Bocas

Less than three meters from the street front of our hostel is the main stage of Bocas del Toro´s Carnival. When we arrived late in the afternoon on March fourth the stage had not yet been fully assembled but it was blatant as to what we were getting our sleves into. Our hostel, Hostel Heike, is a modest hole-in-the-wall establishment. In comparison to the countless others Heike boasts some strong underlying form. Many hostels have colorful lights, drawings, framed photographs, and passports and other traveler assortments glued to tables magnatizing western paradise seakers-- hiding the disheveled kitchens, damp dorms, and rotting walls. Heike brings all the wall hangings but with a well functioning kitchen (two refrigerators and a working oven), simple dorms(my bunk has a fan that continually blows across me), bathrooms that are centralized on each floor (hot water included) and a roof top with computers hammocks and couches. All is well except for the continuous shaking that invades every crevasse of this establishment including my bones and this computer. similar to that of a paint mixer--the bass and sound of the mainstage coupled with the live bands and the musically enriched steroid like cars keep the block and its inhabitants rhythmically in tune, its carnival. its carnival and we´re only one day in--tonight and three more to go. ear plugs have hit their highest stock value yet...a worthy investment in this musically inclined nation.

Smaller Towns > Cities

As we rounded a curve in the road coming down out of the mountains, nearing the end of a 7 hour bus ride from La Ceiba with the debit card finally back in its rightful spot in my money belt, the brown sprawling metropolis of Tegicigalpa came into view. The country's capital, weighing it at metro population of 1,324,000 did little to impress us. On our way from an unsuccessful attempt to find an open ATM that accepted Master Card (unforeseen hiccup) the sun set, causing a mass closing of nearly all street front businesses within 15 minutes. I guess crime is a big deal here, even our hotel room came equipped with bars on the small window facing the interior hallway. Fortunately there was one restaurant of sorts that braved the post sun down jitters. We were attracted to an old oil barrel on the sidewalk with a grill top cooking a wide variety of meats giving off pleasant aromas. At first it looked like a small place with three tables in a room behind the barrel grill, but we were ushered into a hidden doorway revealing a long corridor lined with small tables and another adjoining room with at least 10 more all filled with drinking Hondurans. The deal was, you choose how much to pay, 35 Limpiras and up, and you get a plate of meat with tortillas, salsa and lime. I only wish we had discovered this sort of place before.

Travel itinerary: flores>tikal>flores>rio dulce> la cieba>utila>la cieba

After nearly two weeks, we are back--on the internet sharing our adventures that is. We left Flores soon after our last post, en route to Tikal national park, a Mayan ruin mecca about an hour and a half north of Santa Ellena. Like many of our national parks, Tikal is built up. before entering you pass a guarded check point and within the park there are three small hotels near the enterance, a few restraunts , a campgound and a visitor center with vendors selling soiveniers. In order to stay in line with our budget, we decided that none of these sleeping options were acceptable, so we hiked down a path into the woods in search of a campsite in our price range: free. from the vendor's maps of the park we chose a trail toward "el mirador" a lookout in the trees becuase of its close proximity to the main templed park. at the top of the mirador we were able to glimpse the tops of several pyramids poking out of the vast jungle scape--which got us eager. The climb to the top of the look out was three or four sections of very sketchy, and sligltly rotted at out places, wood ladders, topped with a platform that was far from level--we could only presume the make shift tree fort had been built a good thirty years or so ago when it was opened and named a world heritage site in the late 1970's. Precautions aside, the view was incredible, and being up that high put us out of bugs reach for a few minutes. After more searching and struggled deciphering of numerous spanish information signs providing facts about specific plants (of which were never pointed out or distinguished, a sign would simply exist off the path in the dense forrest warning not to touch "this" plant because of the ulcers it will cause to grow on your skin), we came across our campsite. At the end of an old road lay a rectangular concrete building with no markings, a ladder to the top, and a flat roof (it was a storage tank for water). Just right.

In the theme of adventure making and a tight budget, we quickly began our next mission to save money - sneak into the Tikal ruins via the jungle. the price of admission to the tikal ruins was exactly our daily budget. So at just after 6PM, as the sun was setting we took off into the woods armed with a single headlamp to guide our way. Our movements were incredibly slow, vines kept making their way around our backpacks and legs, and sweat poured off of us despite that the sun had set. Or first attempt lasted about a half hour, covered in sweat but confident that we were moving in the right direction we began to see and approach a large ominous shaddow , made our way to it, and were shocked to find that there was another identical concrete water tank...so confused our first pressumption was that we had found another.. you can do nothing but laugh when you realize that you have enacted a comedy cliche by literally hiking in a circle. and then we tried again.--(chris) I guess my NOLS skills don't work in the jungle, because after another half hour we ended up 100 meters down the road at the end of which we lay our camp to be. nothing to do but eat banana bread ration our dwindling water supplies sleep soaked in our sweet and pay the enterance fee leaving us with only enough money to get home, no food for the following day.

we woke early--(dante) me much earlier because i didn't have ear plugs to muffle the guttural roars of howler monkeys. we broke camp before the sun had risen--intent upon catching a sunrise from temple number four. we payed our fee. and entered the park--low hanging clouds and fog cropped our vision in the already dim light of the morning making our skin sticky in the high humidity--large and unidentifiable trees draped in vines that you could swing on and climb pressed up against the path--howler monkeys echoed throughout the jungle along with other less blarring birds and creatures and insects--added to the complete lack of any informational signs or maps reminded me(dante) of jurassic park. At the top of the temple we sat and watched the sun burn away fog and clouds and it sprinkled softly...are argentinian friend, facundo, was already hunkered down with his jacket hood pulled tight--he casually mentioned that the guards were letting people in early before the park "opened" for only 30 to 40 quetzals regardless if they already had a ticket or not...he also mentioned that you could climb the scaffolding to the top top of the temple to get a better view if you ignored the do not climb signs...

The park was pretty incredible. The majority of the ruins were pyramid shaped temples, designated numerically. They were all a greenish and grey becuase of their exposure to the environment-- when first built they were ivory white. each temple had large steps leading toward a room located at the very top of the structure. every tourist, including chris and i complained of the large steps and were baffled as to why mayans (of short stature) would build steps that they would have had to pratically crawl up? Facundo mentioned that at the parthanon-- steps were built not for humans to walk up but for gods. they presumed that if the gods were to enter a building that they would need larger steps to fit thier immortal statures. perhaps that was the same frame of thought that the mayans were building within too... We spent the day exploring as thouroughly as possible the entire park minus one ruin that was 20 kilometers away. i(dante) was disapointed by the lack of details on the buildings, each one had been methodically chewed and rubbed by the jungle so that all of them had large portions recently restored(some were still in the process of). additionaly every thing of cultural value had been removed from the park either by the "studying" archeologists or plunderes-- what the park did offer in return to the visitors were plaster castings of unidentified reliefs but that had of course been mercilessly attacked by visitors intent on leaving behind their own historic markings or adamante to bring back (what they perhaps thought to be authentic) parts of tikal to thier friends and or families. all that remained were large abstract stone structures unidentified in their purpose that each tourist religiously climbed sweating and grumbling as they went about it (to be fair these stairs were steep. A few people fell down temple number one and died, now a rope around the temple prevents ascents)... once on top everyone took their trophy shots smiled complimented the enormity of the structure and people watched the odd balls while basking in the sun. it was glaringly clear why we should have payed the 30 dollars for the tour guides...the park had no infastructure indicating any historical or cultural context of the structures what so ever. around three we headed back to Flores via micro bus, ate at our favorite taco stand for the third meal (we had four meals in the town) and prepared to head toward our second country, honduras.

From santa elana (the city that bridged flores) we got a direct bus to Rio Dulce not wanting to go any further because of the dangers of staying in san pedro sula. Rio Dulce was a small town at the east end of lake izabel, the largest lake in Guatemala, followed by a river flowing to the ocean, which it was named after. In a fashion well practiced from our New Zealand days we found a park underneath the main thourough way, a bridge over the river, with suitable spots to throw our hammocks and sleep. we utilized the lit common area of a hostel nearby to read and email, and retired early intent on a 530 wake up the following day.

bussing to La Ceiba, a costal city on the north shore of Honduras, thrid largest in the country, was an all day affair, filled with lots of busses and not nearly enough food or water. After getting up early we walked to the back side of the bridge and soon flagged down a bus going towards Puerto Barrios-- it stopped at Entre Rios and we caught another bus to the guatemala honduras border. From there we walked to the nearst town and caught a large american school bus to Puerto Cortes. We exited the chicken bus in the station with our bags, and were quickly escorted toward a bus going to our next desitnation, San Pedro Sula. The guy directing us took our bags, put them in the back, locked it up and usherd us onto the bus, and asked us to pay the fare, 100L (20L =1$) each he said. Our previous bus had taken us furhter for less than half that price. Too high, i (chris) responded, and eventually got it down to 60 which still felt like too much. Later on we were able to deduce that he didn't own the bus like he had told us but was working as a hype man trying to convince tourists to pay outlandish prices, give a cut equal to what the normal driver charges and then keep the remainder. it is a nusance to us consumers who have been coddled into set market prices to have to negotiate our clearing point...i(dante) remember leanring that the market clearing point was where demand met supply but only in theory-- back home the dollar menu was the dollar menu, here we were meeting that economic cog face to face and on a daily basis-- certainly not convient for us travelers banking on third world costs but certainly equitable for the locals who were trying to scrape their capitalist making. We made it to San Pedro Sula, the economic capitol of the country, and got our last bus of the day, a 3 hour direct to La Ceiba. The driver of this bus drove with authority not in the left lane or the right lane but in the middle honking and swerving in to the path of least resistance usually at the last moment and some times off the road if slowing down was the only other alternative--kind of how broom sticks and magical cars work in harry potter. we Ate some food at a rest stop at 3pm, payed more than the 100 limpiras individually for our first meal of the day (rip off but no man to yell at and bargain down, we were back in a corporate store in an environment of economic compliance) , and refilled our water bottle that we had rationed out down to drops having started with less than 1/4 L per person from the morning.

Utilla is a Small island off of the north shore of Honduras, a 1.25 hour boat ride from La Ceiba. the boat is better known as the Vomit Commet, which was aptly named as Dante discovered about 1 hour into the voyage. Initially The plan was to meet up with some friends from Lake Atitlan, Morgan and Bryan, explore for a few days and then keep moving. 9 days later I (chris) am writing this having just gotten back to the mainland. Utilla and the Bay Islands are renowned for diving: visiblity is great and the water is warm and in the upcoming season whale sharks are easily found and enjoyed. By the end of our first day we had our dive books open and were learning about negative buoyancy and what to do in a squeeze. the Following days were marked by early mornings and boat rides, being submerged for forty five minutes up to 50 ft deep, the sensation that your ears might be hemoraging, trying to pee without peeing on or taking off the wet suit, jellyfish stings, salt water in the eyes, and pushing the limits of what you can do while scuba diving without the DMTs(dive masters in training) pulling you out. Our dive center\homebase had a joint hostel, bar, dive school, dock, trees full of hammocks and an active volleyball court that provided rooms and hot water for people in dive classes at no extra costs to the class--oh and dave a boat captain and dive master who was intent in turning any casual drinking situation in to an eventful binge drinking sesh at what ever cost. In total we logged 6 dives all around the island with 7 other travelers from class, hailing from all around the world, well actually from western europe and north america. as of february 5th both of us became dive certafied with flying colors. chris got a perfect so diego our dive teacher handed him a beer.

Diving is a magical sport ( rich persons hobby, our text books had lessons on how to properly purchase equipment and reminded us of the multitude of alternative courses we would love to take and made sure we wouldn't forget to fill our air exclusively at certafied resorts ), weightlessness, fish, coral, ship wrecks, warm water (carribean diving) and chill people in trunks and bikinis. the following day After finishing our course We rented kayaks and paddled through a man made canal cut through the sulfuric swamp to the eastern side of utila (remote of all tourists, excluding us (chris and i and two others who had moved in to our four person dorm, who against the rentors warnings went there anyway) and snorkeled around and enjoyed the sun on a small island we found. I (chris) enjoyed it less so, because it turns out that the doxycycline (malaria medicine) i had just started taking again causes increased skin sensitivity to sun, resulting in whole body sunburns, regardless of the fact that i had spf 70'd my face followed up by two more whole body cycles of spf 30 and 20 through out the day-- not so fun. Aloe vera to the rescue.

This is being written as we wait for my(chris) debit card to come back from Utilla which i inconveniently forgot this morning as we rushed out the door to hop on the 620 boat. If all goes according to plan it will arive with the capitan around 4 and we will head out for real. UPDATE* Chirs is on his way now to get the debit card and we'll be leaving tomorrow super early (3 am) to catch up on the days lost so i just added and editted the post, UPDATE* chris just got back a little wet and hungry and said that the captain doesn't have it...tomorrow perhaps we will escape the city!

much love,

dante and chris

things have been falling in place....

so after finally escaping the wonders of san pedro we broke north to our first couch surfer up in Coban. to get there it was: one chicken bus to guatemala> a taxi across the city> another bus seemingly better than the chicken bus...which of course had its transmission fail 2/3rds of our way there...(half way up a hill it gave...the driver tried to let it roll back to flat land but almost dropped us off the embankment in the process) ... the road was littered with trash...with an especially high density of full baby diapers...not to worry though...we were quickly flagged down another bus (a volkswagen euro camper van) with twenty eight other people...me and chris jammed our selves in pressed against some windows in a standing hunched position....we made it to coban around night fall....and had trouble contacting and busing our way to our new friends house but in the end we made it...(left at 7 arrived at 7, refrence the google map for distance) our first couch surfers were great... three germans: Herman(male), kata(female), another( the name has been lost)(female), and a starved orange kitten. interesting folk who had inherited a sixth generation apartment of germans, non-profit-corporations seem to be a general theme among a high portion of foriengers in this region...thiers of course was education, schools, poor children. and all were serving a one year stint having just finished our highschool equivalent-ish. dinner with them was our first european meal done lovingly, chicken shrimp over a salad of a scratch made dressing plus german cheese out of an oven (of course) and chocolate...

the following day we woke slowly, made some eggs and some sort of ham we found in the nirghboring tienda, and set out to find a bus to take us to flores. after wantering for a bit, asking several shop owners, catching a city bus and walking a bit more, we found the "bus station" or bus collection in a dirt parking lot without names. found one going towards flores, actual destination was unsure, as the names are always said quickly and are usually unintelligble and confused with standard unknown spanish vocab. the destination ended up being Sayaxche, understandibly confusign i think. (you will notice that google maps has yet to recognize all of the road en route to this town). Ate some fried chicken for lunch and took a boat across the river we had come to which explained why we hadn't gotten on a bus "to flores." caught another bus actually to Flores this time, which ended uo being Santa something, google maps doesnt know either, and finally a Tuc Tuc to a hostel in flores called Los Amigos, a gringo paradise with bunks for 30q (3.5$) per night, hammacks lining every wall and natural flora sprawling from the center or the compound highlighted by club lights that were kept in rythem to by steady dubstep.

more to come...sleeping by Tikal tonight...

apoligies for spelling (we can only check it to spanish)

23 Days in San Pedro

Three weeks ago yesterday we arrived in San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala. Departed at around 11PM from sea-tac, flew to Houston, ate a breakfast burrito and slept on the floor. (I received some earplugs in my stocking for Christmas, they came in very handy right off the bat and have been an asset ever since)Another 4 hour flight to Guatemala City, and I was on land south of the Texas border for the first time in my life. Six piled into the microbus for the trip to San Pedro (pop. 13,000), our new friend Kristin, Dante, Mikail, Matt, Graham and myself. About four hours later we were deposited at the house of Tula and Francisco Mendez, our home for the next three weeks. Night one in town. We all went to the famous (according to Mikail) Buddah Bar, for the first of many night of meeting other travelers and playing pool. The roof is open air, and tall enough to look out on Late Atitlan, although it was usually dark. We quickly met our second friend, Danny, a late 20’s English fellow on a trip to Central America to learn spanish and study sustainable farming. Danny was heading to Xelatanago the next morning, so we parted ways and went home. The next day was allotted as an adjustment i.e. not school right after traveling day. The town was explored, money was changed at the bank, three meals were made for us by Tula (this was a daily occurrence save for sunday, part of our home stay parameters), and Danny was again encountered at the Buddah. This was to become a theme.


It took about 15 minutes to walk to San Pedro Spanish School from the house which lay relatively on the outskirts of town. This was occasionally expedited by rides in Tuc Tucs, aka auto rickshaws in India and very cheap here, 5 quetzales (currency and national bird) per person to anywhere in town. The current exchange rate is approx. 1$ to 8Q. School was held from 1-5 every day monday thu friday, one on one with a Maestro/a. Each pair retreated to a private-ish spot on the schools grounds with a table, two chairs and a white board to conduct the lesson. My teacher’s name was Thelma, a good humored 20 year old studying to be a lawyer. In Guatemala, the best Universities are free for those who can get in, for her program there are three mandatory exams on all sorts of law stuff that must be passed in order to be accepted. She had passed the first two, and had the next in 7 days, I was her very last student and lesson, as she resigned from the school in order to focus on studying.

Most mornings consisted of sunbathing and spanish homework no one felt like doing after class. Our three rooms sat on the upper floor of the main building on our family’s property, connected by an open air hallway and huge balcony with a view of the lake. The view was not all good. Some serious rain about 6 or 7 months ago caused a massive mudslide that tore through the property and those surrounding it, taking out a massive stone wall, destroying some buildings and depositing a tree in the kitchen, all when Tula and Francisco were sitting and watching TV. So far only half of their land has been rehabilitated, the rest remains covered in dirt and debris, including a swimming pool and hot tub that had been completed just weeks prior. The rain continued and the lake rose - flooded. Many buildings, homes and businesses once sat on the lakes edge, and I guess they still do, although they are different ones from before. San Pedro fared better than San Antonio, a village across the lake which also suffered a mudslide, however theirs occurred in the middle of town which sits on a steep hill. You can literally see a path torn through buildings all the way down to the main road by the lake, 30 people were lost in the tragedy.

On selected other morning and weekend days, we went on little adventures. Our first adventure 1: The “Indian’s Nose,” an elevated spot on the surrounding mountains resembling nothing other than a Mayan’s face. This gave us our first experience in a chicken bus, the primary form of distance travel for all residents of the country. These expired US school buses were incredibly efficient, in that they hold 2-3 times the number of people they may have when hauling US middle schoolers. Instead of slowing down much for the turns up and down the steep switchbacks that lead to the villages on the lake, the drivers simply honk to make sure that any oncoming traffic knows that they are about to lose in a collision. Our wheel started smoking, the assistant jumped off, pulled something off of the hub cap and we were off. Views were pretty spectacular, 5 volcanoes or something ridiculous in one pan across the lake from the look out tower. This trip exposed us to all three main forms of public transport, chicken bus on the way up, taxi (pick up truck with elevated metal cage/ passenger support bars in the bed) most of the way down, and a tuc tuc back to the town center.

Adventure 2: San Marcos Cliff Jumping with Kristin. Boat ride across the lake, met with impromptu 14 year old tour guide Edgar who took us the best restaurant in town (his house) for graham to get some pizza. Enjoyed a nice stroll through town filled with signs making sure every visitor was aware of its status as a meditation/yoga/relaxation/metaphysical/myan mystical tour/tarot card/serious chilling paradise. A platform was erected within the past year about 40 feet up a cliff with a platform for launching into the lake. Blissfully enjoyable.

Adventure 3:Chris, Dante, Graham try to find the black sand beach down the shore a away, don’t make it; find a awesome lookout after stumbling upon a stone walkway seemingly in the middle of nowhere, try to find the road we know is somewhere up, and end up in the middle of a coffee plantation only to discover that we passed the road, backtrack to a path to the road and walk back in time for lunch.

Adventure 4: Kayak to black sand beach an beyond. Got to float through trees swallowed by the flood and get a good deal of sunshine to add to the ever growing tan base layers. Think about kayaking to San Marcos again, (Mikail didn't make round 1) decide to take boat on account to hole in boat - chris/mikail and general tiredness. Cliff jumping again. To sleep by 730, record since age 10.

Adventure 5: Panajachel market shopping day. This one with parents, Nani, Jill, Leah and Iggy all arrived and joined us at the spanish school. Dante and I purchased hats which will continue to define our identities as we continue south, a fedora and a cowboy hat respectively.

Adventure 6: Last day boat trip around this island on hired boat with friend Brian from school who we plan to meet in Honduras and/or Panama in the next few weeks. A friend of Mikail’s from last year has a boat and offered to take us all out for a day form 100$, not a bad deal. Visited San Marcos, Antonio, Panajachel and Santiago. Utterly enjoyable and wonderful way to spend our last day together as a group.

That brings us to last saturday. It is now tuesday and we are preparing for our departure out into the greater Latin American world. If all goes according to plan we will be on a 7am chicken bus to Guatemala City tomorrow morning on our way to Coban where we will stay the night on our way to Tikal, the Mayan ruin capitol of the world. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more (briefer) posts in the coming days/weeks/months.

a journey