Celenque National Park

We just got back from Celenque National Park after attemping to scale the largest mountain in Honduras. A man with a hat put us in the back of his truck and drove us up to the park entrance where we donned backpacks and put one foot in front of the other, passing old growth pine trees, waterfalls full of giant boulders and rushing rivers. It was much like the North Shore state parks. Think Baptism River, Tettegouche, Gooseberry Falls and the like...

At the visitor center we learned that two Canadaians who stayed at the same hotel we did in town and left the day before ran into some physical problems. The girl broke her ankle and her dude carried her off the mountain. We said, "thats too bad" and hoped to run into their backpacks so we could bring them back down.

On the mountain we found some rain, a bit of it. Well, a bit much of it. It got dark and the clouds crept up the pine needle covered 40 degree slopes like panthers on bicycles. Our burro´s oxygen tanks ran out and we tried to get him to breathe slowly through a paper bag but he got a little wiggy and didn´t go for it. We got about two thirds of the way up the mountain before turning back. By the time we got back to the bunkhouse visitor center we were wet as all get out, or get in...because thats what we needed to do...get inside that is.

We fed a starving dog and ate beans, rice and tortillers and coffee at a tiny comedor which was basically the tiny house of a kindly old woman who lives in the woods. We could see the ran pouring down through the cracks as we rested our dogs by a cement fire place, the only object in the place giving off light and heat aside from the steam from my soaked t-shirt and filthy trousers. The woman had deep lines in her face, eight kids and lots of cats and dogs. She told some of them to leave while we were there but a young mama kitty jumped in my lap. It seemed to say, "we´re both wet, dude. But you´re the one with a lap so...uh...I´m just gonna take it, meow kay?"

"Well," said I. "Meow kay then." Then the woman looked at me the way people look at loco people and handed over the beans and tortillers forthwith. We did eat them beans and eggs and rice and coffee, and it was todo bien. I liked the coffee.

We came down off the mountain today and I decided to write a meaningful song about it called "Piney Mountain High". Its all about perseverence, hope, and finding God and ultimate truth. The real catch is that the song talks about "getting high" but the real high is the mountain, and life. Nobody has ever explored this concept so I feel it is of the uptmost priority to share it with the world. I only write about what I know. Thats because I´m a professional.

Right now we´re back in Thanks Lempira! Its a town that thanks a guy for fometing a rebellion that changed everything and got money named after him and a town and a statue with peeling paint. Usually people who foment anything don´t get the statues until after they´re dead. Thats just how it works, I guess. If you want to foment something, especially revolution, wait until after you´re dead if you want any thanks for it or a town named after you, or just don´t foment at all.

Some sort of parasite went to town on my arm and Sarah put a benadryl in my mouth so maybe the bumps will disappear soon but I don´t know and I´m starting to feel rather a bit dizzy in the head.

Today is laundry day for me, so I have to go around town dressed only in my swimming trousers while people run away and say, "crazy gringo!" Modesty is the policy here and modesty usually requires at least a tank top. Laundry days are tough. I shouldn´t really go anywhere like this, with my parasite eaten arm exposed to the world. Soon perhaps they´ll think I´m a leper and take me away to a colony where I´ll be treated by a kindly medical student who will become so enranged at my condition that he´ll foment a revolution with Fidel Castro to create a communist utopia but it won´t really be a utopia because the government will never evolve beyond the revolutionary dictatorship stage outlined by Karl Marx in Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto. Oh...wait a second. I already saw that movie. Motorcycle Diaries.

Well, I at least bought some fat cigars that were one lempira each. Thats about six cents... Each. Yowza! They were in a big pile at the market here. They smelled good but who knows. We´ll see what happens when people start smoking them. I´ll hand them out and write down the reactions. Never been much of a stogie man myself, but we´ll see. Gotta try it once at least.