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Published: October 31st 2007
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searching for the waterfalls
walking down a long dirt road, trying to find the entrance to the waterfalls For our weekend off, we decided to visit the largest lake in Honduras (well, it is one of the only lakes), Lake Yojoa. We started our journey Friday, as soon as we were done with work, around 1pm. We traveled to Tegus from there, got to Tegus, ordered a pizza from pizza hut, picked up a few other things from the store and head off to the lake around 3pm. We finally arrived at our final destination around 7:30pm that evening. We had decided to stay at a “hotel” recommended by other NPH volunteers, called D&D Brewery. It is owned by this American guy who brews his own beer there. Everyone in the small surrounding town knows him as “the gringo who makes beer.” It was nestled back down a little dirt road, pretty tricky to find. But it was the cutest little place. Walking in (we got there when it was dark) the pathway was lit with the white Christmas lights, down a path where it opened up to a built in pool. To the left was a patio type area with 6 tables, serving as part of the restaurant. Right next to it was the office/kitchen. We “checked in”
Finally found it
We somehow walked past this huge sign when we were wandering down the dirt road. We walked about 10 minutes when a car passed by and pointed us back in this direction. We wondered how we missed this huge sign. and got our room key. We walked around the side of the pool, back past another outdoor area with about 6 more tables. Behind this, there were a few different paths, lined with lots of trees and bushes we couldn’t really see in the dark. The paths led up to individual 1-room cabins. Walking in, they were super cute. They had hardwood floors, and 2 full size beds. The bathrooms were nice, with hot showers. We only saw 1 cockroach. After settling with our stuff, we decided to go back out and eat. The food was amazing. They had the best onion rings any of us had ever tasted. Of course, we had to taste the home-brewed beer. I tried the Mango flavored, and it was quite good. After we sat and talked and ate for a while, we headed to bed for the evening.
The next day, Saturday, we decided to head to the waterfalls that were also recommended by other current volunteers. We started walking, hoping to run into a bus to take us there. On the way, we passed a little restaurant and stopped for breakfast. We finally made it to the waterfalls around 11. Supposedly,
Chicas
These girls lived in the town and saw us walking down the road and followed us to the waterfalls, giggling. They wanted to pose for a picture. according to the gringo who makes his own beer, today was probably going to be a busy day, being a Saturday lots of locals would probably take their families along with tourists being there. When we got there, we probably saw a total of 4 other small groups of people there. It was DEAD. But, we weren’t complaining. We walked around for a little while and took some pictures. Then, we decided we wanted to go on the hike actually behind the waterfalls. Other volunteers told us about it, and how amazing it was, but not to pay more than $30lemps a person (about $1.50), because they try to rip off foreigners and charge them $100lemps (about $5) each. So we found the guy who gives tours, and sure enough, he told us it was $100 each. We offered 100 for all three of us, but they said no. So we said forget it, and told them our friends paid that much and we couldn’t afford more, so we left. Within minutes, the guy was coming after us, lowering the price. We ended up paying $150 for all 3 of us, so we cut the price a little, but even
100 would have been worth it. It was soooooo cool. 2 guys took us hiking down the side of the waterfall and literally underneath the huge, biggest rushing part of it. We climbed underneath and behind it, and climbed into a really cool super-hidden little cave. Then we swam under the waterfall and into another really cool cave. And then, one of the guys took me to the top of a smaller waterfall and we jumped from the top into the pool underneath. The other girls didn’t come because they were scared I think, or else they just didn’t want to. It was really scary though!! Then we swam there for a little while and then hiked back. It was a really nice park area and beautiful water falls, but we were reminded that we are in a 3rd world country when we saw a random huge syringe with a huge needle laying careless in the grass next to where people go in to swim.
So after that, we wanted to go to the lake. We asked so many different people how to go there, or what we could do there. Nobody knew. Turns out, the lake isn’t really
a place to go swim or go to the beach or do anything like that. Its just a lake. There are some really nice hotels and places to eat on the lake, but you can’t really go in the water. At least that is the information we gathered. But apparently you can find really good restaurants with good fish there. Unfortunately, none of us were big fish people.
So we returned to our little cabin, layed around for a while and then had dinner. We again sat outside for a couple hours eating and enjoyed home brewed beer, and afterwards went to bed. Sunday we woke up early because after breakfast, we had to head back to NPH. At breakfast, we talked with the gringo who makes beer for a while, and it was then he excitedly offered us a tour of his little creation, the cabins, the gardens, the whole deal. It was really incredible. He has apparently hundreds of different orchids in this tiny little area. He has plants that when you squeeze them, squirt out the stuff they use for shampoo- I cant remember what its called but its soapy and fragranced. He has coffee plants,
which they use to brew their coffee. He has tons of orange trees, which they use to make their orange juice. I wanted to take pictures, but the tour was a surprise at breakfast, and I didn’t have my camera, nor time to go get it. It had started raining and we were in a rush to leave because we wanted to get back to the ranch before dark. So hes showing us all these random trees and plants and it was super interesting, picking things off trees for us to smell and taste, random stems that tasted like raspberry and little fruits and things. The flowers were so pretty on the some of the trees too, enormous and beautiful. Then he takes us to this tree back behind the cabins, with kind of a hole in the trunk. He points to the blackness, and says, “look closely,” and sure enough it was moving and it was hundreds of tiny termites. He said people often eat termites to clear up sinuses and other things. He then took a stick and stuck it into the hole in the tree and pulled it out with termites all over it. He stuck it
into his mouth and said, “they actually are pretty good- they taste like lemon flavored poppy-seeds. You’d be surprised, try them, you can’t feel them moving in your mouth or anything.” We all looked at him really disgusted, like he was a nutcase. He broke 2 more little branches off a tree for us. I took one and my friend Natalie followed. To be honest, they weren’t that bad, and they did taste like lemon poppy seeds. And no, you couldn’t feel them moving in your mouth. Yes, I ate the termites.
That pretty much concluded our weekend. The man also showed us this room he has with tons of collected stuff, it was literally like his own mini museum. Other than his little cabin hotel, he builds pools apparently. So, he digs up a lot of backyards and such. He told us while doing this, he has found all of the things he had stored in this room. It ranged from old, broken pottery to literally artifacts from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. His oldest, he said, was from B.C., shortly before the time of Jesus. He said he has had them all examined and they looked
legit, but who knows. It was really cool to see either way. So after some adventurous waterfall hiking and lots of delicious onion rings, along with a few termites, we headed back to the ranch, satisfied.
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Lauren
non-member comment
Oh my gosh, that waterfall is BEAUTIFUL!!!