Pictures from the trip

Costa Rica/Nicaragua

Honduras/Guatemala

On to Guatemala

Well, I am now an international criminal, but we will get to that later on.

Right now we´re at Rosa´s beautiful house in Guatemala City. Rosa was a foreign exchange student who stayed with our mom and grandparents in New York in the 1970s. They have communicated ever since and her and her family agreed to be our host for two days in the city. They took us out to Antigua today, which is one of the two big tourist cities in the country, and we went on a bike ride around a coffee field. Rosa´s daughter Maria´s 2-year-old son, Diego, got the fortune of both getting a horseback ride and a bike ride. Fortunately I did not crash when he was on my bike! But their family has been so nice to us and we are grateful for being their guests.

Our return trip to Bajamar wasn´t as great as the first as, unfortunately, some people tried to use us for money AND we got there too late to see the traditional Garifuna dancing. We did get to see some of the locals dance that way later at night, though.

We also saw the ruins at Copan, which is on Honduras near the Guatemalan border. It was amazing the detail the Mayans put into their sculptures, temples and everything else. It is similar to the painstaking detail people put into churches, etc., that we´ve seen, so intense sculpting for religion seems to cross all cultures. We did learn some pretty intense things about the Mayans, including what transpired on their ¨Ball court¨. At first we thought this game -- which is played between two slanted walls and one where a winner is declared as the player/team who throws a rubber ball at several sculptures of a macaw´s head the most times -- was just for fun, BUT turns out that, in big games, the losing player/team was sacrified. Glad our modern day games don´t end like that, because I would have been dead a long time ago.

I have to say, I loved Honduras for the 1.5 weeks we were there, but our ¨frontera¨experience soured me on the whole country. I was forced to pay a fine of 3200 lempiras ($160 bucks) because a portion of a yellow immigration paper had gotten torn off when my passport was in my bag. It is in Honduran law that if that paper was ¨lost or damaged, any national or foreigner has to pay half of the minimum wage for a month.¨Unfortunately this didn´t occur in Nicaragua, where the minimum wage is just $75, but the damn paper was oversized for the passport and I didn´t fold it up like David and, apparently, everyone else in the world. We didn´t even have nearly enough cash to pay the fine, so if it wasn´t for an extremely nice man from Luxembourg (sorry, we lost your e-mail so I can´t write and say thanks), we would have been trapped in Honduras.

We´re off to Lake Atitlan tomorrow, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful spots in the world.

Utila

The Garifunda festival was pretty fun in Bajamar. We met a few people and they convinced us to come back for the big finale on Sunday. Our dive instructor was cool enough to change around our schedule, allowing us to finish our practice dives Saturday morning, and our free fun dives that same afternoon to make the fiesta.

The garifunda's have a homemade drink called Guifidi, which is made with any rum either really cheap or Flor de Caña (nicaraguan rum). Its then poured into a bigger bottle, and they had 10 different herbs and leaves. 2 that I remember are called Escalera de Mono (a vine.. monkey stairs) and Palo Hombre Grande (Big Man Tree). The latter is supposedly a natural viagra "para la potencia del hombre" said our waitress. Strong but a little tasty. We'll get some more of that on Sunday, most ppl give it out free. Their traditional music and dance is called Punta.

On Tuesday we arrived at Utila -- part of the Bay Islands off the north coast of Honduras -- and have started our certification classes, which should wrap up Saturday with a bunch of free times. Not much time right now, so I'll get back to what we've been up to later, but this place is awesome, outside of it being really, really humid and I wanted to put up this picture we took that I really like.

The water is so green; it's amazing.

Beisbol

Never did I think I would be able to watch a baseball game in a country other than America, but as it turns out beisbol is bigger than soccer in Nicaragua and we were staying in a town that just happened to be hosting a home game in the country's professional league. So... today we took in an epic Leon-Esteli baseball game. Well the game wasn't so epic for the home team Esteli, which lost 12-1 when the game was called after 7 innings (meaning I will now buy a Leon hat instead of Esteli), but it was kind of trippy to be one of 2 Americans watching a game we invented, alongside an entire town of Nicos. (We also brought along a British friend we met, and got to show him his first baseball game). The game actually took place in a town called Pueblo Nuevo (about an hour from Esteli). I guess they do 2 games a week in Esteli and two games a week in this other town, which is very small and EVERYONE in the town came out to the game. It was kind of funny, though, because David, who is fluent in Spanish but doesn't know baseball as well as me, ended up the whole game explaining baseball to the British guy, while I, who knows basically no spanish, spent the whole time talking to a Nicaraguan about all sorts of things. He told me players make $500 US a month (very good considering the minimum wage is only $75 a month), two guys from the league just signed on to minor league contracts, Vicente Padilla owns a mansion in Nicaragua and several $1 million racehorses, all while teaching me spanish terms for baseball (they pretty much just use english words for everything, outside of a lancedor throwing a pitch to a receptor).

Also, thanks to James from England for loaning us some money for the bus ride back to the hostel! We nearly did not have enough Cordobas to make it back. Good thing all 3 of us did not indulge too much on the $.75 cent beer or we would have been walking.

Edit from David: We actually had EXACTLY enough to get home, 51 cordovas by bus for the 17c each. oops, we got on an express bus where the fee was 30c each. the pavo (turkey/bus helper) wasn't too happy but eventually gave in to our desperation.

Had a pretty full day in Esteli, because right before the game we toured a cigar factory. Saw how the tobacco was treated and how they were rolled -- and even got a free cigar that we were able to smoke during the entire tour.

Nicaragua has been kind of eye-opening. It is a very poor country, however the people here are so nice and welcoming. But I did not realize how much political turmoil existed here and how unstable the country has been, up until very recent. In a few days they are celebrating a revolution that occurred about 30 years ago. Like half the people in that country lived through and experienced all of that change, so I imagine the celebration will be really charged with emotion. Compare that to our July 4 celebration, which is now just about BBQs, beer and fireworks, with no attachment to the real purpose. Unfortunately we can't go to the festival in Managua on July 19 b/c it would really push back our plans.

Thank you to Mercedes, who David met while serving in Panama. She let us stay at her house for 2 days in Leon and showed us around the town, including several awesome murals that depicted all of the change and turmoil here between 1950 and now (much of which America helped to cause). She actually was a reserve soldier in the revolution, so it was interesting to hear here take on why she joined and the sentiment here in the 1980s.

Leon was a cool town; seemed pretty safe with 15-year-old walking around by themselves around 11 p.m. We did some volcano boarding on Cerro Negro, which was a blast, but a little disconcerting since we were actually walking on top of and peering over an active volcano.

Tomorrow, we're off to the Caribbean coast of Honduras for a local dance festival and the some scuba diving. Apparently, it is whale shark season so hope we see 'em.

Earthquake in Upala

We got to La Fortuna late on the 10th, checked out Volcan Arenal the next day. Was hoping to see some national geographic lava like the videos on youtube but it didn't work out for us. Apparently its been pretty quiet since last October or November. It's nice out there in the national park though and was cool to see the recent streaks on the volcano from the lava. We got poured on on our way out and luckily one of the tour bus drivers gave us to free ride back to town. On that ride we met a phd student from france doing her studies in costa rica and went out that night to watch Costa Rica get destroyed by Argentina. You could call it a bad decision or not, but we stayed out, karaoked and hung out with our hostal owners. I told greg we'd miss the bus and probably get screwed out of going to San Juan del Sur, he didnt believe me and well.. we didn't make it haha. It's good he learned that lesson early, because he never would have trusted me til it actually happened.

Got out of La Fortuna a little late on the 12th, and started bus hopping hoping to make it across the border in time. When we arrived in a town called Upala to catch the border bus, we found out the next one wasn't leaving until 5 so we just hung around and eventually made it up to La Cruz (pretty close to the border) for the night. At our little stop over in Upala, we were sitting around eating, getting checked out by 13 year old girls and the ground started moving. People were freaking out running around for safety and making phone calls. Was a 5.1 with 2 aftershocks. They said the volcano nearby started smoking. Turns out the only person that fainted was one of those girls haha. Here's an article on the temblor

The CR/Nica border was pretty easy.. MUCH quicker than panama/CR. What was nuts though was how long the line was for trucks and buses. We're lucky to have cabbed over because we got dropped off right at the window.. if we had bussed we would have had to walk a few kms or more. Got through and bus hopped to Leon. We're staying with a woman I had met in Panama, Mercedes. She is the Cosecha Sostenible (agency I built stoves with) directora of central america. Signed up to volcano board Cerro Negro tomorrow morning. Theres a full moon hike set up for tomorrow night but I don't think we'll make it since the plan is to get to Estelí for a cigar factory tour and baseball game the next day.

I'm diggin the food all over. The plates are all pretty similar to a Panamanian fonda.. rice beans, a little salad and some kind of meat but now that we're getting further north we're starting to see tortillas too, and not the little fried corn hockeypuck of a tortilla from Panama. A meal that would be 2, maaybe 2.50 in Panama is 5, 6, could be 7 in Costa Rica :/. Nica's prices are back to normal. Didn't make it to Granada, but the two volcanos on Lake Nicaragua are a cool sight.

Out of the two CR beers I tried, Imperial and Pilsen.. both of us decided Pilsen was better. It is Panama's Panama, while Imperial is its Atlas. Update on Nicaraguan beer later (toña/victoria)

Some word differences I'm noticing.

Plastic bag which is cartucho in Panama is just a bolsa in Costa Rica. I asked for a cartucho and Sylvia our hostal owner was very confused. Also they say campo for space, or a seat on a bus. kept hearing "hay campo, hay campo". A Soda is a little restaurant or fonda in panamanian spanish. By the way, fonda is a bolsa/cartucho in Ecuador. A soda (the drink) is a fresco in CR and gaseosa here in Nica. A hostel is a hostal in panama, cabinas in CR and hotelito in Nica.

From Greg:

As far as my Spanish experience goes, I learned that using Spanglish is not always the best idea. Trying to tell the people in David's town that I was embarrassed as how I was speaking, I made up some word "embarazo." Turns out that it was not a made-up word at all, so what I ended up telling everybody was "I am a pregnancy". So.. that was fun!

Trip Planned!

Well... about a week in, we finally have everything (almost) figured out. Tomorrow we're going to an active volcano in Costa Rica, then up to a beach town in Nicaragua for ziplining and to watch turtles lay eggs. On the way to eventually leaving from Mexico City on Aug. 6, we're going to go scuba diving for like 5 days on a Caribbean island, go whitewater rafting, see a bunch of Mayan ruins, see Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, see a soccer game in Mexico to see how real soccer fans act and some other cool stuff. Of course we have to get buses at all the right times and hope our guidebook is right about travel times (it definitely was not today as an expected 12-hour trip took 24 hours), so we'll see what ends up happening.

The trip today was ridiculously long because, for some reason, Panama decided to have only one person working their customs check. When you have bus after bus (and an angry group of a motorcycle gang) all in line, that just does not work right. It took us four hours to cross the border ... unfortunately every country can't be like the swinging gate entrance to Mexico. We also probably would have missed our connecting bus, but as it turns out we gained an hour entering Costa Rica, which neither of us realized heading into the trip that Panama was a different time zone than the other countries.

Costa Rica so far is pretty nice. It is so green and the whole country seems to be a giant forest. It is expensive though, even though $1 US dollar is worth $500-plus "colones", things are still a lot. I ended up paying nearly $4000 colones for a bowl of Chinese food of chicken and broccoli (in my defense, my spanish is so bad I did not know I was ordering chinese food, because obviously I mean to try central american food while I'm here). I did buy some pretty good fruit from some people who just came onto our bus during a passport checkpoint to sell it. I forget the name, but it looked like those spikey brown things that fall from trees, but you could peel them open and eat the insides that kind of tasted like an orange.

They were called Mamón Chino. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambutan

In Loma Bonita, there was ONE known mamón chino tree so I didn't see a whole lot of it unless I was in penonomé at the market. What we had all over was the regular Mamón which is a little more sour but so good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melicoccus_bijugatus

Fireworks videos

Here are some videos of the fireworks we did on my last night in Panama. The first one is at the school, the second one is Greg attempting a firework at my place, and the last one is me and Samuel doing one at Maria's (1st host mom) house.

We set these off at the school during a bingo night, and after a few shots the box fell over. The best part is that not one kid cried and no one seemed to be worried. Everyone just "para ver"d for the video cracking up. I miss panama

I thought the school video was going to be the most ridiculous of the night.. until this one

"it's a real firework??"

We left Panama last night at 11 on ticabus, which after a long delay and some shoving btwn the bus workers and some costa ricans, we got on our way.. making it to San Jose around 5:30 instead of 1. Good timing, we made it on the 6 oclock bus to San Carlos, where we thought we were going to have to stay because people were saying that there were no more buses to La Fortuna (guide book also said that). Turns out there was a bus, which got us here around 11. 24 hours on buses but we made it and are gonna check out Volcan Arenal tomorrow.

Bye Loma Bonita

Well, I COS'd (close of service) last week officially on July 1st. Picked up Maria and went back to LB for a few days. Of course I got sick but against the new nurse's recommendations pushed through it and continued to be sick. It was worth it though seeing everyone for the last time, hearing repeated bye's and goodbye cards from the kids and taking pictures. We went to the city to pick up Greg and then back for just over 1 day.. not a whole lot of time for him to spend there but he got the jist of it.

Btw for when you leave your community for good, have someone else with you, it gives you a little cushion and eases the blow of suddenly leaving your home of 2 years knowing that you won't be communicating with your people that often.

You might have seen, Greg's an author on this blog now too so he'll be adding bits about our trip. And like he said, he almost blew himself up. He didn't know you had to let go of the firework for it to shoot off. Then after surviving he read the instructions and realized "hey! it says don't shoot it with your hands".

Sent Maria and Anzuelo off this morning. Didn't go as planned and was reallly stressful. The guys at the cargo company told me it was "right behind the airport" but well, it was another 15 minute DRIVE east from the airport and had already dropped off the car. Had to leave Maria while she was checking her bags and cab over to the cargo area and deal with the dog.

Turned out I had got there just a little too late so they have to send him on a different flight, meaning he's getting into Houston today too late and has to stay the night.. not making it to SF until tomorrow midday. As long as everyone does their jobs and gives him food and water he'll be fine. What I'm worried about is that they won't do their jobs. I feel bad for leaving him, he has no idea whats going on and won't see anyone he knows until 2pm tomorrow, but he'll be ok. They had told me they weren't going to take him out of his cage during the 4 hour layover.. now that he is staying the night, I'm not sure what will happen..

More info and pictures to come.

Hola!

So, David has been lacking in his blog updates, so I figured I'd join in and make this more up-to-date.

We are at a hostel in Panama City ready to begin our trip across Central America tomorrow. Maria leaves for San Francisco in the morning, then me and David will check out the Canal and go from there. We end in Mexico City on Aug. 6 and have to fill in the dates in between with activities, much of which are unknown.

Gotta go to bed right now to wake up early and take Maria to the airport, but a few quick highlights of my short stay in David's town of Loma Bonita include handing out gifts from Maria's church to the kids at school, meeting all of the townspeople (they all love David), getting to light trash on fire, eating this awesome sweet banana snack called "guineo-chino" and nearly blowing myself up with a firework (video to come!). The lowlight was taking a freezing cold shower from a PVP pipe at 6 a.m. (I don't know how David did this for 2 years).