We ummed and ahhed about whether we should head the half hour out of La Ceiba or not to spend a couple of days by the Rio Cangrejal. It’s pricey. There’s only really one backpacker friendly accommodation and even that’s US$18.95 for a dorm bed, then once you’re there there’s no kitchen so unless you want to walk the twenty minutes to the nearest village you’re pretty much obliged to use the expensive restaurant. Fuck it. We’re on holiday. We booked ourselves into Jungle River Lodge and headed into the wilderness.

Pretty much as soon as the owner, Kathy, welcomed us to the lodge we knew we’d regret exactly zero things. It overlooks the river and the hills stretch up towards the sky. The view is absolutely gorgeous and not only that you can enjoy it from two holes in the granite that have been filled with fresh water that the sun has spent all day heating up. It’s luxury! Now we were back on the mainland we had the nightly storms too and one evening we sat in the pools as the rain battered down and lightning flashed around us. It was like nothing else.

But we weren’t here to sit in a pond in the middle of a thunder storm, that was just a happy bonus, we thought we’d do a bit of hiking and rafting. I had it in my little head that we’d take ourselves off for a lovely, chilled, unguided walk around the Pico Bonito National Park following a looped trail I’d downloaded, probably as baby deer and bluebirds followed us through the jungle as we broke out into song with perfect harmonies.

Fortunately the Fates stepped in and said, “No you fucking don’t, sunshine!” Turned out the popular, easy walk involving a suspension bridge was closed for two months for maintenance and the route you now had to take you definitely needed a guide for as you had to cross through the back of Jungle River Lodge’s property. Also, the rest of the loop beyond the big waterfall, it’s certainly not something we’d attempt ourselves, at least not without a lot of sitting down and crying.

Kathy arranged a guide for us and on our first full day Juan Carlos showed up to lead us to a couple of waterfalls. The first thing he did was give us a choice: Did we want to walk up the road to Los Lobos entrance and start the walk there at the proper trail like the sane people do? Or did we want to head straight to the river and walk over the rocks to the trail? He repeatedly stressed the presence of many rocks. The rocks were not in any way a secret. He described it as “rocky and difficult”.

For some reason my brain filed away the fact that I have the balance of a badger on ketamine into a box somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind and I found myself agreeing with Harrt, a South African chap who was also staying at the Lodge, that yes actually, the rough, difficult way sounded wonderful. Marvellous in fact. Apparently Tarrant forgot that her ankles weren’t too fond of ankling these days and also whole heartedly agreed that the rocks would be the best course of action. What the actual fuck just happened? At what point have I ever had the ability to maneuver my overweight carcass over rocks without chimp-walking?

And chimp-walk I did for most of it, bending right over to use my hands as balance in the absence of the perfectly good hiking poles I had in my backpack safely back at the lodge. This was going to be emotional and we weren’t even at the trail yet. We forded the river which came up to our thighs so that was nice and cooling then continued over many more rocks. My core muscles were most upset with the whole situation, all that bending and leaning because I didn’t trust my ability to stand unaided. Every molecule of Tarrant was most upset. I don’t think she was having a good time at all.

We did eventually join the lovely, normal trail that we’d have taken if we’d walked up the road, took a quick break, then it was an easy walk through the jungle. Little bit up, little bit down, nice, defined trail. Juan stopped frequently to point out various plants and vines some are used in medicine and he told us how to prepare them. To be fair I’ll probably still be sticking to the local pharmacy but there must be something to natural medicine or people wouldn’t keep using it.

He also showed us a termite nest, and how to get at the termites to eat them. Do not adjust your sets, I said eat them. He nibbled on a few, even Harrt had a go. I’m not putting insects anywhere near my facehole. He said you could kill them and smear them all over your skin as a natural mosquito repellent. I’ve heard this before, in the Amazon I think, so there must be something in that but I’m not covering myself with the corpses of ants whilst DEET exists in the world.

We were hot and dripping with sweat by the time we got to the first waterfall. Like, I don’t think I’ve drank enough water for this much sweat to be gushing from my face. Plunging into that water was the best thing ever, honestly, I could feel my blood cooling in my veins. We just chilled there for a while, Juan didn’t rush us at all, before we had to carry on up. And when I say up I mean literal climbing with your hands. Oh dear sweet fucking lord, what are we doing? This was very much way out of my comfort zone but fuck it, we were here now, no point in turning back and I really wanted to see if I could do it.

It was slow going but again, Juan insisted it should be. He’s a very good guide. I don’t have many photos of the climb because that would involve relinquishing the death-grip on whatever rock, root or branch that was stopping me from plummeting to my death. Okay, fine, I exaggerate very slightly for effect, I’m sure the whole thing wasn’t a vertical death trap but there genuinely was plenty of actual climbing before we got to the spectacularly tall Bejuco Waterfall. I gasped and clambered my way over rocks into the shade and plonked my arse down.

You can’t swim in this bad boy but it’s great to put in your eyeholes whilst you question all of your life choices. We rested for a while before another near-vertical climb took us to a proper trail and it was actually pretty easy from then on. This is what I thought the whole loop was like so it fucking shows what I know. We followed Juan down to where we left the official trail and detoured through the jungle back down to the river. I have never been so pleased to see a river before. We were brought out opposite Jungle River Lodge and we just swam over to the other side.

I’m so fucking glad circumstances with the bridge being closed forced us into taking a guide. Firstly there are so many ways you can go wrong. There are turnoffs not marked on maps and if you were coming from the bridge and wanting to head to Los Lobos entrance then you’d have a whole fuck tonne of terrifying descent to deal with. This is the way we would have done it if left to our own devices. Once we were past Bejuco Waterfall it felt very tourist friendly with information boards and a clear trail but honestly, if we’d have gone alone we’d probably have turned back and we wouldn’t have had the wonderful albeit really fucking challenging hike we did with Juan.

The next day we went rafting. Well actually it’s half canyoning, half rafting because the river isn’t high enough yet for a 100% rafting experience but that’s fine. Juan Carlos collected us at 9.30am and today it would be us and Harrt again, plus a Canadian called Micah who showed up yesterday. We were driven up river where we’d be starting the rafting but first we were going to follow the river upstream to do some jumps. Or watch mad bastards do some jumps in my case, even if jumping from height into water didn’t hurt my ears I’m a massive pussy and would absolutely not like to launch myself into the abyss, thank you very much.

What is it with canyoning guides and their obsession with spiders though? These huge fuckers live on the walls and in Somoto our guide insisted on showing us an absolute beast. Juan did the same, he plucked a giant off the wall and told us it wouldn’t hurt us but that’s not the fucking point, mate. It’s looking at me funny! Once he’d finished mauling it he chucked it into the river and it… actually it didn’t drown. It danced across the surface back to the safety of its wall like some manner of crazy Jesus spider. Okay that was actually quite cool but I was too busy trying not to be anywhere fucking near it to get a video.

It’s unsurprisingly bastard difficult getting upstream. At one point we had to swim from one side to the other but the current had very different ideas.
“You have to go fast or the river will take you,” Juan told us. “Turbo turbo turbo!!” He shouted as, one by one, we front crawled across the river. Well the others front crawled, I flailed like a maniac but it got me across despite the water’s best efforts. There’s a point where it very definitely has designs on keeping you forever though and you really have to go for it.

We really need to discuss the boulders around here though, they’re something else. Huge things made up of all kinds of different rocks. From a distance they look like white granite but when you look closely there are many colours. Apparently there used to be a volcano and the lava swept up many other rocks. Erosion has since revealed them and there are shells and everything embedded in there. Tarrant and I were quite happy just to gawp at them but the others wanted to jump off them so we waited at the bottom to take photos. Fair fucking play to them, they all jumped. Harrt even followed Juan up a genuine, technical rock climb to do a ridiculously high jump. He said afterwards that he really wasn’t happy with the climb and even slipped a couple of times but he did it. He’s a braver human than I am.

Getting back to the rafts was a piece of piss, the river did most of the work for us, then we were loaded into these small rafts which I’ve never seen before. Every other rafting trip I’ve been on has needed at least six humans plus a guide to maneuver them down a river but these were three to a raft; two tourists and a guide. We went with Juan, we thought he insisted on taking us as we were the weakest links, and the other two went with the other guide. I’m pretty glad we went with Juan though, the other chap was just that little bit too careful. If I thought Juan had slightly damaged the borders to my comfort zone yesterday, today he fucking bulldozed them and set the splintered remains on fire.

After we went through the instructions, how to drag someone back into the raft if they fall out, and what to do if the raft tips off we fucked down the Rio Cangrejal. The first rapid was a very fun Grade I. Well that’s changed my perception of what a Grade I was meant to be, I think I’ve been lied to and all the previous Grade I rapids I’ve done have been closer to Grade 0.3. The second rapid was a grade II but he did warn us that the raft was likely to tip left and Tarrant, who was sitting on the left, should lean right. I don’t think we were prepared for how far it would actually tip. Both of us were launched left, I landed on the floor and Tarrant fell into the water, the raft missing her by centimetres.

“Rescue! Rescue!” Juan shouted. I quickly jumped into action… at least in my head I jumped into action. By the time I’d gotten purchase on the smooth, wet raft to get up off the floor Juan had already pulled her back onto the raft. I probably resembled a panicked turtle as I flailed around, trying to get a grip as my beloved was nearly swept to her watery death. I think this is when the other guide erred on the side of caution and got Harrt and Micah to sit down for pretty much every rapid after that. Juan wouldn’t entertain any such shenanigans unless there was an actual drop involved and there were a couple.

At one point we had to get out of the raft so it could be hauled onto a rock. We got back into it and were pushed into the river like we were on a fucking roller coaster. It was insane but the watery way down was blocked by a large tree branch. At another point the other guide stopped and they got out. I think he was unsure about it as it was a bit of a waterfall with a fuck off great big rock in the middle. Juan was very sure about it, he steered us over it and yes, we were very much instructed to sit down for it so you know shit got real.

Guys, this is probably the shortest but the most fun rafting I’ve ever done. Once again my comfort zone was barely in view but it was so epic, so much fun. We don’t have any photos of us unfortunately, we do have plenty of the other guys as we were the ones taking the photos, but it was a great way to kill a couple of hours. When the river is higher they don’t bother with the canyoning at the start, they just do two hours of rafting. That’d be a lot of fun I think. The most we did today was, apparently, Grade III but when the rainy season has been underway for a while you’re looking at Grade IV.

So yeah. After the excesses of Roatan and the activity filled couple of days here on the river our budget is in pieces but it’s been utterly fucking fantastic. If you get a chance to come up here it’s so worth it. We’ve been pushing ourselves in the morning, chilling in the afternoon and socialising over dinner and then a few drinks in the evening. Jungle River Lodge is a lovely place to stay too. Absolutely recommended.

Jump to “Useful shit to know…”

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Rio Cangrejal, Atlántida, Honduras

Stayed at: Jungle River Lodge, nr. El Naranjo

Useful shit to know…

How To Get From Utila To Jungle River Lodge, Rio Cangrejal, By Public Transport

• Utila Dream run ferrys from Utila to La Ceiba at 7am and 3.20pm.
• We took the 7am. It cost L800 and took about 55 minutes.
• I thought you could take a bus all the way to Estación de Autobuses San Jose but you cannot. It drops you about 1.5 kilometres away at the Terminal de Buses around 15.784138, -86.792643.
• To catch it from the port just wait outside the little shop at 15.793192, -86.764207, about 95 metres from the port entrance.
• I forgot to check the time we got on but I think it took about 40 minutes.
• It cost L13 each.
• We just walked the last 1.5 kilometres and found the bus to Yaruca.
• There are only four buses a day to Yaruca at 10am, 12pm, 2pm and 4pm (only two on Sundays at 10am and 4pm) We easily made it in time for the 10am.
• Tell the ayudante where you want to get down if he doesn’t ask you and he’ll make sure you get off at the right place.
• It took 35 minutes to Jungle River Lodge and cost L30 each.
• Buses back into La Ceiba pass Jungle River Lodge at 6.55am, 7.55am, 9am and 12.45pm (only 7.55am and 12.45pm on Sundays) but they can be thirty or forty minutes late.

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• We booked our hiking and rafting guide through Jungle River Lodge and we’re sent off with the wonderful Juan Carlos.
• The hike cost US$25 each.
• We didn’t have to pay the US$10 entry fee as the trail was technically closed.
• We were out for about 4.5 hours which gave us time for a swim and plenty of breaks.
• The rafting cost US$35 each and we spent about two hours in or on the water.

• There’s no phone signal here but Jungle River Lodge has decent WiFi.