Nourish goes to Honduras

Monday to Saturday we’re in the office, in the mountains, and on the road working with FIPAH. But each Sunday someone takes us home to meet their family. This weekend Veronika, the twenty-something brilliant agriculture economist who Carolyn and I are living with, took us home to Marcala. After a lovely breakfast with Veronika’s parents, we decided to check out the local environment…

We stared down at the sixty meter drop. The cascades of the Chiflador roared and its spit filled the air. We wandered down a path that looked like it might lead us to the base of the waterfall. But twenty steps forward on this slice of a camino I slipped in a patch of mud and was soon hanging down the mountainside. I dug my fingers into the soil and roots in the path and climbed back up.

We kept on walking and the path seemed to be getting narrower and more slippery.  Suddenly I heard shouts from behind. I backtracked to find Veronika, Eduardo, Max and Carolyn all starring down the side of the cliff. Carolyn had taken off her backpack to slip under a pipe on the path. She lost her grip and the bag tumbled down the cliff. While we wanted to retrieve the sack, the path ahead had quickly become a choose-your-own-adventure rock climbing course. We stared down at a narrow, rocky crevice – the only way down. We decided to head back up and look for a friendlier descent. After a few dud trails we realized that we were going to have to jump back in the truck and look for a road into the base of the waterfall.  We drove down the mountain and pulled into the finca of one of Veronika’s friends.  It was a colorful adobe house surrounded by orange and grapefruit orchards and a few blooming coffee plants. At the finca, a beaming ten-year-old volunteered to guide us to the base of the waterfall.

The backpack was most likely stuck in a tree in a thick of vines, bushes and mud on an 80 degree incline on the side of an impressive waterfall. I had made peace with not seeing its zippers again. But Veronica, in the true FIPAH spirit, was not deterred by a little backcountry hiking.  

As we set out walking,  I expected a fifteen minute stroll along the riverside.  We  followed little Francisco, hopping from boulder to riverbank, through a canopy of banana leaves, stopping when our guide pointed out wild edible mushrooms or to taste a sweet, red, coffee bud.  We would watch Francisco nimbly scale a muddy hill and jump onto a boulder three times his height in the middle of the river in a matter of seconds.  I would follow with less grace and beginning to wonder about safety, risk management and the rest of UNC ‘s travel clinic suggestions . 

I was so entranced with the flora that I hadn’t been paying attention to how long we had been tarzaning through this equatorial jungle.  An hour must have passed before Francisco finally stopped and smiled and pointed to the glistening air above the river – spray from the waterfall ahead. We were getting closer.

I pulled myself up over the last hill, I wiped the sweat from my cheeks with muddy hands and looked up to an immense, roaring rush of water.  The sound alone was enough to send me tumbling backwards but I grabbed a tree and looked ahead. Francisco was already tip-toeing on fallen logs and rocks to make it to the other side of the falls.

Once Carolyn and I made it across, we knelt in a cave at the base of the falls and stared at each other in amazement. Carolyn’s arms were shivering and she shrugged, “I’m not really worried about the backpack, you know. Maybe we should head back.”  But our campaneros were already mapping our ascent. They pointed up the cliff of the waterfall – that’s where the backpack fell right? Let’s head there.  It was a steep incline covered in a thick layer of mud and big leafy green plants. For the first time there were no deep roots to grab on to and any rock that I grabbed was quickly released from the soil. I hugged the mountainside like a bear cub holds its mother and tried not to think about the impossible descent that would follow. Half way up the mountain there was a ledge of flatland. We stopped to evaluate. We stared at the base of that steep, rocky crevasse that earlier in the day had made us halt our course. This time however, we were at the bottom – not the top. The options were either to slide down the muddy cliff and surely land in boulders and rapids, an unknown path that would probably snake along the riverbank in the same risky way we’d come, or to go vertical. We chose up.

Well I’m alive today and blogging so our adventure had a happy ending. Thanks to Veronika for an incredible day off. This week we’re helping her carry out baseline research via farmer interviews for the climate change program. Hasta pronto!