Road Trip!

This weekend, my roommates and I headed to San Pedro Sula for a work trip that was really a vacation. We intended on leaving Thursday morning and spending a few days with an organization CEPUDO and then stopping by the lake or caves and coming home on Sunday night. However, when we got to Tegus to pick up our truck from the shop, it wasn´t ready. So after a long Thursday in Tegus, we spent the night at our boss´s house and headed north at 4am Friday morning. We arrived in San Pedro Sula a little before 10 am and were greeted by Matt (a former PVI volunteer) and Jess, who are now working with CEPUDO. We spent Friday with them, getting to know more about CEPUDO, visiting their office and bodega, where we were able to pick out some supplies that they were giving us for projects. (Including 300 lbs of rice and 300 lbs of beans for our Comedor Infantil!) The founder, Linda, had us over her house for dinner Friday night and Saturday morning, we checked out one of their projects. After a day and a half with CEPUDO our work was done and the vacation began!
We headed to a National Park to visit an enormous waterfall. I don´t know how many feet it was, but it was by far the biggest waterfall I´ve ever seen. We took a tour of the waterfall, where we were able to jump off cliffs into the pools at the bottom and walk behind the falls and even into a cave. The water at the bottom of the falls was incredible, at times you couldn´t see because of all the wind and water and had to feel around the rocks to continue. Once behind the water, there was a spot where you could look straight up, standing between the rock wall and the wall of water and see it tumbling over the edge above. It felt like a scene out of Narnia. Behind the falls, there was a cave that we were able to climb into and out of a tiny hole you could see the water coming down. The tour ended by going up to the top of the waterfall and standing on the edge, overlooking the drop below. By far, the scariest part of the weekend. After the tour, we went swimming in the water that feeds into the falls, which had an awesome current that you could swim into and it felt like waterslide.
After a full day at the falls, we headed to Lago Yajoa, the largest lake in Honduras. Chado would have loved this part of the trip because Lago Yajoa has great bird watching with over 300 types of birds living there. Matt and Jess came with us and the 8 of us rented two attached cabins for the night, overlooking the lake. We went into town for some tacos and pollo and then settled into the cabins for the night. It was halloween so we sat out on our porch telling ghost stories and had a very fitting stormy night. The next morning we were up early to go kayaking, swimming and bird watching on the lake. Matt and Jess headed back to work and the 6 of us headed out for our next adventure.
We had read in a guide book that there were some great caves to go spelunking in. One set of caves was well known and well developed and the other set was very undeveloped and apparently a huge adventure. We obviously were in search of the second set, but everyone we asked tried to send us to Taulabe for the first caves. We eventually got pointed in the right direction but only had the name of the town and the name of a guide there. We stocked up on PB&J supplies and headed for the town, San Jose. After a long debate over whether or not we should take the truck across a river Oregon Trail ¨Fording the River¨style (which we did) and many stops for directions, we ended up in the right town. We started asking around for Daniel, the cave guide and eventually found him at a soccer field. He set us up with a couple guides and we were off to the caves. After an hour or so hike through rivers and ankle deep mud, we found ourselves in what seemed like a National Geographic scene. Towering green mountains on all sides, a rushing river below and a TINY entrance to a cave in front of us. One by one we slithered into the cave behind our guides and ended up in an enormous cavern full of stalagmites and stalagtites. With our head lamps off, you couldn´t see your hand in front of your face. We explored for awhile but had to leave in order to get to the second cave before dark. The second cave was nearby and had a river running through it. We waded through water that nearly reached my neck and ducked out of the way of bats in what seemed like an Indiana Jones movie. The caves were discovered only about 20 years ago by the uncle of one of our guides. He had been hunting and followed an animal into the cave. We were 6 of only about 300 people who have ever been inside these caves. By the time we got out of the second cave, it was already dark and the hike back through deep mud by headlamp was an adventure in itself. We were soaking wet, hungry and covered in mud. Rain had started and Jean, Mike and I fell asleep lying in the back of the truck as we drove back to Matt and Jess´s to stay for the night. We loaded up the truck with project supplies in the morning and headed back to Talanga. We stopped by Lago Yajoa for fresh tilipia for lunch and arrived back in Talanga in the early evening after an incredible weekend away. (Pictures coming soon... in the meantime, there are pictures on facebook.)