AQUAS DULCE, Honduras — The trip was a cross between a vacation in a tropical paradise, complete with dips in the natural hot springs and hikes in the rainforest and a Spartan, all-natural boot camp, heavy on foul-smelling herbal drinks, martial arts and hard-core workouts.
Leading the way, bounding up mountains, assigning painting and poetry exercises and sparking discussions on interpretation, was Atlanta's enigmatic singer, Lisa "Left-eye" Lopes of the platinum-selling group, TLC.
"We started with yoga every morning at 5 a.m., followed by breakfast, which included three cups of a tree-bark drink we called, 'the bitters,' said Kurtis Toliver, 31, manager of Lopes' music studios in Atlanta and one of 13 people on the month-long trip to Honduras. "Later we would do Tae-Bo or heavy workouts. Lisa was the one who made everybody feel comfortable. You should have seen her run up that mountain. She was in the best shape of anybody I ever met."
The trip came to a sad end just days before the group was to head back to the United States. On Thursday, Lopes died behind the wheel of a rented Mitsubishi sport-utility vehicle after she lost control and the vehicle rolled over several times, careening into a shallow ditch.
Several of the 9 passengers in the vehicle were injured, some with broken bones and most with cuts, bruises and abrasions. All but one left the nearby town of La Ceiba Saturday, on their way back to the United States, Toliver said.
Lopes was killed instantly in the crash, dying of a massive blow to the head and a fracture at the base of her cranium, according to Honduran media reports that quoted the doctor who performed an autopsy Friday.
Her body was to be flown back to the United States on Saturday, with her mother waiting in Atlanta, Toliver said.
Lopes fell in love with this remote strip of Caribbean beach years ago, Toliver said, introduced to the area by Albert Baldwin, a holistic healer known as "Dr. Sebi." Sebi runs a retreat and clinic called "Usha," that is tucked on a sloping hillside about one mile from the sea and a 30-minute drive from La Ceiba, the nearest town of any size.