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Published: February 15th 2024
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When we read that there was a craft brewery with its own lodge/hotel in the middle of nowhere in central Honduras, we just had to go there!
D&D Brewerylived up to our expectations, but there were certainly aspects that wouldn't be particularly difficult improve. The wait for food, be it breakfast or dinner, is much longer than it should be. The staff (particularly the women) need to smile. I'm not saying they need to smile more, they just need to smile. Maybe once, when they take your order! The ONLY beers on offer are craft and come at a price. It would be nice to sit out in the evening and have some cheap local beer after a craft one with dinner.
Los Naranjos is a really nice village just to wander around. It's a good insight into rural Honduras. The people are generally friendly and the eateries are much cheaper than D&D with far faster service. A particular doff of the cap goes to
ROA restaurant with its lovely murals and amazing fresh fish from the lake. It just needed more customers! Maybe the nearby roadworks are not doing them any favours, but you can't help but feel that most travellers
are simply not venturing out at night which is a real shame.
The village has an
Ecological and Archaeological Park which we highly recommend. Ignore the word archaeology inf the name though as that part of the park was embarrassingly disappointing. Wandering along the riverside paths and through the forest you need to keep a careful eye out for birds. It's not easy spotting them but with a bit of luck you'll see ospreys and snail kites as well as colourful small birds, most notably the summer tanagers in their bright red plumage and their blue and grey cousins, as well as the bright yellow/orange orioles. There is a wooden boardwalk extending out over the marshy reeds and a small visitors centre where, in all honesty, you won't learn an awful lot.
We also arranged, through D&D, for an early morning bird watching trip. Our guide, Matias, met us at 0530 and we went to his house for a coffee. From there it was down to the river where he worryingly bailed the water out of a boat, picked up his oars and helped us in. For almost three hours we inspected the river banks and the entry to Lake Yojoa
looking for as many different birds as possible. Trish's list extended to around 40 by the end of the trip. Matias was amazing at spotting and pointing out where to look. Once again the ospreys and kites were our favourites, but so was the hard-to-spot toucan that we saw right at the end. If you are not a birder or a photographer it's probably a bit of a long trip and the walk through the park would no doubt yield as much wildlife as you may want to see anyway. Personal choices!
D&D also have a shuttle bus running to the borders with El Salvador and Honduras every Friday. It's not cheap but it didn't feel too expensive either. For us it meant rushing through Honduras and leaving out both the old and new capital cities, but we got the impression that we were not missing out on a great deal. We travelled with a couple of English lads and that was it - 4 of us in a minivan. That meant it was far more comfortable and spacious than any of us had expected. Annoyingly, the sun finally decided to shine and we got some amazing glimpses of
the lake resplendent in its glory as we headed out on the road.
Crossing into Nicaragua was such an "adventure" that you'll have to wait for the next blog to get the full story!!!!
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Worth the Visit?
I'm sure my husband would have thought just the same as you, craft brewery with its own hotel in some place new, let's go! Unfortunately, as you described it, it did sound disappointing because of the indifferent service! The variety of birds to be seen in that area sure was a plus! Nice pictures and blog!