New Year and Buses

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So New Year´s has been and gone celebrated in San Pedro la Laguna in Guatemala. It was a night of rum and fireworks, and a scant regard for any kind of health and safety!!! San Pedro itself is another cool little village on Lake Atitlan, not much to do apart from enjoy the scenery and have a drink or 3, but that suiuted us fine. New year itself was a good laugh, we met up with some fellow travelling folk (one of whom was a hippie, Australian musician called Gu, who Ben found himself liking in spite of himself) and went to one of the bars in the town, after much rum ( for the both of us) and a few too many beers new year was ushered in with fireworks set off from a disturbingly close proximity and a paper Buddha let off into the night sky.

Although San Pedro has far too many hippies for its own good, the atmosphere there is excellent and it was wicked to have a Jan 1st that was scorching hot, although that did nothing for our hangovers. Post New Years fun I (Julia) got sick which was a bit annoying and was bed ridden for a day and then suffered the effects for the next week, but a full recovery was made after a few near misses of being sick on an ancient Mayan temple in Honduras. Speaking of which, Honduras, we arrived on the 4th January to Copan after a long day of travelling (where we almost missed our coach, long boring story) to be greeted by some miserable people, who were hard to understand and didn´t seem to want to be understood. The hostel had all these ´laws´ which were supposed to be funny but were actually a bit rude and annoying but we saw the Copan Ruins which were worth the trip, of which there will be plenty of photos uploaded soon.

We made the executive decision to get the hell out of Honduras and head for the much more pleasant, interesting and cheaper sounding Nicaragua. This idea was confirmed before we even left Honduras when we had the great misfortune to go to the capital Tegucigalpa, which suffice to say was a complete shit hole, confirmed to us when we stepped outside of the hotel door at 9pm to be greeted by 4 heavily armed policeman and not a single other soul. We promptly left the following day for Nicaragua and although we only spent 3 days in Honduras I dont think we needed any more. Im sure it has a lot to offer, but we didn´t see much of that.

Despite a few red herrings thrown at us by the Lying Planet, which in part seems to be written by people who haven´t ever been to the places we are looking around. For example in Tegucigalpa the book said of one bar, ´a quiet oasis of calm away from the hustle and bustle of the main road´, which actually meant a small dirty looking shack built in the middle of an over polluted and extremely noisy road.

So as Ben´s beard grows day by day, due to him bringing everything apart from the essential adaptor needed to make the razor work, so do his revolutionary dreams as we enjoy the Sandinista territory of Nicaragua.

We now find ourselves in Esteli, which is incredibly hot, political and interesting. The plan is to stay another day and then head to Jinotega and Matagalpa where the cowboy hats will remain plentiful (I am not sure how long Ben will last before he buys a pair of Cuban heeled boots and a cowboy hat) and Nicaraguan charms continue.

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Photos

Street Art in Esteli
One of many Sandinista pics!

Comments

[Money]

Get me some freaking cowboy boots.
I'm a UK 14, and i'm divorcing you as friends if i don't get any. And you spell promtly, promptly. Sorry.

[Josef]

Get me quotes on conversions
Woop-dee-woop Saaaaaaayy What? Anyone think Gu looks like Lethal T?