Friday afternoon at 3:00, Twana, Hannah, Tara, Christa, and I rode a school bus down the mountain, got in Lesly's 4-Runner, picked up Emily from her house, and set out one one last Honduran adventure for this crazy school year... We drove for about 4 or 5 hours, with seven people in the car, to Lago Yajoa, which is the largest (and possibly the only?) substantial lake in the country. We stayed at a hotel (cabin style)/restaurant/marina and enjoyed quality time in close quarters with all seven of us sleeping on bunk beds in one room.
The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel before setting out to go hiking at a local park. We took two different trails to creeks and waterfalls. (Sidenote: Honduras is NOT flat. Therefore hiking trails are NOT FLAT. I am not athletic enough for my friends... haha) Then we went back to the hotel to change, get our things, and check out before going to a place called Pulhapanzak.
Well, the Hondurans call it Pulhapanzak. I call it The Waterfall of Death.
We had heard that you could go swimming at the falls and you could even go on a guided tour behind them. In my mind, associating waterfalls with Noccalula Falls in Alabama, I thought we would possibly be following a neatly carved trail, hugging some sort of rock wall, and hanging out in a large cave behind the water. I was wrong.
For the grand price of $4, we took our lives into our own hands, and placed them in each other's hands as we clung to each other to climb over rocks and swim in various areas as water and mist rained down all around us and overwhelmed our senses. Have you ever considered how loud and windy it is in close proximity to a water fall? Let me tell you. It is.
As we got close to the falls, the guide told us that from that point on, we would need to keep our heads down and breath through our mouths because, with such a high concentration of water in the "air", we probably wouldn't be able to breathe through our noses. However, he forgot to tell us that even with your head down, you probably still wouldn't be able to see or keep your eyes open. That's right. A lot of that adventure was traveled with my eyes closed. I was definitely the wimp of the group, and I struggled the most. However, my friends were incredibly supportive and patient with me.
Twana once bungee-jumped over the Nile River in Uganda, and she said that parts of our waterfall experience were way scarier than that. But of course, this is Honduras... Did we have to sign a waiver? Nope. Did they even ask if we could swim??? NO. hahaha...
Lesly has a waterproof digital camera, so we have lots of documentation from our crazy, once-in-a-lifetime-for-me experience! I think the pictures make it look easier and safer than it actually was. After all, the scariest parts where we were being pounded by the falling water weren't really prime photo-ops... But here's a glimpse of what we did!
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