14 April 2005 11:42
the fourth daydiesiocho marzo, 2005
"we got up before breakfast, so [logically] we should go to bed before supper. --or right after." -Jerrel protesting the illogic of staying up late.
today's highlight was a trip to palacio. we got a staggering early start (0830), and left with jarly after 10am for the thirty minute flight. he picked a heading that brought us to the coastline east of palacio (just east of the villiages jerusalem and bethleham), and dropped to two hundred feel on the ocean side to give us a good view out the left. ocean on one side, lagoon on the other, jerusalem and bethleham are situated on a narrow quarter mile strip of sand several miles long.
landing at palacio, we were met at the airstrip by an asian american who was out for a stroll (palacio is hwere granddad met jorge last year, hanging around the airstrip waiting for the first plane to come that could give him a ride to ahuas--jorge was it). he and a couple companions he'd met in la ceiba had just finished the somewhat grueling ride by truck that morning. during the dry season, trucks run along the beach serving the coastal villages. as soon as the wet season starts, the river mouths become too dangerous to cross and boat is the only option.
we walked up the main footpath to a private school run by the family we were there to visit. the husband was not at home, but we sat with the mrs and jarly on the porch and shot the bull for over an hour. her daughter made up some hamburgers, so we went inside and partook before leaving. along the main path one can see an old canon that was dug up, grandded believes it to be of british origin.
back in ahuas, we continued our ardourus tasks by taking a nap. then us guys sallied forth on a walk. ahuas is surrounded on the southern 180 degrees by grassland, we wanted to see what it looked like. well, there was a lot of grass...
kyle and i eventually struck off on our own and wound up struggling through swamp grass up to our armpits (almost literally). kyle should have known better than let me lead, but i guess he didn't learn his lesson well enough back in virginia on our previous hikes. my "come on, it has to get better than this" mentality isn't always a benefit. got back at dusk, just in time for supper.
of course, on that little hike i picked up a fair sized colony of chiggers, the marks of which are three weeks later finally almost gone. still, i gave them their money's worth in the form of a grand tour of eastern honduras, though i suspect they were more interested in the free food. i got tired of them eventually, and we got ahold of some stuff called "chiggerX". i personally think rubbing alchohol would've done a quicker job (the more pain, the better it is for you, right), but they eventually packed up shop and died. mmm. protien. (it's like james herriot says--the worse a mixture smelled, the more potent a farmer felt it would be in combating disease. i think both he and the farmer have their valid points).
11:42 email me permalink / commentary (0)
