Honduras: Rio Cangrejal

We had read in the guidebook about a nice-sounding hotel along the Rio Cangrejal, associated with an environmental organization training young people as guides and photographers. We couldn't get them to answer their phone to confirm they had a room available (or even if they were still in business -- we learned to question our guidebook at every stop). But we hired a taxi and headed in that direction anyhow, with a backup hotel in mind.

When we arrived in the tiny village of Las Mangas (after a very bumpy 10 miles that took about 45 minutes), not only was Cabañas Aventura del Bosque open, but we liked it so much we stayed four nights. Our days typically went something like this:

1. Wake up and watch birds from our balcony, while eating breakfast.

2. Go hiking or birdwatching with one of the local guides or on our own.

3. Go swimming

4. Siesta

5. More birdwatching and/or hanging out by the river

6. Dinner either at our hotel, or from the woman down the street who would cook fried chicken and plantains (if you gave her some advance warning) and serve them at a 2-person table in front of her house. (Those were the entirety of the dining options in Las Mangas.) We were kept company during the wait for fried chicken by a variety of cats and dogs.

On one day, we followed a local volunteer's suggestion that we make the little village of Juan Pablo II our hiking destination. The village is located about a hour's walk from Las Mangas, on the other side of the river from the road. There is no bridge. Instead, you get into a basket attached to a metal cable and you zipline halfway across, then crank yourself the rest of the way. About 60 feet above the river. We made it across and back with the help of a woman who worked with the Juan Pablo II sewing coop.

She also took us on a walk through old-growth forest to a small waterfall. As she told us a story about the time she saw a jaguar at the waterfall, her love and awe for the forest and its creatures was clear. It was such a treat to meet her.

Eventually we knew we needed to move on if we were going to see other places on our list, so after one last birdwatching tour, we hopped the bus to La Ceiba, stocked up on groceries, and headed out for the Cuero y Salado wildlife refuge.

Honduras: Utila

Utila is a small island off the coast of Honduras. It is near the southern end of a coral reef that starts along the Yucatan coast, second longest barrier reef in the world.

The island itself is just 11 km long and 4 km wide. Scooters, ATVs, and mini-taxis called tuktuks are the transportation of choice.
 

We found a great hotel called Margaritaville near one end of the island, which helped us get away from the "traffic." Just $20 a night for a clean, spacious room with a hot shower and a porch with a view of the water.

Most days we walked 15 minutes to go snorkelling right off a dock. (That little blip in the water in this picture is Elizabeth snorkelling.) It was a very short swim to a great outcrop of coral reef that follows the edge of a deep dropoff in the sea floor. In the distance, we could see the mountains on the mainland.

We didn't have an underwater camera so I will share a few pictures from the creative commons that look like some of the things we saw:

In the evenings we watched the sunset from the small beach near our hotel.

On one day, we rented a kayak and paddled a mangrove-lined canal to the beach on the north side of the island. It was nice to have our own deserted beach, but the piles of trash that had washed up on the beach kept us from taking pictures.

After about a week on Utila we were a little waterlogged and ready to see what the mainland had to offer.

Before & After, From our Bedroom

I once had a very ambitious plan to take a picture of our oak tree from our bedroom window every day for a year. Some days we weren't here, some days I forgot, and then there were several weeks in there when our camera wasn't working. But from what I did take you might get an idea of how much we loved this tree.

And here is a fade from one of those pictures to our current view out the bedroom window. The shed and the holly tree on the left were my points of reference for lining these up -- it's not perfect, but again, you get the idea...

Our House Post Post Oak

We still maintain that we got off incredibly lucky compared to what could have happened when our tree came down. But there was more damage than we realized hiding under the foliage. And we have a lot of wood to split.

Closeup of the hole in our laundry room roof:

That corner suffered more damage than we had realized both on the 1st floor addition...

...and on the second floor. Not sure how this will play out, since the siding shingles are made of asbestos embedded in concrete -- I don't think they can be replaced, since they aren't made anymore.

Two of our solar panels are visibly broken, and a third is way down in production.

But perhaps the biggest surprise was finding our attic fan on the ground, which means we had a second decent-sized hole in our roof that we didn't even know about until Monday night.