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The Long Way Home

After spending a week diving in the Bay Islands, I knew it was time to head back. I had made the decision to stay in Utila longer and skip Belize and the few stops in Mexico that I had planned. My goal was still to cross the US border by land, but now I would be making the trip up much faster.

Out of Utila, Honduras I caught the Saturday 6am ferry to the mainland. From there it would be a whirlwind bus tour for the next several days. The ferry landed in the town of La Ceiba. From there is was onto San Pedro Sula, Copan, and finally Guatemala City at about 11pm. I stayed the night (sort of) in Guatemala City, but had to be back at the bus station at 5:00am for the bus bound for Mexico.

It was roughly six hours from Guatemala City to the border. Miraculously, I jumped off a bus in the border town and was able to immediately board a 19 hour bus bound for Mexico City. The busses were not bad at all. They even showed movies. However, most of them were in Spanish, so I had very little idea of what was going on.

I passed most of the time by reading and sleeping. Occasionally, we would stop for some snack/meals or people would just come on the bus and sell stuff. I had converted my Guatemalan currency into Mexican Pesos, but had been reluctant to change my $100 bill at the border knowing that the rate would be lackluster. That said, with the surprising lack of a wait in whatever town I switched onto the Mexico City bus, I found myself in a rural Mexico truck stop diner with only a credit card and a $100 bill. It turned out that Visa was not, in fact, everywhere I wanted to be.

The next morning we pulled into Mexico City. I promptly found an ATM and got some pesos and then food. As luck would have it, I only had a 30 minute wait until a 25 hour bus bound for Juarez, Mexico was leaving.

The bus to Juarez passed by much as the others had. Mexico as it turns out has more cactus than I have ever seen. The green things in this picture are cactus.

As the miles passed, I watched Mexico fly by.

The next morning we pulled into Juarez and as fortune would have it, I had another 30 minutes before I was off to El Paso and eventually Albuquerque.

After crossing the Bridge of the Americas, we had to get out and walk through customs. As the only American citizen on the bus, things went pretty smoothly for me.

It was interesting to be back. Though it didn’t really feel that different as I was still on a bus and the instructions were still being communicated in Spanish.

We did, however, stop to get gas and there, after months of being away, I was able to sink my teeth into some good ol’ gas station beef jerky. It was good to be back.

It was around 4:00pm on Wednesday when I arrived in Albuquerque. I had more or less been in transit since 6:00am on Saturday. I can’t say traveling this way is for everybody, but I’m glad I did it.

In Albuquerque I was lucky enough to spend a week with friends, slowly transitioning back to life in the U.S. We took in a little of the countryside and took a trip to the VLA (Very Large Array) or group of satellite dishes that search for aliens or listen to your cell phone or something like that.

The dishes were pretty impressive and I was interested to find out what kind of TV reception the place got, but that information was not provided on the self-guided walking tour.

After a relaxing and enjoyable week in Albuquerque, it was time to fly to Oregon.

It has been nice being back in Oregon. Most of my friends have been finishing up law school classes and preparing for finals. My taunting them about being done will be a nice test of our friendship and help determine if these are people I will keep in touch with long term.

As for me, I have been taking care of the life chores that one normally spreads over the year. I made a trip to the dmv, called my insurance company, got my car running (dead battery), picked up a new phone, did my taxes, and applied to take the bar exam.

Now I am mostly waiting for graduation and contemplating whether my stuff with still fit in my car for the drive back to St. Louis.

I am not sure if I will post again. Maybe I will put up graduation pics or the drive across the US. Stay tuned. Emails would probably make me more likely to do this. For those of you who have kept up with most of this trip, I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I know I did. I am not sure when the next trip will be. After being gone a long time, I am always hesitant to believe I will want to be on the road again, but then you never know. If you happen to live in one of the countries that are white on this map, I might be headed your way eventually.

Thanks for reading,

Ben

Cowboys, Chicken Busses, and Whale Sharks...Oh My!

WARNING: This is officially the longest post that will ever be on this site. It might take two sittings, but I think there is some good stuff here.

I last posted from Xela, Guatemala and will pick up from there momentarily. First though, I wanted to mention a couple fun facts that I left out about El Salvador.

In El Salvador they use only American currency. Throughout the world American dollars are generally accepted and even preferred over weaker currencies in many third world countries. El Salvador, however, has taken it up a notch and just ditched their own currency. I heard they might have done this to encourage foreign investment, but someone also suggested governmental laziness as the reason. Whatever the reason, I saw the new nickels for the first time in El Salvador, which felt a little odd.

The biggest loss for El Salvador is the opportunity to put very cool looking individuals on your currency. (i.e. this guy from Guatemala)

El Salvador also had a strong “cowboy” culture, which I have seen throughout Central America, but it has been more pronounced in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico than it was in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. I have included a couple pics from Guatemala to highlight this.

Back to Xela. After writing the last post, I decided to spend the early evening doing an eating tour of the market. There were lots of little stall selling things like French fries and chicken tacos.

The most surprising things I ran across was a corn on the cob that came covered in mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, green chili sauce, and parmesan cheese. If I were to get it again, I might go with a little less mayo. I also saw something that appeared to be a deep fried potato. It turned out to be a ball of mashed potato and banana that was filled with black beans and then fried. This was served with cream and sugar poured over the top. I can’t say I will be making that treat at home, but I would eat it again. It was certainly better than guinea pig.

From Xela I headed up into the mountains and eventually made it to the small town of Nebaj.







Nebaj is a nice little town without many tourists. The stares I received were a good indication that my size, lack of hair, and pale complexion were not common in this part of the world.

I spent most of my time in Nebaj wandering through the streets and checking out the market area.

Nebaj's main church had a large TV antenna attached to the top, which I was told was to help pick up God's messages and also reruns of Highway to Heaven starring Michael Landon.



From Nebaj I traveled through towns like Chichicastenango (Chichi) and Chimaltenango (Chimal) en route to Antigua. (Guatemalans are into the whole brevity thing. Also, Guatemala City is just Guate)



Most of these journeys were on “chicken busses” or in mini-busses.




In the few moments that I wasn’t scared for my life, I was able come up with a potential test to determine if someone is fit to be a mass transit driver in Guatemala. See how you do.

1. When driving a mini-bus (like the one pictured below on the left) you should have a maximum of how many passengers?

1. 8
2. 16
3. 26 if that includes one large gringo
4. As many people as you can get to pay

Correct Answer: I would accept C or D here. Once I was in a mini-bus with 25 Guatemalans in addition to myself. However, I suspect that if another few people showed up, with money in hand, before others got out, there would have been a way to squeeze them in.

2. When passing another vehicle, one should ______.
1. make sure no vehicles are in the oncoming lane.
2. make sure there are no vehicles in the oncoming lane that are larger than yours.

Correct Answer: B

3. On a hairpin switchback corner, you should _______.
1. never pass someone
2. pass anyone you can
3. pass anyone you can and use your horn to let others know you are coming.

Correct Answer: B or C seem to be accepted with C being the safer option.

4. Passing in a construction zone is ­­­­­_______.
1. never to be done.
2. acceptable if you are careful.
3. a great time because no one is coming from the other direction.
4. a great time to pass multiple vehicles
5. Both c and d

Correct Answer: e

5. If there is a passing lane in the road, this is________.
1. the appropriate time to pass vehicles who are going below the speed limit.
2. A chance to pull into the oncoming traffic lane and pass two lanes worth of vehicles.

Correct Answer: b

6. A straightaway is __________.
1. a good opportunity to pass if no one is coming in the opposite direction.
2. a chance to read the newspaper
3. a chance to log time for your pilot license
4. b and c.

Correct Answer: d

For Bonus: What should any tourists on your bus look like during the ride?

Answer: (See photo)






(Note the use of old axles as sidewalk posts. This was done in several Guatemalan towns.)



Off the bus and happy to be alive, I was excited to see what Antigua had to offer.

Like many of the other smaller cities I have visited in Central America, Antigua is filled with cobblestone streets and colonial buildings. Antigua is also filled with tourists.

I was very surprised by the number of Westerners that I ran into. Included were a fair number of people who decided to spend Spring Break in Guatemala, which surprised me.

That said, once I explored Antigua a little it became obvious why so many tourists were there. First, the town is very attractive.

Also, it makes a nice base to travel from as there are tour operator/ travel agencies everywhere offering decent prices on trips throughout Central America.



Third, there is a fair amount going on. Both nights I spent in Antigua featured free concerts. One was in front of some colonial ruins and the other featured members of the Buena Vista Social Club at a small bar.







It doesn't hurt that Antigua is surrounded by some decent scenery as well.




I spent one evening climbing the nearby Volcano Pacaya. After the Volcano climbing experience in Chile, I wasn’t sure how many more volcanoes were in my future. However, Pacaya lacked snow and offered a fair amount of visible lava.










As it turned out, that visible lava was often a bit too close for comfort like the moments where I could smell my shoes melting. Also, tightrope walking down a section of cooled lava with red hot lava glowing in the dark on either side was a bit nerve-wracking.

Happy to alive, I decided that it was time to head for Honduras. My minibus left at 4 am and by 11, I was at the Mayan ruins in Copan, Honduras.

The ruins are guarded by a pack of fierce scarlet macaws that are as likely to kill you as look at you. Here I lucked out and these two just looked at me.



Also, they apparently hang around because they are fed and not shot at like in other parts of the country.

The ruins were nice and had some decent carvings, but were not enought to keep me from leaving the next day.




From Copan I caught a bus followed by a ferry to the island of Utila.



Once in Utila, I decided to stay for a week. The interesting residents and aquatic life made it seem like a good idea.


(This guy sells coffee to ferry passengers. I believe he used to live in Eugene, OR.)

Utila offers really good scuba diving and a chance to snorkel with whale sharks if you are lucky.



The day I went out on the whale shark boat, we got lucky. The trick is to drive around in the boat looking for a "boil."



This boil is a bunch of little fish jumping around trying not to be eaten by big fish and birds. One of the big fish is often a whale shark (apparently, the biggest fish in the world).

After spotting the boil, everyone gets their gear (mask, snorkel, and flippers) ready and slides into the water in a way that hopefully won't scare the whale shark.



Sometimes you drop off the boat and end up very close to the whale shark, which can be scary the first time because they are huge animals.




(Note the large black shape under me in the pic above (I'm in yellow)).



We ended up swimming with this whale shark several times. At first, he would take off and then he got curious as to what we were and started coming back very close to check us out.

The experience was truly awesome. I would rank it up there with seeing the mountain gorillas in Rwanda as far as my personal experiences go.

We also got lucky enough to see some other big fish while looking for the whale shark. Including the barracuda below that came a little close for comfort (the yellow flippers are mine). While smaller than a whale shark, the barracuda actually has sharp teeth.



Completing the hat trick, we saw two very large manta rays including the one below.



In addition to snorkelling with whale sharks, I had plenty of time to go diving while in Utila. The barrier reef around Honduras is the second largest in the world and home to some very cool aquatic life.






On one really good day, we saw and were able to snorkel with dolphins on the way to our first dive site.



And then en route to the second site, the captain spotted a boil and I got to see another whale shark.



Feeling extrememly lucky, I knew I had to say adios to Utila and basically call it a trip. The only question that remained was how I would get home from Utila. The answer to that will be in my next posting. Stay tuned. I hope to see most of you soon (some of you, not so much).

-Ben