For those who might want to follow or might be contemplating a trip to remote regions of Central America, I offer some insights gained during my travels. Take these as travel tips and use them as you see fit.
- Slowing Down
Stepping into the third and fourth worlds from my first world home in northern California is to experience the social equivalent of an abrubt, almost instantaneous, deceleration in living and living standards. It's like an amplified version of stepping off a fast moving airport walkway. Things really do slow down and simplify. How much pain and discomfort this causes depends on your ability to adapt.
Take, for example, where you chose to stay. I found that my expectations of accomodations are pretty much calibrated by what I'm used to back home. When I go somewhere, I unconsciously expect to stay in accomodations approximately as nice as where I live. And, when traveling in tourist-visited third world areas, it's quite possible to find such accommodations; you just have to be willing to pay for them.
Once you leave the tourist paths, available accomodations meet the needs and expectations of their local customers. Those local customers have much less "refined" and "comfortable" daily living conditions than we're used to and the local hotels and hostels reflect that. What is a very nice place to stay in Puerto Lempira, for example, would probably be considered uninhabitable by most American's standards. That is, until that American has recalibrated their expectations. I surprised myself by what I found to be comfortable after just a few days traveling in Nicaragua. As long as it was reasonably secure and the place didn't look bed-buggy, I was fine to crash there. In the end, I found the experience to be a refreshing change from the sanitized, shrink-wrapped world back home. YMMV!
- Dangers
Dangers traveling the Moskito Coast region were a concern before and during the trip. I never felt in any danger but I was aware enough of the area's circumstances to know that danger was there to stumble over if I did something stupid.
There are two ways to earn a good living on the Moskito Coast: diving for lobster or running drugs. Because of the drug running, drugs and drug use are a problem on the Moskito Coast, especially with younger males. Because drug use if frowned on by society, it's practiced in remote locations away from daily life. Taken to its reasonable conclusion: you don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're alone and cross paths with a group of doped-up boys or men. In my guide book for Puerto Cabezas, for example, there's a description of the nicest beach in the area. The fact that it's located away from town should be taken as a tip off; I was advised that particular beach can be very dangerous even during the day.
A second danger is the use of glue by young boys in the community. The affects of glue sniffing include volatile and aggressive behaviour (e.g., rock throwing) when these kids take offense. Though I did not witness any serious violence, I was warned by locals of this problem and, as a result, spotted and side stepped some bad situtations on a few occasions.
As in any urban environment, looking like you know what you're doing and where you're going is good behaviour for preempting a situation from turning bad. If you need to stop and look at a map, do it away from public places unless you're looking to advertise your clueless and vulnerable tourist status. - Tourists
On Big Corn Island, we did see a dozen or so backpacking tourists heading to Little Corn Island that, I understand, has some nice attractions (eco-lodge accommodations and a dive operation). Other than Little Corn Island and Honduras' Rio Platano preserve, the Moskito Coast sees virtually no tourists. The anglos that do visit La Mosquitia are almost strictly limited to "project" people representing mostly European, Japanese and Chinese agencies (these people are known locally as the "six-year studies people"). The only Americans I encountered were humanitarian assistance projects (International Health Service and a group from an Idaho Rotary Club checking on their microbank projects). - Food
Ironically, some safe and common foods in La Mosquitia are the least politically correct:: lobster, prawns and sea turtle. If you bother to look into the local situation you'll find that political correctness isn't appropriate. Still, I had problems ordering lobster not knowing if the guy who got it was paralyzed or dead.
STAY AWAY FROM PORK! This was a warning I heard applies throughout Central America. Why? Pigs are allowed to freely roam around communities. They serve a role in disposing of sewage and garbage. Not surprisingly, they harbor some really nasty diseases easily transmittable to humans. Don't eat the pork. - Water
Potable water must be purchased wherever you're traveling in Central America. It's widely available in all urban areas and at every shop in the remotest regions I saw. Basically, carbonated sodas (Coke) have made their way into every nook and cranny of even the remotest locations. Where you find sodas, you can buy bottled water.
When traveling, we bought gallons of purified water to carry along. This was the cheapest approach and insured that we'd have water when and where we needed it.
Don't expect the purified water to be Evian; what I bought in Puerto Cabezas had a distinctly cholorine bouquet. - Internet Access
In Managua, internet cafes are abundant and cheap. I paid $C22/hour ($1.50/hour) for a fast connection that was mostly reliable.
On Big Corn Island, I saw no internet facilities.
In Puerto Cabezas, there was one internet facility (2nd floor of the building with satellite antennas near Cortijo I) that was not marked as such. I'm told it's a pretty good connection, normally, but we'd suffered blackouts and brownouts over the weekend. When I tried to use it on Monday, there were no functioning lines. That remained the situation for the entire day.
In La Ceiba, there was a busy internet cafe just off the town plaza with coffee and ice cream vending next to the computers. Again, the cost was quite reasonable at $L30 per hour ($1.75/hour).
In Roatan's West End, internet access is very easy to find. That's probably because the going rate for internet time is such a cash cow: $L4 per minute or $L240 per hour ($15.00/hour). When I needed change for a $L500 bill (about $30), the only business in town that could crack it was one of the internet cafes. - What Do You Carry
For this trip, we each had a backpack or rucksack plus a small shoulder bag. The shoulder bag contained essentials we didn't want to give up when we made short day trips or had our baggage checked in with the airlines.
For clothes, we mostly relied on long sleeve shirts and long legged pants. I bought a couple of nylon/cotton shirts plus nylon material pants at REI that worked out really well. All of these garments have pockets galore and their material makes them very quick drying. It turned out that I could have gotten along with 1/2 or 1/3 of the clothes I packed because I was able to wash the clothes I was wearing on an almost daily basis. If I had it to do over again, my clothing list would be limited to:
Anything else is optional; I took quite a few optional things and barely used any of them. Watch out for all cotton items. They take forever (okay, maybe just a few days) to dry in the humid environment so plan accordingly.- 1 pair of blue jeans
- 2 nylon shirts
- 1 long pair of the nylon pants
- 2 pair backpacker's liner socks
- 1 Speedo swim suit
- 1 pair of cotton shorts
- hiking boots
- 1 T shirt
- wide brim hat
- cotton bandana
- changes of underwear
Other things I would carry again include:- toilet paper (you can buy it locally but there's no guarantee you'll find any or enough in your hotel room or at any public facilities)
- small bottle of Castille soap for personal and laundry use
- flashlight (a small flashlight in checked baggage passes muster no problem; larger flash lights can require that they be dug out of the luggage an closely inspected)
- sunscreen
- chapstick
- compass
- loud whistle
- water purification tablets (in case we ended up where bottled water was unavailable)
- premoistened, antibotic hand wipes (useful, for example, when you need to use your fingers to eat something from a street vendor)
- canteen for day trip use
- anti-fungal foot/jock powder
- first aid kit
- leatherman style knife/tool (checked baggage)
- anti-diarriah medication (Lomotil)
- antibotics (Cipro was recommended by my doctor)
- poncho
- mosquito net
- 20% to 35% DEET bug repellant (stronger doesn't work any better but is pretty toxic to the user)
- mosquito coils (to burn in sleeping areas before retiring for the night)
- garbage bags and zip-lock bags for waterproof stowing (the freezer ziplocks work best)
- headlamp LED flashlight (for emergency use plus using at night when bedding down or reading)
- earplugs
Last Modified: March 6, 2003
© 2003 Rocky Daniels
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