Februari 2022 - Honduras - Lago de Yojoa

 From the warm, sunny beaches we went to the slightly cooler mountain area by the Yojoa Lake. We ended up staying in a small village, Agua Azul Sierra, on the east side of the lake, which had about three minimarkets, three restaurants, and not much else. While we explored all of those restaurants and had some nice tortilla con quesillo and pescado frito, we made breakfast and a few dinners ourselves in the kitchen at our hostel. Staying in this small village meant we made good use of the local chicken buses for our daytrips. They were cheap, and usually convenient, though we sometimes had to wait for 30-40 minutes in between buses.

The first excursion we made was to Parque Los Naranjos, an archaeological area near the river, with a boardwalk trail through some forest and wetlands - a popular destination for birdwatching. While we're not too knowledgeable about birds, we did hear and see plenty of them, most we couldn't name of course but they were often colorful. One bird we did recognize though was the toucan - the first one we've seen on this trip - which was a highlight. Another unexpected treat was to see two agoutis (which look like large guinea pigs/small capybaras) right by the trail.

While in the area, we also stopped by the famous D&D brewery, where most tourists who pass by are staying. We had originally planned to stay there as well, but they didn't have any available rooms. At D&D they brew both coffee (which was really good) and beer (which we didn't like as much), and right down the road there is another nature area - the Finca Paradise Bioparque. The area has a few trails, as well as cacao and coffee plantations. As D&D also organizes tours, we inquired about a hike in the Santa Barbara National Park, which we would not be able to access on our own. However, there were no groups going that we could join, and we found it too expensive to do just the two of us.

Our second excursion was to the Pulhapanazak waterfall. Rumor has it that it's a popular spot for locals to go during the weekends; we went on a Friday morning and it was just a few other people there. The waterfall was beautiful, but the area was quite small so we didn't spend much time there. 

We spent a full day doing nothing as the rain was pouring down, reading and enjoying the calm atmosphere of our village, and just taking a short walk to get to a lunch restaurant a bit further up the road. Our last day, we went to Cerro Azul Meámbar National Park, also known as PANACAM. This park is one of the places where you can take a hike in a cloud forest, which is usually mossy and cool. Cloud forests make up only 1% of the global woodland, but there are a few different places in Central America where you can experience it. We walked a steep trail up the mountain and enjoyed the beautiful, thick forest. It was very quiet, and we hardly saw or heard any birds, which was quite the contrast from Los Naranjos. We did however encounter a family of coatis (näsbjörnar in Swedish) crossing the trail just ahead of us. They are very fluffy and cute, so that was a really nice treat!

On our way back to our hostel, we stopped by a small roadside "kiosk", a woman selling a few drinks and snacks and also making baleadas. These were definitely among the best baleadas we had in all of Honduras! Aside from baleadas, my favorite food was tajadas - thick slices of fried plantains which was often served as a side to the meals, kind of like fries. So good!

After we left Agua Azul Sierra and Lago de Yojoa, we had to spend two nights in the capital in order to get a PCR-test and other things ready for the Nicaraguan border. But Tegucigalpa is not a very nice city, and we mainly spent time there because we had to - so I'll just leave it at that.