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
Showing posts with label Nicaragua. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nicaragua. Show all posts
Monday, 22 March 2004
Thursday, 26 February 2004
Where 24 San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua --OR-- Flies by the Billion!
Hi Guys
After the last mail I was told that using phrases like ´too hot´ is not allowed given the present climate in the northern hemisphere, so from now on I will simply refer to the soaring ambient temperature as warm.
Since last time I have managed to escape a nearby outbreak of yellow fever and a hoard of mossies that left me with over 100 bites on one foot alone, and caught a plane to Panama. Then northeast to Coata Rica and now into Nicaragua. Nearly all of the time I have been travelling on old US school buses, some of them still painted yellow with the appropriate notices inside e.g. ´Behave as you would in the classroom.´
Panama
Best bites
- The Panama Canal - an engineering wonder when it was completed in 1914 with 3 huge locks at each end and a big lake it the middle. The whole thing is 80km long with each lock 33m wide and 305m long. Each ship going through it releases 52 million gallons of water in to the sea. I managed to get close to it on a viewing platform and it is impressive with 8 railway engines, with ropes attached to the ship, being used to guide each ship throuh the lock (to stop it hitting the sides).
- Bocas del Toro - Paradise - I knew it was because everyone said it was. These are a group of islands on the Carribean Coast. Incredible beautiful beaches deviod of people and rubbish. Some are too rough to swim off but others are protected by a reef, making them very calm. Needless to say the water is warm and crystal clear. Lazing in a hammock over the water at my accommodationis blissful, and looking through the floorboards of the room and seeing the sea is something else.
Worst bites
- My Camera breaking. It just stopped in Panama City and as it was at the end of a role of film I couldn´t get it out without ruining the film and so lost a whole roll of pictures. So as I was leaving that day I had to rush around and find another one for not too much money ... at least i got one, lets hope it is working.
- Wandering just a couple of blocks from the tourist areas in Panama City to be warned by the local not to carry on as it was dangerous - and this in broad daylight! We turned to walk back the way we came and they warmed us not to go that way either!
- In the little hostel over the water we never did figure out how the sewage worked ... but well we were right on top of the water. But the beaches were on the other side of the island, a 15 min walk away.
Costa Rica
Highlights
- Beautiful Cloud Forest in Monteverde. Many people go to Costa Rica just for the (feathered) birds and especially the Quetzal (bird of Paradise). Unfortunately, as this was a cloud forest it contains trees and clouds and so is wet and virtually impossible to see anything let along a small bird high up on a tree! And the winds in some places are so strong (wind 50mph, gusts up to 90 mph) that the forest is stunted and is called a dwarf forest.
- Humming Birds - Incredible to watch and feel them whizz around you like they are in a speeded up film. Speed, elegance and constant terratorial battles. Talking of film, I wasted tons of shots trying to get a decent picture of them in mid air, and most of them are probably just of thin air!
- Bathing in hot rivers warmed by Volcano Arenal. The river is diverted to form waterfall you can sit under and pools to laze in. Sitting under the waterfalls is like having a massage ...
Low lights
- Loads of tourists. Often on 2 week breaks, all with loads of money and so driving up the prices. The word ´tour´ in the title means US$25 added to the price for starters.
- The roads, some are OK and some are... bad. I took a bus for 26 miles (42km) and it took 2.5 hours to get there, without any abnormal stops. This is the only place I have been where the quality of the roads is measured on the Beaufort scale.
- The only really cheap thing here is bananas (since they grow them across most of the country), you can get about 75 of them for one British Pound. Now just imaginewhat that does to your diet! No best not.
Nicaragua
Choice Cuts
- Laguna de Apoyo. A wonderful old volcanic crater about half ful with a lake 7km across. Beautiful place to chill, I even got up to watch the sun rise over the crater rim - superb.
- In the huge Lake Nicaragua (largest lake in Central America) rise two volcanos close enough that their lavas joined to form an island, Ometepe. The highest of these at 1,620m (the lake is about 50m above sea level) and is a perfect volcanic cone with a very small crater, about 150m wide, at the top. Despite having had enough of trekking, it is a month since my last trek so it seemed like a reasonable idea to climb it. It was some climb - only 1 day but starting at 5.30am, 3 of us plus a guide climbed an increasingly steep slope made of rocks, mud and covered with vegetation - the path was the most tricky I have climbed. Near the top the only vegatation is huge ruhbarb-like plants covered in spikes, many of them slimy cos they were rotting, which looked like they were from an old Dr Who set. As there was no grip on the loose shale we had to grab hold of them to pull ourselves up. At the top after over 5 hours there was complete cloud cover, but we waited and eventually it clearedto reveal we were a very long way up. Inside the crater there were deposits of yellow sulpher accompanied by a nasty smell, and all the rocks surrounding the rim were really hot. Coming down was tougher than going up as it was almost impossible to stop yourself slipping. Round trip 10.5 hours - well worth the effort, but would I do it again? Not a chance!
Dog Ends
- Crossing the border from Costa Rica by a remote crossing I entered Nicaragua at San Carlos at the south east of Lake Nicaragua. It is bloody awful, dont ever go there. Firstly the place is smelly, the wooded shacks that pass as houses and hotels are falling apart, a complete dump. When both the bank and the petrol station are not at least clean then you know you are in the wrong place. Some people just hang around on the streets, but they are the really motivated ones. But worse was to come - once it got dark my room started filling up with bugs, coming in through the gaps in the cardboard walls, so I went outside to get away from them. Mistake! Wall to wall flies, crawling all over me, constantly flying into me, trying to get up my nose (mouth was firmly shut as they dont taste great). There was no one else on the streets despite the fact that it was only 7pm. Managed to make it the 100m to a restaurant which was relatively fly free. Asked the managewr there whether or was always like this and he said ´No. Only during the dry season and occasionally during the wet season!´
A couple of hours later I left the restaurant and was slightly relieved to see that there were a few less flies and other people were wandering about. When I got back to my room I found out why. Thousands of flies had died in my room and everything was covered in them - disgusting! I was so glad I had been carrying my mossie net around (for 3 months without using it). The next morning most of the rest of the flies had died and was stuff was covered once again. Out on the balcony, in the corner by my room, it was 2cm deep in dead flies from one night - sweeping up the dead flies is a daily task. I didn´t stay a second night!
- Also in San Carlos, young children and dogs were scrabbling on the floor for my leftover scraps. The larger beast usually won, but sadly that wasn´t always the children. After I finished the children asked if they could have the chickens neck which I had left - they devoured it in seconds.
And that is about what I have been up to. Next I am trying to do some surfing (on the sea) before heading up to Hondras for some diving.
Luv
Pete
After the last mail I was told that using phrases like ´too hot´ is not allowed given the present climate in the northern hemisphere, so from now on I will simply refer to the soaring ambient temperature as warm.
Since last time I have managed to escape a nearby outbreak of yellow fever and a hoard of mossies that left me with over 100 bites on one foot alone, and caught a plane to Panama. Then northeast to Coata Rica and now into Nicaragua. Nearly all of the time I have been travelling on old US school buses, some of them still painted yellow with the appropriate notices inside e.g. ´Behave as you would in the classroom.´
Panama
Best bites
- The Panama Canal - an engineering wonder when it was completed in 1914 with 3 huge locks at each end and a big lake it the middle. The whole thing is 80km long with each lock 33m wide and 305m long. Each ship going through it releases 52 million gallons of water in to the sea. I managed to get close to it on a viewing platform and it is impressive with 8 railway engines, with ropes attached to the ship, being used to guide each ship throuh the lock (to stop it hitting the sides).
- Bocas del Toro - Paradise - I knew it was because everyone said it was. These are a group of islands on the Carribean Coast. Incredible beautiful beaches deviod of people and rubbish. Some are too rough to swim off but others are protected by a reef, making them very calm. Needless to say the water is warm and crystal clear. Lazing in a hammock over the water at my accommodationis blissful, and looking through the floorboards of the room and seeing the sea is something else.
Worst bites
- My Camera breaking. It just stopped in Panama City and as it was at the end of a role of film I couldn´t get it out without ruining the film and so lost a whole roll of pictures. So as I was leaving that day I had to rush around and find another one for not too much money ... at least i got one, lets hope it is working.
- Wandering just a couple of blocks from the tourist areas in Panama City to be warned by the local not to carry on as it was dangerous - and this in broad daylight! We turned to walk back the way we came and they warmed us not to go that way either!
- In the little hostel over the water we never did figure out how the sewage worked ... but well we were right on top of the water. But the beaches were on the other side of the island, a 15 min walk away.
Costa Rica
Highlights
- Beautiful Cloud Forest in Monteverde. Many people go to Costa Rica just for the (feathered) birds and especially the Quetzal (bird of Paradise). Unfortunately, as this was a cloud forest it contains trees and clouds and so is wet and virtually impossible to see anything let along a small bird high up on a tree! And the winds in some places are so strong (wind 50mph, gusts up to 90 mph) that the forest is stunted and is called a dwarf forest.
- Humming Birds - Incredible to watch and feel them whizz around you like they are in a speeded up film. Speed, elegance and constant terratorial battles. Talking of film, I wasted tons of shots trying to get a decent picture of them in mid air, and most of them are probably just of thin air!
- Bathing in hot rivers warmed by Volcano Arenal. The river is diverted to form waterfall you can sit under and pools to laze in. Sitting under the waterfalls is like having a massage ...
Low lights
- Loads of tourists. Often on 2 week breaks, all with loads of money and so driving up the prices. The word ´tour´ in the title means US$25 added to the price for starters.
- The roads, some are OK and some are... bad. I took a bus for 26 miles (42km) and it took 2.5 hours to get there, without any abnormal stops. This is the only place I have been where the quality of the roads is measured on the Beaufort scale.
- The only really cheap thing here is bananas (since they grow them across most of the country), you can get about 75 of them for one British Pound. Now just imaginewhat that does to your diet! No best not.
Nicaragua
Choice Cuts
- Laguna de Apoyo. A wonderful old volcanic crater about half ful with a lake 7km across. Beautiful place to chill, I even got up to watch the sun rise over the crater rim - superb.
- In the huge Lake Nicaragua (largest lake in Central America) rise two volcanos close enough that their lavas joined to form an island, Ometepe. The highest of these at 1,620m (the lake is about 50m above sea level) and is a perfect volcanic cone with a very small crater, about 150m wide, at the top. Despite having had enough of trekking, it is a month since my last trek so it seemed like a reasonable idea to climb it. It was some climb - only 1 day but starting at 5.30am, 3 of us plus a guide climbed an increasingly steep slope made of rocks, mud and covered with vegetation - the path was the most tricky I have climbed. Near the top the only vegatation is huge ruhbarb-like plants covered in spikes, many of them slimy cos they were rotting, which looked like they were from an old Dr Who set. As there was no grip on the loose shale we had to grab hold of them to pull ourselves up. At the top after over 5 hours there was complete cloud cover, but we waited and eventually it clearedto reveal we were a very long way up. Inside the crater there were deposits of yellow sulpher accompanied by a nasty smell, and all the rocks surrounding the rim were really hot. Coming down was tougher than going up as it was almost impossible to stop yourself slipping. Round trip 10.5 hours - well worth the effort, but would I do it again? Not a chance!
Dog Ends
- Crossing the border from Costa Rica by a remote crossing I entered Nicaragua at San Carlos at the south east of Lake Nicaragua. It is bloody awful, dont ever go there. Firstly the place is smelly, the wooded shacks that pass as houses and hotels are falling apart, a complete dump. When both the bank and the petrol station are not at least clean then you know you are in the wrong place. Some people just hang around on the streets, but they are the really motivated ones. But worse was to come - once it got dark my room started filling up with bugs, coming in through the gaps in the cardboard walls, so I went outside to get away from them. Mistake! Wall to wall flies, crawling all over me, constantly flying into me, trying to get up my nose (mouth was firmly shut as they dont taste great). There was no one else on the streets despite the fact that it was only 7pm. Managed to make it the 100m to a restaurant which was relatively fly free. Asked the managewr there whether or was always like this and he said ´No. Only during the dry season and occasionally during the wet season!´
A couple of hours later I left the restaurant and was slightly relieved to see that there were a few less flies and other people were wandering about. When I got back to my room I found out why. Thousands of flies had died in my room and everything was covered in them - disgusting! I was so glad I had been carrying my mossie net around (for 3 months without using it). The next morning most of the rest of the flies had died and was stuff was covered once again. Out on the balcony, in the corner by my room, it was 2cm deep in dead flies from one night - sweeping up the dead flies is a daily task. I didn´t stay a second night!
- Also in San Carlos, young children and dogs were scrabbling on the floor for my leftover scraps. The larger beast usually won, but sadly that wasn´t always the children. After I finished the children asked if they could have the chickens neck which I had left - they devoured it in seconds.
And that is about what I have been up to. Next I am trying to do some surfing (on the sea) before heading up to Hondras for some diving.
Luv
Pete
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