Camp Raided by Niños, Talgua Cave, Drive from Catacamas to Danli, Brief Chat with Illegal Immigrants – 20220729

I woke up from camping like a million times throughout the night. Dogs barked on the hour every hour with one dog running right up to my tent and barking directly at my tent for a full 15 minutes. Chickens started screeching at midnight and then again at 4am. Around 2am my camelback which I was using as a pillow decided to leak out all at once and I spent the rest of the night soaking wet.

I got up around 5 or so and laid down until 6. I then pulled everything up and tried to set up some things to dry. I went to a hammock near my camp to read a little and after a while I heard the distinct sound of little niños yelling, “gringooooo, donde estaaaaas gringooooo?”

My little buddies that I made the night before came to check to see if I was still alive. I then hung out with the little kiddos as they grilled me with questions and ran around with my gopro.

I finished packing and headed to Talgua caves around 8 or so and arrived before they had officially opened. I was talking to the guides outside for a bit about the same things as usual. How big the bike is, where I came from and such. Then they started talking about the fact that I couldn’t ride around with another guy on the back. I had no idea what they were talking about so pried a little bit. Turns out that in most of the big cities in Honduras it’s illegal for 2 guys to ride together but not a guy and a girl because there were too many teams of guys going around shooting people and stealing things. Pretty damn interesting. I had never heard that as a rule before.

I did the cave hike which cost 230 lempiras($9) with a guide and I’m pretty sure a guide was required. I walked through in about an hour with Mario and we talked about some stuff and the caves. I’ve never smelled anyone in my life who more successfully put on deodorant. I would trail 20 feet behind him and still smell nothing but deodorant.

They were pretty neat caves but kind of ruined by the construction through it. It would be a much better experience without all the concrete and lights on the walls. After recently doing the hike through the caves in Semuc Champey I felt rather unimpressed.

After going through the caves I set a rough course for Danli and aimed to take the less traveled road there. It was a pretty rough road and would end up taking me all day and a ridiculous amount of energy. I stopped once for lunch and the people weren’t too friendly. It seems like the easiest meal to find here is just fried chicken with some salad on the side. It’s much more difficult finding places to eat here than it was in Mexico or Guatemala. I can go hours without seeing a restaurant.

It’s also pretty sad to see the dogs here. They are all starving. Really raggedy and no one seems to feed them. I had the idea today to carry around some treats and maybe some apples for horses as I see horses absolutely everywhere here.

I finally arrived in Danli and checked into Hotel La Esperanza for 230 lempiras($9). I used iOverlander to find it and I’m finding it to be an amazing resource for finding hotels on the motorcycle. Way easier than sifting through google and previous travelers will mention the price which is almost impossible to find on google.

I checked in and the front desk lady was super sweet. The room was alright and I went to fill my water bottle. I ended up talking to this girl for a bit and she is trying to travel to the US as an illegal immigrant from Venezuela. She was talking about how awful the passage was, especially through the Darien Strait or whatever it’s called. The area between Colombia and Panama.

Apparently, it takes 8 days and the “Indians”(their words) there kill and rape people for their things and for pleasure. Pretty awful stuff. I wanted to ask more about it but she got distracted by her friend and disappeared. I am hoping to ask more people about it but I have a feeling they won’t really trust me with much either, even though they seem way more open to talking about it than I would have thought.