Birthday weekend in Amapala

My birthday wish was to climb Amapala. It's an island to the south of Honduras that used to be a volcano and then used to be a port and capital of Honduras, but now it's a pretty lazy little island that we had visited a year and a half ago. So we returned to climb to the top - it is 2,500 feet up and when you get to the top you can see Honduras, El Salvador, & Nicaragua! 

Jenny, Miranda, and Santos joined Tristan, Sigel, and I for the weekend. We left Friday afternoon, getting to the island in the dark. We stayed at a hotel that fit the bill - cheap and clean  - on Donkey Beach. The hotel also had a restaurant so we ate our dinner on the roof of the restaurant, played some cards and called it an earlier night since we were getting up early to hike. Unfortunately a high school marching band was staying on our beach as well and they decided to party and practice until after 2am! :(

*this is the little hotel we stayed at - with the mountain we climbed behind it. *

We started at the base of the trail at 7am with full water bottles and PB&J's. It was already pretty hot at 7am (it's very muggy in the south!). It took us 2 1/4 hours to reach the top - we were soaking in sweat and stopped many times to catch our breath. It was much harder than I imagined it would be. Most of the trail was STRAIGHT up.  Sigel was the never ending bunny and led the way the whole time with a backpack on - and whenever we stopped to rest, he impatiently waited for us to get going again :). About when we all thought we were going to die from exhaustion, we made it to the top - and it was worth it! It was so neat to look out and see the 3 countries (although it was hazy we could still see it) all at once. We felt so accomplished and proud of ourselves as we sat there eating our PBJ's and chips staring down at the world. After an hour of recuperating and enjoying the view, we headed down -expecting it to go fast as it was down hill after all. Nope. Because it was straight up - it was straight down as well - which meant for slipping on the rocks which meant we went really slow. 2 hours later we were at the bottom - legs like jelly but hearts happy and smiles in place! We did it!!!!! 

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* Us at the top! / a very spiny tree that we saw a lot of during the hike - thankfully we didn't run into it!*

We spent the afternoon swimming and lazing around then headed in to where there was a 'carnival' in the center square. When we got there we were highly disappointed - it was just a huge party scene with hundreds of young men coming over from the main land for a night of partying. We ate dinner and quickly headed back to our hotel. The next morning we enjoyed a typical breakfast on the beach and then headed for home. 

*there was an awesome lightning storm that I captured on film!

My birthday wish came true :). Tristan was so nice to put it together for me and make sure it happened and wasn't just a wish. I've got the best husband!