Honduras – It’s nothing like Oxford!

The first thing I noticed about Honduras is the humidity. It’s nothing like Oxford!

Then it’s the views.

The scenery is simply stunning. Even on the drive up to base camp, there are so many views looking into the rainforest or down into a valley. With beautiful weather, how could you not fall in love with the place?

Photo by Blake Roberts

The first major thing that I did was a 4 hour hike up to jungle training. It was fun getting to know people, going to see the dwarf forest and being able to see hummingbirds and having snacks round our very smoky campfire and being told local legends by our guides. Once back, I went on plenty of walks to study herps, insects, fungi and much more.

My personal favourites were the bird netting, fungi transects and light traps. All of which are newfound favourites for me!

It was nice in the evenings when you could just relax and rest after a hard day’s walking. One day we had a special trip down to Doña Martina’s coffee shop in Buenos Aires, even though I don’t really like coffee I enjoyed seeing how she makes it by hand and even being able to help her.

Photo by Martin Suanjak

Then in Guanales satellite camp, I could choose what to do and when. Here I really enjoyed doing the fungi and bird netting, both of which were undiscovered gems for me! Showering in the waterfall was awesome and seeing the new transects was cool too. I caught lots of hummingbirds, saw lots of snakes and lizards. The termites and the rain every night were less fun though.

Overall,I’ve done nearly 200k steps, seen so many animals that I’d have never seen in the wild otherwise, been bitten by mosquitoes so many times and made some good friends along the way. Despite the humidity, the sheer amount of walking and the mosquitoes, I loved every moment of it!

Title photo by Megan Frain