Still exhausted from yesterday's hike and with more rain in the forecast Ginny and I decide to head to the Wildlife Conservation Center where she guarantees me we will see bear. Without having to exert ourselves much! On the way we stop at Beluga Point to snap some photos and almost get blown down by hurricane force winds. I'm not kidding. The wind was blowing at at least 40mph! We arrive at the center which has a variety of animals. They are a non profit organization that takes in injured and orphaned animals and cares for them. If they cannot be release back into the wild, they are housed permanently at the Center. First stop are the moose. Very big. Standing right next to the fence you can appreciate how big these animals are! Next we ... read more

Location: Whittier Wildlife: salmon and marmot Scenery: glaciers Today I find myself in the quaint fishing village of Whittier, AK to go fishing for silver salmon with my niece, Ginny, and her husband,Will. I'm very excited because I know grizzly's like salmon and there are sure to be fishing along the shore trying to get their share of salmon! You access Whittier by driving down the Seward highway, one of the most picturesque highways in the country, and driving through one of the world's longest one-way tunnels, finally popping out in Whittier! Will found a lovely cove to cast out his line while Ginny and I 'helped' by standing on the shore shouting helpful advice to Will while he fished. After awhile we got bored as Will was not taking any of our advice (and subsequently ... read more

June 16th - From Guatemala to El Salvador Anxious to find the road less travelled, Susan and I decided to escape Guatemala and head to El Salvador. There were just too many tourists in Guatemala. So, from San Marcos la Laguna, we began our journey. First by boat, then tiny tuk tuk, then crummy shuttle van that broke down on the steep climb out of Lake Atitlan, then a nice big bus from Guatemala City to San Salvador. We had a fairly uneventful border crossing. What was probably less than 180 miles took us over 16 hours! Susan found a great hotel in San Salvador, the ´Hotel Tazumal House´ in one of the nicer areas of town. . . . . . . . June 17th - San Salvador The next day, with directions from hotel ... read more

Originally, we were thinking of going to Antiqua but heard it was full of tourists. Hoping to bypass the tourist scene, we opted to skip Antigua for Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. Bad move ... there are TONS of tourist here. If you want the market scene, this is the place. Blocks and blocks and blocks of street vendors and street urchins trying to sell you stuff. And, they all are selling the same things. I´m not sure how anyone makes any money here. You don´t even need to negotiate. All you have to do is say ´no thanks´and immediately they start dropping the price. I had one little girl who started at 30 quetzels (around $3.50) for a little purse and within a minute (and several "no gracias mi preciosa's" it was down to 1 Quetzal! ... read more

To stay an extra day in Bogata was a last minute add-on. I usually have no interest in capital cities, but, I'm glad we did check it out. We spent our day visiting various museums, including their well stocked gold museum and strolling through La Candelaria, a section of the city with cobbled streets, shops, crafts, and galleries. We ended the day with a cable car trip to the top of Cerro de Montserrat (10,000 ft). At the top is a church and spectacular views of the city. There are also local vendors, one of which made one of my favorite drinks - Canelazo - a hot, alcoholic cinnamon and cloves. I discovered this drink in Ecuador and it was a treat to find it here! We were going to check out the salsa scene, but, ... read more