HHK Rio Cangrejal Trek aka Kid's Playday Picnic

It seemed like a good idea at the time….

I was invited to join the HHK volunteers from San Deigo, the kids from the Hogar and a few other folks to go out the Rio Cangrejal and take the kids for a play day picnic on April 3rd. Okay, that sounded like it would be great fun to get out of the city, hang out with happy kids, go for a walk and play in the river. No problems, right? Hah!

We met up at the Hogar in La Ceiba and when the bus full of volunteers finally arrived, the kids from the orphanage couldn’t wait for them to get off the bus! Happy little kids, lunging with open arms for “their” volunteer and a mass hug alarm/attack ensued – what a great way to start the day….

Everyone got sorted out, settled in and extra food, clothes and water were packed into the passenger bus and the two other vehicles we were using for the day; three more volunteers were picked up in town and away we went.

It was a gorgeous day, lovely sunny bright weather and our caravan slowly made its way up the Rio Cangrejal dirt road. This used to be the main supply road for Dole in the days when they shipped product out of La Ceiba by boat and the road certainly hasn’t improved much since those days. Wash outs, ruts, washboard, narrow and twisty and a steady uphill haul past various tiny communities until we finally made it to our mustering place.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

That’s when we were informed that we would be going down an extremely steep hillside, on a very narrow single track, to reach the river. Folks loaded gear, adjusted packs and rounded up “their” kid and away we went single file. At one point, we had to cram over to the sides of the trail as two men and horses were coming up hill, carrying metal cans of milk.

The Rio Cangrejal is a stunning sight and I thought would have made a perfect picnic site, but that’s not what was planned for us. We started across the river, with water up to our (adult) knees in the first crossing and that’s when I realized that this could get complicated, as the current was pretty strong. Volunteers grabbed kids, carrying the smallest ones, floating the bigger ones with life jackets and struggled across the second section that reached our waists! We thought we had lost the woman from Italy, as her thongs got away and she went tumbling into the fast water and finally popped up like a cork before smashing into the bigger rocks down river. Too much excitement for this woman and I was very grateful for my escort, Luis from Europe, a delightful, tall and strong young man!

Once we had crossed the river, done the head count to ensure we had everyone we started out with and calmed our pounding hearts, (at least in my case!) David told us that we now had a brief 20 minute walk to get to our picnic spot. With the river behind us and the mountain in front of us, it was too late to turn back so off we went seemingly straight uphill. Those little kids put all of us healthy adults to absolute shame! That’s when I started to refer to them as “mountain monkeys” – scrambling, giggling, grinning merrily as they bounded up the mountain side and bounced along the jungle trail, eagerly looking forward to their picnic while some of us older folks struggled and stumbled valiantly in the rear.

David was a great leader, stopping to talk to us about clearing the original site for building the orphanage, deep in the jungle terrain and then magically finding the turn off to lead us down (yet another steep hill!) to finally arrive at our river picnic site.

What a stunningly beautiful pocket of paradise! Tumbling cascades of water over huge boulders, shallow pools flowing over dinosaur egg rocks, a narrow beach on the far side encroached on by trees, plant life and vines and the sun shining brightly upon all of us.

The kids had a fantastic time! Splashing, swimming, collecting snails, building rock dams and floating leaves down river; volunteers stripped down to bathing suits and everyone got into the fun! I’m not steady on my feet so found myself a wonderful little sitting rock for a nest and simply soaked my feet in the cool waters while watching the fun and taking dozens of photos. That’s also when I started calling the kids “river rats” as they bobbed, floated; belly surfed and thoroughly, wonderfully enjoyed themselves in the water!
Lunch time finally came and as Ron stated earlier (HHK FB posting) the150 ham and cheese sandwiches, bags of chips, juice boxes and treats just weren’t enough! These kids play hard and like little kids everywhere, are ravenous when it’s time to eat, yet they waited patiently, shared wonderfully with each other and tucked themselves all around the site to eat. They started to slow down a bit after eating, so there were card games played and many, many cuddles indulged in as the conversations flowed back and forth.

David still wasn’t done with us though and off we trekked to yet another river site, wending our way along the single track trail through jungle, bush and clearings. More play time; more cuddles and more conversations ensued. There was yet another head count with Ron handing out “bonbons” (suckers with gum in the middle) as each of us passed by him on the trail and we made our return journey through the jungle, up and down hills, back through the Rio Cangrejal and finally up the last mountain side to reach the main road again.

At this point in time, we were beat – filthy, tired, with chewed up feet and numerous scratches and bug bites – all the signs of a great day of fun. One last surprise were bags of cold, cold water that had been saved in a cooler of ice for our return – what a marvellous blessing after our adventures!

So after all is said and done, it really was a great idea!