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

More Busses Than You Can Shake A Stick At.

Warning: After my last post I started moving through Central America pretty fast. If you are geographically challenged or a little rusty on your Central American geography, please feel free to consult the maps below.

From San Jose, Costa Rica I headed north to La Fortuna. La Fortuna is best know for its volcano and as it turns out the cloud that is usually covering the volcano. Unable to see much and unimpressed by the town, I headed to Monte Verde and its cloud forest.

In Monte Verde, I joined a few fellow Americans on a hike through the rain forest. The hanging bridges offered a nice vantage point to take in all the plant life.




A perk to this rain forest hike was getting to climb up the inside of a tree.



From Monte Verde I decided to head to Nicaragua for time and financial reasons. This ended up being slightly more involved than I expected. I had to catch a 6am bus to a place called Chomes, where I could switch busses and potentially arrive in Nicaragua within a few hours. Chomes is not much of a town and doesn't even have a bus station. In reality it is more of a stop that I almost missed as I was trying to finish a book. For those of you from Arkansas, Chomes is like Clifty. For those of you from other places, Chomes is a place that you could miss by blinking.

Anyway, off my first bus I walked across the street just in time to watch the nice airconditioned bus to Nicaragua pull away. An inquiry revealed that I would be in Chomes for at least 3 more hours now and possibly longer.

With spare time, I grabbed a seat under a tree and finished my book. Sometime during the wait I also noticed my head was bleeding. (I had hit it the day before on a low doorway). The day was not shaping up to be very exciting. When the next Nicaragua bound bus came by (3 hours later) it did not even slow down. It became apparent that getting out of Chomes was my first priority. I took the next local bus to Liberia, which is a regional capital.

In Liberia, I discovered that all of the busses headed into Nicaragua for the day had left. There was a chance that I could catch a local bus to the border and then another local bus after crossing. However, the borders closed and with travel time I would only have about 30 minutes to get through the border or risk ending up in the nearby town that has no accomodation according to lonely planet.

With such tempting options I decided to stay in Liberia for the rest of the afternoon/evening. (Also, I assume that I will never visit Liberia the country, so this may have been one of the few chances I had to spend a night in Liberia.)

After checking into a hostel, which could not give me change, I decided to look for an exchange place or supermarket to get some smaller notes. Sadly, it was a Sunday and there was not much open. I was, however, befriended by some locals who were working/hanging out at a rum sampling table. When it closed down, they invited me to join them for a fiesta. This fiesta turned out to be the "county fair." There were food stands and other fair like vendors around.

A big difference from a fair at home was the lack of rides. There were really only two options. First, you could watch people run around in the bull ring with (you guessed it) a bull. Or the other option was to run around in the bull ring. (For those of you who have been to or run with the bulls in Pamplona, this is a scaled down version of the Plaza del Toros post running pre-bullfights.)

After spending some time in the bull ring and watching some kid get run over, I decided I was a little too old and, in theory, too smart to be there. Also, I had to get back to the hostel as the boss was coming in to give me change.

The next morning I caught a bus bound for Grenada, Nicaragua. Things went much smoother than the day before and I was able to enter Nicaragua quite easily.


(For those of you keeping track at home, Nicaragua is my 100th country visited. This total does not count the countries I somehow lost. Before starting this trip, I though I was at 88 countries, but recounted and could only come up with 86. If you have seen my two missing countries, please email.)

Grenada is a nice colonial town on the shores of Lake Nicaragua (the largest lake in Central America).

On my first day in Grenada, I mostly just wandered around to get a feel for the city.




I don't know if this guy was a big fan of the artist George Rodrigue, but he did have a blue dog.


(Grenada has a lot of nice restaurants with outdoor seating)


On day two, I headed out on the lake for a boat tour of local islands.



Including this one that was foremerly frequented by Oliver North.



After a little more time in Grenada, I headed for Managua (the capital). Managua is not a very inviting town (most of the central american captials are better avoided if possible). Unfortunately, that is where my bus was leaving from. I passed some time in Managua by going to the movies. The mall that housed the theater liked to discourage its patrons from bringing pets (note the macaw in the pic) and guns.




A risk to seeing movies in foreign countries (without really knowing the language) is that the name will be unfamiliar and you can end up in a totally different movie than you expect. I attempted to see Ghost Rider, but ended up seeing Flags of Our Fathers. Oh well.

It was an early evening in Managua for a variety of reasons, the most notable was the 4:00am check-in time for my bus to El Salvador.



After a big day on the bus, the first thing I did in San Salvador (capital) was catch a bus out to Suchitoto. The local bus (old school bus) only cost 80 cents for me to join 200 of my new El Salvadorian friends on a 50k (30 mile) multi-stop journey. Luckily, I got a seat and got to enjoy the surprising musical taste of the driver.

Seeing the skulls painted above the driver seat, I was expecting us to rock out pretty hard en route to Suchitoto. Surprisingly, we got a remixed dance version of Pure Moods (which you may remember as being available to order from TV).

Suchitoto is a small (artsy) town on that sits above a nearby lake.



Loaded with cobble stone streets and good restaurants, Suchitoto was a very pleasant alternative to San Salvador.

(The place I stayed made good chicken tacos and had a nice courtyard to boot)


This woman is 86, she lives around the corner from where I stayed and rolls cigars for a living. I told her smoking gives you cancer. (I didn't really tell her that)



From Suchitoto, I headed back to San Salvador and eventually to Guatemala (5am wake-up call). Feeling that I needed more bus time, I quickly grabbed a bus out of Guatemala City and headed to the northern city of Quetzasomethingorother, which everyone calls Xela (pronounced Shay-la).

I arrived fairly late and was unable to see much of the town on my first day.

This morning, however, I was up fairly early and discovered that (1) it was Sunday and (2) not much is up and around early on Sunday in Xela.

Several people were at a church service.

And by early afternoon, many of the residents of Xela decided it was a good day for an ice cream.

Things I have noticed about Xela are:

(1) There is a massive lack of change.

(2) There are a lot of people shining shoes

(3) There are a lot of Spanish language schools

(4) Becasue of (3) there is a fairly interesting expat/traveller community in town.

I have not totally figured out the plan from here, but I will probably spend several days in Guatemala and work my way back down south/east to get to the Carribean side of Central America before making the final trip North.

Cheers,

Ben

PS- Comments or Emails are appreciated.