“If we go in there, we won’t return,” the grey-bearded Miskito captain says. Tight wrinkles on his face read fear and frustration.
Ignorance is bliss for us anglers, but our captain’s knowledge, whether fact or folklore, has him terrified. Our pursuit of tarpon and big snook had led us to many lagoons and rivers deep in the Moskitia jungle, but according to our captain we’d reached the point of no return.
Swarms of blue-and-red butterflies rise and flutter away, evacuating. A flock of parrots flies overhead, not singing Beethoven’s 5th, but rather the random and chaotic song of the wild. Screams can be heard from a lone howler monkey hanging high from the canopy. All of which seem to validate our captain’s warning. A pair of toucans flies across the void. Our Guanaja guide, Royce, takes it as a sign. He laughs off the warning and revs the engine.
We were days into an exploratory trip along the Honduran Miskito Coast, departing out of Puerto Lempira, the central village of the
