Guatemala City

I went to Guatemala for a few days while Kim went to San Juan del Sur with Mikayla. I originally wanted to come here to see the Mayan ruins. Also I had booked my return flight from Guatemala City to Rio while in Burnie, so I had locked in coming here. Some of the research I had done in the weeks before I arrived, indicated that Guatemala City was a very dangerous place to be in. In 2008 there were over 6000 murders in Guatemala (in a population of 13 million people). I was reading stories of muggings, car-jackings, indiscriminate violence, lawlessness and ineffective, inexperienced, corrupt police.

So I found some accommodation not far from the airport that had a reputation for security. Kim booked me a flight from Nicaragua. I decided to fly because there had been a military coup in Honduras recently, and a bus trip would have taken me through there, and that might have put me in still more danger. I didn't feel scared, perhaps more cautious, that I couldn't be bothered by the inconvenience of a robbery. Most people would probably not notice much difference I thought.

The flight was excellent - business class as it turned out. I didn't know that until I checked in. The food was good, the service was just as good. I was the first off the plane and almost the first person to get my luggage. The people from the hostel picked me up at the airport .. all good.

On the way in I asked the driver if this part of Guatemala City was safe and he said no, not really. I had heard of car-jackers targeting tourists in taxis and buses coming from the airport. Anyway, we arrived at the hostel in about 10 minutes and all the houses in the area had high walls with razor wire on top. It looked like some sort of suburban prison.

On the first night I met a bloke from El Salvador that was a travelling salesman. He was a nice bloke. He spoke English well and was really interested in Australia. The next day when I got up for breakfast he was in the TV room looking really worried. Overnight his car had been stolen from out the front. It was not a company car, it was his, and he knew that he would have little prospect of ever seeing it again. He needed it for his work. Pretty sad really.

Another bloke I met here was a huge negro from California. Another nice bloke, a gentle giant. He was a wharfie that handled freight so probably was not easily intimidated. A few days earlier he had been robbed at gunpoint, (two people with guns at once). He had his money, cards and all his documentation stolen including his passport. He couldn't travel anywhere without money or documents, so he was staying here and ringing his Mum in the States, to help him sort it out. Pretty sad really.

The last sad story is about how live bullets came into the hostel a few weeks before I got here. On the office wall inside the hostel is a map of Guatemala with a hole in it. When I asked how it got there the manager told me it was a bullet hole. It came trough the wall, missing the reception desk by about 60 cm. Then the manager showed me the other bullet damage, to the wall outside and the steel door on the front - see picture above. Apparently a few weeks earlier a bride and groom to be were driving around delivering their wedding invites, when they were set upon by a group of armed car-jackers. However, the groom had his own gun and when he produced it there was a gun fight leaving the groom and two car-jackers dead. Stray bullets from the gun fight just 200 meters away came into the hostel. The groom was shot dead in front of his bride to be and son. Pretty sad really.

The people here seem to live in a state of paranoia. The manager tells me that he hits the deck in his own lounge room when he hears a bang outside. You start to get the impression that they wear the danger as a badge of honour and almost brag about it.

Needless to say I became apprehensive about doing much here and mostly stayed inside and I got to catch up on the blog and watch heaps of telly. The ruins were another hour flight away and Antigua, where I had heard was worth a look way about an 8 hour bus ride. So, I am not really in a position to recommend Guatemala City to anyone as a tourist destination.

Nicaragua

The bus ride from San Jose, Costa Rica to Granada, Nicaragua took about 8 hours. Translated into English, Nicaragua means near water. On our second day here we went on a boat tour of Lake Nicaragua, which is a huge and full of fresh water. Interestingly, it is the only place in the world that has fresh water sharks. On the boat tour we saw some local people on the lake's islands going about their every day duties like fishing and washing clothes. These islands were formed by a huge volcanic explosion that blew about 1/3 of a mountain to bits, some of which ended up in the lake. Today these islands are forested, and some have houses on them. The lake has the look and feel of a tropical paradise. We also saw and heard some howler monkeys in the tree tops. There are plenty of birds here too. In the afternoon we got a taxi to the top of an active volcano.

From a distance, as you approach the summit, the volcano looks like a bushfire burning, with light grey smoke coming from the top of the hill. At the summit are a couple of huge, deep craters. The smoke is so thick that you can't the bottom of the craters. The smoke smells sulphury and occasionally you get to taste the sulphur in your throat. The signage warns you to park your car facing the exit, no doubt to help you get away fast, as well as to hide under your car if rocks start hailing down on you. Thankfully, there was no real action when we were here.

We stayed in Granada, which is a beautiful, historic city of about 150 000 people. Most of the buildings are pretty old and painted in contrasting colours which look really good. The streets are narrow and horses and carriages cart tourists around. It reminded us of Cartagena in Colombia.

Granada used to be one of the biggest cities in Central America, because it was once a major stop-over on a freight route through Lake Nicaragua in transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This is how freight was moved before the Panamá Canal opened. There are many American tourists here too, some of which are looking to buy properties to retire in.

We went out a few times and had our meals in a street dining restaurants. While eating you get approached by people trying to sell you stuff. We have been looking for hammocks for a while and one night we were approached by a bloke selling hammocks for about $7. He was a nice bloke so we ended buying two for $10. Later he came back and showed us his deluxe model, which was more like solid material than stringy like the ones we already had. So we reluctantly bought a third hammock. I offered to buy him a beer and he sat with us for a while. He said that he made the hammocks himself and it was his only job. Later in the night another bloke came along selling hammocks only these were much stronger looking than the stringy ones we had purchased. We ended up buying one of these as well, so that now meant we now had four hammocks. Next thing the first bloke came back and offered us one of the stronger hammocks. We told him that five hammocks would really be overdoing it but he persisted. Finally I made a deal with him to swap his deluxe model with one of the stronger stringy ones. So in the end we went came home with four hammocks, more than enough. It is so hard to say no to people sometimes.

After Granada we headed to an large island in Lake Nicaragua called Ometepe. Ometepe is big enough to support a population of 40 000 people and has two volcanoes on it, one of them is active. Even though there are so many people living there it still feels pretty rural and small, so the island is pretty big. That puts the size of the lake into some perspective.

When we arrived at the wharf where the ferries were, it appeared that we would have to wait for a few hours for the next boat, or chance taking an old wooden hulk across the lake to the island. With all our luggage and the heat it wasn't worth waiting so we got on the old boat. That was a bit of an experience. As the boat lurched through the waves water was coming inside and splashing up on our legs. Kim and Mikayla were not that impressed.

When we arrived at the island we were hounded by people wanting us to get a taxi and we kept telling them that we were OK, but one of these people persisted and kept following us and talking to us. He turned out to be a self-employed tourist operator and was really helpful. We had to use his phone to contact our accommodation that somehow had lost our booking, so our new friend recommended another place which was really good, drove us there, carried our bags and was really nice to us. I thought at first that this might have been a scam of some sort, but it turns out his only hidden agenda was that he did tours for $50 US so we took him up on it the next day. The tour itself was pretty average, visiting a pretty dodgy museum, a swimming pool built into a river and a restaurant on a beach. We drove around in his old, beaten up 4 wd over some really rough roads, but still, it was an interesting experience.

After 3 days we headed back to the 'mainland'. I went back to Granada and Kim and Mikayla went to San Juan del Sur. In Granada I managed to go on one of those horse-driven coach tours and took a few photos.

Nicaragua has had some issues with political instability, and these continue today. Possibly you might remember hearing of the Sandanistas and the Contra Rebels from news stories back in the 1980s. Even while were we here there were massive protests in Managua the capital city (we weren't there). The protests are basically the about the old communist-capitalist debate, where both sides hold very strong views. There was a civil war in Nicaragua over these issues in the 1980s and many people died defending these views. Today, other than the protests and some graffiti, there aren't any obvious signs of this conflict and Nicaragua feels like a safe place, if not, a tropical paradise.

Cruising

We have been on our cruise around the south of South America for about 8 days now, still with another week to go. We saw some fantastic glaciers yesterday, and went around Cape Horn the day before. Got some great photos too.

The Internet on the boat is ridiculously expensive (40-70 cents per minute) as well as ridiculously slow. Just to load the gmail inbox takes about two minutes then another two just to open one email.

So the updates have been almost impossible.

But we are going well. We have a great cabin (stateroom :-) ) and there is plenty to do on the boat, and probably too much to eat.

We'll be home in about 3 weeks now, unbelievable how fast the time has gone looking back.

Costa Rica

We caught the bus out of Panama and into Costa Rica. At the border was a big bridge going across a river. Up until the border, the bus had been travelling along a sealed road, when suddenly it climbed up a hill and onto a dirt road. The bus struggled with the ups and downs of the dirt road then stopped just before the bridge where we all had to get off and walk across. The one lane bridge was in a similar condition to the road, greatly in need of some form of maintenance. On the bridge we were met by a few beggars asking for money. On the other side was the immigration office where we had to get our passports stamped. After that, back on the bus and along a dodgy road with sealed sections separated by rough potholed bits causing us to slow down to about 7 kmh. The contrast between the 1st/2nd world and the 3rd world couldn't have been any more stark.

We got to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, in the late afternoon then had to catch another bus to Las Juntas where Mikayla has been living. So after a few more hours we were at our destination, a small country town, then had to wheel our luggage about 1/2 a kilometer through the street to get to where we were staying. The room was a small 'dog box' with bunk beds. It was really hot and humid, the bedding felt damp and there was no air conditioning, just a fan, also no TV or Internet. But it was better than sleeping outside .. I suppose. The next day the owners of the accommodation offered us a bigger, better room with air conditioning and TV for just another $3. At $15 per night instead of $12 it was hard to resist.

While we were here Mikayla turned 18. Kim bought her an iPod touch and I bought her an electronic photo frame. The iPod has been getting a good hard workout ever since. On the night of Mikayla's 18th, after we had tea together, she went out with her friends and had a big night out. A couple of nights later we went out for tea with her host family from Costa Rica. The highlight of the night was Mikayla getting her face pushed into a cake, which apparently is a big tradition in Costa Rica. Another tradition apparently is getting pelted with eggs!!

I sat next to the host father, and managed to have a reasonable conversation with him in Spanish. Among other things, we discussed the temperature, the price of fuel, I found out that he had lived his whole life in Las Juntas. Pretty basic I know, but last time I was in South America all I could say was yes, no and thank you in Spanish.

We spent a few days in Las Juntas before heading off to Manuel Antonio which is a more tropical location near the sea. Our accommodation was owned and managed by an expat Polish-American. His name was Andy, he was an alcoholic and proud of it and he had very strong right-wing political views. He thought that Barack Obama was a socialist and that all socialists were stupid. Kim and I had a few drinks with him the first night we were there. I asked him if he thought the Scandinavian counties were dumb given their socialist systems and high standards of living. This is not a political statement, just an observation, particularly when capitalism, especially in the USA, seems to be going so badly at the moment anyway.

While we were here Kim celebrated her 40th birthday. Kim got some silver jewelry that we picked up in Bolivia, some really nice Costa Rican timber (rainforest) jewelry boxes and got shouted out for tea.

During the day we went out to one of the local beaches, where we were treated to drinks service on the beach by a local person that bordered on having a manic personality disorder. He kept referring to Skippy when talking to us, so at least he knew something about Australia. While on the beach we were constantly being asked to buy things like drinks, ceramics and towels. The towel bloke would have asked us at least four times, on different occasions, each time getting the same answer.

After Manuel Antonio we headed back to San Jose on our way to Nicaragua. We had to stay one night at the bus terminal which was excellent accommodation and good value. While here we went for a walk up into the San Jose shopping district. Here we discovered bingo machines which are a bit like poker machines, only better. Kim went really well and won some money while Mikayla and I probably lost a couple of dollars each. It filled in some time for us while we waited for our next bus to Nicaragua.

Panamá

After Colombia almost anywhere would have been a bit of a let down. So no surprises, Panamá was pretty ordinary.

Panamá is famous for the Panamá canal, a narrow stretch of water cut through the isthmus between North and South America to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific ocean. It was built around 1914 by engineers from the United States and imported labour other countries. Today it carries about 5% of the world's shipping and about 20% of the sea freight to the United States. What you see as you fly in is about 100 ships anchored in the bay waiting to come through the canal. The bay has skyscrapers built right to the water's edge. At the canal, acres of containers are stacked up about 4 or 5 high with massive cranes for loading these onto the ships. The Panamá canal area was leased to the United States for about 90 years. The USA invaded here militarily in 1989 to protect its own interests.

Panama used to be a part of Colombia and when we were here they were celebrating their independence day. The price of independence from Colombia was paid for by a new dependence on the United States it seems.

Panamanians are a very relaxed bunch of people. Nothing seems to matter much to them. When we arrived at the airport we were told that we could not go through immigration because we needed to fill out another form. So we asked where the forms were and were told "over there". So we went around looking for the forms, up some stairs, and still had no idea. A couple of other tourists we met got the same treatment. After about 10 minutes of unproductive searching I went back and asked again, only to be told again that they were "over there". Welcome to Panamá!

Eventually someone came and helped us out so we got through and got a taxi to our accommodation. It was in a 5 storey building and the reception was on the top floor. The lift was out so we had to lug our 21 kg packs all the way up the stairs. The temperature would have been about 30 degrees and the humidity probably about 95%. It was pouring with rain outside. Welcome to Panamá!

While here we met another Tasmanian (from Launceston) who was on one year's leave from the Army, on a $5000 round-the-world airfare that gave him 20 stopovers ... not bad. He had been serving in Afganistan in infantry. He seemed like a good bloke but bragged a bit about all the blinders he'd been on. You get that I suppose if you have served in a war.

After a day or so we headed out of the capital city, into the countryside, to an area called El Valle (the valley). El Valle is a small village sitting inside an extinct volcano. It is surrounded by steep sided mountains covered in tropical forest. Many wealthy Panamanians come here for their holidays. We got off the bus where we were supposed to stop and tried ringing our accommodation from the public phone but it wasn't working. So we felt a bit stuck. In the end we went into a nearby restaurant and paid them $1 and got through, and were then picked up and taken to our room. The place we stayed at was called the Golden Frog named after the local amphibian species. It was really nice, good rooms, great garden, good service, no complaints really, except that it was about 3 km out of town, and they didn't serve meals, only breakfast.

In Panamá, at this time of the year it rains heavily each day. One day we went and visited a serpentarium (snake enclosure) that was only about 1 km from where we were staying. Unfortunately we got lost walking back and caught in the rain. It *really* poured and we got so wet so quickly that it wasn't worth trying to shelter in the end. We ended up walking past a bunch of locals in a bus shelter 3 times and I can only guess how stupid they must of thought we were. In the end we paid them $1 to use their phone to ring the people at our accommodation to come and get us.

We also went on a canopy tour in the forest that involved a guided walk up a steep hill on a muddy track in very humid weather then coming back down on a series of flying foxes. This was pretty good but expensive, just over $US50 each for about an hour.

After a few days we headed back to Panamá City to our dodgy hostel. There was no evidence that it had ever been cleaned at least when we were there. One good thing though it had air conditioning. Here we met up with Mikayla who arrived about 4 hours late from Costa Rica. Kim was getting a bit worried.

Our next destination in Panamá was Bocas del Toro (Mouths of Bull) which involved staying on a remote tropical island. We had to catch a bus at night and arrived a our destination feeling a little delirious at about 6 am. The air conditioner on the bus was going flat out all night and it ended up feeling really cold on the bus. It isn't normal to feel cold here.

After we arrived we were whisked off in a taxi to where the boat left from. Then we had about a half hour boat trip to the island followed by another taxi ride on a very rough and wet, muddy road to our accommodation. We were lucky to make it, the road was that bad. Apparently the taxi got stuck heading back. We had cabins built into the hill right beside and above the beach. It was quite hot here most of the time and even more humid. Everything felt damp from the humidity. Interestingly, there were hardly any mosquitoes.

While we were here we went snorkeling. You could see some small colourful fish swimming around the rocks. Its a long time since I've been snorkeling, it was great, it made me think about getting a diver's license when I get back. The thought of sharks did enter my mind a few times. Another time I did a short walk through the bush here. About four dogs followed me. The bush was really tropical with bananas and coconuts growing wild.

We saw a family of locals, possibly indigenous people, arrive on the beach to harvest a heap of coconuts and some bananas. One bloke sat out in a long skinny boat while the rest of the family were on shore. One of the girls would swim out with bags of the coconuts. The kids were having fun playing on the beach. An idyllic setting really, at least until they chucked their plastic coke bottle into the water as they left.

Before we left we did a tour of the Panamá Canal interpretation centre and watched some ships coming through. The water is on different levels and you see large doors opening after the sections are filled or emptied. The whole system is gravity fed and works really quickly.

Another highlight was a visit to a huge shopping mall near the bus terminal. It was absolutely massive and would take more than a day to see it all. We both lashed out a bit here and knocked the budget around a bit, but oh well. This photo is of just a part of the food court section.

Catching up from Nicaragua

Since the last post we have travelled through Panama and Costa Rica. We are now in Nicaragua. This place is amazing - huge inland freshwater lakes and active volcanoes. It has been hard to get near a fast and reliable Internet connection for a couple of weeks now, so it is difficult to update the blog. But I will get around to it. We are still alive and well. It is very hot and I am even getting a suntan. I reluctantly admit that I have had to wear shorts for the first time in years!!!!

Colombia

When we were planning this holiday, much of the research we did depicted Colombia as being very dangerous, so we didn't plan to come here originally. Fearing kidnapping, corrupt military, drug lords, thieves, plagues and pestilence, we thought it would be better to be safe than sorry and stay away. However, after we arrived in South America, we spoke to quite a few tourists that had been through Colombia and every one of them spoke so highly of the place that we began to change our minds. Other than that, almost every day on the television, we saw advertisements for Colombia showing beautiful photos and ending with the slogans, "The biggest risk you will take, is not wanting to leave", and "The biggest risk you will take is falling in love". A final factor was making a mistake with our travel plans in Chile, which meant that we bypassed the top of Argentina and the salt pans of Bolivia, that we originally planned to visit, meaning that we had another week or so up our sleeves to spend some time checking out Colombia.

We arrived at the airport about 8 pm and saw heaps of police and military types. People were being checked, searched and sniffed by the drug dog as they were arriving. We knew to catch the authorised taxi to our accommodation in Bogotá and this all happened very smoothly. The next day at breakfast, we met some European tourists that knew a bit about Colombia and spoke Spanish pretty well. They were friendly and helped interpret the breakfast menu. Also they had been to Ecuador and shared our opinions about how it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. While discussing Bogotá they told us about an area called Zona Rosa, which had lots of restaurants, was pretty safe for tourists and worth a visit.

Zona Rosa was great with street dining, markets, different types of restaurants including Middle-Eastern and Mexican, shopping malls, the usual people on the street selling cheap Rolex watches, sunglasses, mobile phone covers and other stuff that you never ever want to buy. We also visited a part of the old city in Bogotá that has a large museum full of artifacts that date back to pre-Columbian civilisations. Most of the tings on display were made from gold and some date back as much as 2000 years. Gold was highly valued by these people because it did not tarnish and reflected the sun. As these people worshipped the sun, having gold was like having a small part of the sun that could be carried around.

After Bogota we went to Cartagena (pronounced 'Carta-henya'). Cartagena is a bit like Surfers Paradise, but on the Caribbean coast. This was probably the best experience of the trip so far. Imagine crossing Spain with Africa and you pretty much have it. Black African-looking people dancing on the streets

to the sound of drums and their own singing. The streets are very narrow and the buildings are of a Spanish style with small balconies facing the street on the first floor. It was really hot and humid most of the time we were here. Cartagena has a pretty interesting history dating back to the 1500's involving conflict between the Spanish and the English, looting by pirates, even Sir Frances Drake got into the act. These wars and raids caused the Spanish to build a huge wall around the city which still exists today.

While in Cartagena we stayed on an island about 2kms off the coast of the main city at a resort. Most of the time we were here we had the entire resort to ourselves. I read the guest book back for about 10-15 pages and didn't see one Australian entry. However on the second day we were here a couple of Australians from Sydney turned up. The female Australian asked me where we were from and when I said we were from Tasmania, she said "well you can't help bad luck I suppose". Thankfully I managed to get in a small dig. I quickly said to her, "well, I used to like Sydney too". Then the bloke asks "what do you mean used to like Sydney?" my kind nature kicked in and I kept my mouth shut, rather than saying "that is until I met you two". When you are overseas generally speaking people are fascinated by Tasmania and know something about it, especially the Tasmanian Devil. Australian mainlanders however pity us, and from my perspective the feeling is mutual. Try going overseas and saying that you are from Victoria, Queensland or New South Wales then expect the next question to be "where's that?".

While we were on the island we met some of the locals. The lady that ran the resort was really friendly towards us and so too was the security guard that worked there. These were the first people that I managed to actually converse with in Spanish, however, the conversations were pretty basic. Much of the time I was comparing my suntan with the lady, as she was pretty dark skinned, and I am so white, it became a bit of a joke between us. I kept saying that I would become 'bronseado' today which means suntanned. She didn't like having to look after too many guests and didn't go much on Americans ... I wonder why? The security guard had a really easy job, just sitting around most of the night and occasionally shining his torch near the pool. We were shouting him beers and he was pretty keen to drink them, despite having to carry a .38 calibre pistol as part of his job. He even invited us to his house, not far from where we stayed, and we met his wife and children. The whole time we were there we had to rely on our Spanish to communicate so it was pretty challenging.

We got into a bit of a routine on the island. Sleeping in until about 9 o'clock, then breakfast, Kim would swim in the pool in the morning but I retired to the air conditioned room and catch up with writing the blog, mainly because the sun would be out in the morning and it was very hot, probably about 36-37 degrees. After lunch, sometimes I would have a quick siesta then go for a swim in the pool. I ended up swimming about 60 laps on one day without stopping, which would be almost a kilometer ... not too bad for an old bloke :). I also was teaching Kim a bit more about swimming.

(I´ll fix this photo later)

After about five days of this we returned to Cartagena and spent some time walking around the city. One cultural difference that was hard not to notice was the different attitude towards alcohol. Near where we stayed there are open plazas where people congregate surrounded by shops. Some of the shops are like milk bars back home that also sell alcohol. Heaps of young people were going in and buying beers and spirits. They even open the beers up for you. Then people would go out onto the street or into the plaza and drink. The police were present the whole time either in a van, or on motorbikes or just on foot. The strange thing was that there was no yelling, no fighting, no glass breaking, just the gentle buzz of conversation, despite heaps of young people drinking straight spirits. Maybe Australians could learn from this. It also seemed like a good way for the police to improve their image with young people, just by being there and talking to them while they are having fun.

While in Cartagena we walked around in the warm nights, through the historic and narrow streets and not once did we ever feel in the slightest bit of danger. People were getting driven around in horse-drawn carriages and there were almost no cars on the streets. Almost everyone we met was friendly and wanted to help us. You could really start to get used to this place. The advertisement was ringing true, we weren't that keen on leaving.

Finally we headed back to Bogotá and did a couple more trips to Zona Rosa and the old city. We visited the old city and walked past the highly guarded presidential palace. We also visited the local art gallery which featured original works from Picasso, Monet, Salvador Dali, Renoir, Chigall and Colombia's home grown artist Fernando Botero.

I would love to come back to Colombia one day ... on a scale of 1 to 10 it gets an 11.