Cayos Cochinos - The North Coast

Ahhh...Cayos Cochinos, what a peaceful place to spend two days!

I left early (6a.m.) Thursday morning to head to the North Coast for a few days. After traveling by bus for thirteen hours I finally arrived in La Ceiba, see map below:

I live in Juticalpa, which is three hours outside of Tegucigalpa. La Ceiba is located right off the Caribbean Sea 12-13 hours from Juti. It would probably only take 5 or 6 hours to get there with normal roads, but since the roads are so bad it takes a lot longer! Most buses also stop multiple times to pick up new passengers along the way. 

After arriving in La Ceiba Anne. Michelle, Carrie, Angela, and I checked into hotel Rotterdam. It was more of a hostel that cost us $6 for the night. The rooms were decently clean but there was no a/c so it was extremely hot in there. We just had enough time for some dinner and then went to bed for the night. In the morning we traveled to Sambo Creek, which is a city thirty minutes outside of La Ceiba. We grabbed our snorkeling gear and hopped into a boat that took us to the island...

The trip over was almost an hour and absolutely beautiful the whole way. Water for miles with gorgeous blue skies...

It was hot out but the wind and light splashes of water made for a pleasant ride! Our captain's name was Coto and our guide's name was Milton. Both were very nice but didn't speak any English. Luckily three of the girls I went with speak pretty fluent Spanish, so they were able to translate a lot for me. Here we all are on the beach in front of our boat...

From left to right: Anne, Captain Coto, Carrie, Me, Milton, Michelle, and Angela

We knew we were going to stay with the Garifuna people on an island, but we had no idea what to expect. Before arriving at the island we spent the night on we made a few stops. Here are a few pictures of our first stop...

After leaving this little island we cruised past a few more in our boat and then finally arrived at our home away from home...

This is the entire island. There is no running water and no electricity. They have a generator that runs every night from 7-9 p.m. There are around 90 people who live here. They have one kinder (pre-school) classroom and then all of the other kids take a boat to school, how fun! All of the men who live on the island are fishermen and that's how they make their living.

We didn't get very many pictures of the Garifuna people but many of them still dress very traditionally as seen here...

We were able to see some drummers and dancers in action our first day there. I didn't take my camera because I was scared it would get stolen, so I relied on Michelle, Anne, and Carrie to take all of my pictures for me. They were even nice enough to let me use their cameras to take some of my own pictures. All of the photos on this bog post are from Anne's camera. I'll post more once Michelle and Carrie upload theirs. 

This is an up close view of what some of the huts looked like. 

Here is the view from my window...

After we toured the island and got all of our things settled into our rooms we went snorkeling. I got to see the second largest coral reef in the world :)!! It wasn't as colorful as I thought it would be...

We didn't have an underwater camera, so these images were taken off Google.

But, I've never seen so many beautiful fish! Some of them were HUGE! There was one that was blue and had these little neons dots on it that glowed in the water...it was my favorite. I tried to Google images of it, but I'm not sure what the name is. Snorkeling here made me want to go to the Great Barrier Reef to see all of the beautiful colors! Maybe one day.

The water was the most incredible thing I have ever seen. It was five different shades of blue and even in twenty feet you could still see to the bottom, amazing!

Here is a picture of our lunch from the first day...

I discovered that I don't care for Red Snapper. 

I LOVED all of the little kids on the island, but some of them didn't love me, haha...

One little girl came and sat on my lap one afternoon and when I had to get up twenty minutes later to use the bathroom she cried. It was the sweetest thing. I have a picture of her and I on Michelle's camera. 

The day we had to leave we got up at 4a.m to see the stars when the sky was the clearest. I wish I had a camera nice enough to capture that view. It was incredible to be able to see so many different constellations and planets. Oh, and I saw two shooting stars :)!

Since we were already awake we decided to stay up and watch the sunrise..

A wonderful time was had by all! I can't wait to go back someday. Maybe some of you will join me!

"ours is the pain of constantly pitching our tent and folding it up again, of befriending strangers and bidding them goodbye, of loving the world but never being truly satisfied with it, of pouring our heart and soul into a project others have begun and still others will finish. if we would not be torn in two by the tension of this truth, we must learn to live provisionally—to measure the road well. we need to make the most of the occasions when we can gather by the roadside to break bread and compare directions. joy must be discovered in the going as we never really arrive, not even in a lifetime." -kristine malins