Advertisement
Published: February 26th 2007
SANTA ROSA DE COPAN (Western Honduras) - Thu 07/12 to FRI 08/12
So no passport stamp again & on we walk into Honduras. We had been on the road since 4.30 AM & decided that our 1st job in Honduras would be to get breakfast, so we ordered scrambled eggs with onions in a border town restaurant, a safe option we use rather than the local choices which usually include beans in some form. With coffee, it all came to about $1.50 :-) We then grabbed a shared taxi to the nearest town Neuvo Ocotepeque & from there took a 2 hour bus onto Santa Rosa de Copan.
We had thought a lot about what we would do in Honduras & with Christmas looming & having already decided that we´d aim for the Caribbean coast in Costa Rica we were under time pressure, we still had to get through Nicaragua & travel down through Costa Rica. We had decided against the Copan Ruins, another Mayan complex similar but not as impressive as Tikal and had considered the Bay Islands but in the end said no as they are mainly for diving & it would consume the best part of a
week to get to & from. So in the end, we decided that we would travel across Honduras taking a few days in Gracias, a small mountain town & then move quickly towards Nicaragua.
So 1st stop Santa Rosa de Copan, when we got on the bus we were open to whether we would stay in Santa Rosa or whether we would keep on going towards Gracias, another hour or so further on. The weather had turned almost immediately when we left Neuvo & by the time we arrived in Santa Rosa at about 2 PM it was misting & overcast, at that stage we were on the road already 10 hours or so & said we´d park her up there for the night. We tried a few hostels/hotels & with the rain coming down hard we decided we´d go for a decent spot & treat ourselves, it came to $30, our dearest place in a long time & really wasn´t up to much but it was better than the other 2 dives we had looked at. Our guide book is over 2 years old & we have learned that there´s nothing better than looking at a place before
Gracias, Honduras
Paved roads are a luxury not afforded to many towns in Honduras as yetdeciding, places can go downhill bigtime in 2 years & of course vice versa. Can´t say too much about Santa Rosa, well except we won´t be rushing back, there was really nothing to the town & we did find the people quite ignorant compared to El Salvador & Guatemala, this was to hold true as we moved through the country.
GRACIAS (Western Honduras) - Fri 08/12 to Sun 10/12
Next morning, we took a bus onto Gracias, weather was much the same & we were unsure of what to expect in Gracias which was another hour further up into the mountains. After a very scenic journey, Gracias turned out to be a nice little town, with mud track roads layed out in square blocks. The town is surrounded by mountains with a national park 'Parque Nacional Celaque´ nearby. The weather was dry & we found an alright hotel close to the bus station for $15, it was a challenge though to get into the room with the owner disappearing every now & again only for me to have go find her, only for her to go missing again, they really weren´t that friendly & were reinforcing our image of
the previous day. We went for something to eat & following the Lonely Planets advice went to Hotel & Restaurant Guancascos meeting the owner who gave us a great introduction to the town & its environs, it was he who convinced us to stay another night (in his hotel of course) & to visit the national park & local hot springs the following day. That evening we explored the town & had a few Salva Vidas & Port Royals - the 2 national beers.
Next morning it was up early & we moved our stuff to the hew hotel which was a huge improvement on the previous nights lodgings. At 9ish, we took a moto-taxi to Parque Nacional Celaque about 10K outside town. The parks centrepiece Montana de Celaque is Honduras´s highest peak & dominates the view on the entrance to the park. Once dropped at the gate,we had a 1 hour hike to the visitor centre. I was really looking forward to treking through the jungle & hopefully spotting some wildlife, however, it became clear to me soon after we started the walk into the park that my treking companion was none too comfortable with her surroundings, every
tweak in the forest was met by a "What's that ?" or a "Oh Jesus !". I tried to reassure but to no avail, by the time we reached the visitor centre which was totally deserted, I knew our day was confined to a short hike in the environs of the relative safety of the visitor centre. We had skipped breakfast earlier & looked out for the restaurant we´d been told about the previous day. We spotted the sign & walked up through the forest to find a dilapidated hut with smoke rising from the chimney. It turned out that the hut was the home of the warden´s mother & she had a single rocky table outside with a bench. Knowing not to ask for a menu, we went for the usual scrambled eggs with onion & coffee. We were delivered a fine plate of eggs & the lady of the house then set about grinding some roasted coffee beans & made us fine coffee, she pointed out her coffee bean plants in the forest next to us, talk about home grown!! Once fed, we set about starting our walk (no longer a trek) about the forest (no longer a
Bridge over troubled waters
Or should that be troubled bridge over waters jungle).
We spent 1 to 2 hours walking about the lower trails of the park, the higher ones requiring a guide & overnight camping. I wish we could say that we saw loads of wildlife but alas that day they were staying indoors & all we caught sight of was a few birds (the flying kind). At 2ish we made our way back to the visitor centre & met the warden who filled us in on the park & its wildlife. He told us stories of meeting up with huge pumas on night treks & a sad story of a Dutch hiker missing since 1998 whom it is assumed met up a puma & didn´t get to tell the story. He invited us back to his shack & we had more of the home grown coffee. We think the puma stories were a lead in to his sales pitch, he produced 2 puma teeth he had found on his treks & offered them to us for a modest price. We said ´why not´ & took one from him as we were thinking they´d make for a good chain.
We had arranged for the moto-taxi to pick us up
& we made our way back to town & then onto the local hot-springs which were the other side of town. We relaxed after our hard day & sipped a few beers in the pools. We had dinner that evening & met up with a Puerto Rican/Brooklyn NY couple Rene & Marilyn & the hotel owner again. We proudly showed the hotel owner our puma tooth & he said "ah! that lad is up to his tricks again, that´s a wild boar tooth". It also turns out that the wardens description of a puma´s size was exagerated, the hotel owner saying 5,000 years ago maybe but now no, only this size moving his hand to just above his knee. Eitherway, we had enjoyed chatting to the warden that afternoon & had a wild boar´s tooth to show for it. After dinner, we all went for a few drinks in the local bars.
LA ESPERANZA (Western Honduras) - Sun 10/12 to Mon 11/12
Next day, we were suffering a tad & didn´t manage to get up to meet the 5.30AM bus to Tegucigalpa (Tegus is easier), the Honduran capital as planned. It was probably as well as I had this
notion that we could make it all the way to Nicaragua in one day, it turns out we barely made it in 2. When we did get up we explored our options & caught a collectivo (a shared minivan) to the next town San Juan about an hour up the ´main road´, or should I say mud track. It was an interesting journey to say the least & plenty of times we thought we´d be getting out to push our van out of a mud bath. In the end we made it but wondered what was ahead of us in our journey east.
San Juan wasn´t the least bit appealing & we just headed for the farside of town & awaited the next bus east. We had a 1 hour wait & decided we´d eat something so we could make use of a toilet, in the end both places we tried were so unfriendly (& worse) we decided we´d manage & returned to our waiting game.
As luck would have it, a car pulled up almost immediately & a woman within called for us to hop in, we hadn´t spoken to them before but they had stayed in
Hotel Guancascos the previous night & had recognised us. They were Markus - a German & his honduran girlfriend (we never did catch her name) & they were going east to La Esperanza & onwards. They had rented a toyota corolla & had barely managed to get past the mud baths on the way from Gracias. The next stretch was supposed to be about 28 KM but seemed to drag & drag & the road was getting worse, everyone we asked would say ah its only 15 minutes up the road & the road gets better but it never did, at one stage when crossing a narrow unsturdy looking bridge, Markus made a management decision & said we´d all better get out just in case, we did & walked across watching the corolla as Markus drove precariously across. In all it took us 2 & 1/2 hours to reach La Ezperanza - 28KM away & judging by the state of the roads thus far, we reckoned there wasn´t a chance we´d make it anywhere near Nicaragua that day & didn´t fancy staying in Tegus that night, so La Esperanza it was.
Nothing to report about La Esperanza, we just
wanted out of there & next morning took a 5.30 AM bus to Tegus. We were relieved to see semi-paved roads on the other side of La Esperanza & reached Tegus by midday. We didn´t like Tegus, it´s a big noisy busy place and quickly made for a bus to take us south towards Nicaragua. While waiting in the terminal we met Phil - an English lad whose mother comes from Clogher Head outside Drogheda, we had briefly met him on a bus 4 or 5 weeks before in Belize & we all travelled south to Nicaragua together. One more bus change in Choluteca & we were within an hour of the border but it was getting dark just as we arrived...............
Advertisement
Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0385s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
