Traveling with kids is always tough, what with the whining and crying and constant proclamations of "Are we there yet?" and "I'm huuuungry!"
And that's just me.
Add in all of the whining from Miss Priss and Lil' Miss Sunshine, and you've got quite a cacaphony!
Parents traveling with kids usually try to accomplish what they would normally do if they were unaccompanied by those kids, just in smaller increments of time, loaded down with snacks and armed with maps to every public bathroom.
And most things can be done with kids in tow, maybe not for as long as you'd like, maybe accompanied by a constant chorus about being bored, but with a pair of trusty earplugs, it's practically the same thing!
There are, however, a few tours that are a bit dicey when you've got kids. And one of those is water.
Because the last thing you want to do is trust some stranger selling you a tour on "gentle rapids," only to wind up fishing your kids out of a river like wet rats.
That wouldn't exactly be "happy memories" for a 4 and 7 year old, now would it.
However, we were visiting La Ceiba just before Christmas, and Hubs and I really had the water bug. At check-in we were handed a pamphlet listing local tours, and one in particular caught our eye.
Kayaking. In a lagoon!
Well, that sounds gentle. This could work!
Hubster scheduled a trip for the very next day, making sure that they had two kayaks that could each hold two people, so each of us parents could paddle each one of them kids.
The tour guide and his assistant picked us up bright and early that morning. What we quickly discovered was that they did not have the two kayaks we had requested. What they had was a three person inflatable kayak and a regular, single-person, plastic one.
Well, it was just going to have to work. We didn't have any other day that we could do this excursion before we had to head back to Tegucigalpa.
The tour guide drove us east of town on the main highway, then took a left down an unsuspecting dirt road. The Jeep was slow, working through the potholes and rivets in the path. The people living in small concrete houses, some with no doors or windows and hammocks for beds, would wander outside to see who was coming through. They stared and smiled and waved and wondered at these curiousities meandering through their street.
It felt a little bit like being in the Homecoming Parade, and we smiled and waved back at these welcoming people.
Finally, we parked and headed through a thick tangle of mangrove trees, down a long, looooooong pier, until the trees fell away and the Cacao Lagoon lay before us.
It took a little bit of work to get everybody into their kayaks and ready to go. Hubby volunteered to take the first shift, paddling the princesses around, each of whom were given their own little paddle to "help."
It went about as well as could be expected.
First, our guide took us into a narrow area overgrown with mangrove trees, skinny roots reaching down into the water like a mass of spider's legs.
We were on the hunt for monkeys, but found a lot of birds instead. In particular, a variety of pelican that's a bit different than ones I would see glidding over the ocean back in The States.
The mangrove was still, quiet, peaceful. The only sounds coming from bird calls and our paddles methodically dipping in and out of the water....
....and the constant stream of whining coming from our children, of course. What the heck! Were these kids raised at a zoo?
No wonder the monkeys were avoiding us.
But it was still peaceful and amazing! After some time, we made our way over to the beach for lunch. If you didn't already know, a lagoon is kind of like a lake that has an outlet to the ocean. In the case of Cacao Lagoon, ocean water was able to breach a natural damn during high tide, otherwise, the water stayed put.
The girls were ecstatic to be released from their watery prison. We had gone well past their limit for staying still, and were eeking toward the danger zone, a good run/lunch/seashell hunt was exactly what they needed!
After a leisurely lunch, filled with lots of enormous bugs (thank the Good Lord for inventing bug repellant!) we were off again for the remainder of our tour.
This time, we went down a different little inlet, closer to the ocean side of the lagoon. There, we saw storks (don't get any ideas, Mom!) and tiny bats sleeping on a stick. Except we didn't know they were bats, our guide was trying to explain what these black markings on the stick were, when we moved a little too suddenly and they all flew away - scaring the bejeezus out of us!
After a bit, the guide shushed us, and pointed out the sound of monkeys overhead. He and the assistant began scanning the trees, telling us that this was the sound of only one, "Security Guard" monkey, warning the rest of the family of our presence. Finally, they spotted one, lounging way up high, arms and legs dangling off the sides of the branch, a baby crawling on her back.
Can you see her? She's that black mass to the right. Sorry for the poor photo. I had to use my iPhone, safely encased in a ziploc bag, that I would gingerly pull out for each and every photo, then quickly return to it's clear plastic shield. So this was the best photo I could get, then I photoshopped the heck out of it!
And, of course, I had to take my turn being the Kaptain of the Krazy Kid Kayak.
It really wasn't as horrible as it looks!
It was much, much worse.
That little one would stick her paddle in the water and just leave it there, dragging behind us. Of course, she was behind me, so I didn't see her. I couldn't figure out why the boat kept pulling to the left. And then, when I would go to correct it, the big one up front would start furiously paddling on the wrong side.
If we ever got ourselves stranded on a desert island, and a boat washed ashore, I think we'll just make a house out of it, because attempting to use a watercraft with these two would just have us going in circles!
Thank you for coming along with us on our trip to the Cacao Lagoon in La Ceiba. I hope you'll come back and join us for our next adventure!
