Cuba! The time had finally come. To be completely honest, during my last or three weeks in Central America, I was feeling pretty jaded about my experiences there – there was nothing that I saw that was especially exciting or that I hadn’t really seen before and my travels from Antigua onwards felt more like a means to an end…with the end being Cuba! Of my entire trip through Latin America, Cuba has been the place I have been looking forward to the most. A place of genuine difference and uniqueness – I wanted to see what likfe would have been like 50 years ago, by visiting a place that has hardly changed since. I’d never been to ‘communist’ country before so I wanted to see what it was like. It is the same reason that ... read more

Another blog entry, another country. Crossing the border from Guatemala in to Belize was a formality, although just a couple of days afterwards, the border was closed as long, ongoing territorial disputes flared up again between the two countries. Good timing for me then! Such is the ill-feeling between Guatemala and Belize, that some Guatemalan maps actually show Belize as part of Guatemala. Somewhat of an anomaly, Belize is the only country in Central America where Spanish is not the official language. This is because of the British pirates that used Belize as a safe haven during the 17th century and who then stayed on to dominate the territory’s logging industry. With Britain protecting the loggers’ interests on what was still Spanish territory, such became their domination that the local population were for all intents and ... read more

If you’re a Kiwi, chances are that you’re having a chuckle at the title of this blog entry! Being woken up by bedbug bites (again!) at 5am isn’t the most ideal way to start the day. Then on the first of four chicken buses that I had to catch to Lago de Atitlan, I realised that I had left my favourite headphones back at the hostel. Having taken them for a swim on Roatan Island however, they weren’t quite working properly anyway and luckily I have a spare pair, even if they are just shitty regulation iPhone issue. But a bad day got worse when getting on the second chicken bus in Chmimaltenango. Getting off the first bus, a dude comes racing up to me asking where I am going. “Pana”, I tell him. He then ... read more

I did have my reservations about going to El Salvador – in fact, I was originally going to skip it – much like I did with Honduras, mainly due to the murder rates of both countries. Things are always different once you get on the ground though and the more travel I had done in Central America and the more people I had met who had been there, the more convinced I was that there really wasn’t anything to worry about and that this small country was worth at least three days of my time. I took a shuttle directly to Santa Ana from my hostel in Copan Ruinas, which although was pricey, saved me from having to catch a series of chicken buses and a whole lot of time. Having managed to get an entire ... read more

From Granada, I took the short one-hour chicken bus ride to Nicaragua's capital - Managua. The place has a bit of a reputation for being dangerous and the stories I had heard about the place from other travellers I have met didn't really fill me with confidence either. It was however, a necessary stop as I needed to catch an international bus from here over the border to Honduras - there wasn't really anything else between here and Caribbean coast of Honduras that I was interested in seeing so I was making a beeline for the water and this was the quickest way to do it. Also, I had still to find the elusive replacement camera battery charger that I had lost somewhere in Costa Rica. It was now approaching three weeks without the use of ... read more