Travel Bug: Story #1 -- Honduras

So I was talking to a friend of mine about a week ago and the topic of travel arose in our conversation. She was telling me about her upcoming summer and was looking for some advice. All that I could think to say was "Be safe". She laughed and asked of all the things I could say, why would I say "be safe"? Normally I would think up some responsible response encouraging safety to her by saying that the best way to travel is to ensure that you're alive and well to tell your stories when you get home. However, what I then realized was that some of my absolute best experiences and stories have come from when I was fearing death, facing death, or simply in a position that could have resulted in me not being able to come back alive and well to tell a story.

Needless to say... it's story time :-)

I'll begin this (hopefully) chain of travel posts with the story that sparked the aforementioned conversation. It happened in La Mosquitia, Honduras in March of 2006. I was in my final year of highschool and was partaking in a service project, building a dormitory and volleyball court for a boys orphanage/school run by a nun named Sister Maria Rosa. I had gone with Friends of Honduran Children - http://www.friendsofhonduranchildren.com/ - and after just under a month working a 1/2 hour outside of Tegucigalpa (the capital), myself and the other 15 volunteers departed for what we thought would be a fun, safe, educational adventure in the rainforest.

It started off interestingly with the plane ride to La Mosquitia We took a short regular plane ride to La Ceiba (one of the most popular cities in Honduras) and from there, we boarded a 16-seater plane - including the pilot's seat - to La Mosquitia. Everything about this plane was questionable from the frayed seatbelts to the cracked window to the Russian instructions written throughout the cabin. We later found out the plane was used during the Cold War and had been left in Honduras by the Russians... go figure. ANYWAY, so we took off into the sky in this tiny little aircraft and flew just under the clouds for about an hour. As we were getting ready to land, the group of us kept checking out the windows in search of an airport... we then landed on a strip of dirt no longer than a football field and the airport itself was about 6 wooden posts in the ground with a straw-thatched roof. We unloaded and looked around the dirt patch and made our way to the back of a pick up truck which we were told would take us to our guide. We ended up spending the night in a cute little hotel in a little shanty town where everything was on stilts. All night we could hear men fighting and women hollering at the pub next door and after a little bit of shut-eye, we awoke excited for the adventure ahead.

We walked across the street to the docks where we expected to see a couple of motor boats waiting for us. Instead, we found hollowed-out trees with little motors on the end with an old man at the motor and a young boy standing at the bow of the tree-boat. As we skeptically climbed into our trees, we were told not to worry, we'd be well taken care of and would be at our destination before dark.

So we took off in a little convoy of tree-boats down a peaceful lagoon. Soon the lagoon turned into a river and the river then turned into a large open expanse of water with fairly rough waves. Holding on for dear life to the hollowed tree, afraid of boats and open water, my group and I finally made it to the other side. We assumed our journey was ending here as it was already about 2:30pm and we had been travelling for quite a few hours. Were we ever wrong.

After coming out of the open water, we entered yet another lagoon. This one was unlike the first in that it was incredibly shallow... this meant that our tree-boat - loaded down with passengers, dry-sacks, backpacks and food barrels - would often drag on the muddy bottom and get stuck. It was at these times (which were more often than one might think) that we all would have to hop out of our tree-boats into the murky waters and drag the boat along until we got to a little deeper space. We'd then heave our wet, muddy selves back into the boat, peel off the leaches and slime and continue the journey. By 5pm we had reached the end of the lagoon, only to hear that we had still quite a ways to go on the river ahead.

At first it was really neat. We were passing homes on stilts with thatched roofs and were weaving through mazes of up-rooted trees that had been scattered throughout the river after a terrible hurricane and wrestled with the area a few years before. We motored alongside water-snakes, saw toucans sitting in the branches of the trees along the river, heard monkeys howling, saw native families bathing and playing in the river... it was one of the most peaceful, inspiring, beautiful things I have ever seen in my life and what made it all the more beautiful was the rich Honduran sunset that kissed every inch of the area. And, as the sun continued to make its way behind the trees, we volunteers breathed a sigh of relief knowing that we would be reaching our camp any minute, as the guide had told us we would be there by sundown.

As the last ray of sun dropped behind the trees and night began to fall, we asked our guide if camp was in sight. To this he replied shakily, in broken English "Umm not exactly". He refused to say anything more and as the stars came out and the darkness kept everything from view, myself and my fellow volunteers began to get a little nervous. With our 70 year old tree-boat driver and our 10 year old bow-man, we found it difficult to keep trusting them... especially when they asked if anyone had a flashlight so they could see where they were going.

We spent the next hour in pitch darkness, motoring down a river with only a head-lamp showing the way. We then hit, what would be the most terrifying part of the trip.... RAPIDS. I'm not talking little ripples in the water, I'm talking legitimate rapids, sloshing our tree-boat about like a toothpick. Unfortunately for my group, our toothpick was sloshed into a rock hold that, no matter how hard our driver tried, we could not maneuver out from. It was then that we were told to get out of the boat.... let's recap here shall we? Pitch black darkness. Rapids. Snake and crocodile infested waters. 5 volunteers. Pure terror.

So we got out of the boat and tried desperately to yank the boat out of the crevasse, all the while trying to stay afloat, alive and calm. Our 10 year old bow-man had joined us in the water and with the 6 of us heaving and hawing, the boat finally got loose and was able to push forward through the rapids. The 5 of us volunteers, exhausted, cold and terrified clamoured back into the boat, only to realize that our 10 year old bow-man was missing. We scoured the water with our headlamp in hopes of seeing him, but nothing was happening. Finally, we heard a splash come from another boat and, hearing the screams of our fellow volunteers, we learned that the guide had jumped into the rapids to save the boy. As we all sat silent, listening to the pounding of the water through the rocks and against the boats, we feared that we had not only lost a small boy, but also our guide who was supposed to be keeping us safe. After what felt like 10 minutes (but was probably only 2), we hear a large bellow followed by fits of sputtering. Our guide had found and saved our boy and as soon as he had done so, the 10 year old - with only a wipe of his face - was back at work navigating our boat through the rapids and down the river, much to our astonishment.

We arrived at the camp base at 11:30pm, exhausted, wet, unnerved and incredibly thankful that we had survived such an epic boat ride. And, although it was in my top 10 list of most horrifying experiences, it also makes my top 10 list of insane travel stories, which have really impacted my entire life and have left me craving adventure. So, to my dear friend who asked for advice when travelling... screw being safe. Make it a goal to stay alive, but try everything, fear nothing and love every minute of every experience no matter how crazy it may seem at the time.