We checked our carry-on luggage through the x-ray machine and paid our L10.00 airport tax. After half a dozen coffees each, provided by Islena, we were aboard the packed twenty seater aircraft. The fourty-five minute flight to Palacios, a small village on the edge of the Mosquitia, went well. We landed on a small grass and cattle-grazed "aterrizaje" or airstrip, bouncing to a stop.

After jumping out the rear door of the plane we were greeted by a half-dozen Miskito and Mestizo kids eager to get a look at the assemblage of passengers. Don Felix, the local business mogul, was there to collect the baggage tickets and deliver packages to the pilot to fly back to civilization. Herb and I hired three of the beefiest kids including one who looked to be about twenty-five years old, to haul our equipment seventy or so yards to the Laguna Bakalar shoreline. Unpacking our Folbot sea kayak, we had it assembled in an hour-and-a-half, including custom-fitting the diaper. Unfortunately, we had overshot our safe departure window for the next village Plaplaya, by two-hours. We couldn't afford to be caught paddling in the jungle rivers after dark as we had heard that debris, like fallen trees and logs, were being swept downriver as a result of extreme flooding.

That marvel of design and engineering, the Folbot folding sea kayak, proved to be perhaps the most interesting oddity that had ever visited this isolated jungle community. Groups of up to ten villagers were seeking us out, enthusiastically examining the interior and exterior, talking and using animated hand-gestures to describe this confounding piece of river transport.

Omar, a local dry-goods merchant and his helper Roberto, had forseen our predicament and invited us to "camp" in their store - on the cement floor. We cleared an area and set up our mosquito tent therein. Just as we were leaving for supper a monsoon-like deluge struck, forcing us to delay our craving for food. Omar invited us for coffee brewed from roasted and ground beans boiled-up in a pot. Talk about a caffeine buzz! Omar was excited about the possibility of showing us a "secret locale", where he assured us fifteen to twenty-foot crocodiles were surviving. This would require a one hour ride through a mangrove, by canoe after dark. Over-exhausted and anticipating an arduous four-hour paddle the next morning, we decided to pass till a future date.

After eating a basic supper of beans, eggs and beef-liver at the home of a lobster-boat captain, and having a great sleep, we were up at 6:00 a.m. loading the Kayak. Omar and Roberto agreed to keep our empty dufflebags secured in their drygoods store. By 7:00 a.m. we were off and paddling in the direction of our first overnight - the Black Carib village of Plaplaya.

The first thing I had noticed around Palacios was the new tourist facilities, constructed after my last visit there, a year-and-a-half ago. Don Felix had finished construction of his two-floor hotel; also, there were several new "pulperias" or stores. There seemed to be more activity in general as a result of an increase in population; I was told by some locals that there was a constant influx of new homesteaders and "commerciantes" or business people moving into the region. There was also an influx of cattle barrons, each having several thousand head. After much ecological consideration, I'd heard that the new "Sico II" dam project was quite close to it's beginning. This was certain to draw a flow of laborers from around Honduras.