Broke Down In the Jungle

Stuck in the middle of the jungle with a broken 33 year old truck, all we could do is laugh at our ridiculous situation...

We finally made our way from the comforts of Struth, La Ceiba and our gracious hosts at the Jungle River on the Rio Cangrejal and headed towards Gracias. We did everything we thought appropriate, studied the map, decided on our route, filled the gas tank and double strapped all our boats and bags... Unfortunately this wasn´t enough. We were about halfway between La Ceiba and nowhere and the story goes something like this - Robin was getting into her new four wheeling in the third world skills and Laura and Jessie couldn´t have been more encouraging. We made our way down some mountain gravel roads with proud gradient when the road abruptly went into the river. Laura and Jessie went to scout but instead only found an old toothless naked man with a machete and some fish on a stick. So we then ran back to Robin and told her to get turned around pronto. But the truck was really, really stuck. So we giggled and video taped in case our families needed the closure of actually seeing our deaths on Robin´s new camera. Luckily our machete-wielding local man was friendly and probably thought we were crazy. Plus Laura took ownership of our machete and swore she could take him. We ended up getting turned around but by this time the truck was smoking with a vengeance and it was about pitch black outside. So I guess that is how we got our first camp spot in the jungle...
Robin set up her hammock and Laura and Jessie shared Laura´s one-man tent and to quote her journal entry, it was ´tight and hot´. Morning came with lots of locals on horseback trotting through... Laura and I went to get antifreeze, aka agua de radiatore. We had some interesting experiences hitch hiking through rural Honduras but we finally did get the truck working, made it back to the main road and a town where we proceeded to burn through our fan belt. Finally AFTER that was fixed, we began our journey, on only major roads, to Gracias. Our new route had us driving about 4 hours out of the way. Perfect. So now we are finally, at 10 pm the next night, close to our destination - the elusive town of Gracias, Honduras. We miss you Katie and Stacie - we wish you could be here with us!!!! Love Jessie Robin and Laura