One Way United

So we made it to Antigua, said to be the most famous town in all of central America. If ever there was a more chill place I don´t think I´d believe it. This town has a very relaxed vibe to it and we appreciate that very much right now. We spent the night here and simply relaxed and enjoyed this small city’s many restaurants and cafes and played cards. Practically every tourist who comes to Guatemala passes through here at some point so it is a very clean active place. After a little rest it was on to Lake Atitlan. Quick note: we had a very hilarious taxi ride from Guatemala City to Antigua. The cab driver had lived in Guatemala all his life but had once tried to come to America. He was caught however and promptly deported….to Ecuador. He´d tried to conivnce the authorities he wasn´t from there but they would not listen, so he´d had to call his family at home and tell him he´d been sent to Ecuador against his will. It was hilarious.

The two hour bus ride was rather boring, but it was well worth the wait. As we came over the last peak and caught our first glimpse of this mountain lake we were absloutely floored. Descending down the winding roads our gaze remained transfixed on this breathtaking vista. When we finally made it to the town of Panajachel (can you pronounce that? I can´t) and stayed just long enough to have lunch. We dined with this mother-daughter traveling duo from Chicago. The mother had actually grown up in Guatemala and had many interesting stories about her experience in the area. She and her daughter Crystal were great fun to chat with. After that we boarded a boat to the smaller town of San Pedro. Chilling in the small boat and gazing out at the lake I had a relization. With the looming volcanoes and mountains that completely encircle this small body of water, sprouting up with countless verdant trees and quaint villages, this was undoubtedly the most beautiful lake I´ve ever seen in my life. Amanda has gone on record as stating that this is the most beautiful place she´s ever been to period. It´s hard to argue. We found a hotel that looked right out over the water and wandered around the town, which is apparently very devoted to God. You can not walk half a block without seeing one sign that proclaims “Jesus loves you” or something similar. The narrow cobblestone streets and were very calm and the people were always friendly towards us obvious outsiders. This was an awesome place to visit.

Next day was market day. We boarded a bus and road away from the lake to the town of Chichicastenango (I´m not even going to try) but everyone calls it Chichi for short. Every Thursday and Sunday is the big market. Locals come from all over the day before to set up shop for this big event. Some even sleep in their stalls. We arrived around 10 a.m. or so and set out to see the wares. It doesn´t become overly apparent at first as the outskirts are just busy with people and noisy passing cars. But as you wander into the labyrinth of stalls and vendors you become ensnared by something that can only be decribed as organized chaos. Every sense is assualted in this place. The feel of all the intricate native weavings, the smell of the smokey candles, the iridescent mass of colors of hand carved masks, the taste of the greasy food frying en-mass in the local eatery. And of course, the swarms of people shouting at you to come and buy their stuff. This was a whole new adventure for us. Bargaining is something I´ve never really done before but for these people it´s a way of life. Everything is for sale and no price is set in stone. You can get everything here: blankets, bags, clothes, books, hand-carvings, even machetes.

You can walk around pretending not to be interested in anything, but these people are experts. The see where your wandering eyes go and will jump out to get you to stop and look at their stuff that they know you want. Being the gringos the sellers will naturally start start with something really ridiculous, but they will lower it right away. We counter with an extremely low price to see how they´ll respond. And the game is on. Even if you have no intention of buying anything it´s fun just to see how low you can get stuff for. You haggle back and forth with the vendors always claiming that their offering you a “special deal” that´s just for you but they probably use that line a hundred times a day. If you can´t get the price you want we often deferred to the ultimate tactic “The Walk Away”. If you´ve spent enough time with them and they know you´re truly interested many sellers will often drop their asking price rapidly if they see you turn around and look elsewhere. Some people will even chase you down. It´s crazy fun and if you´re patient you can get some great deals.

After our market adventure we went back to San Pedro for one more night and then made our way back to Antigua. Tonight is special as it is Amanda´s last night on the trip. Tomorrow she flies home to Seattle where she will beging preparing for grad school so she can go on to educate the youth of the world, single-handedly saving English class is her lofty goal. It has been great fun to travel with her and I wish her well in her future endeavors. She will probably make her own post about her experience in a day or two so be on the lookout for that.

 Later all!

Share on Facebook

So a lot has gone on since we last gave you guys some news. I’ll try to keep this brief. Our Costa Rican experience ended on a sour note. We got to this town Liberia and were waiting at the bus station to take us to the Nicaraguan border. We set our bags down and were sitting a foot away from them having breakfast. At bus stations you always have people trying to sell us stuff and numerous guys came up to us while we were eating to try and sell us music CD’s (most likely pirated). Very rude indeed but we did our best to just say no and keep eating. But we got up to leave we found that while we’d been distracted by one of these guys someone had made off with my small backpack. Needless to say I was livid. I lost my Bible, my journal, and a book that was a birthday present from Jordan and Amanda, all of which upset me to various degrees. The monumental loss though was my Ipod was also in that bag, and my Ipod is where we’ve been storing all our photos over the trip. Think of that: six months worth of traveling photos lost in a second. I’ll not repeat the words I used here as it might offend someone’s sensibilities. But in general I was just majorly dissappointed in the human race. Such is life. Fortunately we have the site where we’ve been storing pictures and I always put the best ones up, so thank God we didn’t lose them all.

So we went to Nicaragua and took a boat to this island called Ometepe. It’s shaped like a figure 8 and has two volcanos on it. This place was lush with flora and fauna and a total paradise. The first day it rained cats and dogs. So we sat in our hotel and played cards and marveled at the pet deer named Bambi (I’m not kidding). The next days we lounged by the beach and explored the surrounding area. Jordan and Amanda went kayaking in the serene waters one day, but mostly we were just here to relax. Mission accomplished. We also admired the wildlife as just a few yards from our hotel was a large group of howler monkeys. They make a ton of noise I’ll tell you.

Then we took a bus to Managua, the capital. We were only passing through as we wanted to get north quickly. We were standing on the bus waiting to get off and figure things out when the taxi guys came along. These guys clamor for your business and it can be hard to disuade them. Sometimes you have to say no more than ten times before they’ll leave you alone. This time we had two guys offering their ride. One of them shoved the other one right out of the way and started picking up our bags. Does this strike you as sketchy? It did to us, but we went along anyway. So he’s driving like a maniac and I’m praying for my life when he decides to stop for gas. He asks us to pay him now so he can fill up and the price he says makes our jaws drop: a little over $10 a person. I should also mention that initially he had said his fare was a certain amount per kilometer and we were not going that far, so we had a complete turn around here. So were arguing with the driver about how ridiculous that is to only go a mile and he’s getting rather angry over it. He then enlisted the help of some fellow cab drivers to convince us this was a fair asking price. We can’t understand the majority of what people are saying so really we just have a lot of shouthing back and forth. Then our cabby starts to call a cop over to settle this. The cop didn’t seem interested in actually coming over to the car although Jordan and I were ready to fight this out. But then we decided it would be better to just pay the man what he wanted and he would take us where we were going. We realized that it wasn’t a good idea to upset the man as we were in his car and our bags were in his trunk. I had visions of getting out of the car and him just driving off with them and thought it was better to submit in this case. True to form as soon as he had his cash he did a total personality shift and became a friendly joking guy and was saying things like “Look the pretty girls are waving at you!” I found myself hoping that his crazy driving would catch up with him and his engine would fall out.

We finally got to the bus station and were hounded by people to stay at their hotel. This can be useful at times but right then it was just irritating. And it rather irks me to have people shouting “Hey gringo, this way!” We told them politely to buzz off (they didn’t listen) and bought our tickets out of the country for the next day. We ended up staying at a hostel owned by this very sweet little old couple. They were very helpful and we felt secure there. We made our way to a mall and saw the movie Cassanova, which was better than I expected it to be, and then tried to sleep in the blistering heat.

The next day we awoke at 3:30 a.m. (ugh…) and boarded the bus to San Salvador, El Salvador. The bus was airconditioned and very comfortable and the scenery of course gorgeous. We jetted straight through Honduras without stopping. Technically we can all say we’ve been in Honduras for about three hours or so but I don’t think any of us actually walked there.

We’ve made it to San Salvador where I’m currently writing this. Today we will make our way to Suchitoto for a day and tomorrow we’re on to Guatemala. Is all this exhausting? You bet it is, but it’s worth it in the end. Be sure to check our new pictures of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Later.

Share on Facebook

Well, after a really bad day, we did what anybody would do in our situation.  We put the past behind us and kept on living it up.  In Costa Rica, they say pura vida (pure life) which is a phrase like ¨life is good¨ or ¨live it up¨ or ¨hakinah matahtah¨ or something.  So. for the next few days we lived the pura vida.  First, Amanda and I went rafting down class 4 rapids.  There were a few times rafting when I really feared the raft was going to tip over.  One time, in the middle of one of these rapids, we were unable to pick up enough speed and we got stuck as water poured into our boat and we lost one guy.  He survived.  There was another huge rapids in which a little kid that was in our raft fell out and went down the rapids between rocks and such.  That was probably the scariest moment of the afternoon.  But, don´t worry people.  We went with a big tour and there were people in rescue kayaks floating down with everybody and at least 6 or 7 rafts, and we had helmets.  Overall though, it was pretty intense.

The next day we took a bus out of San Jose to a breathing, living Volcano…Vulcan Arenal.  We hitchhiked to this beautiful waterfall.  Somehow people from L.A. kept giving us rides.  The waterfall was pretty huge and there was a large pool at the bottom where you could kind of swim.  Amanda and I tried swimming to the waterfall but the waves were so strong that I think it was impossible to actually swim there.  After getting back to our hostel we went on a tour of the volcano.  This young guy named Jeremy took us on a little nature walk where we got to see exotic birds, and different kinds of plants and trees.  One tree had a vine reaching toward the ground because the tree was so big it needed more soil.  I climbed up the vine about 20 feet for a photo-op (I like making my mom cringe )  We when got to the viewpoint where we could see the volcano, it was very interesting.  This was my first time at a volcano that was active ALL THE TIME.  We watched several eruptions as we sat there and watched as lava streamed down its slopes.  The volcano also made strange sounds that sounded like drum beats.  In the distance we could hear the the cries of the howler monkey.  The atmosphere was really surreal.  I could have sat there forever just watching the volcano and listening to the song of the volcano and the jungle.  But, we had to move on to some natural hot springs.  Darn.  The hot springs were not touristic at all which was really nice.  We had the place pretty much to ourselves.  The temperature was perfect…hot but not too hot.  There was a small little water fall that we could slide down into a pool below.  My favorite part of the hotsprings, however, was a small underwater cave that led to another secluded pool.  When Jeremy told me about the cave, he didn´t say that there was a whole other pool on the other side.  I was curious about it and submerged myself, felt around, and discovered an air pocket.  I thought it was just a place in the cave where the water didn´t rise to.  But, instead, I got to the other side and found a huge pool.  As you can tell, I really liked it.  Anyway, after that we went back to another viewpoint of the volcano so we could watch it at night.  That volcano at night is simply amazing as you can´t see the volcano itself but the lava glows bright red.  We watched several small explosions and were able to see the lava as it zoomed down the slopes.

Today, we did yet another tour.  First, we went by horse to a waterfall viewpoint.  This was Amanda´s first time riding a horse in a long time and Adam´s second.  My horseback riding experience pretty much consists of my 5 day trip to the ruins of Choquekiraw.  My horse was absolutely insane.  He loved to sprint and would keep passing the horses in front even though I was doing everything I could to make the horse slow down!  A few times I was really worried I was going to fall off as the horse sprinted down hills without much regard for its rider.  I was actually relieved to get off my horse so I could zipline hundreds of feet above the jungle floors.  Yep…the horse was that crazy.  The ziplines were quite a rush and don´t worry, 100% safe.  There were a total of 10 ziplines and a few of them were almost a kilometer long.  On several of them you could not see the next platform at the end of the line.  The guides would clip you in and then WHOOOOSSSHHHH…we would be zipping through the canopy at lightning speeds.  The scenery was terrific with towering waterfalls, green jungle trees, and at some points open plains but generally I was too focused on not dying to notice.  Although, I have to admit, I still was more scared of my posessed horse who seemed intent on scaring the crap out of me.  Luckily, we didn´t take horses back.  After ziplining they took us to this tiny indian village and then to a butterfly farm.  Then, we arrived back at the hostel still alive and unscathed….somehow. 

Tonight we are going to attempt to take a bus north toward the Nicaraguan border.  Love to all of course!

Share on Facebook