The Honduran Episode
by Patrick A. Tosie, Sr.
First published in The Darter, Missouri Aquarium Society
Aquarticles
Early morning, Friday, November the first, I set off on an adventure into the Central
American country of Honduras. I left St. Louis on TWA to meet with Rusty Wessel in New
Orleans and catch our flight on TACA (Take A Chance Airlines) to the town of La Ceiba,
Honduras. The first experience happened leaving St. Louis on TWA - fifteen minutes into
the flight the Captain tells us over the intercom that they have a broken fuel line and we
will be returning to St. Louis to either change planes or fix the line. We get back to St.
Louis and they tell us that they have the part and it will take about an hour to fix. I
had two hours planned as a layover, however with the problems the plane had, I wouldn't
have any time between flights.
I call New Orleans to the TACA counter, they page Rusty, and I talk to Rusty and tell
him that TWA will land about the same time TACA is suppose to leave. (I had to meet Rusty
because he had my TACA plane ticket) Rusty says he'll meet me at the luggage carousel and
help me get to TACA as quick as possible. If I would happen to miss the flight, the next
one wouldn't be until the following day.
When I finally get to New Orleans the Captain tells everyone that he has an
international traveler that has to make a flight and to let him get off first. The people
on the plane cheer for me as I get off and run to the baggage claim and meet up with
Rusty. Everyone else comes to the baggage claim, get their luggage and go on to their
destination while I wait for mine. My luggage must have been the last onto the baggage
claim area! Rusty helps me with the bags as we run to the TACA counter to check in the
luggage. TACA is holding the plane from New Orleans to La Ceiba, Honduras for Rusty and
me! On TACA drinks are free and we start getting our money's worth. There is a stop-over
in Roatan, an island area known for scuba diving, before we reach La Ceiba at 5:30 PM. It
is just getting dark when we reach La Ceiba and we were lucky because if it would have
been dark they would not have landed. The airport in La Ceiba does not have radar plus a
mountain range is right next to it, so if they can't see they don't fly.
Charlie Pyles, a fellow ACA'er from Louisville is at the airport waiting for us with a
rental car and some Honduran money (Lempira). We get through customs without a hitch and
are off to our Hotel, the Partanon Beach. The road to the hotel is a short but bumpy
twenty-five minute ride from the airport.
The people in Honduras have dark complexions (they are of Spanish and Indian descent)
with dark hair and brown eyes. The women are young, beautiful and wear tight clothes, the
men are ugly and look like an old pair of army boots that have been through a war. They
seem to be happy all the time even though they are very poor. A good wage in Honduras is
300 Lempiras a week ($23.35 in U.S. Dollars at the current exchange rate). Driving
conditions are a lot different as well (I enjoyed driving there). They do have speed
limits and stop signs, however, the police do not have cars so they can not enforce them.
The three basic driving rules that people follow are 1 - Whenever you pass someone, you
honk your horn. 2 - The oldest, junkiest car has the right of way. 3 - If you are walking,
riding a bike or are in the road for any reason and a car comes by, GET OUT OF THE WAY.
You can pass whenever and wherever you want, drive as fast as you want, however, you must
stop at any police roadblocks. A police roadblock is an orange cone in the middle of the
road with three to six machine gun holding policemen standing around. The police have
frequent roadblocks to check your papers and the car's papers (currently, they are having
a problem with stolen cars). The police are usually trying to get a bribe to let you pass
or they are trying to find the least little thing wrong so they can write you a ticket
(you pay your ticket right there on the spot to the man writing the ticket.
After we get to the Hotel and check in we are off to a few local bars to sample the
native drinks. We get to bed at 4 AM. The next morning I awake at 5:30 and I am ready to
go. I walk on the beach for a little while and then I go to Rusty's door (about 8:00) I
knock, and he said to come back at eleven. I go to the restaurant and eat a ham, egg and
cheese omelet, toast and juice and walk around to see what is there. I do a quick tour of
the town, walk down the beach and go to the pier, where a lot of people are fishing, to
see what the locals are catching.
The locals are fishing with a line that is wrapped around a stick, or some other
object, they have a small hook on the end of the line with a piece of shrimp on it as
bait. They throw it into the water and give it little jerks until they catch something.
The fish they are catching look like minnows. They throw them into buckets or plastic bags
and save them to eat later.
I go back to the hotel at eleven, Rusty and Charlie are getting ready. We eat lunch,
make plans on where to go and are off.
The first road block out of La Ceiba is at the Rio Cangrejal and the police detain us,
then they tell us to follow them to the police station. One of the policemen gets into the
van with us and leads us to the station. They say the rental car papers are wrong and we
cannot take the car, they have to keep it. At first they do not let us take our stuff
(camera, collecting items, extra shoes and changes of clothes) out of the car but after a
couple hours they let us get our belongings out of the car but they do not let us take the
car. We take a taxi back to the hotel, put our stuff away and go to a bar. They rest of
the day is spent between the bars and trying to get the car problem worked out. We go to
bed early the next morning.
I wake up at 4:45 AM the following day, the whole trip I can not sleep very late either
because I am overly excited or the bed is too lumpy. I take a shower, get dressed and
watch some VH-1 on the TV. After a little while I go to the restaurant, get breakfast and
watch the waves hit the beach. Late morning Rusty, Charlie and I get a taxi driver, named
Israel, to take us to the Rio Jutiapa (the Rio Jutiapa is a clear, fast moving mountain
stream where Rusty discovered his namesake fish, (Theraps wesseli) to catch fish.
I see Cichlasoma spilurum, some mexicana type tetras (that bite your legs)
several Poecilia species, some gobies and catfish. I did not see any Cichlasoma
"Theraps" wesseli but this is the location where Rusty found his fish.
A lot of local children start to collect to see what the crazy Americans are doing and
then they help us catch fish. We pull a seine and get a gallon of Poecilia
species. Just up the river from where we are collecting, the local women are doing
laundry. There must have been a soccer game the day before because one of them is doing
the soccer team's uniforms.
After we collect we take the fish we wanted to keep back to the hotel (the fish we
didn't keep the children bagged up to save for their dinner). When we reached the hotel we
set up some pumps and airstones in the bags, did a water change, got ready and went bar
hopping. There was one bar, which a Canadian guy named Mark owned, that was our favorite
place to go. It was a kind of sports bar, it had a couple TV's in it, the bartender could
speak English, they had a dart board and they had great food. The bar was also a popular
spot for English speaking tourist and locals so you could go there and speak in our native
tongue to other English speaking people. Speaking English in a bar to someone that didn't
know was something that was very uncommon in Honduras.
The next day we plan to go to the town of Choluteca to catch some Amphilophus
(Cichlasoma) hogaboomorus and Anableps dowi. Choluteca is close to the
Nicaragua border. The drive from La Ceiba is about 300 miles and take us ten hours. The
drive is an experience. At one point Charlie spins the truck around trying to drive too
fast on the mountain road across the country. He is driving too fast because he was
tailgating someone and when he finally passes them, they start tailgating us with their
high beams on. We get to Choluteca, check into a hotel and go to a small tributary of the
Choluteca rive and night fish. When we pull up to the creek the first thing we see is EYES
skimming across the water. The Anableps are swimming all around. We get into the
water and start catching as many as we can of Amphilophus (Cichlasoma) hogaboomorus
and the Anableps dowi. When we get our fill, we go back to the hotel, separate
the fish and set them up with air and go out to eat.
The next day we go to the Nicaraguan border and try to enter the country. The police
detain us at the border, they do not let us take our car across because they say that the
papers are wrong. They take us back to the town of San Marcos and keep us for a while. We
take the police captain out to lunch and he lets us go after he receives a confirmation
from the rental agency over the phone. We are suppose to pick up some paperwork in
Tegucigalpa (the Honduran capital city) on our way back to La Ceiba. We go back to the
hotel to unload our things, then we go to the bar. Several hours later we go back to the
creek where we were the night before to catch some more fish. I have a hard time catching
fish, I say they were moving faster, Rusty and Charlie say I've had too much to drink.
After we caught our self imposed limit, we head back to the hotel to put the fish away.
After we clean up we go to a nice restaurant, (Charlie, if you see this do you
remember; Is that a dime in your ear?) have a good dinner, go to a disco for a little
while and go to bed. The drive back to La Ceiba the next day goes without any problems.
The next day we go back to the Rio Jutiapa to catch some more fish. I see several Theraps
(Cichlasoma) wesseli but am unable to catch them. We get some more livebearers and
head back to town.
These are just some of the things that happened, there are a lot more exciting things
that happened than time I have to tell you. This was the best time I have ever had related
to the aquarium hobby. I would strongly suggest to anyone that gets a chance to go on a
collecting trip.
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