Have progressed from El Salvador via Guatemala I am now on a tiny island just off the coast of Belize.
Some border crossings are easy others are not - El Salvador was a shining example of both.
To get in from Honduras I crossed at a remote border point in the north east of the country. Usual thing, 5am bus and within a couple of hours got to the Honduran border point, got passport stamped and into El Salvador for a look at the guerrilla headquarters (the civil war is over now though, honest) and asked where we could get stamped into El Salvador. ´Not here!´ was the reply. Apparently the area around the border where I crossed is disputed so El Sal will not recognise anyone who crosses there. I was told I would have to go to the border with Hondras in the East of El Sal to get a stamp. Luckily it is a small country. It took several buses and several hours to get there, and, after queuing, I got stamped in without problem. But as soon as the border official stamped it she decided that the exit stamp from Honduras wasn´t an exit stamp at all but just a control stamp. After arguing the case unsuccessfully, I had to walk across the bridge back into Honduras, join another long scrum and try and get an exit stamp. The border officials there were confused as I didnt have the Tourist card I should have had as it had been taken from me at the original Honduran exit point. So after explaining it all and filling in more forms he was then happy. Except that he then noticed I had already been stamped into El Sal and so didnt require a Honduran exit stamp. Try explaining to a border official that you have been stamped into a country by mistake and you will get the feel of what followed - but he eventually stamped me out and, after walking back across the bridge (all the time carrying all my stuff), and joining yet another mob of people trying to form a line, the El Sal people let me in (again!). Only most of the day wasted. What a farce.
Exiting El Sal to Guatemala was slightly different. On both sides of the (inevitable) bridge are border officials from Both countries. There was no queue. I had to fill in a form, was stamped out in seconds and walked 5 metres to a Guatemalan official, who took even less time over stamping me in (even though I wasn´t ´in´ Guatemala yet). And that was it. The moral of this must run something like -If you ever go to El Salvador, only exit, never enter it!
Apart from that El Sal should be noted for:
- The island of Cashew nuts. Just in case you didnt know (and I didnt) they grow on trees with the fruit the same size and colour as a red sweet pepper except that it is upside down. Where the stem should be (underneath) is a cresent shaped pod which contains one single cashew nut. The fruit can be eaten straight away and is very juicy, although with the volume of even cottage industry production (which it is) there are far too many fruits for the few islanders to eat. The pod is very tough and has to be dried in the sun for 3 days before it is cracked open between a rock and a hard place, dug out (hopefully still whole), cleaned a bit and then baked. All that for one single cashew nut - now you know why they are so expensive.
- A new volcano which was flat land until 1770, but is now over 1000m high. Next to it there is a slightly taller volcano where a hotel was built in the 1950s so people could watch the volcano erupting from above! Unfortunately, the day before the hotel was finished, the volcano which had continuously erupted for nearly 200 years, stopped and has stayed stopped! A marvellous black cone is the result, and of course, a great view of it from the (closed) hotel.
- In El Sal (and only here) they have bottles of ´Salsa Ingles´ (English Sauce) which has in tiny writing on the bottle ´Worcestershire Sauce´. Marvellous!
- Coffee - large portions of South and Central America are famous for their coffee and I have tried it in various places, but ... the locals always serve it black, weak and with loads of sugar. Thats how they like it (and normally the sugar is already added).
- Worst though is the litter - it is everywhere including beauty spots - every few cms is a piece of litter, some foil sweet wrapper, a piece of blue plastic. It is really difficult to express just how bad it is. I could walk from one end of the country to the other without ever touching the ground! At first it is dissapointing in what is otherwise a beautiful country; after a few days it became depressing. And no-one here could care one bit - I guess it is too far gone for that - and they really do have other priorities.
- Best is the people - really friendly.
Enough of little El Sal - Guatemala is much more interesting ....
- Transport is so cheap here - US$1 for several hours of travel usually. It is really uncomfortable (old US school buses - just like on the Simpsons), they are crammed worse than any I have been on ever, you have to get up in the dark to catch them and the roads aren´t always the best, but some of the scenery is pretty impressive (if you can see out of the window).
- I think I mentioned last time that the smaller and more insignificant the town you are in, the earlier the only bus of the day leaves. One evening I arrived in a remote mountain village, with one very basic hotel, and realising that I would have to stay the night, checked out the bus times the next day. There was only one bus east I was told and that left at 3am - but was advised to be there at least half an hour beforehand as it got really full !!! This must be the earliest a bus can leave - as if it were any earlier it would be a really late bus! Luckily, by good planning and ... er ... luck, I was heading west and had a choice of two buses. I chose the 5.30am bus. The other one was at 4am.
If you do ever get to catch the bus there are some great places to see though -
- Tikal - a Mayan site now resting in the jungle. It contains several pyramids (tallest 44m high) and many other buildings built between 200 BC and 700 AD. The civilisation collapsed around 900 AD although it is not known why.
- Semuc Champey - In the middle of nowhere a series of fantastic limestone pools containing turquoise water with a raging torrent swirling through a tunnel directly beneath. Great for swimming in (the pools that is). Nearby we went cave exploring with a guide and candles (which tend to go out when you get them wet - there is a design flaw there) and ended up climbing underground waterfalls (with the help of a rope), squeezing through gaps and jumping into (hopefully) deep pools -not quite what I had expected but great fun...
- Mountain towns where everyone wears traditional dress, almost like a uniform. The women always manage intricately woven and embroidered jackets with long wrap around skirts. In Todos Santos, the men also wear an unusual outfit - all the men were in vertically striped red and white trousers which made them look like either prisoners, or as if they had just got out of bed. In places like this you have little option but to eat where the locals do, so had weak hot chocolate and sweet sponge cake for breakfast - odd!
-Watching/feeling thousands of bats scream out of a cave just after sunset. I just stood there and trusted them to fly around me. They did.
- Lake Atilan -beautiful. Lake, volcanoes etc. Very nice but be careful on sunny afternoons ... and be prepared to run. Fast! (see Easter Extra post)
- Antigua - Fantastic colonial town full of ruined churches (ruined in 1773 earthquake and never restored), cobbled streets and colonial houses. And they go mad over Easter (Holy week to be precise) when there are almost endless religious parades walking round the streets, day and night. Even the tablecloths in the restaurant are purple for the duration. The locals prepare carpets made of coloured sawdust, flowers, fruits, vegetation etc depicting scenes from bible and animals. The procession contains thousands of participants all dressed similarly, copious amounts of smoke and usually a very large plinth with a religious image on it (Jesus or his mum are the favorites) carried by up to 80 people staggering under the weight. They all walk straight through the carpets, so destroying them. And then the locals start making another one for the next procession. The amount of effort put in is incredible!
However, they do NOT have chocolate easter eggs. So save me some!
Guatemala is the most interesting place in Cental America by some distance - not without problems though.
Unfortunately I have managed to get ill again! (3rd time this trip) which is a real pain, but have managed to scrape myself over the border to Belize and onto a small island about 200m wide, surrounded by part of the worlds second largest barrier reef. More about that next time ...
Only 3 weeks left of this trip now, so will be trying to cram in a bit of Mexico before flying out of Mexico City and getting home on 10 May.
Luv Pete
Showing posts with label Honduras. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Honduras. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 April 2004
Monday, 22 March 2004
Where 25 Suchitoto, El Salvador --OR-- The Truth about Central America
Several countries have flown past since last time and I am now in a small colonial town in El Salvador in thge midst of the countries elections. The voting was today and the result is expected in about an hours time. It is expected to be really close between the far right and the far left - this town is far left so I´m expecting a party if they win - if not I´ll keep my head down. Fireworks are already going off everywhere in anticipation ....
Since surfing(?) in San Juan, Nicaragua (it was hard work as the wind was really strong and the waves irreguar, but I managed to catch a few - and took a few tumbles) I went north via a couple of other Nicaraguan towns into Honduras where I went out to a carribbean island Utila for a week and then to the Mayan site of Copan, before winding my way along terrible roads and crossing into El Salvador.
It occurred to me that there are loads of things that I have become so used to in Central America that I dont write about - so just for entertainment(?) here are a few of them:
- appalling roads and uncomfortable buses together forming a journey which can be meaured on the richter scale.
- rice and beans for nearly every meal- power and water cuts (always just when you need them!)
- poverty
- wooden and tin shacks (houses) that your old garden shed would put to shame
- rubbish - its everywhere and the whole population of central america is on a personal quest to make more!
- hanging washing on barbed wire (there is no other type of wire here, but at least the barbs stop it blowing away)
- school children in shirts that are brilliant white (no on else wears white) despite the grime and poverty just how do they get their whites that white without washing machines? Maybe elbow grease is best after all.
- Gangs of large vultures (dont known what the correct collective noun is perhaps someone can let me know) gathering in trees waiting to pounce on roadkill.
- strings of volcanos
- packed local buses (there is no other sort) with chickens carried in individual plastic bags (live ones that is ).
- cold showers - I went without hot water for over a month - and haven´t had a bath since before Xmas....
- going to a different country just to see if the wet cold stuff they call beer is any better in the next country - it never is!
- Hawkers everywhere on the streets on the buses in the restaurants
- not being able to find the comma key on these strange keyboards!
- Carts pulled by Oxen and occasionally horses.
- Seeing men wearing real cowboy hats and trying not to laugh.
- Being woken at 4am by cockerels, parrots, howler monkeys, buses etc who think it is time to get up (it doesnt get light til gone 5.30am).
- Getting to remote villages and finding that the only bus of the day in the direction I want to go in goes before it gets light - typically the more remote the village the earlier the bus leaves.
- Communal bathrooms in hostels with a familiar combination of damp smells: shit and mint toothpaste!
More specifically ..........
Nicaragua
Bad bits- I hate the supermarkets give me small change which no where else (other than supermarkets) accepts (the coins are not worth that much) so I end up carrying a pocketfull of change which is worthless.
- Cloud Forests - Despite my earlier bad experiences I managed to convince myself to visit another one. When will I learn that the only thing I will see in a cloud forest are clouds and forest. And of course it is always raining, just to make sure the enticing list of animals listed in my book, dont make an appearance!
- Local people standing by big holes in the road leaning on spades and the like trying to collect money from passing cars for repairing the road. It all seems a bit community spirted until I realised that all the locals do is try and collect money from passing cars and they never actually do any repairs. Lets face it, if they did they would have no hole to stand next to and try and collect money - the cars would just whizz past!
Honduras Good stuff- Diving on Utila, supposedly the cheapest place in the world to dive - 10 dives for $125 (approx GBP 70) still maintaining decent safety standards. There is some good coral as well both soft and hard and a lot of fish. Apart from two beautiful Hawksbill turtles the best thing I saw was a Frogfish which is technically a fish but which sits on a rock (deep underwater) and has evolved its fins to grip the rock. It just looked like a bright yellow blob!
- Copan - a city with about 15,000 people which was occupied between 1,000BC to 1,000 AD. The best architecture and sculpture come from the period of the ruler King 18 Rabbit (yes that really was his name) who ruled from 9 July 695 to 3 May 738 AD. The people were very advanced and organised and wrote down their history in hieroglyphics which is how we know so much about them (like dates and kings etc). The area was abandoned when the population became too large for the agriculture to support (a lesson for us there somewhere). This is the first Mayan site I have seen but there will be loads more, but whilst this was small by Mayan city standards it does have the highest standard of architectural evolution and carving found at any Mayan site.
Bad News- Having to get up when the little hand was nearest the 4 to get the only bus of the day (which turned out NOT to be an old US school bus (yes like in the Simpsons), but a cramped mini van I can only describe as being between scrapyards), to suffer 4 hours on a bumpy dirt road through beautifal mountain scenery. I´m not saying there wasn´t much legroom cos I dont want to complain too much but I should mention that the previous occupant of that very seat, a small woodlouse (called woody) who had suffered an unfortunate accident and had had all his legs amputated above the knee, was moved to write a letter of complaint to the bus company on this very subject. You get the picture.
- Even will all this ínteresting´bus travel I seemed to get stuck in a series of villages which were a bit colonial, a bit dirty and a bit boring.
El Salvador
Happy Stuff- Food - just to go somewhere where the staple is not rice is a joy. Here it is thick dry tortillas instead (a bit like pitta bread). Often you can get these filled with cheese, bean paste and occasionally fried pòrk fat (very tasty). Fried yucca makes a great snack ( a cross between fried potatoes and fried parsnips and looks very much like the latter).For breakfast they normally serve an odd combination of Refried beans, sour cream, bread, white cheese, scrambles egg and half an avocado.
- The people. Just really friendly and ever so helpful. Just ask any passer by for directions and even if it is out of their way they will virtually escort you there themselves. Of course this is probably linked to their not being many travellers here. Perhaps because of ...
Sad Stuff- The rubbish. Its incessant. Everywhere. And none of the nice people care a bit that they are destroying what is an otherwise beautiful country. They are mad or uneducated. Either way they all chuck rubbish on the ground or out of the bus window at the first opportunity - cos then it ceases to exist (or some rational like that). It makes my attempts at taking my rubbish with me and finding a bin seem completely futile. This is not a rich country but it is by no means the poorest - they have no excuse!
- As a result the sides of the road are approaching at least the international standard required for ´water resistance´. If it carries on for the same way the ropadsides can be expected to reach full ´waterproofing´ by 2010!
The fireworks (big bang, no sparks) anticipating the result are now in full swing and Im about to be thrown out of here. Heading to Guatemala next for a few weeks then Belize and Mexico...
Bye for now
Pete
Since surfing(?) in San Juan, Nicaragua (it was hard work as the wind was really strong and the waves irreguar, but I managed to catch a few - and took a few tumbles) I went north via a couple of other Nicaraguan towns into Honduras where I went out to a carribbean island Utila for a week and then to the Mayan site of Copan, before winding my way along terrible roads and crossing into El Salvador.
It occurred to me that there are loads of things that I have become so used to in Central America that I dont write about - so just for entertainment(?) here are a few of them:
- appalling roads and uncomfortable buses together forming a journey which can be meaured on the richter scale.
- rice and beans for nearly every meal- power and water cuts (always just when you need them!)
- poverty
- wooden and tin shacks (houses) that your old garden shed would put to shame
- rubbish - its everywhere and the whole population of central america is on a personal quest to make more!
- hanging washing on barbed wire (there is no other type of wire here, but at least the barbs stop it blowing away)
- school children in shirts that are brilliant white (no on else wears white) despite the grime and poverty just how do they get their whites that white without washing machines? Maybe elbow grease is best after all.
- Gangs of large vultures (dont known what the correct collective noun is perhaps someone can let me know) gathering in trees waiting to pounce on roadkill.
- strings of volcanos
- packed local buses (there is no other sort) with chickens carried in individual plastic bags (live ones that is ).
- cold showers - I went without hot water for over a month - and haven´t had a bath since before Xmas....
- going to a different country just to see if the wet cold stuff they call beer is any better in the next country - it never is!
- Hawkers everywhere on the streets on the buses in the restaurants
- not being able to find the comma key on these strange keyboards!
- Carts pulled by Oxen and occasionally horses.
- Seeing men wearing real cowboy hats and trying not to laugh.
- Being woken at 4am by cockerels, parrots, howler monkeys, buses etc who think it is time to get up (it doesnt get light til gone 5.30am).
- Getting to remote villages and finding that the only bus of the day in the direction I want to go in goes before it gets light - typically the more remote the village the earlier the bus leaves.
- Communal bathrooms in hostels with a familiar combination of damp smells: shit and mint toothpaste!
More specifically ..........
Nicaragua
Bad bits- I hate the supermarkets give me small change which no where else (other than supermarkets) accepts (the coins are not worth that much) so I end up carrying a pocketfull of change which is worthless.
- Cloud Forests - Despite my earlier bad experiences I managed to convince myself to visit another one. When will I learn that the only thing I will see in a cloud forest are clouds and forest. And of course it is always raining, just to make sure the enticing list of animals listed in my book, dont make an appearance!
- Local people standing by big holes in the road leaning on spades and the like trying to collect money from passing cars for repairing the road. It all seems a bit community spirted until I realised that all the locals do is try and collect money from passing cars and they never actually do any repairs. Lets face it, if they did they would have no hole to stand next to and try and collect money - the cars would just whizz past!
Honduras Good stuff- Diving on Utila, supposedly the cheapest place in the world to dive - 10 dives for $125 (approx GBP 70) still maintaining decent safety standards. There is some good coral as well both soft and hard and a lot of fish. Apart from two beautiful Hawksbill turtles the best thing I saw was a Frogfish which is technically a fish but which sits on a rock (deep underwater) and has evolved its fins to grip the rock. It just looked like a bright yellow blob!
- Copan - a city with about 15,000 people which was occupied between 1,000BC to 1,000 AD. The best architecture and sculpture come from the period of the ruler King 18 Rabbit (yes that really was his name) who ruled from 9 July 695 to 3 May 738 AD. The people were very advanced and organised and wrote down their history in hieroglyphics which is how we know so much about them (like dates and kings etc). The area was abandoned when the population became too large for the agriculture to support (a lesson for us there somewhere). This is the first Mayan site I have seen but there will be loads more, but whilst this was small by Mayan city standards it does have the highest standard of architectural evolution and carving found at any Mayan site.
Bad News- Having to get up when the little hand was nearest the 4 to get the only bus of the day (which turned out NOT to be an old US school bus (yes like in the Simpsons), but a cramped mini van I can only describe as being between scrapyards), to suffer 4 hours on a bumpy dirt road through beautifal mountain scenery. I´m not saying there wasn´t much legroom cos I dont want to complain too much but I should mention that the previous occupant of that very seat, a small woodlouse (called woody) who had suffered an unfortunate accident and had had all his legs amputated above the knee, was moved to write a letter of complaint to the bus company on this very subject. You get the picture.
- Even will all this ínteresting´bus travel I seemed to get stuck in a series of villages which were a bit colonial, a bit dirty and a bit boring.
El Salvador
Happy Stuff- Food - just to go somewhere where the staple is not rice is a joy. Here it is thick dry tortillas instead (a bit like pitta bread). Often you can get these filled with cheese, bean paste and occasionally fried pòrk fat (very tasty). Fried yucca makes a great snack ( a cross between fried potatoes and fried parsnips and looks very much like the latter).For breakfast they normally serve an odd combination of Refried beans, sour cream, bread, white cheese, scrambles egg and half an avocado.
- The people. Just really friendly and ever so helpful. Just ask any passer by for directions and even if it is out of their way they will virtually escort you there themselves. Of course this is probably linked to their not being many travellers here. Perhaps because of ...
Sad Stuff- The rubbish. Its incessant. Everywhere. And none of the nice people care a bit that they are destroying what is an otherwise beautiful country. They are mad or uneducated. Either way they all chuck rubbish on the ground or out of the bus window at the first opportunity - cos then it ceases to exist (or some rational like that). It makes my attempts at taking my rubbish with me and finding a bin seem completely futile. This is not a rich country but it is by no means the poorest - they have no excuse!
- As a result the sides of the road are approaching at least the international standard required for ´water resistance´. If it carries on for the same way the ropadsides can be expected to reach full ´waterproofing´ by 2010!
The fireworks (big bang, no sparks) anticipating the result are now in full swing and Im about to be thrown out of here. Heading to Guatemala next for a few weeks then Belize and Mexico...
Bye for now
Pete
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