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Published: December 10th 2005
Well, I have emerged from the Mosquito coast and have (sort of) returned to civilization. We now have power at least. I´ll give a quick breakdown on my time in the bio reserve shortly. First I want to apologize in advance for having no pictures. I actually took a lot on this leg of the trip, some with my disposable camera, others with Frank´s digital. Unfortunetaly Frank´s card reader was stolen from our special little casa the other night (funny story) so we can´t get any of the pictures off.
We started from Tocoa where we woke up really early... Sunday Dec. 3rd. We could not find a truck to take us to Palacia so we found a bus that took us to a river (can´t remember the name of it). The 4 hour ride was well over 6 hours when they told us to get out by this shack and muddy ditch of a river. We got into a boat, which was basically a canoe on steroids but with a 15 horse motor. We drove that up the river, rocking and sitting dangerously low in the water, it was quite scary. Kind of a different fear for me really because I can swim fine and even though there were a few crocodiles in the river I was just really freaked about losing all my worldly possesions to the bottom of this muddy sludge, anyways we were fine... for awhile. We waited for our "river guide" for ages, we ended up making our way out of the river only to find that the captain intended for this vessel to actually go out to sea for a period of time. This was BAD. We almost flipped the boat several times and several waves crashed right over our canoe thing, we were taking on dangerous amounts of water while the captain kept circling around needed to literally catch a wave to get us to shore safely. We almost crashed again into some trees on the shore but he veered in time to completely fill the boat with water and avoid hitting the shore. We basically did an emergency landing on the beach close by, which suprise suprise was our final destination but NOT what we paid for since we were only 2/3 of the way to where we were SUPPOSED to go. We are greeted by the indeginous people on the shore who barely speak spanish and after awhile found out there was no hotel. So we walked to a spot where we could unroll our sleeping bags and figure it out in the morning (it was kind of a muddy field) when this guy named Tino appeared and said he could take us to where we need to go in his Kayaka. We were glad to!
Into the kayaka we go, now a kayaka is an even smaller vessel, basically carved from a single tree. Somehow Tino figured five grown men, 4 full packs and 3 day packs could fit in this thing. But we did! For about 10m until we realized we were basically below water, water was actually filling into the boat because it sat so low. We scrambled to the shore (it´s dark at this point) and he goes to get his friend to take us in a second kayaka. He said 30 minutes but it was 2 hours, in the pitch black, crocodiles and unable to move because we´d tip, we made it to our town (for the record I´m pretty sure that I heard Frank whimpering at one point). We get to town, no electricity or water, we find a room and eat and sleep.
Next day we hired a better boat to take us to a place called Belin, this town was way better, we stayed with a lady in her raised shed with some bunks and hung out playing cards in the candle light and going for some awesome body surfing on a completely deserted beach! Awesome! Then she made us dinner and served us in her living room!
Next day we continued on to Las Marias, which was 5 hours through the reserve on some wicked canals and rivers, lots more crocodiles today! We stopped for coconuts and continued on getting there about mid day. We stayed in this wooden building and had a big hearts game and early to bed.
Next day we went on a hike up the mountain and I inducted everyone into the mud club, the hike was a Joke compared to El Mirador but I was prepared this time! We bathed in the river on the way back and then had lunch, and enjoyed a lazy afternoon before more cards.
We went back to Belin after that the boat trip much faster down river, we got there for when Adams cargo boat was supposed to arrive for La Ceiba but it never did. Next day it didn´t either. We were supposed to get our vessel today but that never came either. Adam woke up at 3am today and got back ont he kayaka thing to reverse his trip back into Honduras, we couldn´t get any boats to go where we needed so we hired a crop duster tiny plane to take us to Puerto Limpera, where we are now. No trucks or boats scheduled for today or tommorow but Monday we´ll probably make it to the border.
That is all for now, we have LOADS of great pictures but I won´t be able to post them for awhile!
Oh yeah the thief story.. this was good the other night I woke up in the middle of the night hearing Frank go on about something, Warwick and Adam got up, Adam jumped and I thought the world was coming to an end, I basically assumed there was a yellow beard crawling through our barn of a house and started looking for paper so that I could write down my final thoughts in the 10 minutes before the poison concluded my days, HOWEVER Frank said something else about seeing people and then not to worry because "everything was on the table" at that point I figured the CERN radiation had just taken its tole and he was completely crazy.
Next morning it turns out there was actually a thief, who constructed this odd hooked device to reach in through our window and fish out stuff from Franks backpack while he was sleeping, but he woke up and scared him off. Totally bizzare, anyhow the lady we were staying with flipped out when she heard and that was today as we were leaving so I´m not sure how it unfolded.
That is all for now!
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Michael Blanchet
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Rum induced dreams
Jason Jason Jason This is getting too crazy. Reading this I'm thinking you're sitting around the pool in some swanky hotel drinking rum with Frank and the guys just making this stuff up. This is too good!