Hola, Muchachos! Sorry for the long posting delay. Internet is slow down here and I’m just, well, lazy. Susan and I are alive and well. We've picked up a pet - a hungry kitty we call 'Tacuba'. She is one of the compartments in my small wallet that we 'feed' every morning with money for shared expenses (bus/cab fare, entry fees, bribes, etc.). She’s really hungry. Sometimes we have to feed her two or more times a day. But, it does make life easier for us as we are not scrambling to find equal change for shared services. The idea was [View Full Entry]

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June 16th - From Guatemala to El Salvador Anxious to find the road less travelled, Susan and I decided to escape Guatemala and head to El Salvador. There were just too many tourists in Guatemala. So, from San Marcos la Laguna, we began our journey. First by boat, then tiny tuk tuk, then crummy shuttle van that broke down on the steep climb out of Lake Atitlan, then a nice big bus from Guatemala City to San Salvador. We had a fairly uneventful border crossing. What was probably less than 180 miles took us over 16 hours! Susan found a great [View Full Entry]

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Originally, we were thinking of going to Antiqua but heard it was full of tourists. Hoping to bypass the tourist scene, we opted to skip Antigua for Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. Bad move ... there are TONS of tourist here. If you want the market scene, this is the place. Blocks and blocks and blocks of street vendors and street urchins trying to sell you stuff. And, they all are selling the same things. I´m not sure how anyone makes any money here. You don´t even need to negotiate. All you have to do is say ´no thanks´and immediately they start [View Full Entry]

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This day, Susan and I took a boat to San Marco looking for some peace and quiet with few gringos. San Marcos is supposed to be a place where you meditate and get massages. We found one of the oddest places I´ve ever been to! To get there, we took a boat from Panajachel. The ride was beautiful and relaxing. Many other Pueblos and mansions dot the coastline. When we arrived, two street urchins hijacked our luggage from the boat asking us where we want to go. Normally, we wouldn´t have accepted their services, but, hey, we were on vacation, and [View Full Entry]

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My girlfriend, Susan and I, are off on another adventure. Several years ago, we went to Honduras and thought it was about time to do another adventure. We are returning again to Central America, arriving in Guatamala City and leaving from Managua in about two weeks. Other than that, we have no plans other than to get from one place to the other without getting ourselves thrown in jail! I always thought Susan was pretty steamy, but this night, when we landed in Guatamala City, I found out how hot she really is! Literally! Coming through customs, she was so hot [View Full Entry]

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To stay an extra day in Bogata was a last minute add-on. I usually have no interest in capital cities, but, I'm glad we did check it out. We spent our day visiting various museums, including their well stocked gold museum and strolling through La Candelaria, a section of the city with cobbled streets, shops, crafts, and galleries. We ended the day with a cable car trip to the top of Cerro de Montserrat (10,000 ft). At the top is a church and spectacular views of the city. There are also local vendors, one of which made one of my favorite [View Full Entry]

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From the US State Department web site travel warning on Colombia (Feb 2008) "U.S. government officials and their families in Colombia are permitted to travel to major cities in the country, but normally only by air. They cannot use inter- or intra-city bus transportation, or travel by road outside of urban areas at night. All Americans in Colombia are urged to follow these precautions." So, of course, I had to do part of my trip by road. Tony and I hired this great taxi driver named George to take us from Cali to Popayan, a little colonial town about two hours [View Full Entry]

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Hola, Amigos! Our trip in Cartagena continued with school and sight seeing. I learn more about Tony each day. He finally got grumpy one day after class when his teacher started going over irregular verb conjugations in the present tense. He wanted the rule for irregular verb conjugations. I tried to explain there was no rules, you just have to memorize which ones they are, that is why they are called irregular. He grumbled for a while but quickly got over it when we toured the Palace of the Inquisition where Roman Catholic tribunals executed witches and heretics and realized that [View Full Entry]

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For the many friends worried about us being kidnapped, don´t worry! We are not being held hostage! We landed Friday morning in Cartagena as planned, checked into our hotel in Bocagrande and got some breakfast. I had forgotten about all the different kinds of exotic juices they have in central and south america and Colombia is no different. My new favorite is mora (blackberry). That morning, I had mora con leche, kind of like a blackberry milkshake. There is also mora ice cream and juice. Yummy! Next, we hit the beach. Bocagrande is like a third world Miami Beach. Take the [View Full Entry]

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Hello my virtual travellers! I'm getting ready to take another trip! To Colombia! A place I wanted to check out last year while I was in Ecuador but ran out of time. This time, I won't be going alone. Mi novio guapissimo (my insanely handsome boyfriend), Tony, will be accompany me to keep me out of trouble by distracting me with salsa dancing! Do you think he's up to the challenge? Well ... let's find out! We leave tomorrow, May 1. Our itinerary is ... May 2 - May 9 - Cartagena where we will be salsa dancing. In our spare [View Full Entry]

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