Solo Roadshow

Hell Bus to Paraguay

doodledawn — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 03:01:00 GMT

After I decided I was going to try heading through Paraguay, I did some research and got the address for the Paraguay consulate in Santa Cruz. An extened searcg if the city revealed the office on the first floor of an apartment building. The security guard didn´t even know it was there- maybe I should have taken this as a sign? Luckily the ladies in the ladies in the office were amazingly helpful, going so far as to write a letter for me in Spanish to the Consulor General to explain why I didn´t have a ticket yet to exit the country once I got in (it is almost impossible to buy bus tickets ahead of time in much of South America). I rounded up some passport photos and photocopies of my credit card and paid the $65 fee and then five hours later, I was officially allowed to enter Paraguay for up to 90 days. Too bad the rest of the trip to Asuncion wasn´t that easy.

One of the requirements of the visa application was that I purchase a ticket to enter the country ahead of time, so at the Santa Cruz station I did some due diligence and checked around a few ticket offices before purchasing. I knew from research online that one does not always get what is promised when paying for these buses so I thought I was being pretty careful. The trip runs at about 24 hours total, so it is no small commitment to choose a company. I settled on Yacyreta, which was recommended in the Lonely Planet guide book and appeared to have a pretty clean office and friendly staff. The ticket seller assured me that they had television, air conditioning and reclining seats as well as three meals included. I paid 380 Bolivianos and was pretty pleased with myself.

The evening of departure, I got there early and waited in front of the office. Rather abruptly with about 20 minutes to go before departure, the man I bought the ticket from, hustles me through the hallway toward the departure door and we walk past half a dozen nice looking coaches. He drops my bag in front of the smallest bus at the end of the row and quickly walks off. I look up at my new home for the next 24 hours and realize I may have just been hustled. They didn´t mention it at purchase, but when the various companies don´t have enough passengers to fill several buses, they just send the cheapest one. Yacyreta may have had a very nice bus for all I know, but they weren´t going bother sending it for five or ten people. I was shuffled onto a bus run by Rio Paraguay with no air conditioning, tv and a seat that barely reclined. With resignation, I bordered the piece of crap and resigned myself to an unconfortable trip, yet again. Supper was passable with cold chicken and rice and after a long night, breakfast consisted of four small cookies and a juice box. By mid-day we were crossing the Chaco, a vast empty space in the north of Paraguay that totally reminded me of the outback of Western Australia- nothing but bare dirt and scrubby dry brush as far as the eye could see. Somewhere near the Tropic of Capricorn, the dry heat drove the temperature upwards of 42 degress; it was at about this time that the bus broke down. Awesome. With the nearest town hundreds of kilometers away, I chose not to think about the potential consequences and decided to have a nap instead. The travel gods must have took pity on us as the bus roared back to life about an hour and a half later. We finally rolled into Asuncion at 7pm and I caught a cab to my hostel and slept for almost a full day. I must have needed it after my little bus adventure.

Other than a few good pubs and bars, there wasn´t much to do in th Paraguayan capital so after a night of dancing with some fellow travellers from the hostel, I moved on to Encarnacion, which was near some Jesuit ruins listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. I meant to check the place out in the morning but I slept in and the afternoon was way too hot for me. The weather had reached the low 40s every day I was in Paraguay. Tired of the crazy heat, I decided to just head for the more temperate climes of Argentina. Bolivia had been too cold, Paraguay too hot, so hopefully Argentina would be just right. I splurged for a private room with air conditioning in Ciudad del Este and stayed for two nights. The town shares a border with both Brazil and Argentina so it was a really interesting mixture of cultures. It also is home to the second largest dam in the world in terms of energy production, second only to the Three Gorges project in China. After some public transit confusion I took a cab to see the big man-made behemoth that was the Itaipu Dam. Started in the 70´s, it was pretty controversial as it flooded a huge swath of pristine wilderness, including a pretty spectacular waterfall. The upside being that it provides electricity to almost all of Paraguay and a good percentage of Brazil as well.

I left the hot and dusty and disorganized world of Paraguay by catching a small boat across the river to Puerto Iguazu in Argentina; a town famous mainly for the insanely breathtaking waterfalls there. But more on that next time!!!

Lethal La Paz and the Death Road

doodledawn — Wed, 7 Mar 2012 08:58:00 GMT

Having spent less than 24 hours in La Paz before Carnaval, I decided to backtrack a bit and give the city another look. It also helped that Hannah, Tijs, and Bethune from my Salar tour were all heading in that direction anyway. My cold was still pretty bad, so I wasn't going to do anything too crazy (at least that was the plan to begin with...). Bethune and Hannah convinced me to go on a little bike trip down the world's most dangerous road. Downhill for 63km with a vertical loss of 3500m, you start in the frosty highlands near La Paz and end up in a jungle-like valley at the bottom. What better way to get over a cold? For 400 Bolivianos we got a pretty serious hard tail downhill mountain bike and lunch included. An extra hundred would have paid for full suspension and my sore ass regretted my stinginess later.

A van picked us up from our hostel and then it was a short ride to our starting point. Our guides seemed pretty experienced and gave us a thorough safety briefing before passing around a small white bottle. We were to pour some of the liquid (which turned out to be about 98% alcohol) onto our front bike tire and then take a swig from the bottle. This was to honour Pachamama (basically a Bolivian Mother Nature) and get some luck for our journey. The next four hours were spent hurtling down what was at first a full paved highway which eventually graded into a narrow gravel road with a 600m cliff on one side and a sheer wall of rock and vegetation on the other. Occasionally the route was interrupted by moderate sized waterfalls pouring directly onto the road or by small landslides, partially cleared. At one point I briefly lost control and crashed into a rock face along the road. Better that side than the other! Immediately after my little accident, a guy who was riding with another company came up to me screaming that he almost died. I learned later that his bike had come apart and he had fallen part way down the cliff, with only some small bushes saving him from going all the way down. Some of the less reputable companies were known to use shoddy equipment and I guess he was an unlucky statistic of that issue(or really lucky, depending on your perspective). By the time we got to the end of the trip, the weather had warmed by 20 degrees and the wind and sleet had morphed into a humid, clear sky. We stopped for lunch at a small hotel at the bottom of the road and had a bit of a wash before getting back in the van. We now had to drive back up that crazy road. Luckily we were allowed to stop for beers for the trip back, which dulled the fear somewhat as we bumped along up the narrow path (don't worry, the driver just drank soda!). Our guide filled us in with some interesting information on the drive back, including the fact that 16 cyclists have died on the road, and dozens of people in vans and trucks over the years. He personally lost an Israeli girl once when she tried to take off her goggles while still moving and lost control and went over the edge. I was really glad he didn't mention any of this before we started. I don't think I would ever do it again, but the rush of hurtling down the Death Road was absolutely crazy.

After the trip, my travelling companions all went their seperate ways and I was on my own again. In my dorm at Wild Rover were three English gals and though I wasn´t quite 100% recovered from my cold, they convinced me to go out with them for the night. We started at the in-hostel bar and moved on to the club after that. Just as I was lining up to buy a drink, a fight broke out between a couple girls near the dance floor. I stepped in to try help break it up and pulled one of the combatants out of the fray. She was bleeding pretty badly from a cut on her forhead and I dragged her into the bathroom to clean up. In the process I managed to get blood all over my arms and some on my face- my friends were freaked out when they saw me until I assured them that I wasn´t bleeding myself. After I washed up, I went to check on the girl and make sure she was okay. I found her outside the club with her boyfriend and when I asked how she was doing, she basically told me to fuck off, so I guess no good deed goes unpunished.

After that night, I decided I had had enough of La Paz and left the next afternoon on a night bus to Cochabamba follwed by a second nigh bus to Santa Cruz in the far eastern end of Bolivia. For once both my buses were functional and somewhat smooth. Cochabamba, other than having the second largest statue of Jesus on a hill (smaller than the one in Poland but larger than Rio´s), was a bit dull. At least the weather was better- by the time I got to Santa Cruz, the air was positigvely tropical! In my search for a hostel (the first three were full), I met a young Danish guy named Mikal and we decided to split a room to save on cash. He had just finished high school and was on his first trip abroad. So adorable! (No funny business though, as I am pretty sure that crosses into cougar territory with the ten year age gap).

With a couple days in Santa Cruz to relax, I decided I had some time to organize a visa to Paraguay. My ultimate goal was Iguazu Falls on the Brazil-Argentina border and cutting through Paraguay seemed to be the most direct route. The whole process ended up being much more.... interesting.... then I anticipated.

The Edge of the Map

doodledawn — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 08:45:00 GMT

After catching the train from Oruro to Uyuni, I arrived with my new friends Bethune and Hannah and we looked for a hostel. Bethune had caught the nasty flu that was going around and was not terribly coherent. I found us a place to sleep near the bus terminal (really just a dusty street where the buses stopped with a couple of ticket offices). Uyuni was full to bursting with people who had left Carnaval earlier and been stuck due to the recent heavy rain. The town was previously a mining hub but is in a tourist boom these days, thanks to its proximity to the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flats in the world. Many tours in recent days had been cancelled because roads were impassible. Our group was continuing on to Tupiza to the south where we could also take a tour, but a longer one with fewer people.

We found a bus the next morning but it didn´t leave until 8:30pm so we had a lot of time to kill. Bethune and I both felt like crap so we ended up napping on a bench while Hannah used the internet. Not the best day of my trip to be sure, and things got worse when our bus showed up. Because of the bad roads, the company was using a 4x4 bus and it was probably the roughest thing I have seen in five countries worth of travelling. The road itself was no better- hours of washboard before things started to improve. We were also right in the back of the bus so got the worst of the turbulence- Bethune actually threw up at one point. This being a night bus, the idea was to sleep through most of it- managed to pass out about half way through the 8 hour journey, don´t ask me how.

Finally, we arrived in Tupiza at 4 am. Absolutely nothing was open, but after knocking on the doors of a couple of hostels, we found a decent option. Later in the morning we tracked down the tour agency recommended to us by some fellow couchsurfers, La Torre Tours. We booked a trip for the next day- four days through the south-west of Bolivia, ending at the Salar de Uyuni. The two others who joined our tour were Tijs from Holland and Aimee from New York City.

So in the morning we started out in our 4x4 Land cruiser with our guide Angel, and his wife Modesta, who was also the cook. They didn’t speak English but both Hannah and Aimee were pretty fluent so we always managed to understand each other. They were old enough to be retired, but I am not sure if that is a real concept in Bolivia. They were so sweet; it was like we had a new set of Bolivian grandparents along on the tour.

After stopping for lunch, the road got a little rougher and eventually we came to a river we had to ford. Our vehicle made the crossing easily but one of the other SUVs in the caravan got seriously stuck in the mud part-way across. After breaking a tow strap and getting another vehicle stuck in the process, eventually everyone was free and across the river (3 hours later). We kept going and eventually split from the other 6 vehicles, leaving only us and one other La Torre SUV. That night we made it to a small village where we had supper and unpacked for the night. As the sun set we could see a double rainbow on one side of the horizon and the snow-capped Andes on the other, and once the sun set, the stars were absolutely insane. We climbed into our sleeping bags and passed out- it had been a long day. The second day brought us through some more barren alpine scenery and our sister vehicle got a little stuck after breaking through a layer of frozen mud. Modesta pulled out the pickaxe and got to work along with the other cook and guides. Free again we made our way toward the Chilean border with more mountains and lagoons. The best was the hot springs overlooking a shallow lake and yet more mountains- Banff, eat your heart out!

We slept in a windswept stone hostel in the middle of nowhere. I think it used to be accommodation for nearby mines, as it was a bit spartan, though we made the most of it with numerous games of Asshole and some Dutch card game I still don´t think I understand. On the third day we went to some sulphurous geysers within an old volcanic zone (at 5000m!!!), along with some crazy rock formations and even a lagoon full of flamingos (what flamingos are doing at that altitude, I have no idea). Rather than staying at one of the expensive salt-hotels along the salar, we spent the last night in Uyuni, and made for the salt flats before dawn on the fourth day so we could watch the sunrise there. It´s wet season until the end of March so the entire expanse was covered with several centimeters of water. This made for some very surreal vistas with mirror reflections of everything- it was the strangest sunrise I have ever seen. I was the only one of the group that had waterproof boots (thank you gore-tex!) so I got to wander around the empty expanse a bit while everyone else was limited to the area around the salt hotel in the middle of the salt flat.

We made it back to Uyuni by lunch time and said farewell to Angel and Modesta. Aimee went on to Argentina from there and I was planning on going to Sucre, but Tijs, Bethune and Hannah convinced me to go to La Paz for a little fun, so we booked a night bus for the four of us. This time the bus looked slightly better than the last one I took and was a double-decker. We had seats in the front of the top, so had a great view. Too bad it was dark by the time we left at 8pm. Things went smoothly until about 4:30 in the morning when the bus pulled off to the side of the road and stalled. I woke up briefly, but then fell back to sleep. At 7am the bus was still parked there and as I woke again, I noticed many of the locals were abandoning ship. When I got outside, I saw that one of the wheels had been removed and there were several people hitching on the side of the highway. A quick check on my GPS told me we were still 80km from La Paz. Hannah took some initiative and asked the driver what was going on. All he said was that there was no replacement bus coming, with no other information. Wonderful. After a few false starts, we managed to flag down a local collectivo bus, and got on. Several stops and a couple traffic jams later, we made it into La Paz, but nowhere near the bus terminal or our hostel. From where we got off we had to take a taxi and finally made it to the hostel by 11am. Gotta love Boliva- she is always full of surprises.

Another kind of Carnaval

doodledawn — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:50:00 GMT

Arriving in Oruro on a surprisingly decent bus, I contacted my couchsurfing host, Juan Carlos, from an ancient payphone. He gave me an address to meet him and I headed off with my backpack. Juan Carlos set me up in a room in the basement and invited me out for a drink with the El Salvadorian couple staying in the other room. I politely declined since the altitude and the jet lag were kind of getting to me (3700m in Oruro). I spent the next day wandering around Oruro, a rather dreary town in most cases, but the streets were bustling that day as everyone set up for Carnaval. Within a day or two, welders had constructed stadium seating along hundreds of meters of street, and in the main square several stages were also constructed. That night a few more couchsurfers showed up and Juan Carlos helped us all make a traditional Bolivian casserole with some sort of grain only found in Bolivia. Delicious! The next day was the beginning of the main event. I met a couple of Canadians and a Japanese girl and we headed out for the pre-parade. Most out-of-towners had not yet arrived so it was mainly locals having a party in the street. Many folks wore their traditional costumes and drank beer in the street as they practiced their dance numbers for the next day. We managed to get into the parade somehow and joined the human river moving slowly for the main square. One old fellow even got me to dance a bit along the way. Only at Carnaval!

That afternoon we checked into the Collegio Americano, a school where we would be sleeping for the next four nights. At 50 Bolivianos per night instead of the $80 being asked for at crummy local hotels, it was an unbelievable deal, even though we had to sleep on mats on the classroom floors. In the evening a few of us headed out into the city- Thursday was La Noche de la Mujeres, which basically translates to "Ladies' Night". The men all played in various brass bands as the women danced through the streets, dressed to the nines. A bunch of us joined in the dancing and stayed up until the wee hours. Friday was a bit quieter during the day, but in the evening there was more dancing and partying in the streets and after midnight I found myself in a huge mob of people at the main square with a live band and a DJ as thousands of us drank and danced and cheered. I finally dragged myself home by about 3am or so.

On Saturday morning all of the couchsurfers congregated in the main courtyard of the school, where we all picked up our tickets for parade seats along the main route. Starting at 9:30am, the parade went on into the night and finally wound down at about 4am. With over 50 000 dancers, this was not surprising. All throughout the day people everywhere were drinking and throwing water balloons and spraying each other with foam. I only lasted until around 9 or 10pm, as my stamina was waning. The parade started up again at 10am on Sunday with most of the participants now as drunk as the spectators, but my partying had caught up with me and I now had a bad cough, so I stayed on the sidelines. Carnaval was truly a marathon of partying and I won´t soon forget it. Unlike other well-known Carnavals, like Rio, the party in Oruro is chiefly a local affair. There is certainly a lot of gringos around, but the main group of revelers are the normally reserved highlanders of Bolivia, who completely let loose. In a place where the average temperature rarely gets above 15 degrees, even in the summer, you can see why they might need a big dust-up once in a while.

The trains weren´t running on Monday so I finally made my escape from Oruro on Tuesday- myself, along with Bethune from Toronto and Hannah from Germany decided to check out the salt flats down south together- onward to Uyuni!

Altiplano Llama Sausage

doodledawn — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:00:00 GMT

As I type, I am sitting in an internet cafe in Oruro, Bolivia. It is cold as hell, and the altitude is around 3700m, but I think coming here was definitely a great idea.

Backing up a bit, I spent most of the last week at Lago de Atitlan in Guatemala. My flight to La Paz, Bolivia was to leave on Monday, Feb 13 so I couldn´t stray too far from Guatemala City. Lago de Atitlan is a gorgeous 83000 year old caldera, created by a huge volcanic explosion that basically collapsed into itself. The lake (lago) is rimmed by steep slopes, cliffs and two extinct volcanos. With all the geologic beauty of the area, the sad thing about the Atitlan region is that the lake is basically being poisoned. The amount of runoff and trash that has accumulated has meant that the biological state of the lake is pretty dire. The huge algal bloom in 2009 has since dissipated, but the lake is far from healthy. Sigh.

I took a shuttle from Antigua and arrived in San Pedro, where I met an American gal named Whitney who was learning Spanish so she could do a midwifery internship in a couple weeks. Very interesting chick. From San Pedro I caught a small boat to another village along the lake, San Marcos, where my friend Kia was hanging out. We travelled together a bit in Mexico and it was nice to see her again. We made a plan, along with her friend Mattea to go to San Pedro for happy hour and then catch a tuk-tuk back to San Marcos for the night. Kia didn´t make it but Mattea and I along with Whitney tucked in at a couple of pubs, eventually ending up at the Alegra which had 5 Queztal screwdrivers (that is less than a doller, by the way). As we were drinking, a huge thunderstorm rolled in, adding a nice bit of drama to the evening. Suddenly, all the power went out and we were sitting in the bar in the dark. The bartender brought over a candle and we finished our drinks, before heading out to find some transportation home. Whitney was staying in town so she was fine, but Mattea and I had to get back to San Marcos. Our orignal plan was out once we discovered that the tuk-tuks wouldn´t do the drive on a stormy night in case of being robbed. Hmmm. Finally, one of the tuk-tuk drivers flagged down a proper taxi for us, but he wanted Q150, which was twice what I paid for my shuttle from Antigua. Double hmmm. Luckily Mattea spoke great Spanish and was able to get another proper taxi for Q80. Our tuk-tuk driver also got in for a ride and along the way we picked up a little old lady walking in the rain by the road. We made it back to San Marcos, no worse for wear, nary a robber to be seen.

Mattea joined me when I went back to Antigua on the 10th and with her great negotiation skills were able to snag a relatively affordable private room in the pricy town. Antigua is like Copan on steroids, with cobblestone streets and colonial buildings everywhere. Surrounded by highlands and volcanos, it is beautiful but a bit of a tourist trap these days; the coffee was amazing at least. I splurged and bought my first souvenir, a gorgeous silver jade necklace made with local stone. At Q350 ($45), it was the most expensive thing I bought so far, but I have a feeling it would be three times the price back in Canada.

On Monday I said goodbye to Mattea, took a shuttle from Antigua and flew out of the suprisingly modern airport in Guatemala City. Two connections later (San Salvador and Lima), I arrived in La Paz at about 12:30am. I met a musician couple, Joe and Pam from Edmonton at customs and we shared a cab into the city. The MEC backpack gave them away as Canadian, but it was rather cool to meet some northern Albertans in such a random, far-flung place. The elevation of the airport in La Paz is 4000m with the city itself situated a little lower at 3600-3800m. I was pretty worried about the effects of the altitude, but so far the only symptoms I have had are a mild headache and a lack of appetite. Last year when I drove up Mauna Kea in Hawaii, I got quite nauseated and a bit dizzy, but I think it was because I was driving up from sea level (... in a red Mustang convertable).

Yesterday I took a bus from La Paz to Oruro, across the famous Altiplano, a huge mountain plateau that is only 400m lower than the Tibetan Plateau. Rolling barren hills as far as the eye can see, there is very little vegetation other than some small scrub and grass. Oruro is smack in the middle of all this emptiness, which may explain why they go all out for their Carnaval. Normally a small mining city, the place completely transforms for the festival. I´ll let you know how it goes in my next post.

Currently I am staying in the basement at the house of a local named Juan. When I first looked up accomodation for Carnaval, prices were triple the norm, runnning upward of $80 per night for a crappy hotel room. I decided to check out Couchsurfing.org, which connects travellers with people willing to let them crash for free at their place. Juan has been taking in couchsurfers for over 3 years and says that he absolutely loves meeting so many people from around the world. I thought that was pretty cool. Since there would not be near enough placements for everyone during the actual Carnaval, Juan and some other locals have set up a cheap place to stay at a nearby school (couchsurfers only). So instead of $80 I will be paying $2. I will be moving over to the school tomorrow night. Juan even took me out for brunch this morning- I had a llama sausage sandwhich and a grain-based sweet drink that I can´t recall the name of. Who knew llama would be so yummy?

The only downside of Boliva so far has been the cold. At this elevation it usually sits around 12 degrees all year and can drop down to -15 in the winter at night. Right now is technically summer, but that just means it rains more only gets to -2 at night. I had to make an emergency stop in La Paz to pick up a small sleeping bag and a pretty alpaca scarf. At least it´s not snowing!

Delays and Detours

doodledawn — Tue, 7 Feb 2012 12:30:00 GMT

Having been stuck in Copan for 6 days waiting for my eternally delayed DHL package, I am finally out of Honduras and merrily typing away in an Internet cafe in Antigua. I spent most of the last week sleeping in, reading and drinking beer in Copan as I waited. I did have a couple of interesting evenings, though.

On Thursday night I ran into my German friends from Utila, Alyssa and her boyfriend Merion. They were hanging out with another German couple at the local tourist bar, Via Via. The other couple decided that there must be a cheaper place for beer and we eventually ended up at this local hole-in-the-wall attached to someones home. It didn't have a name, but there was a picnic table and a pile of vegetables in sacks in the corner. At the bar was a friendly lady and her husband passing out beer for a mere 22 Lempiras (compared to 35 at Via Via). A local guy sat down beside me and proclaimed his love, but I tactfully brought up my (imaginary) boyfriend who hadn't come out with us that night. The imaginary boyfriend comes in very handy when I have to explain to love-struck Honduran fellows at the bus stop why I am walking around by myself. This version was a teacher and volunteer but he has also been a pilot or mechanic or chef, depending on my mood. Later in the evening a mariachi band randomly showed up, doubling the occupancy of the bar. They had just finished their shift at a local hotel and were still in full costume. I think they were friends with the guy who ran the place- after a couple of beers they launched into several out-of-tune numbers, at which point my Honduran paramour tried to get me to dance. Yet another unexpected and surreal night in Central America.

On Superbowl Sunday every American within driving distance of Copan congregated at the only pizza place in town and sat down in front of the flat screens brought in for the event. There were several Americans in my hostel so I joined them for the first half, but I don't really follow NFL so I left to meet Alyssa instead. We got a six pack and sat drinking in the central square as the citizens of Copan played with their kids and the sun set. Two little girls sat watching us intently as we drank. At first I thought they were just curious but then one of them got bold and asked me for my can. After that, every time I finished a can, she ran up with her little bag so I could put it in. They waited until we were done all six before running off into the night. As it was not yet 9pm, Alyssa went to get Merion and I brought them to a great bar I had found the other night. It was run by a German fellow who imported his hops directly from Bavaria. Alyssa was from Bavaria, so she was ecstatic to have some "proper" beer for once. Running at 60 Lempira, it was the most expensive beer in town, but it was well worth it (and it worked out to a mere $3 Canadian dollars, so is probably the least I will ever pay for a German microbrew).

The next day I FINALLY got my package at about 1pm, but all the cheap shuttles had already left. I was NOT going to spend another day in Copan so I splurged and took the Hedman Alas bus to Antigua. At 789 Lempira, it was definitely out of my normal price range, but it was nicer than any bus or plane I have ever been on, with steward service, free sandwiches and drinks, along with the comfiest bus seats that leaned almost all the way back. I got into Antigua last night at 9pm and booked into the Black Cat Hostel, which had beds that were the opposite of the bus seats, but the huge free breakfast made up for it. I only have a week in Guatemala now because I have decided to make a drastic change in my itinerary.

The other night in Copan, I dreamed that I went to Carnaval, and when I woke up I thought that sounded like a great idea. It sounds flaky as hell and was probably a result of my increasing boredom, but the next day I started looking into places in South America that had good celebrations (Brazil was out of the question because it would take too long to get a Visa, and was also the most expensive). I narrowed it down to three places: Port-of-Spain, Trinidad; Barranquilla, Columbia; and Oruro, Bolivia. All had huge celebrations and were accessible by flight or bus. Eventually I chose Oruro because I had been to Trinidad before, and because Boliva put me smack in the middle of all the things I wanted to see in the continent. So now I am flying from Guatemala to Santa Cruz, Boliva on Tuesday, Feb 13 and will make it to Oruro by Feb 16, just in time for Carnaval. Random, I know, but what the hell, why not?

Beer and Birds

doodledawn — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:30:00 GMT

For the last five days, I have been chilling in a wonderful little place called the D & D Brewery, near the Lago de Yojoa. It is a small microbrewery and accomodation run by an American fellow and has the best beer I have tasted since leaving Canada and a decent dorm to boot. I was to stay for just a night or two, and then head on back to Copan Ruinas to pick up the DHL package my mom sent me from Canada with my zoom lens and replacement credit card. This did not happen. First of all, there was way too much to do in the area to fit into the time frame. Secondly, my package has been stuck in San Pedro Sula since Wednesday, awaiting a "clearance delay", whatever that means. According to the DHL website, the package has gone from Edmonton to Calgary to Cinncinati to Panama City to Guatemala City to Tegucegalpa (capital of Honduras), back to Guatemala City and finally to San Pedro Sula, which is only a 3 hour bus ride from Copan. Fingers crossed, it will make it there by Monday or Tuesday.

On my first day at the brewery I signed up for a 6am birdwatching tour. Not my normal cup of tea, but the guide was this opinionated old British naturalist named Malcolm, and he was definitely worth the price of admission. Between spotting Kingfishers and Herons on our little rowboat on the lake, he also filled me in on all that is good and bad in the world according to him and how the corporations were ruining Honduras. It was like having a tour with a very cranky David Attenburough.

The next day I went to the Pulhapanzak waterfalls- at 43m, they were definitely impressive, but more worrisome were the kids playing near the bottom. You could also take a tour behind the falls, but I didn´t bring a bathing suit and the wet rocks looked a little beyond my balance capabilities. I also went for a hike at a local orchard/nature preserve and got thoroughly lost. The map they provided me with was vague at best and totally not to scale. I followed what I thought was an official path over a hill and as I descended the other side, I saw a man with a machete clearing brush. He smiled and waved me on down the path that had become a dirt road so I continued on. Eventually the road ended in a small work camp where a woman and a man were tying up sacks of some kind of citrus fruit. I tried to ask the man in broken Spanish where the path was, but all he did was point into the brush near the river. I knew that was the same river (more of a creek, actually) I had crossed on a footbridge earlier in the day so I decided to use it to navigate back to the nature park. After a few meters the brush became to thick alongside the water so I rolled up my pants and waded in. I forded down the watercourse for about 200m at which point I spotted the missing path on the right, behind a barbed wire fence. A little crouching and crawling later, I was back on track. Nothing like a little backcountry hiking to make the afternoon interesting.

Back at the brewery, I met a woman named Inga from Australia and her friend Michelle from South Africa. They both worked at a mine in Sierra Leone and Inga was a geologist. Small world, right? We got to chatting and she offered to pass my resume along to some friends of hers at BHP Billiton in Australia. With a little luck, I might have a new job out of this. I think those whale sharks gave me some sort of good luck mojo because everything I have done since then has worked out really well. Even the bird tour was better than expected- Malcolm said it was the most species he had seen in one day since last spring.

I left the brewery this morning and made it to the town of La Esperanza, a cute little place up in the highlands. Rather than go back to ugly old San Pedro Sula on my way to Copan, I thought I would take the back way. I am a bit off the beaten track, but it is pretty nice. I have yet to see another backpacker and the scenary is gorgeous. Tomorrow I will move on to Gracias and Santa Rosa de Copan and make it back to Copan Ruinas by Tuesday. Lets hope my package is there too.

WHALE SHARKS!!!!!!

doodledawn — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:24:00 GMT

Tonight is my last night in Utila and after ten days, I can safely say that this place is up in my top three favorites in the world, along with Karijini National Park in Australia and the Fjordlands of New Zealand. There are no majestic water falls, nor any grand mountains or hot springs, but the ocean life I have encountered over the past several days has been amazing. The water is clear turquoise and the coral is pristine, the fish are plentiful and the people are wonderful.

After I got over my cold, I completed my two free fun dives that came along with the course on Saturday. My pressure equalization has been getting progressively better so I was able to descend with little of the ear pain that had been plaguing me in previous dives. As soon as we got to depth, we spotted a sea turtle hanging out along the buoy line. It had been my dream to see a sea turtle in the water for years. I had been to several nesting sites in my travels but always in the wrong season. There is something about seeing them move so effortlessly through the water that just gives me goosebumps. The rest of the dive went well and we surfaced and went to the next site. We followed along the side of a huge reef wall, spotting groupers and angelfish and the occasional spiny lobster or crab. Then as we came over a ridge, ANOTHER sea turtle. One of the dive masters told me that she never saw a turtle until her 46th dive- I was on my lucky 13th.

I took the next day off from diving and just relaxed on Jewel Caye. My room overlooked the water and I could see the coral beneath the shallow water. In the morning the sun rose directly outside my window. On Sunday I decided I had had enough peace and quiet for a while and headed to the main island of Utila. I went with a German couple I had been hanging out with to a presentation on whale sharks given by a biologist at the local research center. Utila is the only place in the world where you have a chance to see them year-round, though only one had been spotted since October. The research center allowed snorkelers to go out with their research boat for $50. I put my name on the waiting list, but wasn't sure if I should spend that much for the off-chance that they might see a whale shark that day. In the end I decided to spend my money on a couple more dives instead, and it was probably one of the best decisions I have made on this trip.

This morning started out rough, as I had trouble getting to sleep and then had to meet the dive boat at 6:45am. I grabbed a coffee and a cinnimon roll from Thomson's Bakery (yum!) and then climbed aboard- and within 2 minutes half of my coffee was on my shirt when someone in front of me slung on their backpack and tipped the cup into my chest- I soon forgot about that, though. As we rode out to the first site, we came across a pod of dolphins and the captain slowed down. One of the divemasters shouted to get our fins and masks on because we were going in. The boat was still moving as I leapt from the side and got a mouth full of salt water for my trouble. I forgot about that in a moment, as a half dozen bottlenose dolphins swam within 4 meters of my face. They only stayed for a few minutes and then it was back to the boat to get to our dive site.

After the dolphins, the dive seemed a bit underwhelming but it was interesting enough, with several small coral channels to navigate through. On the way to the second site, more dolphins showed up, playing in the water along our bow wave. And then the captain spotted a large shape in the water. Someone shouted that it was a whale shark and that we needed our mask and fins on NOW. Geared up once again, the captain steered alongside the beast and I got into the water just in time to see is tail fin flicking into the blue. We climbed back aboard and continued on. Not 5 minutes later we found ANOTHER whale shark. This time I was already sitting with my gear on and dove in like a flash. Those 10 seconds were the most memorable of my life- I landed within 3 meters of the giant creature's head. He was at least 10m long and I am pretty sure I could have stood up in his mouth. Whale sharks are filter feeders and don't eat anything bigger than about 30cm, so there was no physical danger, but the shear enormity of the creature I was swimming beside was hard to fathom. It still hasn't really sunk in what I saw this morning and I think it will take me a couple days to really appreciate it.

We, of course still had one more dive, and as we descended, I was still thinking of the whale shark when we came upon an eagle ray, about 1.5m wide and a moray eel further along. The other dive group encountered more dolphins as well. Finally the diving was done for the day and the boat headed back. The final cherry on top was the sea turtle we saw skimming the surface along side the boat on our way back to Utila. The manager of the dive shop was on the boat today and told me that it was her best day on the water ever(she has over 100 dives in her log book).

We all tipped the captain generously and my divemaster, Lisa, said I was good luck. In 4 dives and two snorkels I managed to see 3 sea turtles, 2 eels, a ray, and 2 whale sharks. I can't believe how lucky I am. There are no words to explain how surreal and extraordinary the past 3 days have been. I am leaving tomorrow for the mainland with not a single regret and an experience I will remember until I am a hundred years old.

Cheers.

PS. Speaking of age, HAPPY BIRTHDAY KRISTAN!!!!! The whale sharks say hello!

Photos: The Other Americas

doodledawn — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:37:00 GMT

Into the Blue (and out again)

doodledawn — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:41:00 GMT

My grand plan when I left Copan Ruinas was to catch the 5am bus to San Pedro Sula and then change for another bus to La Ceiba and finally, from there catch the ferry to Utila (the closest and cheapest of the Bay Islands of Honduras). I thought I would be especially smart by staying up to catch the bus rather than risking sleeping in by going to bed. I did end up where I planned to be, though in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have had so many beers the night before in my effort to stay awake.

On the evening of the 13th, I went out with some of the girls in my spanish school and we ordered a round of the big beers sold in Copan (equivalent to about 3 regular bottles). A couple of those went down pretty smoothly and then the girl from Kansas had to go home as she was having some difficulties walking. I was still okay, but there were still 4 hours before my bus was to leave so I stayed until closing and then went back to my place to pack. I did end up sleeping for about an hour, but luckily my alarm was set as a backup so I still caught the bus, though at the time I assumed I probably wasn't the most sober one on board. Turns out I was wrong- I slept the whole way to San Pedro Sula and when we arrrived, the Australian couple behind me asked whether I had been grossed out when the girl in the seat across from them started vomiting. I slept through the whole thing, and though was a bit hung over by the time I got to Utila, I figured that was a small price to pay for missing that little episode of the journey.

Once in Utila, I signed up with Captain Morgan's Dive Center for my PADI Advanced Open Water Course. I have been a certified diver since I was in Australia, but the advanced course was a good way of building my confidence. The first night I slept on the main island but after that I got to transfer to Captain Morgan's secondary accomodation on one of the small cayes to the southwest. While Utila was interesting, I found that the maze of motorbikes and golf carts made strolling a bit of a stressful operation. Jewel Caye, on the other hand, is a little piece of mellow paradise for $6 a night. As usual, my tiny ear canals started acting up after my first dive, but I managed to finish the course before my ears got totally blocked. The same thing happened when I was in Australia and in Hawaii, so I was anticipating it. I think I am not anatomically designed for long term diving. Alas! My instructer kept suggesting that I sign up for a divemaster course but I am pretty sure my inner ear would just implode at some point if I dove every day.

The five dives I had to do to qualify as an advanced diver were a deep dive to 30m (100ft), a dive to a shipwreck, a navigation dive, a night dive and a dive to fine-tune my buoyancy. I have to say that my favorite was definitely the wreck dive- I felt like I was in a national geographic documentary as we swam around and partially through the old boat. There was an eerie, ghost-like quality to the old beast- it sat at about 30m depth with small fish swimming through it's rusted exoskeleton. The ship had been intentionally sunk as a training wreck, so it is mostly intact except for the removal of sharp edges. A very surreal experience, to be sure.

I still have two fun dives to do once my ears clear up, so I have been hanging around jewel caye waiting on that and for my minor cold to disappear as well. I can confirm that there are worse places to be stuck with a stuffy nose. I will update again when I move on. Cheers, amigos.

Mucho Escuela

doodledawn — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:38:00 GMT

Today was my last day of classes at the Guacamaya Spanish School in Copan, Honduras. It may seem silly to say but I had forgotten that school is supposed to be a challenge. I have not taken a language class since ninth grade, taught by a woman who spoke english as her fourth language and smelled of garlic. Suffice to say I didn´t get much out of it. Getting my brain back in gear definitely took a while and the week was quite humbling. At Guacamaya, I had one-on-one instruction with my teacher (maestro en español) Sara. At all of 19 years old, she was infinitely patient with me as we struggled through irregular verbs and gerunds. Back in High Prairie, grammer was never exactly my strong point- I picked up sentance structure mainly through context because I read so much but his week I think I made up for all that I missed in English and more. Twenty hours of immersion instruction later, I think I have achieved the communication level of a 3 or 4 year old. This is a definite improvement on my previous ability (of a 2 year old). At the beginning of my trip, I would simply throw out nouns haphazardly along with hand motions in the hope that the poor clerk or driver would eventually understand what I wanted. Now I feel I can actually construct a proper sentance, though I can only speak in the present tense so far, and I still have no idea why "usted" (the former form of "you") is in the third person. I can also understand a lot more of what others are saying even if I can't respond in kind. The tricky part of the immersion aspect was that I had no Spanish and my instructor had no English so there was lots of diagrams and arm waving when I didn`t pick up on something right away, and it was quite difficult to get beyond superficial layer of understanding. I would know that you had to accent a letter, but not why. All things considered, though, it was definitely worth the $230, especially the homestay. My host mother's name is Carla and she runs a small comida (cafe) in town. She was very helpful and patient as I struggled through haulting sentances, though her mother was a little less so. She talked so fast I could rarely pick up more than a couple words out of a sentance and then she would get annoyed when I didn´t understand. I think that little old ladies are the same all over the world. I am pretty sure I met her Polish counterpart when I landed in the Warsaw airport in 2007. Tonight I am going out to the pub with a few of the students here and then tomorrow I am off to the Bay Islands off the north coast to perhaps take my Advanced diving course. Depending on price, I may just do some fun dives instead, though. The island of Utila is known for whale sharks, and the coral is supposed to be quite pristine. And just so you don´t worry a whale shark has emphasis on the whale part and not the shark part, so I will most likely emerge from the ocean with all my limbs intact unless I get stuck under a boat propeller. Hasta Luego Amigos!

Hello Honduras

doodledawn — Fri, 6 Jan 2012 19:00:00 GMT

After a lengthy stay in Rio Dulce, Guatemala, I decided it was time to move on so I tagged along with a Toronto couple to Copan, Honduras. With border formalities, it took about 8 hours. Copan is only 10km into Honduras, but I definitely feel a different vibe here than in Guatemala- then again, it might just be the relaxed nature of the highlands. Copan is famous for it's Mayan ruins, and in fact, the town's proper name is "Copan Ruinas". It is covered in old cobblestones and morning mist and seems a good place to hang around a little while.

I checked into a hostel called Iguana Azul (Blue Iguana) and almost immediately left again to go for beers with my dorm-mates. I don't think I have encountered such a diverse bunch of people in all my travels. Singapore (I can't pronounce or spell her name) is laid up with an ankle sprain, and is a qualified aeronautics engineer; Lauren is a Swiss fellow who doesn't speak much; Angela from England makes up for Lauren and talks all the time- she's been travelling for decades with an equivalent number of stories; May is from San Francisco and is studying to be an elementary school teacher; Cory is a biologist/lobbyist from Australia and finally there is David- an older man who works as a mathematician/statistician for the US Department of Defense in Maryland. Crazy, right?

We spent the morning walking around the famous ruins, which I promised myself will be my last set of ruins. I feel like I have given the Mayan their due and need to move on. The site was much smaller than Tikal, but the detail was amazing with some pillars still show the original pigments. We went pretty slowly to allow Singapore to keep up on her crutches. The highlight was the pair of red Macaws perched on the fence as we left the park. In the afternoon I wandered the town and came across a Spanish school. After a little research, I decided I would pop in and see if they had room for me. I wrote a placement exam which I think was probably the lowest scoring test of my life, and they told me I could start tomorrow. For $235 US, I will get 4 hours of instruction per day for 5 days along with a homestay in Copan. My original plan was to do schooling in Guatemala, but once I found out that this place did one-on-one teaching, I was in. God knows my Spanish can't get any worse. Wish me luck!

The Art of Doing Nothing

doodledawn — Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:18:00 GMT

Geographically speaking, I haven't moved that much from where I was last week, but sometimes I need to hibernate for a few days to catch my breath. I am currently in Rio Dulce, a small town 30 minutes down-river from Livingston, my port of entry from Belize. Livingston is an interesting place in that it has no road access- even though over 24,000 people live there. The motor bikes outnumber the cars at least 5 to 1 and the culture is a mixture of Caribbean Garifuna and Guatemalan Maya. I wasn't a huge fan of the city just for the fact that it was a bit boring. I shared a hostel room with a really nice French fellow named Gerome, who teaches French in Mexico and was on his holiday break- he planned to spend New Year's Eve in Livingston, but I decided to move on.

From Livingston I caught a boat down the river to the town of Rio Dulce, which is no bigger than High Prairie and basically exists as a supply town for the small yachts that come to dock from the Caribbean. The river flows along through a gorgeous limestone canyon and ends in a wider bay that eventually joins up with Lago de Izabal (Lake Izabal) and spanning the narrows is the largest bridge in Central America. When I got to town I checked out a couple hostels and eventually was directed to Hotel Kangaroo. You can only access it by boat as it is tucked away down a little mangrove tributary of the main river. It is run by an older Aussie named Gary who got tired of doing construction in Queensland and moved down to Guatemala. He built the whole place himself with hand tools which is an impressive feat for a building constructed on wetlands. Arriving on New Year's Eve, I was treated to a big feast of shrimp after which everyone clamoured into the boat to go check out the fireworks at the bridge. We partied at a dockside bar and I counted in the new year in Spanish. I was the only backpacker in the hostel- the only other folks that weren't staff were a semi-retired American physicist who works part time for the US government at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and his Guatemalan girlfriend. He told me that he works on radiation shielding and not on the nuclear weapons the place is known for. Of course if he was working on nuclear weapons, he probably wouldn't be telling me anyway...

On New Year's day there were no buses or public transportation running so I stayed at the hostel and just hung out with the staff all day. The on-site restaurant is run by a Mexican lady named Graciella along with her niece Dani. Dani's little brother Raul was also visiting for the holiday and I spent some time helping him with his English. The food is amazing and the dorm is one of the nicest I have come across. This is probably why my two night stay has turned into five. I have done a couple of day trips to town and one to the hot waterfall down the road (a hot-spring fed stream that falls over a 5 meter cliff, apparently the only one in the world), but mostly I have just been reading and watching the river and visiting with Gary and Dani and Graciella. I will probably move on tomorrow, but we'll see how I feel when I wake up. I think that is one of the key difference between backpacking and going on a proper holiday. On a holiday the whole idea is to relax and de-stress, but the nature and length of a backpacking trip means that occasionally you just need to shut off and recharge. Every day you are making decisions about where you are going to sleep and how much you are going to spend and where you are going to eat and if you don't park in one spot every once in a while, you're going to get burned out and want to go home early. And that is the last thing I want to do right now. Happy New Year everyone!

Caribbean Christmas

doodledawn — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:56:00 GMT

Belize is killing my wallet, and my bank account will be happy once I get on the boat to Livingston, Guatemala tomorrow, but I still had a blast these past two weeks. After I left Caye Caulker, I stayed the night in the town of Dangriga on my way down the coast. Val's Backpackers overlooked the sea and I spent most of the evening sitting in a hammock finishing off the National Geographic I bought in the airport. The next morning also found me there, where I got to talking to an English woman named Natalie. A social worker on a 6 month sabbatical, she and her friend Aiden from New Zealand were headed the same direction as I was and we both had booked into the same hostel for Christmas in Placencia. I hooked up with them and we all left dry, dirty Dangriga in search of a better beach until we could get to Placencia.

We got off the bus in a fly-speck place called Hopkins with dirt roads and rusted sheet-metal roofs, and checked into The Funky Dodo. The place had only opened up a few months ago and was owned by a tall English guy named Will. His family was in town for Christmas so were helping out with the hostel work while we were there. It turned out that the day we arrived was the first time Will had filled all of the beds so there was a bit of a celebration. Will brought in beer by the case-load and his sister Pippa joined us at the big outdoor table where we managed to polish off much of the beer as well as several liters of rum. The next day was quieter and most of it was spent sleeping on the beach.

From Hopkins, it was a couple hour bus ride to Independence where we then caught a water taxi to Placencia. The place we were booked into was called Seakunga and it was a few miles out of town, and there we met up with two of Natalie's friends from home. Fran and Alice were both English, but had been living in Edmonton of all places, so there were many Alberta jokes to be endured. At least they had a good appreciation for the steak! When I had booked in at Seakunga, I had to pay ahead and had reserved for three people under the assumption that my travel companion from Mexico and her friend were going to join me. The hotel insisted I pay in full because of the time of year so one night in the dorm and three nights in a cabana cost me $380 US. Then I got word from Kia that her and her friend weren't going to be able to make it. Seakunga refused to refund me the extra so I was stuck, though I did manage to barter off one of the dorm beds to an American woman named Carrie, who also ended up hanging out with us for a while, but the cost was a painful one to take on considering how much Belize was costing me as it was. But as my friend Caro said, there are worse things than having overpaid for a seaside cabana in the Caribbean Sea. It was just too bad about the cockroaches I found the second night and the bad service. Alas!

On Christmas Eve we headed out to the Barefoot Bar for the big party they were having. Santa Claus came down the one street in town on a fire truck instead of a sleigh wearing a pimp hat and accompanied by Mrs. Claus in a glimmering red dress and followed by a score of scantily clad lady elves dancing with over-sized candy-canes. Definitely one of the stranger Christmas parades I have encountered. Christmas day was a bit subdued due to yet another hangover, but I still managed to spread a little Christmas cheer. Aiden, Alice, Fran, and Natalie had set up a secret santa exchange between them weeks beforehand so they all had gifts to give for the morning. Before going to bed that night, I took all the presents and buried them around the beach and in the morning provided maps detailing their locations.

When we left Placencia, I decided to tag along with the group for a couple more days and followed the Aiden and the girls to Tobacco Caye, a small 5 acre island east of Dangriga. It was truly tiny, and definitely a bit expensive, but I had to wash the bitter taste of Seakunga out of my mouth before leaving Belize, and besides, my Guatemala ferry only left on Tuesdays and Fridays, so I had a couple days to kill. We caught a water taxi from Dangriga with Captain Patrick and when we were almost at the island we came across a broken down water taxi full of passengers. After a discussion with the other boat captain, we piled everyone into our boat and almost tipped when a very large lady climbed on very quickly and unbalanced the load. Though our clearance above the water line made me somewhat nervous, we made it to land with no more troubles. The island itself felt quite exotic, with a permanent population of a couple dozen people, two bars and a whole lot of palm trees. It is a common stopping place for sailboats, but is mostly a mid-range backpacker destination. Our first night we played board games and then went to one of the bars for beer and stargazing. The bartender knew more constellations than me (and that is a lot)from his years as a fisherman, and Natalie saw more shooting stars that night than in her entire life (though I can't imagine you get to see any, living in London). The next day we went snorkeling along the barrier reef and overpaid for the privilege, but the fish and eagle rays were still amazing. We also saw a manatee and some dolphins as well as a small caye that was a dedicated as a bird sanctuary so no one was allowed to walk there. I have never seen so many birds in my life.

And now here I am in Punta Gorda, at the bottom of Belize. I parted ways with my Aiden and the English girls when we got back to the mainland and tomorrow I am off to Guatemala where I can hopefully improve my abysmal Spanish skills. Cheers and goodnight folks!

Get Out and Push

doodledawn — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

I had trouble deciding which direction to head after leaving San Ignacio, but Kenny G had said that Caye Caulker was not to be missed so I jumped on a chicken bus and started east. Arron and Caro got off in Belmopan but I continued on to Belize City. The place has a bad reputation so I didn't plan to spend much time there. A chicken bus, for those who don't know, is the main means of public transportation in Belize. They are old school buses sent down from the United States to serve a second life. Painted up in bright colours and rigged with luggage racks, they only cost a few Belizean dollars and run just about everywhere in the country. My 2.5 hour journey cost me the equivalent of $3.50 Canadian.

From the bus I caught a taxi to the ferry terminal and then boarded the water taxi to Caye Caulker. An Australian-Belizean woman was sitting across from me (the strangest accent I have ever heard, by the way), and gave me a tip on where to stay once I got to the island. A place called Ignacio's Beach Cabanas, it was a bit removed from the main strip of town but for 30 Belizean dollars I got a view of the Caribbean Sea and my own place, though no hot water. A few iguanas also shared the space, camping out on the tin roof in the sun. Caye Caulker is a small sandy island with a total population under 3000 people. The island was split in 2 during a hurricane in the 60s so is even smaller than it used to be. There are no cars allowed and everyone travels by bicycle or golf cart. Best of all there are no resorts and few hard core tourists.

It was Friday night so I went for a wander and after watching the sun set at the Split, where the two islands used to be one, I ran into some drunk Americans from North Carolina who offered me some beer. I sat with them for a while, but they were not really my style so I went back to my cabana. There I found some more Americans: a young couple from Oregon and an older fellow named Darren from Georgia who had been living on the caye for the last 5 years. He was going to take the Oregon folks out on his sail boat for the price of a case of beer and offered to let me join. I, of course, accepted the offer. We were to leave the next day at 10am but departure was a bit delayed due to the fact that Darren accidentally smashed into the front gate of Ignacio's with his golf cart after too many of those beers we had supplied in payment and had to fix the damage before we shoved off. He originally ended up in Belize after losing his license in the US for a DUI, so I guess old habits died hard.

We left the rickety dock in front of Ignacio's at around 11am , with Rob and Jasmine from Oregon, myself, and Cecilia from Italy. Captain Darren was clad in cut off jeans held up by a rope around his waist; his 23ft boat, he proudly claimed, was the 3rd oldest in Belize. If anyone has seen the movie "Captain Ron", Kurt Russell's character is pretty much a spot-on match for Darren. He let Rob from Oregon do much of the sailing as Rob had recently started learning on a catamaran back home. The weather was on and off through the day with small squalls and a steady wind from the north. We stopped at a few places along the barrier reef to snorkel and in between enjoyed some rum and... pipe tobacco. Darren wanted me to check out some odd coral formations he had found and tell him whether they were perhaps remnants from a ship or just coral. As far as I could tell they were nothing special but he was really happy that he had a "professional opinion" on it. I tried to tell him that geologists don't really work with living coral, but he remained convinced that I was an expert. He didn't have any fins to fit me for snorkelling so cut open a life-jacket and stuffed the empty spaces with buoyant foam. It worked amazingly well. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, since his boat motor had been jerry-rigged out of an old pressure washer after his outboard had been stolen.

The winds started to pick up at our last snorkelling stop so we decided to head back. As we tried to pull out from the reef we had anchored by, the wind shifted slightly and we started drifting toward the coral. In a matter of seconds there was a loud scrapping sound as we ground up along some rocks. Darren dove in to try and unwedge the boat, as did Rob. After a few seconds, Darren poked his head up above the gunwale and says "Umm, y'all are gonna have to get out and push". The poor Italian girl looked so confused- she had enough trouble understanding Darren's southern drawl to begin with, I don't think she could quite comprehend what was happening right away. She figured it out once Jasmine and I stripped off our shoes and shirts, getting ready to jump in. We were quite a way out from land and the winds were picking up but the boat only had about a 4ft draft when empty so we had it off the rocks after some frantic shoving. The hard part was getting back in as I had used all my body strength pushing the damn thing off the rocks. Once everyone was safely back aboard, Darren dove back in to check the damage. Since it was a wooden boat, there was little to show for our misadventure other than a few scrapes on the bow. If it had been a fiberglass vessel, things would have been a lot different. All I could think of was how many Canadians at that moment might have been pushing their car out of a snow bank, and here I was pushing a sailboat off some rocks in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Crazy.

We putted back to shore with the motor since the wind was against us and made it safely back by around 6 o'clock. I had a nasty sunburn on the tops of my thighs from sitting in the boat all day, but I was otherwise no worse for wear. Today I am taking it easy and not doing much other than sitting in a hammock. I think I have had enough of the sea for a little while.

Back to the Commonwealth

doodledawn — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:00:00 GMT

On Thursday (I think it was Thursday- I have a hard time keeping track when I am travelling), I left Flores with my Kiwi friends Arron and Caro and we headed for the Guatemala-Belize border. This was a much less interesting crossing than my last one; a stamp on one side of the river, then a pedestrian bridge, followed by another stamp on the other side. One small comfort: Belize is a member of the Commonwealth so English is the official language and the Queen smiles up from all the currency. She seems to have a bit of a sly grin on her face on the Belizean dollars- my guess is that the weather put her in a good mood. It was just a nice change to be able to carry on a full conversation with local folks instead of them looking at me bewildered as I tried to communicate via pointing and poorly pronounced Spanish nouns.

Across the border, taxi drivers were trying to charge 15 USD for the three of us to get to San Ignacio, 15km away. At most, it should have cost 6 Belizean which is tied to the US dollar at 2 to 1. We decided to hoof it to the nearest bus station 3km away, but before we had gotten 100m from the border a truck pulled up and offered us a ride. I had seen the guy dropping some folks off at immigration so he looked non-threatening enough. Also Aaron was twice his size, so we took him up on the offer. His name was Willem and he worked maintenance at the Hospital in San Ignacio. He gave us some tips about the town and drove us right to the main square. We booked into the Central Hotel which, though a bit dodgy looking was only 8 BSD per night each. It was managed by a lanky black guy who called himself Kenny G. He was born in Belize but had spent 20 years in New York City and said "motherfucker" more times in one sentence than I probably do in an entire year. He was really cool though and pointed out some cheap places to eat and helped us organize a cave tour for the next day. I have my doubts about his claim of having 6 wives though. Kenny G wasn't exactly a what you would call handsome...

The tour, abbreviated as ATM, though I can't remember the full name, was absolutely incredible. We started out with an hour of hiking followed by a brief swim into a limestone cave. We had to alternately wade through caverns and scramble over fallen boulders, but in the end came out into a chamber used by the Mayans over a thousand years ago for rituals and sacrifice. The culmination of the trip was a set of female human remains left in pose almost 800 years ago. This in a setting of almost total darkness and surreal cave formations, stalagmites and stalactites. I had told myself that I wasn't going on any more tours for a while but this was definitely worth it.

Mountain High to Jungle Boogie

doodledawn — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:35:00 GMT

The last 48 hours have been some of the most interesting of my life, but I better back up a bit. Last I wrote, I was on a night bus heading west...

After the 9 hour bus ride tuned into a 13 hour bus ride, Kia and I arrived in San Cristobal on Thursday afternoon, totally wiped. She had intended to continue on to Guatemala that day but decided to crash for the day in town. After she left on Friday, I was on my own again. San Cristobal was a total contrast to Campeche in that it was at an elevation of almost 2000m and got down to a temperature of 8 degrees at night. In a culture that has little need for central heating, I was in for a couple chilly nights. I ended up staying three nights in total, but did little other than sleep in and wander the numerous food and craft markets in town. December 12 was the feast of the Virgin Guadeloupe so the town was full of pilgrims and fireworks. Apparently the ideal way to honor the Virgin was to run in a sort of relay from your local church to the cathedral in town, followed by an obnoxious pickup truck blasting sirens and honking its horn at 5 am. My last night in town, I decided to splurge on Argentinean steak, which may have been the most delicious beef of my life (though it cost three times more than my hostel room).

On Sunday morning I took a small tour to Palenque, which was back toward the east part of the state, but closer to Guatemalan border. I tend to avoid tours normally, but this one was basically just transportation to a few cool sites on the way to my next destination, so I didn't feel too much like part of the tourist horde. We stopped at Aqua Azul, an amazing set of rapids and small waterfalls going through a local community, followed by a stop at a 40m waterfall called Miso-Ha which you could walk behind. The afternoon ended at the Palenque Mayan ruins, but the potentially more interesting part was the small commune-like community just outside the park. Called El Panchan, it was a collection of different cabanas and camping sites with a thatch-roof restaurant in the middle of the jungle. It was full of dreadlocked pot heads and ex-pats but looked more entertaining than the box tour hotels up the highway so I booked a night at El Jaguar in my own cabana with the screech of howler monkeys to be heard out the screen window. For supper I rolled up to the restaurant (Don Mucho), book in hand, ready for my standard solo meal. Half way through my homemade spaghetti, a couple Parisian gals invited me to their table. They were visiting with a Mexican fellow named Juan (of course), and his friend Alex. Eventually another fellow named Jorhei also showed up and I was introduced to a new drink called a Mexican Flag which involved lime juice, tequila and tomato juice, which was surprisingly delicious. I turned in pretty early since I had a 6 am ride to the border on Monday, and that was where things got interesting.

The van to the border picked me up bright and early the next morning (actually dark and early since the sun wasn't yet up). It was 3 hours to the border at Frontera Corozal, which, to be fair, wasn't exactly a main trading route between countries, but I was not expecting to have to get on a small, tippy moterized gondola on a muddy river bank. From there it was a 30 minute boat ride to the Guatemalan landing across and up the river. No security, and no border control other than a sweaty old man at a desk with a stamp and a request for a 40 Queztal "entry fee" (Queztals being the Guatemalan currency). I paid but the New Zealand woman behind me got quite a fury from the sleepy man when she requested a receipt. I am guessing the fee was somewhat unofficial.

Next, the dozen or so people who had crossed on the boat all boarded a large minibus of questionable operational ability and we started down a bone-jarring unpaved road toward Flores, Guatemala. After fording through a few ruts and washouts, the road became a little smoother about 3 hours into the journey but my spine was not happy. After 5 hours we reached Flores and I had made some new friends. Arron and Caro from New Zealand (Caro had been the gal cheeky enough to ask for a receipt at the boarder), along with a tall fellow named Yomar from the Netherlands- a quiet guy with the bluest eyes I have ever seen. Having a bit of a camaraderie going, we decided to split a 4 person dorm at the Los Amigos Hostel in Flores and travel to the Tikal ruins together the next day. We got up at 4:30 this morning to catch the first transport to the site and arrived at 6:30 or so. Despite what the tour operator who was trying to sell us a guide trip said, we did not get lost in the jungle. It was probably one of the most amazing days of travel I have ever had.

We made a b-line for Temple IV which, at 65m gave us a gorgeous view of the jungle canopy in the morning mist. The tour groups weren't moving as fast as us so we had the whole place to ourselves for almost an hour. The rest of the day was spent wandering the many kilometers of jungle-shrouded ruins (some up to 2000 years old) and catching the occasional glimpse of howler monkeys and a strange creature that seemed a mix betweeen an anteater and a lemur. We even ran into a camera crew from Discovery Channel getting some shots for their next documentary, At that point I knew I was in a special place. The last site we visited during the day was surrounded by the lemur-like animals and I just sat on the ground as they ran around me and among the temple ruins. Truly surreal. If I went home tomorrow I would have felt the trip worth it (not that I would, of course!).

Here Be Pirates

doodledawn — Fri, 9 Dec 2011 08:20:00 GMT

Campeche! I only knew the name from an old video game I had about pirates, but it turns out that it was a rather appropriate association. The town was quite the target for privateers and the like during the 1600s; so much so that they build a huge wall with cannons and forts to keep the buggers out. All the better for me since parts of the wall still stand, surrounding the restored colonial central town. The historic city has been repurposed for modern use but it definitely feels like you are back in time around here. There are few, if any tourist hordes and seemed a great place to recharge the batteries.

Kia and I stayed 2 nights at the Monkey Hostel overlooking the main square and were to leave Wednesday. We had decided to part ways and then meet up for Christmas and Belize. We had both had some bad luck and needed a break from Mexico. I was to catch a bus at 2pm for Chetumal and then south to the Belize border and she was catching one at 9:45pm for San Cristobal de las Casas and on to Guatemala, but it didn't quite work out that way. When I went to leave for the bus station, I couldn't find a taxi to save my life and instead of arriving early, I got to the terminal at exactly 2pm and my unusually punctual bus had already left. Sigh. I went to the ticket window and through broken spanish and a little bit of crying, explained what had happened. The lovely man at the window took pity on me and while I didn't get a refund, I did get a half priced ticket to San Cristobal. The Chetumal bus wasn't going to run again for two days and I didn't want to be stuck in Campeche with nothing to do.

San Cristobal will bring me close to Guatemala border, where I can cross into, then stop in Coban and Tikal before crossing into Belize from the west. From there I can head south and get back into Guatemala for my language course after Christmas from Punta Gorda, Belize via ferry. A little hitch in my itinerary, plus I am a few pesos lighter than I had planned, but not the end of the world. And if a bit of crying got me a cheaper ticket, I am sure womankind will survive.

Zocola and German Engineering Part 2

doodledawn — Thu, 8 Dec 2011 07:56:00 GMT

So where was I? Right, so Kia and I met a German named Andi in the hostel and we hatched a plan to check out some mayan ruins along the Ruta Puuc via car rental since the bus route was bit of a pain in the ass. We ended up with a blue VW beatle because it was way cheaper than renting something new. They still manufactured the old style beatle in Mexico until 2003, which was the year of our car, but it looked like it could have been from the 70s; the stereo had been torn out and the gear box was pretty interesting to try and shift. It had always been Andi's dream to drive an old beatle. He was an engineer so he considered it a bit of a right of passage as a German. We set out in the morning {the same morning the Mexican guy woke me up by crawling into the bed above me} and were on our way.

Many many many ruins later, we finished off the drive at a huge cave, called Grutas de Loltun; it had a cathedral ceiling 40m high and it was used by the Mayans to hide from the Spanish. Definitely a highight for a rock jock like myself, though Kia and Andi weren't quite so awed. We got a bit lost on the way back and ended up in a village called Oxkutzcab as the sun was setting and decided to stop for food as we were all starving. We found a little place by the market and I had the most amazing soft tacos of my entire life. The restaurant didn't even have a name above the door, and I don't know if I could even find it again. Alas. We made it back to Merida in one piece and Kia and I split a private room for the night to actually get a proper sleep. She locked her laptop in one of the metal locker in the main room and we went to sleep, set to depart to Campeche the next day. In the morning we found that someone who had been staying in the hostel had picked the lock of some lockers and her laptop and a bunch of cash was gone. Another man had everything including his passport taken, so I suppose it could have been worse. My passport was in the locker with Kia's so we really lucked out there. She had to spend the entire day in the police station and I waited for her at the hostel. After she was done they offered us a free room but we decided to get the hell out of Merida and got on a late afternoon bus to Campeche.

Zocola and German Engineering

doodledawn — Wed, 7 Dec 2011 09:10:00 GMT

Ahh, Merida. The main transportation hub of the western Yucatan, I had high hopes for the place. The bus dropped me off way in the south, and I had no idea where I was, so I wandered for about an hour before I found the travellers salvation, the internet cafe. Ten minutes later I was on my way. I found a hostel on the main square called Hotel Zocola whiched looked clean enough and was inside an old colonial mansion. I wasn't too picky by that point as I had been walking around the city in 30 degree weather with 30 pounds on my back and it was time for a shower. I booked in and found that the female dorm was also the main throughfare for the ladies bathroom. Awesome. I decided to stick around since I had already paid and just lounged for the rest of the day in the common area, which was actually quite gorgeous with vaulted sealings and arches that looked out into a little courtyard. My sleep wasn't great but I met a gal from Britain named Kia and we both decided to tag along on a trip to the seaside town of Progresso that the hostel owner had organized. Turns out he just wanted to show off the new hostel they were building but we went off on our own and found a great little stall in the market that sold some really great battered fish. There was a brief moment of panic when Kia noticed that the menu sign showed the word Delfines which translates to Dolphin, but it turned out that that was the name of the stall, not the fish being served, so I didn't end up eating Flipper after all. The day ended with another somewhat restless night of sleep. I was woken up by a Mexican man crawling into the bunk above me. I poked him awake to alert him that this was the female dorm and he should leave. He replied that he worked there and that the male dorm was full. Awesome.

The charger on the laptop I am using is sparking so I am going to continue this story when there is less fire hazard