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I was a little dubious at first when a group of Honduran bus drivers milling under a shady tree (smoking cigarettes, drinking cola and not looking like they were about to do any bus-driving anytime soon) told me to go to the edge of the city and hitch a ride instead of catching a bus. I'd arrived in the Honduran border town of Marcala after my last blog had me leaving El Salvador, and was hoping to get a bus west across the country, only to find out that the last one left 10 minutes ago and the next one wasn't leaving for 5 hours. I'm not usually one to hang out on the side of the road of a country I've only just arrived in and am still getting to grips with the language of, by myself and along with all my luggage, with my thumb out hoping some Honduran farmer with a ute is heading in the same direction I am. But I managed to glean from our conversation that in southern and western Honduras waiting for someone to give you a lift is so standard that there are even informally agreed "prices" to pay the driver between different towns, so drivers have a vested interest in picking you up too.

So I paid a tuk-tuk driver to take me to the edge of Marcala where I wasn't alone in waiting, there were 2 Hondurans waiting too - the one that had teeth explained we would get a ride very soon, and the other one that was largely toothless tried saying a few things to me but I couldn't understand a word he said (my comprehension of Spanish doesn't apply to locals with significant speech impediments). Before much longer, a local wearing a cowboy hat and driving a pickup pulled over and we all hopped in the back and hooned off across the Honduran countryside. Over the next few days I´d end up hitching quite a few rides, sometimes the drivers would accept a small amount of money from me, but on other occasions they would just laugh and tell me not to worry since they were going that way anyway. I always thought that was nice of them ;-)


RUTA DE LA LENCA

My first destination was the string of small towns in south-western Honduras called the "Ruta de la Lenca" (or the Lenca Route), named after the Lenca indigenous people who still have a fairly visible presence in the area. There are quite a few pleasant small towns in the area with a bit of trekking and mountain biking around them. The standout of them for me was one of the smallest - La Campa. Little more than a village really, La Campa has a fairly visually impressive setting surrounded by massive limestone cliffs in just about every direction, and a pretty canyon running away from it with a river with several swimming holes and lush green tropical vegetation growing everywhere - it made for a very chilled halfday walk with one of the locals. There was an awesome backpacker-ish hotel there that was a reconditioned huge old house, with a massive lounge area with lot of comfy sofas, rocking chairs and hammocks outside in a nice garden for when I wasn't in my own huge room with private bathroom - not bad for a little less than 4 quid a night I thought - breakfast included, of course.

Other highlights of the Ruta de la Lenca included trekking halfway up the highest peak in Honduras (going all the way requires a 2 day-1 night mission carrying all your food and tents, and I just couldn't be arsed with anything like that). The peak is located in one of Honduras´ biggest national parks too, so it was another pleasant day with pretty surroundings, although pretty hard work as its a fairly steep climb. Another highlight was spending a bit of time in some Billiards halls in the small town of Gracias, playing some unusual game that I´d not come across before, but was assured that it was all they ever play in Honduras. I can also report that beer in Honduran billiards halls is probably the cheapest in the country outside of just buying it in a shop.


LAGO DE YOYOA

After the Ruta de la Lenca, I stayed at a cross between an organic micro-brewery and a cheap, relaxing guesthouse for a few nights. An ex-US serviceman has built this uber-relaxing place right near Lago de Yojoa (the largest lake in Honduras), complete with a swimming pool, hammocks, lots of good food and 6 different types of beer made on site, but with hops from New Zealand! My favourite was his pale ale. There was enough around the area to keep someone busy, like the awesome Puzhanpazak waterfalls and the Santa Barbara could forest, plus of course relaxing next to the pool in a hammock with my book and one of their pale ales.

The lake itself is well known among bird watchers as being being extremely biodiverse, and although birdwatching isn't likely to develop as a hobby of mine, me and 3 others from the Inn went out mega-early one morning with an older english hippy called Malcolm who hangs out in Honduras a lot taking people on birdwatching tours. It actually turned out to be a pretty pleasant morning, and with my zoomiest zoom lense on the front of my SLR I could get some fairly clear views of the wildlife too, which included Iguanas, Otters and a few other things as well as lots of different bird species. Malcolm always got very excited whenever we say a new species for the day "Ooooh, look! Its a green-breasted heron, ooooh, and over there its a little Bittern!", and so on - quite endearing in one respect. I guess some people really love their birds. I think Malcolm was a bit of an eternal hippy, he seems to have spent a lot of time in many countries and has a beard so long that he can actually plat it and have it hang 10 inches below his chin.


TELA, & PUNTAL SAL NATIONAL PARK

After Lago de Yojoa, 2 english girls called Jo and Claire ( or "ab-fab on holiday", as I called them!) and I headed north through Honduras... and after a couple of long shitty bus rides we arrived in the town of coastal town of Tela where I was able to take a swim in the Caribbean again. I hadn´t seen the Caribbean in 2.5 months, not since I left Belize and headed inland into Guatemala - needless to say basically the first thing I did after checking into a hotel was go and jump in the sea, which was so warm it could have passed as bath water. Claire and Jo were in the midst of ending their time away in Central America and returning to London, so were wanting to spend a little more for a nice mid-range place as opposed to the usual backpacker-ish hotel digs, so I thought I´d treat myself and do the same since I´d stayed in fairly budget places for the entire last four months. The girls chose a pretty sweet place called the Maya Vista hotel, which was on top of a small hill and had a big deck overlooking the town and the beach, and was great for drinking a cocktail and watching the sunset. It was nice just to be in a more flash hotel room for a change.

The next day we headed out to the beautiful national park of Punta Sal, which is a coastal marine park only reachable by boat with picture postcard white sand beaches, swaying palm trees and a local family that serves up kingfish steaks and fresh coconuts for drinking. It was a pretty lazy day really, although we did initially go on a one-hour walk through the national park to see a bit of wildlife here and there. But we did that right at the start, and really after that the day was just all about lazing on this perfect beach - oscillating between lying on the sand and swimming in the water. Pretty much a "nothing day", but a very enjoyable one nonetheless!


MIAMI

Just up the road (but a very shitty, sandy road that takes half an hour to drive the 16km length of it) from Tela is a fishing village called Miami. Miami is a completely rustic place - no electricity, no running water, and only 2 pick-ups a day that make the mission out there and back. All of the buildings there are made of mud and wood, and all have thatched roofs. Its incredibly scenic, if basic, and has a nice long stretch of white sand beach too. There wasn´t a hell of a lot to do there as such, but it was a nice place to kick back for a day and a night, being the only tourist in town. Before I came to Central America I had an image in my head of a "thatched-roof, traditional Caribbean fishing village", and the way Miami looked and felt fulfilled all those images.

Most of the people that live in Miami are Garifuna , which is an ethnic group that emerged about 4 centuries ago when a boat full of African slaves got shipwrecked onto an island populated mostly by indigenous people (or "Indians"). Over the next couple of generations, a new ethnic group formed that had merged african and indigenous-american language, culture, and religion, and they became known as the Garifuna. They now mainly live on the Caribbean coast of Central America, or on a number of small Caribbean islands that are fairly close to Central America. They seem to like chilling out a lot, so I spent the better part of my day there in a hammock chilling out with them!

And thats about all for now, since then I´ve been out on an island called Utila for 10 days, but will write more about that next time ;-)

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