Cocodrillos and Kiwis!

Cuero y Salado
What an amazing adventure we had at the Refuge! First of all, we discovered a lost love of riding buses! We tooted along, honking loudly at every village we passed, stopping often, and driving long stretches through vast Dole fields of pineapple. In a small village we were told to get off and wait. We did, and soon enough we had purchased our tickets for the trencito into the Wildlife refuge. The tiny train had already left, but actually reversed along the track to come and pick up it's new passengers. It was a tiny little 4 car tren, completely open air, with one person running the motor. Again off we went along an ancient track through wetlands, bridges, and coconut farm. We saw so many beautiful white herons and cattle and lots of fun birds. Once at the refuge we had to turn on our Spanish full blast! Our personal guide was Rolando, and we were the only guests at the refuge! (While we were leaving the next day the trencito arrived with about 35 students and 10 tourists for the tours). So we got the entire refuge and tours to ourselves. We had access to the beach, but the north coast was very windy with big waves and brown water. We did learn how to crack coconuts for water and fill our nalgenes for free!
Canoe
That evening we took the canoe with Rolando and were in search of Manatees! It was glass on the water, and jungle surrounding us. We heard so many noises. At one point Rolando had me convinced that the crashing in the nearby jungle was a tigre, holy cow, a tiger?!? But it was really a tiger heron! We saw many many heron (garza) white, blue, tiger, and green back. We also saw howler monkeys pretty close up! Two big guys eating. We saw a baby cocodrillo (yep, crocodile) and also a few big iguanas. I spotted a green iguana on a branch right next to our canoe and our guide told me in english "good eye"! On our way back in the lightning bugs were lighting our way, and we could hear the singing from a nearby village church! It was beautiful. Well, Jonathan and I had stacked up on "groceries" so for the 3 meals we were there we prepared our famous "guacos" which are like guacamole tacos with fresh ingredients from the market in la Ceiba.
Motor Boat
We didn't sleep the entire night because the animals were up and wanted to "sing" to us all night, including the dogs, so we layed in the darkness and were "serenaded" until our alarm at 5am. We jumped into the motor boat and were off - even though it was still dark! We got to a spot deep in the jungle river that was a good spot to view the "manati". We looked and looked for that cute "sea cow" but to no avail, so we decided to go deeper in, and boy were we glad because I spotted a big black thing way up in a tree. At first look I thought it must be yet another termite nest, which are everywhere, but no - it was a howler monkey! Well, Rolando taught us how to grunt really loud like the monkey, and he talked back, but he was MAD! At first he just was grunting back, but then we heard grunts from all around us! Surrounding us, directly above by about 40ft an entire family of howlers started bouncing in the trees and hollering so loud you couldn't even hear each other in the boat! Yikes, they were really mad! We got outta there, and went deeper down the river and the foliage started closing in around us, and we were swerving around big crocodile-looking logs! They were logs, right? And then when we couldn't go any farther we emerged into an entire flock of Bald Bill Herons! They were really big and on the branches all around us. They were making a noise, "buh ha ha ha ha" and snapping their beaks making a loud clap sound. Oh they were so cool, about the size of goose and black and blue with a cool spike hairdo. Oh we loved our private tours in the refuge!
Frente Frio
Well about the time we were ready to leave the Refuge, the cold front was getting nasty! We rode the trencito back to La Union, then caught the chicken bus back to La Ceiba, then as soon as we got to the bus station, we were quickly herded onto our bus to Trujillo! Great timing the Lord has for us! Many vendors come onto the bus before they leave the station selling everything, so we bought a coke, a mini lunch with chicken and friend plantain verde and cabbage salad. We also bought a bag of bananas (probably 9 small ones) for 10 lempira (50 cents). Oh the chicken bus. Leaving La Ceiba, guess what we saw... 2 elephants and 3 camels! I'm NOT kidding you! There they were and everyone turned to look. It was crazy! There they were in downtown la Ceiba right in the middle of the Circus they were starting to set up! :)
On the (bumpy) road
We are so wise after traveling. We had already been on a bus for 1 1/2 hours from la Union, and now we were headed to Trujillo on the North East coast which was 4 hours away (nope, try 6 hours!) after stopping at any where along the road. At 2 hours in I had to pee SO bad. What could I do? I asked one of the drivers' "helpers" where I could go. Ha! They stopped about 3 mins later at a police road block, and escorted me to about 6 armed police guards. Yes, I could use the bathroom, but they weren't happy about that. Fastest pee I ever took!
Two other funny things were that we found out we needed to switch buses in Tekoa, but we had already paid all the way to Trujillo! (only another 1/2 hour, yeah right, another hour and a half!) Well our bus drivers were like, "No paga NADA" don't pay anything on the other bus. But about an hour into the next bus, here came the collection girl, who was quite upset with us gringos who obviously were clueless about the way things were. We "talked" our way out of paying twice though! The other funny thing (looking back on it, of course) was that since I get so motion sick, I have to have the window in front of me open. Well, we found out that a bridge was out on the main road, and we were taking the dirt backroads. By this time it was dark and still pouring rain and chilly! Well, I still wanted my window open! Oh, that was causing quite a ruckus on the bus. Also, the dirt road was kicking up nasty red mud like crazy. I put my sunglasses on, and by the time we finally arrived in Trujillo, my glasses had about a 1/4 inch of mud on them, and my face looked like I had picked a wrong color of foundation, and a lot of it!
Casa Kiwi
Heaven? Close to it! We got a taxi and headed to Casa Kiwi. Once here we were asked our names as we entered their screened in restaurant attached to the hostel. We were told to drop our bags and were given a cold Salva Vida beer and finally relaxed! They gave us a little private room with hot water, and a delicious dinner, still calling us by name and treating us like friends. (Too bad we couldn't figure out how to turn that hot water on!) Oh how wonderful to have God protecting us and preparing our way everywhere we go! We're still here at casa Kiwi with the New Zealanders and spent the morning on their beach, which is in the far east bay of Honduras. We have the entire beach to ourselves and Jonathan was so brave as to wear his speedo and get an entirely new tan line! :) The rain is back for the late afternoon, but we're clean and happy. Hoping all of you are well, and thanks for reading! Funny that while traveling and moving around we get the best stories!
Much love, and we'll see what's in store for the last 4 days! J&C