May 4, 2009 Hotel: Holiday Inn City West, Helsinki, Finland Points Stay I was finally able to get in touch with my friend today and we arranged to meet for dinner this evening. I also was able to arrange with American Express to get $500 emergency travel cash wired to me; I could pick this up at the forex bureau in the train station. This plus what was left of the $300 was all I would have to last me for the next 6 days. I had a big breakfast at the buffet; this had been my SOP for the past few days since I had been low on $$.. eat a huge breakfast and have that last for most of the rest of the day, just snacking for other meals. The buffet at the HI ... read more

Well today turned out to be quite interesting. I had pre-arranged a taxi to the airport early this morning; my flight back to the US left at 7:30 AM. I carefully packed my bag and searched the bed to make sure I'd left nothing behind. The taxi showed up right on time at 5AM. I said goodbye to my friend (he was continuing onto Costa Rica). It was about a 20 minute ride to the airport, already there was quite a long line for checkin; the agents hadn't yet arrived. I had checked in online but didn't have a printer, so I only needed to collect my boarding pass. Suddenly when searching through my bag I realized I didn't have my passport!!! I knew I'd had it this morning when I put it in my daypack, ... read more

Another long travel day today. We planned on visiting the Perquin museum this morning, then catching the bus towards the El Salvador/Honduras border. Our plan was to make Leon in Nicaragua today, but would be fine with just making it to the Nicaraguan border. The museum opened at 8AM, admission was $1.25. Our guide, Jose was a veteran of the civil war. He walked with a limp due to his fake leg he'd received from the Red Cross. The museum has 5 different rooms, showing the causes of the civil war, also showing photos of people who had been assassinated. Another room displays Solidarity posters from the US (Stop Bombing El Salvador), Germany and other countries. One room has lots of different weapons used during the conflict. One Chinese gun had been used in Vietnam, then ... read more

An early start this morning at 6AM to catch the 7AM bus. No time for breakfast today either, seems to be a trend with too many early morning starts. But I had brought along a supply of Cliff Bars to hold me over for the bus rides. The bus left pretty much on time for the 1.5hr ride back to the junction at La Entrada. When we arrived there we lucked out as a minibus was ready to depart to Santa Rosa de Copan, the next town where we would change buses to Gracias. The driver was a speed demon, zooming ahead with a boy hanging out the side door announcing the destination. We kept packing in more people, at least 20 by my count before we reached Santa Rosa in a light drizzle. There was ... read more

My friend S. was spending three weeks traveling through Central America, Guatemala to Costa Rica. When I found out I could get a few extra days off work I decided to join him for part of the trip, first flying into San Pedro Sula and meeting up in Copan Ruinas. We would then travel overland via El Salvador and back through Honduras to Nicaragua, where I would fly out of Managua 6 days later. This was a quickly planned trip, I literally booked the tickets two days before I left.. wasnt able to get tickets out of Austin so had to settle for San Antonio. I left work today about 2PM for the (hopefully) quick drive down to San Antonio to catch my flight to San Pedro Sula. Traffic in downtown Austin is always bad no ... read more