Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Cerra Azul Meambar National Park, Honduras



This is the hike we went on in the park. Notice all distances were measured in time.

One of the beautiful views from a mirador on the trail.
As we enter the cloud forest. WE went through many different climates. Humid jungle, cloud forest, bamboo and jade forests. It was crazy feeling the change as we hiked.
Amazing cloud forest!!
Waterfall # 1 on the hike. 15 min. from our campsite.

Dave and I at the first waterfall.
One of many suspension bridges along the way, maximum capicity 3 people.
The biggest dragon fly I have ever seen, over 6" wingspan.

Cicada on the trail.

If you look close you can see the trail of army ants. Dave was explaining to us how we should not touch these things, just then we realized that we were in between two large groups of them. Dave tried to tip toe past them and fell over on both groups (with his shirt off)! He made an amazing recovery, lept back to his feet and ran away in a fury without being swarmed! Fucking awesome.

If you look closely you can see a 6' yellow and black snake on the left side of the picture. Dave nearly stepped on this thing and it didn't budge, we had a stand off and a few minutes later the snake left.
Jungle shower.

Thick jungle growth.
Bamboo cooked pasta, potatoes, onions, green beans, raddishes, and tomatoe sauce. Since we didnt't have cookware we made a bamboo pot and chopsticks. Best jungle diner ever!

Huge purple hummingbird.

Our campsite, still waiting for the tent!!

This was or van from La Guama to the national park. On our way to the park the thing was about to fall apart, when it picked us up two days later it did. They lost the side door and the back door almost fell off as well.



Lago de Yojoa, Honduras





 This is the only craft brewery in Honduras.  We stayed here for 4 days, I camped the first night and Colleen and our friend Karly slept in the hallway of the employee house because there were no rooms available.




From left to right Una (from Ireland), Dave, Karly, and Colleen.

This was my camp site the first night, I got real cozy with the bugs. Can't wait for Sean to arrive in Costa Rica with our tent.

Colleen and Karly's roomate in the hallway. This moth was way bigger than most of the bats we have seen!


The pool at D&D. Dave didn't actually throw her in.
The drinking game presidents and assholes entertained us each night!! After this game we had a drunken bug expedition with the security guard!
Pulhapanzak Water Fall 43 m. tall. We jumped the gate at the bottom of the waterfall and got caught in a crazy rain storm, we were 45 min. from the hostel and hitch hiked in the down pour back to D&D. (a popular form of transport in the area.)
Our rowboat on Lago De Yojoa. It was $2.00 for the day. I struggled in the begining going to the lake up the river, and the locals made fun of me and my "muy malo" technique. However they were excited to see us return and my technique improve!!

On our second day out on the lake we met some local kids going fishing. I was in Dave's Alpaca raft and they wanted to tow me to the lake. They were extremely excited about Daves boat.

Then they wanted to try Dave's raft and give me a ride in their boat. They were both very good rowers. This is Herman giving me a ride. And my job was to bail water from the boat.
Herman riding the Alpaca raft getting a tow from Dave.
The local kids trying out our snorkel gear. This whole experience made their day!! And mine!!
Hitching a ride from the hostel to Pena Blanca to get more rum and a machete.
Sunrise hike on our last day at the lake!!











Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Utila, Honduras (Beaches)


This is where we stayed in Utila. Patrick got his open water dive certification here. We went diving almost everyday and on days we didnt go we just snorkled on the beach out front. There were lots of fish, 2 sea horses, these little crabs (above) and lots more. The reefs in Utila were gorgeous!




This is one of the top ten bars in the world!  The entire place was made of tile, bottles, glass, and lots of different recycled material. It was absolutley amazing. The owner has been working on this place for over 20 years.








On the other side of the island were these fresh water caves. You were literally on hands and feet crawling through them and you could light candles along the way to guide you. (we also had a flash light) Once you got to the water there were strings that you could follow underwater that would guide you to other caverns. We did 3 swim throughs but I guess if you are brave enough and knew what your doing you can go through a lot more.

We were looking at a crab we found.

We think this is a trantula that we saw in the cave. We also saw some sort of crab scorpian mix but didnt get a picture of it.






We lucked out and the week were there was carnival. So there were lots of street parties, parades, and  a Ms. Utila contest.


We crawled through some mangroves to sneak into this almost full moon party. Once we got there we were glad we snuck in because it was kinda lame and would not have been worth paying the cover.

This is us on our dive boat with our friends Carly and Sigrid. We were peacefully relaxing on top and then we hit some crazy waves and were hanging on for our lives.





Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Belize

Belize was great and very laid back but we only stayed for  four days because of the rain. Plus we were eager to dive in Utila, Honduras.

This is us riding our bikes around Caye Caulker. This was an awesome island with no cars only golf carts and bikes. It rained most the time but we were able to go snorkeling and  eat some yummy lobster.
 
 

We got to snorkel with stingrays and nurse sharks! We even got to pet them.
 
This Morrey Eel came up to us while we were swimming by.

 As you can see the wind was very strong and we got to experience the rainy season.





 
This was the hostel we stayed at and despite its name "Dirty McNasty's" it was clean and included bikes, a canoe, breakfast, and rum punch.
 
After a bus ride in a old school bus across Belize we stayed in Dangriga. It was a beautiful costal town with a very laid back culture. Another traveler described it best as "this place keeps it real".
 
Patrick spotted this guy sitting by the river.
 
 We were waiting for our boat to Honduras, which everyone told us arrived at the precise time of somewhere between 9 and 11 am. Due to the rain we took shelter in the local library, which had this drawn on the outside.