photography | hop on the good foot

January 10, 2014
by Richard Hoptgf 3 Comments

Lake Yojoa and Copán Ruins – A handsome lake with some top beer, the last of the Mayan ruins and some pretty hard travelling.

An early morning ferry ride took us away from Roatán and back to La Ceiba, where we stayed no longer than required and headed for a local bus to a town called La Guama. We then changed onto a chicken bus bound for Peña Blanca. It’s a small market town near Lago de Yojoa, our third stop in Honduras. It was about a 9 hour journey and certainly not the worst so far.

The bus wasn’t this bad…

To skip straight to the full photo gallery, click here

The journey through the country has given us some incredible views of the unspoilt green vistas that Honduras has to offer. The bus bounced into this bustling market town along to a reggaeton soundtrack and before we knew it we were at the gates of our humble lodgings for three nights, D&D Brewery. It’s going be tough to talk about the views and not the beer on offer here, but I’ll try.

Green hills of Honduras

Lago de Yojoa is the largest in Honduras with a surface area of 110 miles and an average depth of 50ft. It is surrounded by steep green mountains and two National Parks. It is also believed to have around 400 species of bird.

Let me talk about D&D first of all. The brewery has been there since 2003 (I think?) and has a selection of accommodation from dorm to cabin on offer at pretty good prices. The food is real tasty and the beer is, well, delightful. No sooner had we checked in, I found myself with a chilled glass of porter sitting round a fire pit amongst the forest the brewery sits in, with various types of hummingbirds fluttering round my head. It is certainly a nice spot and a great relief from piss-poor lager since setting foot in Tijuana.

You try and take a photo of a humming bird then!

Beer and Cat…perfect

There is plenty to do in the area and the brewery is set up to help with guides for both trails and nature. We didn’t use either and made our own way round the area. The first day took us to the 43m high Pulhapanzak waterfall where we marveled at the sheer size of it and got pretty wet just looking at it. The park it sits in is evidently popular with Hondurans, with many swimming in the river above the falls (not too close obviously) and picnics taking place in the green areas surrounding it. Having a walk around the area and the surrounding hills we are impressed at just how picturesque it all is. The green hills (that seem to surround everything you look at in the country) at times can seem like a view from the Peak District back in the UK.

Looking over the top of Pulhapanzak waterfall

Pulhapanzak Watefrall 43m high

Further up stream from Pulhapanzak

Even further upstream

The second day, we felt we should try and work off some of that beer we indulged in the night before and rented a kayak from the brewery and went out onto the lake. After spending the first half an hour trying to go a direction other than left, we were out of the canal and onto the lake. As I have said, the lake is surrounded by a mountainous area, mostly extinct volcanos which, given the size of the lake, can seem to go on endlessly into the distance. The lake is a great spot for bird watching; of the possibly 400 on offer we saw a big black one, a grey/blue one with big legs, one that looked like a heron and quite a few ducks. As you can see, we would have benefitted from the bird-watching tour. There was just no one there apart from a bog snorkeler and a couple of row boat taxis. It is a great place to spend some time with your thoughts and soak up the scenery.

Kayak on Lake Yojoa

Lake Yojoa

After perfecting the art of going forward

Stunning views on the lake

A pretty amazing three hours spent out on the lake was only beaten when our ride back to the brewery turned up and it was a normal sized mini cab, who proceeded to drive us back with the lion’s share of the kayak precariously balanced out of the boot. That night we took full advantage of the beers on offer (well, mainly the porter if I’m honest, the super attentive Walter knew what my usual was and kept ‘em coming) and sat round the fire pit educating a Welsh couple we met on the variety of birds that can be seen on the lake.

Excellent kayak transportation…faultless

It was a hard place to leave.

Our next stop, Copán Ruinas, was 78 miles as the crow flies, but due to our pledge to travel by public bus only from now on (mainly because it’s really cheap) and the lack of connecting roads, this journey took 10 hours, two of which were spent eating poor-quality fried chicken in the delightfully strange place that it San Pedro Sula bus station. However, the journey cost a total of $18 for the both of us and the dancehall soundtrack on the first chicken bus was certainly entertaining, and offset the worry about the hole in the floor of the aisle. The weather was poor all the way, as Honduras is having a cold and rainy snap at present. However, we got to see more impressive scenery, from mountain ranges, lush verdant hills, foggy moor-like areas, and generally more shades of green than I knew existed. At the same time we rolled through some pretty poor areas. Attached to every post and board you pass is a flyer for the recent presidential election. All the candidates offer enormous grins and a generic slogan for some kind of change, but how much change will they bring for the people of these areas? However, everyone we encountered was friendly enough and we only attracted the occasional stares of curious locals, well Ollie did more than me!

Copan Ruinas town panorama

Copán Ruinas, is a small cobbled street town with a hint of colonial charm, and is pleasant place to spend a day or two. The reason for stopping by is to visit the Mayan ruins of Copán, whose construction dates back to around 100AD. It was the southernmost part of the Maya world, one we have dipped in an out of since southern Mexico.

After a delicious baleada (Honduras’ version of tortilla and beans with other stuff, kind of like a kebab burrito I suppose) we walked the 1km out of the town to the archeological site. The visitor centre is not even a month old after a renovation project with the Spanish, and as such seems completely alien to the rest of the country. A short walk into the park and we come across the first collection of ruins. Some people have said that this site doesn’t compare with other such as Palenque or Tikal, but I disagree. Although Tikal is impressive in its sheer size, Copán has its well preserved hieroglyphs and various intricate rock carvings that have stood the test of time against the elements. It’s set in a forested area, framed by the impressive hills I have previously spoken of that quite literally cover the west of Honduras.

The macaws that welcomes you to Copan

Base of Temple 16

Copan Skulls

West court of Copan Ruins

We spent three hours hopping around the site, scaling the large steps and admiring the pre-classic Mayan carvings and stele (carved blocks). There is a particularly handsome hieroglyphic stairway of 72 stone step levels made up of 2200 glyph blocks forming the longest known Mayan hieroglyphic text. We pretty much had the site to ourselves which was surprising seeing as it is the real main draw to the Honduran mainland for tourists. The second most visited site in the country after the Bay Islands!

Temple 11, overlooking the Plaza central, Copan Ruins

Pretty impressive scenery all around

Cemetary Group of Copan Ruins

Temple 22 Copan Ruins

Ollies favorite, the cheeky dancing Jaguar carving

Close up of carvings on the stairway

Don’t Mock the Mayans Rich!

A great treat were the red macaws that inhabit the site, some of whom are exhibitionists happy to pose for pics, and others positioning themselves above you in the trees for reasons I’m sure you can guess.

After the a day at the sight we headed back to Copán town for some refreshment at Twisted Tanya’s in the form of 2-4-1 margaritas followed by a return visit to the Balaeada Inn (one block SW of Parque Central, next to ViaVia) for some more amazing cheap eats, and an early night.

Next stop El Salvador. Honduras seems to have flown by. I will not miss the random men holding shotguns (“oh, he has some kind of logo on his hat, that’s fine then”). Even the bacon delivery van in this country is accompanied by a chap with a pump-action shotgun in his hand. Apparently it’s because they only do transactions in cash so by the end of his round the delivery man has a few thousand dollars on him and would be too much of a target. Hondurans seem to have little faith in law enforcement so take their own precautions. I also won’t miss the wet and sometimes gloomy weather we have had and the need to continuously back track on ourselves to travel through. Still, a pretty handsome place!

Thanks for reading!

For the full photo album, click here!

December 25, 2013
by Richard Hoptgf Leave a comment

Tikal – Mayan Skyscrapers and the tiny island of Flores

This is not the first blog written about the Mayan ruins of Tikal and it certainly won’t be the last, so I will be brief and just mainly show you pretty pictures.

We left Lanquín on a tourist shuttle (Q150) with a collection of highly irritating ‘gap yah’s’ from Israel who seemed to be intent on making the journey one of the most unbearable yet. The hangover of course did not help as well. Arriving in Flores at about 5pm, it is like a scene from ‘The Birds’ with a variety of different winged beasts lining the roof tops and trees, making a deafening racket that gave us both the willies. They do this every night at sunset, it’s very strange.

Too much waffle for you? Click here to go to gallery.

Colourful cobbled streets of Flores

Flores Alley

Swimmers in Lake Peten Itza

Flores is a tiny Island on Lake Petén Itzá. It has a mock colonial style running throughout with cobbled streets, brightly painted houses and tin roofs all painted red. It is tiny and you can walk round it in about 10 minutes, although we couldn’t as some of the walkways by the lake appeared to be flooded. The weather was highly unpredictable at the best of times, with bright sunshine, followed by thunderous downpours without warning. There’s nothing much to do here apart from seek lodging and have a beer whilst visiting Tikal. It’s quite expensive for a backpacker, but there is a taco stand at the back of the center square where you can get some cheap eats with a nice view over the lake.

Gallo Beer Sponsored Christmas, got to love Guatemala!

Flores Central Square

A slippery alleyway down from the Central Square

Tikal, once described by one explorer as ‘Place where the Gods speak’ is a huge collection of Mayan ruins dating back to as early as 900BC. It is set in the jungle of ‘National Park Tikal’ and takes around 1.5 hours to get to by bus (Q70 round trip for bus and Q150 for entry). The site is one of the most impressive in existence mainly due to the collection of 6 temples that stretch up to 64m high from the forest floor peeking through the jungle canopy. The temples are later works and date from between 600-800AD and as with most of the pre-Columbian cultures, they would simply build on top of the old stuff when a new leader came to power.

The great plaza

Sweaty trek through the jungle

The temple of Inscriptions (Temple 6)

Ollie is a bit bigger than your average Mayan

You can quite easily spend a whole day exploring the site and many lunatics opt to go at 3am, where they can climb to the top of Temple 4 and watch the jungle canopy spring to life with the sunrise. We did not feel this was a good use of our time so ended up going there at midday and exploring for ourselves. We still managed to see monkeys and other strange furry things through the jungle trails and, to our surprise, it was pretty empty. We started at Temple 6 and wound our way to all of the great structures, culminating in the view from Temple 4, where you really feel like you are on top if the world. The top of the canopy is endless and incredibly green, with four other temple tops visible poking through. This was the top of the Mayan world and yet another incredible sight we have been blessed with. Here are some more pictures.

Temple 2

: Temple 5

Slippery steps…I fell down these shortly afterwards

Temple 1

So much to explore

Complex Q

Temple 4 through the jungle

Top of Temple 4 panorama

For the full gallery, click here.

Thanks for reading.

December 21, 2013
by Richard Hoptgf 2 Comments

Lanquin – The mighty Rio Cahabón, Kan’ba cave system and the incredible Semuc Champey

Semuc Champey from above

“We can’t go any further guys, the water is too strong and we may drown”. This was a sentence I was not expecting to hear at any point in my future when we decided to go to Lanquin!

On a tight schedule now as we have a destination date for Christmas in Honduras, the next two stops in Guatemala are going to be rushed, however they are my most anticipated. The first being the town of Lanquin, the gateway to Semuc Champey. When researching our travels this is the attraction that excited me the most and I have been looking forward to it since we left the UK. A cheeky 9.5 hour cramped mini bus ride (Q125 each, shop around in Antigua, some people paid Q180 on the same bus!) took us via Guatemala City and then through winding wet hills of The Verapaces; which consist of the Baja and Alta departments (lower and higher respectively). The journey as usual is minging; packed in with 17 other souls including one infant child, it becomes tiresome quite quickly. After a stop in Cobán the journey takes us to Lanquin through treacherous narrow passes in the pouring rain and we try to ignore the evidence of recent landslides on the roads.

The Verapaces- How did these kids get here??

Semuc Champey, described locally by many Guatemalans as the ‘Eighth Natural Wonder of the World’ is a series of natural formed limestone pools that bridge the thundering Rio Cahabón in a smooth staircase-like fashion.

As always, for the snaps only and no waffle, click here!

Church in Lanquin

We stayed at El Retiro Lodge (Q120 private room for two) which is set up for backpackers visiting Semuc, offering a tour to the site as well as a visit to the nearby Kan’ba Cave system (Tour cost Q180 per person). On arrival we bumped into Jenna and James from our school in San Pedro so spent the first night drinking cubetazas (buckets of beer) in the pouring rain in the lodge next to the steadily rising river.

9 o’clock in the morning: the rain is pounding down and the river is getting increasingly more aggressive. We become anxious about the upcoming day trip of caving and tubing on the same river as we chow down some eggs and coffee. However, we jump in a pick-up truck with approximately 20 others and take the 9km ride into Semuc. This journey is not for the faint hearted. Due to the heavy rain, it could be compared to one of those ‘Jungle Log Flume’ rides you take at a theme park…except there was a very high chance of certain death with one wrong turn from our trusty driver. Standing the whole way it takes approximately 50 mins to reach the caves, via steep gravel roads through thick cloud forests.

Cloud forest of Semuc Champey

The caves: not really sure what was going to happen, but the pathway to them was flooded as the river was steadily rising. Only the middle of the path next to the heavy waterfall from the caves above was showing, but we waded through and before we knew it we were standing at the entrance in in our smalls with candles in our hands. “Before we go in guys, can every one swim? Does anyone have asthma?” A series of sensible questions were asked of us in broken English as we stood outside, with one girl looking sheepish saying she could ‘sort of swim’. The Brit in us couldn’t help thinking about how much health and safety legislation this would be breaching back home. However in we went, in the freezing dark water, neck deep with bats flying around our heads.

Pathway to the caves is mostly flooded

Doesn’t bother Ollie though…

Swimming through the dark caves with thick water currents and then scrambling over rock faces, at all times holding a candle above our heads with the guides screaming and howling like crazy bastards. This is when the guides said we have to go back or we will drown. Not very comforting when one in the pitch black murky waters with only a half burnt candle to protect you. Back we went, the same way, including the added bonus of sliding off a rock face into the dark cave pools below. Ollie being the first gringo to go, she let out a sound I have never heard her make before, followed by my own tirade of foul language and heavy splash. Needless to say, watching the rest come down was hilarious. Emerging from the caves our faces were painted black with soot and orange from some kind of flower by the guides.

We’d like to thank Alexa and the girls for the cave shots!

It got a lot damn deeper!

No sooner were we out than we were walking with rubber rings towards the outrageously heavy rapids of the Rio Cahabón. With the water still rising, the current gaining strength and the banks being flooded, getting in was one of the stupidest things we have ever done. We set off in a line of five, all clinging to each-others feet, franticly trying to paddle away from the middle of the river, but forgetting the submerged shrubbery. We quickly came apart, losing one girl straight off; she grabbed Ollie’s feet for dear life. Then I went in after hitting a tree and had to wrestle the tube free from a branch under water. We all made it out without drowning, but certainly a lot damper and colder than we went in.

Some concerned faces setting off on tubes down the mighty Rio Cahabón

Making our way back to the entrance of the caves, the pathway was completely submerged now, and we all waded back in with two of the Canadian girls going completely over and one German girl managing to rip off her toenail and then fainting into the river. My toe nail nearly suffered the same fate, but I managed to move my foot pretty quickly. The only other casualties were some minor cuts and scrapes amongst the rest of the crew.

The guide leading the last few through the sunken path

So far this was a pretty incredible and high energy day and we hadn’t even made it to Semuc Champey yet. Awesome stuff!

After a quick lunch of BBQ’d chicken and rice we walked into Semuc Champey national park and trekked the 1.2km up the slippery slopes into the cloud canopy to the Mirador lookout point. Our first sight of Semuc was incredible. The green lagoon seems to snake through a valley of thick green with clouds and mist floating past underneath and in front of us.

Descending to the pools was a slippery task, but soon we were at the first point where looking north you can see the Rio Cahabón smashing its way under the first pool and to the south from the same spot, a calm series of glimmering lagoon like pools gently flowing into each other. As we get to the next pool I decide to jump in and wallow around a bit, soon followed by Ollie and then some others from our group. Words can’t describe how beautiful this place is and trying just wouldn’t do it justice, so here’s some more pictures of it.

In I go…as you can see, I need to work on the tan still!

in she goes…Check out those tan lines!

Kill nothing but time

Wallowing…

After heading back the same perilous way we came we hit the bar for some fine Italian buffet action and some beers, leading to a poor decision to join the Swiss, American and Canadians from the trip in a round of ring-of-fire, while we taught them the way to play Fuzzy Duck. Apparently I am a Cardinal now? The rest is a bit hazy, but my god what an incredible day!

Our ride

I feared this place, being well and truly established on the Gringo trail would be jam packed and full of touts and people at every turn. It wasn’t. The hostels all offer daily tours which keeps the bod’s flowing through, leaving the parks and caves to a couple of groups each day. We saw one other group that day and it was very briefly as well. The place still has a very much unspoiled and wild feel to it. Probably one of the most exciting and memorable things we have ever done but…absolutely exhausting!