Tela and Punta Sal

I decided to take a direct bus to Tela which is a step up from the chicken buses. It was supposed to take 1 1/2 hours instead of 2 1/2 hours to get there from La Ceiba. As it turns out I made a bad choice! The chicken bus was just leaving when I got to the bus station. The direct bus ended up leaving about 40 minutes later.. so now most of the hour gain was gone. And then, after we finally got going, about 20 minutes down the road there was a problem with the bus. We had to wait over an hour for another bus to show up to take us the rest of the way. So instead of arriving in Tela with about half an hour of daylight as I thought, I got there when it was dark. I am not sure what time it was because sometime during the journey my watch stopped working! I was a bit nervous about missing where to get off the bus because after the delay and my watch not working, I had lost all sense of how long we had been travelling and I had to get off at a gas station on the highway rather than in town. However, while we were on the side of the road waiting for the other bus I ended up talking (in my very poor Spanish) with a guy from Santa Barbara (Honduras). He's got a theatre group and has actually even taken the group to Vancouver. He doesn't speak any English, but somehow we were able to communicate reasonably well in basic Spanish. When we got on the second bus he assured me that he would tell me where to get off. When I finally arrived in Tela it was dark and the town was so quiet! I had started to get a head cold, and in my tired, headachey state I got disoriented and couldn't seem to read a map! I never did find a place to eat as all the little comedors were shut and all the restaurants are near the beach (mostly attached to hotels) which strangely I couldn't seem to find! I ended up buying a bag of nachos and some orange juice and making a meal out of that.

The hotel that I picked for the first night had a few issues... although well named as Brisas del Mar (it did get fantastic cool breezes off the sea), I didn't feel comfortable leaving my stuff there during the day because the layout allowed people to walk around and see into my room. They had also done some recent painting or something and it smelled like turpentine which really turned my stomach. Plus there was a little kitten that was mewing outside all night. So in the morning I packed my stuff and headed to the Mango Hotel which was so much better for not much more money. I quickly dumped my stuff and went over to the Garifuna Tours office to see if I could get on the tour that day to Punta Sal National Park. The office only opened at 7:30 and the tour left at 8:00 which didn't leave much time. I was able to get on the tour which was brilliant as I wanted to be able to leave Tela in the afternoon the next day. Otherwise I would have to spend an extra day in Tela. The trip to Punta Sal definitely felt like a tour, which I am not a fan of, but there is no other way to do it unless you can get a group of at least 8 people together and hire a local boatman to take you. There was 12 of us on the tour which is actually a pretty small group so it wasn't too bad. There was a group of 4 young Californians that I was able to hang with for the day. We travelled by boat for about 40 minutes out to Punta Sal which is a stunning headland with gorgeous beaches and a few little islands scattered about. We pulled the boat in and got out to see some howler monkeys. Unlike the previous day, this time they were close!! We did a bit of a hike through the jungle from one beach to another and had some of the local flora and fauna explained. The park has tremendous biodiversity and has actually been renamed Jeanette Kawas National Park in honour of an environmentalist who worked to keep the palm plantations out of the park and was murdered for her efforts. We went snorkelling which everybody else really enjoyed... for me it was boring, but at least I got to cool off! Then we had a typical Garifuna meal of fried plantains, rice and beans, and fried fish. Again, everyone was really excited about this... this is the type of food I had been eating since I left Roatan so it was no thrill for me. We did have some fresh coconut water after lunch which was quite enjoyable. Overall it was a fun day even though not quite as exciting for me as for everyone else. One of the most amusing parts of the day was when one of the kids who was on the tour started raving about one of the wonders of America - hot water. The way he said it was just too funny. His dad is actually from Panama and his mom from Honduras although they live in the US now. I find it so bloody hot here that I look forward to cold showers. In fact I typically have two or three each day just to help cope with the heat!