http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Steve Marks/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Steve Marks en-us Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:36:43 BST Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:36:43 BST 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 midNovember 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 diffe http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Nicaragua/San-Juan-Del-Sur/blog-301207.html LEONIt seemed liked Id 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 wasnt just that Id gone from primary rainforest to a decent sized city but when I was out in Moskitia there were hardly any ot http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Nicaragua/Estel-/blog-294051.html La Moskitia or The Mosquito Coast in Honduras is the most sparsely populated region of any of the countries Ill visit on this trip. Theres 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/La-Mosquitia/blog-289727.html 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 Australias Great Barrier. Honduras boasts 700km of Caribbean coastline which combined with its posession of a few palmfringed whitesand islands means that there is quite a lot of fun http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Bay-Islands/Utila/blog-281941.html 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 busdriving 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Lago-de-Yojoa/blog-278146.html 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 w http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/El-Salvador/Perquin/blog-273644.html As well as being the most offthebeatentrack 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 hed drive the bus there for me once th http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/El-Salvador/Juayua/blog-271062.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Lago-de-Atitlan/San-Pedro-La-Laguna/blog-263414.html Its a bit of a cliche to harp on about the diversities of a country but over the last couple of weeks Ive been steadily amazed at just how many differences Guatemala packs in to one little country Ive 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 b http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Semuc-Champey/blog-257693.html Sometimes its not so easy coming up with a top 5 of all the things that Ive 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 whod been in Belize a few months earlier recommended that I get http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Belize/Belize-Barrier-Reef/Caye-Caulker/blog-254487.html There's something about getting up ridiculously early in the morning that adds to the atmosphere of a day's outing. So I resisted the urge to break my alarm clock when it went off at 3.15am telling me it was time to get downstairs and wait for the bus for the sunrise tour of Tikal one of the greatest sets of Mayan ruins set in dense Guatemalan jungle. An hour's bus ride and a half hour walk http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/El-Peten/Tikal/blog-250368.html It seems like common sense in hindsight not to wear a red tshirt to a small village of indigenous Tzotzil people when the locals are going to be antagonising bulls in middle of the village plaze. I'd been warned in advance that there would be drunk locals riding bulls in the village of San Juan Chamula as part of the final day of the 5 day carnival in the Catholic calendar that immediately prece http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Mexico/Chiapas/San-Cristobal-de-las-Casas/blog-246060.html Its sometimes nice when you're travelling to stay in one place for a while and to feel like you actually got to know a city just a little beyond what the average tourist who passes through gets to see. Id been planning to do a weeks spanish course somewhere early on in my travels and recommendations from various guidebooks and people Id met on the road suggested that Oaxaca pronounced wa http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Mexico/Oaxaca/Oaxaca/blog-242478.html Sometimes people like to put a hypothetical question which do you prefer beaches or mountains I never really liked that question much in that it tries to make me choose one over the other and in Oaxaca State Mexico I really dont need to choose as I can quite easily spend a few days on some absolutely gorgeous pacific beaches before taking just a 3.5 hour bus ride ending nearly 3000 meters http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Mexico/Oaxaca/Mazunte/blog-240107.html It probably seemed like a good idea to the local Aztecs and other tribes to build a city in the middle of a big lake basin over 2500 years ago it ensured they always had a good supply of water and that the surrounding land was always fertile. What they wouldn't have known back then was that city would grow into the largest city on the face of the planet and located as it is in a large natural http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Mexico/Distrito-Federal/Mexico-City/blog-236304.html