Survivor!

When we last left our heros, they were shacked up in a small hotel room above a bread shop in downtown La Ceiba, Honduras...

Tony, one of the directors of the foundation for Cayos Cochinos, is quite an interesting fellow. His enthusiasm is contagious and he is always on the go, but in the coming days I learned that he should avoid the use of the word ¨definitely.¨

Early Wednesday moring, Regina and jumped in the back of Tony´s pickup, along with Kyle and Erika, for a fabulous ride along the ocean toward what he called a ¨secret hot spring.¨ Honduras is graced with towering cloud forests wedged against the shoreline, which makes for a breathtaking drive as the sun is rising over the hillsides. After 30 minutes, Tony suddenly took a right turn onto a dirt road that led over a small hill and down to a stream. Here, the locals pumped hot spring water into a series of holding tanks, which then flowed to a semi-circle of small bathing huts, large enough to fit one or two people each.

I didn´t catch the name of the area, but the bathing huts are located near a detox camp called ¨Usha¨ where celebrities as well as locals come to relax and be healed. Tony said that one of the men running the camp has claimed to be able to cure AIDS, but the evidence is lacking. Lisa ¨Left Eye¨ Lopez, of TLC fame, came to the camp and was living in the area before her untimely death in a nearby car accident. Regardless of the healing properties of the water, the hot spring bath was amazing. A light rain fell through lazy cloudcover, making for interesting trips into the hot water and back out to the rain.

After about an hour at the camp, Tony decided to show us his other favorite local hideaways, including a secluded beach with small grass huts and a waterfall up in the mountains. While climbing the mountain into the jungle, we stopped to pick up some local fisherman who were hunting a little upstream. That area is also popular amoung the adventure seeking crowd, as the rapids make for excellent white water rafting.

Exiting the truck next to a military outpost protecting against illegal logging, we hiked over a wooden foot bridge and through the jungle before arriving at a large rock and crystal clear pool of water. Taking turns jumping off the rock into the water, I couldn´t help but think that this was a part of Honduras that is not in the tour books.

Tony then showed us his favorite restaurant back in town, where we ordered tortillas and beef cooked over a grill, with bananas and beans on the side. I couldn´t discern what kind of fruit comprised the drink, but it was delicious nonetheless. I napped the rest of the evening, and Erika, Regina, and I went to the $1 movie that evening.

The next day, Tony had arranged for us to travel to Cayos Cochinos, the group of small islands off the coast. He said there would definitely be a boat out to the island for the four of us, as well as a boat returning the next day. That´s when the adventure started...

Arriving at the docks, we waited for a boat to arrive to take us to the islands. Apparently on one of the islands, a large film crew was shooting the latest season of the spanish version of Survivor, and had rented almost all of the boats traveling to and from the islands. When the captian arrived, the battery in the boat was dead, but we got a jumpstart from another boat in the area. Things started well as we zoomed out of the harbor and into the blue. About a mile away from out desitnation, we got the rudder snagged on a fishing net, and had to stop the engine. When the captian couldn´t get the engine started again, we had to call the coast guard to jumpstart the boat and deliver us to the largest island of the Cayos. From the main island we took aother boat to the East End, and then another boat to Chachauate, where Tony left us for the night.

Chachauate is a little piece of paradise. Not much more than a sandbar, you can easily walk around the island in under 5 minutes. The island is inhabited by the black Garifuna, a people originially from the area around Jamaica. We spend the rest of the day snorkeling in the reef around the tiny island, and slept in the house of ose of the locals, after a delicious fish dinner. A night, we saw of the of the best star displays, with Mars and the Milky Way clearly visible.

The next day, struggling though a sun burn, we snorkeled throughout the morning and met some more of the foreigners on the island. There was a couple from Canada, who are migrant fruit pickers, working for 3 months out of the year and traveling in the cheaper central american countries during the rest. There was also a couple from Brazil, and an older woman from Barcelona who had lived on the Cayos for seven years.

Toward the afternoon, we had to catch a boat back to the main island by 5 pm in order to get back to the mainland. When Regina called Tony at 3, he said that all the boats were full with the cast and crew of Survivor, who were filming live to Spain that day. Perhaps two of us would be able to leave. Unsure if we would even be able to get a boat in the next few days, we convinced one of the locals to take us all in a small fishing boat to the main island, where we would wait for anything that was traveling back to the shore.

On the main island, we were told that only one person would be able to leave the island. As we discussed the irony of being stuck in Survivor land, we spent the rest of the afternoon trapped in paradise, lounging among the palm trees and clear blue waters. As the boat was ready to leave with the Survivor film crew, one of the entire teams of competitors on the show ran by us to a waiting helicopter. The helicopter took off and shot across the island where we later learned that they had to jump from the craft into the water, and then swim ashore to be rewarded with blankets and matches. On the winning team wwere three members of a popular Spanish band, a famous model, and a well known news reporter. The other team, apparently the losing half yet equally as famous, was relinquished to a smaller island with no matches, blankets, or food.

Regina and I voted Kyle and Erika off the island, as there were two spots in the leaving boat and they needed to ge back to Tegucigalpa. I was happy to stay on the island as long as possible, but Regina had to get back to her Peace Corps site and get some clean clothes before a conference this weekend.

As Regina and I waited on the dock for any other boat returning to the shore, we met Vern, a native of Alaska who has been living on Roatan, a popular dive spot and larger island off the coast of Honduras. Vern owns a sailboat, which he uses to shuttle travelers between Utilia (another popular dive spot) and Roatan, with occasional stops in the Cayos. He had towed a handmade submarine, the only one in the area and owned by another expartiate, Carl, to the island for use in underwater filming for the show.

Carl was quite an amazing guy. A history major, he built his first submarine by hand after heavily researching the topic on the internet. After he had built the sub, he learned about rare shells that could be collected at a depth of more than 300 meters, and made over $200,000 collecting these shells ad selling them to collectors around the world. With that money, he made his second sub, which was the one that had been towed to the island. Vern gave us a tour of his sailboat, before we were told that we could squeeze into the last boat leaving the island along with the remaining crew of the show. Back on the mainland, we hitched a ride in a truck to Tony´s place, and collapsed from exhaustion.

Kyle and Erika left for Tegucigalpa this morning, and Regina is back at her site. I´ll be traveling along the coast this evening, trying to get near the border by nightfall. What a reality show...

Word of the day: ¨Vijase que¨ meaning ¨imagine that.¨ According to Kyle and Regina, the locals use it all the time when they dón´t live up to their word. I was definately supposed to arrange a boat back to the island? Vijase que!