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Inn Keeping a Wonderful Way of Meeting Interesting People!

I recently had a friend ask if I could write a post for a page he manages. After I sent it to him he thanked me and asked how I wanted the credit, proposing that It should have my name and refer to my ex job, editor at Honduras tips. Although my activity at Honduras tips was a lot of fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, I felt that the credit should refer to my current activity, which is innkeeper at La Villa de Soledad B&B.

He objected, “an innkeeper is like the guy in charge of the hostel” he said… You should refer to something more important… he suggested. He kind of felt that presenting myself as the innkeeper was not up to my standards. Well, I actually love my activity as innkeeper. I get to play host and meet many different people. Each one falls upon us for different reasons. Some want to get away from it all. Others want to be as close to nature as possible. Some come from as near as La Ceiba, others from as far as New Zealand and Australia! I actually really enjoy the pleasures of inn keeping, why shouldn’t I be proud of it?

Recently a young couple drove up our road in their fully equipped 4X4 SUV. They had California plates, and were looking for a place to camp. After raving about the grounds and location at La Villa de Soledad, they asked if we would allow them to camp there. Usually, I would have said no, but they looked so friendly, and raved about our property. So we quickly agreed to the terms.

An Interesting and Talented Young Couple Visits Us!

As we talked, I learned that their names where Ashwin and Olivia. They were following a dream to travel from California all the way to the Argentine Patagonia! Of course, they still have a lot of road to carry. Ash, as Olivia called him, is a great photographer, and we quickly came to terms of a barter deal. They could spend a couple of nights at our place. In return we would get a video produced about our bed and breakfast. Certainly a win – win deal for both parties.  You can see the video he produced for us here: I’m sure you’ll love it!

One of the pleasures of inn keeping is that from time to time, you will meet someone who shares his dreams with you. Sometimes they are dreams that you can relate to, others they are far from your dreams. One way or another, it is always educating when a person is willing to share his dreams with you. Ashwin and Olivia did just that! I put it my five cents to try to make their dream perfect, suggesting a couple of places that I thought they would love to visit, both in Honduras and Nicaragua.

Being a Travel Writer is a Perfect Match with Inn Keeping

You see, in addition to being an inn keeper together with my wife Soledad at La Villa de Soledad, I am also a travel writer and blogger. I have a travel blog about Honduras that I started recently. I am having a lot of fun putting it together and hope that it will be useful to many different travelers to Honduras. You can visit my Honduras travel blog at www.hondurastravel.com. I also have a travel Nicaragua travel information page that I am in process of turning into a blog. You can visit that one at www.nicatips.com.

Living in Central America has been a great experience. I absolutely love it! If you come out way towards the city of La Ceiba, please consider visiting our bed and breakfast located on the Cangrejal River Valley in La Ceiba. Soledad and I would love to share our little piece of paradise with you, and we would be honored if you are willing to spend some time in our lovely inn: La Villa de Soledad.

Hope to see you soon! Feel free to send us an email and contact us for information regarding our “neck of the woods”!

Remembering Hurricane Mitch, 17 years ago…

17 years ago today, on October 25, 1998, I was in the Port of Omoa, visiting clients and looking to collect money from adds in the Honduras tips magazine, which I owned and managed back then. The weather was unsettled, with torrential rains coming down on a regular basis. My first stop was at the Acantilados del Caribe Hotel, where I stopped briefly and had a chance to chat with Gustavo Enrique Ustariz (Tavoquike) the son of the owner, who had just returned to Honduras after studying tourism in the USA. His dream:  to take on and grow the family business. He expressed concerns about  Hurricane Mitch, which by then was already a major hurricane churning well off the coast of Nicaragua and heading North. The National Hurricane Center predicted that the storm would follow the coast of Honduras, about 100 miles North of the Bay Islands and would impact the Yucatan Peninsula, somewhere south of Cozumel Island. I was on a much more confident note, considering the forecast that the NHC, the “hurricane experts” where issuing!

Personally I considered myself an expert with hurricanes, as I had ridden out Hurricane Gilbert 10 years earlier in Cancun, when it struck the Yucatan Peninsula just south of Cancun on September 13, 1988. After my chat with Tavoquike, I continued my tour to the town of Omoa. There, Is stopped by to visit an old Swiss, who was an institution in town, and had a famous restaurant there called “El Botin del Suizo”  which would translate into something like “The Swiss’ Bounty”. Ulrich, who has since passed away,  was also concerned with the storm. After a short chat, and it being evident that with no clients in the beach side restaurant due to the heavy downpours, I was not going to make any collections, I went ahead and took advantage of a short break in the rain to get our baby, Juan Diego back in the car and continue our journey. I decided to make a last stop at the “Rio Coto” in Omoa restaurant. As I walked in, I was hurriedly welcome by Carlos Arita, the owner, who was extremely busy due to the fact that he had a full restaurant. You see, the MV Fantome, a lovely four masted cruise ship owned by barefoot cruises was in port, and their operating base was the Rio Coto restaurant right on the bay. There were 80 somewhat cruise ship passengers waiting under the thatched palm roof of the restaurant for a break in the weather to be transferred out to the luxury yacht that was anchored in the Bay of Omoa.  While Carlos was indeed doing business, selling beer and drinks to all the cruise ship passengers who were getting antsy to board the vessel, it was clear that Carlos’ priority was to take care of business, not settle bills, and considering that the rain was not letting go, I decided to get in my car and drive back home to San Pedro Sula, some 50 miles away, before it got dark and I would get stuck driving in the rain at night. Despite the heavy downpour, I had absolutely no idea of what Hurricane Mitch had in store for Honduras…

An unlikely association of two historical events in modern US History, JFK’s assassination and 9-11 are not part of a conspiracy theory but rather two catastrophic events the many citizens worldwide remember vividly.

About 25 years ago, I happened to be in New York City on November 22^nd. I was there to visit two important clients that had their offices near the city: Travel Impressions and Gogo Tours. One was located in Farmingdale, New York, the other in Ramsey, New Jersey. After by business meetings I was attending a travel trade show by Travel Impressions in Newark and then traveling on to Heathrow to the World Travel Mart. As any regular nut born in Mexico City, the idea of renting a car and driving across Manhattan was not the least bit intimidating, so upon arrival in JFK I proceeded to go the Budget Rent a Car office and rented myself a car to get myself around the Big Apple. After spending the night at one of the airport hotels in Newark, I was to drive across the Hudson and into Manhattan and on to JFK. It turns out that I was late departing and got stuck in the rush hour traffic. As the time passed I started to get nervous about missing my plane, and so I turned on the radio to try to distract myself and lower the stress. It turns out that every single radio station in New York City was talking about JFK’s assassination, and people were calling in to share their impressions, and what they were doing on that fatidic date. Since I was born in 1958, and am a Mexican Citizen, I can honestly not recall the incident, I was only 5 years old at the time this historic murder, but I was certainly amazed at how people recalled exactly what they were doing, where they were and who they were with when they got news of this terrible event.

14 years ago, on September 11, I was on the island of Roatan visiting clients and selling ads for my magazine, Honduras Tips. I walked into the local Remax office, located at Bormac Plaza, at the entrance to French Harbour. Internet service was still a novelty in Honduras, and getting access to your email was not easy, but Remax had an internet café in their facilities, and I needed to check my email and at the same time visit my client, Remax. As I walked into the office I was greeted with several employees who had a look of grief on their faces: “An airplane just crashed into the World Trade Center” in New York City!” they blurted out to me…

My first reaction was that it must have been a small airplane, with a pilot that did not have much experience or had just had a stroke. As it turned out, I was not able to check my email, the internet service had collapsed as everyone around the world was trying to get up to date news. As the day continued, I would get bits of information here and there. At one point, when visiting Sandy Bay Rent a Car, in Sandy Bay, I ended up sitting in the living room with David, the owner, both of us dumfounded watching the news. What a stressful day it ended up being!

JFK’s assassination and 9-11 are two events that surely all United States citizens can not only recall, but actually remember where they heard the news and who they were with. Of course for some reason we all tend to remember more about the bad things than the good. For example, I do not remember where I was or who I was with when the Berlin Wall fell, I do remember watching man land on the moon in the TV room with my parents, in a black and white TV, feeling that for sure, by the time I had kids, flying saucers like the one in “Lost in Space” would be a reality.

I truly hope that mankind can get their act together and that we can avoid more catastrophic events like that of JFK’s assassination and 9-11. Unfortunately, as I write this, there are many migrants and refugees throughout the World, who are probably living an event that they will mark them for the rest of their lives…

Things to do in the Cangrejal River:

Despite the fact that the Cangrejal River Valley is a relatively small area, there are truly many things to in the Cangrejal River and surrounding areas! Best of all, most of the things to do in the Cangrejal River are actually within walking distance between them and the small hotels and inns that are within the area.

Without doubt, the hotel in the Cangrejal River that is most centrally located to have access to all the things to do in the Cangrejal River is La Villa de Soledad B&B. A lovely boutique eco jungle lodge with a magnificent sense of place that will make your stay there a memory that you will always cherish!

Perhaps the number one of things to do in the Cangrejal River is white water rafting. There are currently three different outfitters in the Cangrejal River Valley that provide this service, and they all have trained guides that are either certified river guides or in the process of becoming certified river guides. For information check out www.omegatours.info and www.lamoskitia.hn . The put in for all of the tour operators into the river is located only 500 meters (1/3) of a mile from La Villa de Soledad!

The second most popular on the list of things to do in the Cangrejal River is hiking in the tropical rain forests of Pico Bonito National Park as well as Nombre de Dios National Park.  The main access to the trails in Pico Bonito National Park within the Cangrejal River Valley are located only 200 meters from La Villa de Soledad, via a magnificent 120 meter, (400 foot long suspension bridge over the Cangrejal River.

A third, very popular activity that ranks high in the things to do in the Cangrejal River is a zip line canopy tour. Jungle River Tours has a set of 9 cables that cross over the Cangrejal River to bring you to a trail from where you will reach the second zip line cable that will zig zag you through the forest canopy and literally give you a birds eye view of the jungle. The facility is located 800 meters (1/2 a mile) from La Villa de Soledad B&B truly a short 5 minute walk! For more information on the zip line canopy tour, visit www.jungleriverlodge.com.

Another one of the most popular things to do in the Cangrejal River is birdwatching. There are many different species of tropical birds in the area, many are truly beautiful, such as the keel billed toucan, collared aracari and the turquoise browsed motmot. Not being an avid bird watcher, I can not go on with the list of birds to see in the Cangrejal River area, but is suffices me to say that there are good nature guides that are good birdwatchers and that there are many species of birds in the jungle!

For the lovers of horseback riding, this is another one of the top things to do in the Cangrejal River Valley. Omega tours has some very nice horses, well fed, and taken care of, that are a pleasure to ride. They offer a half day tour up the community trails and have a picnic lunch next a lovely crystal clear creek that will be hard to resist after a few hours in the hot sun. Omega Tours headquarters is located only ½ a mile from La Villa de Soledad, so is a short 10 minute hike to where the tour starts!

One of newest option to the things to do in the Cangrejal River is canyoning and rappelling down waterfalls. This is about a 4 hour trip that requires advance notice to set up, usually a day ahead of time. The tour will bring you deep into the jungles of Nombre de Dios National Park, to a set a truly beautiful falls, which you will descend using a rope and professional harness equipment. A fantastic experience that is not for the faint of heart! This tour commences about 3 km down the road from La Villa de Soledad, so it is about a 25 minute walk from La Villa de Soledad.

Mountain biking is another activity that can be added to the things to do in the Cangrejal River Valley. You can rent a mountain bike at Omega Tours and go off to explore the road up to the different communities get magnificent view of the Cangrejal River and explore trails in the area.

As you can see, there are many different things to do in the Cangrejal River that are all great outdoor activities. You can easily spend 3 or 4 nights in the area and enjoy different activities each day, each providing unique experiences.

There is one last activity to add to our list of things to do in the Cangrejal River: simply relax in nature. This is our slogan, and we invite you to come, choose a hammock from the many we have set up in our grounds, and simple relax, read your book, catch up with yourself and enjoy the sounds of nature…

Normally, when you think of the Caribbean, you immediately imagine diving, snorkeling, idyllic white sand beaches, luxury hotels, … However, wouldn’t it be ideal if you could add in some nice, World Class white water rafting in the Caribbean?

Yes in general, the problem is that the Caribbean is formed by islands, and most of these are way to small to have enough mountains to produce a river with enough water for some decent rafting. Many other islands, not only do not have mountains, but are also way to dry, such is the case for example of Aruba or the Cayman Islands. So as you can see, if you are interested in white water rafting in the Caribbean, you basically have two large sets of options, you either go to the larger Antilles: Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Jamaica; or you come to Central America, whose Caribbean Coast includes the countries of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

The larger Antilles offer some limited options, Cuba has a couple of Rivers that could be rafted, but there are no real rafting outfitters that provide services regularly, Hispaniola only has one river in the Dominican Republic side of the island (Haiti does not have any good white water rivers to raft in), Puerto Rico and Jamaica both offer some fun, but unchallenging river rafting, usually short trips and in the more remote parts of the islands. So if you are a serious rafter or white water kayaker, the Caribbean does not really provide worthwhile options.

White Water rafting in the Caribbean Coast of Central America is much more attractive. Although Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua do not have much to offer, Honduras offers outstanding options, without doubt the best white water rafting in the Caribbean! Just minutes outside the Caribbean port city of La Ceiba, which is the gateway to the Bay Islands of Honduras, you will find the Cangrejal River, a spectacular white water river that spans a total of 32 kilometers, and offers anything between Class II and Class V rapids, depending on the section you want to run! The River is natural border between two different National Parks, Nombre de Dios and Pico Bonito. Best of all, there are three different rafting outfitters that offer services on a regular basis on the river, which means that you do not need to be part of a large group to purchase the tour and enjoy the activity! Even better is the fact that there are several really nice lodges in the area, some of which provide a magnificent rafting and kayakers atmosphere, where you will meet other serious white water fans like yourself! Best of all is the fact that the in Honduras, you really can combine white water rafting with the Caribbean! The Islands of Utila and Roatan are only between one and one a half hours away from La La Ceiba. Twice a day service between each of these islands and La Ceiba, as well as daily air service between them makes it very easy to do anything from a one day trip to a multiday adventure enjoying the rainforests of Pico Bonito and Nombre de Dios National Parks. For more information on rafting in the Cangrejal River, visit www.omegatours.info, www.lamoskitia.hn and www.jungleriver.com

Without doubt, the best white water rafting in the Caribbean is to be found in the Caribbean Coast of Honduras, in the city of La Ceiba.

Costa Rica has a couple of good white water rivers on the Caribbean, the Pacuare and the Reventazon rivers both offer outstanding white water and great outfitters, however, there is no real connection with the Caribbean experience within Costa Rica.

So… if you are looking for some outstanding white water rafting in the Caribbean, look no further!, visit La Ceiba, located on the Caribbean Coast of Honduras and visit the Cangrejal River for an awesome experience!