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Published: July 27th 2006
Finca Santo Domingo - Ometepe, Lake Nicaragua
A lovely hotel - especially if you don't mind sharing your room with the local wildlife!Hi everyone
Well, no excuses: I'm just rubbish!! It's been an embarrassingly long time since I last updated my blog which means I've now got four countries to tell you about. Lucky you! However, four countries is a lot of miles and quite a few chicken buses so to spare you all the "and then we got on a bus" type of detail, I´ll just do a quick post-card style summary of my favourite events of the past few weeks to bring things up to date.
Roatan, Honduras
After a couple of days in the steaming heat of Grenada - during which I came down with a cold, got locked out of my room (again) and climbed a volcano - it was back on the road for two days bound for Roatan in Honduras. Nearly 24 hours on Honduran buses is quite an endurance test but boy was it worth it! Roatan is an almost picture-postcard perfect caribbean island of white sand beaches fringed with palms, crystal clear seas and laid-back locals. Combine that with a very fancy hotel, air-conditioning and cable TV and you've got a pretty perfect two days. Given the surroundings there wasn´t much point in
rushing around to ´do stuff´, so apart from a quick trip to a nearby resort where a few of us went paddling with dolphins, most of my time on the island was spent either on the beach or in a beach-bar. Either way, not too shabby!
Copan
From Roatan we headed back to the mainland and north to the small mountain town of Copan. Although technically in the same country, Copan couldn't be more different to the English-speaking caribbean vibe of the island. Surrounded by lush green mountain scenery, it's a pretty, sleepy little place of cobbled streets and vaguely spanish looking architecture. The vast majority of the town's inhabitants are of indigenious mayan descent and it's main attraction are the beautiful mayan temple ruins that lie just outside the town. With only one night and half a day in the town there wasn't time to do very much but an early start meant I had a couple of hours to look around the ruins before getting back on a bus bound for the Guatemalan border.
Antigua, Guatemala
Antigua has to be one of my favourite towns on the trip. It´s an old colonial town that UNESCO have
The shore of Lake Nicaragua, Ometepe
The 7th largest fresh water body in the world. Not a lot of people know that. designated a world heritage site. On paper this implies some sort of cheesy, reconstructed heritage theme park but in reality it just means the buildings are well-maintained and the original cobbled streets are all intact. Luckily for us, behind the beautiful colonial facades lurk all the bars, shops and restaurants that travelling folk could want. Unfortunately, behind one particular ornate doorway also lurks a toothless old hag who pretends to run a laundry service. Trusting fools that we are, my room-mate Amanda and I separated all our clothes into different colour washes and skipped off to enjoy an afternoon of sight-seeing (or possibly watching the world cup in a pub). The next day, as arranged, we returned to collect our worldly goods only to find that everything was the colour of wee and, just to add insult to injury, smelling like baby sick. It turned out that our erstwhile laundress had decided to save a bit on hot water and put everything in together, including Amanda´s brand new green t-shirt! Then, because it had all gone horribly wrong, she left everything in a pile overnight to rot. Aaaaahhhh! As a result all my whites had to go in the bin
and nobody wanted to sit with me or Amanda on the bus for the next few days.
In total we had four fabulous days in Antigua (puke-clothes notwithstanding), most of which was spent in a bar called Reds watching the opening matches of the world cup and playing pool but we did manage to squeeze in a really interesting tour organised by a women´s group in San Miguel Due, one of the nearby indigenous villages. It´s a small agricultural community that has been blighted by poverty, alcholism and general disenfranchisment from mainstream Guatemalan society. Until about 15 years ago, families in the village didn´t even speak spanish but a small group of women decided to take on the traditional machissmo of their society and take it upon themselves to create a better future for their children. After approaching several government agencies for help they eventually found an organisation to help them learn spanish, which they could then teach their children to enable them to go to school. Of the 500 children in the village, 400 are now literate, the first generation in the history of San Miguel-Due. As well as learning Spanish, the women´s group formed a sort of
collective to sell their weavings and provide funds for a small medical centre, something the village had never had before. After telling us their story, and giving us a tour of the village, the women took us into one of their homes for a demonstration of some traditional skills, including how to make tortillas (harder than it looks) and how their beautiful and intricate weavings are done. Because everything is done by hand and from memory, it´s a very labour-intensive job which the women do alone for several hours a day. One table runner takes abour 5 hours a day for two months to make and then sells for about $20, which means the women work for about 4 cents an hour! Suffice to say I don´t haggle for textiles in the markets any more because if they're hand-made then they're worth every penny (or quetzal or peso)
Tikal, Guatemala
One of the most famous Mayan temple sites and one of the few that still allows visitors to climb up the temples. Despite over 50 years of excavations, the vast majority of temples and buildings are still covered by the dense jungle that surrounds (and until the 1950's engulfed)
Volcan Masaya, Nicaragua
No wonder the spanish thought this was the gate to hell! the whole site. Although few of the temples are intact and all have lost the bright paintings that originally covered them, what remains is still awe-inspiring and the view from the top of the temples, across the jungle is something I'll remember for a very long time. It's amazing to think that the ancient mayans were building mathmatically perfect buildings to track both their lunar and solar calendars when we in the British Isles were still living in huts made of poo!
Caye Caulker, Belize
About 45 minutes by water taxi from Belize City, Caye Caulker is an almost architypal backpackers island - small, cheap, very laid-back and a little bit scruffy. With only one main, sand street and a handful of small hotels and hostels, there's not much to do except snorkel or dive Belize's famous and exceptionally beautiful reef. However, because it's a protected marine reserve, you can't just take yourself out and snorkel or dive wherever you fancy, so you have to go out on organised excursions with 'official' guides. Despite the fact that it was scorchingly hot and being on the water is a sure-fire guarantee of sun-burn, a few of us decided to throw
On the boat from La Ceiba to Roatan
Happy people, after 48 hours on the road! caution to the wind and take a day-trip out on a boat, which enabled us to spend about 4 hours snorkelling at three different sites along the reef. And boy was it worth the sun-burn! With no fishing allowed along the reef, there's an abundance of marine life. In no particular order we saw/swam with: a manatee, a turtle, nursing sharks, manta rays, a conga eel, a barracuda and any number of beautiful fish. It was the first time I'd ever wished I had my PADI and has certainly inspired me to think about taking the course. Of course it's much cheaper to do in central or south america than at home and the sea's a lot warmer so I guess that's just one more reason to go back soon.
Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Until about 20 years ago, Playa del Carmen was a sleepy little fishing village: not any more! Now it's Cancun's (basically Mexico's answer to Blackpool) classier little sister, a booming resort town full of nice restaurants, chi-chi shops and great bars/clubs. We had four days and five nights in Playa, which was a great relief after being constantly on the move for over 6 weeks.
Land ahoy!
Roatan at last. Sadly, it was also the point in the trip when 10 of the people I'd travelled with left the tour and headed for home or other exotic destinations. On the plus side, it gave our time in Playa a sort of end-of-term feeling and meant lots (and lots) of goodbye drinkies, which is probably why our four days in Playa went past so quickly and in such a haze. In fact 'days' is a bit of a misnomer as most of the fun and games happened in the wee small hours when sensible tourists are sound asleep, but as Playa is open 24 hours a day we tried our hardest to squeeze as much out of our time there as possible. This basically meant, eating, drinking, shopping, lying on the beach, watching the world cup (I'll never forget the atmosphere for the Mexico-Argentina game), sleeping and dancing: not the most culturally enriching stop on the tour but definitely the most fun!
Chichen Itza and Palenque, Mexico
After all the fun and goodbyes in Playa, it was quite difficult to pick up for another two weeks of touring through Mexico but a quick stop at the Mayan ruins of Chitchen
Itza on our way to Merida soon stopped my mopping around. Although the level of restoration and jungle clearing means it isn't as atmospheric as either Copan or Tikal, Chichen is still a very impressive site with a number of unique buildings that really demonstrate the Mayan's genius. One of these is the observatory and solar clock, built hundreds of years ago but still, apparently, more accurate than a nuclear clock!
By the time we got to Palenque I had made up my mind not to see any more ruins - three sites in as many weeks is enough for anyone. Or so I thought. Luckily, there isn't a lot else to do in Palenque so I somewhat reluctantly set off early one morning to traipse around yet another collection of temples, and I'm very glad that I did. In my humble opinion , it's the most beautiful of all the sites we visited, with intact coloured frescos and an excavated tomb that you can go inside. Unlike Chichen, you can still climb the temples, which affords incredible views over the site and the surrounding jungle which still hides about 90% of the temples and homes on the site.
Roatan, Honduras
Not too shabby, eh? Well worth a visit if you find yourself in the area.
Cenotes, Merida
Underground caves filled with water don't sound very exciting but believe me, they can be. There are over 3000 cenotes, or sink holes, on the Yucatan peninsula, that once provided the only source of drinking water for the ancient Maya. Because the Yucatan is made of porous limestone, any water that falls on the area collects in these sink holes forming underground lakes of crystal clear, turquoise water. It's no wonder that they were considered sacred sites by the maya who believed they were entrances to the underworld. About an hour from Merida is a series of three cenotes that you can swim in and are reached by a small 'railway' with a difference - the little carriages are pulled by very hard-working ponies! It's a bone-jangling experience that leaves your butt bruised for days afterwards and we felt pretty bad about how hard the ponies had to work in the broiling heat but the cenotes themselves are amazing. The first was probably the least impressive in that the front of the cave was open but the other two were completely enclosed with only small
holes in the ceiling through which shafts of sunlight illuminated the water. The effect of this through the clear water was beautiful - it looked as though the light was coming up from the bottom of the cave - and swimming in the caves was a really incredible experience.
San Cristobal de las Casas and Oaxaca
From Merida we headed inland to begin the final stage of our journey up to Mexico City. First stop was San Cristobal de las Casas in the State of Chiapas, an beautiful region, rich in indigenous life and culture. Located up in the mountains, the temperature here was noticeably fresher than in Palenque and for the first time in nearly 3 months I had to wear a jumper in the evenings! This was a pretty laid-back stop on the itinerary as by this stage I was feeling a bit toured-out so I spent most of our three days in the town wandering around (and spending pesos in) the amazing markets and jewelery shops. Unfortunately, our plans to take advantage of San Cristobal's bars and clubs was scuppered by the presidential elections which took place on the second day of our visit to
the town and which meant no alcohol could be served over the weekend! Luckily, San Cristobal is blessed with an incredible array of restaurants so we made up for not being allowed any booze by having two of the best meals on the whole trip. From San Cristobal, we took a 9-hour night bus journey to Oaxaca, arriving bleary-eyed and slightly dis-oriented just in time for breakfast.
The city of Oaxaca (formally: Oaxaca de Juárez, in honour of 19th-century president and national hero Benito Juárez, who was born nearby) is the capital and main city of the Mexican state of the same name. It's much larger than San Cristobal but in normal times has a similar feel, with lovely old colonial churches and a zocolo (cathedral square) around which most of the town's activity centres. I say normal times because they were anything but when we arrived: over 70,000 teachers were camped out in the streets protesting about unfair pay and there had been violent protests in the city just days before we arrived, sparked by the bitter presidential campaign. This gave the city a rather edgy feel, which I quite liked because it felt like we were in
the centre of something exciting and important, and there was a big march planned on our second day in the city which many locals predicted could get a bit unpleasant. In the end, it passed off peacefully with most of the activity centering on a political rally in the zocolo.
Journey's end, Mexico City
From Oaxaca it was a relatively short trip to Mexico City (with a brief one-night stop in Puebla), our final destination. By this time, I was completely knackered from 8 weeks on the road and while sad to be leaving Central America (and my lovely travel companion, Ben) behind it was also a relief to know that I would soon be moving on to the next stage of my trip. We arrived in MC at lunchtime on the last official day of the trip, which gave us just enough time to do a whistle-stop tour of the zocolo (the second largest square in the world after Red Square, doncha know) and surrounding area, before going out for a final goodbye meal. I had planned an extra day in the city with the intention of visiting some of the cultural sites of the city, unfortunately this
Chicken bus, Guatemala
They look fancy on the outside! was scuppered by a very large night out on the town which only finished at 6am and rather ruined my original plans. So, after several thousand miles and 8 weeks on public transport, my journey finished not with a bang but a whimper brought on by a monumental hangover!
So, that's that for Central America. I've had an absolutely fantastic time and while I can't honestly say that I've loved every minute, it has been the experience of a lifetime. I've made new friends, chilled out in the caribbean, hiked in mountains, white-water rafted, zipped over cloud-forests, climbed mayan ruins, watched the world cup in three countries, eaten great food and drunk a lot of rum and coke (at ridiculously cheap prices), fulfilled a long-held ambition and had more fun than anybody with a mortgage has a right to. So, all in all it's been a roaring success and I'd recommend it whole-heartedly to anybody! Don't be put off by all the doom-mongers who say it's a dangerous place because it's a fascinating part of the world and I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I'll definitely be back!
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Jo Flo, Sam and Emily
non-member comment
So where to next?
Kit, bout time we heard we heard from you as it seems like ages and we were getting a bit worried. Great to hear that you are still having a fantstic time and at the moment think that the weather back here is trying to keep up with yours! Scorching! So where to next as I can't remember your programme and where you were next travelling to? All is good over here and it is nice to keep up with what's going on with you and see the pics that you place on your blog. Just wish that I could write as good as you do as Emily has pointed out a couple of times, you write much better than me do and know lots of longer words. Anyway take care honey and look forward to reading your next installment which make us very jealous you lucky cow. Lots of love and take care Jo Flo, Sam and Emily. XXX