Honduras Part Three: a week in the rainforest

July 2007

It was an early start to leave the Cayos Cochinos for a rainforest on the mainland: Cusuco National Park. After a breakfast of pancakes, beans, eggs and cheese, we were taken to the airport so that we could change buses. During the changeover, we were allowed a break so we all ran to the closest food outlet: Wendy’s. Although we had had some decent meals during the week, we all needed a good burger. As such, it was one of the best burgers I had ever tasted.

After our bus journey, we were transferred to a convoy of pick up trucks which were to take us up into the hills to Base Camp. Unfortunately, there were some problems with our booking and there was no space for us so we were taken to a local village to spend the night instead.

A group of us stayed in the outhouse of a local family. We were lucky enough to find comfy beds here but we returned from dinner to find the walls covered in cockroaches. They were everywhere and fell into our beds as we lay there. I don’t think any of us got a particularly good night’s sleep after that.

In the morning, we had a breakfast of mangoes, hot chocolate, cereal and biscuits, and I unsuccessfully attempted to comb through the knots that had formed in my hair over the past week. The morning’s entertainment involved watching several of our group build playing-card castles until it was time to get back into the trucks and head to camp.

We were all delighted to find the camp was home to a tuck shop, so we were able to stock up on crisps and Oreos for the rest of the week. A few of us also invested in some oranges which we squeezed to make juice. Sadly it wasn’t as tasty as we hoped, as it was simultaneously bitter and sweet. There was also a place where some locals were selling various souvenirs, including jewellery, T-shirts, coffee and even ceremonial swords. I didn’t fancy trying to get the latter through customs so just stuck to the rest.

We were less delighted with the bathroom facilities. The water for the showers was kept in buckets which were left out to warm in the sun – rather like on the island – sadly the sun wasn’t as strong here and so washing involved standing under a pipe spouting freezing cold water. The toilets were even more unpleasant and consisted of two options: a funnel or a long-drop. Oh the agony of choice.

After moving into our tents, we had a delicious frankfurter lunch complete with ketchup (which made the corn tortillas taste much better) before walking to a very pretty waterfall. Predictably (for the “rain”forest), it rained a lot and after a dinner of spaghetti bolognese and a lecture it was bedtime.

The following day started with corn tortillas with jam and peanut butter with a side of pineapple, before we were off to do the training for our upcoming canopy climb. It turned out to relatively straight forward until I got freaked out about the height. I do not like heights.

In the afternoon, we were able to observe one of the projects run by the team, which involved looking at bugs that had been caught in their traps and sieving through the remnants in there.

The next day was exhausting. We had to be up early for our sunrise canopy climb and my alarm didn’t go off. Somehow, after waking up five minutes before our meeting time, I managed to get ready and discovered I was not the only one to have problems getting up for 4.45am.  The climb was fun but my vertigo did slow me down. I wasn’t able to see too much through the branches but it was still rather atmospheric.

Our next activity was a tree survey. This involved a climb down a very big, very steep hill. I spent the whole time worrying about the fact we’d have to climb back up it on the return journey. It didn’t help that, once at the bottom, we found that we had gone the wrong way and hadn’t needed to go down it at all. We did the survey at the spot anyway before being dragged back up again. It was a long and painful climb.

We’d had a packed lunch of tortillas, refried beans, cheese and eggs but most of us weren’t really fans of these so mainly just stuck to eating crackers. This meant that our pasta dinner that night was very much welcomed.

The night brought with it another activity – going out with the teams and observing ‘old man’ bats, so called because they have rather wrinkly faces, and collecting bugs. Most of us weren’t actually able to handle the bats as we hadn’t had rabies jabs but it was still interesting to watch. However, by 1am I was happy to go to bed.

In the morning, we were faced with a choice: stay at base camp or go to a satellite camp. I’d heard that the facilities were worse and it was a tough hike to get there and so after the previous day’s hill I decided to stay put. In hindsight, I shake my head at 15 year old me – apparently some of the group that went spotted monkeys – nowadays I like to think that I would have braved it, despite the fact I am just as unfit. Instead, the group of us that stayed put went out to spot snakes. Sadly we ended up halfway down the same hill as the day before and didn’t see a single one.

Over the next last couple of days we spent our downtime playing cards – I got taught how to play poker using M&Ms instead of chips, I wasn’t good and decided to eat my chocolate instead of risking losing it.

During our more productive hours, we went out to look at bromeliad plants and spotted a parrot which we attempted to chase and, in doing so, we stumbled across a toucan nest (although we didn’t see any actual toucans). We also helped conduct a light survey in the camp. This involved setting out a plastic sheet and a light, at night, and waiting to see what appeared. Several bugs turned up including a giant moth and some beetles. When I climbed into my sleeping back later, I had to climb back out again and shake off all the bugs which I could still feel climbing all over me.

Our last activity was to observe the decomposition project the teams were running. This involved three deg pigs placed in different, strategic areas of the forest and noting the stages of their decomposition. The idea was that you would then be able to identify how long something had been dead for if you found it in such areas. You could smell the pigs before you saw them. Some had been visited by vultures and there were a lot of maggots. I won’t include pictures of this.

With that, my two weeks in Honduras ended. The next day we were taken back down the hill in the back of the pick-up trucks. We were singing songs loudly and could hear the driver turn up the radio in the background, in an attempt to drown us out. That wasn’t enough to dent our spirit though.

Read about the rest of my trip:

• Honduras Part One: arriving on a Caribbean island
• Honduras Part Two: a week in the Caribbean