12 July 2005 00:09
dia ochoTuesday, 22 March 2005
Puerto Lempira to Waspam
It was an interesting night. maybe it was the lepoard print sheets, but i didn't sleep very constantly. or it might have had something to do with some very disoriented people outside our door. a key was tried in the lock at one point, and then 45 minutes later the door actually opened about a foot as someone looked in, then closed it again. they didn't latch it properly, so it promptly swung back open. this was letting the airconditioned air out, so i decided to put a stop to things by closing the door and stuffing a chair under the knob. this always seems to work in the movies, though i've never succesfully managed to get a chair to actually prevent me from opening a door with a determined push. in this case however, the chair was all of two inches from the edge of granddad and mine's bed, so i figured our chances of the door staying reasonably closed were much improved.
after this, the noises outside died down and no more doorknobs were tried, although lights did walk past the window at irregular intervals (probably guards). as expected, the town generator shut down at 0300, effectively killing the a/c. fortunately, we were up at 0430 before the room really had a chance to become stuffy.
our driver for the trip to leimus had volunteered to pick us up at the hotel. however, that would have resigned us to accept whatever seats were left at the time of pickup, so we opted to walk to the point of origin. in retrospect this probably wasn't to most brilliant idea we had during those two weeks, but we set off through the dark streets at 0445 in the morning. Nevertheless, the three (obviously rich) gringos with forty pounds of baggage apiece made it the four blocks to the pickup point unassaulted.
Granddad sat in the front with what was eventually two women, two kids, and the driver. Kyle and I sat in the back with four others; an adult and a child of each gender. The 1/2 ton king-cab pickup had two bench seats across the back, with a rack system to hold baggage over the cab and provide structure to string a tarp over the passengers. Although the tarp provided welcome relief from the sun, most of us were eventually standing with our head, shoulders, and upper chest above the rack so that we could see where we were going and get some fresh air. At the speeds we were travelling (usually in the 40-70 kmh range), the aerodynamic back eddy kept the diesel exhaust fumes swirling in the bed of the truck. We got sunburned and it wasn't exactly safe standing like that, but the fresh air and 360 degree view were worth it (esp since we didn't get burned badly and nobody fell out or broke a collar bone on the truck's framework eh?).
We made several stops throughout town picking various people up; for instance the wife of one man who came out in his boxers to see her off, shoot the bull a bit with the driver a bit before paying him from a wad of lempira's and wandering back into the house. We also picked up a young girl, probably in her early teens, who was by all appearances going to stay with friends or family for a few weeks or months. She eventually shipped from Leimus to Waspam with us, carrying her small piece of luggage and a Barbie accessory box. The local Mosquito Indians pay little attention to the border between Hondorus and Nicaragua, crossing the Rio Coco as they please.
we spent 4:45 on the ride to leimus, a (extremely) small border town on the Honduran side of the coco. southwest from pto lempira across a rolling grassy plain, the sun rising hazily over the lagoon. our driver kept good speed up, choosing any of up to five alternate tracks through the grass--a mudhole appears, you form a new trail around it. thus the road from one side to another could take any where from eight feet to a quarter mile swath through the prarie. as the sun rose higher we also climbed higher, working our way into scattered stands of pine. the scattered stands in the prarie gave way to scattered meadows in the forest to solid pine forest.
tho' perhaps "solid" is a misnomer. the underbrush is burned with regularity, clearing not only brush, but new saplings. this leaves a forest of tall thin pine trunks, covered over with boughs at the top...perhaps forty feet above the floor. the trunks were not densely placed, averaging eight feet or more from any one tree to the next. plenty of daylight filters through to the floor, which in turn is carpeted with a flowing wave of grass--the same which populates the prairie below and northeast.
as the hours wore on we turned from our WSW heading to SSW, following the general ridgeline in that direction. excitement along the route:
-stopping at a military checkpoint to stretch our legs. the soldiers meticulously searched jerrel and kyle's small packs, but as the soldiers didn't specifically request us to drag our large pack off the rack up front, we didn't especially volunteer to do it.
-the entire route was dry, though there was ample evidence of mud being a problem in the last rainy season. it was for this very reason that march (middle of the dry season) was chosen for our trip (not that it didn't rain while we were there). we did however manage to find our way into a mud hole in the middle of noware. there we quickly were made aware of our driver's lack of experience in this field as he proceeded to completely trash his transmission (i'm no transmission expert, but the four of us were in complete agreement that an engine racing with the clutch out in four wheel drive with the wheels not spinning nor moving at all and the smell of a burning clutch emminating from beneath the truck is not a good thing).
-he finally managed to pull out of the axel deep mud, and we continued on our way--followed by the ever-present smell of a burning clutch and a driver that was more interested in gas mileage than his clutch. he kept it in high gear lugging up the hills. an interesting charachter.
-we met at least three vehicles, mostly loaded to the gills, headed for lempira.
we reached leimus at quarter to eleven. hot dusty, slightly sunburned, and ready for a different seat. lo and behold, after all our effort to track down an migracion officer in lempira, there was one open for business in leimus. he double-checked our already-stamped passports and cheered us on our way. the majority of our time was clearly spent there, we walked around the gate, 150 feet to the river, down a 10' embankment and onto a waiting duggout for our two hour ride downriver (southeast) to waspam, our final destination.
the ride wound up being somewhat wet. this might have had something to do with all the locals choosing seats before we got there so the gringos got to sit in the places they didn't want. the next two hours consisted of wondering how sunburned i was getting while spending most of the time trying to stay as dry as possible (which was not very possible). we stopped once to pick up (more!) cargo and pax, then continued our way downriver, dodging sandbars and shallows.
I was sitting very close to the front. there was a man standing on the bow, calling obstacles and poling the front of the boat to steer it when forty feet of intervening space to the tiller proved too much for a quick turn. several times we approached shallows where the pilot would kill the motor and lift it out of the water to prevent striking the propellor. he and the bowman would pole us through the shallows, then he'd plop the motor back in and we'd be on our way. one time we slowed to talk to a boat headed upstream, but all other times we plowed past, even if the other boats were laden to the waterline--there didn't seem to be much ettiquete involved.
towards the end the sun clouded over and the wind picked up. as in, picked up the bow spray and sloshed it over me. i was soaked to the underwear by the end, but fortunately our hotel was close at hand. we pulled up to the river bank adjacent the town and off-loaded. this involved scrambling up roughcut dirt steps on a very steep grade up the 20' bank until we reached the top and level with the town proper. a two hundred foot walk and we were standing in the hotel courtyard talking to Barry Watson. (Barry (Berry?) is a brother to Edgar, whom we'd met in kraquira three days ago. more on them come tomorrow).
after talking to him and his wife for half an hour, we headed for our rooms to freshen up. in premonition of the baptist mission a few days down the road, barry had a fridge on the patio with cold pop in it. we were to keep a mental tab and we'd tally up at the end of our two days there. it felt for all the world like being an american expatriot living in some hotel abroad for the summer, never exchanging money until the very end--when you paid up your account (and went home broke). at any rate, it was the first cold pepsi i'd had in a while.. it went down very well.
i decided it was high time to take a shower. between river water, trail dust, sweat, and sunscreen the shampoo rinsed out as very distinct shade of brown. a pair of q-tips later and my ears bore some semblance of cleanliness. around quarter to two, we sauntered out to see what was to be seen. main street was paved with concrete, everything else was the same reddish orange dirt we'd seen throughout the region (and of which indeed i'd just washed a sizable quantitity out of my hair). hustlers in the form of small children occasionally descended on us, especially along the river bank.. this was a contrast to honduras, since we had not seen any hustling after leaving san pedro sula (read: not enough whites to form a hastling habit).
we walked to an internet cafe next to the airstrip and waited out front for a bit. the power was supposed to come on at 1400, but as it showed no signs of life, we got up and wandered across the airstrip in search of a baptist church. i think gdd was hoping to meet the minister, but he was not at the church. instead we talked with a group of young boys for a bit then headed back. granddad and jerrel diverted to the cafe, kyle and i went back to the hotel where we lounged infront of our room reading and journaling. gdd and J came back fairly quick since the power was still off (evenutally came on at 1530) and we all spent the afternoon dozing or reading.
I had a very interesting time after supper sitting on the patio and listening to Barry tell granddad stories from his glory days. he'd been a bush pilot from a young age, finally giving it up a number of years ago, and he had quite a number of interesting war stories. This went on for close to two hours, effectively cancelling our plans to visit the internet cafe a third time. we were still undecided at that point whether to take a bus to managua or to fly--we were wanting to check prices and get more information before making our decision.
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