filling in the blanks

i have left out quite a bit:

there was the 2 day volcano trek near leon, nicaragua. there was sleeping outside near the volcano on the one night a year that the locals decide to have a big christian revival party wherein they praise jesus until midnight (complete with generator and sound system which they hauled in on foot), then get insanely drunk and run about wildly, burning everything they can find. i wish it had stopped there. by 2am they were throwing burning logs about which land next to you and your sleeping bag (we had no tents). so after getting no sleep and narrowly avoiding injury, we trekked out at 4am and finished the day at the bubbling mud pits. before the party got out of hand however, the volcano was very cool. a huge smoking crater with lava flows visible at night.

then there was another volcano the next day, which i sledded down at high speed. that was a first. occasionally nutty people actually stand and do the equivalent of snowboarding down. falling in the snow is one thing. and i don´t even really like doing that. so i passed on the opportunity to fall into sharp lava rock. a lot of rock hit me in the face, regardless.

then there were my treks around matagalpa, before i fell in the sewers. tourists barely go there so i surprised a lot of friendly (and occasionally unfriendly) locals.

nicas (as nicaraguans are called) are a refreshing change from hondurans. very friendly. hondurans were stand-offish. this despite the fact that reagan (and others americans before him) caused a great deal of grief down here. i have had a few interesting conversations with nicas about the revolution and US involvement.

there more of course, but i´ve got to go.

shit pit

last night i fell though a sidewalk and landeded in a sewer 10 feet below.

there was some sort of contruction project, it was an exceptionally dark night, the street light was out, and of course there was nothing blocking the dangerous section of sidewalk.

there is nothing quite like falling into a pitch black pit that you didn´t expect to be there. you start falling, and at first you think, "hey i´m falling... but wait... i was just walking... this makes no sense." eventually you accept that you are indeed falling. after that, you think to yourself, "why havent i landed yet? this is taking a very long time." that is when you start to conclude that you are probably going to die, or at least break a lot of bones. that was pretty much how it went, until i finally hit the bottom. yes, time slows down.

a large crowd quickly formed around the hole and the fire department came and rescued me, since there was no defintely no way to climb out. it was all very exciting, both for me and the locals. the locals now think that gringos are superhuman, which is pretty cool. they probably also think that gringos are very stupid, which is less cool. of course at home i would be suing the city for negligence (and would be winning easily), but that´s not how things work here.

i am a bit sore today, and have a few scrapes, but somehow, that´s it. oh, and i am still trying to get the putrid smell out of my clothes and bag. i feel both very forutnate and very unfortunate. india was filled with these sort of death traps, but i always somehow avoided them there. i will not let my guard down again. i think i might also just take more cabs at night.

utila, the rest

i spent 6 days on utila.

utila is all about the diving. most of the people there take diving classes there, since it´s the cheapest place to get certified in the western hemisphere. i am already certified, but i hadn´t dived in 15 years. i did remember the only rule that is really necessary--"breathe"... or the long version --"don´t hold your breath while you ascend or your lungs will explode". anyway, i tood a little refesher class, preformed all of the tricks, and went for 2 dives.

i snorkeled. the snorkeling was better. i have confirmed once again that diving is stupid. you spend all sorts of money, you lug around all sorts of equipment, you can only stay down for like half an hour, yet the cool fish all hang out at snorkeling depth anyway.

i kayaked though a mangrove canal that bisects the island, and ended up on the deserted north side of the island. i saw some tasty looking tourquoise blue crabs. the trip back was treacherous, as the seas were extremely rough and i was constantly soaked by waves. i had to stop a few times and bail out the kayak.

one day i rented a bike. i got across the island, and the bike broke. i spent 2 hours walking it back. i got another bike and rode it to another corner of the island. at the furthermost point, the chain snapped. i spent 1 hour walking it back. i got into a huge all-spanish shouting match with the bike people, who would not give me my money back, and even worse had the nerve to accuse me abusing their bikes. all i did was ride them. anyway, fighting really brings out my best spanish, i must say. that wasn´t my favorite day.

i drank a lot of beer. every night there is different semi-secret location where all the locals go for their big night out. i ended up hanging out most of the time with 2 guys (a mexican and a belgian) who insisted upon finding that place each night. we always managed to do it. the mexican guy would spend each night hitting on chicks and complaining how stuck up they all were when he was rejected. it was literally difficult to walk a block without his stopping to put his moves on some unfortunate woman. though to his credit, he did find a local middle aged divorcee who wanted to marry him. the belgian guy´s favorite pastime was complaining about the price of everything even though the island was remarkably cheap, i thought. hanging out with those guys more than anything else would drive me to drink.

utila, day 1

the ferry to the carribean island of utila is not a lot of fun.

many of the tourists, myself included, sit out front to enjoy the rare sunny weather.

the crew knows what is about to happen, but they say nothing.

the seas become rough, and waves start crashing across the front, soaking all of us.

the crew laughs, as we all rush inside. that´s when they start handing out the vomit bags.

and they chuckle at us some more.

and so i finally arrive at my island destination, slightly worse for wear.

before we are allowed to get off the boat, a drug sniffing dog gives me and my bags the once over. this is done simply to extort money from
backpackers, since there is no international border and anybody could easily drive a boat full of cocaine up to any point on the island. bastards.

i find a the perfect hotel in a quiet, beautiful location. $6 a night.

it is warm and sunny. i am happy.

i decide to wander. first i go the iguana station, a home for rescued and endangered iguanas.
i see lots of disabled reptiles. they charge me $2, which they will use to convince the locals to stop eating delicious endagnered iguanas.

then i head into the jungle to see them in the wild. i have no idea where i´m going.
the mood changes from lightheared island trek to descent into the heart of darkness.

some way in, a sickly stench fills the air. thousands of flies are swarming. the trail runs red with blood.

a dog proudly scampers by with what looks like entrails hanging from his mouth.
he has the largest testicles i have ever seen on a dog. the testicles and entrails bob and swing in unison.

i start thinking about dr. moreau and his unholy island experiments.
though i cannot see the logic in creating creatures with giant balls.

finally i see the origin of the river of blood. i see the guts and hide of a cow--everything else has been hauled off.
i am slightly relieved, but only slightly. and only momentarily.

because suddenly two youngish white guys appear on the trail--a big burly one and a small one.
they don´t really walk toward me as much as lumber.
there is a dullness to their inbred, slackjawed stares.
they are covered up to their waists in mud.
the large one is brandishing a machete, which he holds up as he walks as if he might need to strike at any moment.

in that "deliverance" moment, i pray that they don´t find me "purdy", and simply kill me quickly.

i decide to take a friendly approach. i greet them and ask them where the trail goes.

they respond slowly and with considerable effort.

they turn out to be friendly mormons, of all things, on the island on their mission. it´s their day off and they decided to hack their way through the swamps to the other side of the island.

not having a machete, and being eaten alive by mosquitoes, i dedide to head back, once the mormons disappear from sight.

it is a good day. and i do see a giant iguana in a tree on the way back.

i am in the largest city of my trip thus far... la ceiba. it is an armpit of a city along the carribean coast, filthy and filled with sleazy nightclubs with names like "chicas caliente" and so on. the sign on my hotel room door implores me not to bring home prostitutes. at least it is warmer now that i am out of the mountains. still rainy and cloudy, but warmer.

while a shithole, la ceiba is the staging point for a number of interesting things--among them diving/snorkelling in the bay islands, and adventures in the remote jungles of la moskitia (the mosquito coast--where harrison ford went nuts in that terrible movie), just to name a few. tourist infrasture however is lacking here and everything is closed on sunday, so i am having a hell of a time trying to figure out how to go about anything other than getting to the islands, which is all everyone else seems to do.

i guess i´ll just start with that tomorrow. i could use a few days splashing around in warm carribean waters, once i refresh my scuba skills. on the downside, the sandflies there crave human flesh, supposedly making the beaches uninhabitable.

volcano addendum

i can´t believe i forgot to mention the best part of the volcano hike....

when i reached the top, i saw a neighboring volcano erupt.

well, at least that´s what my guide called it. really it just sort of spews out a cloud of soot every once in a while, but it was still pretty cool.

country 4, here i come

i climbed another volcano this morning, starting at 5am. got scammed into taking a guide, even though i´m not sure why a tiny guide would stop banditos. and there did seem to be bandits about, as the cops were hot on the trail of someone. i reached a height of 3020 meters. no wonder it felt like my legs were made of lead.

enough of guatemala. tomorrow i will enter honduras.

graphics and demographics

guatemala gets a lot of 20 year old packpackers. and lots of americans too. conversing with 20 year olds generally gets tiresome quickly. the 30-somethings seem to find me, and vice versa. we all point out how old we feel amongst the pardy hardy backpackers.

traveling in guatemala is easy. touristy places are connected by (relatively) confortable shuttles. i haven´t taking a chicken bus at all since belize, which makes me kind of sad. of course, i have the power to change this.

antigua is vastly overrated. if i want european style cafes, and european style prices, i will go to europe. oh and there are also european style mcdonalds and burger kings there too.

guatemalan people are amongst the shortest i have ever encountered. i am a giant here.

guatemalan woman really do wear those black outfits with oodles of colorful flair, which makes me happy for some reason. men just dress like men do everywhere, only with an ephasis on cowboy. people are pretty friendly, and usually share holas or buenos diases.

you don´t get harassed by touts and salespeople here nearly as much as you do in asia. and i will repeat what i said before--people speak spanish, even areas where there are more english speaking tourists than locals.

in general, while i am enjoying my experience, it is not quite the adventure that asia was. maybe i am just jaded...

oh, and map updating seems to be broken at the moment.

update

apologies for the long delay.

some highlights & lowlights from days past:

- standing at the entrance to a cave at dusk as thousands of bats brush against me as they rush out to dine. fortunately guano easily washes away. walking home in the dark, i came across a local passed out on the roadside. he did not respond to questions regarding his condition, though he groaned a bit. minutes later i encountered one guatemalan beating another in the street. townsfolk stood around and watched silently, mesmerised. no one felt like intervening. apparently sunday is drinking day.

- bathing in the stepped tourquoise pools of semuc champey was awfully nice. pick your favorite picture

- i took a 5 day spanish course in antigua. this is a one-on-one sort of thing. $75 for 4 hours a day. i didn´t learn anything i didn´t already know grammar-wise, but my vocabulary has improved. i am far better with spanish now than most travelers.

- i climbed a volcano, along with a thousand other people. saw lava flow. go ahead and look at other people´s pictures.

- i found my way from antigua to giant lake atitlan. it´s sort of like the lake tahoe of guatemala, only some of the surrounding mountains happen to be volcanos, and it´s a hell of a lot warmer, of course. oh and then there are the bandits, as there are everywhere.

yes, a major problem with guatemala is that everyone is always telling you that everything is too dangerous to do alone due to bandits. everywhere you go and stay, there is a guy out front with a shotgun ready to lay waste to banditos. so you get stuck doing these silly, crowded, expensive tours for no good reason. i am starting to think it is a scam. the guy who ran my guesthouse told me i could hike around the moutains surrounding the lake alone, i should just be prepared for a guy to jump out brandishing a machete and demanding everything i had. i was assured i wouldn´t be killed if i gave him what i had. fine, i thought. so i ventured out with just a bit of cash and nothing else. i walked a portion of the lake (about 3-4 hours) and only ran into friendly people with machetes (everyone male, friend and foe, seems to have machetes--women carry all the heavy stuff on their heads and backs). i ran into a few tourists too, but always in groups of 3 or more. it was nice to finally do something on my own again. i caught a boat home. passenger boats connect the various lakeside villages. the captian was a daredevil and we nearly capsized. judging by the looks on the faces of the locals, this was not a normal occurance...

td and me

by the way, "up all night" meant actually meant i was outside, as that was where the banjo was, and i was staying in a dorm with a bunch of backpackers who i thought shouldn´t have to suffer though me getting up every 10 minutes. this in spite of the fact that many of them had no problem coming back drunk at 2 am and having long converstions in swedish at my expense.

the next morning i set off to find my own precious room with bathroom. crazy fever started, so i popped the cipro, and various other drugs i had left over from india. by the evening all was well. cipro is a wonderful thing. unfortunately there was some sort of creature living in my bed who dined on one of my ankles while i slept, leaving me pock marked and itchy. and the place looked so much cleaner than average. you never really know.

i have yet to find rhyme nor reason behind TD in general. i ate dinner with a canadian couple--we all the same food exactly. one of them fell victim that night. on my turn i had schnizel with the french chef i had befriended. deep fried, well cooked meat--doesn´t get much safer than that--and only i got sick.

my ailment d´jour is a rather loathsome fungus. i will leave it at that. this would be my third full blown malady of the trip thus far.

great god almighty, i was up all last night with the T.D. (travelers dirrehea)
i had to cancel my transport to antigua today.
oh, what fun.
gotta go. NOW.

tikal

well, tikal pretty much lives up to the hype. i spent 6 hours running around the massive grounds, and could have easily explored longer, but i was stupid and bought a round trip minivan ride.

one of the best things about tikal is its jungle setting. i saw (and heard) toucans and monkeys and a lemur and some sort of crazy giant rat. you can climb on most of the ruins. and tikals vastness meant that i never felt in any way annoyed by other tourists. unforutanately they tripled the price last year i think, apparently attempting to cash in on "survivor guatemala". now i hate that show even more. still, it was worth the $20.

i am now on ruins hiatus for a while, i think.
i am basically taking the day off today, with no real plans.
flores, though a bit touristy, is a nice place to not do much.

btw, my room is about $5. and thats with a bathroom and hot water shower. i paid $5 in el remate too, and i had a beautiful, peaceful lake across the street, where i went for a long swim. i think guatemala will suit me just fine.

i need some alone time

i had my first instance of vaguely-familiar-person-who-i-cant-quite-place syndrome last night. and only 10 days in.

im walking along the coast here in flores, and some fat topless dude pounding beers at a cafe shouts "hey, you made it out of san ignacio without being shot, huh?"

i stared at his massive whiteness. nothing registered. was he talking to me? shot?! finally it dawned on me that he was doing the exactly same thing in san ignacio when i checked into my hotel there. sitting around, drinking beer, and spewing friendly nonsense. but with a shirt back then. thats what threw me off, i think.

he was refering to the fact that the day before i arrived in SI, there was a bank robbery one block from my hotel, directly across the street from my favorate panades shack. a shootout in the streets ensued and two people were killed. which is pretty weird considering san ignacio seemed like such a mellow, friendly place.

the other more common occurance is running into people ive met before who i DO remember. i ran into the "no foreplay" girls again, for example, deep in the bowels of ATM cave. i have run into "new york couple cycling around the mayan sites" several different places, and had dinner with them twice.

i meet nobody at home. but on the road even when i try to sneak off and find time to myself, my plans are thwarted. 2 nights ago i was supposed to have a quiet night in laid back el remate, but a group of germans who had lived there for 4 years invited me to join them forced me to drink ridiculous amounts of gallo (the local beer). (this didnt make tikal @5:30 am particularly easy). and last night i specifically sought out an empty bar/restaurant with the plan to have a drink as the sun set over the lake and then run off to use the internet. instead i ended up having dinner with sophie from quebec and talking until late. another night in san ignacio, i got corralled into a trivia constest joining 2 canadians and an expat american kid. we won, by the way, and i made some dough. largely thanks to a deep knowledge of movie trivia that i had no idea i had.

i guess this post is for people who think that traveling alone is in any way lonely.

mayan ruins visited thus far
chichen itza (overrated)
tulum (nice location on the coast, but touristy)
lamanai (deep in the jungle, required 20 mile trip by river, this one deserves it´s own post)
cahal pech (weak)
xunantunich (an obscure gem)
the actun tunichil muknal (atm) cave (in a class by itself)

when my children (or more likely, your children) ask me where i was when obama became president, i will say i was swimming amonst the bones of dead mayans, in ATM cave.

yes, yesterday i hiked through the jungle and crossed 4 rivers before finally entering wet and rocky ATM cave, where much swiming and scrambling was reqired. soaked to the bone, i finally reached the place where the bones of mayan sacrifies remain in their original positions, undisturbed. lots of pots and other mayan junk too, oriented in ways that mayan gods apparently appreciated. folks around these parts are very proud of their mayan hertiage, but i am not really sure why. from everything i´ve been able to gather, the mayans were awful people. it would be sort of like germans being proud of their nazi hertage 1000 years from now.

today i pieced together 3 forms of transport and a border crossing to find my way to el remate, guatemala. it was really quite easy, though of course cabbies on the guatemalan side tried their best to lie me into expensive rides. i was, however, extorted at the border by guatemalan immigration, and forced to pay a $3 bribe. those belizian bastards nailed me for $18.75 upon exit, but that was actually an official charge. sometimes the bribes are more palatable.

i will miss speaking english.

tomorrow: tikal @ 6am

belize

i have already fallen behind.

maybe 4 days ago, i crossed over from chetumal mexico to orange walk, belize, on a noisy chicken bus. belizian buses (which are all converted school buses--thus very little leg room) seem to be in a competition to out boom each other in terms of their bus-stereos.

orange walk is not a very nice place. i arrived at night, when it had a slightly sinister feel, with lots of folks loitering about, staring menacingly at me. the two asian-american californian girls i befriended on the bus had me escort them to dinner. the woman who ran the chinese restaurant we found warned us to beware of the crack heads who loiter around the cemetery. i would have tried something with the asian-american chicks, but there was a sign in the chinese restaurant that said "no foreplay". i kid you not.

orange walk does sugar cane refinement and rum. i have tried both. the rum was just sort of a tasteless alcohol, but it was pretty smooth. orange walk also seems to do unemployment.

belize is quite the melting pot. lots of folks speaking spanish (even thought it is technically an english speaking country), many of african descent who speak creole (i think), and then odd groups like the mennonites, who i saw wandering around town running errands. the mennonite men dress like gayish cowboys and the woman dress like they are out of little house on the prairie. they are whiteys and apparently speak some kind of low german. different sects in the area have different rules regarding the use of electricity and technology and such.

oops. my time is up and belizian internet is ungodly expensive. in guatemala i will really pound the keyboard.

chichen itza

well, i did the famed chichen itza this morning. i was the first person in at 8am. i felt kind of bad about it, but it only took me 2.5 hours. you can´t climb on any of the ruins, including the big pyramid. i´m a ruins climber from way back, so this really sucked. not only that, but several of the paths out to the outer reaches of the ruins were closed. i was so fed up that i tried to sneak in, only to have an angry mexican chase me out. at least it didn´t rain.

tomorrow i will hit mayan ruin #2, tulum, along the mexican coast. though i have a feeling i might have to wait until guatemala to do anything cool.

have i mentioned mexican busses yet? they are extremely nice, fast, fairly expensive, and the coldest form of transport on earth. apparently there is only one a/c setting: torture.

i hopped into a collectivo (shared van) with the locals and found my way to a few nice swimming caves this afternoon. actually a lot of what i did was float. the water must be chock full of minerals or something, since i could just lie there on the surface without moving. heres a picture of one of them (i took pictures but am too lazy to upload):

http://picasaweb.google.com/el.sangre/PVLtour4ValladolidCenotesYAONuevoEnCancN#5157016346339261058

unlike this picture, there were no people for a good portion of my swim.

tomorrow i am determined to see chichen itza no matter what the weather is like.

other random observations:

so far 3 meals and no ill effects. hooray.

im burning through mucho dinero at an alarming rate. mexico is not cheap. most of asia is probably a third of the price. belize (my next destination) will be worse.

my spanish is improving. but i am still an idiota.

wet mexico

(i apologize for the lack of apostrophes, but mexican keyboards are seriously messed up)

its day two in mexico. this is the dry season and "the best time to visit". i should exploring chichen itza right now, but it has been raining constantly, so i thought i`d rest a bit and hope for better weather tomorrow.

in the meantime i am stuck in vallalodid. vallalodid is supposed to be a nice place. however the niceness seems to be hidden by the rain and the mud and the gloomy skies. citywide construction has turned the roads into muddy rivers. the famous ex-washington senator (the baseball team) antonio aguilar who "is always glad to help touristas" was very unhappy when i stopped in to say hi and ask for advice.

no one speaks english. my spanish will improve quickly, i think. im off to explore a nearby cave, if i can convince someone to take me.

greasearching my trip

i'm actually reading my guidebook in advance of the trip, which is a bit unusual for me. i'm trying to piece together a rough itinerary. i'm not really sure why.

here's a research highlight from today:

the el salvadoran town of suchitoto is considered to be the cultural capital of the country.

famed suchitoto festival #1: smear grease on poles. then try to climb those poles.

famed suchitoto festival #2: smear lard on an agile pig and send him running through town. whoever catches the greasy swine gets to keep it.

cultural capital indeed.

about 5 weeks to go until departure

The map above represents day one of the trip. monday, januaury 12th, i fly into cancun. my goal is to spend NO time there, and instead make a beeline (mexican bee suit simpsons guy image stuck in my head) from the airport to the bus station to find transport to vallalodid. from there i'll probably hit chichen itza the next morning, the famed mayan site. then the rough plan is to meander toward belize, and leave north america behind. mexico is really just a way to ease myself into things...

as the trip progresses, i'll fill in the map. the only other time/place combo i know in advance (to the extent that one can ever know), is Panama City, Panama, April 10th, to catch a plane home.

btw, this map widget it pretty sweet. go ahead, play with it.