Back in the US(SR)

So now I'm back home and back to work. Not an easy transition, but the prospect of having a new company and new code to learn is heartening and makes it a little better. I just wanted to take a little time to disect what I did on the trip overall, how I would do it better next time, and what this all means for the future.

In the end I traversed five countries in a month. 8 of those days were all day bus rides and several more had rides that were at least a few hours long. I spent my time checking into hostels or small hotels, meeting gringos, and either hanging with them for the night or meeting up again the next day to do some excursion. I never did any serious traveling with another group because I was on a shorter time schedule than they and I couldn't afford it. Aside from that, I also did a lot of day trips to different places and really enjoyed all of them. I have to admit that I had some fears before I started my trip. I was afraid that i wasn't prepared, that I would be lonely by myself, that I was covering too much ground in a month, that I didn't set aside enough money, and that my Spanish would fail me when i needed it. I'm very happy to say that I was wrong on all accounts and that I now believe that solo travel might be the best kind, though a good travel partner is a thing of beauty too.

I have a bit more to say about what i would do differently next time. First of all, let's talk about the quality of the destination. Central America was a great pick because it's cheap, close to the same time zone, I speak a little Spanish, it has a well developed tourist industry, easy/fast transportation, no shortage of activities, good weather, and it's fairly safe. On the other hand it's not as cheap as many other parts of the world like SE Asia and Africa, my Spanish isn't that good that I could have meaningful conversations in it, I heard lots of stories of tourist crime, the bus seats are too small for tall people, and the food isn't that great. Overall I'd say that it was a solid choice but I might have changed my route a little had I more experience. For instance, I would have visited the Bay Islands in Honduras instead of crossing the interior or it would have been worth it to just fly from Guatemala city to Nicaragua since it's like $50 and to skip all of Honduras alltogether. Also I would have spent less time in Antigua as it is highly overrated.

As for travel gear, I tried something different and it worked out ok, but I would do it a little differently next time. I wanted to pack super light so I bought all acrylic clothes, only had 2 pairs of anything, and did a wash in my sink every night. This did allow me to have the lightest pack of anyone I met but it also looked rather unfashionable compared to those around me and sometimes I couldn't do a wash and I'd have to wear the sweaty clothes from the day before. I ended up buying a couple cotton t shirts and they dried fine in a wash and looked better than the shirts I brought initially. If I had to do it again, I'd just bring whatever was comfortable and light, bring a few pairs, and pay someone to wash them for me. It usually costs $5 or less to have it done and I would have only had to do that 6 times or so for the whole trip. Also, I brought Teeva sandals and they were a little too bulky and inconvenient to slip out of so I should have brought some light thong sandals instead. Before I left Samantha put some hidden pockets in my pants for holding my credit cards and that was a great idea, but I had no place for my passport and I wish that I had a pocket for that too. Next time. All the rest of the gear was great, but I also should have only brought the guide book of the country I was starting in and bought the others from people in line at the border crossings. Surely that would have worked. If it failed however, I know how difficult if can be to find an English Lonely Planet at a 3rd world book store... because there aren't any! I couldn't find one for Costa Rica in the 5 days I looked. I should have just brought the Shoestring version and covered the whole region in one book.

Overall I felt very well prepared and never had to buy anything important that I had forgotten. As for what this means for the future... that's a more murky topic. I mean, I enjoyed traveling for a month... really enjoyed it. It makes me think that I simply must do another long trip again but even longer next time. I'm picturing 6 months for a start, and maybe an even longer one after that if I feel so inclined. So then, the question is how to fit a six month trip into my life, relationship with Samantha, and career. The career that I have chosen (computer programmer) requires a lot of skill and that skill can get stale if left unused for too long. It also involves long projects that I can't leave in the middle of if I expect to get a job at the same company again. My current project is going to wrap up around a year from now so that would be the absolute soonest that I would be able to do anything. My estimate for the cost of a 6 month trip to SE Asia is around $7300 with a $35 a day living expense and $1000 plane ticket which sounds reasonable given what I've seen on this trip where I was living for $45 per day before I met up with Sam. I believe that I can get my finances in order so that I could do the trip. A more significant question for me is how Sam fits into all this. I mean, I love the girl and I can't just leave her for 6 months. The only thing that I can make of it is that in a years time we'll either still be together and I'll take her with me or not go... or we'd not be together and it would be no question. It's a tricky subject to discuss. Anyways, 'Future Steve' can deal with that one.

As for now... I guess I need to put my nose back to the grindstone and do a great job at work and play and just make the most of life until I can get back out there again. I'll update this blog again only if I make it back out on the road. ttyl (I hope)

The Island Life

Hi guys... I hope you aren't too cross with me since I've not been updating so regularly since I met up with Sam. I've been packing my days full of activities and time has been scarce. Thankfuly we've both got significant sunburns and need to catch up on the great indoorse so I have plenty of time for this today. So then, what have we been up to? Well, we hooked up with Sam's sister Alex and her boyfriend John and headed down to the Bocas del Torro islands in Panama. Another country to add to my list.

Alex is an energetic type... she's been in Costa Rica for a month now to improve her spanish a bit (not that it's lacking in any way) and spent a week on this very island that we're at now. She was living with her cousin Tanya and Tanya's bf Gabriel. Since we've got the local's perspective we got into a sweet vacation routine very quickly. First thing we did was to rent a cool cottage on the other side of the street from Tanya's home. It's $40 a night and has a living room, kitchen, and a huge bedroom all painted blue and yellow with lots of beach themed bickabrack all over the place. It also came furnished with a could beach cruiser bicycles with big baskets on the front. Super fly indeed.

The first day there we spent the whole day at the Aqua lounge seen in the pic above. It's a bar built on a pier and we spent the time swimming, drinking, and playing dominos/uno. Being the pale ghost that I am I naturally got a little burnt on this first day in the sun, but that didn't discourage us from spending the second day on the beach. We chartered a boat out to a small island that happens to be a national park. I set up a hammok and we enjoyed a cooler of beer, rum based cocktails, and lunch meats. You can see in the picture how low I set up that hammock and with some inclament weather rolling in we started getting big waves and rain after a couple hours and I started getting wet from above and below. After that we took the boat to some other dock based bar on a remote island and spent the afternoon snorkeling.

Panama strikes me as an odd place. The first thing you notice when you come into the country is that it's primarily non hispanic unlike everywhere else that I've been. It's mostly populated by black people which was a great relief to me beacuse I finally got some real reagea music instead of reageatone and there is a lot more english on the signs. Tragically the food is pretty weak, but that's ok since I've got a kitchen and can take on some seafood + garlic dishes whenever I want. Another odd thing here is that US currency is used. The govt prints some immitation quarters and dimes but the bills are all from back home. All costs are rounded to nickels so pennies are not used at all; I think that we could learn something from that. Of course Panama has a similar history to the rest of Central America. Chiquita bananas owns most of the land, the US army and CIA shoot anyone or any governments that object to their not paying propper taxes or wages, and then there's the whole canal business. I had heard that the US gave it back to the Panamanian people after their lease expired last year and I thought that surely this would be a good thing for Panama. It turns out that the canal cannot fit the newest classes of ocean cargo ships and must be made wider. The US wisely gave the canal back to Panama under the 'agreement' that Panama will do all the work and foot all the costs of such a venture. So the people got screwed again. I've been reading a book by Gore Vidal that has an essay advocating the disolusion of the Federal Government. I'm starting to see at least some sense in that.

Today is our last full day in Bocas and I think the plan is to celebrate Gabriel's birthday at some restaurant that his friend owns. Should be a good time if I can get over the extreme sugar hangover that I recieved last night. We threw a small party at my cabin where we made Pina Coladas from fresh ingrediants and I also made Bananas Foster with ice cream. I fear that this could be my last post as tomorrow we're doing the LONG trip back to San Jose to catch my early flight home on Thursday. After that it's back to work and I gotta be honest... i'm really craving some steaming hot code!

My Baby's Back

So, when I last wrote I was in Santa Teresa and was getting some beach time in. The next day (monday) I set off to go to San Jose so that I could pick up Sam the next night from the airport. I got there, checked into a pretty cool Hostel called Pangea that has a couple cafes, free internet, a bar, and a club. I hung out with some college students I met there and had a loud evening, but at this place everyone was loud. Suffice it to say that it was not a quiet night's sleep, but I guess that's to be expected in the big city.

The next day I walked all over the city finding some cool jewelry, flowers, and misc stuff in preperation for her arrival. Later in the day I called her cousin who lives in town and met up with Sam's mom and sister who also happened to be in the country on vacation. Sam was fetched from the airport and out entourage was complete. We hung out with the fam for a little while before retiring for the night. The plan is to finish up the trip with a big group trip to some islands in Panama called Bocos del Torro so I figured that we should start our conjoined trip with a little solo time up near Arenal volcano. We left the next morning.

The trip up there was fairly long and hot in a cramped bus without AC but I was with Sam so I didn't care about any of that anymore. We got a cheap cabin to stay at and relaxed in town for the rest of the day. The next day was pretty eventful. We got up early and caught a bus to a canopy tour company called Mundo Adventura. Canopy tour involve glidings over great distances by means of steel cables and pulleys attached to your belt harness. It's really fun and helps you get over any fear of heights that you may have once had. Either that or you don't get over them and shell out $60 for nothing. In the picture of Sam here, you can see some of the lines that we rode over a waterfall. The longest one of the day was over a kilometer long anfd there were several that were nearly as long as that. After all that fun we visited an indian village that 3was transported there to sell tourists their handicrafts and also rode some marginaly malnourished horses over a dissapointingly short distance. All in all it was a kickass time. At the end we also got to visit a frog and butterfly habitat for some macro photo opportunities.

To top off the volcano trip we splurged on the second nights's lodgings and checked into the Los Lagos resort and spa. I don't have any great pictures of the place, but I have got a lot of great pics of the wildlife there. We saw a bunch of those lizards that can run across water... they're called Basalisks. This is a pic of one of them but there were also iguanas, turtles, crocodiles, and leaf cutter ants. That was a fun day made more fun by the beutiful hot springs we basked in later that night complete with waterslides and a pool bar that served drinks in carved out pineapples.

The next day, today, sucked in comparison. We went back to San Jose and did some inspired souvenier shopping. Tomorrow morning we go to the islands, but for now I'm getting kicked off the internet so I guess this post is over. cya!

Waiting in San Jose

Santa Teresa turned out to be a good choice of towns to get washed into. It´s a very famous surfing destination (though I´d never heard of it) and I only met a single person who showed up for anything else. After I wrote my last post I ran into my dorm mates at a bar on the other side of town. They´re a group of 3 Virginia Tech students who rented a car and are drifting to various surf towns. The movie PCU taught me that you have to identify the person in your dorm who has a car4 and become their best friend. I accomplished this and it led me to drive out to some distant beach with them that had the bigger waves. I surfed for a while but I really can´t handle myself on the big ones (let alone the small ones) and we called it quits after 2 hours. At least I got a little tanning in. Sadly the camera ran out of batteries at the beach and I didnt get the surf pics I would have liked so well.

Later on we got some dinner, watched a local soccer game for a while, and drank a bottle of rum that I was really sick of carrying with me. It was really good stuff and I´ll have to bring a bottle back for Derek. I woke up early this morning w/o a serious hangover and hiked 2 miles with my gear to reach my bus to San Jose at the last second. It was a pretty uneventful trip. I went back today beacsue I wasnt sure hpw far I could get today and I wanted to be here for when Samantha flys in tomorrow. Maybe I could have spent one more day at the beach, but whats the sense in risking being late. Anyways, I met some guys and we´re gonna go get some food. ttyl

Resting Peacefully

It's been a few days since I've been able to do a decent update but I've finally found both the time, a nice air conditioned cafe, and an SD card reader... a rare combination indeed! So, last I left off I was on the beach in Nicaragua... Playa Majagual. Nice place that was. I could definitely have stayed for another week but I of course had to keep working my way South.

So, for my last day there I made it a busy one. That is busy by beach standards where a trip to the store an a nap constitutes a hard days work ;) I started my big day by sleeping in till noon. After that I wandered down to a beach just to the south (Playa Madera) and followed the signs to the Hideout Surf Camp that I had heard so much about. After following a sign down a path off of the wild beach I climbed a cliff and reached the camp's sole building, a dilapetated shack with a view of a surf and a skate ramp. The area was populated by a small crowd of skater/surfers playing the Misfits and Ramones. I had a couple beers with them and headed out since I failed to find lunch there.

After that I went down our beache's sole cantina and found some cerviche, a curry chicken sandwich, and a very rare Coke Light. I met up with a couple that I met the night before, Jerimiah and Michele. He's a programmer but I managed to go the whole day w/o really talking about programming much to his disaproval. Anyways, we went swimming in the ocean, played boche ball at sunset, ate the 2nd biggest papaya I've ever seen (2 gallons big I'd say), watched the movie 'Ants on a Plane', and later on we hatched more turtles that dug their way into the yard. That's a big day in these parts!

Unfortunately I had to travel the next day. I caught a van into town with the afformentioned couple, plus Hilda and Ida (a couple Norwegian girls), and a Swiss/Hungarian couple that I ended up spending the whole travel day with. After town we caught a taxi to the border and crossed on foot. From there I caught another taxi with a ton on peaople crammed inside and rode to Liberia, a big travel hub in the North of Costa Rica. I really wanted to go to Montezuma but it was already 3 and it looked like it could be too late. It was a good thing, because there was a really big festival in town that night. All the stores closed and the whole town took to the street. There was a big horse parade, everyone wore cowboy hats and plad shirts, and there were a lot of ...interesting... food dishes that could be bought on the street. I've never seen so many horses in one place before and I've been to more than a few rodeos. They werent just in the parade, people rode them all night, and would take their food and drink(s) on horseback. I even saw a outdoor discotech just for people on horseback with colored lights, loud music, and unnaturally nimble horses. After that I went down to the bull fight on the edge of town. They built a huge wooden arena and the fans could climb into the middle at any time. Had I a few more drinks I would have been in there too, but the couple were vegetarians and wouldnt go so I had to watch my own back =/ Anyways, it wasn't much of a bull fight. The bull would be let loose and would try to ram the crowd of drunks throwing beer bottles at it. I left after 15 minutes of that and went to bed.

The next day was just the worst kind of travel day. I left early and got into town after dark. From Liberia I rode 4 hours south to Punta Arenas. I walked over 3 miles with all my gear in horrible heat to get to the ferry station and rode that for 1.5 hours. After that I got on a bus and rode for a couple hours to go towards Montezuma. The trouble is, I haven't got a guide book for Costa Rica so not only do I have no idea how far things are apart but I also don't know what hotel I was going to. The bus ended up in Santa Teresa and they kicked me off since I didn't know the name of a hotel or Hostel to go to. On the plus side, they didnt charge me since they felt bad for me I guess. Oh well, I walked a little while in the dark and found a good hostel. That was last night, and today I've got to get out there on the waves since this is a SERIOUS surf town and I havcen't met anyone who isn't here for that. Tomorrow I'm going to start heading towards San Jose to meet Sam on Tuesday but I don't know if I'll get there tomorow night or not. ttyl

Hello Costa Rica!

I had a great time at the beach the last few days... no doubt. I fought my hangover this morning and decided to head south into Costa Rica in search of new vistas and beers. Unfortunately I can´t upload pictures here so this will have to be a brief update. I´m heading to Montezuma in the NW of Costa Rica tomorrow, but tonight I´m staying in the dusty travel hub of Liberia. I´ll do a propper update tomorrow =)

Fresh Off the Beach

I just popped into town to get some supplies and I thought it would be a swell time to give a quick update. Unfortunately my SD card reader isn´t working anymore so I can´t upload any more pictures. I´ll search around town to try and find a replacement but im not optomistic =( I just found out that this place has a mini UBS cable so I guess I´m in luck today but who knows about tomorrow... but back to the beach talk.

The deal is that I´m staying at this cool little spot down on the beach north of town. It´s got maybe 5 houses that each have a few rooms for rent and one house that will cook for you if you pay them. I think I´ve heard a word for that before... the beach there is amazing! Huge waves crash right in front of me and the sound of the surf in the morning is deafening from my bed. Everyone that I´ve met at this beach went there for just `a couple days´ and ended up seeing 5 weeks fly by so it was great fortune for me that I rolled in the day after a big group left and picked up the best room there for $25 a night.

Most people there cook their own meals and then spend the rest of the night drinking and what not so last night I hung out at the home of `mushroom mark´who is so well established that he built a bar/kitchen out of driftwood and entertains there. Actually he just talks endlessly but he´s fairly entertaining so I guess its ok. Also, on the bus ride into town today I ran into a girl who´s also from Moraga, CA! She said that her name is Julia Sakkis and that she´s a friend of my sister. She also mentioned that on the islands in Panama that I´m headed towards (Bocos del Toro) the owner of the most popular bar (Mondo Taitu) is from Orinda. Small world.

This morning I got woken up when Mario was running aroung shouting ´Tortuga´which means turtle. Turns out that baby turtles were popping up out of the sand and we all needed to see it. After the turtles do their thing on the beach at night, the owner of my hotel digs them up and reburries them in the yard so that the locals dont dig them up and eat them. So, the turtles were popping up in the sand filled yard and we helped by digging them out, putting them in buckets of water and helping them to the surf. I got lots of great pictures.

I think that this afternoon I may actually go surfing or maybe just swimming and get some reading done. I paid for 3 nights at this hotel and I think I´m going to regret not doing more. Most importantly though, I need to get a bottle of Flor de Cana, the best rum in the world by most accounts, and some coke for cuba libres on the beach. I met a bunch of other guys staying a few rooms away from myself and they showed me some of the other nearby beaches. The one just north of us is a small one entirely occupied by a walled compound belonging to the richest family in Nicaragua. That means that we get the whole place to ourselved and the sand has been meticulously combed of rubbish. Sweet.

Out to Lunch

Over lunch I decided that this town was full of old people and not so much with backpackers so I need to move on. Too bad... it´s a nice place. Anyways, I´m heading up to a surfing school a few beaches north that supposedly has a cool hostel. If there´s room I´ll stay there but I doubt that it has internet so I may not update for a few days. Sorry Sam =( ttyl

Off to the Beach

I find myself in a nice air conditioned net cafe near the beach, so it´s time to do a more legnthy update. I ended up deciding to stay in Grenada for an extra day so that I could hike the nearby `Volcan Masaya´. I met another gringo yesterday, Robin, who had come up from Costa Rica so that she could get her visa extended. She voulenteers on a Chocolate farm down there with a lot of other gringas. They don´t get paid for their work and in fact they have to pay out $10 a day to stay there. There´s no electricity and they all date the local Ticos. I think they might also be communist. Anyways, she didn´t seem so bad and we met up the next morning to catch a bus out to the volcano.

When we got to the volcano we vowed to hike the 7km from the road to the top and after a lot of sweating and swearing I made it there. Granted, it was one of the shortest volcanos that I´ve ever seen, but it´s also the first I did completely so whatever. The crater at the top has a very dramatic depth and the Spaniards considered it the mouth to hell itself. They put a big cross near the top for good measure but that didn´t stop it from eruping a few years later to wipe out a couple villages. Maybe they just provoked it. It´s been fairly tame for a while now, but last year it spat up some rocks and crushed a couple tourist vans but nobody was hurt somehow. Anyways, it still took a swipe at us with some killer heat but there were some girls selling cold cokes at the top so it didn´t bother me too much. At the bottom of the volcano was a rather large museum on the mountain that had mroe volcano maps and diagrams than I´ve seen in my life. They really went above and beyond. Robin turned out to be interesting in at least one aspect, she knows a lot about my new favorite historical figure, William Walker. Not that he was great in all aspects but he was an American Confederate who tried to conquor Central America with a band of mercenaries and was the president of Nicaragua for a while. He ended up losing a key battle (which is celebrated around here) after he pissed off one of the Vanderbilts who paid for another army of locals and mercs to fight him. Anyways, you should read a little about him... it´s a crazy story.

After the hike I returned to Grenada and wandered around town looking for a nice bar. While searching, Robin and I heard a lot of music and clapping coming from one building so we went in and watched what I´m guessing was a school talent competition for a while. There was some dancing, singing, poetry, and some funky costumes. After that got boring I found a bar with fantastic mojitos (my favorite) and I chatted up some welsh guy who´s sponsoring a local girl to go to university. Charitable fellow. I bought him a beer and headed back to the hostel so I could get to bed early for my ride out of town the next morning. I rode out to San Juan del Sur, the most popular beach town in Nicaragua. Oh, and on the way I got to stop by the lake and take a cool picture of the volcano island that sits in the middle. Some of the people in the van were going there and I was feeling a little jealous till I found out that they were going to hike up it. That thing is way too tall for me. Upon getting to the beach town I got a cheap hotel and started wandering. It´s pretty but seems kinda dead and I think that I´ll try to catch the ferry to a different beach a little ways north where there´s a famous surfing school. Lord knows I need it. The other thing that´s going on in this town is a diving school and if the prices are right I may try to get my certification here. I´m gonna go find some grup so ttyl.

Brief Update

I had a fun day today, but I´m writing from my hostel that doesnt let me upload pictures so I´ll do the real update tomorrow. Today I climbed a volcano and tomorrow I´m traveling to San Juan del Sur, a beach town in southern Nicaragua. Just wanted to say I´m still alive. ttyl

Another Long Day

I didn´t like waking up today. Last night I ate at the only restaurant close enough to my hotel that I though I wouldn´t get stabbed at: Wendys. That was kinda gross and when I got up to grab a shower I saw my first cockroach of the trip... in fact it was my first one ever outside of a zoo. I must live a privilaged life. When I got out to the bus stop at 6AM I got to test the limits of mf my Spanish skills when I found out that a bus going south to Nicaragua does not stop at my town despite what I had heard the night before. Maybe it´s because it´s a Sunday. I made clear my needs to anyone who´d listen to me nearby the bus stop and they indicated that I should take a `chicken bus´ north and get off in some town that sounded like Jicama at the Oasis Hotel. I was falling asleep on the ride out there, but the bus driver kindly informed me when to get off and I found a very nice bus to Managua waiting for me. Quite literaly because I was the last person there and it took off the moment I stepped on board. Oh, about chicked busses... I don´t think that I´ve explained them before, but they´re old american school busses refitted with more seats, bigger engines, extremely tackey paint jobs and lots of chrome. They´re the cheapest busses and they´re so fast that they pass everyone on the road. I like em but they´re a bit crowded.

After changing busses a few more times I eventually got to Granada, a fairly famous city in Nicaragua. It´s supposedly the oldest European city in the new world, whatever that means. It´s very pretty, built on a lake, it´s been sacked by pirates no less than 3 times, and it once faught a civil war against the city of Leon a hundred miles away in an attempt to become the capital of Central America. They´re full of pride around here. That and Regetone music, the most vile kind of music there is.

After I found a cool hostel to stay at, the `Bearded Monkey´, I wandered around for a little while and watched a small concery being held in the town square. It was a bit of live ranchero music and I thought it was pretty good. Also I got Erika a preasent here but don´t tell her that ;) Shortly thereafter I ran into someone that I saw at the hostel eating alone so I had some beers with them and wandered around the city some more. It´s fiercely hot today and I don´t think that it´s gonna get any better when the two of us climb up some volcano tomorrow. I don´t recal what it´s called but I´m pretty sure that there´s no lava. It´s late now so I´m gonna go catch a shower... there´s a draught here so the city shuts off the water during daylight hours and you have to catch up on your bathing late at night. ttyl

Travel Day

Today I covered a lot of ground. I bid a silent goodbye to my roommates at the hostel in Copan as I left to catch my bus at 5AM. I loved this bus from the moment I saw it. It was decked out with huge seats with enough room for even my knees, movie screens (would you believe they played Apocolypto?), and drink service. I mostlt slept thru the 7 hour ride, and when I woke up I was in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. In my few waking moments, I noticed that the countryside was try and mostly forected with pine trees... one would be forgiven if they mistook it for the hills of california between Sacramento and Tahoe.

When I got off the bus finally I found myself at the bus station in the capital of the most dangerous country in Central America without a guide book and no other gringos in sight. I´ll admit that I felt a little vunerable. I knew that I could catch the direct bus to the capital of Nicaragua to the south but i´d have to spend the night in Tegucigalpa and wait for the morning. Without a guide book I´d be at the mercy of the taxi drivers who are known for scams. I decided to catch a shorter ride south on a different bus immediatly rather than wait out the rest of the day in the city. So, I rode that one another 4 hours south and ended up in Choluteca, 45 minutes north of the Nicaragua border.

I´m writing from the net cafe across the street from my hotel. I pushed the limits of my poor spanish skills and found the time and location of the bus to Nicaragua the next morning and got this hotel recomendation close to the bus station. Its a little smelly but I did get AC with it for a total of $10. Actually thats a really high price for around these parts but I didnt see any alternatives and it´s hot as holy hell here. I´ll write again when I´m actually inside Nicaragua. No idea where I´ll end up, but at least I´ll have a guide book.

Busses and Ruins

Hi guys! I'm writing today from sunny Honduras, rated as the most dangerous country in Central America. Actually it seems really nice to me from where I'm looking at it and I heard all the same stuff about Guatemala and and it was really nice too. So, after I traveled to Antigua yesterday afternoon, I got up at 4 this morning to catch the van to Copan Ruinas in Honduras. Copan Runias is a tiny town built next to Copan, which is a very nice set of mayan ruins out in the jungle. The town is about half a mile across and has a lot of great flowers, cobbled streets, and very short residents. The town square is a veritable garden of eden and a lot of really cool shops and restaurants are built around it.

After meeting up with a Canadian named Steve on the van ride out, we checked into a hostel together and hiked out of town towards the ruins. We got a little lost on the way out there but eventually found some of the most impressive mayan ruins around. Its not as large as the ones at Tikal but its got the best set of carvings and statues in the new world. Some of them are still out in the open like the macaw heads in the ball court seen in the picture here. Behind that is the 'stairway of hyrogliphs' covered up with a roof. Its got a huge set of starts that are covered with writing and record the history of the place. Unfortunately some of it got jumbled when part of it collapsed but the generally we've got the story straight. The rest of the statues can be found in the museum nearby.

Inside the museum is a recreation of the some part of the temple with fresh pait on it, and some petty damn detailed stone reliefs and stelae which are like carved pillars with huge depictions of the king, mostly a guy named '18 Rabbit' at this site. After tiring of that stuff we headed back to the hostel so I could clean up after sweating a couple pints in the jungle and now I'm off to have some shishkebabs with some more people I met at the hostel. Tomorrow I'm catching a bus at 5AM to get to the capital of Honduras, which I can neither remember or pronounce, and then I'm catching the Tika bus to the capital ofNicaragua... wherever that is. Hopefully I can get all that done in one day and start to spend some slow and fun time in Nicaragua. ttyl

Lots More Lake

Sorry I didn't update yesterday... but it wasn't a veryproductive day so there wasn't a whole lot to say. Actually, thats the best kind of day there is. I went back to the town of Panajachel to start my trip South to Honduras. When I got there I found out that my bus out was held up due to some protests being held somewhere so I'd have to come back the next day. It turns out that when the teachers or anyone else go on strike in this country, they block the main highway through the country to get some attention. Makes sense to me. The mountain shown in the picture here is called Indian Nose since its supposed to look like a Mayan face. I think I can see it. I took the pic from my hotel room.

After that I tried to hit up some ATMs to get a little cash. Neither of my ATM cards were working in any of the 6 machines around town and I was getting a little worried. So, I called up the banks, got some stuff straightened out and now the theory is that it will start working in a couple days. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've since learned from other travelers that going into the banks can land you cash when the ATMs wont work and that I could also just charge cash against my credit card inside any bank. They make it so easy for me.

After that I went back to San Pedro to spend the night and meet up with the guys again. I found them pretty easily and we proceded to bar hop until later in the evening when we held a lunar eclipse party with some other backpackers that I met. It was drizzling so no moon was visible unfortunately. Anyways, it was a good time. Basicaly a day party. I'm a little sad to have to leave town today but I've got a better time awaiting me in Costa Rica so I'd better just pack it on down there asap. ttyl

Relaxing at the Lake

After I last posted yesterday, I ran into an old guy, Ernie, that I had met that morning on the van ride to the lake. We talked for a while and I decided to go on a 2 hour horse riding trip with him the next morning. He had met some greek guy a couple weeks ago and managed to find the house of the horse owner by memory from the recalled directions. I couldn´t have found the place even if I had a map... it was down a lot of twisting garden paths with at least a dozen turns. I agreed to meet him early in the morning so I headed back to my hotel to get dressed for the town´s nightlife. I met a couple of Canadians (Greg and Brendan) who are next door to me. Btw, that´s a picture from my hotel room´s balcony. The cost of the room is $4 per night but I got talked into paying $6 so I´m a sucker ;P

I hung out with them for the rest of the day/night... they work on repairing ships at drydock up in Victoria and they decided to take off 4 months to travel. One of them has spent a bit of time in Central America already and lived in my current town, San Pedro, for a month so he knows all the places to hang out here. We went off to some restaurant that he liked and indeed I thought it was pretty swell too. It has a largist courtyard with table scattered about under thatched umbrellas with candles and ther was an open campfire in the middle of it all. They played the sountrack to Trainspotting before going on a Beetles binge as we knocked back many many beers. The guy who was here before has also spent a month on this tiny (2 acres) island in Belize called Tobbacco Caye that Erika and I also spent a few days on. He spent his time spearfishing, conche diving, drinking of course, and paying 8 doallars a day total. I´m wicked jealous.

We headed home at 2 when the bars closed, a couple hours after is legally permitted, and I definitely missed my 8:45 rendevouz with Ernie and the horses. I left a note on his hotel door appologising and maybe I´ll run into him later. He likes it so much here that he´s staying for a week. That´s pretty much the opinion of everyone that i´ve met but I´m going to start heading towards Honduras tomorrow. I´ve been mapping out how many days I´ll take in each place in my head, and I´ve got around 7 days that I haven´t got much of a plan for yet. Maybe I´ll stay in some beach town and try to get my open-water scuba license that´s required to take any kind of scuba tour that´s available. It takes several days and I´ve never had the time on any other trip to do it. Here´s a pic of some cafe I havent tried yet next to the water. Despite the ratty pictures that I´ve put up of this town, its not so shabby and I rather like it.

Lakes and Volcanoes

As promised, I did visit the volcano yesterday. The van took off at 2 but we got held up in terrible traffic when the afformentioned religious procession blocked off our path for half an hour. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to take a picture, but for the brief seconds that I saw it there were several large wooden platforms with life-sized statues of Mary, Jesus, and various saints being carried down the street by a hoard of purple clad people. Actually, they were wearing really large hooded felt robes and all the little kids had them on too. Apparently this procession is held every Sunday in the weeks leading up to easter which is Central America's biggest holiday.

When we got to the volcano, the sun was already set and clouds were closing in. Some people in the group opted to rent horses to carry them up to the top but I'm too proud and cheap for that so I hiked the rest of the way after the van dropped us off. I got to talk with an Aussie on the way up who is in the country taking language classes. He told me all sorts of colorful stories about recent crimes against tourists by gangsters and the police(who are equally as bad as the gangsters in this country) that were so shocking that I won't rcount them here lest my mother read this. By the time we got to the top of the mountain and started to decent into the field of lava flows it was getting pretty dark and cold. Thankfuly we had glowing hot lava at hand to solve all our problems.

Right before we started walking onto the lava field the guide offered this advice. He said that if you smelled buring rubber then you´re close enough but if you smell buring bacon you may want to backoff. I came to learn that he meant that my shoes would melt and indeed they did a little.

Most of the lava field that could be seen was all cool and jagged beyond compare butwe found the hot stuff easily enough. It wasn't shooting up but rather oozing extremely slowly. At 20 feet I was comfortably warm and felt safe but when I got to 6 feet of it so as to poke it with a stick it was almost unbearable. I had to jump over several lava filled fissures about 1 foot wide and several feet deep to get that close and I thank my video gaming skills for helping me navigate the field of fire. The Aussie that I was hiking with broke out some marshmellows and we roasted them on a coat hanger he also brought. Soon after we headed home and hiked for an hour in the rain. On the way back we passed through a mountain town on the side of the volcano and a lone gringo getting a off a chicken bus (that´s the cheapest kind of bus... refurbished american school busses with bigger engines and lots of chrome) and the guide said that the town was famous in Guatemala for banditry and that he was a gonner ;P

The next morning I caught an early van out of town to head for Panajachel. We had some minor mechanical problems on the van which included loud thumping noises and after than some old lady gat a nasty gash on her leg getting back into the van. There was really a lot of blood =/ We eventually got to town (and to a hostpital) and got to enjoy it for a few hours. It's a largish town build on the Eastern side of the most beautiful lake that I've ever seen; Lago Atitlan. The lake is dominated by two HUGE volcanoes on the north and south side of it and about 6x10 miles in size. That sounds kinda big but having the volcanoes next to it makes it look rather small. I had a nice lunch of pizza and a beer that I think was bigger than a 40oz and took a boat to San Perdo on the other side of the lake where I heard a nice atmosphere could be found. It was... the town is very small, built on a steep hillside along the water, and has a lot of people my age wandering around. I've already met a few but I guess I'd better go meet the rest. It reminds me a lot of McCloed Gange in India if you´ve been there... I think it would be easy to lose many days around here if you´re not careful. ttyl

First Day Out

I'm writing now from a net cafe in Antigua, Guatemala, and I've got a lot to report, but let me first explain howI got here.




Nine days ago on friday I had my last day at Kush Games. There has been a lot of drama there lately and I've accepted a new job at Zindagi Games. I know everyone there and it's 50 yards from my apt so it was an easy choice. Anyways, the president Umrao offered me a little time off before I started so I decided to take advantage of that to the tune of one month of travel. In the week before I flew out of LAX I spent a lot of happy days with Samantha. Here's a nice pic of us on the Channel Islands for a bit of hiking and picnicing. On the day before I flew out we also hit up Disney Land and had a typicaly great time. Now that I think of it, we also went to Vegas on the weekend before that. Busy times =)



At 1 AM on Saturday morning I flew out of LA. That was the plan at least but due to a 1.5 hour check in line and my showing up a mere 1.5 hours before the flight, I missed the plane. I got put onto the next flight an hour later and due to my multiple other connections having some layovers I ended up getting to Guatemala on schedule so it all worked out swimingly.



When I got to Guatemala City the next morning I blew through customs and hopped on the first minibus to Antigua. In tradition with all other Central American cities, the capital was crowded, smoggy, and filled with American franchises. I saw 2 Burger Kings and 2 Chuck-e-Cheese's within 4 blocks. The best plan is to get out ASAP unless you want to stick around for some museums or to get some sleep before a 5 AM flight out of the country.





The drive to Antigua consisted of a 1.5 hour trip throught some mountains that were less like a jungle and more like a forest. There were pine trees, lots of flowers, and I even got a little chilly. I guess I just pictured the whole country as a steaming jungle. When we got to Antigue I was pleased to see clean streets, not so much wood/car smoke, and more dilapitated churches than I can take pictures of. I think that the actual count is 38 churches within a couple square miles. The city was designated the seat of spanish rule over all of Central America in 1543 and was built up with a lot of flair. Unfortunately the city was built between two volcanos that didn't cover the town in lava but instead plagued it with earthquakes. After a particularly bad one in 1773 the seat of power was moved once again and the city has been at a stand-still ever since.



When I got here I walked around to at least 8 hotels before I found a room. It's a small but clean and has a bathroom accesable from the courtyard. After walking around for a while I got some dinner at the Rainbow Cafe... they make some of the best quesadillas I've ever had and I wish that I had taken a picture. I hate to eat alone so I sat with an older man (named Ian) who turned out to be the author of 'Roughing It: Guatemala'. He advised me on how I should spend my 17 days till I meet up with Samantha in Costa Rica, hundreds of miles away to the south. He suggested that I should spend the majority of my time in Guatemala, skip El Salvadore entirely, breeze through Hondures by bus, and spend a week in Nicaragua, just to the north of Costa Rica. We swapped some stories and he went on his way. He's headed to Panajachel where I'm going tomorrow so maybe I'll run into him again. I decided to spend a second day in Antigua so that I could get up early today and photograph some churches before the cars showed up. It's Sunday so there's supposed to be some religious procession with music, flowers, and floats but I'm in here writing so who knows if I'll see it =/ The other reason that I'm spending another day in Antigua is so that I can visit Volcan Pixcaya. It's an active volcano an hours drive away and I'm joining a tour of the lava field there. Apparently you get to walk on fresh lava just yards away from the glowing stuff. Can't do that in Hawaii ;) I'm going to head off for that in a few hours after I get some rations for the hike.


I think that my favorite part of travel would be the people that I meet. I like to go to the smaller places where there aren't too many wattering holes to get a beer at so you run into the same gringos constantly from town to town. Yesterday I chatted with a Parisian named Vincent, Ian whom I've already mentioned, an Austrain named Franz, and some others whos names I cant recall. Hopefuly I'll meet some more people at the Volcano that can steer me towards the best adventure yet. Either that or we'll parish in a hail of sulfer and fire. That's what makes it so stimulating ;)



I'll finish up the post with a picture of my lunch today beacuse I really enjoyed it even though it looked... questionable. It's churrizo soup with a side of tortillas and a glass of juice. Not too bad for 6 dollars, but I think that I need to find some cheaper eats. This town is one of the more expensive places that I'm going so it's not gonna be too hard.




Ttyl... next time I'll have pictures of lava, or is it magma?