San Cristobal De Las Casas, Mexico
Upon arriving in San Cristobal, we wandered through the market for awhile, bought some mexican roasted corn with mayonnaise, chili powder, and lime on it, empanadas stuffed with potato and beef (4 for 30 cents) and then bought some tangerines. Now usually in the states if you go to a fruit stand you’ll see a bucket with 4 tomatoes precariously perched on top, but they know that you subconsciously assume that the bucket is full of tomatoes, which of course it never is. So when I saw about 8 tangerines perched on one such bucket, I asked how much it was, she said 60 cents, and I paid her expecting 8 tangerines, which was an OK price. Then she held out a bag and I held it while she poured the tangerines into the bag. As you probably guessed, the entire bucket was full of tangerines. We got 21 tangerines - and they were delicious, sweeter than I’ve ever had at home - for 60 cents. And ten mangoes for another 60 cents. And a pineapple for 90 cents. And a papaya for… well, you get the idea.
They had the most charming way of displaying beans. I don’t know what it is, but I really liked the way the colors popped out of the trays.
San Cristobal was without a doubt our favorite town of the whole trip. Food was plentiful, gourmet, and cheap. I counted 5 whole wheat bakeries in town and two health food stores. For Latin America, that is astounding. Hey, for Texas that’s astounding. That’s why we chose to spend a week there, to rest and to eat. I had whole wheat bread at 3 different restaurants - one of which served it complimentary with the meal! And the food was great. All sorts of cuisines - Lebanese, Greek, French, Mexican, Italian, Argentinean, you name it.
No doubt the reason they had all sorts of cuisines was because it was a very eclectic town. This map was hanging in a phone booth store (like it sounds, a store devoted to nothing but phone booths for calling home), and you can get an impression for who visited the town. This was a pretty good sampling of the nationalities on the trip, actually. Only a few americans, but tons of europeans.
The next day we found an ex-circus performer doing crystal stix, an art with which I am well acquainted (think a cross between baton twirling and juggling), so we hung out and did that for awhile. Went and had some whole wheat pancakes. Traded in my Star Trek book which I had finished for The Adventures of David Balfour by Robert Louis Stevenson - in Spanish. Went to the local artesian market and bought gifts for people back home. Went and had cat soup for lunch. Apparently, there is no actual cat in it, but think tortilla soup with milk and avocado in it and you have a fair idea of what it is. It was excellent.
We had fresh squeezed orange juice off the street for 60 cents, a 14 ounce glass. And not-quite-as-freshly-squeezed pineapple juice (but still real homemade juice), and coconut milk, for the same price. We did eat at one restaurant that annoyed me - they provided free chips and rather hot salsa. As we were most of the way into our meal, I took out the water bottle to drink, had a good drink, then a waiter rushed over and said I couldn’t drink my own beverage. I said “what? It’s just water”, but he said it was prohibited. It was a scam. They give you “free” salsa, to make you thirsty, then you have to buy water or a beverage from them at a greatly inflated price. Well, I was almost done with my meal or I would have made an issue of it. Probably should have anyway. There was no sign out front that said “no BYO(Water)”, after all!
In wandering through the market one day, we saw this strange orange liquid in reused bottles. I naturally inquired what it was, and was told Rompope. I then asked them to write it for me, since I couldn’t quite figure out what it was from that. I then asked them for a taste since even being written I had no idea what it was. Turns out it is basically a Mexican version of Eggnog. A very, very strong, thick eggnog. It must be half rum from the taste of it. Quite good though, in a different sort of way.
Somewhere in here we decided that we didn’t really want to go the rest of the way through Mexico by bus if we didn’t have to. We were running short on time (we had to be home in 9 days), but we really liked this town and if we were going to go home by bus we’d only have 2 days here. And honestly, after 70 hours of bus travel, we were tired of it and needed a break. So we looked around for fares and found a flight from nearby Tuxtla to Monterrey for 85$ each. Since the bus fares would have cost almost that, we decided to take the cowards way out and fly most of the way home.
That night we had quesadillas, mushroom and peppers and all kinda things in them, for only 1 dollar each. They were huge and came with a serving tray with cilantro, beet-pickled-onions, fresh onions, jalapenos, and red and green salsa. See below:
Quesadillas - Everything you see for $2!
The green salsa was hot. Coming from me, that means it was HOT. I took a drop of it and placed it in Crystal’s hand to lick it and then she said she had no feeling in her lips for an hour. I had two spoonfuls of it on my quesadilla and my tongue and whole mouth went numb. I could hardly breathe. It was awesome!
I won’t make you more envious with tale after tale of cheap food, huge portions, and gourmet meals. It wasn’t all great, anyway - but it is definitely high on my list of places to go back to, primarily for the food. ’nuff said about that. Basically, the next few days we didn’t do much. Went to the markets occasionally, did laundry, ate, slept, did what sane tourists do - nothing.
We wandered around some of course. I found that same juggler again and we passed pins for awhile. It had been awhile since I did it, so I was a bit rusty, but I thought it turned out pretty good:
If a bit comical at times:
Only one more post left of this trip and we’ll be home!
Posted on April 16th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Honduras, Mexico | No Comments »
Lava In Guatemala
On arriving in Antigua, we finally found rooms with HOT WATER! It had been awhile, and I had forgotten how nice it felt. Of course, it was a tad chilly in Antigua so that explains why. And my bathroom wasn’t exactly what you’d expect. In fact, it was the smallest bathroom - and the smallest bathroom door - I had ever seen.
We found an enormous market in Antigua. All covered. The building just seemed to go on forever, everything imaginable was for sale there. We even found some Cherimoyas for the first and only time on the trip, and they were SO delicious. They look kinda like an armadillo but taste rather like a tangy custard pie. They don’t ship well so you never see them in the USA. Bought Crystal a shirt since it was a bit cold and I bought a sweater. We figured we were getting close enough to home that we could haul a LITTLE bit more stuff along. Up until now all of our belongings and clothes fit in one typical school backpack each. And we brought more stuff than we needed! Other travelers were constantly drooling over our packs, saying “Dude, how do you DO that!” and we stared at their 3-foot-tall, 2-foot-wide packs saying “Dude, how do you DO that!” with equal fervor. Going light is the only way to travel. My pack weighed around 15 pounds, give or take 5 pounds for food. Crystal’s was usually a bit lighter. After all, she was only a girl.
The place we decided to eat dinner had a power outage, so we ate by candlelight. We thought they were closed at first, but the food was good. Liver in tomato sauce! Yum!
Next day we took a tour to Volcan Pacaya. This is one of the most active volcanoes in Guatemala and one of the only places where you are practically guaranteed to see lava. It only cost about 10$ each, including the hour and a half ride each way, which wasn’t bad.
Hey, it was cold that morning! Then it was an hour and a half hike up the volcano, which was mostly a pretty drab hike after Chirripo in Costa Rica. Once we started getting above the trees though, it started being pretty cool. Lava dust and enormous rocks that only weighed a few pounds.
Then as we got closer we started feeling the temperature rising. And in one place we walked over a volcanically active spot with hot rocks, and one guy lingered too long and his shoes started melting! As we got closer to the top, the rocks got looser. Now I am quite sure on my feet and am very good at balance. But these other people were walking disaster areas. By myself, it was quite safe. With a bunch of 10-pound-camera-toting clumsy-boot-wearing-tourists walking above me tripping and dislodging rocks onto me it was rather like playing donkey kong. (Warning: 80’s pop culture reference). And it was a long ways down.
After finally getting to the lava flow in one piece however, there was only a space for about 4 people at once, and that was a bit precarious. So when my turn came around, I got up there, and the lava was quite impressive, moving at about 40 feet per minute or so down the mountain. As you can see in this video, which was not as stable as I would have liked, but it wasn’t all my fault…
I had planned to juggle in front of it, but it wasn’t to be. The volcano itself was starting to dislodge hot rocks to roll down the steep slope at is, so it was time to vacate the premises. Anyway, after everyone had seen enough we walked back down. Crystal scraped the back of her heel, gently, twice, against these rocks and it ripped the back of her socks to shreds. The rocks were really brutal. I of course, being me, walked the bulk of the way back down barefoot. But that’s not the sort of thing I would recommend to others…
On the way back down the mountain, Crystal’s knee flared up again (the strain that it took on Chirripo and later Corcovado still bothers her every now and then, when she exerts it), so we caught a horse that was on the way up and paid him to carry her down. The owner, not the horse. That is, we paid the owner, but the horse carried her. Somehow, that seems more confusing than it needed to be… anyway, you probably know what I mean.
So after descending and returning to Antigua to collect our stuff, we decided to skip Atitlan and go straight for Mexico. We were sorry to miss it, but it sounded pretty touristy and we were tired of bus trips and wanted to find a place to just chill for a week without having to move. At all. So we took the bus to Huehuetenango and spent the night there, had tamales with a spicy adobo-type sauce for dinner and a soup.
Next day caught a bus to the border. The road was rather curvy and downhill, and not too wide, and the bus driver must have been in a hurry because we arrived 15 minutes AHEAD of schedule (something that doesn’t happen often in Latin America). But the guy threw out the rule book in driving – he went around EVERY corner on what felt like two wheels. Is there even a WORD for “Traffic Violation” in Spanish?
This trip made me wonder. It literally required your full attention just to keep from sliding out of your seat at every corner. Seriously - having your hands on each side of the seat wasn’t enough. I had to cross my arms and hang on to the seat in front of me, with my hands fully tensed, for the whole ride, just to keep from crashing into the people across the aisle. But somehow we arrived intact and walked across the border, and caught a collectivo to Comitlan and from there took a shared taxi to San Cristobal. We shared it with an Italian who had moved to Mexico (we later learned that there were TONS of Italians in San Cristobal, although I never learned why). She directed us to a certain hotel when we got out of the taxi, so we thanked her and she left.
We tried to tell the next taxi driver where this hotel was (and she had even written down the street it was on) but he didn’t know it. So I told him to take us to a cheap hotel. Usually, those instructions get us to some decent hotels. But this guy took us into the most seedy district in town and I went in to the hotel, they quoted me 3$ (wow!) for a room, and I went to inspect it and seriously, it was one of the worst rooms I had ever seen. It would have been like sleeping on a towel in an old bus station. Needless to say, we moved on and I instructed him to take me to a slightly more expensive hotel! (Never thought I’d say that, eh?)
After dismissing the taxi driver in a hotelly district we finally settled on one in the middle of downtown, right off the main square, for 12$ p/p, and it was very nice. It even had hot water. In the SINK! I had to go get Crystal and show her that there was hot water even in the SINK (she didn’t believe me!) And FREE shampoo! Wow! The rooms really were nice, up to USA standards even. Well, almost.
Anyway, we were to spend a week in San Cristobal, so you can read all about it in the next entry…
Posted on March 31st, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Guatemala, Mexico | No Comments »
Surf El Salvador
So said the T-Shirt on Val Kilmer’s character in Real Genius (or was it surf Nicaragua? Oh well). So I decided to take him up on the idea. Getting into El Salvador was almost too easy. We walked across the border. Looking for the usual immigrations department, forms, fees, etc. On the way across we found a guardhouse, about like what you’d find back home for a gated community. Only not as nice of course. The lone guard flagged us down as we were ambling past and asked to see our passports. We had them in hand already and passed them over. He glanced at them and smiled and said “welcome to El Salvador”. Just like that. No stamps, no forms, no where are you going/what do you do/why are you here questions. Just poof, we’re in El Salvador.
Since that was too easy, I asked where we went next. He said nowhere, that was it, we’re here. So I wandered around for awhile in spite of what he said, not willing to accept that it was really that easy. Found a line I could wait in for awhile (that made me feel better) and finally come up to the front, handed over my passports dutifully and the person looked perplexed and said “well didn’t you see the guard out there?” I said, |uh, yes… ” and she said “well didn’t he look at your passports already?” I said, “uh, yes…” and so she handed my passports back and said “you’re in El Salvador. Have fun!”
Alright! That’s how a border crossing SHOULD be! That really set the tone for El Salvador in general. Nice people, no hassles, cheap prices, good- no, great food. From the border we walked a little ways in and found a money changer, who offered to change our Honduran lempira into dollars. After negotiating a rate I said no, I wanted Salvadoran money. He said dollars IS Salvadoran money. I was skeptical but took the dollars. Sure enough, every price I saw was in dollars so after an hour or two I conceded that El Salvador used the dollar. We were thankful for a reprieve from the constant recalculation of prices based on 18 to the dollar, 20 to the dollar, 550 to the dollar, and liked to just see a price and know “Oh… that IS dollars!”
So then we caught a bus to San Salvador, spent a few hours wandering through the market eating street food. Delicious street food. Something called an Empanada that was basically bananas and cream mixed up and deep fried. Two the size of half an avocado for a quarter. Basically everything in El Salvador was a quarter. And I saw more fruit for sale on buses as snack food than anywhere else in central america. Children came on board at every stop selling watermelon, mango, papaya, pinapple, all for about a half-pound for a quarter. We bought a pound and a half of small, delicious, local strawberries for a dollar. Then we discovered pupusas.
A pupusa is basically a stuffed tortilla. They take fresh cornmeal and wrap it around beans, cheese, squash, meat, whatever and fry them on a griddle. Sell them for about a quarter each - and they are the size of a pancake. Two are quite filling. Plus, they come with homemade sauerkraut called repollo, which piled on top with salsa makes a good meal for about 50 cents. They are uniquely Salvadoran although the repollo is common in Nicaragua and Honduras.
As I said in the previous post, Salvadorans are very helpful. When I made it known to the driver of the bus that I was headed to Playa Sunzal, a few minutes later half the people on the bus were telling me “Sunzal, Sunzal aqui!” and making sure I got off where I was supposed to. This happened several times.
We found a nice hotel a few hundred feet from the beach, that came with free internet, ping pong, pool table, darts, kitchen and was a very nice relaxing place to spend the weekend.
If you look at the rock on the left, from some angles it looks like an old sailor. Sunday morning I took some surfing lessons - 14$ for an hour with a board rental for the day. Unfortunately, the surf was so far away and I was so out of shape for paddling I could only catch two waves.
Equally unfortunately, because of my distance from shore and the fact that I was not the only one wearing a red shirt, Crystal repeatedly took pictures of the wrong surfer riding the waves. But here I am in this one. No, I’m not the cool one riding the wave. But if you look to the right, there is a black blob. That’s the top of my head. Hang ten, dudes!
I found someone juggling on the beach, so I juggled with them for awhile. Then that attracted a third juggler, and we set up a ball passing pattern with 3. No videos of that unfortunately, but it was a lot of fun. We found some tamales in La Libertad for 20 cents each, took 10 to go, but two each filled us up.
Next morning we were up to go to Guatemala at 5:30. We wanted to make some oatmeal in the kitchen before we left, but found it didn’t open until 6 so we waited. Then we caught the bus ride, which was remarkably uneventful except for the movie Titanic. Which is also remarkably uneventful, and would have been totally unwatchable had it not been dubbed in Spanish which made it just barely interesting - no offense to the millions of teenage girls who made this movie gross more than Star Wars.
But we finally got our passport stamped at the border to Guatemala, although it was still very easy to cross the border. From there we went to Antigua, which you will see next post…
Posted on February 25th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under El Salvador | No Comments »
Copan - Macaws and Deadly Ballgames
So after getting over my rapturous delight at finding real, cheap, food again - island food was getting old - we went to Copan Ruinas, the best preserved site in Honduras for seeing ruins. On our way, we stopped at the local market. As usual, I almost missed it - a tiny hole in the wall 5 feet wide lined with fruit enticed me in, then I found myself inside this gigantic flat space filled with booths selling all sorts of food and fruits. We had Tilapia and soup and tortillas for about 1.50$, bought a pineapple for 90 cents, then went to the ruins, just outside town.
The ruins were a bit pricy, 15$ each for entry, plus for once I decided to splurge on a guide since I would have had no idea what I was seeing. It was 25$ extra for a guide for 1.5 hours. It was worth it though.
About Copan.. what can I say. It was a well preserved, even opulent, pile of rocks which a great many peons spent millions of manhours carving and building for the enjoyment of a privileged few hundred people, and the honor of a few hundred pagan gods. It was impressive, yes, but… I dunno. You can find plenty of pictures of the statues and carvings and things like that on the net if that sort of thing interests you more than me.
Anyway, they had some beautiful scarlet macaws at the entry to the park…
Along with some Agoutis, I think they are called…
One interesting anecdote about Copan, is that this complex was built to have a gigantic ampitheater to watch a ball game played with a rubber ball weighing about 8 pounds. No hands or feet were allowed to touch the ball, and bouncing that off your head HAD to hurt.
This is the playing field, and the object was to touch one of the 6 goals on the sides of the field with the ball. But this game had an added twist - the winner got to be the next human sacrifice! (Should we really call him the winner? I mean, really??) Anyway, only the best was allowed to be offered to the gods, which was done on this altar here:
Again, I have to wonder if anyone ever took a dive for the team… I can imagine a comedy of players trying to under-play the others, trying to lose… at least, that’s what *I* would have been trying to do… professional sports just doesn’t have a future in a society like that.
Anyway, we got back to the actual town and it was about 4:30. We didn’t want to stay here for the night, but I didn’t really care where we went as long as it was south or west, towards El Salvador or Guatemala. So we walked through town, asking people, and everyone said the last bus had left already, but maybe THAT place would have a bus still… after playing this game for about 30 minutes, we finally found a FULL collective taxi headed in what I hoped was the right direction. Actually, I didn’t know where it was going but the road headed towards where I wanted to go in either direction, so… I figured I couldn’t lose.
Some people on the collective told me where to go next, so after a few more bus changes and several hours later we wound up at the border to El Salvador at about 11pm. Unfortunately, most of the hotels in town were full. One that wasn’t was a bit expensive, so as I was walking around looking for more hotels, a local saw us and decided to help us. He spoke English somewhat and had lived in Houston for awhile.
Well, he told us this certain hotel had rooms and he had a reservation there and they would let us in. I had already asked there and they said they were full, and told him this, but he insisted he could work it out, maybe a bribe was all we needed he said. I found the situation quite interesting so I decided to play it out and see what happened. Well, he banged on the door, the hotel clerk came out andsaid they were full. He said he had a reservation, the clerk said he didn’t, he said he did, then he said some people in the hotel knew him and could vouch for him, so about 15 minutes went by with the guy going back and forth into the hotel looking for people to vouch for this guy on the street. I found it all quite amusing, since I knew I had at least one option for beds and sincerely appreciated this guy’s help for us strangers.
Well, to make a long story short, (and you really had to be there to appreciate it) he finally said there were no rooms, but that his wife was in his room there and that we could take one bed and he could take the other with his wife. I explained to him that I appreciated his overwhelming kindness, but that we would seek out other options. He said that the town got unsafe later at night and we needed a place to sleep off the street and I told him again that the other place had beds and that we would go there, but if it was full we would come back and perhaps take him up on his offer. We finally agreed that if we didn’t come back in two minutes, it would be a sign that all was well with us. Thanked him again, and left and got beds in the other hotel.
It was just an example of how much out of their way people will go here to help complete strangers. I doubt that would have happened in my own country, but we have met this sort of behavior all the time here. Earlier that same day a local walked 3 blocks out of his way after dark to make sure we found the bus station to the next town alright and safely.
But I think of all the countries, El Salvadorans were the happiest, nicest, most helpful, and healthiest. It was my favorite country, and you’ll hear about it next post…
Posted on February 22nd, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Honduras | No Comments »
Diving, Snorkeling and Eating In Utila
Upon arriving at Utila we were bombarded by people trying to get us to go to their dive shops. There are more dive shops on Utila than people. So we just put our heads down and ¨dived¨ through the crowd (so to speak) and got away from the hubbub. We wandered around town for awhile, noted that the prices were back up to Costa Rican equivalents, meaning 5$ a plate for food. Rooms were cheaper though. We were hungry, so we wanted to find something light. We were looking for Batidos, called Licuados here, which are basically blended fruit and milk. I asked about a dozen places, none of which had any. They said they were out of fruit. Finally I found a place that still offered Licuados, so I asked what type they had. They said Banana. I said ok, we´ll take one. We did, liked it, wanted another, so I asked for a second. He said he couldn´t, we ate the last banana. So apparently, since no other place had any, we ate the last banana on the island. Go us!
Bellies less empty, we set about finding a dive shop. All of them were basically the same price and offered the exact same item (an open water certification) and so we were left to decide based on how we liked a place. After trying every place in town, we settled on BICD, Bay Islands College of Diving. The instructors were upbeat, fun, and didn´t ooze that ¨hey dude, ain´t weed great!¨ vibe that some of the other shops did. Total cost was 271$ and that included 3 nights of room rental and 2 free fun dives after the course was finished. Plus, they offered free internet for students!
We walked down to the beach on Utila, which isn´t much of a beach for an island, where they had a slackline set up. Which was considerably harder than it looked. It is basically a tie-down strap put between two trees and stretched tight. So it is a poor man´s tightrope. They said I did quite well for a beginner, but to be honest that wasn´t so great.
Later we had a ¨taco¨ in a ¨mexican¨ restaurant. It cost about 5$, and we were somewhat shocked to receive a plate with a cupful of chicken in the middle and chips stacked around the outside. I explained to them we ordered a taco, not ¨that¨. The menu specifically said it was ¨two tortillas deep fried with chicken¨. I pointed this out, and he explained that this used to BE two tortillas and they had been cut and deep fried into chips. And that this WAS a taco. I explained to him that this was NOT a taco, but that I would eat it. It actually didn´t taste bad, but it was a small portion for the price. This is a recurring theme on Utila.
Another recurring theme is that everyone on Utila quotes prices in dollars. And require payment in dollars, or in a very bad exchange rate for Lempiras, the local currency. But none of the banks or ATMs on Utila give out dollars. So where do the dollars go? I never figured out, but bring dollars to Utila!
That said, if you don´t have dollars, you can go to the ATM and pull out money. In Lempira, of course. Then go down the street to Jose´s money changing shack (His name isn´t Jose, but I forget what it was) (and seriously, it was a shack!) and he gives a pretty fair exchange rate and has a gigantic wad of dollars under his falling apart desk. Unlocked of course. Sometimes things make little sense to me here, but I guess that is part of the experience of traveling 
When we first walked into Utila, we saw a sign that said “Indian Wok Restaurant”. And I, being a fan of Indian food, promised myself we’d eat there before we left. So that night I tried to find it again. Now mind you, Utila has 2 real streets, that run at 90 degree angles to each other, and a few alleys around these streets. You CANNOT get lost. And we KNEW we’d seen this on Main Street. So we walked back and forth. Looking for it. Again and again. We just couldn’t find it! We asked people, and they pointed us in a certain direction, and it wasn’t there. We asked others, and it wasn’t where they said either. 3 days we walked up and down this street on various errands and never saw it. Finally, when we had all but given up, I went on one last quest to find it. After sorting through the various directions, talking with the few people who seemed to have heard of it, I finally traced it to a certain place. I went next door and asked them if they knew of the Indian Wok. They said no, they’d never heard of it. I went back around and finally found a tiny building by a pier behind another building, that had no sign, where they were cooking. Turns out it was the Wok. They had a TINY sign that the put out only when they were actually open, which was only about 4 days a week from 6:30 till 11 pm. And they SERIOUSLY need to work on their advertising, is all I have to say.
So to digress a bit, while Crystal was getting certified as a diver (I have been for some years now) I had some time on my hands so I wanted to go get some dives in while I could. The only boat leaving when I wanted to go was from Parrot Divers. I didn´t like the outfit very much, but it was ok. Cost 52$ for two-tank dives. You can tell how long it´s been since I dove with a wetsuit since I accidentally put my suit on backwards. (Hey, the full-length body zipper is easier to pull up in the front!)
The dives were ok. I still am not too impressed with diving. I guess I´ve never been in the right place at the right time. Snorkeling is always so much better it seems. But I was glad when they were over. The next day I had a full day while Crystal was getting certified (It is a 3-4 day process).
So I noticed that they had three computers, but only one was turned on. I enquired why, and was told that the others didn´t work. Ah-hah! Something to amuse myself.
Having certain skills in the broken computer department, I volunteered to take a look at them. They said it was no use, someone had looked at them and said it was hopelessly broken. Ah-hah! A challenge! So they told me to knock myself out. 20 minutes later I had, to quote one of the instructors ¨three computers worth of parts spread out all over the floor¨. A swiss army knife was my only tool. This is how the computer looked when I started:
So you can see, it needed help. Well, I fiddled with it for awhile and finally got one of them up and running. Then I made the other one run faster (it was terribly bogged down with cookies and background programs and the like).
I was just about done when another instructor comes over and says he has a mini laptop that has died. Apparently, his antivirus program had deleted user32.dll. Which is, apparently, a file that windows considers important. So his computer was a nice paperweight for now. But it was so small it had no CD drive, so the only options were a network or a USB boot. Never having done either, it took me most of the day to work out a decent USB boot system. It was so hard and took so long that by the time I was done, he was practically begging me to give up. Hah!
Naturally, I did eventually get it working at about dark. The next day I decided to go diving with Crystal and BICD decided to award me 2 free dives in exchange for services rendered. So not only did I get to have fun, but I got paid for it!
These dives were significantly better. People make a big difference in such things, and the people at BICD were the best. Kinda like a disfunctional family. That night we ate at the Indian Wok, and had Garbanzo Curry, and Curried Hummus. Both of which are recipes I will be working on duplicating when I get home.
Next morning we headed for Jewel Key, a tiny island off Utila that was entirely built into a town. To get there we took a water taxi, which was actually a 12-foot boat completely filled with propane tanks and 8 people. The boat rode so low in the water that it was in considerable danger of swamping several times. Plus the waves were rather high that day, so we actually surfed - in the boat - to the island. It was quite fun!
We were never more than 50 yards from shore though, and we passed about 20 dive boats on the way. I commented to the others that if we WERE going to get shipwrecked, then doing it surrounded by literally hundreds of rescue divers was probably a good place to have it happen!
And the driver of the boat (err, captain) didn´t charge us for the ride. Which was cool. We walked through the small key/town and tried a local specialty - fish burgers. I was not impressed. But interestingly, prices on Jewel Key were LESS than Utila. I get that everything on Utila has to be shipped in from the mainland. So it´s more expensive, OK, I understand. But why does ANOTHER boat trip to an even MORE isolated island make prices 30% less?? It hurt my head, so I tried not to think about it much.
Next morning we rented fins (we had been carrying snorkels since Costa Rica without using them) and took a water taxi to an even SMALLER island called water key. Which had some good snorkeling, as you can see:
Literally thousands and thousands of minnows, it was like swimming through minnow snow.
After that, we headed back to Utila. Checked my internet, and in responding to Emails ALMOST missed the last boat back to the mainland. Seriously, it was pulling away from the dock as I was running up. Crystal had gone ahead and was trying to get them to wait for me and they didn´t want to. When I made it evident I was willing to jump onto the receding boat, they caved in and let me on. I had already paid the exorbitant 25$ pp (each way!) fare. I WAS getting on!
Anyway. I didn´t really like Utila that much. It was hard to find good food that wasn´t white flour based. Street food was pretty scarce and restaurants were pretty expensive and portions were small. It was noisy on the weekends and it was just… not too nice. I didn´t think. Not to mention the streets were about 10´ wide and was shared by trucks, mopeds, people, and bikes. There was a constant danger of being run over by something from one direction or another. So I was SO relieved to get back to the mainland and have some REAL food. Tamales, Batidos, Soup, and affordable again!
Next we headed to Copan. Don´t touch that dial! (So to speak!)
Posted on February 20th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Honduras | No Comments »
Granada to Utila
So we got to Granada next, which was nice enough, but I wasn´t that impressed. Just another big town. We did find some unique foods - like fried cheese with honey on top. Which was… not as good as it sounds. And we found a food I´d been craving for a year, ever since Ecuador… Humitas! Well, they call them something different here, but they´re the same thing. Young corn ground up, stuffed in a banana leaf and made into a tamale. They are sweet (naturally, without sweeteners), and absolutely delicious. They are also a decidedly messy food, since they get everywhere. But it´s worth it!
After that we caught a bus to Masaya, intending to wake up and go to the Volcano there in the morning. We got off the bus too early in Masaya however, which was a much larger town than I had thought, so we had to wander ¨6 blocks¨ into the center of town to find hotels. It was closer to 2 miles, after dark in a strange town, but it was nice anyway… I got to eat more street food, which is my number-1 favorite thing to do in Central America. This time fried potato cakes with sauerkraut on top!
So we finally found a hotel and next morning we were up at 7 to go to the volcano. Negotiated an appropriate price with the taxi, got there, only to find out it didn´t open for another hour yet. (Who knew volcanos closed at night??)… so anyway, we didn´t want to wait so we skipped Masaya and went on to Managua. From there after finding a bus in yet another hectic bus station, we headed for the Honduran border. But first, the bus had to cruise through the local market, very slowly, trying to find more passengers. This made me unbearably hungry by tempting me with food on all sides, so I hopped out to go buy food. This freaked Crystal out, who stayed behind, but… I knew what I was doing. Really! So I found some more Humitas and hopped back on the bus just in time and this way I didn´t have to ride hungry!
At the border, we were disappointed to find that they didn´t stamp our passports. But they did give me a FREE Honduras map … (after I paid them 7$ to let me into their country) … hey, maybe the map wasn´t free…?
Anyway, I did learn a lesson here that I already knew, but this helped to cement it. That lesson is, always agree on a price firmly up front before letting anyone do anything for you. See, this is a rather long walk across the border here, and we were tired, so these tricycle taxis showed up to take us across. I asked how much, and he said ¨a small tip only¨ so I left it at that. Big mistake. They took us across the border, guided us through immigration, not that we really needed any guiding, it was a snap, and then they asked for their tip. So I gave them 3$ for the both of them. They had a hissy fit and demanded 20$. For a 30 minute ride. I said not a chance and offered them 4. They demanded 15 and were both screaming at me and quite a crowd had gathered. So I offered 5, and they were protesting and demanding 10. What I should have done at this point was, instead of offering more money, start offering less. Less or nothing. That would have solved the problem.
Anyway, I think I wound up paying them 10$ to make them go away. Then the tension broke and the locals all started laughing. One of them who wasn´t laughing pulled me aside and told me to always agree on a price before hand because I had just been fleeced. He said these guys had earned about 50 cents and I´d given them 10 dollars. He was quite angry at them. Oh well. I learned the lesson and so I consider it money well spent. So then we caught a collectivo, (shared taxi-bus), which is always cramped and overcrowded. Then we caught a real bus to Tegucigalpa, spent the night there (it was raining, so it wasn´t a very nice impression the town left) .
Catching a bus in Latin America is always interesting. The buses hire hawkers to go out and pull you in from the street to their bus/ticket window/office. And these hawkers will lie and do anything they have to do to get you to their bus. They´ll tell you the other buses leave later, are slower, are broken - even when the other bus hawkers are right there, telling you that these buses have bad seats and stink, then they start cussing at each other, it´s quite an experience. I generally assume both are lying and ignore them and find my own way if possible.
As we left Tegucigalpa the next morning we passed through a market, so I leaned out the window and bought some more humitas from a lady on the street. Just asked for them and she ran up the bus window as it was pulling away and I gave her the money. Like a dollar for 4 huge humitas.
After we got to San Pedro Sula, we saw our first real bus station. Up until now they had all been, even in the cities, scattered over several blocks with independent stations. But in SPS they had a real, huge, bus terminal where all the buses stopped. Which made it much easier to find your connection. We stopped there for awhile and had lunch, which was nachos and mondongo. Mondongo, for the uninformed, is essentially beef gut soup. It was better than it sounds. Gigantic bowl for 2$ too.
Then we took a bus to La Ceiba, where the ferry leaves for Utila. Had plantain french fries for dinner, with fried chicken. I ordered one, but he understood one for each of us, so we got two. Then I tried to get a to-go box for the one I hadn´t eaten and he put in an order for a third one. Luckily I stopped him before he got it made and explained that no, I JUST wanted a box, not another meal!
It was still raining the next morning, and we had heard the boat left at 9 am. So we were up early because the taxi drivers told us the bus system was very hard to navigate. I was skeptical, but I wanted to make sure we didn´t miss it, so at 7am we started walking towards the bus stop. Found it and in a half hour we were at the boat dock. So it wasn´t that hard after all, it was yet another taxi driver lie … after all, us taking the bus cost him a 5 dollar fare!
As it happened, the boat wasn´t scheduled to leave until 9:30. As it happened, it was late and didn´t leave until 10:30. So we had 3 hours to wait. The ticket counter had one extremely slow woman taking the tickets, and at least a 150 people in line, so it took about 2 of those hours just to get everyone a ticket.
Then, as the boat loaded, they loaded the bags separately and put them in a dry hold. So most of the people finally got on, and then as we were pulling away from the dock, there were about 10 people who the boat refused to let on. They said it was full. But they already had stowed their bags on the boat, and they had bought tickets! So of course the people started raising a stink and eventually they consented to let them ride.
The boat ride over was extremely rough. A large percentage of people got sea sick. I would have loved to have the dramamine concession on that boat. I of course thought it was quite fun. Some of the swells were at least 15´ tall and the boat had quite a bounce when it dropped to the bottom. Most of the boat was wrapped in a plastic cover to keep the passengers dry, and it was quite a large boat. However, there was space outside the plastic in the bow of the boat for passengers to ride, and I knew the bouncing was worst on the front of the boat, and naturally that is where I wanted to be.
It was rather cold this morning, and as I said, somewhat rainy. And with these waves, we were constantly drenched while being bounced. For about an hour. And I mean, really soaked. I have a picture of one of the waves hitting us, but I can´t upload it right now. But it was quite an exhilirating ride. When I got off I had been soaked so many times that I had salt caked on my skin. And that brings us to Utila, where we spent nearly a week, and that will be the next entry…
Posted on February 15th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Honduras, Nicaragua | No Comments »
Ometepe, Nicaragua
So on entering Nicaragua we had to pay 7$, some sort of an entry tax or something. It was a rather long walk across a bridge, and they really didn’t have things signed well, so we basically followed the flow of people. They had a huge line, and people kept cutting in at the very front. But we didn’t really have to be anywhere, so… anyway. After getting out of immigration, we were looking for a bus to Rivas, Nicaragua. One bus (the big, expensive international buses) quoted us 5$. I thought, nah… so we were looking for a chicken bus to ride, when we were beset by taxi drivers. They tend to throng in certain places like piranha. Anyway, we were off to find a bus and they kept telling us this bus didn’t go there, that one stopped all over the place, etc. I knew they were lying, but I also knew that the best way to bargain a cheap taxi fare was to let them know I really didn’t care whether I rode a bus or a taxi.
So I asked the price, they quoted me 15$. I smiled and went back to bus-hunting. They chased me down and said 12$. I looked very serious for a moment, and said “ten”. They looked at each other, and one agreed. The buses were awfully rickety, and while I would have enjoyed the ride, it would have taken a long time and we’d been traveling solid for 2 days. So we took the taxi since I figure that was a fair price. Although I probably could have gotten it for 8$. Still.
We found a market that had that papaya I showed in the last post. It was spread over a dozen blocks, arranged by type - food, clothes, etc; it was a great fun. I bought all sorts of street food. A tortilla with mozzarella type-cheese, filled with sauerkraut and topped with sour cream and chili sauce. It was actually quite good! Called a “quesilla”.
I then walked around looking for tannin, since a friend wanted me to bring some home. I spent about an hour looking for it, and only got blank stares. So no luck there. Used internet for a few hours at 60 cents an hour, instead of the 2-3$ I’d been paying in Costa Rica, which was quite cool. Meals were 1.50$ or so, and I bought this gigantic tub of soup for 1.75$. I mean, it was like 50 ounces. It was huge. And delicious. I love their soups here. Anyway, after wandering around for a few hours enjoying soaking up some real latin american culture after being in Costa Rica’s antiseptic environment, we caught a boat for Ometepe.
Ometepe is a textbook-perfect volcano. Actually, pair of volcanoes. That rise from the middle of the gigantic lake Nicaragua. One of the only (if not the only?) lakes in the world that has sharks in it. Interesting story about that, when they were discovered the pro-evolution scientists used them as a proof of evolution, that these sharks had evolved to live in fresh water over millions of years. Then finally someone thought to actually tag the sharks in question they discovered that these sharks actually migrated up to this lake from the ocean through the river, which is quite a feat. This was rather embarassing after having been used as a proof of evolution, so they stopped using that example
Apparently, sharks can actually live in fresh water environments without millions of years to adapt. Of course, because of fishing and pollution they are not very common anymore. Anyway, back to the volcanoes themselves, they are quite beautiful, and lava flows formed an isthmus between them forming a single island.
I really liked Ometepe. Granted, things were a bit higher there, but not much. And it was very laidback, they grow a good portion of their own food on the island, the people were really nice, and things were all well cared-for.
In fact, we were both struck by how much happier Nicas were than Ticos (Nicaraguans vs Costa Ricans). They were more cheerful, they were feeding the seagulls off the boat, and were much more open and friendly and unhurried than their wealthier neighbors to the south. I guess wealth brings with it responsibility. And when it brings too much responsibility, and sucks all the fun out of life, maybe it isn’t wealth at all?
We chose the Hacienda Merida, on the southern volcano, to spend the night, since it said it had an all-you-can-eat buffet and served brown rice, whole wheat bread, and things like that. That is all we eat, so we had been quite bread-starved going through Central America thus far. But we got to the dock at around 5:30, and found that this hotel was clear around the island, which was much bigger than I had thought.
So we walked into a place that said “free tourist information”, (knowing that nothing is ever free) and said we wanted to go to this hotel. He said no, all the buses had already left and a taxi would be like 30$. Then he said “Oh, wait a minute!” and ran outside, and came back in yelling “the owner is here, he is here! And he will take you to his hotel!”.
This remarkable good fortune was at first looked at with skepticism by myself, having been burned before. But it was true, he was, and he refused to accept any money for carrying us there. So an hour and a half later, we got to the hotel. Starving (I’m glad it was All-You-Can-Eat!).
So we had the buffet, which at 5.75$ each was quite expensive for here, but it was all you can eat and it was healthy. So even I, a reknowned cheapskate, didn’t mind paying it. I opted out of breakfast the next morning, at 4$, since I didn’t see anything I really wanted to try.
Things at this hotel are rather expensive if you stay for one day, but if you stay longer it gets cheaper. For example: Kayaks are 4$ an hour. They are 15$ for your entire stay. Same price for bicycles. Etc. It’s a little skewed, but I still rented a kayak and we paddled out to monkey island. They had a sign up which said “stay away from monkey island. They are agressive!” - Like I listen to signs like that!
It was about a 15-minute kayak trip in our two-person kayak. Two small islands nearby to one another, I wasn’t sure which was which, but we decided to circle both. Took a few pictures of birds en route, but it wasn’t until we got around to the other side of the second island that we saw the monkeys. Aren’t they cute?
Then we got closer, so we could get some GOOD pictures. Then they got angry.
So here Crystal is, this monkey like 5 feet from us, trying to fend off the monkey with a paddle, while I snap pictures of it. And she’s screaming “this monkey’s going to eat me and all you can do is take pictures???” - I of course reminded her of how great this would look on our blog, and that if the monkey ate her it would be a great Youtube entry. Imagine the hits!
She didn’t think that was nearly as funny as I did. So we paddled to a safe distance, and then back home. Some other tourists were contracting with a taxi to go back to town, at 30$ for the group of 7, so we shared the costs and caught a ride back, then caught a boat to Rivas. It was quite a rough ride, and I managed to amuse myself and the other hundred-odd passengers by adding another video to my collection…
Posted on February 13th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Nicaragua | 2 Comments »
Bottom Line About Costa Rica
Ok, so now that we’re out of Costa Rica, what do we think? Well… It is a really beautiful place. Compared to other Latin American countries, it is clean, safe-feeling, good roads, and you can drink the water. Compared to the US, it is cheap to travel around. That said, here are a few myths about Costa Rica which should be expelled:
To start with, the Pura Vida farce… if you’ve ever watched a TV show about Costa Rica where a baboon-like travel host pontificated about the wonders of Ecotourism, they will have redacted for several precious minutes about how everyone in Costa Rica uses “Pura Vida”, as a sort of Aloha-like phrase. Not true. We spent almost two weeks there, and we heard it, MAYBE, a half-dozen times. And always, STRICTLY, from people directly involved in tourism. Locals never used it among each other that we saw.
Now, if you had bought an all-expense paid package to dive, surf, sleep and eat, you’d no doubt hear it. But it is not a local thing - it is something that, apparently, the tourism department made up to attract tourists. As such, I find it mildly patronizing - not to say disturbing - that a culture reforms itself to appeal to tourists
Another example of that sort of thinking is the “green season”. See, from December to May the weather is perfect in Costa Rica. It seldom rains, isn’t too hot, and is good to travel. This is called the dry season. The other half of the year it rains every day. In some parts of the country, it rains non-stop for weeks on end, I’m told. But the tourism drops off sharply because of the term “wet season” which has traditionally, and appropriately, been applied to this season.
So the ministry of tourism decided to rename it. Now officially the time from May to December is called the “green season”. Because non-stop rain for 6 months makes everything green! I find that rather deceptive. But to be fair, tourism departments are created to bend the truth and attract tourist dollars in every country, so Costa Rica isn’t alone in that.
Prices as I said are cheaper than the USA. If you don’t require air conditioning (and most people won’t in most parts of Costa Rica), and are willing to share a bathroom in some towns, you can stay for between 10$ and 15$ per person per night. Away from tourist areas, you can sometimes even get air conditioning for that price. They seldom have a price per room, it is always by the person. Food in local eateries costs about 5$ per person per meal. Fruits cost roughly half of US prices, most of the time. Prepared foods (canned/dried beans, pastas, candy bars, etc) cost about double
The quality of the food is extremely high. Costa Rica is a very fertile country, and so everything tastes better than the same item at home. Usually. This is due to the heavy volcanic activity and conservation efforts that have been made thus far.
The health of the people reflects those facts, as they are one of the longest lived countries on Earth. However, I would predict that those statistics will change in the next few decades since the people were looking quite overweight and unhealthy when we were there - not compared to Americans of course, but compared to other Latin Americans. They eat a heavy portion of white rice with EVERY meal. If it wasn’t for eating the cheap cuts of meat which have more nutrition in them, and eating a good amount of fruits, they would already be like us. Fast food is spreading there, too.
Ticos themselves, while nice enough for the most part, were not a very happy people from what I saw. They were always in a hurry, they seldom had time to feed the pigeons or hang out with each other on the streets like other Latin Americans do. But my biggest complaint of all, is that there are no markets in the streets, and almost no street food!
Apparently, Costa Rica has an organization like the FDA that requires food to all be processed through their facilities before it can be sold (which accounts for the relatively high food prices!), and which prevents any markets from forming without a permit. And judging by the fact that I saw no markets in 2 weeks, the permit must be hard to obtain. I was very disappointed by this, because markets and the attendant street food is to me, the best part of Latin America.
The upside is that almost all food can probably be eaten without worrying too much about Montezuma’s revenge and such illnesses. But I find it a high price to pay for that.
So bottom line… Costa Rica is a great entry-level Latin American country.
If you’ve never gone south of the border before, for fear of Federales or Drug Raids or Man Eating Snakes or Belly-Eating Bacteria… go to Costa Rica. You’ll scarcely know you left home, except it’s more beautiful than the eastern USA and cheaper than any USA destination.
You can’t see turtles the size of volkwagons nesting by the thousands in the USA. You can’t see monkeys hanging from treetops in the wild in the USA. Costa Rica offers thousands of things like that you can’t see in the USA, and in some cases, anywhere else on Earth.
But if you want to see the REAL Latin America - not what Latin Americans think Gringos would want Latin America to be…. and if you’re wanting to make your dollar stretch a bit… try Nicaragua.
P.S. I am sure this will offend some people. I am sorry about that, but this is the facts as I saw them. I’m sure they would be perceived differently by other people, and some people think Costa Rica is like a Western Garden of Eden. I didn’t.
Posted on February 9th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Costa Rica | No Comments »
Last Two Posts…
The last two posts got published in reverse order, sorry 
Posted on February 5th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Mexico | No Comments »
Corcovado to Puerto Jiminez
So next day the Taxi driver was supposed to pick us up at 5:30. He was late (he was grumpy about coming to this hotel, remember, so I think it was passive-aggressive resistance). He brought the 2 liter bottle of local milk I had asked him for, which cost me 2$, which was quite cheap, and it was quite good. I had had him chill it so it would be good and cold so it would last on the trek. He took us to the horses we had hired, which cost about 22$ each, and carried us about 7 miles up the trail to the edge of Corcovado park.
From there it was about 5 minutes to the first park station, which I THOUGHT was Los Patos, but apparently it wasn´t. And, in case you need to know, you have to register at the park station before 10am or they won´t let you start the hike. Which is just as well, since we started at 9:30am and finished at 6pm.
At this juncture let me say that Corcovado is very poorly signed and the trails are not well maintained. I mean, most of the time they are wide enough and easy to follow, but they have a lot of trees down across the trail that require detours through the jungle, not all of which are easy. For the price paid by a few hikers, that could have been fixed. And there were at least 60 people in Sirena when we got there. Sirena is the ranger station in the middle of the park where most of the action happens in the wildlife scene.
From the edge of the park, it was about 2 kilometers, mostly uphill, and fairly steep in spots, although not compared to Chirripo. Then we found Los Patos, which was entirely deserted and had been for some time. Huge spider webs were all over everything, it was kinda creepy. From there, the sign said it was 17km to Sirena. But again, I don´t see how that is possible. Everyone I talked to, people who hike all the time, said it was MUCH longer than that. At least 14 miles, or around 25km. It was a long hike, even though it was fairly easy through much of it. It was also a bit monotonous, since the forests were all pretty much the same.
The first 6k was uphill and downhill a lot. The net result was downhill, but it wasn´t noticable until you were on flat ground, and you were like ¨oh, this is flat now!¨ After that it was mostly flat. We saw some peccaries, a wild pig, got a really bad picture of one before they fled the scene. Saw three different types of monkeys, got some fairly decent pictures of them, and saw a few birds. But the NOISE! It was almost unbearable. Some sort of cricket-like bug in the treetops was making a racket, and there were I kid you not, millions of them, and it was almost all you could do to hear anything. Talking was hard, it was so noisy.
We saw almost no flowers and little scenery worth noting. Sirena had a nice platform, covered, for the tents, but their bathroom facilities again, left a lot to be desired. For the price I alone paid for camping, the place could have been wonderful. It´s a shame to see something that close to right, but frustratingly… not.
I had trouble sleeping so I took a hike down to the ocean at about 10pm. It was beautiful, the tide was out, tons of stars, etc. Next morning we decided to leave Sirena though. Didn´t sleep well, for several reasons… mostly, we just weren´t prepared for camping and had none of the things we needed - big tents, pillows, sheets, vents in the tents, etc. Sirena was great, but not for the unprepared. The trail in was harder than they said it was, and longer, by everyone´s account.
On the upside, bugs were only bad at sundown/sunrise, humidity was no worse than East Texas in mid summer, and temperature was about 85 in the daytime, and 70 at night. But it didn´t cool down until around 1am, so… wasn´t much help.
Sunrise from Sirena beach:
It´s a nice beach for looking, but not for swimming or walking. To narrow, too rocky, and too shallow for anything but looking. So we caught a great deal on a flight out of there, since Crystal´s knee was bothering her again and we didn´t think we could walk out via the La Leona trail as we had planned. The flight took us 13 minutes to Puerto Jiminez and costa 50$ each. But I wanted to see at least something at Sirena before we left, so I ran down a trail, about a mile round trip, and saw a Taida (think of a cross between a Mongoose and a black cat) and then heard the plane and turned around and left.
Had soup for lunch in Puerto Jiminez, about 4$ but it was a gigantic bowl. And their soups are really delicious. Called home at about 30 cents a minute, caught a bus for San Jose… and that´s where I´ll stop for today.
Posted on February 5th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Costa Rica | 1 Comment »
