Boat, bus, train, canoe, motortaxi: La Ceiba & Around

---

La Ceiba itself was a fairly dirty, characterless big city, so I left the next day to go to the Cuero y Salado wildlife reserve. The town near it, La Union, is 30 km from La Ceiba according to my guidebook. Took 1.5 hours to get there on a crappy converted schoolbus. Great road systems.

Got to the town, then took a narrow gauge train the rest of the way, (about 10 km), another three quarters of an hour. While waiting for the train a guy asked me what I was doing here? Guess they don't get a lot of tourists. Not a lot of tourists is right... I was literally the only visitor! Small village around the visitor centre, and some rangers to look out for poachers, but I was definitely the only gringo.

They were supposed to have dormitories for staying in, and a cafeteria for visitors but they were under renovation. The visitor's centre's electricity wasn't even working that day.

"But we have tents!" The guy announces proudly. "I'll set it up!"

"Okay, sure." I think. It won't be super comfortable, but would be cool to sleep outside in a wildlife reserve. "Where will the tent go?"

"Right here!" he says, pointing to the floor in the middle of the visitors centre.

"Not outside?" I asked, skeptically.

"Oh, no. Not OUTSIDE!" the guy says, horrified by the very concept. So I ended up sleeping in the middle of the visitor's centre in the large educational lecture room, in a tiny tent in the middle of the floor. Felt very silly, but better than being outside in the ridiculously torrential rainstorm that hit later that night.

Brought some pastries for breakfast from La Ceiba, but had to get dinner. Found a "restaurante" sign and followed it what was a lady's kitchen and a bench. I had the pleasure of trying to explain to her and several bystanders what a vegetarian was, to their scathing bemusement. Lots of "she doesn't eat MEAT?" and laughter.

I got beans, cheese, eggs, and tortillas, the typical honduran basic meal. Hoping it was actually vegetarian, but who knows? The next morning, I got up super early for a canoe tour of the reserve. It's accessible only by river, so we went along for about two and a half hours, just me and the guide. Saw one other canoe the whole time, no other people.

Wrong season for manatees, but saw tons of birds, including toucans, an anteater, howler monkeys, and tiny Proboscis Bats. They were the highlight. Surprisigly active during the day, some of them flying out over the river for a mosquito or ten before landing on the trunks of the mangrove trees.

The bats are very small (about 4-5 grams) and have excellent camouflage patterns in their fur... If I hadn't watched one of them land, I wouldn't have seen it against the tree trunk. As it was, it took me several moments to notice the 'single bat' on the trunk actually had four neighbours!

After the canoe tour was over, I took the train back in La Union, and had a harrow motorcycle taxi ride along the highway to catch up with the bus that had already left the station. Caught it, though, and continued on Tela, where I booked a tour to the Jeanette Kawas National Wildlife Reserve the next day.

---