and in the distance I spotted a man with a machete waiting for me on the other side of the river.

Jaibinio was a very healthy 58 year-old who worked up in the woods, and was a very jovial chap as he walked with me back to town, carrying a huge log for firewood over his shoulder, his machete in the other hand and recounting lots of tales from his 26 years spent living in La Union.

I left La Union to head to Trujillo, a relaxed little coastal town where there´s a stong presence of Garifuna - the descendants of Caribe Indians and African slaves, who know how to have a good time and it makes for a really fun place to be. This was one of those incidents that fate often throws the traveller´s way, where a quiet night turns into a big night. Whilst visiting an old Spanish fort overlooking the bay, I met Roberto and Olbin, a couple of young well-to-do Honduran trainee solicitors who after chatting a while, took me on a tour around town and then insisted that I joined them and their boss, Mario, for dinner and beers at a local restaurant. And seeing as that restaurant was showing a big football game on the TV - Honduras vs Costa Rica (lot of rivalry there) - we all stayed for that as the whole town seemed to turn up to watch. It was a really good night even though they lost 3-1.

Up until Trujillo I hadn´t seen another foreigner in Honduras, but as soon as I reached the coast there was a huge influx as we seemed to be in a different country altogether. Nowhere was this more true than the Bay Islands - although part of Honduras, you get off the boat and seem to enter a different country altogether. Before I got here, the only Honduran I´d met who could speak English was a cabbie who´d once lived in America and had developed an accent resembling that of a Harlem pimp. But on the Bay Islands the locals generally speak English and the tourist infrastructure is alive and thriving. The other big difference was the prices - make no mistake, this is a tourist trap and once you´re on the island things cost up to 3 times the price they do on the mainland.

But when I saw the beaches at Roatan - West Bay to be precise, it made it all worth it. This could well be the best beach I´ve ever set foot upon - soft white powdery sands, crysal-clear calm waters and a climate which is hot but not oppressive, all contribute towards making Roatan feel like Paradise. It´s certainly not the most secluded nor the least developed beach you´ll ever come across but it´s understandable that some people I met here had come on vacation and never left.

To offset the increased accommodation costs, I initially shared a room with ´Howling Mad´Murdoch (well, L.A John actually, but he resembled him in both looks and logic!) before he went off in search of the cheapest accommodation the Bay Islands have to offer - illegally pitching up a tent right there on the beach. I also met an interesting Canadian chap who went by the name of Shy - at a certain point on West Bay (this is all I´ll say in case word gets out) there´s a secret trail that leads you up and over onto another beach. Unlike West Bay, this beach is totally deserted as few know how to get there. Shy had been camping there in isolation for 2 weeks and said that I could cut my own costs by camping on this secet beach too. I woulda been up for it but without a tent it was a bit of a non-starter!

My few days in paradise were punctuated by banana pancakes (someone mentioned these in a restaurant one night, then I played the Jack Johnson song and the seed had been firmly sown), ice-cold beer and long lazy days of relaxation at the beach. It was a wrench to leave but at least I was well rested by the time my wallet told me I had to get back to the mainland.

Mick (a young Dutch traveller) and Guiselle (his girlfriend who he met in Nicaragua) have been my travel companions for the last week or so, first meeting them when I took the ferry back to the mainland and worked my way towards Copan Ruinas. I´ll tell you about that in the next log.

After seeing the ruins, I travelled with Mick and Guiselle into Antigua, Guatemala´s former capital and a really nice and pretty city. On my first night here I went for a quiet drink and grub at a bar, and again things escalated into another fiesta as I was talking with locals Alejandro and Pablo, and we ended up checking out a load of the city´s heaving bars, lapping up all of the happy hour deals. All the clubs and bars legally have to shut at 1, but then afterwards things carry on into secret after-party clubs, and I didn´t get back in til about 4, which is not gonna make me very popular when I was living in a 8-bed dormitory! Mick actually told me how he´d woken up at 2 in the morning, seen that my bed was empty and then he was worried I´d been kidnapped!

Mick and Guiselle actually told me last night that after a whirlwind romance they´re planning to get married out here in Guatemala within the next 3 weeks. Really exciting tuff. All the very best wishes to them. It´s an indication of how quickly travellers bond that he asked me to be his best man, but although I´d love to I don´t think i´ll still be in Central America by the time the wedding goes ahead. A real shame as a wedding is something I´ve not yet experienced on my travels. 

Well that brings you guys ALMOST up-to-date with what´s going on out here. I´ll fill in the blanks next time I write.

Adios,

Jase