Colectivo to Las Marias, Moskitia

The colectivo was about an hour late - 9am, but it finally showed up. Bonifacio was our captain, and the ship was a large (ish) dug-out canoe with an outboard motor. We managed to talk the price down from 700L each to 500L each ($27) for the 5 hour ride. There was another gringo with us, Steve, an Englishman who´d been pretty much all over the world and who was going up to spend 3 weeks fishing the Moskitio. The canoe had 3 small chairs for us, a bit like tiny Adirondak chairs, but with all comfort removed. We headed off through the tiny canals and picked up a man who´d been in hospital for 2 weeks, recovering from a bite from a "Fer de Lance" snake, which may be the same as a copperhead. He still couldn´t walk and was apparently very lucky to be alive. (See entry about our jungle hike, where Erik nearly stepped on the same snake.) After much effort getting him into the canoe, we then picked up a woman and her daughter who had been in the boat we´d taken from Palacios to Raista - despite being vaste, the Moskitia is a tiny place. Finally, after getting gas, we finally set off up river. The going was slow, and Steve and I had to get out and help push the boat a few times when we became stuck in sand bars. The chairs became increasingly uncomfortable, but the scenery became more and more interesting, with the jungle getting taller and denser with each passing hour. We saw loads of turtles, herons, egrets and the ever-present vultures, as well as loads of tiny, colorful birds. We spied a toucan flying overhead at one point as well. Talor spent much of the trip up playing with the young girl, who was very, very cute.
In the end, with all the extra stops for passengers, the trip took a bit over 6 hours. We were so happy that we´d taken time to buy wide-brimmed hats for the trip, as the sun was powerful! We arrived at Las Marias late in the afternoon, and walked with our bags a good distance to the Hospedaje Dona Justa, where we found very basic accomodation: small, foam beds with mosquito nets, large buckets of water for bathing, outhouse toilets and no electricity. Apparently this was the nicest of the "hospedajes" in Las Marias.
It was getting dark, so we bought a few supplies for our jungle trek from a tiny shack down the dirt path from our new home, and then met Julio, the "sacaguia" - head guide, to plan our trip further upriver and through the jungle for the next two days. We arranged everything, and would need one guide and two boatman to take us further upriver (they use poles to propel the canoes upriver..) and do a deep-jungle trek the following day. We paid a fair sum, 1400 Lempiras ($80) for the two days. Dinner was simple - spaghetti and beans, but we were so tired that we didn´t care much. Eating in the dark takes away your appetite a bit. After that we finished repacking by candle light the things that we would take with us early the next morning, and then went to bed at the the late hour of 8:30pm.