Having been told there were buses that leave for Waspam early- and mid-morning, we started the day with a leisurely breakfast. Alfredo Felix, president of one of the diver syndicate or union. He attended the previous day's class so I asked him what he thought and whether the information was at all useful. His response was that he was very pleased with the course, that you have to start somewhere and that, in his 36 years of diving, this was the first time he'd heard the information presented.

Things change in Central America. The three daily buses to Waspam are now one daily bus and it left at 7AM and it's now 9AM. We're supposed to meet Bob and Mark (Alex has left for New York which we see, on CNN, has been shutdown by snow) in Puerto Lempira tomorrow.

Maybe, there's a flight from Puerto Lempira to Waspam and, maybe, they'll have seats available. We head to the airport and, as luck would have it, the twice weekly flights include one this day. They have seats and 3-4 hours to wait. The flight lounge is airconditioned and the airport is a long ways from anything else. I settle in the flight lounge for the long wait.

Problems with the Managua plane (something was leaking from the forward wheel well) seemed to have resulted in the Waspam plane being commandeered for the Managua passengers. We waited an extra hour for another plane to show up. Finally, we were off.

On the flight to Waspam, there were some Europeans we'd seen the past few days around Puerto Cabezas. On our afternoon arrival in Waspam, we learned the Europeans had some boats waiting for their trip upriver (they turned out to be some kind of "project" people). Juan, ever the shy, bashful type, asked the Italian leader of the group whether we might hitch a ride upriver to the border town of Leimus. They agreed, we got our spots on the powered, dugout canoe and began waiting to depart. This was good and bad. The good part is that boats normally only depart in the mornings and this good fortune would save us a day's travel to Puerto Lempira; we should be able to get there by nightfall. The bad part was that now everybody else at the docks wanted a ride up river (including some guys that wanted to transport, by canoe, a beatup refrigerator). That took some time to straighten out. In the end, we got to stay in our dugout canoe and were joined by half a dozen Moskito Indians. The Europeans hired two speed boats, instead, and promised to wait for us in Leimus so that we could ride with them to Puerto Lempira. It was a weak promise and, of course, we never saw them again.

The trip up the Rio Coco was a leisurely 2 to 2 1/2 hours. It was an enjoyable cruise until the last 30 minutes. In the heat and humidity of the Moskito Coast, drinking water is something you intentionally spend a lot of time doing. That morning, I had consumed a full gallon of water. Because we moved so quickly from Waspam's airport to the docks and onto the canoe, I hadn't had a chance to make any pit stops along the way. By the end of the upriver cruise, this became an issue of extreme discomfort and potential embarassment. I can report, however, that nothing blew and, after standing in an outhouse in Leimus for what seemed like an eternity, we moved on without incident. And I was, once again, enable to enjoy our surroundings.

In Leimus, a couple of 4WD vehicles were waiting. I don't know how that had been arranged but it ended up saving us from staying the night in Leimus. Just off the river, we came across a military checkpoint as a border crossing with an immigration shack off to one side. It was an interesting crossing. The Honduran military guards were surly and impatient as I rummaged through my bag showing them what was inside. With Juan nearby, the immigration official didn't get too greedy and only tagged me $L20 for a document that listed $L17 as the border crossing fee. Unfortunately, he didn't have change for my $L100 bill (about $6) and, so, benefitted by being paid $C20 Nicaraguan (about $1.40 instead of $1.20).

I was surprised by the pine forests surrounding Leimus. I hadn't quite expected pines. But that was the predominate feature of the landscape: a pine forest with very little undergrowth. It seemed almost like a well groomed park. Unfortunately, it was getting dark out and I wasn't able to capture any decent pictures.

The trip from Leimus to Puerto Lempira was 5 1/2 hours over a rough road riding in the back of a 4WD Toyoto pickup. Traveling mostly after dark and through periodic torrential downpours, we left Leimus at 5:30PM and arrived in Puerto Lempira around 11PM. The pine forests around Leimus slowly thinned the closer we got to Puerto Lempira; eventually, the land became like open savanna.

About 2 miles outside of Leimus, we came across a woman and two children encamped alongside the road. Rosa Zuniga de Cruz turned out to be a farmer's wife with goods going to market in Puerto Lempira and had been waiting along the road since mid-morning (the Europeans having refused her a ride an hour ahead of us). Our pickup truck, apparently being a regular ferrier of people and goods, was loaded with four or five gunny sacks of produce and the woman and kids climbed aboard. They waved goodbye to a man in a distant field and we were off.

Rosa turned out to quite the talker. The kids, Ryan and Alexander, were two of her twenty (all boy) grandchildren. She and her husband were raising those two while their parents (one each from a daughter and son) were finishing school in Tegucigalpa. Her son had one year to go before graduating with a law degree. She and her husband were putting their two children through school off the proceeds from their small farm (beans, rice, tomatoes, yuccas) on the Rio Coco and the financial assistance of their older six children (including a mechanic, medical assistant, secretary). It was pretty amazing to realize how much they were accomplishing with so little. She agreed that her life's work is pretty hard. They'd like to have a pickup truck to run their produce into town on their own. That would mean increasing their plantings and, for that, they would need financial assistance. With no source for farming loans locally, she wasn't hopeful they'd be able to improve their situation.

Things did quiet down after awhile and we pushed on through the night. The tolerance of such small children for the bouncing, lurching ride contrasted with the expectations of kids and adults back home.

We passed near one small community (a few dwellings with lights) and one slash-and-burn burn in progress. Other than that, the only sign of humanity was the glow of Puerto Lempira we began seeing a few hours before arriving. On the outskirts of Puerto Lempira, we had to pass through a national police checkpoint. After dropping off Rosa and kids, Juan and I checked into the Hotel Flores (the nicer ??? was full) and then went roaming for something to eat. We had a meal of the Moskito junk food (fried food, chicken in this case, served with shredded lettuce and vegetables like an open-face taco) bought from a street vendor. In the nearby bar/restaurant (restaurant closed) were a gathering of boisterous and quite drunk Americans.