Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream!

This past weekend we had a 3-day break because Monday was Teacher’s Day. We knew this long in advance and jumped at the opportunity to leave town, so we had been planning our getaway to Lago de Yojoa for quite a while. It was another beautiful weekend away from La Unión as we spent time getting to know another place in Honduras.

Saturday
Once again we hired a guy to drive us to our destination in his truck so we could avoid the bus. We left early in the morning and began our drive. It was your typical bumpy car ride through the beautiful countryside. We did get stopped along the way in a town along the lake for a parade. (Yup, if you read my Santa Rosa post you’ll remember that we ran into problems because of a parade there too.) Saturday was Honduras’ Independence Day so there were parades everywhere – we were bound to get stopped by one. The parade was in the precise middle of town and it was not moving, so neither were we. We got out of our truck to go enjoy in the festivities, but like usual we quickly became more intriguing than the parade and everyone turned to stare at us. There was a band playing and girls dancing in the street along with the tunes. We were not the only ones eager for the parade to finish so we could continue on our way, so we followed the crowd of cars trying to surpass the parade via side streets. That turned out to be a poor decision because we started up a hill only to get stuck up there in a line of cars because no one was able to drive all the way through the road. We awkwardly had to turn around and crawl back down the hill to wait once more for the parade to finish.

We finally made it to our hotel – after getting lost for about half an hour – around lunch time. We checked in and decided to eat lunch there because they had… wait for it… cheeseburgers! That cheeseburger made the almost 5-hour car ride completely worth it :) We stayed at the D&D Brewery all weekend (the cheeseburgers and beer were the main appeal of the place); the only negative was that it wasn’t actually on the lake. It was a hotel established by an American so there were lots of tourists there, which made it fun to see other gringos and talk to them in English. The rest of the day was entirely uneventful: we decided to go into town to get money and shop around. However, the ATM was not working and all the banks were closed so we couldn’t get money; as well, there wasn’t much shopping to be done and then it started raining. We had a very relaxing evening eating and playing cards together. That night, all 6 of us girls shared a room and we decided to push the three double beds together and have a giant slumber party!

Sunday
We started the morning with a lovely rowing adventure. The deal is you rent oars from someone in town and then head to the canal to hop on a boat. As simple as that sounds, you should also realize by now that nothing is easy in Honduras. We marched through a swamp and barbed wire to get to the boats, and then we had to convince the boatman to let us use a boat.  Since there were 7 of us we had to split up into two groups – Beth, Harriet, Cassidy and I were in one boat while Lori, Lenny, and Kara were in the other – and because our sets of oars were not matching, the man did not believe that we rented them from the same place and would not let my group on a boat. His logic was absurd but we finally got in our boat. Beth and I took over rowing first and it may or may not have taken us a while to figure out a synchronized pattern of rowing that had us going in a semi-straight line instead of zig-zagging and circling our way down the canal. However, the other boat did not have our skill (or luck) and ended up hiring a man, in the middle of the canal, to join their crew and row their boat. (If you’re trying to imagine how this happened, two men were in a boat going in the opposite direction and they flagged those men down to have one of them switch into their boat while floating in the canal.) At least they made the valiant effort of rowing, and let’s be honest, none of us will be going out for the next Olympic rowing team. 

It ended up being rather nice because he became a sort of tour-guide for us. 

He was a very smiley man and clearly loved being with us – we guessed that he was having the time of his life getting to spend the day with 7 uncoordinated, goofy gringos trying to row across the lake. We followed the shore line for a while and saw magnificent views of the entire lake, cool rock cliffs, and trees along the edges. We stopped to swim for a little bit (when you swim here, out of cultural courtesy, you have to keep your shorts and tank top on over your swimsuit) in the clear, yet not-lacking-in-algae lake. After that we decided to head back because we still had other plans for the rest of the day. On our way back the ‘guide’ tried to give us rowing lessons on how to be more efficient. Our boat made it back just fine, slowly but surely, with Harriet taking over as the sole rower; and the other boat made it back a lot quicker than us by the hands of their professional, local rower (Lenny did take another crack at trying to row, but he failed). We thought that lives could have been but a dream if we had wine and cheese with us for fancy dining on our sweet rowboat trip.

Our next destination was the Pulapanzak Waterfall. This is the tallest waterfall in Honduras at 43 meters and it is absolutely magnificent. It was actually here at the park that we received our first teacher discounts! We got a discount on our entrance fee and tour price; it was such a nice gift to us. We really wanted to do this tour that takes you behind the waterfall, but we decided to first go see the waterfall and take our glamour shots. Of course the pictures don’t do the waterfall justice but try to put yourself in my picture. The mist from the waterfall covered us and we all just stood in silence marveling at it.

Then the real fun began. Our tour behind the waterfall. Now, when I hear about a tour behind the waterfall I think of something sophisticated and organized: perhaps there is something like a boardwalk to walk across with the waterfall rushing overhead, or maybe there’s even something a little more dangerous like traversing an edge with harnesses and some kind of rope system. Welp, this is Honduras and there is nothing as secure as that to be found. We started by trekking through mud and intense mist to the base of the waterfall. From there we jumped into a pool that we had to quickly swim across without getting sucked down by the current. Then we crawled along the rocks to a cove for brief protection from the forceful waterfall. Our guide told us that for the next parts of the tour we all had to hold hands tightly, look down, and breathe out of our mouths. Um… what did you say?! So we grabbed a hold of each other because our lives depended on it and slid into chest high water. The power of the waterfall was unbelievable! It was pounding down on our backs and heads. He was right – it was incredibly hard to see even when looking down, and breathe even through my mouth! We paused briefly in another overhang to seek refuge. Then we ventured back out there as we walked blindly across the base of the waterfall clinging to the rocks. Our final destination was a hole in a wall that we had to crawl through to get inside a cave. We had no flashlights or anything else to see inside the cave so we all just sat in darkness, in shock over this ‘tour.’ After a few minutes we wandered back to the start of our adventure, once again holding tightly to each other and grasping the rocks while trying to navigate the route. But, our guide wouldn’t let us go without one more daring activity: we jumped off a 25-foot cliff into the river below. He didn’t really give us much time to think about the jump and be scared. Instead, we each took our turn of standing on the ledge, looking down, figuring out how far to jump out, and then launching ourselves into the river, all within a single minute. What a thrill! We were screaming and cheering throughout the whole tour, and our excitement didn’t end. The whole tour was fantastically amazing and we were still on such an adrenaline high well into the night. Our crazy day ended with feasting on juicy cheeseburgers and luscious chocolate cake.

Monday

We asked the guy who drove us to the lake to return on Monday so he could drive us back – aka we successfully avoided any kind of bus all trip! Never mind that he was three hours late picking us up, it was nice not to have to suffer on a bus home. We spent the morning waiting for him in a very relaxed state. We read and surfed the internet at the hotel, went into town to finally get money out of our bank accounts, and drank refreshing smoothies. This time our space in the bed of the truck was even smaller because he had done some shopping along the way for everyone in La Unión, so we squeezed four of us and everyone’s bags into the bed. Once he picked us up it didn’t take long for our ride to get interesting. We were driving into some very dark clouds and knew there was no avoiding the inevitable – rain. He stopped the car and told us that he could either cover us with a tarp or wait for the storm to pass. Those of us in the back decided to just cover ourselves with a tarp and keep going. So we stretched this very dirty, nasty tarp over us and proceeded to drive. It was a serious rain storm! It was pouring and even started hailing on us! The tarp wasn’t doing a great job because we were all still getting wet and so were the bags. At one point I had to lie across all the bags and stretch the tarp as far as I could and hold it down just to cover the bags and try to keep them as dry as possible. Needless to say, we could not wait for the rain to stop so we could take off the tarp, and we were especially eager to get home. Thankfully we had another incredible weekend that made the uncomfortable ride home completely worth it.

This week please be praying for our health. We had a very unlucky week with everyone getting sick! Lori had a water amoeba attack her digestive system, Cassidy had an allergic reaction to the soap used to wash her sheets and is starting to get a sore throat, Kara had a sinus infection, Beth felt queasy for a few days, and Harriet suffered from the 24-hour flu. Pray that everyone recovers quickly and that those of us who slid under the radar this week, continue to be healthy.