We hadnt quite had enough beach time after the island, so we headed for a wee town on the carribean coast of Honduras, planning to park up for a few days because easter over here is massive and everything gets booked up. It worked out perfectly, staying at a place right on the beach with heaps of Hondurian families on holiday. We made friends with some of them, talked spanish and did lots of chillin. We went to go snorkel on a shipwreak up the coast a bit but shame that people for a long time have dumped lots of rubbish and crap, making the beach disgusting, but braved it and did see some huge starfish and tropical fishies. I (Lauren) met a local dude who i was assured was trustworthy, and he took me on his motorbike so the other side of the peninsula which we would have never known about, it was beautiful, and he climbed a coconut tree to get some down which was amazing..
One night as we were preparing to light a fire with our friends on the beach, a massive bull appeared, just chilling with us on the beach.. strange we thought, but apparantly not.. Dotted around that coast are wee garifuna carribean villages to explore, they are full of culture, and the beaches are beautiful, Lou tried the traditional Coconut fish soup, we would have attended the night time drumming on the beach, but its a good thing we didnt cos apparently its actually rather dangerous to be there at night.
Our next stop was Lago de Yojoa mid Honduras, which was gorgeous, we stayed at a brewery in such a cute wee town, with fiendly locals who always gave us rides on the back of their pick-up trucks. We went to see a massive waterfall, went hiking into coffee plantations and drank a fair amount of homemade beer.
Next we were off to the capital, as one of our new Hondurian friends lives there and promised to take us camping. It was awsome, even though the 3km walk was actually more like 11km uphill into the mountains. But it was worth it, there were 6 of us, staying in the bush in the middle of nowhere, just us and the big snakes... The tents that our mate borrowed didnt have flys, and yes it pissed down with rain, but luckily there was a palm-thatched shelter nearby, so we could toast our marshmellows without getting saturated. The bus ride back was as entertaining as they always are, this one had even more extremely loud music, (it always amazes us how villages can be quite poor but there is always a quality sound system nearby, blasting from the most unlikely places). Most of the time here they are blasing reggae or latin pop so its all good. (not when you are trying to understand spanish however..)
After a couple of days in the capital, we decided it was time to head for the Nicuraguan border, which was interesting, I wasnt sure I understood the bus guy that we needed a bike to get accross the border but it was clear when we pulled up at the border town and were ambushed by a million dudes with bikes with things on the front to take us and our bags the 3km accross the border. We agreed and laughed our way accross untill they tried to charge us extortionate prices. Luckily we are much more onto it now and can speak and understand spanish, so we ended up paying an 8th of what they were asking. Buggers.
Learning the Nicuraguan dialect.. the word for wife here is the same as the word for handcuffed. Interesting. The men here are by far the most forward and sexually intimdating as the other central american countries. We are good at ignoring them, but its a shame because they really do create an atmosphere of unapproachability.
Our first Nicuraguan experience was amazing, after 10 hours and 6 local buses we arrived at a tiny poor fishing village called Jiqilillo (pronounced hekelayo). Our palm roofed, sand floored ranch was gorgeous, right on the beach. The only other foreigners here were the few at our ranch. Surrounded my local fishermen it was a true insight into Nicuraguan life. All of the buildings are palm roofed huts, there is no such thing as a floor, and the people here are just going about their daily life calmly. I got into some surfing, and Lou got into some body-boarding, the current was soo strong ya wouldnt wanna just swim. The young local boys loved having a go on my surfboard, apparently surfing is just becoming much bigger here. Needless to say the fish here is amazing, our staple diet here was fresh fish cooked by a lady on the beach, with rice, salad and fried platano (which is sort of like a banana). A meal out at the only other ´restaurant´´ was the funniest eating experience we´ve had, with a giant pole in the middle of the table blocking views from each other, and no light at all (we were on a deck outside) so we ate with a headtorch, and faught to talk above the blasting of terrible pop music. This dinner though created the most amazing day the next day.. I mentioned to the guy working there that I would like to learn about building the palm huts, so he invited me to help them the next day! It was awsome, the whole extended family (alot of them) were so welcoming and generous, and patient with me and my spanish.. They taught me about the palm huts (we ran out of nails soon into it though so it was a short lesson.. and gave me fresh fish they caught for lunch. They put me on their horse and let me ride off on the beach, and showed me how they grind the maize to make fresh tortillas. When I mentioned that I wanted to learn to climb coconut trees, they jumped at it, gave Lou some shoes and took us to their farm. First we picked magoes, then went to the cashew plantation (I was incredibly excited about this), then I had my lesson in coconut tree climbing. It wasnt as hard as i imagined, but when I got to the top, legs shaking, I was ready to come down! Bruises to prove it and fresh fruit in hand, we drank the coco milk and headed for home. Later that night we went back for shark for dinner, and to make a fire to roast our newly found cashews. It was too windy for a fire on the beach though, so we built one behind the counter! (remember its a sand floor..) Out of nowhere some other locals turned up, with a guitar and we sat around listening to latin accoustic music, Lou playing persucussion on an awsome massive shell and me drumming on an old bucket. Amazing. I was filled with warm fuzzys at the amazing hospitality, and made them some flowers from palm leaves, which they proudly pinned up on their wall.
We are now in Leon, tomorrow heading for what sounds like a beautiful island on a lake, to hike a volcano! Hasta luego! (Until later) :-)
