#3) Backpacking from Xela: Mexico through Columbia

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I said goodbye to everyone with a brunch party on AIDG's rooftop. I left with great memories, much learned, and very glad to have had the experience.

Guatemala Travel after Xela:
My friends Stephane and Aurora met me in Xela, and we traveled in Guatemala together for a week. They were on a short vacation from the US. Aurora had consulted me months ahead and they wanted to get as much in as possible in a short time. It was fun - we hiked a live volcano in Antigua and roasted marshmallows over its lava, kayaked Lake Atitlan and explored San Pedro again, visited the caving area of Semuc Champey, and then went to Tikal to see the impressive Mayan pyramids surrounded by jungle. Stephane and Aurora left for Belize, and next I traveled on my own to Rio Dulce/Livingston. The culture is very different in Livingston than other parts of Guatemala, with many Garifuna people (who are descended from Black Africans), English spoken widely, and reggae music can be heard throughout the town. Interestingly, some Mayan indigenous people also live in Livingston. Food is spicy and delicious there, and I might have to return some day just to have a particular fish soup again. I saw a big framed photo of newly-elected (not yet sworn in) President Obama in the lobby of the Garifuna Hotel.

Tourist
I had returned to being a regular tourist, not a local - it is a very different way to see a country. Living in Xela, I had connected with locals through shared projects with AIDG, as well as taking Spanish lessons from them, meeting them as long-term neighbors, or regularly shopping at their stores or markets. I would read in my Lonely Planet guidebook about places I went: the culture, history, and places to visit. It was really fun to see places I hadn't yet visited in Guatemala, and to know I was finally going to see a lot more of Central America. Still, sometimes I missed the deeper connection and better understanding from living in one place that I had in Xela.

Honduras
While in Livingston and Rio Dulce, I kept close track of news about Honduras. The ex-President Zelaya had been forcibly removed by their military, and there had been riots, protestors shot, and international outcry. Some Hondurans were accusing the US of organizing a coup, and the US was denying that. And I needed to get to Nicaragua to travel with a friend, but I had to cross through Honduras to get to Nicaragua. Travelers who had been in Honduras told me that the border kept getting shut down, and that the capital was too dangerous to stay in, but that it seemed safe otherwise. I decided to go with that advice, and bused my way from around Rio Dulce to the Honduras border, then Honduras through to El Salvador.

El Salvador
I had previously spent about a month in El Salvador, during AIDG's December 2008 holiday, so I didn't spend much time there again. El Salvador has many gorgeous beaches around La Libertad. One of my favorites is Playa El Tunco, a safe little town with a beautiful shoreline, delicious seafood, and great surfers from around the world. Sunsets were impressive and people were friendly. South of La Libertad, I stayed in a little town with few tourists - and I was the only visitor at my hostel, which had just recently opened. It was a very peaceful stay, with a long white-sand beach to walk and excellent hammocks to laze in and read. The buses on the west coast of El Salvador are chickenbus style, with surfers and waves artistically blended in with the more traditional religious chickenbus iconography. I really loved the bus art. I also visited the village of Suchitoto in El Salvador. It is a quiet place in the mountains, with beautiful views of the valley lake below. In Suchitoto I went on the two scariest hikes of my life. Both were led by the same very nice guides. One of the hikes was advertised as swimming through caves, and going to swim under a waterfall. It was an excellent hike, however the 'cave' was actually a cave-then-cement-water-pipe connected to the municipal water plant... At one point, the guide said to be careful not to let the strong current pull you around the place where you turn off. It was a good thing he was strong, because it was a hard current to fight alone and he helped. Later, I found out that you would follow the water pipe system to the treatment plant, if you didn't make that turn. A couple days later I went with some people from my hostel on another hike with these guides. It just sounded too fun to skip - when would I again get the chance to rappel down a waterfall? Turned out it wasn't rapelling - there was no harness, and people just held onto the rope, while stepping down the waterfall. The rope was fraying immensely, but was about 1.5 inches thick. I did it, but swore off their hikes for the rest of my stay. El Salvador used US dollars as currency, and the standard of living was clearly better. I loved the pupusas, which are like a fried pita bread with cheese, meat, or squash inside, and fresh-pickled hot sauces that you put on top. Pupusas are inexpensive, and each street seller and restaurant took pride in their pickled condiments.

Mexico 'visa' renewal trips
Every 90 days, foreigners staying in Guatemala had to renew our passport stamps. People in Xela took chicken buses to the Mexican border, got a quick passport stamp in Mexico, then returned. Sometimes this was an 8AM-5PM venture, and other times the Mexican border guards required passport renewers to stay in the country at least overnight. Sometimes money was requested by the Guatemalan or Mexican border guards, other times not. I enjoyed spending anywhere from an hour to a week on the Mexican side on various passport renewals. One reason to look forward to a visa renewal was the spicy hot Mexican salsas, with much stronger spices than in Guatemala. Visiting Mexico after living in Guatemala, Mexico seemed like a very wealthy and developed country. Mexico has a much higher average income, and a far smaller percentage of the population identifies as indigenous. One border crossing, I took extra time to see the beautiful pyramids of Palenque. Some photos from Google Images (not mine) here. I stayed in an inexpensive hostel in the jungle adjacent to Palenque, a nice warm break from the high-altitude mountains where I was living in Guatemala. Another time I went to San Cristobal, a scenic mountain city in southern Mexico that had a large indigenous population, many foreign volunteers, language schools, and many expats living there. The indigenous people in San Cristobal wore thick (4 inches thick!) long black wool skirts and coats, and mostly lived in the rural villages on the edges of the city. Their villages are considerably less developed (water, sanitation, education) than most places in Mexico.

In May of 2009, news was just starting to spread of the new Swine Flu strain causing deaths of a lot of healthy young people in Mexico. The CDC and news reports were cautioning people to stay away from crowds and avoid travel in Mexico if possible. It was the end of my 90 days, so I needed to cross a border to renew my passport stamp. Mexico was the closest country to renew my visa: 4.5 hours by chickenbus. Belize was 2 days of long chickenbus rides away, and the only other option was Costa Rica far south since El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua had a special passport agreement. Nothing describes a chickenbus better than the word 'crowded' and sanitation is not a priority on them... so I overstayed my visa a couple weeks until it became clear the flu wasn't so deadly as initial reports indicated possible. When I did cross the border, there were poster warnings on the Guatemalan side to avoid crowded locations *specifically such as nightclubs*, with no mention of buses. Nightclubs are extremely uncommon in Guatemala, and crowded buses are everywhere. I'll always wonder who decided on that particular public health message.

Nicaragua
After El Salvador, I took a bus through the southwestern tip of Honduras, and finally arrived in Nicaragua. Looking out the bus windows in northwestern Nicaragua, I saw a lot of guys that looked like the Marlborough Man from those cigarette ads - dust-covered thin men on horses with a herd of cattle, with well-worn cowboy shoes, cowboy hats, and old but well-cared for button-down shirts. In Guatemala and El Salvador, the cows I had seen were in fields and there weren't many of them. I met up with Joan in Managua, and we spent a couple days there. We had first met in Xela, where she was volunteering. Her traveling style was slow, and she liked to find nice cafes and good hammocks. That worked for me, after the fast-paced travel in Guatemala and Honduras I had just done. After Managua we bused to Granada, a city with pretty colonial architecture and big artist markets geared towards tourists, and a large United States retiree population. The standard of living there for a US retiree is quite high, even if they live on a minimal Social Security income. We found an inexpensive hostel with lots of hammocks and explored the city and some surrounding villages that week. Then we headed towards pretty Ometepe Island, an island made of two volcanic mountains surrounded by a small lake. Ometepe offers great hiking, kayaking, and relaxing-in-hammocks opportunities. We met other travelers and had a great time on that beautiful island. Next we went north to Masaya, which has excellent restaurants with a beautiful lake view, and a hiking path. The last place we went to was a lakefront hostel with hammocks, kayaks, and great pizza. Joan took off to catch her flight in Managua, and I traveled south to the pretty beach in San Juan del Sur. A large statue overlooks the bay from the cliffs, and warm water and soft sand added up to great beach walking.

Costa Rica
My friends Nacho and Nicole invited me to meet up with them during their family visit to Nacho's birth country. They had an itinerary that covered much of the country in a short time, and so I picked a couple places to meet with them. They stayed in expensive hotels, and I found backpacker-priced places nearby. First we met in Tambor, a beach town on the southern part of the large Nicoya Peninsula. I walked from my hostel a couple miles along the beach to get to their fancy hotel - a fun way to come for a visit. It was the first time I met Nacho's and Nicole's baby Luno, and they were doing a great job being new parents. They are both PhD scientists, and it was interesting to learn about the research they put into decisions from bottles to baby carriers. They also had a lot of neat 'baby technology', including a stroller that is an all-terrain vehicle. One of the days at the beach we visited Montezuma, a nearby town with great hiking I had been to a few years before. We took the ferry back to mainland together, and traveled on to the Arenal volcano area. I did some hiking around the volcano, wearing good raingear - there is a lot of rain in that area, and since the altitude is high the temperature is cool. Meantime, my friends enjoyed the warmth of their natural hot springs hotel, and then we all met for dinners. After they left for San Jose, I headed for Monte Verde, a Costa Rica rainforest area with much larger wilderness hiking areas. The forests are lush, with a huge variety of tall trees, vines, and other plants crowded together. The air in the forests is incredibly fresh, and I spent days hiking there. The 'suspended bridge' hiking was especially nice, where you can walk on secure (but swaying) cable bridges about 150ft. high. Views of active wildlife at that height in the forest are impressive. After the mountain chill and good exercise, I was ready for a warm beach and tasty seafood again. I headed to the Caribbean coast and Puerto Viejo. Tasty seafood, beautiful sunsets, warm days at the beach, and a $5/night hammock-for-a-bed hotel was a great combination. Some Google Image photos (not mine) of Puerto Viejo. I rented a bicycle, and it was a great way to explore the surrounding villages.

Panama
Some of the places I visited include Bocas del Toro, David, Panama City, the Panama Canal, and the San Blas islands within the Kuna territories. It was amazing and kind of scary to drink water from the tap again, for the first time since leaving the U.S. Visiting the Panama Canal, I learned about the impressive engineering feat of its construction. It required massive surveying and then digging projects, damming up rivers, and the creation of a large freshwater lake, along with continual dredging projects and the current construction of a new canal ship lane. The newest lane will conserve freshwater better. The existing locks use 55 million gallons of water per ship transit. The new locks are larger, but will use only 51 million gallons because 60% will be re-utilized by using lateral basins. I was fascinated with the Canal Museum in the old part of the city. It explained how the then-US Canal project leaders eradicated malaria by installing screens, eliminating standing water, and spraying insecticide. The path of the Canal was preceeded by trade routes using a combination of boats on existing rivers and men, and animals carrying things over dry land. The political history of the Canal is interesting, and the income from the Canal makes a big impact on Panama - the reason for the potable water at the faucets I was enjoying for the first time since leaving the US. In a nerdy way, I was incredibly excited to visit the Canal's lockes, and to see boats going through that engineering marvel. In both Nicaragua and Costa Rica, there are projects to construct 'dry canals' (trains that will carry cargo containers from coast to coast, with ports managing loading/unloading on each side) to divert some of the Panama Canal's income.

Panama City is a big city with many skyscrapers, big banks, and sidewalks full of fast-walking people wearing suits. In some ways, I felt like I was back in New York City. I was happy to ride in some excellently decorated buses again, with colored lights and fancy satin fringes along with pretty paintings and religious iconography. Panama City is growing, as can be seen by the enormous cranes constructing tall buildings all around the 'new city'. From the long waterfront walkway of the bustling business zone, you can see ships entering the Panama Canal. The old part of the city is beautiful and crumbling, and the guidebook said it looks much like Havana, Cuba. There are good parks for hiking around the city, so I got some nice hikes in along with the cultural and engineering sightseeing.

Next I went to the San Blas islands, staying with the indigenous Kuna people. After a car ride to the territory, a 4-wheel-drive vehicle took us the rest of the way over unpaved roads currently under construction and through some river areas. Next we waited for a little boat which brought me to the small island 5 tourists used as home base and where about 50 locals lived. The Kuna people who live on the islands live in huts that are very small and built close together. On some islands the Kuna live crowded very close together, but they leave many similarly-sized islands unoccupied. Most of the older people are under 5 feet tall. The older women wear an interesting mix of jewelry and (MISSING)textiles, including many small-beaded orange 'bracelets' covering their skin from ankle to knee and from wrist to elbow. Google image photos (not mine) of the Kuna here. Singing could be heard from within many of the huts. Each day, the hosts took us to another of the many tiny islands without a community living on it, to spend the day swimming, reading, and relaxing, and they arranged for us to have delicious fresh seafood meals there for lunch. They took us on other outings, including a local museum and a party for a local girl's coming-of-age ceremony. Bathing consisted of using a bucket of water, with a cup to pour water over your head after soaping up. The toilet was an outhouse with a hole constructed directly over the ocean water.

Back to Panama City, I booked a short flight to northern Columbia. All my other travel had been by bus, but no buses (and no roads) cross the southern border of Panama into Columbia (the Darien Gap). According to my guidebook, the border area is rife with drug runners, Columbian rebels and paramilitary, and dangerous wilderness easy to get lost in. I met a guy who had wanted to find a local guide to walk/boat him through the area, but when he got to the southernmost border town of Yaviza where the Interamericana ends, local police made him turn around for his own safety. It was possible to sail to Columbia directly from the San Blas islands, but since time of year was bad for sailing I took the flight.

Columbia
I flew into Cartagena, on the north coast of Columbia. Its beautiful colonial walled city and fortress is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some Google Image photos (not mine) of Cartagena. I walked many miles through the streets, and enjoyed the old architecture, pastel-painted buildings, and flowers all around the old town. The fortress walls are bright white and a great walking guide, and I got to to newer parts of the city by bus, to see more of the non-touristic parts of the city.

Next I went to Medellin. The city has an advanced transportation system, universities, great art museums, and is the top industrial city of Columbia. The transportation system includes a modern, well-engineered city rail system that transfers at both ends to cable cars that connect Medellin's hillside communities to the urban center. The views of the city from the cable cars are great. Medellin has many paved, stenciled bike paths throughout the city. On Sundays, additional roads and a main highway are shut down to cars, and many people ride bikes. I biked with what seemed like most of Medellin one Sunday. It was fantastic - people of all ages on bicycles, local entrepreneurs with bike repair stands and food stands all along the routes, and people enjoying a walk along the roadsides, too.

Back to the US
My trip ended unexpectedly with my dad in the hospital with a serious condition. I flew from Medellin back to the US in February of 2010. Luckily, Dad is fine now. That trip was a great adventure, and I met many interesting people and saw beautiful places. I now more deeply appreciate US systems for potable water, sanitation, education, and law enforcement. I was fortunate to take the trip, and I'm fortunate to be back.

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Photos

Marketing and sales
Generally no website or phonebook ads; instead detailed storefront info

Ferry from Nicoya Peninsula
Traveling in Costa Rica with Nicole, Luno, and Nacho