Lago de Yojoa is the largest lake in Honduras. It sits on the highway that connects Honduras’ capital, Tegucigalpa, and San Pedro Sula. Even though the lake is off the beaten path, it is still very much easily accessible. Lago de Yojoa is surrounded by a lush green forest of trees where mud and mosquitoes creep up on your like ninjas and rolling mountains from the Santa Bárbara National Park on the west and the Cerro Azul Meambar National Park on the east.
From Copan Valley my friend and I caught a 5:30AM bus to San Pedro Sula and a one-hour taxi ride to our hotel, El Cortijo del Lago, located right by the lake. The hotel offers a panoramic view of the Lago de Yojoa, private cabins, a variety of water sports activities and a restaurant. There are no other restaurants and no markets to buy food or water. The closest town is about 10 kilometers away.
There was a 15 minute thunderstorm right before we arrived, which contributed to a few mud slides and plenty of mud. My friend and I originally reserved a simple cabin by the lake. When I saw where we were staying for the next few days, I said to myself, “Just suck it up. Suck it up. Suck it up!” There were no windows and no fan.
There was only a window screen and a dingy cloth that hung over it. The two small twin beds took up three-fourths of the room. The bathroom was dirty, broken & rusty with mildew crawling everywhere. There was no door. Just a rag with a gaping hole about 4 feet high and 2 feet wide. It was pretty much pointless.
Image from Yojoa.org
We immediately asked for an upgrade. For 100L more we got a room with a panoramic view of the lake and a room the size of a $2,000 Manhattan studio . We had an extremely comfortable king-size bed and additional bed to lay our laundry on toe dry. There was a tiny TV with no channels but a decent selection of DVDs. The lake is pretty isolated, which has it’s ups and downs.
A little concerned that our hotel was so far from civilization, we decided to take the chicken bus to the closest town, Pena Blanca. Although there was definitely more life in this little town than the area by the lake it wasn’t that much more of a convenience for us to stay there so we decided to stick with El Cortijo del Lago. Our hotel room at least had three huge windows overlooking the lake, rolling mountains in shades of blue and gray from left to right, an air conditioner and decent size bathroom that was less mildew-y than the tiny cabin.
Our next mission was to exchange more cash. There were 2 or 3 banks in town but none of them offered ATM service. Luckily, I brought extra cash so my friend and I was able to survive for the duration of the trip. Had I not, we would have had to take another 3 hour bus ride back to San Pedro Sula for the closest bank with ATM service.
As we waited for a bus to take us back to the lake from town, the sky decided to pour. We waited a while to catch the bus back to our lodge. Driving in heavy rain, twisty-curvy roads and with a driver who had a problem keeping his eyes on the road and not on us was probably the most dangerous thing I did in Honduras.
