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You are here: Home / Archives for trips

Flashback: Honduras

June 21, 2011 By Jillian

Sometimes it’s about the journey not the destination.  Bumping around in the back of an overloaded Toyota pick up truck on our way into “the heart of darkness” was not my idea of fun. Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I couldn’t get Conrad’s book out of my head.  We were going into the heart of Central America’s largest wilderness and it was certainly a journey.

Trucks to La mosquitia

We had been pretty “vanilla” in our travels up until Honduras.  We hadn’t really gone off the beaten path yet.  As we got our travel legs we became more and more adventurous, staying at places not listed in the guidebook, taking guidebook suggestions with a grain of salt and relying on word of mouth recommendations from other travelers above everything else.  In Honduras we finally hit our travel stride and took a sharp turn off the beaten path.

By sharp turn I mean we decided to go to “La Mosquitia”, which Wikipedia kindly refers to as: an underdeveloped region of tropical rainforest accessible primarily by water and air.   By primarily they mean only by air and water. See, it’s about the journey.

House along the Rio Platano

I’ll admit that I was not thrilled when we decided to launched off into the Mosquito Coast, the coastline is heavily used by drug traffickers and it was starting to be rainy season.  Torrential downpours, underdeveloped jungle, mud and mosquitos? I’d seen this in a movie before, and trust me it wasn’t a pleasant situation.

I quickly realized my opinion would hold very little sway when we met a solo traveler who had just returned from the region.  He enthusiastically gave us all the information we needed and although Danny asked if I was interested in going, I saw that glinting “Indian Jones” spirit in his eyes and decided to quietly squelch my concerns.  In the words of a famous fitness retailer I decided to “Just Do It.”

So there we were, bouncing along in the back of a pick up truck, wedged between bottles of Coca-Cola.  To say it was an adventure getting into the heart of La Mosquitia is an understatement.

Trucks to La Mosquitia

My memories are akin to someone experiencing trauma.  Thinking of that journey is like reliving a painful experience and my mind has successfully blocked out all but part of it.  I have distinct memories of choking on the dust in the back of the truck, of the intense heat and the physical discomfort.  Of riding back to civilization atop the truck’s gear shifter in the cab, of a driver who had been deported a few times from the U.S. telling me how bad the State Police are in Georgia.  Our time in La Mosquitia was an exotic adventure (definitely worth a read, click here for Part 1 and Part 2), but it was really more about the journey than the destination.  Once there we hiked in torrential downpours and experienced the jungle in rainy season, not something I’d recommend.

Our pipante (canoe) driver

Spanish has a phrase vale la pena which loosely translates to be worth it, to be worthwhile.  It’s one of my favorite idioms in Spanish.  La Mosquitia was our first turn off the beaten track and although the journey is what I’ll remember the most, I can’t help but look back on it and ask myself again was it vale la pena?  Even two years later I can say yes.  The journey was vale la pena.

IF YOU GO:    The entire eastern coastline of Central America is tropical jungle and although we went rather remote, you don’t have to go deep into La Mosquitia to experience the jungle.  Winter is the perfect time to go to the jungle so if you’re spending the holidays in Cancun, it may be worth it to take some extra time and overland the coastline.  Traveling through Belize and into Honduras is relatively easy and there’s a lot to do.  We learned how to SCUBA dive on Utila, which was an enjoyable way to spend a week and also went to a couchsurfing meet up.  We arranged our transport into La Mosquitia along the way from La Ceiba and you should be able to get information in La Ceiba on the trip.

Filed Under: Flashback, Headline, Journey Tagged With: adventures, jungle, transportation, trips

More penguins, a lot more!

November 18, 2009 By Danny

Moving north away from Tierra del Fuego took 32 hours, two buses, a ferry (in which we spotted several dolphins playing in the wake), and two border crossings. When we arrived in Puerto Madryn we were beat. With one week of our Latin American journey remaining we got to quick work despite our exhaustion, partnered up with three other travelers, and rented a car for the next few days so that we could enjoy all the ecology of the area.

With nasty wind coming off the water we decided head south first to the penguin colony at Punta Tombo. Jill and I were still a bit disappointed with our last penguin experience in Tierra del Fuego and since this was a relatively cheap way to get a do-over, we went for it.

After paying the entry fee the guard told us that it would be 1500m to the beach. We figured that wasn’t too long of a walk but as soon as we stepped away from the guard shack we saw our first nesting Magellanic Penguin. Walking along there were literally penguins everywhere, and most shrubs sheltered one or two nests.

November is a special time for the Magellanic Penguins of Patagonia. This is the time of year that the eggs begin to hatch and the young start to be born. Having just seen a bunch of nesting penguins in Tierra del Fuego we were expecting to see a complete lack of activity once again. It was with a bit of surprise when I turned to my left and saw a mother feeding her little chick.

That wouldn’t be the last penguinito we’d see either. As we got further to the beach we found several more little chicks, mostly on account of their nests being in the roped off path. The chicks make a little screeching noise when they want food, and the parent penguins were more than happy to oblige. We knew we’d finally gotten our timing right, when we walked to the beach and saw a bunch of adult penguins played in the surf.

On the way out we passed another nest that was particularly special. This one was just eggs, but one of those eggs was rocking and you could see just a pinprick of a hole in the end facing up. One of the folks we rented the car with is actually a biologist specializing in birds (now that’s some serious luck) and although he professes to not know too much about penguins, he told us that it can often take up to 10 hours for a bird to poke out of its shell. We didn’t have that sort of time, so we decided to leave them with their privacy and continue on our journey.

Filed Under: Argentina, South America Tagged With: animals, magellanic, patagonia, penguins, puerto madryn, punta tombo, trips

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