It was over a hundred degrees in Copan Ruinas with stifling humidity, so why we decided to go to hot springs in the mountains is still a little bit of a mystery to me, but when you are traveling, hot springs always seem like a great idea. Its like getting offered a cold beer, you just can’t say no.
Luna Jaguar Hot Springs
We headed up the scenic dirt road that basically paralleled the Guatemalan border for about an hour to the beautiful and secluded Jaguar Hot Springs. It is hard to describe this place, it has thermal rivers that have been directed into about fifteen different pools in a Mayan themed jungle extravaganza tucked away on the side of a mountain. We arrived late in the afternoon and were the only guests. When it started to get dark one of the guys who worked at the hot springs brought about 100 candles and lit them up all over the hot springs. It felt like a scene from a honeymoon brochure, it also felt slightly awkward, but most of all if felt HOT. It might have been romantic if we were not both dying of heat exhaustion. I was wishing the thermal springs were running with ice water. It was still over a hundred degrees after dark. Brutal. But we had payed the steep entrance fee and were determined to get our moneys worth. We camped for the night at the hot springs and had the loudest jungle night of our trip. The cicadas and frogs were so loud even with ear plugs I could hardly sleep, but I will take loud jungle noise over trucks with squealing air brakes next to the road any day.
Jungle hot springs at its finest.
The massage platform and steam bath.
One of the pools had clay. Nighttime spa session in dark forest, check.
Did I ever think I would be sitting in the jungle in Honduras at night alone in a hot springs surrounded by candles? Not really. =) Trying to pretend my body temperature is not getting dangerously close to heat stroke. I also saw a huge owl, he came and sat on the tree above me!
Sam covered his entire body in clay, I secretly think he was channeling Arnold in the movie Predator, he was having way to much fun.
Each pool was a different temperature, we wished there were more cold ones.
These were the cheap pools, they had many frogs in them, I guess you get what you pay for.
Lake Yojoa
Lake Yojoa seems to be on the Honduras backpackers circuit, and they all seem to end up staying at D&D Brewery. We met some great people there from all over the world. We stopped by D&D and realized the only place to camp was in their very small parking lot surrounded by high walls. It was just not a great place for a XP sized rig and there was almost zero privacy and view. Instead we headed up to Finca El Paraiso about five minutes away to camp. This ended up being one of our favorite places to camp so far in Central America. Finca El Paraiso is a coffee farm with miles of established hiking trails through their property, ice cold rivers and pools of cold river water to swim in, a huge fire pit and large beautiful area to camp in. We had the entire place to ourselves and stayed longer than we had planned because it was so relaxing and beautiful. Also, we could go get great micro brews down the road at D&D and a wonderful strong cup of coffee for twenty five cents at the finca and cheap homemade breakfast!
The beer here was good, but even better was the bean and cheese fondue called Anafares with homemade tortillas to dip in it. YUM!
Hiking at the finca up a hill surrounded by coffee.
The river next to our camp spot where you could swim in the cool, clear water.
This pool was used in Lenca religious ceremonies.
The river at the finca with pools to swim in.
Finca flowers.
More pictures of me hiking, are you bored yet? It is just so pretty I can’t help but share them.
Our camp spot next to a pool filled with cold river water.
While we were here we went on a fun, challenging hike to the lake through small villages and dense jungle. The kids in Honduras are so adorable, they would run out of the house and scream “Hello” “How are you” in English and then burst into giggles when we passed. Everyone was so friendly that all anxiety about hiking on unestablished trails without a guide around the murder capital of the world just disappeared. I was glad we got to see more rural parts of Honduras and felt so safe and welcome. When we lost the hiking trail people would come out and point the way or let us cross through their cow pasture or banana plantation. My favorite part of Honduras was the people (well and the diving…) and I am glad we got to spend several days exploring the lovely area around Lake Yojoa.
These kids were so adorable, when Sam walked by they asked him to take their picture and then threw a deck of cards up in the air for drama.
We figured out our “trail” was really just walking paths through banana plantations. It was a good way to work off all the D&D beer.
This is our hiking “trail”. I remember not too long ago in Belize when I swore off jungle hikes, I have a short memory……We totally wished we brought our machete on this hike, it would have been helpful.
It was so crazy hot, it took about an hour in the river at the finca to cool down after the hike.