The Drive for Fish
(Another Central American Collecting Trip)
by Patrick A. Tosie, Sr.
First published in The Darter, Missouri Aquarium Society
Aquarticles
Thursday, February 5, 1998 at 9:00 AM, Charlie Pyles and Rusty Wessel pull into my
driveway. They just came from Louisville (where they were getting a record 21" of
snow) to pick me up and head out on our search for new cichlids. They left Louisville at
4:00 AM so that we could get an early start on our trip. When we leave my house, we first
stop at McDonald's and get something to eat, then Charlie, Rusty and I take turns driving
Charlie's 1984 4-door Chevy Citation II. At one point, somewhere in Texas, Charlie said he
woke up, looked around and all three of us were asleep! I don't think that I was sleep
driving, but, you never know. We reach the Mexican border at McAllen, Texas about 5:00 AM
Friday morning. At the border we met up with Rusty's dad and several of his friends who
are going on their traditional fishing trip in Mexico.
We have no problems getting through the Mexican border, a lady from the fishing lodge
meets us and fills out all of the needed paperwork to get through customs quickly and are
on our way to Presa de las Adjuntas or Presa Vicente Guerrero, depending on which map you
look at, (a large lake) which is close to the Ciudad Victoria in the Mexican state of
Tamaulipas. This lake is in the Rio Soto la Marina river system. In Mexico the exchange
rate is currently 8.25 Pesos to one US Dollar. Our first collection site is at a small
river located on highway 180 (at the 126 1/2 kilometer marker) close to the Tropic of
Cancer. We find some turtles, sunfish, Gambusia, and Mexican tetras. NO CICHLIDS! We head
into the city of Tampico to spend the night. Tampico is a modern day city with a
population on about a half a million. We stay at the Monte Carlo Hotel, a modern hotel
that is expensive for this part of Mexico at $30.00 a night. We eat dinner at a fast food
pollo (chicken) restaurant close to the hotel and then go to a couple of the local
nightspots to enhance our knowledge about the Mexican culture. One thing I found out about
Mexico is that there is only ONE brand of gasoline. PEMEX. PEMEX is state owned and is the
only gas station you will find in Mexico.
Mexico was not how I pictured it. I thought we would be driving through a desert. There
were some cactus along the way but most of the landscape was gently rolling with a lot of
vegetation. We passed many small rivers and lakes. They did have road blocks set up every
so often, checking the paperwork of the cars and searching some vehicles for drugs, guns
or other illegal items. Mexico had a lot of police cars but they did not seem to care
about how you drove. One thing that bothered me, until I found out why, was that whenever
I went to pass someone, they would turn on their left blinker. I would slow down and they
would not turn. After several times doing this (and cussing out the driver in front of me)
I figured out that when they put their left blinker on, they were signaling me that it is
OK to pass!
The next day we head out of Tampico to collect at a couple of sites. Our main interest
is a waterfall in the Panuco River system. We stop by a ditch just east of Los Luises on
Highway 70 which is between Ebano and Altamirano and collect. We find some Mexican tetras
(that their body shape is a little different than the normal tetras we usually find), some
beautifully colored mollies, a Nandopsis species, several Herichthys
species and A LOT of Tilapia! We pack up and head off toward San Luis Potosi. We
find a small waterfall that is in a very beautiful spot but it is not tall waterfall that
we are looking for. Next to the waterfall is a hydroelectric plant (a 6 foot round pipe
that the water comes down and enters a building, then it goes through some type of
turbines to make electricity) The water was fast flowing, clear and cool. It appeared that
the only fish there were some tetras and a livebearer. There are quite a number of
tourists visiting to see these beautiful little waterfalls. We leave and head toward San
Louis Potosi. We stop at the Santa Anita river, 20 kilometers west of Valles and collect
some swordtails, I didn't see any cichlids. We talk to some guy who is there washing his
car and he gives us the directions to the larger waterfall that we have been looking for.
By this time it is too late to go to the waterfall and/or collect so we head into the city
of Valles to spend the night. We go to a couple watering hole to taste the local cuisine
and try the local drinks.
The next morning we head out toward the waterfall. We leave the paved road and travel
30 kilometers up a valley that is planted with sugar cane. The road is rough but the
scenery is beautiful. At one point Rusty and I get out of the car and move rocks out of
the road so Charlie can drive without too much trouble. Next we have to go down a hillside
(on what seems to be a narrow cow path that is on a steep hill), opening and closing
barbed wire cattle gates, with rocks the size of bowling balls on the road, to get to the
area where the waterfall is said to be. When we get to where the waterfall is supposed to
be, we find out that we have to paddle three hours upstream to get to it! We decide to go
ahead (we went this far) and go there. Rusty works out the financial details with a canoe
owner and he gets in the front of the canoe, Charlie is next, then me and the canoe
driver. We all paddle and make it in two and a half hours. Several times we have to get
out and walk while the guide pulls the canoe through some rapids. Along the way we see
several smaller waterfalls that are very beautiful. When we reach the Waterfall named
"Tamul" we have to climb up a rock mountainside and walk about half a mile to
see this wonderful part of nature. The area on the way to and around the waterfall is very
tropical.
After looking at it and taking a few pictures, we snorkel around and see a few
livebearers. We get back in the canoe and head back down stream. On our way back we
noticed several trout lines. The guide said they catch large fish (he didn't know what
type) but wouldn't let us pull one up to see what they were. We stop at a large cave that
has a pond in it, but do not see any fish in it. It only takes us forty-five minutes to go
downstream and get back to the landing area. When we get back to the car, we load up,
follow the cow path back up the hillside and go to an area where we can collect in the
river. We collect at a low water bridge, right next to a ferry that is sitting fifty feet
from the water (the bridge looked fairly new) and not in use any more.
The river (they call Galleons) is shallow, wide and clear. We collect several cichlids
(that appear to be a new type of Herichthys), a Nandopsis type, a few
livebearers and a lot of tadpoles that we do not keep. It starts to get dark so we head
out to meet up with Rusty's dad at the lake. We get to the lake at 1:30 AM.
We spend the night at the lake (Rusty sleeps in one of the motor homes, I sleep in the
back of a pickup truck, I was very comfortable, and Charlie sleeps in the car with his
feet hanging out of it. He said he was not comfortable!). The next morning Rusty and I
walk down another cow trail (it is a real cow trail, you have to watch your step!) to get
to the lake. The lake is made from the Rio Soto la Marina river, it is supposed to have Xiphophorus
xiphidium (the spike-tail sword) in it. When we get to the lake we don't find any
fish. The only thing there is largemouth bass. Rusty's dad has been coming to the lake for
years, they use to catch large Herichthys carpinte on hook and line but now only
catch bass. The lake has dropped twenty feet over the last ten years. Rusty's dad and his
friends said they have been averaging six to seven pound fish with the largest being
fourteen pounds! This area used to have several livebearers and Herichthys carpinte
in it, but it appears that the bass have eaten everything up. When we get back to the car,
I find out (and I was wearing a swimsuit) that the cow trail was full of chiggers. They're
not there anymore, they are all on me!
One thing I learned in Mexico which I thought was interesting is that they burn the
sugar cane fields at night (all that is left is the stalk) so they can cool down for the
next day's harvest. They then cut the cane by hand and stack it as high as possible on
trucks. All this is done by hand! They said the reason they burn the fields is that it
makes the sugar sweeter. You have to be careful when you see a sugar cane truck driving.
If they are going the same way you are, you have to be careful of the dust and falling
cane, if they are going in the opposite direction, they take their part of the road out of
the middle!
As Rusty stays at the lake with his dad, Charlie and I head south toward Guatemala. The
Mexican roads seem to be pretty good, there are not as many road blocks as there are in
Honduras. The one item that you need to pay attention to is when you get to any small
town, they have "totes" in the road. Totes are a type of speed bump, a very
large speed bump. You WILL slow down for them if you don't want to hit your head on the
ceiling and replace your tires. All the main roads in Mexico seem to be pretty good to
drive on. We take a lot of toll roads and they are great, smooth, hardly any traffic and
you can zip through at a very fast pace. Throughout Mexico, the way they get rid of trash
is haul it to dumps and when the dump starts getting full, they burn it! They burn the
whole dump!
When we get to the city of Veracruz, I get lost (It seems like anywhere in Mexico &
Central America, they have very few signs. You have to watch for your sign and if you
don't see it, stay on the road until you come to it. It may be fifty miles down the road
but there will be one there.). At a stop light a police car pulls up next to us and I ask
for directions. They do not speak any English except for "Follow Me", so I
follow them to some guy's house who speaks English. While Charlie is getting directions, I
get everyone a Coke and they decide to lead us out of town to the correct road. They turn
on their flashing lights and give us a twenty-minute police escort through town doing
fifty-five miles an hour until we get back on the correct road. Where else in the world
can you get a police escort for a couple of Cokes?
From Veracruz, we head southwest through the Mexican state of Chiapas toward Guatemala.
We stop at some Mayan Ruins named Izapa and take pictures and tour them. A little while
later in southern Chiapas we go through a road block and I ask Charlie to pull over so I
can get some pictures. The road block had a lot of soldiers, sand bags stacked about five
feet high and machine guns mounted on top of them. I take several pictures, get into the
car and several Army soldiers come running over yelling something at us in Spanish. They
tell me that they want my cameras. I told them no, and after a short discussion I give
them the rolls of film out of my two cameras and they let us get on our way.
We cross into Guatemala at Talisman on the Mexican side and El Carmen on the Guatemala
side. On the Guatemala side of the border, there is a large parking lot with a lot of
American cars (with American license plates) in a parking lot, covered with dust and they
all have some numbers painted on the windshields. Most of the cars are newer looking
luxury cars. It takes a couple hours to get all our papers approved, passports stamped and
the car fumigated then we are on our way again. We head toward the capital named Guatemala
City. Guatemala is a very hilly country. I see more trucks (most with sugar cane on them)
than I have seen anyplace else. The trucks appeared to outnumber the cars four to one!
Charlie seems to have a lot of fun passing the trucks, and the worse the curves in the
road are, the more he likes to try and pass them. He must have passed three hundred trucks
in Guatemala and just about every one of them was on a sharp turn! I counted over 200
sugar cane trucks, full to the brim with sugar cane, in front of one factory we passed! In
Guatemala the exchange rate is 6.08 Quetzales to each US Dollar.
Our next collection spot is forty-eight kilometers east of Puerto Barrios in a creek
that is a tributary of the Rio Amates. We collect several types of livebearers, (I am
looking for the Merry Widow but do not find any) see several cichlids but are unable to
collect them. We spend the night in Puerto Barrios sampling the local drinks and the next
morning head toward Chiquimula and Copan. We stop at the Mayan ruins of Quirigua which
have some unique stone carvings. Back about 700 BC the Quirigua (a smaller group of
people) kidnapped the ruler of Copan and beheaded him. We leave the ruins and head toward
Copan.
The road to Honduras from Guatemala is a gravel road that is 70 kilometers long. it
starts in Chiquimula, Guatemala and ends in Copan, Honduras. We get there at 10:00 AM but
are unable to proceed due to road construction. They closed the road for construction (a
landslide messed up the road and only one lane is open) but say they will re-open it at
3:00 PM. We collect in the river at Chiquimula for several hours, find three types of
livebearers and a couple of cichlids. Our car was first in line but when we get back into
line there are twenty or more cars ahead of us. At 3:00 the road opens, Charlie is worried
about making it to the border before it closes for the evening so he makes a mad dash,
passing everything on this dirt/gravel road and we make the border before nightfall. It is
possible to get stuck at the border if they close for the evening - you can even get stuck
between the two countries if you get through one and not the other. From Copan we head to
San Pedro Sula where we eat dinner at a roadside chicken joint and keep driving through
the night until we get to La Ceiba. All through Central America it is common to see a
truck, bus or car drive into a creek or river and then they splash water on the vehicles
and wash them right in the middle of the river! It was also commonplace to see clothes
being washed in the river and then spread out the shore on top of rocks to dry.
La Ceiba, Honduras, is our final destination, at the Partenon Beach Hotel where we set
up our coolers, put air to the fish and go on a daily basis to the Jutiapa river system.
We see several old friends that Rusty, Charlie and I have met over the last few years and
get re-acquainted. Besides the new species at the waterfall in Tamul, Mexico, the fish in
the Jutiapa river system, specifically Theraps wesseli, is our main pursuit. We
spend several days trying to catch the elusive Theraps wesseli without much luck.
We then try to catch them at night. We have so much success over the next several nights
that we end up with one hundred and fifty fish! Charlie could hardly believe it, he said
the most they have ever caught is six fish! We even catch a couple very large (seven and a
half inch) males. We let seventy fish go (we got carried away collecting them) and keep
about eighty fish. One day on a trip to Jutiapa, a boy was selling a four foot Iguana on
the side of the road. We stop and it was alive so we buy it for 80 Lempira (In Honduras, 1
US Dollar is equal to 13.20 Lempira this year) so it is about $6.40 US Dollars. We take
the Iguana back to the hotel and have one of the old ladies clean and cook it for us. NO,
it does not taste like chicken, it taste a lot like pork! It is, however, bony like a
fish.
We collect in the Rio Donata river (where I caught some Poecilia orri last
year) and collect several types of livebearers including a type of pike livebearer. All
around us at just about every collecting location, ladies are doing their laundry in the
river, people are bathing themselves (with their clothes on) and washing their
car/truck/bus in the river.
One other exciting thing happened in Honduras. The day after we got there, there was a
prison break about a mile from the hotel. Two hundred sixty five prisoners escaped. They
caught seventy that night, killed three, and the rest were at large. They had a lot of
extra police, army soldiers and special forces (people in camouflaged outfits with a
hooded mask, only showing their eyes) out on the streets looking for the escapees. The
army and special forces people were riding around in pickup trucks with six to eight
machine gun carrying guys in the back of the pickups, checking cars, trucks and people's
papers. They never did stop me or Charlie, they must have thought us "gringos"
were not escapees.
One of the bar/restaurant (Ex Patriots) owners in La Ceiba (Mark) who happens to be a
Canadian had an attempted hold up at his establishment. The robber killed his security
guard, and went in to rob him. Mark would not give him any money, the guy threatened Mark,
and Mark beat him up with a baseball bat. The police took both of them to jail. Mark was
let out several days later. The robber was kept in jail. In Honduras, if you go to jail,
all inmates (male and female) are put into the same, large room. If you eat, someone has
to bring you the food! If no one brings you anything, you go without eating. If there is a
killing, they normally put everyone involved in jail until they straighten it out, then
the innocent ones are let go. A fisherman at one of the bars said that he caught a 19'
great white shark about a mile off the shore, and just a few hundred feet off shore, a
friend of his speared a 6 1/2' shark. Every day we saw hundreds of fisherman just off
shore in little dug out canoes fishing.
Gasoline throughout Mexico and Central America seemed to be $2.00 to $3.00 a gallon. We
did not have any trouble with the gas. We had minor trouble with the car but nothing
Charlie couldn't handle.
We collected several types of unknown livebearers, a Belonesox species, some Gambusia
species, several Poecilia species (including Poecilia mexicana and Poecilia
sphenops), one Heterandria species, Poeciliopsis gracilis, Alfaro huberi, a
couple Xiphophorus species, some tetras, some gobies, Archocentrus spilurum,
Archocentrus cutteri, Theraps wesseli, Amphilophus robertsoni, a couple Herichthys
species, and one Nandopsis species. I'm not sure what all the livebearers are, but over
time, I hope to find out. At one house, next to the Jutiapa River, the people had a
Kutamundo tied to a tree as a pet. A Kutamundo is a central American raccoon. It looks
like a cross between a monkey, raccoon and a lemur.
One of the many joys of collecting (besides the fish) is enjoying the beauty of the
surroundings and the hospitality of the people. The Central American people always seem
happy and your time there goes by very quickly. Another benefit to collecting is not
having any phone calls, appointments or schedules that you have to keep!
Charlie took me to the airport Friday morning so that I could catch my fight home
(luckily there was no rain - the planes don't fly when it is raining) and I left on time.
At the airport in La Ceiba, they had clocks with times of London, New York, Tokyo and La
Ceiba. The funny thing was that the times were something like: London 9:30, New York 6:15,
Tokyo 2:47 and La Ceiba 7:20! I had a seven hour layover in New Orleans (the airport was
wild, it was Mardi Gras time). This was the first time that I had customs open my cooler
and look in it, but everything was OK except for a couple of dead fish. I lost a few
livebearers, most of the Amphilophus robertsoni, and most of the Theraps
wesseli. I attribute it mostly to the long layover.
On the plane flight home, the guy sitting next to me (it was a full flight and we were
crowded) was a six foot, eight inch, four hundred pound Hell's Angel. He was going from
Mardi Gras to a motorcycle show in Indianapolis. He told me his life story, the most
recent happening was that the "Feds" confiscated his motorcycle shop and
everything he has, and are trying to prosecute him on racketeering charges. He thought
that I was an undercover cop because I had headphones on and kept watching his rowdy
group. He told me his friends (who were scattered throughout the plane) were a little
nervous when we sat next to each other. He had a lot of interesting stories.
All in all I had a great time on this year's trip. We had very little problems and
special thanks go to Charlie (for taking his car on this expedition and many other things)
and Rusty. From the time we left my house until the time we reached the Partenon Beach
Hotel, we drove four thousand one hundred miles! The trip was well worth it and I learned
a lot. I don't know if it was the cooking or the drinking but I gained 10 pounds on this
trip! I hope to lose it before my next adventure.
I can't wait till next year to see what adventure is in store for me!
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