Hiking in the forest...

 When you dig another out of their troubles, you find a place to bury your own. 
~Author Unknown

 A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of us in the house went hiking in La Tigra cloud forest. It was a beautiful and physically demanding adventure... and getting there was no cinch either! The public transportation in Tegus does not have schedules nor are there even set bus stops. The buses are old American school buses- don't ask me how they make it up the mountains on these dirt roads but they do! And yes, I was fearing for my life on those sharp turns as I peered out over the cliff that hung just a foot away from our tires.

We drove on a single dirt road for about an hour and a half and then to our surprise, had to get off the bus early due to "road construction". There were gaping potholes covering the road and it seemed to be the result of some kind of landslide (it rains like crazy here). And apparently the Honduran solution to potholes is shoveling rocks into them- even in the city I've seen men with wheelbarrows of rocks and stone literally just tossing shovel-fulls of rocks... (and us White Hillians thought East Village was bad!)

Once we finally made our way up the rest of the road and to the base of the actual mountain, we set off for the hike with our backpacks full of PB & J and snack packs. We didn't realize that we would be hiking for 7 hours... nor did we anticipate that we would have a guide dog for most of our journey! A little dog had befriended us at the visitors center and ended up leading us through the forest! He came with us all the way

until we found the waterfall. There he just plopped himself down on a rock and watch as all of us crazy gringos went swimming in the freezing cold waterfall. He perked up when we all started eating. I shared my snack pack with him and he enjoyed it- but I think he was a little annoyed when someone put peanut butter on his nose! I miss torturing Molly like that!...
We saw some very cool plants on our journey- no animals but I think that had something to do with the fact that we were about 13 loud gringos stomping and tripping through the forest. What we did see were giant trees- the biggest I've ever seen! Granted I've never been to the Red Wood forest but they seemed to be pretty comparable! They were covered in beautiful luscious green mosses and the sun could barely shine through all the intricate masses of draping vines far above us. And we saw these pretty amazing plants that would retract and fold into themselves when you touched them! We are going to go back in a couple of weeks to do it all over again but this time spend the night on the mountain. I'll keep you posted!