Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Last day in Central America. It is hard to believe that we have been travelling for 6 and a half weeks already. The past couple of weeks have flown by. We spent 4 days around Lake Atitlan with a miriad of adventures planned; kayaking, volcano clumbing, horseback riding, etc., but ended up spending most of the days sick in bed! We succesfully met up with Blake´s parents a week ago and have been moving non-stop since; Overnight buses to the Maya ruins of Tikal, stolen passport and credit cards, market days and haggling, chicken buses, US embassy, volcano hike, canopy zip line tour. What an amazing week! And now our time here has come to an end. Thanks for following along and sharing our adventures with us...it has been truly unforgetable!
Monday, August 13, 2007
Hi everyone!
We had one more village to visit in Honduras. Gracias,"a small, quaint mountain village with friendly people and cobblestone streets" or so sayeth the guide book. After having read the description I was bound and determined to go out of our way to stay in this town. What we found after hours and hours of travelling instead was an incredibly dusty, fairly unintersting town. We were however shown how to make papusas (one of the national dishes and incredibly delicious cheap streetfood available in El Salvador) by two women at one of the restaraunts there. I am pretty sure that Blake is in love!With the papuasa, not the women. Papusas are small, soft stuffed tortillas filled with pretty much anything, although beans and cheese has become our fast fallback.
After a slightly disappointing adventure in Honduras it was off to El Salvador which has been amazing! We have seen waterfalls, ate more street food than anywhere else, attended a food fair and made friends with some locals. All in all a pretty successful week!
First up in El Salvador was the "small quaint, mountain village" of Suchitoto.
Of course we were apprehensive after our Gracias fiasco, so you can imagine our pleasant surprise when we found one of the most wonderful villages we have ever been to. Suchitoto was everything we had been hoping for in Gracias and more! Wonderful, helpful people, gorgeous town, cobblestone streets, an amazing waterfall with hexaganal rocks formed by volcanic activity and cool weather! It was amazing!
After 2 wonderful days and a couple of questionable nights, which included a million mosquitoes, one dead bat, and eventually two beds in Suchitot we headed out for, if you can believe it, another¨"small, mountain town with cobblestone streets", called Juayua. Again amazing! We arrived just in time for their weekly food festival!
Food everywhere, including papusas, friendly people and a great hostel! We were also able to take an amazing walk to see some of the water falls that provide water power for the town. The walk was through an amazing cloud forest with ancient architecture and came complete with a local machete wielding guide and 3 armed policemen. Apparantly they had some trouble with theft along the trail years ago and are taking it very seriously!
As sad as we are to say good bye to El Salvdor, tomorrow morning we head out to Guatemala to spend some time arround Lago Atitlan and try and slow down the pace a bit.We will definately let eveyone know how we are doing soon!
We had one more village to visit in Honduras. Gracias,"a small, quaint mountain village with friendly people and cobblestone streets" or so sayeth the guide book. After having read the description I was bound and determined to go out of our way to stay in this town. What we found after hours and hours of travelling instead was an incredibly dusty, fairly unintersting town. We were however shown how to make papusas (one of the national dishes and incredibly delicious cheap streetfood available in El Salvador) by two women at one of the restaraunts there. I am pretty sure that Blake is in love!With the papuasa, not the women. Papusas are small, soft stuffed tortillas filled with pretty much anything, although beans and cheese has become our fast fallback.
After a slightly disappointing adventure in Honduras it was off to El Salvador which has been amazing! We have seen waterfalls, ate more street food than anywhere else, attended a food fair and made friends with some locals. All in all a pretty successful week!
First up in El Salvador was the "small quaint, mountain village" of Suchitoto.
Of course we were apprehensive after our Gracias fiasco, so you can imagine our pleasant surprise when we found one of the most wonderful villages we have ever been to. Suchitoto was everything we had been hoping for in Gracias and more! Wonderful, helpful people, gorgeous town, cobblestone streets, an amazing waterfall with hexaganal rocks formed by volcanic activity and cool weather! It was amazing! 
After 2 wonderful days and a couple of questionable nights, which included a million mosquitoes, one dead bat, and eventually two beds in Suchitot we headed out for, if you can believe it, another¨"small, mountain town with cobblestone streets", called Juayua. Again amazing! We arrived just in time for their weekly food festival!
Food everywhere, including papusas, friendly people and a great hostel! We were also able to take an amazing walk to see some of the water falls that provide water power for the town. The walk was through an amazing cloud forest with ancient architecture and came complete with a local machete wielding guide and 3 armed policemen. Apparantly they had some trouble with theft along the trail years ago and are taking it very seriously!
As sad as we are to say good bye to El Salvdor, tomorrow morning we head out to Guatemala to spend some time arround Lago Atitlan and try and slow down the pace a bit.We will definately let eveyone know how we are doing soon!
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Nicaragua was amazing...Blake says his favorite so far. We ended up spending 9 nights in all, the first few on Omatepe Island and then the next several in the small colonial towns of Grenada and Leon, (the picture is taken from the bell tower of a cathedral in Grenada)
both sites of deep political history. Grenada was a beautiful quaint town and I have to say it was my favorite of the two. Bright buildings, friendly people, and a perfect hostile made it the perfect place to settle down for a few nights. What we didn{t know, but soon learned was that both the water and the electricity in the entire city were on a rolling blackout schedule. WHen I say schedule, it doesn{t exactly mean that there was any rhyme or reason to when the water or the electricty wouldnt work, but that sometimes during the day there would be a long period with no water or electricity (meaning no fan) at some point during the day. Being that this was the hottest place we have been so far, it was tough to get used to. After Grenada we travelled to Leon, another influential town in the political revolunionary scheme of things. Leon was a bt dirtier, not so bright and cheery, but still friendly people and an exciting Parque Central.
Adios Nicaragua and Hola Honduras! After a strenuous couple of days of travel, including a borken down bus, a grimy capital city,tortillas off the street (delicious!), a slight change of plans, and two 5:00 AM starts we have arrived in Copan Ruinas, Honduras, the site of one of the large Mayan ruin sites.
That was on the agenda for today and now we deserve another rest. Tomorrow we set of EARLY for another travel day to the small quaint Honduran village of Gracias. It is a couple of nights there and then off to El Salvador. Are you keeping up??? We are having a ball and will write again soon!
both sites of deep political history. Grenada was a beautiful quaint town and I have to say it was my favorite of the two. Bright buildings, friendly people, and a perfect hostile made it the perfect place to settle down for a few nights. What we didn{t know, but soon learned was that both the water and the electricity in the entire city were on a rolling blackout schedule. WHen I say schedule, it doesn{t exactly mean that there was any rhyme or reason to when the water or the electricty wouldnt work, but that sometimes during the day there would be a long period with no water or electricity (meaning no fan) at some point during the day. Being that this was the hottest place we have been so far, it was tough to get used to. After Grenada we travelled to Leon, another influential town in the political revolunionary scheme of things. Leon was a bt dirtier, not so bright and cheery, but still friendly people and an exciting Parque Central.
Adios Nicaragua and Hola Honduras! After a strenuous couple of days of travel, including a borken down bus, a grimy capital city,tortillas off the street (delicious!), a slight change of plans, and two 5:00 AM starts we have arrived in Copan Ruinas, Honduras, the site of one of the large Mayan ruin sites.
That was on the agenda for today and now we deserve another rest. Tomorrow we set of EARLY for another travel day to the small quaint Honduran village of Gracias. It is a couple of nights there and then off to El Salvador. Are you keeping up??? We are having a ball and will write again soon!
Thursday, August 02, 2007
We made it out of Costa Rica but I feel like I didn´t quite explain the torture that was our hike up Cerro Chato well enough. That was now 5 days ago and we´re just starting to feel normal again. Jesse says that her body hurt in places she didn´t know existed. I´m not sure what she means by that but it sounds pretty bad. The sick thing is I actually enjoyed it. After walking about 5 hours uphill from where we started in the center of town (which was half of the problem, we should´ve taken a taxi to the base) it was an acomplishment that left me glowing and Jessa crying. Enough about that though.
So 1 taxi, 4 buses, 10 hours, and 40 dolars later we made it through the rest of Costa Rica via Tilaran, Cañas, & Liberia, and then across the border to NIcaragua with a little help from a US expat living in Costa Rica and working as a bookie. I don´t know where Jessa finds these people but he was very helpful. We had to spend the night in a city called Rivas because it was getting late. Nothing special but you can immediately tell you are no longer in Costa Rica. Much cheaper, much rougher, less touristy, and FSLN red and black Sandinista flags all around.
The next morning we caught a ferry to Isla de Omotepe, an island in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua formed by the explosion of two volcanoes that created an isthmus connecting them into one island. It is very underdeveloped and kind of reminded me of some places in Guyana where the locals look at you like your crazy. It took a while and some pretty rough bus rides but after a final 1km hike uphill we made it to Finca Magdelana (www.fincamagdelana.com). It´s a co-operative coffee farm set on the base of a volcano. The turned an old barn into an very unique hostel and we spend the next few days enjoying the dozens of howler monkeys and dozens of cold Toña beers. You can walk the grounds and see petroglyphs left by the indigenous depicicting shapes and humans in various forms.
Yesterday we took the fery back across and caught a chicken bus to Granada. I didn´t see any chickens but we did share the ride with over 150 other people in a standard size 1960´s school bus. Quite a ride. We´re now sitting in the park in Granada loving the laid back atmosphere and colonial architectures. We wil spend the next few days here and then off to the next adventure.
Blake
So 1 taxi, 4 buses, 10 hours, and 40 dolars later we made it through the rest of Costa Rica via Tilaran, Cañas, & Liberia, and then across the border to NIcaragua with a little help from a US expat living in Costa Rica and working as a bookie. I don´t know where Jessa finds these people but he was very helpful. We had to spend the night in a city called Rivas because it was getting late. Nothing special but you can immediately tell you are no longer in Costa Rica. Much cheaper, much rougher, less touristy, and FSLN red and black Sandinista flags all around.
The next morning we caught a ferry to Isla de Omotepe, an island in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua formed by the explosion of two volcanoes that created an isthmus connecting them into one island. It is very underdeveloped and kind of reminded me of some places in Guyana where the locals look at you like your crazy. It took a while and some pretty rough bus rides but after a final 1km hike uphill we made it to Finca Magdelana (www.fincamagdelana.com). It´s a co-operative coffee farm set on the base of a volcano. The turned an old barn into an very unique hostel and we spend the next few days enjoying the dozens of howler monkeys and dozens of cold Toña beers. You can walk the grounds and see petroglyphs left by the indigenous depicicting shapes and humans in various forms.
Yesterday we took the fery back across and caught a chicken bus to Granada. I didn´t see any chickens but we did share the ride with over 150 other people in a standard size 1960´s school bus. Quite a ride. We´re now sitting in the park in Granada loving the laid back atmosphere and colonial architectures. We wil spend the next few days here and then off to the next adventure.
Blake
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