Nicaragua misc gallery

Lake Jojoa gallery

Joshua Tree gallery

Am I still in South America?

Today I learned this sentence in my daily Spanish lesson:

Los buses pueden ser muy bulliciosos, 

especialmente cuando el cofer pone música 

Which is very true for all of central and south America, bus rides being comprised of driving down roads with break neck speed, while listening to mariachi music with the loudspeakers set to 11.

But in Chile I saw this sign in the bus:

this image has been lost

the driving style here is still South American though, I already had an argument with someone trying to steal my parking space.

More technical fails

So, when I started this trip I applied for a credit card (never had one before...) and decided to take my fathers partner card as a backup. I also have an Icelandic EC card with a couple of hundred Euros still on my Icelandic bank account and I thought, what the hell, better safe than sorry.

So here are me 3 cards:



Of these are currently working: 0

My fathers master was the most useless of them all, although more due to human error than technical failure. I had the wrong pin and we never found out which the right one was. I also could not pay with it, as I look nothing like my father, people generally find it hard to believe that my name is Heinz (like the Ketchup!) and I'm bad in forging signatures. I think I once paid a hostel online with it. It is blocked now anyway, because I tried to donate money to public libraries.

My credit card was just blocked by the bank now as well, not because I donated money (learned my lesson, charity is bad ) but because it got skimmed. Where, I don't know, but it is a common occurrence the whole hostel in Santiago is full of people waiting for credit cards.

I thought, wow, now I get to use my Icelandic EC card after all, only to find out it is expired, ah well, I guess singing on the street it is.

Monkey business

Today I received a reply to an email I wrote to Faunaforever, an environmentalist NGO based in Puerto Maldonado (Tambopata) about my experiences with monkeys in the jungle lodge I stayed in.

Here is what they wrote:

Dear Christina

Many thanks for your enquiry and your concern
about the trade of wildlife in Puerto Maldonado.
The story is not as clear as it could be and
there is a lot of grey area.

Are you able to tell us the lodge where you
experienced this? The reason I ask is that we 
know of some lodges who have bought their 
wildlife (although probably won't admit it) and 
some who have rescued wildlife.  

Some lodges have become safe havens for animals 
which were once someone's unwanted pet and some 
animals even come from the local wildlife rescue 
center which cannot find space to house more 
animals and they look to lodges for help.


The chances are though that if there is a tame 
animal at a lodge, it has been purchased by 
passing pet traders who came down river from the 
rainforest. It's very sad.


Unfortunately, Peru's law on having pets from the 
rainforest is slack at the best of times.  
However, being a lodge there is probably more 
chance that the officials will move on it if we 
tip them off.


Do let us know.


Thanks again!


Dave

So, monkeys in a lodge might not mean that the lodge participates in wildlife trade. I think as a tourist it is good to ask questions when you see wildlife being kept as pets, though. If they are rescued animals the owners will understand your concern. If they are bought voicing concern is even more important. If tourists don't like it, lodges won't do it. I feel a bit bad about passing on the name of the lodge, ratting people out and all of that. But it is for the Greater Good I guess.

For the monkeys!

He also wrote this:

Ps. Good blog!

I agree!

Happy New Year!

See you in 2013

Monkeys

Lets go back to Peru for a bit. More precise, lets go into the Amazon jungle in Peru.



This entry did take a while as I had written an email with questions to the lodge I had stayed in, as otherwise I felt it would only consist of assumptions and accusations. As I neither received a reply to the mail written in English, nor in Spanish in the end Internet research had to do.

The lodge I stayed in was one of the usual jungle lodges near the lake Sandoval in Tamapota. The area is awesome



and the jungle holds an abundance of beautiful to creepy animals, one morning we visited the nesting area of wild macaw and on the night walk in the evening saw giant tarantulas.
The people in the lodge were really friendly and welcoming, which was one reason I felt obliged to hear what they have to say about this issue, before writing the blog entry.

This is about the animals in the lodge. There were 5 (not counting the cat and the pig). A baby wild pig, a macaw, a Titi monkey, a baby Howler monkey and a baby Spider monkey. The lodge is not a research station, the animals, as we were told when we asked, were bought, not rescued.
Officially the trade of wild animals is forbidden in Peru. Especially the trade of endangered animals, which macaws and spider monkeys are. Yet it is common.
Macaws are caught and their flight feathers cut, baby monkeys are often caught by killing the mother. The survival rate of a baby monkeys which have been taken away from its mother is said to be less than 10%.
I have to say that both the baby howler and spider monkeys, who were about 6 month old, looked healthy and well cared for, but then, I'm no vet.
Once male monkeys in captivity reach sexual maturity they often become aggressive or start masturbating excessively, because of sexual frustration.
Funny how similar monkeys and human males can be :)

The neighbour lodge had a grown male howler monkey, but he seemed to be pretty chilled



and mostly just hung around in trees. Howler monkeys have an impressively strong tail, hanging from a tree, 15m from the ground only by their tail is a relaxed position for them.



The Titi monkey in the lodge was grown up as well and there was nothing aggressive about him. He was rather like my cat had been, crawling on my lap and demanding a cuddle, jumping on the table when I was writing something or playing cards and placing himself right on top of whatever I was busy with (just that he would pick up and examine the playing cards as well). He even climbed on my shoulder and sat still there and I felt a bit like Pippi Langstrumpf walking around with him.



The macaw in the lodge was mean though, his flight feathers had been cut, but he used his beak to climb up trees. When he was hungry he came down on the porch and liked to try and peck our toes or the monkeys, understandably especially when they came close to his food.
As you can see from the above, I'm a bit of a hypocrite, as I fully enjoyed the experience of playing with monkeys and took lots of pictures of them.



But in my defense, had I known beforehand I would have chosen a lodge without wild animals as pets over this one and I advice other travellers to do so.

After all the only reason the lodges buy the animals in the first place is because they think this is what the tourists want. And unfortunately they do as the references for another lodge on tripadvisor show.

Not that this surprised me. I found that a lot of tourists (especially the ones carrying backpacks and Lonely Planet guide books) do not give a shit about their impact on local culture, environment or social conditions, as long as it is cheap and there is a party.
May their porters sleep out in the rain with nothing but a tarp on the Inka Trail, being paid next to nothing, may the druglords make lots of money with cocaine sold in Cartagena and may the lodge have cute monkeys for us to play with.

how not to travel by scooter reposted

No, I'm not still going by scooter, but someone had this page bookmarked for spam, so I deleted the original post and repost it now. Don't now if this helps, but I cannot close the comments from here as I would need to alter the file on my computer...

First of all I have to say that travelling on Moty (yes, I gave it a name) is fun. But there are certain things one should research, prepare for or just take into account. So for those who feel like travelling a long way with a scooter here is some advice:
Know what a scooter can and cannot do. My scooter is a 2 stroke, 49cc engine, basically similar to a lawnmower, sounds the same, too! It relies on a oil/gas/oxygen mixture. Which means that going over a mountain pass, which is 4600 feet high might alter oxygen pressure and cause your engine to die. Again, and again, and again. Going down was fun, though and Mt. Reinier is beautiful.
Have a good map, especially going in and out of cities. Unless you enjoy having to go in circles, backtrack and have lots of converstions with local, trying to find out where you are and how to get where you want to go to. I hate one way streets.
Don't keept your food inside the scooter next to the gas tank. It makes your breakfast unenjoyable.
Gas... fill it up on time...


But, going through the backroads of Washington and Oregon was fun, the landscape is beautiful, deer are grazing by the road, the small towns are pretty and people are generally nice. It is definatly different from running from tourist destination to tourist destination. I just arrived at the coast of Oregon today, weather is gray for the first time, but seaside is pretty and I will be getting icecream today in a town down the coast. But first I will go and buy oatmeal, which does not taste of gas...

Eruption!

I seem to be cursed when in comes to volcanoes. On one hand they keep erupting when I'm in the country, on the other hand I never seem to get to see it. In Iceland a lot of times it was simply not advisable to get close to it, because of ash or floods and at other times I was not invited along when people went to look at it.

So when I woke up in the morning in Estanzuela-Tisey, a cloud forest reserve close to Esteli and was told by the other guests staying there that a volcano was erupting and they are going to look at it NOW, I ran off with them without breakfast to finally see an erruption.
But the curse keeps following me, low blood sugar together with stronger monthly pains than I have had for a long time made me almost have a dizzy spell. I sloooowly went back to the Finca I was staying in, almost threw up in front of some other guests having breakfast and decided it was time for bed and bananas. The nice owners of the Finca brought me what I think was chamomile tea and pain medication for my monthlies. I love drugs...

I felt a bit silly after I recovered, went around the Finca bit and took some pictures to relax the owners who were eyeing me as if I was about to keel over again. Understandably. After some time I made my way back to the lookout point and made it all the way up this time. It was actually only an hour easy walking, I felt even more silly. The volcano curse seemed to have passed to my camera however, it spontaneously opened up, ruining the last film I had, which is why there are no pictures from me for this post.

The cloud forest is beautiful, it is definitely my favourite type of rainforest, also because it is nice and cool there. At the lookout point I saw dark clouds gathered in the distance with frequent lightning travelling through them. It could have been a thunderstorm, but instead of intermittent thunder I could hear the constant rumbling of the erupting volcano, though it was 100km away.



Even without an eruption is the lookout point worth the walk, one can see all the way to the pacific, I got the picture from the Internet to give an idea the volcano is the one that erupted. Clouds and patches of sunlight were drifting through the cloud forests and the next morning I hiked to a waterfall without any embarrassing episodes.

Esteli

Esteli was the first town in Nicaragua I stayed in. It is quite different from the other towns I have visited, there are no old colonial structures and if there is a Gringolandia, I did not find it. And I did walk through all of the city, it is not so big and easy to navigate. The king of town you fell like owning a bicycle would be enough in terms of transport.
Or a horse. After all this is a cowboy city. Actually in the town itself one does not see people on horses, but a lot in the surrounding countryside. Horses in Central America are pityful, I saw maybe a handfull which did not looked malnutritioned and they carry loads which would have made my fat lazy donkey sit down and fold his hoofs in protest. There is evidence of cowboy culture however:





No horses and no pretty colonial houses, what is there to look at in Esteli? Quite a lot actually, it is the town I took most pictures. People love to paint on the walls in the city, it is somewhat of a treasure hunt, whenever you turn a corner there might be a mureal waiting. Styles, topics and locations vary:



Esteli was one of the towns which supported the Sandinistas during the revolution and is still one of the strongholds of the FSLN therefore a lot of the mureals are political or simply campain advertisement from the 2011 election (which the FSLN won).



Unfortunatly I could not go into the museum I wanted to go to, dedicated to the fallen of the revolution (and run by their mothers), as it was closed. I asked in the culture centre next to it (a beautiful place, pictures and music everywhere) and they said that it is pretty much open whenever they feel like it.

I did see a lot of the modern cultural live of the city, not only in the culture centre, but also going out for food and karaoke/dancing/salsa, the latter in a club which alternated between the three every 30 min, making it never boring. I went with my couchsurfing host and his flatmates and friends, they were nice enough not to make me sing.

Lake Yojoa

I spend three days in a micro-brewery on the lake Yojoa in central Honduras. The beer was better than the usual Port Royal and Salva Vida, nowhere near Icelandic quality, but there were lots of nice people to drink it with, amongst them two traumatised English teachers (they were volunteering in a village controled by the drug mafia) and two English guys who managed to become the stars of an advertisement of Pollo Campera (the Guatemalan KFC) as one of them represents the typical gringo, which being blond and very British is quite true.
Despite all the beer, I did manage to hike through the nature reserve close to it and the adjacent coffee plantation, taking quite a few pictures I´m rather proud of.

I also went on a boat ride with Malcolm, a ornithologist from England with whom I had a rather interesting discussion about Tibet. We saw lots of birds, but taking pictures without a zoom was rather difficult, but I got one of this little fellow:



a bird so light and with such big feet that he can walk on the smallest of plants, making it look as if he can walk on water.

I also went to the waterfalls close by, with two girls I had met at the guest house. We were told we can walk behind the falls, but wondered a bit how this should be done when we saw them.
The trick is to swim/walk through the falls directly as it turned out. It was a lot of fun!

the best hostel in CA

There was a strike going on in Honduras, so I had to spend the night unexpectedly in San Pedro de Sula. I ended up in the nicest hostel I have stayed in during my whole trip, La Hamaca. It was rather like visiting the nice home of a friend. There is a big kitchen one can use, a yard with tables and hammocks, pictures the owner took everyhere and as the place does not have a lot of rooms it is quite intamate. I also met the my Israeli diving partner again, this is one of the positive aspects of travelling in Central America, one always meets the same people, making travelling alone easier. We hung out and drank a lot of Cubra Libres in the garden, I really like the rum here, usually I do not like Cuba Libres that much, but Flor de Caña is great.
The 6 beds in the spacious and lofty dorm room are really comfy, though they werte not appreciated by the Swiss guy who went partying out with his friend, as he passed out naked between his bed, my bed and the bathroom, presenting me with a lovely sight when I woke up and a challange to make it to the bathromm for all of us. Unfortunatly I had to go to the bus station before he woke up, so I missed the opportunity to make fun of him, but I was promised others will :)

The other side of the island

I had an afternoon off from diving classes and decided to hike to the other side of the island, a 2 km walk. I thought that would be an easy and pleasant walk, but I encountered the other side of the island, far from idyllic white beaches. I waded through mud and swatted mosquitoes in the afternoon heat. There was an unbelievable amount of garbage, I could hear the big crabs rustling through it. Of course, some people find creative ways to recycle on the island



but most people are shockingly unconcerned about environmental issues, while living in the middle of an oceanic reserve. The dive shops try to protect the reef, but the high amount of divers in the high season shows on the reef, especially with beginners bumping into it when they can not control their buoyoncy yet. I also saw a couple coming back from the beach holding a coral. The locals still hunt iguanas, despite them officially being protected on the island (there is even a breeding station, I helped feeding them once, poor little crabbys... )and collect turtle eggs, that breed in an also protected area on the north side.

Once when I came back from diner, I was reminded that, despite Utila seeming like a richer place than the rest of Honduras, there is still poverty. I women holding a baby asked me for food, making me who had just splurged on the awesome fish they serve on the island feel very humble indeed. But not as humble as I felt three days later when I met this friendly fellow when taking pictures on the dock:



He asked me to take a picture of him, I had encountered that in Ghana as well as Mongolia, locals who do not own cameras asking to have their pictures taken and then send via mail or email.
So I asked him for his email address, but noticed that I did not have pen and paper. I went to the dock office to get it and came back handing it to him. He draw a map of the island and I assumed there was a misunderstanding, as he only spoke Spanish. To clarify I wrote my email address down and handed the paper back to him. He wrote down some symbols, mimicking writing and in dawned on me that he could not write. And I had spend the last 10 minutes pressing him to write something down for me. I simply had not expected to see illiteracy in Utila.

Utila

I went to the island of Utila on the north coast of Honduras to learn how to dive. It is a proper carribean island, white sand, palm trees, blue water and being there is like not being in Central America anymore, everyone speaks English and one can walk around at night alone without fear of getting robbed, which is sadly not true in Honduras proper.



Island life is pretty laid back and there is a lot of mingeling between locals and visitors, with visitors becoming locals quite often, especially when they are connected to diving.

Diving is the main activity in Utila, it is so hot that one wants to be in the water constantly anyway, plus it is the only way to escape the millions of sandflies eating you alive. And I thought the moskitos in Alaska were bad. And the underwater wildlife is impressive!



this is a sting ray visiting the diving boat and here is the same ray checking out our scuba equipment (tank, BCD, snorkels, mask and flippers)



It is quite amazing diving directly down into a school of fish and swimming through basically a big aquarium. I had chosen my diveschool by asking in every shop and chosing the one which took the most time explaining everything. I actually got a reduced price, because I had come in with a Israeli guy who had stayed in the same hostel as me the night before, and it seemed he had bargained down the price, or his friends who were waiting for him had, anyway, I was an honorary Israeli for the week. Considering half the island seem to consist of Israelis, that was probably a good thing.

Pictures Lanquin and Semuc Champey

The city of Lanquin:



Traditional cloth at the market:



The cemetery:



Semuc Champey:



clear water:

Lago Atitlan

As I mentioned in the previous post I met a Swiss Expat at lake Atitlan. I went to San Marcos as it seemed like a good place to walk to some of the villages on the shore. It is off-season at the lake in autumn, so I was pretty much alone in the hostel.



I walked around trying to find something to eat, but most restaurants were expensive and empty. San Marcos, as well as San Pedro just a bit up the lake, is divided into the poor local area up shore and the Gringolandia consisting of restaurants and hotels owned by a few rich locals and foreigners on the lake. No wonder the crime rate is high. I walked out of Gringlandia looking for a Comedore, but only found a small locally owned nice looking restaurant on the border between the town and Gringolandia.
They had fish fresh from the lake so I sat down to eat, just to immediately be joined by an attention seeking dog and a hungry, cheeky cat, trying to steal my food and the before mentioned expat. He told me he was working for a French guy running a bakery. I am jealous, I always wanted to found a bakery in some tropical place.
Ironically, though it is a "French" bakery, the famous chocolate or apple rolls are made by a local woman. The bread from the French guy is the typical self-made bread by someone who is not a baker and does not have a good recipe. To be honest (though it sounds conceited) it would be one of my worse ones.
Anyway, the Swiss expat was nice enough to show me around for one day, telling me how life at the lake was like. By the way, I did not forget everyones name, but as this blog is public, I don't want to use their names.
There is one town between San Marcos and San Pedro, which is not devided into Gringlandia and the rest of the village. Life seems to be a bit nicer there, I threw some loops with two local girls and we met another expat, who told about a therapy project for local children, maybe a volunteer opportunity for me, for when I have finished my trip.

Antigua and expats

Antigua looks very much like an old Spanish city, with a volcano looming over it and women from the surrounding villages selling "artisanos". It is a pretty town to hang out in and has a lot of infrastructure in terms of restaurants, hotels, travels agencies etc.



This is not only because of the large amount of tourists visiting, but also because it is a haven for Expats. It is somewhat of a self supporting system, Expats opening restaurants or bars to then spend the money they made on restaurants and bars.
I met one of them while I was waiting for the ATM to be free. He is a tourguide and has been in Antigua for a few years. He actually wasn't very happy about living there it seemed, some long distance relationship had just ended, he had difficulties making long term friends, as people are coming and going all the time and the people staying were, as he put it "useless drunks". I sympathised, until he started bitching about the locals. First he warned me about drinking tab water at lake Atitlan, because it is (obviously) not purified and the products of agriculture around the lake (read shit) end up in it. Because, as he put it, the locals are uneducated and backward. I did not mention that I had gotten sick from tab water in the USA. Jep, that is where he was from. Than he went on saying that Guatemalans had no culture, because when they open a coffee shop or a restaurant it isn't (surprise!) a western style coffee shop or restaurant. If you want something done "right" it has to be done by an Expat, apparently. I remembered why I sometimes have a dislike for Expats...
This night I shared a room with a much nicer Expat from Mexico. She was working on an anthropology project in a village in the mountains. We went out for dinner together and conversed as well as we could, considering her English was not very strong and my Spanish is basic. We spoke Spanish most of the time, which was good practice, she told me about the cultural differences a girl from Mexico City faces in the Guatemalan countryside. They were pretty much the same problems a Swiss (though Guatemalan on the mothers side), who I met at Lake Atitlan, mentioned. People in the Guatemalan countryside have strong traditional values, marrying early, family and strong gender roles, which can make it difficult for a more liberal person to adapt to. Despite their difficulties both of them expressed a respect for the culture the tourguide from Antigua was missing. Maybe not all Expats are arrogant.
I conclusion: Antigua is pretty, Expats can be annoying and my Spanish really needs improvement.

A little trip to heaven

After recovering from camping in the jungle I was ready to go back to, namely to the area of Coban in central Guatemala. It is a hilly region, where the (very bad) dirt road runs up and down into valleys and up hills. small villages are scattered on the mountainsides, as are bat caves. In this area is the village of Lanquin and Semuc Champey, the paradise of Guatemala. It is a natural limestone bridge, under which passes the Cahabán River. Atop the bridge is a series of stepped, turquoise pools, with crystal clear water and little fishes, which like to tickle ones toes. But before I went there I decided to see the town of Lanquin and the caves next to it. The town is pretty untouched by tourist life, a good place to visit a market or just see normal Guatemalan village life. People are friendly and there is a nice view from the church next to the cemetery. The caves are somewhat spooky to go into alone. I climbed around in them happily and noticed the bats waking up (it was around dusk). When I came back to the entrance it was swarming with bats. They do obviously not fly into one and are not aggressive, but walking through a cloud of bats is quite a special feeling.
The next day I went to Samuc, by pick up truck. It is the only form of public transport available and on the way back we even had a chicken traveling with us. Samuc is as beautiful as the description makes you think it is. I swam, hiked a bit up the mountain to make a picture and went back to swim let the fishes tickle my toes for a bit and then rode back to the hostel with a group of laughing girls from Guatemala city.

Going to Guatemala

My bus was leaving at 6 in the morning to go to Rio Usumacinta, then by boat and then by bus on to Guatemala. For this reason, I ditched the partying Australians again and decided to go to bed early. Someone had left a kitten in a box under the stairs right in front of our room, I think just because it was not allowed inside, it did have some food and a blanket. But it was not happy, and let it be known loudly and consistently. After hours I gave up on sleeping and went to check on it, thinking that the box might have gotten wet as it was raining. It had wandered off into the jungle, not a good place for a few weeks old kitten, and it was very happy to see me, so I thought it might shut up if I let it sleep in my room. It insisted on sleeping on my face, which obviously was not helping me sleep. I gave up and wrapped it in one of my tops, going outside for some fresh air. I met an Irish guy who had been kicked out by his girlfriend and slept at the bus station. I listened to his woes a bit, tried to give him the cat and started pining for coffee. Of course nothing was open at 5:30, so I put the cat back in its box, got my stuff together and went to the bus. The Irish guy had been picked up by the still partying Australians and probably went to drink his troubles away, while I got on the bus to Guatemala. A bus ride, a boat ride and another bus ride later I was standing at the border, arguing with the official whether or not we have to pay an entrance fee (we don't, everyone in our bus knew that). The border was in the middle of nowhere, at some point the bus driver said if we insist on a receipt we have to walk to the next town (1 hour away) to get it, but he is not going to take us along, unless we pay. When we were all done, he went into the immigration office, getting his cut.

Welcome to Guatemala!

After the sleepless night I was desperate to arrive in Flores, all I knew about the town was that the bus ends there, there are a lot of hostels and it is a good place to go on to Tikal.

Imagine someone taking the nice historic centre of a town and putting it in the middle of a lake in the tropics, the lake being clean enough to swim in. Add some nice cafes on the promenade on the shore and people selling street food on the dock. Some little boats on the lake for good measure and.. you have Flores.



Welcome to Guatemala indeed!

San Cristobla de las casas

High expectations will backfire, sometimes not knowing anything about the place you are going means you are going to be amazed by what you find. But more about Flores when I get to writing about Guatemala. A lot of people have told me that San Cristobal is awesome, beautiful, the best town in Mexico etc. I found a quite pretty tourist town in which it was raining all the time. It did not help that my stomach bug had grown in intensity over the past two days, probably due to some strawberries I had bought on the market and not washed well enough. They were pretty much some of the best strawberries I have ever eaten though. So I ran a lot through the rain from my room to the toilet and updated my blog. I did make it to the market and saw beans in every colour imaginable.

I also went to the anthropological museum "Na Bolom", but did not manage to go on a tour to a village with them, due to my toilet problem. When I got better I decided to flee the rain and the cold and went to Palenque. The ruins were nice and our guide (I was bunking with three Australian guys, who probably thought I was the most boring German they have ever met, as they went to party every night, while I was still nursing my stomach) really knew his Mayan history and he reassured us that the world is not going to end in December. Apparently Mayans think in circles, a day is a circle, a month, a year etc, always ending and beginning anew and in December, when our sun is in the centre of the universe a new circle is beginning. Which means I will have to find a job after my travels. Damn.
From Palenque I visited Yaxchilan



and Bonampak,



one site which is only accessible by boat and another famous for it's murals:

Around Mexico city

as I said before, the public transport system in (and as I found out around) Mexico city is very user friendly, even for a Gringa like me.
One day after I arrived in the city I went to Teotihuacan by bus, the challenge was to remember the name and to pronounce it correctly. There are a surprising number of similar sounding places around. I found the right bus and even aided another more confused looking Gringo. He turned out to be French, which did not surprise me as he had the same backpack as me; Quechua.
Yes, I do not have Jack Wolfskin gear.

We decided to climb the pyramids together, which turned out to be hot and difficult, the Teotihuacano must have had long legs and really small feet or the civilisation died out because their leaders kept falling down the pyramids. After a long climb I made it up the pyramid of the sun and although I usually do not like having my picture taken, I wanted proof I made it up:



After climbing the sun, we decided we also have to go up the moon, but as the top was closed this was not as an impressive feat, but gave us a good view over the compound.



After all this climbing stairs in the sun, we decided to watch other people move for a change and watched quite a lot of traditional dancing going on in the city:



One lady selling souveniers took a video with her phone of the Atztec shaman dancing in front of the catholic cathedral:



In the end we could not help ourselves and joined in some Salsa dancing in the park.

Mexico City

I managed to import a stomach bug from USA to Mexico, actually it might just have been sensitivity towards all the chlorine in the water. Drinking out of a water fountain is like drinking out of a swimming pool! For this reason the flight to Mexico was not very pleasent. It did not help, that the flight from Yuma to Phoenix was in a tiny plane too short for the AC to do its work, which ment I was shaken around in a hot tin can. I arrived in Mexico City at night, found an official cab (an unofficial cab driver tried to convince me to get in his, but was chased away by airport security. I was brought to the hostel by driviung backwards through one way streets, that had been closed down, went to bed and woke up too late for breakfast, but fortunatly still had some porridge left from camping. The hostel was a party hostel, full of Americans, which did tours everywhere, even a bar-hopping tour! After 6 years of Iceland, I don't need a guide to show me how to drink. Anyway, I grabbed a map and headed of to the historical centre. Mexico City is easy to get around in, the centre is surprisingly walkable for such a big city and public transport is even for the spanish challenged like me managable.
I went to the old temple in the middle of town and to a history museum, learning about the Aztecs and their love for ripping peoples hearts out. I always thought the stories of human sacrifice were exaggerated, but no, they really did that en masse. When I came home in the evening I decided to follow people to Mexico wrestling, which is a lot of fun!

Joshua Tree

I love the desert, and the desert of Joshua Tree National Park is especially beautiful. I took a lot of small hikes, it was a bit hot for long ones and took (for me) a lot of pictures. I put them on an extra page of the blog, look here

After I spent two days in the Park I only had enough time to drive straight down to Yuma, the road took me past Salton Lake, a lake in the middle of Californian desert, dotted with palm covered beaches. After Salton Lake I passed some smaller towns on the way to Freeway 8, they looked neglected, run down and deserted, opposite of polished high class Palm Springs.
I also passed red sand dunes passing into Arizona, the Californian desert is yellow, the Arizona one is red. Sand dunes in the sunset, deserts are beautiful.

a promise

when I was planning my trip I decided to go to a creationist museum in Washington. Upon hearing this a friend asked me to take a picture of me next to a Crocoduck. (The Creationism proponents used to say that if evolution were true, we should expect to see a crocoduck (a crocodile/duck transitional form) in the fossil records). I did not make it to this museum, but instead went to one close to Palm Springs, which is a Creationist Dino Park:



There was no Crocoduck, but this :


because as we all know the bible states, that in paradise the T-Rex was friends with the lamb...

One could also climb up a huge T-Rex and sit in his mouth, looking out through the teeth, that was cool. As were the robotic dinosaurs and the archeology pit (where children could search for fossils), but the creationist science is weird...

Palm Springs

I took the public transport (bus, train and bus again) to Palm Springs and ended up walking along the main street in 40°C or 110°F looking for the tourist information and/or a motel. Some young people (my age, ergo young) shouted out to me and invited me to a beer to find out who is crazy enough to walk along the street in this weather with a big backpack. They also pointed me in the direction of a Motel, and after two beer I stumbled (not only because of the heat) in the direction I had come from and finally found the Motel I had been looking for. After some food and a lot of time in Air Conditioning I found that Palm Springs is actually a nice town to walk around in, with smaller Cafés and Shops on the one main street and for some reason this:



yes, she is wearing underwear. Everything was closed, museums, gardens etc. As it was off season in Palm Springs. After going to the Information Centre by public transport, plus walking 2 miles I noticed that east California is a place which expects you to have a car. So I rented one the next day, to go to the creationist/Dino museum and to Joshua Tree National Park.

Big Sur

I made my way down to Big Sur after San Francisco, leaving the city was easier than all the other cities I have been, too, but then going by scooter became difficult. Often I had to decide whether to brake the law by going on the Freeway or by going on the bicycle way. After the highway patrol stopped me once (but believed I was a stupid tourist, that had lost the way) I decided to go on the bicycle way, no one was using it anyway...

I was getting a bit tired of riding Moty after two weeks and started looking for someone to buy her off me. In Big Sur I found a hitchhiker, who had been traveling since two weeks and was looking for a change. A match made in heaven.
I took the opportunity to go for a two day hike in Big Sur, this place ins beautiful, after a days hike I ended up sleeping in heaven:

San Francisco!

I got my pictures back today and as expected one roll of film was empty. Which is really sad, because I had made a picture of Moty in front of the Golden Gate bridge after we went over it. Yes, you heard right, I arrived in San Francisco by going over the Golden Gate bridge, with a view on Alcatraz.

Now the only picture I have of Moty is this:



That is not me on the picture, that is a hitchhiker, who I sold Moty too in Big Sur.

San Francisco is a cool town to hang out in, as expected. I saw all the tourist destinations and had a lot of Chinese/Asian food, especially as my hostel was next to Chinatown. San Francisco is deservedly famous for Asian food! I also ate some of the famous sourdough bread, but as a German it is hard to be impressed by bread.
As i said, I walked around a lot in San Francisco and saw everything one expects to see, Fisherman's Wharf, with Sea Lions and view of Alcatraz, the bridge, old San Francisco, pretty houses, steep staircases and a huge chocolate shop :)

California

On my forth day travelling through Oregon, in the afternoon, I suddenly came upon the sign: "Welcome to California". I was exhilarated, but also somewhat nervous. From then on, I was riding my bike semi-illegally. According to California State Law Moty falls somewhat in the grey zone, the engine is small enough not to require a motorbike endorsement, but it can't be padelled, making it somewhat of a motorbike afterall. I also should have had an insurance, in case I ran into someone. In California the Highway 101 also becomes a freeway in some places, where I am not allowed to go. Isn't it funny that the freeway has limited access? Anyway, there is a bike route along the Caifornia coast, and I decided to just follow the signs. Riding past farmhouses ld me to certain observations: California roads are badly maintained, the bike route seems to assume bikers do not neet to sleep and avoids gas-stations. I do not know the statistics, but it seemed to me, that there is much more poverty in California than Oregon. Consequently, as it became dusk, I found myself in a part of town I did not really want to be in, ith a sore behind, almost out of gas, desperatly looking for a campground. Fortunatly the cassier at the gas-station could point me in the right direction. I arrived after nightfall in the campground, but by then putting up my tent and making a fire was pretty much an automatic action.
Welcome to Caifornia, indeed.

the art of forgetting

As a kid one of my favorite tv shows was the japanese anime "Anne of Green Gables" about a girl on Prince Edwards Islands by Canada, who's dreaminess and absent mindness kept getting her in trouble (as well as her temper). Obviously I identified. But that it has gotten so bad, that I forgot a whole state is a bit worrying. Sorry Washington, I did drive through you, and here is roughly what happened on my first days on Moty, as well as I remeber, but with pictures!

I started in Seattle, the same day as I bought and registered my scooter, Moty. That is to say, the nice people from the Seattle Scooter Centre registered it for me. They also gave me advice and a bottle of oil, as 2-stroke engines need different oil than cars, and it might be hard to find on the road. I strapped my backpack on the bike and went off, but first I met a familiar figure from Iceland:



I wonder if he is stalking me? So off I went, thinking of camping that night somewhere below Mt.Rainier. And then I got lost, One Way streets, a very bad map and my own underdeveloped sense of direction caused me to sleep in a Motel, somewhere in a not so nice part of town, I felt reminded of "My name is Earl". The motel was next to a trailer park. People where nice though (probably absolutely confused by that crazy person that came among them), and they helped me pick up Moty after I managed to make her fall over by trying to put her on the centre stand. Something that I proceeded to do several times on the trip. She looks a bit battered now, poor girl.
Anyway, the next morning, after getting directions from the locals, I set off again, somewhat more optimistic than the night before. And I made it! I slept on the slopes of Mt.Rainier that night, after having travelled through lovely country villages in the sun, thinking that going by scooter is fun. The next morning, going up the Chinook pass the altitude started setting in. On one of the countless stops that my engine died, I made a beautiful picture of the mountain:



I was starting to get nervous, thinking my scooter was already broken, until some road workers drove past (asking if I was out of gas) and told me about the altitude problem scooters have. And just as they said, after making it past the pass Moty rolled happily down the mountain and after a final wave of goodbye



we road speedily until we happened to come to Lewis and Clark State Park. To put in another (and last) pop-reference, I actually wondered why the State Park was named after characters from superman (Lois and Clark) and then felt a bit silly for not knowing that Lewis and Clark were explorers (and both male). Anyway, the state park is beautiful, it is in a temperate rainforest, and I took a walk through the woods in the evening, but it was too dark to take pictures. Frogs were hopping across my way and I saw a fat mouse trying to climb up a leaf of grass. The next day I drove all the way to Portland and greeted it by making Moty fall over again, when trying to park her in front of the public library.

Nicaragua 10 to 16 days

Somoto 2 days
Estelí and surroundings 4 days
Jinotega 3 days
Grenada and volcano 2 days
Ompete 3 days with San Juan del Sur 5 days

Mexico time

2nd of August arrival at around midnight in Mexico City.
3-4 days in and around Mexico City then going to the Chiapas region
5-6 in the Chiapas region, seeing the the temple in Palenque and Yaxchilán

around 12th of August going to Guatemala

Nicaragua - itinerary

a new system! from now on all italic entries are maybe destinations and all non-italic entries are quite definite destinations

after crossing the border from Honduras I might go to Somoto and hike in and around the canyon with the same name. It is a bit out of the way, though

On the road, and maybe my first stop coming from Honduras is the cowboy town of Estelí. A nice town in its own right (cowboys, yeeha!) it is also close to the Reserva Natural Cerro Tisey-Estanzuela where there are opportunities for amazing highland hiking with beautiful views and waterfalls, cliff carvings by a crazy artist and community projects. An area worth exploring

Jinotega in cowboy and coffee country is very similar to the above and a bit out of the way, but the hiking opportunities sound awesome

Grenada on lake Nicaragua is supposed to be the pretties colonial town in Central America. It is also close to the Volcanoe Masaya, where during a night trip glowing lava in the volcanoe can be seen (!) as well as parakeets nesting at the rim and bats flying out at nightfall.

From Grenada I could take a direct boat to the Island of Ompete, consisting of two volcanoes, ruins and mystery. And no ATM, so I have to remember to take money out before going there!

or I could first go to the pacific coast to San Juan del Sur and the Rfugio de Vida Silvestre La Flor to see hatching turtles, although I'm certain there will be more opportunities to do this and I'm not sure if I have to buy a ticket to San Carlos south of Lake Nicaragua in Ompete or if I have to buy one from Grenada

From San Carlos I can go by boat to Costa Rica, down the river through the jungle. :)

Mexico itinerary

So much culture! was my impression of reading the Mexico guidebook. Which is after the USA camping trip probably a welcome change. I will arrive in Mexico city on the 2nd of August, at midnight, which means, I should book a hostel beforehand.

There is so much to see and do in Mexico city, maybe I can find some couchsurfers for local advise. I will definitely stay a few days. As Ewelina advised me, a trip to Teotihuacán seem s well worth it. I guess from Mexico city I will go directly to the Chiapas region, I won't have time to go to Yucatan, I think. There I will visit Palenque and maybe even Yaxchilán another temple, but in the jungle, only accessible by boat. How cool is that? From San Cristóbal I will take the bus to Guatemala, but I will also spend some time discovering that. I think the trick is to concentrate on one area in a country and stay there, rather than spending much time trying to see all. I will probably hike in the jungle in Honduras, or some countries I have not looked at yet. Beaches I will discover in Honduras and on the sailing trip from Panama to Colombia, so I have a good reason to avoid places like Acapulco.

Itinerary (1-2 weeks)

Copán Ruinas (2 days)
the first town from Guatemala I will arrive in there are Maya ruins close to the town (700m) famous for it's statues and otherworldly sounding
from there to I go to San Pedro Sula


Cusuco National Park (3 days)
a cloud-forest park, 45km away from San Pedro Sula, by Buenas Aires (not the Argentinian capital)
Lots of birds, monkeys, waterfalls and swimmig holes and marked trails, which probably means not having to follow a group!

La Ceiba (1 day)
to go to the Bay Islands I have to go via La Ceiba to catch a boat. The town sounds a bit like a caribian version of the Ballerman, so I'm not very inclined to spend much time there, but if I have to wait for a boat or a bus back to San Pedro Sula, there is the Pico Bonito National Park, which is worth a day trip to see the waterfalls

Utila (6 days)
one of the Bay Islands and where I plan to learn how to dive. When I'm there, the sharks will be as well! There are lots of (certified) diving schools there and a course takes about 5 days and 600$. The second largest coral reef is right next to it, so it will be awesome!

Lago de Yojoa /Pulhpanzak Falls (2 days)
on the way back from the Bay Islands to Tegucigalpa and Nicaragua I will pass the Lago de Yojoa and the Pulhpanzak Falls which sounds like a worthwhile place to stop with lots of birdlife if I have to break up the journey

Guatemala (around 12th of August to 22nd)

Guatemala sounds awesome. I almost feel like I should see if I stay there for a while and work / volunteer. This is probably going to happen with every country I read about...
Maybe being there in the rainy season will make me change my mind, though

Things I likely will be doing there:

Antigua-Quetzaltenago (4 days)
In the highlands. I don't know if I have time for this, but this is the area, which sounds the prettiest to me (I don't like jungle very much and in Ghana preferred the highland region to it). And the two towns seem to be worth a visit, or even a longer stay. And there are active volcanoes nearby and a high risk for earthquakes (it is considered a miracle that Antigua still exists) So I should go there...

More Caves (I still love them, 2-3 days)
around Cobán there are caves (Grútas de Lanquín) which sound like a real adventure, one has to bring one's own flashlight, it is possible to get lost and there are thousand of bats. Oh and the caves are pretty and unspoilt. Bats are cool.

Paradise (Semuc Champey, 2-3 days)
the most beautiful spot in Nicaragua (says the LP), with the possibility of swimming in little pools in the jungle, hotpots, camping and just general postcard atmosphere

Visit Tikal
no way around that, I suppose, it is the most famous Maja ruin for a reason. I need to keep my tent with me, as it is possible to camp on site and avoid crowds plus being there at sunset as well as sunrise... Tikal is out of the way, though, so with time constraints it might drop out of the itinerary as I will be visiting ruins in Mexico and Honduras as well.

Buses go from Guatemala City to Copán Ruinas in Honduras, I should change money in El Florido (Honduras border town) as it is not possible in Copán? Sounds unlikely, but better save than sorry, I suppose.

Ewelina's Mexico advise!

Sending everyone an email paid off, Ewelina send me her insight about Mexico, so I do not have to rely 100% on a Lonely Planet.

Here it is:

1) Mexico City, two awesome one-day trips: Teotihuacan (not to be missed) and Tepotzlan.

2) Mexico: you have to, just have to visit Chiapas region, it was the nicest and prettiest region of all Mexico for us (visit San Cristobal de las Casas and go on a half day trip to San Jan Chamula, check Lonely Planet for instructions, we went on a trip with guides that meet in front of the cathedral in San Cristobal. Also, go visit sort of Natural Science/witchcraft museum in San Cristobal, this will take you out of touristy bits of the town to the area where locals live, it's a really nice walk, and try to come back a different route for a change :) And of course, Palenque is a must! :))

3) If you won't have enough time, skip Yucatan completely (but only if you don't go to Chiapas: otherwise you might want to visit Chitchen Itza and also Isla Mujeres, which I recommend for riding golf carts and overall relaxing atmosphere. There's a hostel there, by the sandy beach, full of Israelis who tend to sunbath nakedly, just in case you're interested.. :))

of course I can also just read her and Bjarni's blog about their south-america adventure, but it's so much!