Steve Marks
steve marks Joined: November 5th 2007
Logged in: February 7th 2012
Logged in: February 7th 2012
But what I learnt was I got a lot more out of my experience in each country if I spent a bit more time in each, rather than just trying to make it to as many countries as possible. So I only ended up making it to Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. I think the first law of longer-term travel is that you can have more fun by spending more time in fewer countries rather than by spending less time in more countries...
Check out some photos of my previous trips on www.stevemarksphotography.com
Travel Blog Posts
One of my Final Retired US Schoolkids Buses
Well, time is now up on the Central American adventure. I'm now back in Chalk Farm, North London, picking up my life pretty much where I left it back in mid-November last year. It's certainly been a long time, and strangely enough not a lot has changed - especially not many of the improvements to the flat that the landlord promised anyway...! Over the previous 6 months I've had loads of different experiences - from volunteering in Guatemala to kitesurfing lessons in Honduras, from climbing active volcanos to getting my PADI dive certificate, from spending 5 weeks in spanish language schools to camping on uninhabited white sand Caribbean islands - for a fairly small part of the world, Central America certainly packs in a lot of punch. The last 2 or 3 weeks of my time ... read more
On The Roof
LEON It seemed liked I´d changed worlds completely when I left the tranquil beauty of La Moskitia outlined in my last blog and, after spending more than a day and a half on buses, arrived in the groovy Spanish colonial city of Leon, the 2nd largest city in Nicaragua. It wasn´t just that I´d gone from primary rainforest to a decent sized city, but when I was out in Moskitia there were hardly any other travellers to see; Leon, however, is one of the main cities on "The Gringo Trail" through Central America, somewhere that almost everybody backpacking through these parts will stop at, and after having spent some time in the previous weeks a bit isolated from other travellers I purposefully went and checked myself into one of the budget traveller places in Leon with ... read more
Photo, Photo!
La Moskitia (or The Mosquito Coast) in Honduras is the most sparsely populated region of any of the countries I´ll visit on this trip. There´s hardly anybody out here, and the small number of indigenous Miskito, Pech and Tawhaka people that do live out here commute between villages in dugout canoes (usually fashioned from a single tree trunk) along the many waterways out here - there simply are no roads. Instead of people and roads, La Moskitia is home to the largest tract of primary rainforest in all of the Americas north of the Amazon, which means the trekking and nature out here pretty much has to be seen to be believed... (Oh, and don´t let the name put you off either, the name "mosquito coast" is actually an english corruption of the name of the ... read more
Welcome to Chauchauate!
Being a long narrow isthmus of land, Central America has two long coastlines, one of which has the Caribbean Sea lapping at its shores, backed up by the second longest reef system in the world (second only to Australia´s Great Barrier). Honduras boasts 700km of Caribbean coastline, which combined with its posession of a few palm-fringed, white-sand islands, means that there is quite a lot of fun to be had in and around Honduras´north coast. CHAUCHAUATE - CAYOS COCHINOS The highlight of my last couple of weeks has been a trip out to a completely undeveloped, postcard-picture white-sand island of Chauchauate. The people out there live a life of fishing, hammock swinging and chilling out. There are no hotels or any other services on the island (or any running water or electricity for that matter), but ... read more
Old Man of the Sea, Miami
I was a little dubious at first when a group of Honduran bus drivers milling under a shady tree (smoking cigarettes, drinking cola and not looking like they were about to do any bus-driving anytime soon) told me to go to the edge of the city and hitch a ride instead of catching a bus. I'd arrived in the Honduran border town of Marcala after my last blog had me leaving El Salvador, and was hoping to get a bus west across the country, only to find out that the last one left 10 minutes ago and the next one wasn't leaving for 5 hours. I'm not usually one to hang out on the side of the road of a country I've only just arrived in and am still getting to grips with the language of, ... read more
All Smiles in the less-travelled parts of El Salvador
When people go travelling by themselves, there's usually no shortage of opportunity to meet other travellers. But I've found that travelling in the eastern half of El Salvador, travelling by myself really means travelling by myself, I've gone entire days without seeing another gringo even so much as on the other side of the street. My last blog mainly covered the western half of El Salvador which seems to be more popularly backpacked, but in the eastern, less-travelled half it has felt like its really just been El Salvador and me. I mentioned last time that there'd be a major reduction in number of travellers here compared with Guatemala, but as I moved east across El Salvador it was less like reduction and more like termination! I checked into hotels in 3 towns in a row ... read more
El Salvador: Just Brilliant
As well as being the most "off-the-beaten-track" destination in Central America (95% less backpackers here than in Guatemala, for example) El Salvador also has to go down as quite possibly the friendliest country I've ever visited. Almost from the moment I arrived (when I asked the bus driver where a certain hotel was, and he told me to stay on the bus and he´d drive the bus there for me once the other passengers had gotten off), I´ve been treated more like I´ve been a visitor in someone else´s home rather than just a traveller passing through. Sure, most people in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala were pretty nice too, but me and some of the folks I've been travelling with all agree - there´s a genunine-ness and amicableness about the way Salvadorenos treat us and interact ... read more
Semana Santa in Antigua
The Guatemalan antics have kept rolling on since my last blog. My next stop was to Antigua for Semana Santa (or Holy Week) celeberations. Semana Santa is the week that runs from the Sunday before Easter until Easter Sunday, and all throughout Latin America its a time for big celebrations, street fiestas, carnivals and so on - i had to make a reservation to be in Antigua over Semana Sanata quite a while back, as everyone knows that the festivities are on a grander scale in Antigua than anywhere else in Central America. There were heaps of processions through the city, especially over the thursday, friday, saturday and sunday - with each procession having its own theme and timed to coincide with what was supposedly happening on the very first Easter when Jesus was being crucified ... read more
Finca Tatin
Its a bit of a cliche to harp on about the diversities of a country, but over the last couple of weeks I´ve been steadily amazed at just how many differences Guatemala packs in to one little country- I´ve been in some pretty diverse places, where the language, culture, nature and vibe of one place sometimes having almost nothing in common with the last place I was at. My first stop since my last blog was at Finca Tatin . Pretty much in the middle of nowhere up a river from the Caribbean coastal town of Livingston, in the heart of Guatemalan jungle country, Finca Tatin is a damn cool spot to chill out in. Apart from the place itself, there´s nothing else around apart from a few isolated Guatemalan river villages where dugout canoe and ... read more
Home for a Night
Sometimes its not so easy coming up with a "top 5" of all the things that I´ve done in my travels over the last few years. A lot of things have been cool, but for something to be rated as truly in the top 5 means that it needs to have been in a special class of its own. Shortly before I left London to start my travels, my mate Paul who´d been in Belize a few months earlier recommended that I get on the Ragamuffin 3 day/2 night island- hopping tour on a sail boat, cruising around Belize´s many uninhabited white sand islands, stopping off to snorkel at various places along the longest reef in the Western hemisphere, to eat lot of yum seafood (including some caught from the boat) and to spend the evenings ... read more
Maroon 
