But noise makes me think, and travel makes me alive, and I realize that most of my life, this is the place I've been trying to get. The rural, almost mythical lands of Northern and Eastern Honduras have captivated me forever, and jolted by the banging of this old track, it all comes together for me.
I yell to Germán about the fireflies.
"Yes," he says, digging in his backpack. "So beautiful."
Germán grew up in the Nombre de Dios mountain range which lies directly south of us and in an area that has now become part of Pico Bonito National Park.
The coconut train to Cuero y Salado is a segment of one of many tracks built in Honduras between the late nineteenth century and early twentienth century by the two competing banana companies. Hurricanes, floods, washouts and time have put much of the tracks out of commission. But a few stretches of track still rumble. This one remains to bring the coconuts out of the fields and into the processing plant. And because there is no road.
The train to Cuero y Salado, La Union, Honduras.
