Gracias

The trip to gracias was a bustling 3 shuttle bus journey. At one point we squeezed down a narrow busy market street and stopped momentarily outside a church, we recognized the tune; 'The sound of silence', was this a wonderful Central American quirk that they would take a Simon and Garfunkle song and turn it into a hymn? Let’s hope it’s that way round anyway.


View from the colonial hotel of the roadworks

Gracias got its name supposedly from the settelers arriving and finally finding flat land to build on “thank you God”. Its nestled in some of the most pristine cloud forest the reason for our visit. The governing council for the protection of indigenous human rights of Central America and capital of Honduras, was established here the 16th of April, 1544.

First we stay on the grounds of a coffee plantation which has a wild garden and a horse that decided to kick Dave on the thigh, not too hard luckily, (It was a tiny bit funny). Valuable lession learned about letting horses turn their back on you. here’s the naughty nag…


See his mean streak!

The coffee seems to have been harvested already (one berry they missed above) although there is a small pile drying near our room. We had no idea what a faff coffee prep was. It’s all picked by hand, dried before the first layer is peeled off (by hand), then dried again, peeled again, then finally roasted. We peel one and have a chew and it’s very hard & hardly tastes of anything.



We took the picture below after we had just spoken to the skipper and had conformation that we were going help crew a 70 foot catamaran across the South Pacific from Central America to the Marquesas Islands in May. You could say we were a little bit on the excited side.


My Way conformation

That evening we go to a famous traditional Lenka (local indigenous peoples) restaurant run & worked single handedly by one woman. It was fine & rustic (drank from gourds) but the woman wouldn’t stop babbling in Spanish at Dave while I sat there like a plum wondering what had happened to our cosy meal for two(she was loopy actually) and we ended up being locked out of our digs (we didn’t really believe the 10pm lock up sign). So we had to bang on the metal gates and then throw stones on the roof before we finally woke our neighbors who raised the alarm.


This mule was no help at all.

Next morning we woke to a vulture scrabbling around on our roof, my they are big! Moved to the Colonial that didn’t have as much character but did have a great people watching balcony and no bare asbestos ceiling, curfew, bold bird or evil horse in sight, phew!.

This town is incredibly dusty and everyone stares at us. We feel a little vulnerable but at the same time are pleased to be somewhere off the tourist track, and grin at them all till they submit shy smiles.

Town closes early here so we read to each other in the evenings (old fashioned entertainment).


Mmm… both looking chunky

Can’t really see any cloud forest and the hike sounds like a 3 day mare, we've already sewn our walking badge on so we don’t need to bother. Here’s the view from our favorite café of the town, the highest point these chunky monkeys reached. We loafed about here really.



One afternoon we see lots of vultures in the sky and on further inspection find (at the back of the café) 2 dogs fighting with a pack of them over a bag of rotten smelling meat. COOOOLL!

A true scene from hell, fascinating stuff, I take a million pics, here’s some of them..











Start reading 'The Great Train Robbery' by Michel Criton, a very cool book indeed. As well as being a rip-roaring true adventure its stuffed with fascinating stuff about Victorian England's underbelly of crime, including lots of slang.

For example a pickpocket: “dips his quarry on the fly while a stickman walks nearby to take the pogue from him once its been snaffled and a pair of stalls walk ahead and behind.”

A Betty is a purse; I might start using that one.
Penny hangs were the cheapest form of accommodation and drunk sailors for a penny could put their arms over a rope (that had been slung across at that height) and slump there for the duration of the night.

In victoran England it was possible to lease a box at the Royal Albert Hall for 999 years! and many did, the idea of prices de- stablising at this time of industrial growth was incomprehensible (how things change).

Read it everyone.


A market doll


For Dave’s nephew Caleb

Manage to miss the Luna eclipse as we were told it was happening at 9pm and just before 9 the clouds cover the sky. Turns out it was more like 10.30, we buggerd off about 9.45, thinking it must be the wrong night.
But we ARE still going to sail the South Pacific so it can’t dampen our mood.



Meet a girl called Patricia at the hotel and decide to go on a hike the following day with her to a remote village called La Campa. Note to selves: get to know people before going off to remote villages with them!

That’s it for now…..