While enjoying a cup of coffee again on the rooftop of Villamil in Copan Ruinas Ariel and I decided to travel to an area of Honduras that isn’t visited by many tourists, Gracias. Thus we quickly packed our backs, checked out of the hotel, and walked to the bus terminal (well not really a terminal but where all the chicken buses gather). $5 US, 5 hours, and 3 buses later we were in Gracias. One of the highlights of the travel was when one of the little buses put a dog on the roof. We heard the poor thing barking most of the trip. The other highlight was when we boarded the last bus to Gracias in Santa Rosa de Copan. Our bus driver saw the last bus leaving Santa Rosa and flagged it down, thus both buses were stopped in the middle of the road. We had to quickly obtain our large backpacks from the little bus and put them on the larger bus. Ariel was able to go to the front of the bus and obtain a seat, however, I was ushered into the back door of the bus and had to stand for almost the entire hour of the trip with two small boys under my feet and other men standing with me.
As we arrived in Gracias we both began talking about maybe why this wasn’t such a great town because the roads were dirt and it didn’t seem very well developed. However, within a few hours we were enjoying the town, the people and the local food. We are staying in the Hotel Fernando, which is a very nice little hotel for the money ($8 US per night). The dinner at Guancascos was incredible and the views were even better. Here we talked with two people from the states who were here doing volunteer work with Peace Corps. We learned about whom to contact to get transportation to the Visitor station to the national park. Parque Nacional Celaque is the highest peak in Honduras and is covered at the top with a cloud forest. We found out that to hike to the summit took two days and we would have to rent camping gear so we decided to hike one of the trails that was only a one day hike. We went to Café Jarral to meet with the local guide who could provide transportation to the visitor center and arranged for a ride in the morning at 6:30. He will come back to the Visitor Center at 4 to bring us back to town.
One of the people we talked to at Guancascos was here assisting in developing the tourism aspects for the national park. She said that one of the problems was that there wasn’t a good means of transportation from the town to the park entrance and currently the roads required a 4-wheel drive. We could walk but it takes one and a half hours from town just to get to the Visitor Center, thus the decision to hire a truck to take us there at a cost of $600 Lempira ($30 US). Now we are relaxing in our room (habitacion) where it is very quiet and relaxing except for the occasional barking dog. This quiet aspect is a respite from the noise in Antigua, Guatemala. Tomorrow will be an interesting day as there aren’t very many tourists in town and even on the buses we were the only gringos.
