Our weekend retreat from the city was El Tigre Island off the Pacific coast of Honduras. The small, volcanic island is home to the village of Amapala, a quiet fishing community just a short boat-ride from the coast of both El Salvador, to the north, and Nicaragua, to the south. The boat from the mainland takes about 30 minutes to arrive at Playa Grande on the far west side of the island. As we slowly drift closer to the shore, the giant volcano that is the island begins to loom larger and the rocky shoreline unveils why this island is not crawling with tourists: there is little beach and a lot of black volcanic rock. After passing the village of Amapala we carefully make our way through the treacherous rocks that are now underwater at high tide and arrive on the sandy beach in front of a collection of make-shift shacks. "Big Beach" will be our home of sorts for the next 48 hours as we relax and soak up the ambience of Honduras on the Pacific.
The shacks that line this part of the island have gradually sprung up as more and more people begin to flock to El Tigre for a little r-n-r from the busy city of Tegucigalpa just less than three hours drive from the dock in Coyolito, the village that serves as the docking point on the mainland. We arrive on a Friday so we have nearly the entire place to ourselves until early Saturday when many Hondurans begin to show up. Until then we make ourselves comfortable at a little "restaurant" that serves up the freshest of seafood and the cheapest beer we can find. This weekend our travel-mates are Mike and Mavis (a Canadian couple from Toronto who teach 5th and English), Collin and Elisa (another couple from Tennessee who teach history and English) and our usual compadre, Keeley (a biology teacher from Stanford, Montana.) The seven of us set out early in the morning in our silver Montero and are now enjoying the first cerveza of the day before the noon sun. A few more of these and we begin to order our first delicious meal of fish and shrimp straight out of the Gulf of Fonseca (the waters that surround the island.) We finish up our first day at the ocean by taking a two-hour tuk-tuk ride around the perimeter of the island, stopping frequently to inspect the neighboring beaches, take in the views of Nicaragua to the south and watch a passing herd of brama cattle pass down the road on their way home.
The following morning begins early as we awake before dawn to head back to the beach and catch a boat for a morning tour. However, our friend, Keeley, begins his day in the room next door to us with a little surprise. After turning on the shower, his bathroom quickly begins to fill with bees until he must escape the buzz and stuff towels under the door to keep the swarm from spreading out into his room. Fortunately, the family who runs our hotel is also up early and someone is available to help him move to a new room. Life in Honduras.
After breakfast we start our day with a ride in the back of a pick-up from our hotel in Amapala about 10 minutes from the beach. We arrive at Playa Grande around 7:30 am in time to catch our boat, captained by a dark, lanky guy named Ramon and wearing a Dodgers cap along with his sidekick who would remain nameless were in not for our dubbing him "Gilligan" after his obvious inability to properly navigate his own boat. By the time we ship out, the wind has picked up and we will now spend the following two hours bucking the tides and being sprayed by the salty water on our way to the mangroves on the north shore.
Our excitement to view the mangroves is cut short as we approach the green coastline only to find that low tide means we will have to get out of the boat and walk at least a mile or more through the shell-strewn mud to reach them. After about 15 minutes of trudging we wisely give up and return to the boat while getting in some shell hunting. Elsa's favorites are the sand dollars and the little curly-cues that often contain little creatures unwilling to give up their homes. But she climbs back in the boat with muddy feet and a pocket full of new shells for her ongoing collection.
The rest of the morning is spent puttering around the islands before we stop on a long sandy beach for a little swimming and some snacks before launching back to our home base and the comfort of yet more Honduran cerveza.
We spend the afternoon lying in hammocks and eating seafood with our friends and trying our best to stay out of the hot sun as we have had our fill from being in the open boat all morning. Luckily, the combination of sunscreen and salt that covered us after our wet ride have prevented any serious sunburns and we can kick back for five or six hours of staring out at the sea. Our view contains plenty of children playing in the surf as well as the ever-present volcanoes of El Salvador that line the horizon to the west. The latter half of the afternoon are spent in the company of three little boys who we treat to some cookies and pepsi. They insist on lingering around our little, blue table in the sand in hopes of getting some spare change but we resist their requests and stick to feeding them and engaging them in some conversation. Jose, Nemo and PeeWee eventually give up their quest for cash and slump down in the plastic beach chairs to enjoy their sodas and snacks.We ride to our hotel just after sunset in the back of the pick-up once again to enjoy some dinner on the second floor balcony of our little hotel which clings to the side of the steep volcano.
Sunday morning is the same as the day before except we are allowed to sleep in a little and no one awakes to a hive of bees in their bathroom. We get back to the beach around 9 am and have a couple of hours to wait for our friends to return from a hike and captain Ramon to appear at the beach with his boat, The Mary Jesus. The name of the boat must be the reason it is still afloat as Ramon does not appear to have any greater navigational skills than "Gilligan" who is mysteriously no where to be seen this morning. Jose, the little boy from the day before, is there to help us put our bags in the boat and finally earn his coveted dinero. We wave good-bye to him and he flashes us a big, white smile as we shove off for the mainland and our drive back to the city.
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