Once (OHN-say) upon a time

This post turned into a monster, I hope you’re sat comfortably. Go top up that coffee/get a fresh beer right now.

Our last day in Antigua was a continuation of our recent infatuation with exotic and abundant tropical fruits. The latest, Lychees (Cough). We also managed to grab another 4.2376 bytes of data, oh the effort we make to see that photo of what you had for dinner last night.

Keeping up the tourism trend we headed for the easiest and possibly most common volcano hike in Guatemala, Volcan Pacaya. It used to be more active with fantastic lava flows and death around every corner, but now it’s sleeping but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still the easiest to climb.

Not that one above the clouds! The small one behind us.

After stepping over humongous bugs, we realise we might have become one of those annoying couples that you see, wearing matching clothes like dummies. Uh oh.

Ok, no more photos together, that’s better without Steve anyway.

When we arrived at the parking for the hike we were quickly mobbed by tour guides who insist that it is obligatory, mandatory and absolutely the law that you must have a guide show you how to walk up a well-trodden trail. Feeling uncomfortable going against this gospel and leaving our poor vulnerable van alone with this mob, we chat to the food seller in the parking lot who understands our predicament and gives us tips on other things to do in the area. After wandering away for a few minutes, he calls out and has negotiated for us a cracking deal with one of the tour guides. Embarrassingly we forgot the guide’s name (although we could just make something up, what would you know) but he has been guiding on the volcano for 40 years, the first to be doing it so we will call him Numero Uno. Another benefit of choosing this guide is that he is 83 years old, which should make for an easy stroll for us much younger folks. Nope, we were exhausted trying to keep up with this machine of a man.

Whilst not as active as before, the volcano is still growing with fresh rocks forming and tumbling down the mountain constantly leaving a desolate and barren landscape, with occasional glimpse of red hot magma during the birth of these rocks.

We survive, and just about keep up with Numero Uno. Then back at the van, a greater challenge awaits.

Decisions are sometimes easy, sometimes difficult. Usually they’re quite easy for us since we have everything we need with us, we can go where we want, when we want, whatever route we want taking as long as we want. But our hardest decision ever met us back at the carpark, a street dog whom we named Muchacho. We’ve seen a thousand street dogs, some happy, some sad, some healthy but most malnourished and timid. It’s extremely sad since it is us human’s fault they are domesticated and struggle to fend for themselves. But Muchacho stood out, he was friendly and inquisitive, calm and beautiful. Like a gingery foxy coyote with really fluffy ears. He liked us, we loved him, and our friend the food truck man told us we could take him. We shouldn’t, couldn’t even. But could we? It would have been possible, but would it have been fair on him? Flights, borders, vets and a small van. We weighed everything up, and for the first time in a long time, followed our heads and not our hearts.

Look at that face! How we walked away we will never know, and will always regret just a little, or maybe a lot.

Anyhow, onwards we must travel, sans puppy, con sadness. Tackling city traffic takes complete concentration always trying to balance the driving “style”. Too much hesitation and someone is going to drive into you, too much aggression and you’re going to drive into someone else.  Close your eyes, stick your elbows out and plough forwards with one hand on the horn and the other wiping the sweat from your brow. Isn’t that how Steve always drives? Maybe.

We see lots on the roads that some might consider unsafe, trucks grossly overloaded with entire axles wobbling back and forth, sometimes they finally give in. And pickups being used to carry everything, absolutely everything. Sometimes everyone.

For the first time in our trip we join truckers at a petrol station, something other overlanders do more often than us, especially those in the bigger vehicles. If it wasn’t for the regulation that requires every diesel vehicle to be un-muffled and revved really loudly for no reason, it was a surprisingly peaceful and almost scenic night.

We didn’t start as early as the truckers, but we had a big day of driving ahead of us so we rose early for us. The time zone doesn’t feel right here, the sun rises before 6:00 (don’t know exactly when, haven’t seen it) and sets around 16:30, with pitch black achieved incredibly quickly.

Where were we? Oh yeah, long day of driving, first things first window gets a nasty great stone chip.

Because we are nothing if not worldly and keeping up with modern events, we find our very own migrant caravan of around one thousand people. Carrying almost nothing, these men, woman and children trundle along attempting to hitch rides in the back of passing trucks and getting water donated to them by friendly locals. The conditions that would make someone pack up their lives into a small backpack and set off walking for thousands of miles to an uncertain destination doesn’t bear thinking about.

Probably because we have so far to go today, we find ourselves caught in a huge traffic jam barely creeping along. A few cars scoot by in the oncoming lane, cutting to the front wherever that might be. After some swearing and cursing at these people, and some encouragement from a friendly taxi van driver, we join in the shenanigans and buzz past hundreds of trucks until we arrive at the front of the queue. Two lorries have gently crashed into each other blocking a lane, so I guess it’s only fair they’re held up and we aren’t?

Because just a broken windscreen isn’t enough, a loud twang over yet another speed bump signals the demise of a rear suspension spring. Cursing, we limp onwards. There’s ALWAYS something broken.

That early rise was worth it, we have travelled to Lake Izabal in the north east of the country. There are lots of marinas here as apparently it is a safe place to wait out storms for the Caribbean yachting folks. Some lake laundry is done in absolute comfort and another stolen coconut is butchered in our ever present infatuation with these crusty cocooned tasties. Then a beer whilst sat in the lake as the sun sets, and dinner as the full moon rises.

Just up from this spot, and our camp spot for the next night, is yet another thermal water source, this one in the shape of a waterfall into a large pool. Only the waterfall is hot, the pool is a lovely cool temperature so that you don’t melt as the waterfall is the temperature of an overly hot shower, the kind that leaves your skin red. It’s an extremely weird experience to have such a burning natural water source, so we sexily attempt to hold each other up for back massages and give our hair the proper wash that is long overdue.

So that was Guatemala, to Honduras we must proceed. Via fuel, where they only had a pathetic four gallons so in our frustration we accidentally managed to borrow another coconut through the window on our way off the forecourt.

As we know you like it when we tell you things we see (else why else would you be here?) we’ll try to explain something we’ve noticed. At the border we found lots of American lorries, trailers, trucks and school busses. They’ve been driven down from the USA to spend the rest of their lives in Central America. We saw a truck, with another truck mounted on the 5^th wheel (picture dogs humping), with a full length enclose trailer mounted on that one which contained two or three Toyota pickup trucks all having made their way down from the States. Their value here is greater than their value up north, although in a way it makes sense as the cost of keeping them on the road is less and the standards to which they must be maintained non-existent. Having said that, the trucks are usually well presented with regular cleaning and all sorts of shiny customised parts bolted on. Maybe it’s the cheap trucks that’s drawing the migrants North?

As we attempted the border crossing from Guatemala into Honduras, we were asked to hand over cash with no receipt “because the systems are down” and when we explained we didn’t expect this charge we were told “there are many charges”. So we said no, and he went to lunch. We enlisted the help of a couple of backpacking Irishfolk who knew more Spanish than our four words. Some sweet talking and hand gesturing later and we were on our way with our new friends into Honduras with a little extra dollar in our pockets.

After kicking them out at the bus depot a couple of hours later, we headed to a great brewery (Angeli Gardens, sounds sooo innocent) where you can camp for free if you buy some beer. So free camping or free beer? Does it matter? It certainly didn’t after the 5^th.  They weren’t all this small (or are they far away?).

Ok so we can’t spend all our time drinking beer so we headed up to a national park just around the corner, Panacam. Honduras is proud of their jungles and have a good number of established parks to choose from, free of litter and safe. Insanely torrential rain turned the ground into a bog, so we made use of our sand ladders as a patio. They did better at this then they did getting us out of sand all those months ago! We also collected rain water again, the jug was overflowing within a couple of hours. And then we realised the tap water was potable for once (straight from the mountain stream), oh well, makes for a better story and isn’t that what it’s all aboot, eh?

More bodging, spring spacers were shuffled around to level out the van using straps and rocks, is there a better way? Teeth somehow still in-tact, he headed out for a short hike for a dip in the river. Maybe it isn’t potable now… And Steve caught his first fish of the trip with his bare hands, a real man of the jungle.

Fish released, coconut butchered; delicious. When they’re young and green they have lots of water inside, and as they ripen the meat becomes thicker and the water lesser. Coconuts are quite the enigma, perhaps once we’re jedi level of expertise we’ll enlighten you. Until then, we’ll keep wasting our energy cracking open the rotten ones we find in puddles beside the road.

Time for some exercise so we head out for a 5 hour jungle hike past waterfalls and through “cloud forests”.  The sweaty humid hike was enough effort let alone explaining it to you guys, so we’ll let the photos do the talking.

We’re clearly obsessed with coconuts, doesn’t this guy look like one… mmmmm… where’s the machete?

Fireflies are still present at most places we visit and we can’t get enough of them. They are truly hypnotic and their displays seem to last about an hour after it gets dark. We attempted to catch this on camera but it really doesn’t do it justice so obviously our camera isn’t good enough. It isn’t our skill that is lacking, never.

Oh what is this? Parking at another brewery (D&D Brewery, sounds less innocent). Whoops, how did that happen? More great beer, WiFi to CATch up with family, laundry done (and heaven knows we got our monies worth on that stinky bag of garments) and plentiful hummingbirds gave a great feel to this oasis.

Back to the road, and this one was a particularly interesting one. iOverlander informed us of a camping opportunity at a coffee farm deep inside a national park at a tiny village called Rio Negro (Black River, mmmm inviting). It also informed us that the road was treacherous and that 4x4 was certainly required. Even the road signs showed a truck because no-one would be foolish enough to attempt this road in something lesser. Attempt we did, and just about succeeded. The amazingly welcoming family set us up on this farm, gave us coffee and showed us how to prepare the pineapple we had bought at the side of the road on the way.

In the morning we hung out with our host’s sister and her husband who were fortunately very good with the Google Translate app and we had great conversation before being taken into the bushes to harvest cardamom pods to chew on to clear out our sinuses.

The village has 50ish children, and all attend a small school with two buildings and two teachers of which our host was one of them. A sign on the wall of the school tells us that it was built with the help of a Canadian rotary club, Comox on Vancouver Island no less. It also serves as the tourist centre for the village and they are extremely keen for visitors to come and experience the lovely area. Trouble is, with the long and treacherous road visitors have to be extremely committed. This has been another realisation on our trip, the impact of road quality. Some of our favourite and least spoilt places have been at the end of an arduous and bone shaking drive, but whilst this is good for us it is a huge limitation on the potential for expansion. Bored of these weird hippy reflections? Ok, here are some more photos, coffee growing and coffee beans drying the same way laundry does. And a tiny football pitch for tiny people.

So then, this road. What’s wrong with it? Well most of it was ok, some parts crazy steep and rocky, many parts soft and muddy, and a couple of river crossings. We just about managed to scrape through all of this on the way in but were not so fortunate on the way out. Stopping in this river for a photo proved the fatal mistake. One rear wheel caught between two rocks, the other resting on loose gravel, a second of that wheel spinning and we were sunken and stuck stuck. The submerged exhaust puttering away, the hand winch makes its second appearance and the closest banana tree is almost torn out the ground as we drag ourselves back onto dry land. Next time we won’t slow down.

Heading towards the capital we spot a park and decide it’s high time we had an afternoon not driving. It turns out to be another example of Hondurans making great use of their space with a lake, swimming pool, covered picnic tables and everything you need to relax and unwind from this stressful holiday… All for $4, or £2.50. Also, pine trees have made a comeback in this part of the world reminding us a smidgen of Canada. And horses that try to steal rubbish bags from your hand. There’s probably a joke somewhere in there. Hay. Long face.

So you may remember a “fix” from last time where the timing belt cover melted, and so shiny bitumen tape was smeared over top to solve it once and for all? Well… it didn’t, it melted too and dripped off like the soggy hot failure that it was. Deep thought was being given to this dilemma, with imagination boosting liquid being consumed when all of a sudden something whispered out the solution from the darkness. Pssssssssssssssst. Well actually it was a beer can being opened, but wait a minute! An abundant source of shiny aluminium right between our drunken fingertips. This is taking bushcraft to the next level, bring it on Bear Grilles you piss drinking pansy.

Awesome new heat shields in place, Jenjen makes notes of our handiwork whilst a fire roars away just because we’re feeling so macho and wild.

Almost time to leave Honduras, we feel it a bad name quite unfairly. From our experience it is filled with the loveliest and most helpful people we have met on our entire trip. People have been warm and friendly, patient with our lack of Spanish and going out of their way to help us. On our last day we visited a car parts place and whilst they couldn’t help us, an employee walked us 5 minutes through town to a shop that could because we couldn’t understand his directions. And then we camped at a petrol station where their WiFi was down so the employee offered to let us connect through his own personal phone. We were offered an umbrella when it rained in the first park, and given a huge bag of free coffee when we camped at the coffee farm. Many people do live in poverty, which can drive people to crime and it is clear the extent of this when most locations are guarded day and night. But if you’re aware of that, and keep your wits about you, then this country is an awesome place to visit. Tomorrow is time for Nicaragua, where we hear all the protests, road blocks and the unfortunately fatal unrest has calmed down. From the warm and welcoming frying pan, into the surely warm and welcoming fire!

Due to a significant change in process, the map is now a little ahead of the blog (actually, it is up to where we are right now) so you get a sneak peak of what is to come. Cheeky.

MapIsBackBaby

Ok, one more photo where we match/clash, last one we promise.