Omega Lodge -- Need a guide?

The El Bejuco waterfall trip I did would not have been possible without a guide - we did a loop and the trails were sometimes hard to find. There were lots of incredible bits we would have missed, too - ferns that left temporary tattoos, termites that tasted like carrots, blue morpho butterfly caterpillars, a huge iguana, and a fer de lance snake (!!). We did a small amount of hiking around the Omega on our own but were most pleased with the tours - rafting, kayaking Cacao Lagoon, and riding horses through mountain villages. My main reasons for wanting a guide are that I get much more out of the experience with the guide's knowledge and meeting locals is part of the reason I travel. Happy trails!

Hopeforlust, what became of the fer de lance snake?

We just made a wide circle around it. =8-O

live and let live, none of that machete stuff from stacy!

always carry a machete for situations just like this.
But they don't have fer de lances where stacey lives. Be glad Tim wasn't there he would have screamed just like a girl..Oh wait,never mind.

Your report conflicts with that of Tim the human snake processor's, on the disposition of local indiginous personnel toward snakes. Perhaps your guide was non-native?

I actually did the hike with a Spanish school guide and not Omega - we filled our days with the other activities I mentioned above and I took advantage of the offer to hike to El Bejuco with a guide from the Spanish school because we hadn't fit it in at Omega, who also does that hike. You can browse the photos either side of the link below; I had no complaints about the guide, a local young man. ;-)

Tim, I know you are reading this. What do you have to say for yourself? How can you justify the wholesale slaughter of snakes, in light of these recent developments?

Sundew, I had a wonderful stay at Omega a few years ago and we went rafting, mountain biking and hiking with their guides. I would say most definitely there is a reason why you want a guide with you and that is because there is always the possibility of getting mugged. Read the reviews for Omega on Trip Advisor. There was a theft incident a while ago very near the lodge and a female guest was very upset.

A place like Omega and the national park attracts foreigners, and any foreigner, even low budget travelers (not sure if that applies to you or not), is very rich compared to almost all Hondurans. That makes us all potential crime targets.

The cities are far more dangerous than the rural areas in CA in general. But isolated rural areas known to have foreigners can also be unsafe. My husband and I had a great time in Honduras, but we were mugged in a rural area in Nicaragua. So when you are required or advised to have a guide, keeping you safe from your fellow humans could very well be the reason.

A further reason could be that the national park requires all visitors to be 'supervised' by guides to protect the park from any damage or littering or killing of snakes, etc that visitors, and especially the local people, are prone to do. They don't all have quite the same sense of wilderness ethics that most of us "rich" folks from the first world have.