Car Shopping

We did some intense car shopping on Friday, seeing mostly old run-down cars whose buttons didnt work or whose engines were about to fall out of the hood, but, we did come across a nice one by chance while walking back to town. It is the Toyota Crown... which is 1 year older than me but is really well kept and really cheap. It even has spiffy electric windows!

We didnt do much other than that except for see an Andy Warhol exhibition in the evening complete with a campbell's soup disco.

Oh, and I almost forgot... we met up with Natasha, who apparently went to school with me & SM in vnam (uuuh...) and it was her going away party to China (uuuh...) so she rented an open-top bus and we drove around the city blowing our whistles and waving our Ecuadorian flags. We then went out clubbing with the Ecuadorian elite (Everybody was as white as we were) where some apparently famous Puerto Rican reggaeton singers put an end to our dancing with their baggy-panted efforts at singing.

This morning we woke up in our white hospital beds to the calling of a fruit truck that sent nostalgic memories through my brain of the Spotornese fruit trucks (meloni...meloni belli...) and we took the bus to Otavalo, the mountain town with the biggest Saturday market in Latin America.

Today the whole town was taken over by the flamboyant market, with it spilling over the sidewalks and into side streets. We walked around the market for most of the afternoon outfitting ourselves with ponchos, bowler hats, striped pants woven bags. We're now more local than the locals who, ironically have another section of the market catering to their interests in nike sweaters and puma caps.

South America

We have officially arrived in South America, taking the flight yesterday from San Jose, CR to Quito, Ecuado. At the airplane gate I reunited with Sao Mai and we took off towards South America in what was probably the most expensive flight of my life- at 5 USD a minute.

Its great seeing SM again after almost a year, she hasnt changed a bit, and now with her addition and that of Monica- SM's friend from Sweden - we feel more like a travelling circus. We were surprised to have Monica waiting for us outside our departure gate mostly because she was meant to arrive 5 hrs after us that day. It turns out that she arrived the day before we got there and had been waiting for us ever since.

Monica's half Chilean and half Uruguayan and is very cool as well, of course. Now the only problem is that when anybody asks us where we're from it takes us about 3 hours to explain- with more than 7 nationalities between the 4 of us.

So we found a great hotel in the middle of the old town of Quito that reminded me so much of Alpine rifugios, with the same dusty smell, the cold creaking floorboards and the little breakfast room with pine cones scattered around. The only difference is that this was in the center of the center of the massive 3 million inhabitant metropolis of Quito, which we have all been very pleasantly surprised by since it has a wonderfully colonial old town full of theatres and museums and little piazzas that are hidden throughout the mazes of cobblestone streets.

We already did a lot in our first afternoon- we ate a lunch of Morochos (warm sweetcorn porridge in a mug) and pan con queso at a screeming lady's street stall, we then walked around the old town where we ran into a protest in front of the president's house because the govt didnt give the soccer leage their funding, and there we got to see the Ecuadorian president come out on the balcony above the protests to wave and observe. We also saw 2 people get arrested infront of us (the city is teeming with policemen, it seems like theres more of them than actual inhabitants). We also met a girl that plays for the Ecuadorian national soccer team and ate a huge dinner of grilled pork with rice & beans at a hole in the wall that reminded me of the good old bun cha days of Hanoi.

We slept extremely well, me under 6 layers of heavy blankets, as Quito is almost 3000 m up (which also helped explain why we were short of breath after climbing the stairs). And today we are intenet to buy ourselves a car for the rest of our trip.

Cahuita and Puerto Viejo

Mmm... Watermelon. I had been craving that watermelon since the busride that morning, and I was only too happy to see it on sale at the streetcorner in Puerto Viejo... but first things first. After almost 3 weeks of incessant travelling and 4 days of rainforest adventures we decided to take it easy for the remainder of our time in Costa Rica and spend the last 4 nights doing nothing at all at the beach.

And that's exactly what we did. The End.

Except not. We first stopped at Cahuita, a sleepy beachside town where we found the crappiest place (Backpacker's Dream) to stay with a half-baked owner-José-in an old wooden house that was way past its demolishon date. We spent that afternoon on a white sand beach building sandcastles (or sand taj-mahals) which, as big 21 year olds that we are we then destroyed by a flotilla of flying sandballs and then razed to the ground with our bare feet- ending their short lived reign of the beach.

That evening we had a sumptuous meal of squished bread and spam (low budget? what makes you say that?) finished off with our faithful peanut butter for dessert. The next morning we walked down to the black-sand beach, ogling the wooden cabinas we might have stayed in were we only a few dollars richer- they had large rooms with porches and private kitchens, hammocks and swimming pools, all for just 30 USD a night. We then unhurridly took the bus down to another beach town of Puerto Viejo, just a half hour away.

At Pto. Viejo we found a Hammock Hotel called Rocking J's run by an American, of course. The photo below was where we slept, a open air roofed structure with neverending rows of hammocks. It was a huge place, with tents for camping above, plenty of picnic tables and open areas, and directly on the beach too. The whole place was covered in mosaic tiles, from the floor to the columns and even the bathrooms. Its such a cheap and easy idea, me and Charles were left wondering why they dont have more of these places around Latin America. We spent 3 nights here, the 1st of which I slept blisfully, and the 2 following ones a little less so, but still pretty well.

Well, the only downside of Pto. Viejo was that most of the food was more expensive that what we had paid to sleep. So we decided there an then that all our meals would be self-cooked, and that means pasta at night and tuna sandwiches for lunch. All except for the first, that is- we found an old rasta selling carribean food next to the road and we decided to go for it. It was probably the best food we've had since the 5 star hotel buffet in Cancun. A huge portion of rice & beans with sweet fried bananas and a fish cooked in coconut curry all topped off with the above-mentioned watermelon (and a beer, of course) all while sitting under a palm tree on the edge of the carribean sea. It was pure paradise. After finishing off our plate I took off my shirt and plunged into the water.

We spent the afternoon at the ugly black sand beach north of town where we covered ourselves head-to-toe in black sand, making very convincing black people, if it wasnt for our pale faces. The next day we had a leisurly breakfast and then rented bikes for the day. We biked down the somewhat paved road leading to 4 other beaches, past cacao plantations and carribean houses where we stopped at Punta Uva beach to take a look. There we met the 3 Tico ladies in the postcardish photo below, who were nice enough to let us take a photo of them so we could post it online and make all of you jelous. I hope its working.

We then broke our pact of homecooked meals and ate a repeat of the previous day at Maxis, at Manzanillo beach before making our way back to Punta Uva, where we swam, layed on the beach, and harnassed nature itself to build a massive sandcastle which withstood the attack of the tides (ok, so we're really 5 year olds in 20 year old bodies.).

The following day we woke up late again, had a great breakfast of fruit juice, PB & J and coffee, and then settled back into our hammocks to read the day's newspaper (and the story about a second hurricane that we just missed). We sitrred only to eat our tuna sandwich lunches and then decided to walk 10 minutes to a good whitesand beach that we'd seen the day before. Well, thanks to Hurricane Felix we got huge surf waves even out of surfing season, so we spent the whole afternoon battling the waves and relaxing on the beach.

Today we took the bus back to San José cuz tomorrow we fly to Ecuador, and there we meet Sao Mai and her friend Maria, Monica or Mariela...

Tortuguero

We had just finished one adventure and we went straight into another... waking up at 4 am we left San José early, making our way to Cariari, then Pavona where we took a river taxi to the town of Tortuguero. Tortuguero is a little tourist town nestled between the mini-amazon Tortuguero river and the carribean sea. It has a huge national park, and the beach is world-renound for the nesting site of 4 of the earth's 6 species of marine turtle.

When we got off the bus in Pavona we met a Tico from Tortuguero called Anthony who was about our age and just coming back from a vacation. We followed him through muddy fields to the watertaxi, while he busily picked magic mushrooms from the surrounding fields. We rinsed ourselves off in the river and then took off on the boat to town. This place is exactly like what I imagine the Amazon to be... its flanked on both sides by thick rainforest and all kinds of huge palms and overhanging trees. We zipped through the muddy waters spotting a huge crocodile laying on one of the riverbanks.

By now we had made friends with Anthony by offering him a peanutbutter sandwich, and he was to remain our unofficial guide for the rest of our stay in Tortuguero. When we got off the boat he helped us find a beachfront hotel with a kitchen and hammocks, he took us to a good place for lunch and helped us arrange our plans for the next day. That afternoon we just lazed around, cooked our own dinner and slept early.



The next day we took a canoe at 6 am with Anthony and went to explore the river by paddle. It was amazing. We didnt even go into the national park (mostly cuz of the 7 USD entrance fee), but we probly saw better things than what we would have seen in the park. Anthony was a superb free guide taking us into a tiny canal where we crept along, looking for alligators and spotting all kinds of birds and insects, including the tiny poisonous red frog and a baby cayman (croc) swimming around. We then got out and walked around the jungle to the house of a 90 year old guy who lives without electricity or anything, then got back in and paddled some more down the big river.

We stopped again along the side when we saw a colony of small cappuccino monkeys in the trees. We got out at a clearing and watched them for about half an hour- its as if they were completely oblivious of our existance. About 30 of them continued to jump from tree to tree, nibbling at fruits or trying to crack shells, some lazily just laying on branches, with their four apendeges hanging off the sides. We saw a mother carriying a baby one just a meter from us.



On our way back to the canoe Anthony picked a breadfruit that we would later fry for lunch (just add some salt, and Mmm... tastes just like french fries). We then went back to our hotel, fried that breadfruit and layed blissfully in our hammocks, drifting in and out of consciousness until 5pm that afternoon when we decided to splurge and take our once in a lifetime canopy zipline tour. Its basically a bunch of metal cords tied high up in tree canopies where you can zip from one tree to another. Well, it wasnt worth the 35 USD we paid for it, but it was still a fun experience.

We played some pool with the canopy tour people and then headed home to cook our spaghetti dinner and to sleep in our comfortable beds. The Anthony thing was weird... we were a bit suspicious that he'd want something from us... and he probably did get some comission from the things we did, but other than that it was just as if we had met an old friend who had shown us around his hometown.

Parque Nacional Rincon De La Vieja

We got up early that morning from our empty dorm room to spend the day hiking around the Rincon De la Vieja National Park. We took our daybags and our food and head off for an hour's bumpy journey to the national park entrance. As soon as we stepped out of the van we were met by a lemur/badger mix that almost ran away with one guys backpack.

We started hiking around the easy trail first and just as you enter the trail you already feel lost from the rest of the world. The rainforest is so thick that you can hardly see anything off the path itself. The walking trail is crisscrossed by flowing streams and lines of leafcutter ants, interrupted occasionally by huge trees and their mammoth roots. Walking a little further we came to a large waterfall and further still we began to see a series of sulphur springs, shown in the photo below, with boiling mud and plenty of steam. It reminded me a little of yellowstone park, except the tropical version. We passed some wild monkeys and a few more sulphurous thingys and we easily finished the first part of the trip.


Next, we headed to the longer hike to a huge waterfall on the other side of the park. We walked through more thick rainforest, past a swimming hole and then all of a sudden, for no reason at all, the rainforest turned into a cactused savannah with knee-high grass and small shrubberies (yay!) , and then again, without warning, it went back to rainforest. It repeated this a couple of more times, completely changing ecosystems within a couple of meters.

We finally got to our waterfall where we had planned to swim and have our lunch. We carefully took out our bottle of rosé wine and tucket it between two rocks in the stream to cool it down. And thats when the real adventure started. No sooner had we pulled out our bread and started to spread our peanut butter than a huge tropical downpour broke out, which naturally sent us running everywhere to try to get out of the rain, only to realize that there was nowhere to run.




We resigned ourselves to the wet, and taking off our shirts and hiding them under a rock we opened our bottle of wine and ate our sandwiches under the rain. I pulled out my tiny travel umbrella and me and Charles huddled under that, trembling, taking turns eating our sandwiches and drinking our excellent Chilean wine, all while cursing the deluge.

So we huddled and huddled until all the wine, sandwiches, and olives (mmm...olives) were gone. Then we decided to make our way back to the ranger station because our van back to the hotel was leaving soon... so we made a last futile attempt to remain dry by zipping ourselves in our kay-ways and heading off. So we trudged back half-drunk and wet to the bone (socks and underwear included) splashing our way through the mud tracks and wiping the raindrops from our eyes. Apparently alcohol helps hiking because we got back in half the time, and with hardly any effort at all.

We did take, however, the mandatory swimming break in a natural pool on the way back, with freezing water and waterfalls around us, it was exactly what we needed after a day of hiking. When we did get back to the ranger station the whole park had been engulfed by clouds, making it look surreal. An hour of wet van and we were back in our hotel, showered and ready to continue on to the capital, where we would arrive at midnight and leave at 4 am for the carribean coast.

Onwards to Costa Rica

We hesitated between taking the 4am and the 5:45 am bus to leave the island, finally deciding on the more earthly hour of 5:45. So our alarms rang at 5:05 and we rolled out of our bunks, gathering up all the (still wet) laundry we had set out to dry the day before. It really isnt the smartest thing to expect your clothes to dry in a place with 110% humidity.

So we took the early bus to Altagracia where the Moyogalpa bus took us to the pier of the ferry that would take us to San Jorge which would connect to the minibus taking us to the Rivas bus station where we boarded our bus to the insanely malorganized border where we took another bus to the town of Liberia, finally in Costa Rica. Its like they don't want you to find the immigration office at the border. They try to hide it in the most unlikely places, and the victors, those who can actually find it and don't succum to the heat or the bloodsucking mosquitoes win the grand prize of having to pay a $3 exit fee and walking 500 more meters to repeat the same serach on the Costa Rican side of the compound.

In Liberia we hastily finalized our plans for the Cota Rica part of our trip and spent 3 hrs waitng at the bus stop for a bus to the national park that didnt come. We finally abandoned the idea of sleeping there tonight, and instead made our way into town and took a hotel for the night. Happy to finally have crossed, we went to buy tomorrow's lunch in a nearby supermarket- peanut butter & Jelly sandwiches and rosé wine. Mmmm.

Ometepe - D Day

You go to Opetepe for one reason and one reason only. The Nature. You can do hikes, climbs, bike rides, kayaking, swimmig, horseback riding, etc. Today we planned to pack all the possible activities we could into one day.

We woke up to the breakfast bell at 7:30, enjoying our little breakfast buffet with the rest of the travellers before setting out on item 1. The biking. We rented our relatively good bikes next door and set out in the pouring rain (It appears that sun doesnt exist on this island). It was wonderful. Its been so long since I've biked in the rain, much less on muddy unpaved roads through thick jungle and banana plantations surrounded by two majestic volcanoes.

We biked through mud and, less fun, cow shit- some of which I managed to hit straight on, sending most of it spraying in the air around me, until we reached the Sto Domingo beach. This beach is a 2 km long continuous stretch of black volcanic sand, forming the isthmus connecting the two volcanoes. We stopped there for a bit and watched a wild horse poke around for food, and then continued, biking on the water's edge, watching the morning birds forage for dead fish and the villagers take their baths on the shore.

We continued farther down the road until the sun reached us, and we reached our destination and activity number 2. The Ojo de Agua, or eye of water, this is a very blue natural pool turned into a bathig spot, surrounded by hammocks and rainforest trees. We jumped right off our bikes and into the refreshing water, washing away all our sweat. We then found a tarzan rope in the smaller pool and took turns swinging into the water, trying to do backflips before the rope would swing back and smash us into the tree. After letting the sun's rays dry us we got back on the bikes and made our mostly downhill return, stopping for a hamburger and beer lunch on the beach.

We then quickly washed our dirty laundry (see, vacations aren't all just fun and games) and decided to undertake the third and final activity, kayaking. In the rain, of course. We got into yellow our plastic banana of a kayak and set off, against the waves and driving wind to the small offshore Monkey Island. We circled it, and then another, seeing both spider and cappuccino monkeys, with the rain pattering in the water around us, and the ominous black sky above.

This is the only lake in the world that has freshwater sharks in it, but sadly none of them came to feast on Charles, although we half-expected that since they've almost been fished to extinction. The lake water was warm by comparison, so we decided to go for a swim off our kayak before returning to the pier. The rain then stopped and the wind as well, leaving the whole lake eerily quiet, and making us feel like we were paddling through the amazon.

On the way back Charles had the urge to crash into every rock we saw jetting out of the lake, though luckily I was there to counter-paddle (he was victorious with our dock though, running us headfirst into the cement pillar). We then showerd (again) and settled down on the hammocks for some light reading and dying of hunger while awaiting the dinner bell.

Ometepe - The Arrival

It took us an insanely long amount of time to arrive to our destination, the island of Opeteme, which is a relatively small volcanic island smack in the middle of the Lago de Nicaragua. This island was formed by two volcanoes, Maderas and Conception, the latter of which is the perfect conical shape (and still active today).

We were gonna take the 9:30am bus (assuming it existed) from Granada only to find out that it didn't, in fact, exist. And that the next one would be at 11am. Ah. So we sat in the sweltering bus for 1.5 hrs, watching the locals suck on their plastic bags of refrescos and then throw them out of the unmoving window, turning the bus stop into a sticky matte of white plastc bags and bottles.

At 11 we finally began our bus ride to Rivas, from which we taxied to San Jorge where we caught the 1.5 hr ferry to Moyogalpa in Opemete where, drenched in a downpour we ran into the chicken bus that would finally take us 2 hours to our final destination, the old dictator's ranch-turned-hostle in Merida.

The hostle was especially run down (or rustic, whichever word you prefer) and had clearly seen better days, but it was still a cozy vacation spot, with a nice open area with hammocks and plenty of tables. We went into Merida town (literally all 3 buildings of it) for our lunch and layed around the rest of the day, venturing out on the rickety pier to have a look at the lake.

The Big Bully

Thanks to our Lonel Planet guidebook I was able to read up a bit about the history of the countries we've visited over the past month, and there's been one name that keeps appearing in each nation's profile, and thats the US of A. Its incredible how much America hs messed with Central American politics. I could write pages and pages, but just to give you a quick idea.

Guatemala:
In 1951 the country's newly elected president wanted to redistribute the estate land into smaller farms, but the US fruit company United Fruit pressured the US govt to orchestrate an invasion from Honduras, overthrowing the president and reinstating one of their choosing. In the next 30 years of US funding 60,000 people were killed, 400 villages were exterminated, and corruption and oppresion were rampant.

El Salvador:
In 1985 the scare of socialism in neighboring Nicaragua led the US to pump 500 Million dollars into to their Govt. prolonguing the alreaddy bloody civil war, with the US trained military decimating countles villages.

Honduras:
by 1918, 75% of all Honduran banana lands were held by 3 major US companies. With each company backing their chosen political party, the Honduran Govt and its policies were basically controlled by banana company interests, hence gaining the title 'Banana Republic'. The US govt sent in marines to protect their interests and in 1954 the two Govts signed a pact, giving the US unlimited access to raw materials of the country should the need arise. In 1963 the persident was forced to resign after a scandal involving his acceptance of bribes from US fruit ccompanies.

In the 1980s the US set up a puppet Govt allowing the buildup of US troops in the country (once again due to the scare of socialism from Nicaragua.) It also covertly trained rebel Salvadorian Soldiers in refugee camps in Honduras to fight aagainst Nicaragua.

Belize:
Nobody wants it anyways.

Nicaragua:
The worst for last. Between 1912 ad 1932 the US dominaded Nicaraguan politics, installing presidents it favored and ousting those it didnt, using its marines as leverage. Supported by the USA the dictator Somoza rose to power and what followed was a 4 decade rule of family dynasty where he amassed a huge personal wealth, leaving the rest of the country in poverty. Roosovet reportedly said this about him: ''He may be a son of a bitch, but at least he's our son of a bitch''.

In the 1980s, with a rising Guerilla movement the US changed sides and funded the Guerillas to oust the Somoza dictatorship. In the late 1980s the US realized that these guerillas were socialists and they set up an army to fight them, called the Contras. In 1985 the US congress rejected military aid to the Contras, but the Reagan Admin secretly continued to fund them through a scheme where the CIA illegaly sold weapons to our friends in Iran at inflated prices, using the money left to fund the Contras. The US has been interfering in their politics ever since, with as recently as 2001 funding the succesful presidential campaign of Enrique Bolanos.

And I haven't even gotten to Panama yet...

Granada, Nicaragua

Granada is the oldest colonial town in Nicaragua, with itself and Leon vying for power for much of their history. Its a sleepy little town on the banks of the enormous Lago de Nicaragua. We spent much of the first afternoon walking around, admiring the old churches and terracotta tiled houses. We were taking photos of an old car where some women invited us in to take a photo of a 105 old lady (born in the infamous year of 1903!) so we joined them in their lanai and discussed Granada's past before continuing on our way.

We had a very Italian pizza con jamon in candle-light as they have daily power outages for 5 hours because they are upgrading the country's power grid. We then walked around a bit in the dark and resigned ourselves to our beds.

The next day we got up late, had a great breakfast of banana pancackes at the churchside cafe and instead of making our way to the Isla the Ometepe, as planned, we decided to stay an extra day to see the running of the bulls and some concerts for their town festival.

Well, the running of the bulls was straight out of a dingy movie scene. We arrived in the almost deserted waterfront at about 5pm and we see this small encolsed arena made of corrugated tin and wire mesh, with some wooden planks holding it up. As we get closer the area becomes packed with sweaty men covered in mud, standing around. We then entered the compound at the lower level, and stood under pilotiers supporting the upper spectator section, on eye level with the arena, with the only thing separating us from the bulls was a wire fence and waste-high wooden planks.

Its actually a rodeo mixed with the running of the bulls. It begins with them letting loose a bull with a rider on it, and as soon as the bull knocks him off its a free for all, with the audience members in our section (mostly drunk young men) slipping under the planks and into the muddy arena, antagonizing the bull with rags or red shirts and then running from it at full speed when the adrenaline kicks in. We watched 3 of these cycles, of the bull being released, the rider getting knocked off, and the following 10 or 15 min of free-for-all (where one drunk guy got gored pretty bad). Charles has a good video of one, I'll try to put it up later if I've got time.



Walking back to town we saw one of the most coloful sunsets I've ever seen, filling the whole sky with a bright orange-pink color. The same night they held the 2nd annual young musician's festival in Grananda, so we went to see that a bit, though it was dissapointing cuz it was just an old folk singer with 3 million songs about his love of Nica. We decided to return later for better music, but when we returned at 11:30 pm they were already taking apart the stage and folding up the lighting, and the cultural center of nicaragua was dead silent.

Endless Travelling

We woke up the next day and couldn't move our legs. We very slowly made our way towards the dock when we foud out that there was a bus leavng at 9 am to Guatemala cty, exaclty where we wanted to go, so we doubled back and walked up the hill to the bus stop. Our 9 am bus left at 10 and we were bumpily on our way to the capital.

For the next 3 days we travlelled nonstop, mostly on the old US school buses that dominate Central American public transport. We've been so unbelievably lucky with the buses, all of them leaving witin 5 min of us arriving (except for the 1st one). So we got our connection at Guatemala City for Chiquimula, a town close to the border, where we spent the night. Early the next day we took the bus to the border and crossed into Honduras where we were on our way to our last Mayan ruins of Copan.

Arriving in Copan Ruinas at 12 we ate burritos that were bigger than our arms and then walked to the Archaeologcal site. Well, about halfway there it started raining hard, so we ran back to get our rain gear and visited the ruins during the downpour. The good thing is that we had it all to ourselves and it was very mysterious seing it in the rain. Its a lot smaller than other sites but is enveloped by rainforest just like Palenque. After exploring the site for 2 hours (and 15 USD!!) we took the chicken bus to La Entrada where we changed for the supposedly nice colonial town of Gracias, where we spent the night. Well, that wasn't the best idea cuz it turned out that there were no buses to Teguchigalpa, the capital of Honduras, so we had to retrace ur steps for 2 hours to La Entrada and from there take the 'direct' bus to Tegu.

At this point we just wanted to cross the country as fast as possible so we could get to Nicaragua. Well, here direct buses are everything but direct, and we had to go all the way to the north of the country for 4 hours and then all the way south again to reach the capital. When we arrived we quickly got a connection to Danli, a border town with Nicaragua and we spent the night in the Hotel Las Vegas there. Early again the next morning we set off for Nicaragua, taking a small bus to the border, then a superbus (with broken aircon, of course) to Managua and finally arriving in Granada, our destination, at 2 pm.