Sep 19 Th
Parque National La Tigra
La Tigra is one of the most beautiful places in Honduras, preserving
a lush cloud forest.
The forest is located just outside the small town of San Juancito,
north of Tegucigalpa, the country's capital.
The road leading from Tegucigalpa to San Juancito is rough and
curved.
The road leading from San Juancito to the park is even worse, actually
the worst we have seen on the whole tour.
It is an uphill climb on a gravel road with very curved bends and
a steepness of up to 40 degrees at some points.
Climbing this with a trailer attached required some patience and
carefull driving, wishing that we had brought our kidney belts.
Not need to mention that the LandCruiser did the job to perfection.
In Honduras, 70 % of all cars on the roads are Toyota's, Nissan,
Mitsubishi and Izusu accounts for the rest.
No one here drives Land Rover , Jeep or American 4 WD's.
The roads are often awfull and only Japanese 4WD's are able to
cope with the wear and tear.
A look from the cloud forest.
Today was not a real cloudy day, and hence it was actually possible
to see where you were going on the trails.
Few trees grow in the cloud forest due to the specific climate,
but what makes the forest interesting is the amount of other plants and
flowers growing ont the trees.
Orchids, Bromeliada and other flowering plants get their nutrition
from the trees.
Unfortunatly the Orchid flowering period was past and we had to
settle with the humid and Misty forest.
One of the impressive flowers growing in the forest.
We were charged 160 Lempira's (10 US$) per person to enter
the park.
While doing the paperwork, Bettina noticed that local people visiting
the park only had to pay 15 Lempira's for the entry.
Gringo pricing at it's worst !!!. But it seems to be going on all
over Central America.
After having spent a few hours in the "clouds", we continued towards
the Nicaraguan border at Las Manos.
Since the border crossing was only open between 8 AM and 5 PM we
agreed that we would stay over in Danli, North of the Nicaraguan border,
and then do the crossing early in the morning.
We found a nice hotel in Danli, recently buildt and with good parking
facilities.
Here in Central America, it is wise to make sure that your vehicle
is well guarded at night, or left in a busy space for the night
Especially at this hotel, the armed security guard was a nightmare.
He was constantly running around checking the room, the TV set,
the bathroom, the location of the vehicle, the paperwork, the keys to the
room and so on....
He really took his job seriously, too seriously !!!.