Spring Break

I am terrible at updating this blog. But two weeks after returning to Tegucigalpa, I am going to finally post about my spring break. Four friends and I traveled on Wednesday morning of our break to La Ceiba, where we stayed at the hottest hotel of our lives, and had some delicious baleadas for dinner. That night we were joined by another member of our group, and the next day we went to Cayos Cochinos. This was a gorgeous little collection of islands off the coast. We swam, had fresh fish, and visited an indigenous village. It was really beautiful, the whole time we felt like we were in a postcard. This was also where the last Survivor was shot.
The next day, we were joined by the remaining two members of our group and left for what was going to be the bulk of our trip, La Moskitia. There ended up being 8 of us, 7 Calvin students and 1 Honduran. We woke up at 3:30am Friday morning to leave. We thought there was a 4am bus, but got conflicting information about bus times. We decided to be ready by 4am anyways. So we sat at the bus station in the middle of the night for an hour or so until we found a bus to Tocoa, which was where we would catch the trucks to La Moskitia. We probably sat on the bus for an hour or two before we actually began on our journey, but eventually got to Tocoa and were able to find a truck with little problem. There were a bounty of trucks to choose from, and everyone was eager for us to use their trucks. We eventually settled on one, and fit the 8 of us, as well as one child and another man who we were paying to take us. We had wooden planks to sit on, and also shared our space with 15 or so crates of beer. The truck ride took about 5 hours, but the scenery was beautiful and it was an interesting experience. We held on for dear life, but thankfully no one fell out. For the last few hours we were driving along the coast, and at a few parts, through the ocean. This trip cannot be good for these poor trucks.
We arrived at Batalla, and took a two hour boat ride to our destination for the night, Raista, a small village with very simple but surprisingly comfortable accommodations. This was also the only place we stayed in La Moskitia with a shower. From this point on we got really, really dirty. We decided that might to go to Las Marías, the part of La Moskitia that was more tropical rainforests rather than beaches.
The next morning we took a 7 hour boat ride to Las Marías, again sitting on wooden planks. Luckily the scenery was sufficiently beautiful to distract us from our sore behinds. The sun was a force to be reckoned with, but we liberally applied sunscreen the whole time, and took many swim breaks in the wonderful river water. We arrived in Las Marías, and stayed at a hotel that was more rustic than the first, but still comfortable. We decided to go on a three days hike in Pico Bonita, a gorgeous mountain a few more hours into Las Marías. As our clothes had become quite dirty and stinky, we washed them in the river and they ended up being surprisingly clean.
The next morning we filled 5 backpacks with what we would need for the next three days, left the rest of our stuff at the hotel, bought our food for the next three days (beans, rice, chicken soup mix, coffee, oatmeal, and tang) and got going. We took canoes right out of Pocahontas to get to Pico Bonita, and it was another beautiful trip. This one only took about two hours. After this canoe trip we arrived at the base of the mountain, where we hiked about three hours up to where our cabin was. This was a bit of a difficult hike, as we had our heavy backpacks and it was all uphill. We reached the cabin eventually, and were elated to be able to rest. We had drank most of our water on the way up the mountain, so we inquired where we could get water to drink and if there was a river to bathe. We were told there was a river nearby where we would have to get our water and where we could bathe. We didn’t have anything to purify our water, and we were all a little hesitant to drink out of a stream, but we didn’t have any other choice. We changed into our swimsuits, grabbed our water bottles and headed down to the river. The “river” ended up being a few leech infested puddles. Needless to say, we were not able to bathe there. I will say though, that by the end of those three days we were so dirty that we happily embraced that puddle, and bathed the best way we could. The water we got to drink did seem very pure though, and hopefully parasite free. None of us have gotten sick yet, so with any luck we are clean.
We went to bed early, and slept in some of the most uncomfortable beds I have ever been in. They were able the size of twin beds (maybe a bit smaller), and basically just slabs of wood. The girls shared two to a bed, and thank goodness that we all smelled equally bad. We cooked for ourselves for the three days we were up there, beans and rice for just about every meal. Not the most delicious, but it made us appreciate all the different foods we had when we get back.
The hike itself was great fun. It was difficult on the way up, as it was all uphill, and once we reached the peak we all just wanted to take naps. The way back down was quite a bit easier. We fell many times, but the moss generally cushioned our blows. We were all exhausted after the hike, but probably did not sleep much better the second night than the first. We were woken up bright and early the next morning by our guides playing with their machetes directly under our cabin.
The day we left it was raining, so the hike back down the mountain was a lot of fun. Very, very slippery. We backtracked and to make a long story short ended up back in La Ceiba for the night. We stayed at a place that functions as a church camp, and that was a lot of fun. The campers were coming the next day, so we were able to stay there. We bought hot dogs and stuff for s’mores and cooked out.
Well this was my brief recap of spring break. Writing this two weeks after spring is not ideal for remembering details, but I tried. I am now in my third and final class for the semester. We only have about four and a half weeks left, I can’t believe how quickly this semester has gone. Next week is our rural research. We will be going out into rural Honduras and live in a small community for a week, from what I have heard it’s about 50 houses, and no electricity. So I will get a temporary new host family, and we will basically be following them around for a week to see what life is like. We are also doing some mini research projects so we will be working on that. I am in a group for malnutrition in children. It should be fun. That week we are also meeting with some peace corp volunteers and visiting some caves.