Heading Inland

Jina and I are trying something here -- she writes about part of the trip so far, I write about another part. They use iguanas to power the computers here, so we need to be as efficient as possible.

Leaving Placencia was a difficult decision -- we were caught between loving the place, wanting to stay longer and chill out, and needing to get to Guatemala for our Spanish school reservations. We had no idea how long it would take to travel inland, and there were several places we would like to see. So we reluctantly left the little paradise, and grabbed our first chicken bus of the trip, from Placencia to Maya Center. Tony was there with us, resplendent in his same puffy black shirt and trousers, and harness motorcycle boots. Although it turned out he was unable to procure a ride, he did take us down to a little restaurant where we met Ernesto.

Ernesto was the previous and first director of the Cockscomb National Wildlife Reserve, an enormous reserve for jaguar and other big cats. And howler monkeys, which are apparently the loudest land animal. More on them later. Ernesto gave us a wonderful introduction to the park, it's conception, history, and policies. It was like a private audience with the park itself. He was responsible for mitigating the land loss from the local Maya, organizing a local Women's Centre to benefit from the tourist trade. The local women are clearly quite a force to contend with -- when the government changed it's policy about the park, they went to the access road and cut down a huge tree to block any tourists from getting up to the park. Ernesto himself was very thoughtful and gentle, and had such a wise and caring attitude towards both the park and the people he had to reconcile. Although he couldn't guide us in the park, he recommended William, who lived down the road. We arranged with William to meet us at 7am the next day to walk through the park.

The park itself is five or six miles from the highway, so we hired a cab and the three of us (Jina, Tony, and myself) piled in to the little sedan. The fact that it made it up to the park was a minor miracle -- the road was washed out in several places, and there were many large boulders throughout. You could pretty much feel the road on the floor under your feet, scraping away at a good clip. The facilities are great -- clean, solid, solar-powered and screened in. Immediately upon arriving, we ran into the French couple from the boat: Mannaig and Antoine. They were staying the night too, so we offered for them to join us on the guided tour.

Once settled in, Jina, Tony and I headed out for an evening hike around the "Wari Loop". It got very dark very quickly, and soon we were wondering if that was a snake or a root we just stepped on. We had a lovely dinner, and slept well -- no sign of the promised evening Howler monkeys.

The next day started bright and early. William was there, and we set out along the "Green Knowledge" path. He was awesome. Although initially pretty quiet, he opened up when we started asking questions (he lies Jackie Chan a lot). He knows so much about the park and the wildlife, and was able to spot birds in the thickest of foliage and jaguar prints in the mud. He showed us the pirhanna in the river, and we tossed in some cinnamon roll for them to froth over. We mentioned our disappointment with not hearing the Howler monkeys, and he started making this weird throat noise -- the result of which was that the monkeys started responding. It even broke out into a howling fight between the dominant male and another male in its territory -- with us right under the two of them. It was insane. They sound like death metal singers with asthma. We could see them move from branch to branch above us. Wow.

The hike then visited a beautiful waterfall, and we climbed to the top of Ben's Bluff, with views of the surrounding park. Incredible. There were so many different kinds of trees and wildlife everywhere.

The way out we shared a taxi to the highway with Mannaig and Antoine, and tried to figure out how to get to a town called Hopkins. Hopkins is known as the center of the local Garifunda culture -- with it's own language, history, and language. The National Garifunda Day holiday is on November 19th (this week!), and we heard that people will be arriving for the huge four-day festival of food and the traditional Garifunda drumming, like we heard on Tobacco Caye. It was too promising to miss. So we arranged a hotel and our transport -- local chicken bus to taxi, and arrived in Hopkins.