Yeehoooo! Canopy touring in Pico Bonito

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Pico Bonito is a national parc just outside of La Ceiba. To get there take a taxi (150L) or the local bus in the direction of Yuruca. The drive up is gorgeous. You follow the Rio Cangreal into the mountains covered in bright greens, where clouds hide in the valleys and waterfalls seem to appear out of nowhere just around the next bend.

There are three tour companies that offer pretty well the same activities. One of them is a upscale deal though. It's called Las Cascadas and looked relatively new. Not the place for poor packers, but if you've got a little to splurge it looked beautiful.

The other two companies are called Jungle River Tours and Omega Jungle Tours. The Jungle River people also have a hostel the city of La Ceiba called the Banana Republic where you can set up your reservations and whatnot from inside town. If you're doing one of the rafting trips or another of the more expensive tours they provide transport to the site. All tours include one free night in their Jungle River Lodge, the hostel in the jungle. The place has dorm bunks and a couple of double rooms, a small bar and kitchen that serves one thing for each meal. Make sure you let someone know if you intend to eat at dinner hour.

We made our way up in the afternoon prior. The Expatriotes Restaurant that's famous in La Ceiba has another branch of the same place about a kilometer past the Jungle River Lodge. They actually have a bus that will transport you from their restaurant in the city to the one in Pico Bonito for FREE if you want to eat there. A good way to get up there or back for free. The only problem is scheduling. As in, it doesn't have one, but talk to Anton the bartender if you're there in the next few months and he might be able to fix you up with something.

He was a funny story actually. Turns out he's a hopeful Dutch med student who is desperately trying to "get points" that will help him get into the university he wants. Apparently the competition is so fierce because the government pays for everything. Working and travelling both score you big points. He was supposed to get a visa into the States to work, but screwed up his interview and in his depression went out and got hammered. While drunk he met some guy who convinced him that Honduras was the place he had to go. He convinced him so well, in fact, that they went out and bought his unrefundable plane ticket on the same evening. And I thought I had a couple of doozy "The stupidest thing I ever did while smashed..." stories. Anyway, nice guy. Buy him a drink or at the very least leave him a tip if you meet him.

The next morning we set ourselves up to do the canopy tour. It cost us thirty bucks and man was it fun. I love most things that involve a harness though. (Rockclimbing, trampoline, that kind of thing. Get all your minds out of the gutter!)

After all the other groups had set off for their rafting or hiking, we were fit with harnesses and carabiners, helmets and big leather gloves and made our way to the first tree post. The guides taught us how to place our hands, raise our legs so they didn't whack any trees and slow ourselves down. No problem.

We hiked up into the forest, with a tour of some of the plants and insects on the way. With a little stomping I saw the biggest, meanest looking ants I've ever seen in my life. The "soldier" class of the carpenter ants only come out to protect the hill. They are big and juicy and mean looking with some of the scariest little ant teeth I've ever seen. Pretty cool.

We got up to the platforms and zipped from tree to tree along steel cords. Some were really long and went all the way across the river. Other were smaller but fast as hell. One even had a crash pad set up on the landing platform. As we were getting back we got to watch the last of the rafters come sailing down the river, soaking wet and paddling like hell.

After a few bites of fresh fruit, Chris and I decided to walk the road with our packs back to the highway to see if we could jump on a bus to Sambo Creek, the little Garifuna town outside La Ceiba. We were stopped more than once by generous people offering us rides but had to smile and explain that we were actually enjoying the walk. They looked at us like we were nuts.

We caught the bus to Sambo Creek as soon as we got to the road and were looking forward to two sunny days on a lazy beach.

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