La Moskitia, Part Two

There are a few points that I missed in the last entry, so I will begin by backtracking. The chance to travel out to La Moskitia just fell into my lap. I heard about the trip through another teacher here, who is friends with a guy named Alfredo. Alfredo, who is Honduran but was born in Chicago, heads up Providence Ministries here in Siguatepeque. He runs an orphanage, and hosts lots of medical missions groups from the States. Alfredo wanted to see what medical needs were in La Moskitia, and figure out how to get a group out there.
I tagged along with Alfredo and a few members of his church, not knowing exactly what our plan was for the week. We met up with another group from Tegucigalpa, and so I was thrown in with lots of people that I didn't know previously. This was a good thing, of course. They spoke a very clear Spanish, and I had little trouble in keeping pace with the conversations.
There were a few North Americans tagging along with the Tegucigalpa group; young guys just out of high school. There was one in my truck who had just arrived the day before, and he looked utterly confused with everything that was happening. The thick clouds of dust gave him a nose bleed, and he had to wear a big hooded sweatshirt to keep from getting sunburn. He tried to wash the dust off of his face at one point, but it only redried in thick rivulets under his eyes like muddy tears.
We were bouncing down the road, which cut through perfect rows of stocky African palms, and all eight of us would pop off the wooden boards when we hit a bump, hover for a moment, and then land in more or less the same order. About two hours into the drive, the back bench gave a loud crack and split in half. Four of us were scattered into luggage and bags of bananas. The ride continued uncomfortably as we tried to do surfing numbers on the piles of sleeping bags. Eventually, I climbed out to stand on the back bumper and hold onto the side bars, which was the best way to ride.
The Caribbean was always close, but never in sight. We took a sharp left turn, and we were right on the sand, with an absolutely empty cerulean sea in front of us. We drove along the hard-packed sections of sand at around 50 miles per hour. We were sprayed by the sea, and the sand made us swerve and drift. There are endless miles of untouched coast. We drove for an hour and a half without seeing a single building. Only a few wirey Garifuna fisherman wandered the beach.
We drove as far east as possible. Where the road ends, the rivers begin. There were three boats waiting for us: long wooden lanchas with motors that held about 15 people. They are similar, in shape and thickness, to a platano. We began what appeared to take 20 minutes; I could see the other side. Once again, the horizon stretched out further and further. We navigated through swampy channels under a canopy of trees, and then into open lagunas with land just barely discernible on the other side. And instead of a destination at the opposite end, we only found more channels. Look at the map below, the lagunas are above where it says 'Gracias A Dios'. After 4 more hours on the boat, we reached the town of Brus Laguna. Completely soaked and dehydrated, we dragged ourselves onto the dock. After a 12+ hour day of traveling, we had arrived!

The computer lab is closing, so I'll have to stop here. I promise these things will get briefer.

La Moskitia, Part One

Semana Santa began with an escape. I had set plans to leave Friday for La Moskitia, the remote eastern end of the country. However, my director decided our big Easter/ Father's Day/ Pool Day should be on the following Saturday. So I left with a mixture of excitement that comes with going somewhere new, and the anxiety of leaving some obligations behind. I wouldn't have stayed for anything, though. The opportunity to see the Moskito Coast was too rare and too tempting.

The bus came to my school an hour before classes ended, and I said to my assistant "Me voy!" as I ran out. I told Mr. Rodrigo, our P.E. teacher and forever-loyal Honduran, where I was going. As I stepped onto the bus, he said, "Mr. Brett, La Moskitia es Honduras." As in, there is no place one could go to find a better picture of what this country is, or what is once was.

The region gets its name, not from the bug, but from the natives' pronunciation of musket. However, the rumor is that there are sheets of mosquitos there, and it is an at-risk zone for Malaria. The Moskitos are a mix of natives and Spanish slaves. They have their own language, and have been largely unchanged unlike some other parts of the country.

We drove north to a coastal town called La Ceiba on Friday. It's hard to see on the map, but it is in the dip of coastline. Thinking that, being with a group of Hondurans, we would certainly take a Honduran pace on this trip. But no lazy morning at the beach; we got a wake up call a little past three A.M. We drove the bus as far east as we could, to a small town called Tocoa. By 8 o'clock, we had loaded all of our gear into 4 x 4 trucks. There were smelly gas cans tied to the back bumper. We sat on 2 boards, eight of us squeezing together for the next leg of the journey. Our drivers were Garifunas, escaped African slaves that made their own villages along the Caribbean. They drove fast, and would deflect any comment about our progress. The unchanging answer: just a little further. A little further, it turns out, was another 5 hours of some of the most incredible countryside I've seen.

And so the trip began. I had no idea how far we were going, or what to expect as a destination. Every leg of the journey contained several endless segments, but I got lost in the absolutely beautiful scenery that was flying by us peripherally. All I knew: we were close to the Caribbean, and we would arrive in La Moskitia by boat that afternoon.

Check back soon. The story continues.

See some of the photos here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2129838&l=f7019&id=29705820

Velocity

Here's the latest:

Every weekend, we've been tearing up the highways on bikes: Carlos, the Canadians Noel and Mark, and myself. The mornings lie low and quiet, the mountains are covered in clouds, and there is less traffic. Since the region is mountainous, we go up in order to go down. Last week, we rode out to Lago de Yojoa, which is a giant lake right on the major route between Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. We stopped at the lake, ate fish (fried with head and tail attached), hung out in hammocks, and acted pretty lazy. To avoid the arduous ride home, we caught a chicken bus that would let us stuff our bikes on board. A chicked bus has no chickens, but stuffs lots of people inside, so I guess it is like a chicken coop in that sense. They are generally hair-raising rides through the mountains.

This morning Carlos and I finally made the full ride to Comayagua, which is the old colonial capital of the country. The cathedral and park are popular for tourists. On the downhill sections of the ride, we were passing big buses and semis, which was satisfying after some hard riding earlier. When we got into the center of town, we cruised around the street market for a bit, eating cantaloupe, tortillas, and cheese. The ride was about 40km, so not too terribly long, but we're working up. It's amazing how long a day feels after a ride. We got to Comayagua by 9:30, and I felt like it must already be after noon.

Living in Boone got me stuck on the idea of human-powered pursuits, and right now that is most accessible through bicycling. I want to see much more of this country, and this is how I am doing it. I'd like to throw out a tentative offer on that note: I think I'll be here through July, so if anyone would be interested in coming for a visit, I could provide a place to stay and a bike. There's alot to see in this country, and traveling is pretty cheap (the exchange rate is 20 Lempiras to 1 dollar). So email me if you'd be interested!

In other news, Semana Santa is approaching, and I get a whole week off, which I welcome.
Finally, I've written a little about how it feels being here, a poem I guess.


Honduran Spanish

Streetlights bored yellow,
waiting every night in blurry loops
strung like cobwebs around lightbulbs

Taxis well-worn and seam-stressed
maneuver with the creak of old wood floors,
dip like rocking chairs over crushed asphalt

Damp Spanish,
damp heavy h's hang
on words, pull them head-
long like a stack of papers
spilling from a countertop
in a unified flop and scatter

Cacahuates, alcitrones, fresco:
toted through shaky aisles,
suspended baggies of fruit
bulging and knotted

Spanish thick and wet and sticky
like bubble gum it pops all over lips,
chewed up, blown again
into a tremedous, soggy pouch of air.



Check out some pictures of the excursions here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2125016&l=c4c0b&id=29705820