Sun, Sea and Sandflies - A weekend well-spent in Tela

Taken on my phone: The picture perfect paradise of Punta Sal. 

For Thanksgiving weekend Maia and I decided to travel to the north coast of Honduras to Tela. This is a delightful little coastal town with plenty to do, lots too see and most importantly...lots of beach to laze around and sunbathe on. After spending a total of 6 hours on various buses trying to get to the destination we finally arrived at the town centre where we settled into a small backpackers hostel named Hotel Mango. In the morning we decided to visit Punta Sal. This is actually a national park in Honduras is definitely worth a visit. Situated on the western end of Tela it consists of a beautiful peninsula of lush forests and Caribbean beaches- An ideal place to spend our Thanksgiving holiday.

 

To get to Punta Sal we had to disembark on a small motorboat from the shore which took about 20 minutes. It was a rather bumpy ride to say the least but thoroughly amusing. The waves were a lot bigger than we were used to and we got very wet indeed. When we arrived at the beach we went on a small hike around Puerto Escondido (The Hidden Port) which was truly amazing. We got to see (and hear) Howler monkeys from all around the trees, as well as seeing many rare forest plants which the guide had shown us. The national park of Punta Sal is also home to the Garifuna community of Miami, which is one of the only two Garifuna communities left in Honduras (the other being Chachahuate at Cayos Cochinos) so we also got to learn a lot about the history and culture there. Unfortunately during the tour I had made the extremely wise decision to wear sandals so my feet were very red with ant bites by the end- I was very jealous of Maia in her walking boots! After doing the hike, and rinsing my sore feet off in the water, we boarded the boat again to head to the Puerto Caribe beach. This was the main attraction of the tour where you can settle down, be treated to the typical sea food lunches, swim and snorkel. There were only 8 of us so we had a whole stretch of beach to ourselves- it was so relaxing. We did lots of sunbathing, paddling in the sea and we also made the most of the hammocks hung up in the trees. The only slight problem was that despite bottling on loads of insect repellent we did get bitten through by mosquitoes and sandflies. The sandflies being particularly troublesome; they're so small that you often don't realise you've been bitten by them until the next morning- not the nicest surprise to wake up to!

A short rest after our very long bike ride

    The next day we also decided to have an early start and headed off to the gardens of Lancetilla, which is the second largest tropical botanical garden in the world. We thought that as we were in the area we might as well take a look and learn a new few things along the way. However getting to this Lancetilla garden was more difficult than expected. In an effort to be more fit and healthy, Maia and I decided that we would rent a bike and cycle to the gardens. As this was an option also mentioned in the guide books we thought this was a fairly sensible idea. In reality this short bike ride ended up taking a lot more time then expected. After cycling through various different streets and roads to get out of the town we were thrilled to see the gates to the gardens- A rest at last! But no... as soon as we arrived and brought the tickets we were told that the gardens were a further 4 kilometres away down from the forest track. However when we got there we were somewhat baffled by the entrance... There were no directions and no signs to follow. So having absolutely no idea where we were going we continued cycling along one of the many forest pathways. The only noticeably different tropical plant we saw on our travels were the bamboo plants. The stalks were the size of tree trunks and were at least as high as a two-storey building; we both had no idea bamboo could get that big. Venturing further and further into the forest we came up to an old bogged up lake and realised that we had probably arrived at a dead end- so reluctantly we had to retrace our tracks and cycle the painfully long journey back to the hotel. We're still not quite sure whether we did go completely the wrong way, or whether these rare botanical plants were just all around us and we didn't realise. Either way we did get a lot of exercise and we now know that bamboo is very big (which of course is a very useful life skill to know).

But despite getting lost in the world's second largest botanical garden and being bitten by an assortment of sand flies, red ants and mosquitoes we actually had an absolutely fantastic time. Our weekend in Tela was a truly incredible experience and we were both very sad for it to come to an end. Never in my life had I expected to go to a beach as isolated and as beautiful as Punta Sal. It will be a time to be treasured and remembered for years to come.