BootsnAll Travel Network



Nicaragua, how are ya?

December 14th, 2005

We’re in Esteli for the night and heading off to Grenada and Lake Nicaragua afterwards. Pictures and stories to follow, if we find a faster internet connection.

boys from Brazil

Our showerhead in Esteli. Remember hearing that electricity and water do not mix? Of course they do! If you want a warm shower, this is a good way to save energy because you do not heat up the entire tank of hot water. They work well, but they can be a little unnerving if you think about all of those ohms coursing through your body as you soap up. I think I remember hearing that it is not the volts that get you, it is the ohms.

Granada

A church in Granada’s Parque Central.

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Hey, what country was that? Oh, Honduras.

December 14th, 2005

We visited Copan, which is just over the border in Honduras. So, the Spanish conquistadors came to the new world, saw these amazing Maya cities full of beautiful sculptures like those in Copan, and thought, “Hey, these folks need some decimating.” With apologies to my Spanish friends. Copan is known for its unparalleled stelae like this one. They have a magnificent museum, too. Closed for renovations. I guess we will just come back next year when they have finished tidying up.

The rest of Honduras was ok. That would be with the exception of one waiter whose personality bore an uncanny resemblance to Lurch on tv´s The Addams Family.

Stela,...  Stela!

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Adios, Guatemala

December 14th, 2005

Lago Atitlan

Not only is Guatemala a beautiful country, but the people are incredibly friendly and polite. It is even more noticeable after having left the place. Even the police who stopped us and tried to fine us were good-natured. They asked for a “multa” which is a fine, and I kept asking them what this multa thing was. After about 10 minutes of “Sorry senores, I don´t understand,” they gave up and let us go on our way. There were about 7 officers at this particular checkpoint. One of them was even taking a picture of the gringomobile with his cameraphone, or is it a phonecamera?

our host family and us

Our host family, the Farfans, took good care of us while we were in Antigua.

Spanish torture

Finally the tables are turned and I get to wear the bored expression in class. Actually, this was a joke.

angels

These little kids were apparently forced to participate in this parade of some patron saint or some such.

waiting for the parade

parade girls

Antigua homeless shelter

This is the hangout for the local homeless folks.

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Pacaya

December 12th, 2005

We climbed a volcano. It was amazing. The end.

Actually, we are a little behind here due to of course,… technical difficulties. I tried posting from Lago Atitlan and there was a blackout. Yeah, yeah, save your work early and often. I did but for some reason the saved stuff went into the ether as well. Oh well, it was probably the most amazing prose anyone has ever written about anything. Ever.

Now we are in Honduras and after trying three different internet places with no connections, we found one place that works. Slowwwwly. No pictures tonight, just theater of the mind. Let me paint the picture for you.

On our last day in Antigua we decided to take a little hike up a little volcano. Antigua is infested with these hole-in-the-wall travel agencies that offer to take you anywhere at a cheap price. Anywhere as long as it is in the region. The guidebook says that climbing Volcan Pacaya can be a little sketchy becuase of the bandits who prey on tourists. Oh yeah, there is also the matter of poisonous gas and the occasional chunks of molten lava and red hot chunks of boulder flying down onto you.

I truly believe that my head has some sort of magnetic anomaly that attracts flying objects. Normally, when I walk by a sporting event like a neighborhood softball game the ball ends up speeding towards the old cranium. Ditto footballs basketballs, badminton birdies. Basically anything airborne. Honestly, just the other night, a stray soccer ball tried to sideswipe me. Because of this unfortunate history with flying things I figured we should go with a reputable tour company if we were going to go up the volcano; preferably a company with gun-toting guides. We found one and it was not one of the cheapies. It was six times the cost of a fly-by-night place, but they promised an experienced guide and a vegetarian lunch. They just needed one more person to sign up to meet their minimum.

Two days later we are disappointed and looking for another company because no other travelers wanted to pony up the $30 their lives weren’t worth. After we were assured the $5 tour would be fine, we paid. Gee, do you always get what you pay for. I hope not. I don’t know how you can make money charging $5 for a tour that includes 1.5 driving to a site, 4 hours of hiking and then driving another 1.5 with a guide. Gas in Guatemala costs just over $3 per gallon. The secret is they jam pack you into a van with a bunch of other gringoes. If you don’t like sitting on the wheel hump, tough darts. Hey, they gave the guy some foam to sit on. I don’t know what his problem was.

The hike itself was amazing. We hiked up for about 2 hours with the fastest guide in Central America. He had a gun, so I guess noone was going to ask him to slow down. The amazing thing was that there was this Brazilian woman, Maria Jose, who was 74 years old and man, was she in shape. The guide looked at here and basically said, “Granny, we have a horse here that will take you up the mountain.” She was having none of that. She was about twice the age of the next oldest people in our group. Ooops, that would be Giselle and me. She kept refusing and just continued to walk. I was sweating so much that my back was drenched. Not perspiration; half bucket drenched. I like to think I am reasonably fit, but I was hoping the old lady would crack so I could take a breather. Finally, after about 30 minutes, success! She was starting to go a little wobbly. Not so much that she would fall down, but enough that I was trying to remember the CPR course I took about a hundred years ago. She told the guide to take a breather. This lady was gutsy. The guide offered the services of the horse that had been discretely clomping along behind us with his owner. Sort of a horse/vulture scenario. She again refused and told him to continue. I respected her so much at this point I offered to carry the plastic bag in which she her water and camera. We talked a little in Spanish, our common language. It turns out she was from a place in the Amazon. No wonder! A real Amazon woman. She wasn’t 7 feet tall, but this lady could haul herself up a mountain.

After climbing through the woods, we came to a clearing in the trees. Ahead of us stood the barren landscape that signals to all intelligent life it is time to turn around. Not a tree, not a shrub, not even a bent-over little weed grew. Just pebbles, rocks, and boulders piled up into the biggest dang heap you can imagine.

Giselle on the edge

By this point, the climbing had taken its toll on my new friend. She was finished and the guide would not let her go ahead. Hey, it’s his party. It turns out this was a wise decision. For the next 5 years we climb this volcanic nightmare. One step up the hill of pebbles, three-quarters of a step backwards. It was like climbing through vertical quicksand. Oh, Maria Jose, where were you when I needed a break? My lungs burned as the volcanic dust swirled around my sweaty head. Oh, great idea, let’s go for a hike. At least some of the other hikers sat on the side of the trail with a sheepish grin as Giselle and I walked by. Sure, hiking is not a competitive sport, but it could be. It turned into one for me because none of the other members of the group were helping Maria Jose in any way. Sweet, unspoken revenge on a nature walk.

After two eternities, success. We had hiked far enough to see what must have been almost the summit. A little futher along and we saw the poisonous clouds of fumes blowing off the top of the volcano. Little wisps of death blowing into the sky. Hey, let’s go there. The final haul up the hill involved a change in composition of the hiking surface. Before it was like walking on semi-ground dog kibble mixed with sand. Now it was solid, cooled lava with the sharpness of broken glass. The lava had cooled into twisted formations that looked like thick, gooey ropes. After climbing this final vertical mound we had made it. From here we could peer into the crater of the volcano. Down about 20 feet was red-hot lava with yellow sulfurous rocks around the fringes and clouds of the nasty gas blowing around. Unreal and indescribeable. Completely worth the agony. Look for the pictures when we get a better connection.

From Antigua, we headed to Lago Atitlan for even more scenery. Here’s a picture of an interesting resident of the mystical town of San Marcos. Raj is originally from India, lately from Houston, and for the past 5 or 6 years, a resident of Guatemala.

Giselle and Raj on Raj's roof

Today we crossed the border into Honduras and will visit Copan tomorrow. Copan is another Mayan site with some spectacular carvings and sculptures. Look for the pictures.

Then we will head to Lago Yojoa for some nature. Look for the pictures.

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Fellow Alum

December 6th, 2005

We went to the market at Chichicastenango which is a couple of exhaust-filled hours from Antigua. We left the car in this parking area and Giselle noticed that the guy who lived/worked there was wearing a baseball cap from Rutgers University, my dear alma mater. We grads do get around.

Diego and kids

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Mystery meat

December 5th, 2005

Dan and I been taking Spanish classes here in Antigua. There is one student for each teacher, so you get a lot of individual attention. My teacher is a 24-year old Evangelical Christian woman. Today she told me that hamburgers from McDonald’s and Burger King contain the flesh of dead people. Wow, and I just thought they were nasty cow meat.

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Post-rodeo frat party

December 3rd, 2005

Dan forgot about the event that finished off the evening. After the teasing and taunting of the bulls, a new game began. The MC requested audience volunteers to enter the ring. Four young men climbed the fence and presented themselves. Dan got excited, thinking, “Surely this will be interesting!” The MC placed a can of beer on the ground in front of each contestant. Uh oh, that doesn’t seem right. (The whole time, the MC is shouting something in Spanish at the top of his lungs, despite the fact that he is holding a microphone. Eddie Rabbit and Juice Newton alternate in the background.) The first contestant braces himself before kneeling down before the beer. Ready, go! He chugs the beer, runs at top speed across the ring, and another guy spins him around ten times really fast. Then the contestant stumbles as he tries to race back to his starting point. He’s dizzy and wavers a lot. The crowd roars with laughter.

Contestants 2 and 3 are even dizzier. Ha ha ha. Contestant 4 gets extra laughs and cheers, because, ha ha, he’s a GRINGO! Ha ha, isn’t that funny? The crowd starts chanting, “Tom-my, Tom-my!”

There’s a run-off for the 2 finalists, one of whom is of course, Tommy. More drinking, more running, more spinning. Ha ha. Strikes me as a Guatemalan frat party, without the half-naked girls. (If you haven’t guessed, I wasn’t a big frat-party goer in college.)

Guess who won the contest. The honor of gringos everywhere has been upheld. Yay, Tommy.

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Bull

December 3rd, 2005

Antigua is an incredibly charming city. One guidebook said it looks like some designer came in and ¨did¨ a colonial thing. Perhaps a little ochre paint here, some colonnades here, a cracked wall here… It is true.

Our language training is going ok, too. At least as well as can be expected. In any language course there is a huge disconnect between what you can learn and practice in a controlled environment and putting the words to the test. Imagine learning to speak English in a school, then you are put in the middle of New York City during rush hour in the middle of 5th Avenue, you are stripped to your underwear which says ´New Yorkers are idiots´, and then you have the ask the waiter what something on the menu is before the taxi runs you over.

We went on a little trip with our school last night. The notice board called the trip, ´Corrida de toros´or something reasonably close to that. To me, that means ´Running of the bulls!´ Hot dang, gonna see some real yay-hooo style fun. We have only seen video of the bulls running through the streets of Pamplona and that seemed like a good time for a spectator with bloodlust. Hmm, add in the locale of a developing country with verrry few lawyers and I imagined some incredible photographs ahead. No bloodlust, just some interesting snapshots and a great travel tale.

We arrived to Ciudad Vieja and headed for an area covered with a giant blue tarp to keep prying eyes out. Surely they were coaching the bulls on the best way to gore a gringo. We gave the gatekeeper our tickets and entered. Wait a minute. This is just a corral. Ok, they have to start from somewhere. I used my pathetic Spanish to ask the guy sitting next to me what was going to happen. ¨Mucho sangre!¨ ¨Toro o hombre?¨ ¨Hombre!¨

What have I become? Am I a monster, or do I just like the idea of a fair fight? I am actually a proponent of bear, lion, shark, and cobra hunting, but only when the ´competitors´are equipped with their god-given gifts. Fist to claw, tooth to fang, foot to whatever. It seems a little lopsided when someone ´takes down´an animal with enough firepower to stop a Subaru.

The light from the afternoon faded in the corral. Cue the blaring Juice Newton song (remember ¨Queen of Hearts¨ – if you do, you are just as pathetic as Giselle and I are. Think of all that wasted brain space). Cue the overamplified MC selling beer, well-chilled and well-priced. Noche especial! Camera ready. Bulls in the corral being forced to walk in circles. Again and again. And again. Ok, really rile up them bulls. Hmm, those bulls have their horns cut off. Even so, I suppose getting stepped on by one, or nudged by one will not be pleasant. Noche Especial!!!

But first, Miss Ciudad Vieja 2005 must crown Miss 2006. I won´t go off on this topic except to say if I were Miss 2005, I wouldn´t be thrilled about getting crowned in the middle of a corral in which a dozen bulls have been walking around. Something about the juxtaposition of all that livestock and a beauty queen left me feeling very, very sad. NOCHE MUY ESPECIAL!

Enough of the beauty queen. Los toros ahora! The MC hit the disco strobe light and from one end of the corral a genyoowine cowboy entered, half strolling, half jogging. Another cowboy, and another until there were about a dozen. At last, the offerings to the bulls. I was torn between feeling sorry for these poor guys who had let their machismo get the best of them, and pondering the current debate back home about Darwinism. So, maybe they won´t let the bulls run in the street after all, but it will be something to see these guys get chased around a corral. A real live pin the tail on the donkey scenario. There was a group prayer led by one of the cowboys: an excellent time to call for help from above.

Now the cowboys are leaving the corral, maybe to stretch. Now a cowboy is going to the other side of the corral to get on top of a bull. Hey, wait a minute, this is starting to look like a rodeo. It is a rodeo. He rides the bull for a full two seconds before he gets violently thrown to the ground.

There are several very good reasons why we have never gone to a rodeo. Among them is the fact that there are very few rodeos in NW Washington, DC, our nation´s capital of not having rodeos.

Another is the whole playing with your food thing. By the way, if you didn´t know, we are both vegetarians. Not the evangelistic type, just the type that thinks if you are going to eat something you should treat it nicely before you eat it. If a lion is going to eat me, I prefer he just do it instead of batting me around silly for a while.

All in all, it was definitely an interesting spectacle to be categorized under ´learning about different cultures,´but actually one we would have preferred to miss. Rodeo kids

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We Must Be High

December 1st, 2005

The drive from the border to our first stop, Quetzaltenango (aka Xela), was spectacular. The Panamerican Highway twists and curves its way through valleys and over mountains, past volcanoes and over rivers. The drivers in Guatemala are a little more aggressive, but still quite low on the suicide meter. The road itself is in good condition with the exception of some parts that suffered landslides from hurricane Stan. It is all passable with a regular passenger car, even one that is on its last legs.

When we got out of the truck to climb the stairs to the hotel room I started breathing heavily. Not because Giselle is so lovely, but because the elevation of Xela is something like 50,000 feet above sea level. Good thing I don´t jog, because I really would have been out of breath.

Now we are in Antigua and have signed up for a week of Spanish classes. The town is a well-preserved remnant from colonial days. It has the charm of a city with historic buildings along with the frenetic pace you just don´t find back home. Think explosion of colors, smells, and sounds. There are guys who drive around all day with giant speakers on top of their cars. They shout something like, “ESPECIAL BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, Y AHORA! PRECIO BLAH, BLAH, BLAH! BARATO BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!” I sure hope Spanish class solves the mystery of their mobile messages. They start at the crack of dawn, just after the roosters stop crowing and the church bells ring 24 times at 6:03 am.

Antigua volcano

We are still trying to figure out the system the churches use for determining how many times the bells should ring. Giselle thinks it is just how many times they feel like it. I believe there is something more sinister at work. Once I asked a guy in Merida why the bells seemed to ring almost randomly. He stopped smiling and looked me in the eye and said, “The bells ring exactly the right number of times. Comprende, Senor?” Si.

Hmm...these look good

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Crossing the line

December 1st, 2005

Giselle and I both were a bit anxious about crossing into Guatemala from Mexico. I have this vein in my forehead that really bulges out whenever I go to DMV to do something I believe is a simple transaction. You know, like you go to renew the registration on your car and the nice lady says there is no record of such a car in the computer. Oh, I have lots of those stories.

The mere mention of the two countries on either side of the border caused my insurance company into something I imagine to be an apoplectic fit. “What! You want to drive where?! Hell no, we won´t insure you. In fact, we are going to increase your rates when you come back just for asking if we would insure you.” We have read, and heard unpleasant stories of sweaty officials swatting flies with their guns just waiting for some gringos to come along and entertain them.

It was all a bit of a letdown. On the Mexico side we pulled into the border station and showed the guy in the both our vehicle permit we had obtained upon entry at the northern border of Matamoros. He took the official windshield sticker from our truck and then wished us a “buen viaje” after giving us another official looking document that showed we paid the necessary fees. No vein bulging so far. But wait, we have the infamous Guatemalan border where people have ossified waiting for paperwork.

We had printouts from the very good website “DriveMeLoco.com” explaining the process. It was a little overwhelming- see this guy, give that guy this document, get the vehicle fumigated here, stop there…etc.

Perhaps we got them on a good day, but it was a surprisingly fast and easy transaction. After we crossed the border, the fumigation guy sprayed the outside of our truck with something, maybe water, maybe DDT. Then we stopped in with the passport inspection office to fill out one form and pay 10 Quetzals (a little over a dollar). Then we moved on to customs to watch the guy fill out a form for us. We paid 41 Quetzals more (about 6 dollars) and that was it. Wait a minute! They didn´t even look inside the vehicle. All they asked was if we had weapons and/or ammunition. Sure buddy, I got a bazooka in the back seat. Is that a problem?

Results may vary, but it was easy and straightforward. All of the officials were polite and efficient. Friendly even. Go figure. Vein intact. Perhaps DMV employees can come to the border to get some learning.

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