White river...

We are now in the capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa and very soon on our way down to Nicaragua where we will end our Central America journey....

Yesterday we had a pretty full day. We decided to go white water rafting up in Pico Bonito and the Rio Cangrejal as we were told it was definitely worth it.

Well, you definitely get your money's worth!! We got there and there were two more couples (both American) and 5 guys from El Salvador (all quite big and clumsy :) We were to have 4 boats in between all of us but before we were allowed on the boats we were in for some training...this meant passing two hours learning how to swim against the currents, getting caught in the rapids and knowing how to get out of them!! Well, I had done rafting before, once in the States and we never had any training, and Jo did kayaking in Bolivia and there they just checked that you knew how to float :) Here it was a whole other story that left us quite worse for wear! We had 4 tasks: the first was just to swim against the current from one side of the river to the other...you probably guessed that I was already freaking out by now as they also told us that an instructor had died on these rapids about 3 years ago and that is why one of the falls is now level 5...yes, an instructor!!!!
But anyways, we did the tasks well enough although the current was really strong and the river a little flooded as it had rained the night before so the instructors were throwing ropes every which way in order to catch us before the big rapids gobbled us up hehehe ... Think getting stuck in a washing machine and you will understand the feeling of getting sucked in and out of one of those rapids, not a pleasant feeling but we got through it (I with a couple of bruises and Jo begging for more!)

During the rapids we had tons of instruction from our guides: paddle forward, back paddle, on the floor, lean back-- but we made it through it all, even the level 5 drop! Jo never fell out of his boat (we werent allowed to be together as the guide said that when couples got on a boat together they are more preocuppied that the other is safe than doing the necessary paddling hehehe) and I only felt out once after a drop because the instructor that was next to me leaned too far left and made me topple on him making both of us fall out of the boat but they caught me straight after :) It was fun all in all but we had to work so hard against the current that now we could do with a long massage: I have a huge purple bruise on my left knee, my left shoulder feels like it just shoved 3 cows and Im limping on my right foot due the amount of pressure I was putting against the boat in order not to fall off!!! Okay, I need a massage, Jo was happy if we had done it for the whole day instead of just half a day!!! hehehe

We left the lodge and the mountain in the afternoon and just decided to walk down the mountain all the way to La Ceiba but after an hour down a nice pick-up truck picked us up free of charge and dropped us off at the entrance to La Ceiba where we then got a chicken bus that dropped us about 2 minutes from my friend's house.

We went to the cinema last night (for 40 lempiras each who wouldnt!! (that's 2 dollars per person!!) We saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and to be honest the film was good but the ending crap so we dont know if we can honestly recommend it...

This morning we said goodbye to Tiga and got our butts to the bus terminal to catch our 6 hour bus to Tegucigalpa...

We arrived at 16:30 and had no clue where to go and shared a taxi with another American couple and ended up getting the same hotel...at the beginning there was only one double room and one dorm room with 2 bunk beds...being the nice people that we are we decided to look at another hotel where there were 2 double rooms...kinda got screwed there as the other hotel was much more expensive and when we got back to the first hotel the double room had already been taken so for the first time during our trips (including India) we will be sleeping in bunk beds with a nice American couple from Idaho :)

Tomorrow we will be visiting the supposedly most beautiful national park of Honduras called La Tigra and visit a quaint little town called Valle los Angeles before heading down to Managua in Nicaragua on monday...

See you later
Love,
Jo and Fil

P.S. We have added some more photos so dont forget to scroll down to see the other entries :)