CENTRAL AMERICA – WEEK 5

 

Comayagua turned out to be nothing more than a rest stop along the way between Roatan Island and Grenada.  Honduras is a dangerous place; definitely not a country I’d visit on my own.  We checked into our hotel, only to find there was no electricity.  Luckily, it was not off for long.  We were thankful for air conditioning even though the shower reminded me of a man with prostate trouble.  On a more positive note, there was a Wendy’s just down the street and, for some strange reason, Fox Sports was on, with coverage of the NASCAR race in Daytona.  Things were looking up!  On the way to Wendy’s, we passed four armed security guards; there were two more standing at the door to the restaurant.  But the burger and fries were divine!

Up at crow piss the next day, it was to be our longest on the road; twelve or thirteen hours our guide told us.  We got to the border around 11:00 in the morning.  As per usual, our guide, Javier, collected our passports and the fee for crossing the border.  Then, we got out of the bus and walked across “no-man’s-land”, the area that straddles the border between Honduras and Nicaragua.  He’d warned us that getting into Nicaragua could take a while since they tend to do everything by hand, without the aid of computers.

As we waited, we changed our Lempiras into Cordobas, the local currency.  The money changers were there in full force.  They always take their 10% but you have no choice but to deal with them since there is an entry fee to be paid to get into the next country, in this case the equivalent of $13 US.  It’s quite a game! 

One hour later, we were into Nicaragua, and on our way to our destination.  Although the highways are good, traffic moves at a snail’s pace.  It’s very hilly country, there are vehicles of every description on the main road, and people walk and cycle everywhere; little children sit on the pavement in front of their houses for entertainment, and everyone seems to have something to sell.
 

Things were going well until we got to a place called Trinidad; a policeman was stopping traffic on the main road.  Our driver asked him what was going on, and was told there was some kind of a parade in the town and we’d be held up for at least an hour.  Great!  So, we got off the bus and I led the group in a forced march up the road.  Might as well find out what the hell all the fuss was about.  What we encountered turned out to be the highlight of the day: a parade of some 2,000 horses prancing through the town on their way to a national dressage event.

The horse flesh and saddlery on display were quite impressive.  Most of the animals were in top condition and had been groomed to the nines for the event.  Their handlers put on a show as they paraded along the main road and turned onto the main street leading to the fair ground.  The horses pranced and danced in place for the adoring crowds and seemed to be enjoying all the attention.  The locals were quite fascinated with us, especially the young blondes in the group, and the one girl who has red hair.  We spent a full hour watching the spectacle and thoroughly enjoyed this impromptu event.

There is something different about Nicaragua.  It’s supposed to be the poorest of the Central American countries, yet it doesn’t seem that way at first glance.  A couple of things tipped us off: most of the houses are painted and there’s far less litter around.  People seem to take more pride in their properties.  It reminded us of Prince Edward Island, where there’s more lawn per capita than anywhere else in the world.  It may only be because people like to drive lawn tractors but the result is pleasing to the eye.  It also shows that people are proud of what they own, however modest it may be; just like they are here.  The roadsides are not covered with litter as in the other countries we’ve visited so far.

It was dark when we arrived at our hotel in Granada.  It didn’t look like much from the outside but we were quite impressed when we got into the lobby and were shown to our rooms: king-size bed, air conditioning and a TV!  Next morning, we boarded a bus for an all-day tour of sites around Grenada.  We began by visiting the Masaya Volcano complex located in Nicaragua’s oldest national park.  There are several active craters and a couple that are dormant.  The one that’s spewing steam and gas in the photo is called Santiago.  We took a nice walk around the rim of one of the dormant craters.

Next, we drove to the town of Masaya and visited the market and, from there went to the nearby village of Catarina where we stopped for a breathtaking view of Lake Apoyo, a crater lake.  After lunch, we descended the winding, steep road down to the lake and went for a dip.  The wind was howling and I enjoyed the whitecaps; Elva chickened out and stayed on shore. 

We came back to Granada and drove through the city to Lake Nicaragua where we boarded a boat for a tour of several islets.  It was the highlight of the day.  Our guide told us there are 365 islands in Lake Nicaragua; many of them are inhabited, some by local people and others by rich outsiders who spend weekends and holidays there.  One even has a helicopter landing pad.  The lake is huge, the largest in Central America and the 19^th largest in the world.  In area, it is about 50% larger than Prince Edward Island.  Many of the birds we saw are migrators from the north; some of the great blue herons may even have been ours!  A surprise was the small islet that is home to three spider monkeys and a white-faced monkey.  They were placed there by a concerned veterinarian after being rescued from animal farms.

On our last day in Granada, we had a wonderful breakfast of waffles and pancakes, and then I decided it was time for a haircut.  We walked into a small salon and I sat in the chair.  The hairdresser didn’t speak a word of English and my Spanish wasn’t up to the task, so I just let her have her way with me!  First, she took the clippers to the sides of my head and buzzed me.  Accepting my fate, I watched the look of anguish on Elva’s face with some amusement.  Next, she trimmed the top pretty much the same way as my regular hairdresser does back home, and the end result was looking quite acceptable. 

But then she reached into a bin and pulled out a straight razor!  That’s when I started to worry a little.  She proceeded to scrape the hair off the back and sides of my neck and then did the same on my sideburns.  I was hoping like hell she knew what she was doing and I didn’t move a muscle until she was done.  Happy to see the straight razor back in its shield and to get up out of that chair, I asked her how much: $2 US she answered!  I haven’t had a haircut for $2 since I was a kid back in Wellington.

A ride in a horse and carriage was on Elva’s ‘bucket list’.  It happens to be one of the ‘must-dos’ in Granada.  We hopped on with three other members of our group and had a glorious ninety-minute ride through the city, complete with stops at points of interest.  It cost us $6 each!

From Granada, we drove to the ferry that was to take us to Ometepe Island, in the middle of Lake Nicaragua.  Elva remarked on the way how much she’d enjoyed all our boat rides: small outboards, lake boats, ferries large and small, and water taxis of all sizes.  She was not to enjoy this one however.  We boarded the little ferry just before she pulled away from the dock, and found her chock full of passengers, freight, motorcycles, luggage, and what must have been a week’s supply of eggs for the island.  We soon encountered three-metre waves on the big lake, and the poor little craft tossed around like a cork.  The ninety-minute ferry ride turned out to be quite the adventure.  Some of us loved it and others couldn’t wait to get off!

After a short ride along the island’s coast we arrived at our destination for the next two nights: Finca Venecia.  I thought: “Great!  Here we are: in the middle of nowhere; on an island in the middle of a lake, in the middle of nowhere; with an active volcano towering over us.”  Our guide had promised us nice rooms on the edge of the lake, and he delivered.  The place was quite charming. 

The next morning we boarded a bus for a guided tour of the island.  Ometepe Island is about 25 x 10 kilometres and is shaped .like an old-fashioned barbell.  The two mountains form the weights, bridged by an isthmus which acts like the handle that holds them together.  We were surprised to learn that 30,000 people live on the island and that most live from farming and tourism.  They’ve lived there for a hundred generations or more and have grown accustomed to the threat posed by the volcano called Concepcion.

We climbed part way up the smaller Mount Maderas and took photos of the isthmus and Concepcion in the background. On the way down, we encountered a lone howler monkey that shouted loudly to let us know we were in his territory.  After our walk and a delicious lunch, we visited a natural spring and enjoyed cooling off in the crystal clear pools.  (The temperature has been about 30 degrees C here for the past few days.) 

The second highlight of my day, after Heather Moyse bringing home Gold for Prince Edward Island, was my first sampling of live termites.  Our guide showed us how to tease the critters out of the nest and onto a stick, from where we licked them off, crunched them, and swallowed.  He told us they would taste just like carrots and, to my amazement, they did!  I had seconds, and thirds, before moving along the trail to the next stop.

The next morning, we got up bright and early and boarded the ferry to the mainland; this time, we had a proper boat, not the little scow that brought us over to Ometepe.  I enjoyed the ride so much that I fell asleep on a bench under the sun on the upper deck.  On our way to the Costa Rican border, we passed extensive wind farms along the shore of Lake Nicaragua.  The turbines were as big as the ones we have back on our island.

We arrived at the border mid-morning and went through the usual shenanigans to get across.  We boarded our bus and stopped for lunch in a town called Liberia.  Seeing a Burger King nearby, we dashed across the street and got our fix.  I looked at the local weather: it was 36 degrees C!  Three hours later, we turned onto a dirt road, bound for our destination, Monteverde, 35 kilometres away.  The poor bus struggled up hills and around hairpin turns on a dusty mountain track that made the Cannontown look like the Trans-Canada Highway!  Once again, we wondered where they the hell we were being taken.

Monteverde is a small town, high in the mountains, in a climate zone known as ‘cloud forest’.  It reminded us of a ski resort.  Moisture from the almost-constant cloud cover creates conditions favouring the growth of vegetation and provides ideal habitat for a variety of plants and animals.  After we’d checked into our cozy hotel (no kidding!), some members of the group took a guided ‘night walk’ in the forest where they saw a two-toed sloth, monkeys, coatis, kinkajous, an armadillo and, of course, poisonous snakes.  We opted for a walk through town.  Despite its isolation, we found the place to be crowded with tourists from all over the world.

Friday was adrenaline day!  Eight of us booked a trip to the 100% Aventura Canopy Tour.  After donning our harnesses and helmets, we started on an easy zip line.  Then, they got more exciting as we made our way through the forest canopy.  We crossed a rope bridge between two zip lines and then took off on a long cross-valley line that must have been one kilometre long. 

Next, we had to climb up the hill for ten minutes to get to the launch platform for the ‘Superman’ style cable.  On this contraption, we were clipped to the cable by two pulleys fixed to our backs so that we lay on our stomachs with our hands free, flying like birds!  This particular line is billed as the longest in Central America at 1,590 metres.  What a view we had of the valley below but, as I neared the end of the line, I feared I wouldn’t stop in time.  But I did.  Elva came next.  I could hear her screaming as she approached the brake mechanism at the end of the line.  This picture shows her ‘coming in hot’.

Finally, we came to the pièce de résistance, the Mega Tarzan Swing.  To do this, you walk to the end of a bridge that hangs out over the valley in mid-air.  The vertical drop is almost 150 feet.  After hooking you to a rope and telling you to “hang on”, the operators open a gate and say “Bye!”  Holy Jesus!  What a rush!  I was glad when I felt the rope start to catch me as I was catapulted to the other side of the valley.  I swung back and forth across the valley floor a couple more times before the guys on the ground caught my rope and eased me to the ground.

Elva was next.  She’d said before we ‘walked the plank’ that she didn’t think she could do it.  I convinced her it was “Now or never!”  So I watched from below as she dropped off the platform and swung through the air, screaming like a banshee as she too went back and forth across the bottom of the valley.  The picture shows her at the moment she 'fell' off the platform.

She had a smile on her face as she was unhooked from the rope at the bottom.  That’s all that mattered to me.  It’s the best $100 (for the two of us) we’ve ever spent on an adventure.  I’m just not sure what we’ll do for an encore.

 

CENTRAL AMERICA – WEEK 4

Our first day back in Antigua was a rest day.  After scaling San Pedro, we weren’t in the mood for anything but a quiet stroll.  On Sunday morning, we took our guide’s advice and feasted on a delicious buffet breakfast at a five-star hotel, Casa Santo Domingo.  It was well worth the price.  The Casa is located in a former convent that looked like it was partially destroyed by an earthquake.  The ambience was very special: Gregorian chants, white sheer curtains blowing in the breeze, sharply-clad waiters, ancient ceramic tile floors, and thick stone walls.

After breakfast, we boarded our latest new form of transportation, a four-wheel drive Mercedes two-ton truck, and drove to the coffee plantation owned by Roberto Dalton, reportedly one of the richest people in Guatemala.  According to our guide, some twenty-two families control most of the land in the country with the rest being owned by small holders: not much different than the way things were on Prince Edward Island two centuries ago!

The guide invited us to look up at the houses on the hillside above the plantation.  He told us that the families who live in them harvest the crop, by hand, one ripe coffee ‘cherry’ at a time during the period between November and March.  He explained that the average daily haul is a 100-pound bag for which the picker is paid about $10 Canadian.  Think about that for a minute!

I did, and I also looked up the per capita incomes for the Central American countries, to compare them to Canada’s, and to the richest in the world.  Oil-rich Qatar’s is the highest, at $102,000.  We rank 24^th at $41,500.  Of the Central American countries, Panama and Mexico are tied at $15,300; Costa Rica comes next at $12,600; then it’s Belize at $8,400; El Salvador at $7,700; Guatemala at $5,200; Honduras at $4,600; and, finally, Nicaragua at $3,300.  Albania, the poorest country in Europe stands at $8,000.  We have much to be thankful for and little to complain about.

At the plantation, we met a couple from Cleveland.  She was a retired nurse and he a retired doctor.  They were in Guatemala accompanying 50 medical students, and were leaving the next morning to set up a clinic in a village in the mountains.  The people there have little other access to medical care. 

Once again, it got me thinking about the best way to help people in the third world.  On TV, we’re bombarded with ads asking us to contribute to aid organizations the world over.  Elva and I refuse to, because we don’t feel confident our money will get to the people who need it most.  There is a great deal of corruption in the countries we’ve visited, and too many can steal a piece of the action along the way.

What the couple we met are doing seems to be one of the best ways to help: by providing a service the people desperately need and wouldn’t otherwise be able to get.  The other way that makes sense to us is by spending our tourist dollars on services provided by locals: guides, hotels, restaurants, excursion companies, and transportation providers.  We like to feel our cash is going directly into their pockets.  Whether they claim it as income is of no concern to us; as long as there’s no middle man involved.

We left Antigua, and Guatemala, glad to put our hotel behind us.  It was one of the worst we’ve had on the trip.  No hot water to be had, and one of our party had to leave his room after being bitten by bed bugs.

We crossed into Honduras on a pot-holed stretch of road in the middle of nowhere.  Thirty minutes later, we drove into the town of Copan, our home for the next two nights.  After a short stroll down to the town square, we withdrew our needed stock of Lempiras from an ATM, watched closely by a guard with a fearsome-looking pump-action shotgun.  Surprisingly, one gets used to the sight of armed guards, and they do seem to serve as a significant deterrent to petty crime at least.

The Lempira is the currency of Honduras.  In Mexico, it’s the Peso, in Belize, it’s the Dollar; and in Guatemala, it’s the Quetzale.  Only one, the Belize currency, is tied to the American dollar.  The others are free to ‘float’; and float they do.  At each border crossing, you find several money changers who are only too happy to exchange the currency of the country you’re leaving for that of the country you’re entering.  Not only do they skim off as much as they can on the exchange, they try to cheat you on how much you’re owed.  Calculator in hand, I try to come out of these transactions as well as I can.  I don’t think I’ll live to see the day when the region is organized like the European Community, with seamless border crossings and a common currency.  There is too much conflict here and no evident onus among countries to cooperate.

On our full day in Copan, several members of the group went to visit the Mayan ruins of the same name.  We had opted not to.  As it turned out, Elva contracted food poisoning at a restaurant on our first night in Copan and was very sick through the night and well into the next day.  Rather than follow the group, I stayed behind to look after her.  Not that there was much anyone could do; the nasty malady just had to run its course.

Copan is a pretty little town, clean and friendly.  After two nights there, we drove across the northern sector of Honduras, from west to east, bound for Roatan Island.  We left early in the morning and drove all day, then took a ferry, and arrived at our hotel in the early evening.  Along the way, we passed through lush and beautiful countryside; past cattle ranches, corn fields, and plantations of coffee, banana, pineapple, and coconut oil palm.  While there were a few prosperous-looking properties, most of the people seemed quite poor.

Before arriving at the Carribean coast, we passed through the city of San Pedro Sula, the murder capital of the world.  Wikipedia says the murder rate there is 1.6 per 1,000 per year.  Converted to Prince Edward Island’s population, that would mean 225 murders per year back home!  The high rate is the result of a flourishing drug trade.  A large percentage of drugs originating in South America passes through Honduras on its way to the United States.  We stopped for a pee break near the city and I took this picture of a guard post at the entrance to the gas station.  A second man with a shotgun stood guard at the entrance to the store.  Scary stuff!

Roatan Island is a classier version of Caye Caulker, much larger and more developed.  The place attracts many North Americans because of its climate, and the fact there are regularly-scheduled flights to the airport here.  Many come to scuba dive on the world-class reefs.

We awoke to a nice breeze and sunshine.  Elva was feeling a little better, so we walked along the beachfront street to a small restaurant where I was able to take in some CBC coverage of the Sochi Olympics.  For the rest of the day, I had a good book to read and a comfortable hammock on the deck.

On our second day, Elva finally felt up to a decent breakfast after spending a quiet night.  For three days, she’d been forced to follow Jack Nicholson’s third rule for older men; poor thing!  After breakfast, we rented a scooter and drove all the paved roads on the island.  Although it’s quite beautiful, there’s great poverty here.  It reminded us of Guadeloupe. 

After three nights and two days on Roatan, we weren’t ready to leave!  But, early Saturday morning, we boarded the ferry and drove to Comayagua, our final destination in Honduras before crossing into Nicaragua.

 

CENTRAL AMERICA – WEEK 3

We explored Flores on foot, circling the island town in about twenty minutes and climbing to the sparkling white church that occupies the highest point.  Then, we joined the group for a boat trip across the lake to a beach where we took a cool dip to escape from the heat.  Next, we climbed to the top of a hill and onto a raised platform for a panoramic view of Flores and the beautiful sunset on the shore of the lake.

Sunday morning, we boarded the bus for Tikal, the most famous Mayan site in Guatemala.  Our guide, Carlos, explained that barely 2% of Mayan sites have been explored.  It was a stifling day in the jungle and after four hours of listening to Carlos, we’d had enough.  Tikal is indeed important and interesting but, it being our fourth Mayan site, its story tended to be repetitive.  What distinguishes Tikal is that the site of the ancient city is located within a protected forest.  As a result, we saw many spider monkeys and coatis in their natural habitat.

The next morning, we boarded a small bus bound for the Rio Dulce, near the east coast of Guatemala, on the Caribbean coast.  Our tour guide had told us to expect the trip would take about four hours.  We’ve learned that you can multiply the expected time by 1.5 and come closer to the actual traveling time in Central America.  There are maximum speed indicators on the highway and speed zones in villages and towns, but very few policemen in rural areas.  Instead, they use reductores de velocidad, speed bumps, or what the locals call sleeping policemen.  They are formidable obstacles and require all drivers to slow to a crawl.

We arrived at the dock at Puerto Fronteras and boarded a launch bound for our hotel, the Tortugal.  Arriving there, we were reminded of a lodge we stayed in in the Amazon jungle.  The place is built entirely on stilts and sits precariously out over the water.  The outdoor dining area/lounge is topped by a palm-thatched roof but is otherwise completely open to the elements.  Our room was in a bungalow, partially open to the elements as well, but with a mosquito net to protect us from the bugs.  It turned out to be a lovely and quite romantic place and we were very comfortable there.

The younger crowd went to bathe in hot springs before dinner but Elva and I stayed around the lodge.  She had come down with a mild case of la touristique and was in no mood for traveling.  The next day was my dear wife’s birthday, and we had decided to join most of the members of the group for a two-hour river boat trip to the town of Livingstone, located at the mouth of the Rio Dulce.  It was a beautiful, sunny morning and we took our time getting to our destination.  Along the way, we stopped to look at some water lilies, and saw children paddling furiously toward us in dugout canoes.  One handsome young girl was determined to get to our boat first.  She did, so we bought a few trinkets from her.

We soon realized that Livingston is a very different place.  Home to an important population of descendants of African slaves, known as the Garifuna, brought to the region by the British to work the sugar cane fields, it is poor by Guatemalan standards, which means very poor by ours.  It’s not the kind of place I’d walk around at night though.  Even during the day, I was happy to be traveling with a group.  But, as often happens on these trips, something surprising comes along, this time in the form of a very memorable meal, a dish called tagado, a fish soup cooked in coconut milk.

We hated to leave Rio Dulce.  I watched the sun rise over the river from the restaurant deck, ate my breakfast of fresh fruit and toast, and waited for the launch to take us away.  Rather than be scrunched up in a small bus, we’d opted to pay a little extra for a coach to take us to Antigua, five hours drive away, via Guatemala City.  It’s a good thing we did because, two and a half hours into the trip, we ground to a halt.  Turns out a group of protestors had blocked the main road leading to the capital city, as well as to neighbouring El Salvador.  Trucks and buses were lined up for many kilometres.

Our guide told us we could be there for several hours as the authorities were making no move to break the blockade.  So we sat on the side of the road, trying to keep cool in the 30+-degree heat.  Hawkers came out of nowhere and walked by regularly selling all manner of snacks and drinks.  There being no toilet in the bus, we answered calls of nature al fresco.  I kept thinking: “This is still better than a day at work.”  And it was.  Sure enough, after two and a half hours, the blockaders finally relented and we were underway again.

We stopped for a bite in Guatemala City in an area of the city that looked safe.  The capital holds one-half of the country’s total population of 14 million.  One imagines that people have left rural areas for the promise of a better life in the city, only to become trapped there with no way out and nothing to fall back on.  It was frankly disturbing to drive by the slums and see armed security guards everywhere: at every gas station; at every bank; at the entrance to gated communities; in shopping mall parking lots; and in front of high-end stores.  The main thoroughfare is clogged with overcrowded buses and overloaded trucks, most of them belching black diesel exhaust.  I can’t imagine living there, and I feel genuinely sorry for people who do.  The poorest of the poor live in shacks consisting of little more than a wooden frame and corrugated steel walls and roof.

The drive into our next port of call, Antigua, was not promising.  We’ve noted that buses normally enter a city through the back door for some reason, and the rear end of Antigua looked worse than the west end of Summerside ever did.  But after settling into our rooms, we took a stroll and found a rather charming place with cobblestone streets, beautiful buildings, and an abundance of first-class restaurants and shops.  We had a wonderful meal at a restaurant facing a plaza that reminded us of Cuzco, Peru.

It’s worth mentioning here that we haven’t had a bad meal in Guatemala.  There’s a great deal of choice, better than in Mexico and Belize, and restaurant meals are incredibly cheap: a complete meal for two can be had for less than $20, and it would be difficult to spend much more than $50 for the most expensive offering on a menu.  Fresh fruit and vegetables are plentiful and delicious, and as for the coconut, I can’t get enough of it!

Our next stop was Chichicastenango.  Our bus drove across a board plain featuring lush agricultural fields, and then climbed into the mountains of central Guatemala.  The town is famous for its market, but the only thing I liked about it is its name: “Chichicastenango”.  Apparently it means the place of trees planted to protect coffee plantations.  Of course, the guy who told me that could have been pulling my leg.

In the late afternoon, we made our way to the village of San Jorge for our home stay.  The bus dropped us off in a dusty unpaved plaza in front of a stuccoed white church.  Young boys played soccer as our village guide explained how things worked.  San Jorge is a pueblo of 3,000 souls, all of Mayan heritage.  They speak a dialect called Kaqchikel amongst themselves, but most know Spanish as well.  The children learn both languages at school.

Our host, Ana, was there to greet us with her son, Jorge, a nine-year-old as cute as a button.  She led us to her modest house and introduced us to Jose, a gregarious and intelligent twelve-year-old who spoke a bit of English.  Ana’s two daughters soon appeared on the scene, having arrived home from their day’s work in nearby Panajachel.  Catalina is an elementary school teacher and Isabel works as a maid.  The house has electricity and running water but is very modest by our standards.  Elva was better able to identify than I was, having grown up on a farm in rural Prince Edward Island.  (The photo below shows Elva standing beside a well-dressed Jose, off to school.)

We dined on freshly baked sweet bread, Guatemalan coffee, black beans, rice, and tortillas Elva and I helped to make.  The head of the household, Julian, works as a gardener at a hotel in a nearby town.  He was engaging, outgoing, and quite intelligent.  With my limited Spanish we were able to carry on a conversation, and we learned many things about his family’s life.  (The photo below shows Isabel, Ana and Catalina.  Ana wears the traditional Mayan costume, which she wove on a hand-held loom.)

Although they lack many of the material possessions that have become indispensable to us, these people seem very happy.  They’re proud people.  The family unit is strong and, in the case of our host family at least, the parents are willing to sacrifice so that their children may have better lives than theirs.  That will obviously mean that places like San Jorge will change, but I suppose that’s the trade-off.  In the end, the home stay turned out to be the highlight of our trip so far and an experience we’ll not soon forget.  (The photo below shows me and my new BFF, Jorge.)

We rose bright and early to take a bus to Panajachel, a touristy town on Lake Atitlan.  The lake was formed by a tremendous volcanic eruption 84,000 years ago.  It is the deepest lake in Central America and is surrounded by three dormant volcanoes: San Pedro, Atitlan, and Toliman.  Our plan for the day was to cross the lake to the town of San Pedro, take a short drive to the start of the trail, and hike to the top of San Pedro volcano.  From the dock, the eight of us piled into the back of a half-ton truck and sped through the winding streets to the entrance of the ecological reserve that encircles the mountain. 

Then we began the climb to the top.  We hiked through coffee and avocado plantations and small corn fields planted on dizzying slopes, arriving at the halfway point not too much the worse for wear.  From that point to the top was a struggle however.  The trail was treacherous and, where there were steps, these were quite high, making for tough going.  We arrived at the summit just after noon and looked out over the lake and surrounding area, enjoying a spectacular view.

The summit of San Pedro is at 3,000 metres, or 9,000 feet above sea level.  Our climb took us from the base of the trail at 1,800 metres.  The ascent is considered by experienced climbers to be a difficult one; we’re certainly not experienced climbers.  But we made it, and the view from the top was well worth the effort.  After downing some well-earned snacks we made our way back down to the trailhead where tuk-tuks were waiting to take us to San Pedro. 

A tuk-tuk ride was on Elva’s bucket list, and we were not disappointed, as our young driver sped through the winding streets, sometimes going the wrong way on a one-way!  Exhausted, we plunked ourselves down at a café and rested a bit, taking in the lively street life of the town, before the launch took us back across Lake Atitlan to the dock in Panajachel.  The whole day cost about $60 for the two of us.  Where else could you experience so much for so little?  That night, we dined on steak at an upscale restaurant.  We figured we deserved it.

Now, it’s back to Antigua for a couple of nights.  Five members of the group will leave us and be replaced by five new ones.  We’ve become attached to every member of the group and will miss the ones who are leaving.  Today will be a quiet travel day, a well-needed break from the exploits of yesterday.

 

CENTRAL AMERICA – WEEK 2

 

Our Intrepid tour is advertised as ‘basic’, and that it is, as we found out when we checked in to our first room at the Hotel Cocodrilo in Playa del Carmen.  Elva will definitely not be treated like a ‘princess’ on this trip!  We smelled the tell-tale aroma of mold as soon as we walked through the door.  At 6:00 in the evening, we met our group, led by tour guide, Javier.  There are sixteen of us: six over-sixties and ten under-thirty-fives.  Four are from Canada, four from Australia, three from England, two from Germany, and one each from the US, Switzerland, and Ireland.

Our first hotel was located just down the street from the Coco Bongo Club, one of Playa’s hottest nightspots, apparently.  The music kept blaring until 4:00 am but we slept through it for the most part.  The next morning, we were on our own, free to wander around Playa until we all marched to the bus stop and got on the 2:30 bus, bound for Tulum.  One of the features of this tour is that the group travels mostly by public transit.

Driving on the Yucatan peninsula is like driving across the Miscouche swamp: flat as piss on a plate, barely above water, and boring as hell to look at.  No matter, I slept most of the way while Elva rode shotgun.  We arrived at our second hotel, the Villa Tulum around 4:30, rented bicycles and rode to the beach where I had a dip.  The bikes had to be older than the first CCM Mom bought me when I was eight!  We pedaled back to the hotel in the pitch darkness and followed Javier’s suggestion for a group meal in downtown Tulum.  Elva and I had the mariscada, or fish platter: the best I’ve ever had, served in a little hole-in-the-wall.  I had my first real taste of octopus, and found it quite nice!

Javier bought us tickets for the bus to Chichen Itza on our second day in Tulum.  We couldn’t resist visiting one of the seven wonders of the modern world, given that we were so close.  Our American friend, Gordon, came along with us.  We hired a guide who gave us a great tour of the site and recommended we have a bite to eat at his wife’s restaurant, Fabiola’s.  So the three of us piled into a cab and rode the short distance into town.  It was a good decision, as Fabiola’s is genuine Mexican all the way.

The next day was a travel day, and Javier had warned us that the trip to Caye Caulker would take at least nine hours.  We piled into taxis at the hotel, rode to the bus station and took a coach as far as the town of Chetumal on the Mexico-Belize border.  From there, we went through Belize Customs and hopped on two mini-vans for the ride to Belize City.  Next, we boarded a water taxi for the one-hour trip to Caye Caulker.  Arriving at our lodgings for two nights, Tom’s Hotel, we took one look at the room and were reminded of Elva’s father’s expression for a bed belonging to the poorest of the poor: un grabat.

The group followed Javier’s suggestion for dinner and feasted on seafood at Rose’s Grill; definitely a keeper!  We awoke at 6:00 am to a sound I haven’t heard since my summer-job days: a fogger.  Then the unmistakeable smell of insecticide hit us.  It didn’t bother me but wasn’t to Elva’s liking at all.  Not one mosquito on the island today though!

Caye Caulker is a charming little place that hasn’t been spoiled by the big resorts or the big money.  Not yet at least!  Its well-chosen motto is: “Go Slow!”  Little more than a long, narrow sandbar, the island has no paved roads and the only motorized vehicles are golf carts.  Children cycle the pot-holed streets in complete safety, people are friendly, and they all seem to know one another, except of course for us tourists.

On our second day, most of the group booked the full-day snorkeling excursion with Raggamuffin Tours.  Elva had decided to spend the day ashore as she’s not particularly fond of the water.  We boarded our old wooden vessel, the Ragga Gal, and sailed off toward the barrier reef.  She reminded me of the SS Minnow on the old TV show, Gilligan’s Island.  But it was a fair day, and our skipper, the much-tattooed Jacob, and his first mate, Vito, made sure we got to our destination safe and sound.  The photo below shows a group of nurse sharks I swam with a few moments later.

The snorkeling was amazing.  We saw many kinds of coral and fish all colours of the rainbow.  At our second stop, the crew put out some chum to attract the nurse sharks and sting rays.  We were able to swim down to see them feeding, and I took full advantage.  On the way back, they broke out the rum punch and cranked up the music.  The younger members of the group danced on the old girl’s foredeck and put the passengers on the other Raggamuffin Tours to shame.  We had a hell of a time!  To end our day, we dined al fresco at a barbecue place right on the beach.

 

On our last morning on Caye Caulker, Elva and I walked to the deserted end of the island, past the small airstrip and a few homes that were definitely ‘off-the-grid’.  On our way back, we were startled to come across a crocodile that glared menacingly at us from a salt-water inlet.  We didn’t stop to chat, needless to say.  Soon, it was time to board the water taxi for the ride back to Belize City.

From dockside, our taxi driver raced through narrow streets that I would definitely not want to stroll after dark.  We arrived at the Belize City bus station and suffered a bit of culture shock as we walked through the rather destitute waiting area to our ‘chicken bus’, an over-the-hill American Blue Bird school bus.  Away we went through the dirt streets of the city, bouncing through potholes, dust streaming in through the open windows, music blaring, bound for God knows where!

After crossing many kilometres of swampland and seeing crushing poverty along the way, we arrived at the capital city of Belize, Belmopan.  Our bus pulled into the muddy station, filled up with all manner of creatures of the human variety, and we were off again to our destination of San Ignacio, a one-horse town of about 15,000 souls.  Arriving there, we checked into our hotel, the Venus.  Our standards by now not being very high, we got about what we expected!  There was little hot water, and live wires led to the shower head, but at least the bed wasn’t home-made.

On our full day in San Ignacio, Elva and I decided to team up with two other members of the group and visit the Mayan site called Xunantunich.  We sampled a local delicacy called ‘fried jacks’ at Pop’s Diner and had the best breakfast of the tour so far.  To get to Xunantunich, we hopped into a taxi that looked ready for a demolition derby, rode 12 km. or so toward the Guatemala border, crossed the Mopan River on a small cable ferry, accompanied by several horses, and walked uphill fifteen minutes to the site. 

Our guide, Javier Herrera, was excellent and well worth the $20 US we paid him.  He was very knowledgeable and in no rush, and we were able to climb to the top of the main structure, a 40-metre high pyramid called “El Castillo”.  The tour complemented our visit to Chichen Itza and added considerably to our knowledge of the history of the Mayan civilization.  It’s a shame so much of their knowledge has been lost to the ages.

Saturday morning, it was off to the Guatemala border and our next destination, Flores.  Guatemala is by no means a rich country, but it is clearly more prosperous than Belize.  The agriculture is more advanced and the houses we saw along the way better constructed and maintained.  Flores occupies an island in the middle of a beautiful lake.  It’s a pretty little town with a lot of character and charm.  Our hotel is the best one thus far, and the place makes us want to stay awhile longer!