Colombia - South Bound

From Cartegena we headed south to Medellin, which sadly did not meet our high expectations. Perhaps we were spoilt with the architecture of Bogota or perhaps we landed ourselves in the wrong area of town, either way I found the city itself to be quite ugly. Several people along with the lonely planet had informed us that Medellin is brimming with beautiful people but after a few hours of roaming its streets we began to wonder whether the city had a trap door somewhere that led to another dimension with a secret password that only beautiful people are privy to know, as there was a definite lack of decorum up on ground level. In fact we seemed to manage to land ourselves in the middle of a crack den with prostitutes and drug addicts on every corner. Our fear for our safety was only enhanced when we met up with Henry, a local couch surfer, for a drink and he refused to walk through our neighbourhood on the way home. With this in mind we made a swift exit and headed to a tiny little town about an hour away by the name of Retiro. Set amongst rolling hills with a population of only 6000 people, Retiro was a contradiction in itself. Judging by its size and location you'd assume it would be sleepy and quiet, which is why I was stunned to find it was one of the most sociable places we came across. The town was set around a central square adorned with coffee shops and bars and I swear every member of the community was drinking in one of them. It really was the perfect combination of tradition and modernity. There was an endless supply of stylish furniture shops and clothing boutiques while on the same street you'd see a young boy riding his horses bare back and two elderly gents engrossed in a game of cards that they`d probably started 4 hours previously.

Next on the agenda was Cali, Colombia's third largest city, famed for its love of salsa. Needless to say I was keen to make this pit stop. Here we couch surfed with a guy called Felipe and I have to say this was my strangest experience of couch surfing yet, not necessarily bad but certainly entertaining. Felipe is the dictionary definition of a ditherer, and one of the most indecisive people I have ever met. Although his heart was in the right place I was quite bemused by how a person can appear so spaced out without the influence of any narcotics, perhaps there was something he wasn't telling us? Aside from Felipe we also had the pleasure of meeting his parents. We were first introduced to Bernie, Felipe's step dad, when he surfaced from his bedroom wearing nothing but a towel the size of a loin cloth around his waist. Conscious of not wanting to invade his personal space, Joel and I were rather hesitant to introduce ourselves but we needn't of worried as I believe he was more keen for us to stay than our host himself. Bernie was the sort of man who shakes your hand for that little bit too long. He was a christian man converted, he explained, several years ago when god saved him from a near death experience, one of many such tales Bernie cared to share with us.

Now don't get me wrong, I liked Bernie, I liked him a lot, primarily because of his flare for life, even if it did render him a bit of a nut. Rather curiously he took a real shinning to Joel and within half an hour of meeting him, whilst sat around the dining table, he exclaimed "don't eat much do you?... but I bet you've got all the meat in the right places" whilst slipping me a quick wink. One things for sure, conversation was never dull when Bernie was around. Throughout the same meal his conversation ranged from why he likes the Irish, who invented chess and a detailed run through of how god had saved him from death four times. He told us this while proudly lifting his shirt over his protruding belly demonstrating a thick scarlet scar that ran right down the centre of his chest. Our conversation was cut short when he sporadically leapt from his chair exclaiming "my babies, I forgot my babies" and then proceeded to feed a flock of eagerly expecting bids a banana from a small window. Throughout the weekend he managed to tickle Joel several times, told him he had a killer smile and then attempted to get him to sell frozen Colombian raspberries for him back in the UK. Joel didn't have the heart to tell him we already have quite a few our own but said he'd look into it. So besides Bernie, we also met Felipe's mother, who it was a little more difficult to communicate with as she didn't speak a word of English but who had a clear passion for herbal medicines, 300 of which were displayed in a glass cabinet as you walk in through the front door. This may explain Felipe's (who we later discovered was 28) rather wet character as his mother insisted on hand feeding him treatments each time he was allowed to leave the house, which was why we were surprised to find, on our first night out with Felipe, that he was in fact a social butterfly. He took us to a great little salsa club where he danced the night away and the following day invited us on a couch surfing outing with another dozen hosts to a stunning natural reserve. It just goes to show, never judge a book by its cover!

As we were nearing the end of our Colombian adventure we headed further south to Popayan, yet another stunning colonial town. You'd have thought I'd have tired of them by now but they're just so aesthetically pleasing! From Popayan we took a brief day trip to Silvia market, which is primarily for indigenous people to trade in farming tools but makes for some excellent people watching. We ate in the local market and Joel had the pleasure of sitting opposite a guy eating chicken foot soup who had one of the said limbs hanging from his mouth throughout the entire time we were eating; for some reason Joel didn't fancy pudding!

From Popayan we embarked on a hellish 6 hour bus ride to San Augustin during which simply staying in your seat was a challenge! I swear a horse and cart would have had more suspension than the rust bucket we were stuck in! Still we made it there in one piece and it was well worth the potential piles we may have accumulated along the way because the landscape was like something out of a Kenco advert. The next day we embarked on a six hour hike to one of the many archaeological sites San Augustin is home to. These are amongst Colombia's most important archaeological sites. Here you can find hundreds of free standing monumental statues carved in stone which were left next to tombs of tribal warriors and are estimated to be from around 3300 years BC. Joel and I were particularly keen to carry out at Indiana Jones style expedition to these ruins so we set out of horse back with a local Colombian guide who spoke not a word of English. Now my Spanish is somewhat basic but I am 99 per cent sure that when running us through the meanings behind these various creatures she proclaimed that a female figure was represented as being pregnant by donning 9 mushrooms on her head. She proceeded to demonstrate this by leading us down the field and plucking a magic mushroom out of the turf whilst giggling to herself. Me thinks their creativity may have been aided by a few natural resources!

Colombia - North Bound

Colombia has to be one of South America's best kept secrets. Still deemed dangerous by a lot of backpackers, its not yet on everyone's radar, although I have no doubt that will change in a very short space of time. When I first landed in Bogota, after waving goodbye to Abi in the airport of San Jose, I was a mix of emotions. Although thrilled to be testing out my independence I was also incredibly nervous. These nerves were soon eased when I discovered that Colombians are the friendliest people on the planet. I managed to land myself in what has to be the best hostel in the country, with the most hospitable staff I've ever come across. Not only did they humour my pigeon Spanish but they provided me with a glass of wine, endless cups of tea and even a hot water bottle to go to bed with! Throughout the three weeks I spent exploring the country I was bowled over by peoples enthusiasm to help me, their generosity and there constant upbeat temperament, not to mention how stunning most of them are... I want to be Colombian! This is a country I cannot recommend visiting enough.

I started this leg of the trip with two brief days on my lonesome which were spent happily meandering the old colonial streets of the capital, sipping coffee in various hideaways and generally soaking up the Latin American culture that I wish we had a little more of at home. Bogota is overflowing with museums and galleries, the most well known of which is The National Gold Museum which left me day dreaming of all the pretty things I'd have owned if I'd been an Mayan princess in the 15th century. After two brief days by myself, Joel, a friend from home, came out to join me for 3 weeks. Our first excursion together was to the Police Museum which boasts a scary array of weapons and has an entire floor dedicated to the 190 day search for Pablo Escobar. For those of you who don't know Mr. Escobar was the head of the Medellin Cartel in the 80s. Its no secret that Colombia is the largest producer of cocaine, controlling 80 to 90 per cent of the world market. During the peek of Escobar's reign he lived in pretty much total freedom and luxury, and get this, he even founded a political party, held congressional seats and established 2 newspapers! Most astonishing all is that when the government launched a campaign against the drug trade the Cartels responded with offering to invest their capital in paying off Colombia's 13 billion dollar foreign debt in return for immunity from persecution and extradition! How cheeky! The Museum was made all the more interesting by our very enthusiastic guide, a 19 year old boy half way through his compulsory year of military service. It seems he was most put out at being placed in a museum instead of somewhere a little more dangerous and spoke with a little too much zeal about his favorite gun and his favorite type of torture in the room entitled 'Punishment'. Even more disturbing still was that whilst looking at a photo of Pablo Escobar's corpse a troop of school kids traipsed passed. So while our eight year old's are examining plastic dinosaurs at the natural history museum their Colombian pen pals are learning about the underworld of narcotics.

The day after Joel arrived I threw him into the deep end of travelling by meeting up with Carolina, a Colombian girl that a mutual friend had introduced me to via email. We spent the night checking out Bogota's bar scene in a rather swanky district and I quizzed Carolina half to death about Colombian culture. Its no surprise that Colombia has had a rather treacherous past when it comes to civil wars and crime rates, however what is largely unknown is that these rates have been dropping rapidly in the last decade. Its worth noting that since Uribe took office in August 2002 homicides went down by 40 per cent, acts of terror by 66 per cent and extortive kidnappings by 79 per cent. Another interesting fact, although quite unrelated but I'll throw it in all the same, is that way back in 1717 under the revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador and Venezuela made up a single country, Gran Colombia; there you go, you learn something new everyday!

From Bogota we headed north to a little town by the name of San Gil. Here we had our first taste of white water rafting, which provided me with my latest adrenalin fix. This was made all the more thrilling by the fact that a) all the instructions were given in Spanish and b) that our instructor fell in within the first 30 seconds of hitting our first set of rapids!

From San Gil we spent a brief night in Barichara, a beautiful little colonial town replete with white washed houses, cobbled streets and 18th century churches. The Lonely Planet describes this town as 'something out of a film set', which turned out wasn't so far from the truth. Upon our arrival we noticed a film crew setting up in the main square and come the evening the centre of the town was alive with people. It turned out we'd walked into an award ceremony for one of Colombians most famed soap operas. There was great hype amongst the crowd, as we later found out, the soaps main stair, Carla Giraldo, was making a guest appearance. Quite oblivious to what exactly was going on we still managed to get quite caught up in the fight to get a picture with Carla. Little did we know this would be the first of three claims to fame Colombia would provide us with as over the course of the next week we also saw two music videos being filmed!

Our next stop was Santa Marta which sits at the very north of the country on the Caribbean cost. This was actually the first town founded by the Spanish in 1525. Despite its age and location Santa Marta was a surprisingly stark and rather ugly city with little within its confines to see or do. Sometimes however just when you give up on finding any action, action finds you. After a rather hellish journey via night bus to get to the town Joel and I were in desperate need of a caffeine fix. We found what appeared to be a rather tranquil little coffee shop and took refuge from the suns rays under the shade of a tree. Within minutes of purchasing our beverages about 50 motorbikes all started to circle the building adjacent to us. My curiosity never waning, I decided to get a closer look at what was going down, only to be greeted by a dozen heavily armed riot police protecting the building. It wasn't until I saw one guy bend down, pick up a brick and hand it to his girlfriend on the back of his bike that I considered that perhaps I shouldn't be standing quite so close to the 'action'. Just as I skipped back to the table to report to Joel what I'd seen the whole patio emptied with people abandoning their coffees while covering their faces with their sleeves and making a swift exit out the back entrance. It was then that I realised the police had dispensed tear gas. Now this all sounds very dramatic but I can assure you it was more amusing than anything else! Rather disappointingly the whole fiasco died down rather abruptly, although later that day we saw several police with machine guns patrolling the streets. Unfortunately what the protest was actually in response to we never found out but it made a good bit of drama all the same.

Our main reason for travelling so far north was actually to visit Tyrona National Park. Tyrona's landscape is like something out of Lost, where luscious green jungle shrouded in mystery meets with perfect white sand beaches. The camp site in the park is only accessible by a forty minute hike through the jungle which makes the place feel even more remote. Within minutes of arriving at the parks entrance we'd seen two snakes having sexo, an iguana sunning himself, numerous colourful little lizards and a blue butterfly with a wingspan the size of both my hands put together! Whilst staying in the park we enjoyed the simple things in life, we swam in the sea, slept in hammocks and hiked up to Pueblito, an old Mayan town where we found ourselves bouncing from bolder to bolder on the steep incline up and sliding pretty much the whole way down.

Next stop was Cartagena, probably Colombia's most touristic and well known city. Here we spent a few days wandering around the old walled part of the town, eating fresh fruit off street stalls for breakfast and enjoying an afternoon beer whilst partaking in 'Spanish club', which involved us rather unsuccessfully trying to learn 5 new words a day; not a great combination with 40 degree heat and alcohol but our intentions were good! The incentive behind 'Spanish club' was in response to several blunders Abi and I had made throughout the previous four months, which were quite amusing when there were two of us, but were the sort of mistakes I'd really rather not be making on my own. The first biggy was that we managed to tell our host mother in Mexico that we were very horny instead of hot, although she never actually had the heart to correct us on that one and instead resorted to smiling at us in a rather concerned manor. I will remind you that she was a very strict Jehovah's Whiteness which made the situation especially inappropriate. The second was when I asked a Guatemalan if he drove a pig, and the third was when Abigail managed to ask a tour agent how much it was to ride a gentleman as opposed to a horse.

Costa Rica

So in my last post I mentioned bidding farewell to the real Central America when departing Nicaragua. This is largely because the parts of Costa Rica we visited were so developed it was hard to believe we were only a few hours away from the dirt tracks and loose chickens that had hosted us the day before. Still we were only in the country for a week so it would be unfair of me to make too harsher a judgement on the place, but lets just say that tourism contributes to a hefty chunk of the economy there, and it shows. I imagine that if the rest of Central America had been blessed with the same political stability they too would be home to an alarming amount of high rises and tour agencies. Costa Rica's early political history, after independence from Spain in 1821, follows a similar pattern to many other Central American countries a system based on dictatorship and violence. However after the civil war in the late 1940s a coffee grower and utopian democrat called Jose Figueres Ferrer became head of a temporary junta government. The 1949 constitution granted full citizenship and voting rights to women, blacks, indigenous groups and Chinese minorities. His copious decrees taxed the wealthy, nationalized banks and built a modern welfare state. He also, quite amazingly, abolished the military, saying it was a threat to democracy. These actions formed the basis of what Costa Rica is today.

Our first stop in Costa Rica was Monte Verde. I'm not sure this has ever been a real town or weather it was born purely out of a need to feed the thousands of nature hungry tourists that descend upon its lush green landscape ever year. Needless to say we didn't visit Monte Verde with our culture vulture hats on. Of course this is all very hypocritical, because just like the grotesquely overweight sandal/sock wearing middle aged American man, stood next to me eyeing up the dolphin shaped Costa Rican key rings in the gift shop, I too visited a variety of tourist attractions, and enjoyed them. The most notable was the Butterfly farm which Abi wondered around quite entranced, the butterflies teasing us all the while, providing us with a flirtatious flash of their wings which was never quite long enough. We also got our quick adventure fix when we decided to experiment with a zip cable which takes you soaring through cloud forest a good 70 meters off the ground at times The longest of which was over a kilometre. The course ended with a high ropes jump where you basically free fall for a few seconds, leave your stomach at the top, and then swing like a pendulum from canopy to canopy which was most fun!



The remainder of the week was spent visiting an old school friend, Gab, who left the UK when he was 13 but has changed little in the last 12 years, and therefore was very easy company. Given that it was the week of Semana Santa we followed suit and did as the Costa Ricans do... we headed straight for the beach. This invite was generously given by Gabs parents, Sandra and Daniel, and was extended to include Gab's girlfriend Ximena, and his flat mate Brendan. We were totally spoilt by Gabs parents who had chosen a beautiful beach side pad to kick back in, fed us copious amounts of good food and wine and introduced us to their superb music collection. The beach itself was a surfers Paradise, and filled to the brim with beautiful people. Naturally Abi and I fitted in effortlessly. The path to our house was lined with hibiscus flowers and hermit crabs greeted me on my way to my morning play in the waves, needless to say this was a pretty awesome way to end this leg of the journey. On our final night at the beach we partied hard till 6am at a full moon party, which encompassed a humongous bon fire and a slightly surreal show in which a heavily tattooed woman pierced her skin with large hooks and then proceeded to hang from them. Gabs parents being the true coolios that they are, even joined us for a large portion of the night, busting out grooves like there was no tomorrow.


So after a few days of sun worship on the Pacific coast, the second leg of our journey was rather abruptly up, and it was time for me to say good-bye to Central America, and more importantly to Abigail. After spending almost 24 7 in Miss Kenyon’s company for almost 7 months you might say this farewell was a little like waving off my right leg, and needless to say life without my partner in crime has been a little strange ever since! As Abi and Gab waved me off at the airport I felt both nervous and excited, its one thing letting two little blond hobos loose on their own in the big wide world... its quite another when you reduce that number to one!

Nicaragua

Like I said before border crossings can differ hugely throughout Central America, and crossing from Honduras to Nicaragua was no exception. With Charles still in tow, the three of us hit the road once more only to find that this particular crossing was the most manic so far, the second we stepped off the bus we were bombarded with offers of cycle taxis and currency exchange. Its a bizarre sales technique because the feeling of a dozens of men pulling me in different directions and shouting inches from my face doesn't really inspire me to engage in any form of bartering, and as a result of this mayhem we walked away as quickly as possible. The Nicaraguan side of the border was just as frenzied and when we finally found space on a chicken bus heading in the right direction we were joined by an assembly of larger than life market women who proceeded to convince us to sit on their swag in an attempt to evade paying taxes on their goods.

Our first stop in Nicaragua was Leon; we chose this destination with one thought in mind, to conquer another volcano. With no time to lose we joined a group of 10 other eager pioneers and set off at the delightful hour of 5am. Although El Hoyo peeks at a much more reasonable altitude of around 1200 meters compared to Tajumulco (the volcano we climbed previously in Guatemala), it provided its own adversities, the main encumbrance being the temperature. Despite setting off early, by midday we were climbing in 40-degree heat, soaked through to the skin in sweat and a good three hours from the summit, needless to say this was no walk in the park. The main reward for our toil came early on in the hike when we clambered up a neighbouring volcano and then proceeded to run down the side of it, a totally exhilarating experience which left us with more than a few cuts and grazes which I later proudly showed off as battle scars. This slope is so steep people even snowboard down it, so accumulating speed was effortless! The second gratification to this long hard slog came when we reached the summit and where provided with the most amazing panoramic views of what felt like, the entire country. We were incredibly fortunate to be accompanied by a really great bunch of people and that night we stuffed our faces with tacos and marshmallows around a campfire before sleeping under the stars. The following day we made our way down with a brief stop at a lake to cool our aching feet before making our way back to Leon, all fatigued but drunk with pride at our accomplishment.


From Leon we made our way to Granada, a pretty colonial town with an auspicious nature. We managed to accrue another two Brits along the way, Mark and Caroline, whom we'd met on the Volcano. Finding other like minded travelers is always a treat but naturally with a crew of 5 of us our Spanish suffered more than a little. Granada actually reminded me a lot of Mexico with an abundance of live music; bohemian teens roaming around and a selection of street performers, including crews of break-dancers who perform while you eat your dinner on cobbled streets. But amidst this vibrancy there was also clearly a huge amount of poverty in Granada I think I saw more beggars there than I have in any other town on this leg of the trip. It's scary how accustomed you become to seeing children as young as 6 working as street vendors, and the debate as to whether or not its right to give them handouts plagued my mind whilst exploring the town centre.


The US has been involved in Nicaragua throughout the 20th century, during the 40-year corrupt dictatorship of Somoza; starting in 1937 they launched attacks on Guatemala and the 1961 invasion of Cuba from Nicaragua. In 1978 the Sandanistas led a revolution against Somoza's dictatorship, the Guardia nacional responded ruthlessly and killed thousands. In June 1979 The Sandanista's took Managua (the capital) and Somoza resigned and fled the country. During the Sandanista's time in power they redistributed Somoza lands to small farming cooperatives, reduced illiteracy from 50% to 13%, eliminated polio through a massive immunization program and reduced the rate of infant mortality by a third. However during this time relations between the US and Nicaragua went downhill, the US didn't like the fact that there were increasing numbers of Soviet and Cuban advisors in Nicaragua and allegations that they had supplied arms to leftist rebels in El Salvador. So in 1981 Ronald Reagan suspended all aid to Nicaragua and after the Sandanista's won another election in 1984 the USA initiated a trade embargo of Nicaragua, which played a big part in devastating the Nicaraguan economy. By the 1990 elections the Nicaraguan people were disillusioned with the Sandanista government, mainly because of the massive economic problems. A new party called UNO was established in 1989, they were supported by the US, Nicaragua was promised millions of dollars of financial aid and to lift the trade embargo if UNO won. With this bribe UNO of course made it into office. During the 1990's there were a few changes in government, the Sandanista's were still trying to come back into power and eventually in the 2007 election the old leader of the Sandanista's, Ortega, was voted back in despite being involved in several scandals.

Just to back track a little, whilst in Leon, Abi and I met up with her friends, Chris and Tanya. Unfortunately they recounted a rather nasty story that had happened to them a fortnight previously in Rivas, another Nicaraguan town further south. Basically they'd hopped in a taxi which turned out to be dodgy and the driver along with two others held them at knife point, and took them to all the different cash points in town, until their accounts were well and truly drained they then took all of their belongings and left them at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Amazingly Chris and Tanya told this story with a humorous undertone and explained that when they were finally let go the robbers left them with their passports and enough money to catch the local bus home. They even advised them not to keep their passports in their back pockets because, I quote 'it can be dangerous around here', how very considerate of them! It seems that Chris and Tanya's bad luck followed us, as soon after leaving them Caroline’s toe nails fell off (due to a reaction to the anti malarial she was taking), Mark slept in a bed infested with bed bugs and got covered head to toe in bites, and Charles' wallet got lifted within two minutes of arriving in Rivas with all his cards in it. Soon after that I fell off a horse and Abi's credit card got stolen and some cheeky buggers managed to check themselves into an 80 pound per night hotel before she had time to cancel it.

Still despite our misfortunes we thoroughly enjoyed our last few days in Nicaragua. Hardly surprisingly, we didn't stay in Rivas, and instead caught the ferry straight to Isla Ometepe, which is situated in the middle of Nicaragua’s largest lake, we stayed at three different locations on the Island, Merida, Balgue and finally Altagracia. Isla Ometepe hosts two volcano's, Conception and Maderas, many moons ago molten lava flows created an isthmus between them and thus the island was formed. It is perfectly picturesque, and unlike Utila it hosts a very real community of local residents going about their daily lives, in fact we came across very few other gringos which was surprising considering it's one of the top destinations to visit in the country. Keen to explore our surroundings, the first activity we booked ourselves onto was horse riding. Now I'm not exactly a horse whisperer but I like to think I have a natural bond with animals (despite managing to accidentally kill several pets throughout my childhood) and therefore felt at great ease when the others suggested such an outing. Unfortunately on this occasion it seemed my love for animals was quite irrelevant, the more pertinent fact being that the animal didn't like me. From the moment I ascended his back my horse was out to get me. He was a male with an ego of epic proportions with a serious dislike for Charles' stallion, or perhaps Charles himself, either way he was a nasty piece of work. So after several attempts at biting or kicking Charles horse my counter part decided to start a full on brawl and bucked with such force he left me lying face first on the ground. It's debatable as to whether he actually threw me off or if in fact I threw myself off as at that moment I decided the ground was a safer option than his back and made little attempt at staying on, much like a drunk on a bucking bronco ride who decides they feel a little queasy and is happy to accept defeat if it means they save face by not throwing up. Either way the bruise that arose from the incident still rendered me a hero to most people I met over the following couple of weeks, which naturally I showed off at any opportunity for dramatic effect!


So after I'd been thrown to my near death Charles very kindly offered to walk me back to the hostel (which I'm pretty sure was just an excuse to escape the same fate as he didn't exactly take to riding with dexterity either). Regardless, I was glad of the company and we used this time wisely by deciding to swim to Monkey Island. It has been said that I am not a great at judging time, which I can't deny is probably an accurate observation. So when I said to Charles 'ah it'll be easy, its got to be no more than 20 minutes away' it will come as no surprise that an hour passed before we made it to our little haven. Our struggle must have been quite apparent as a fisherman and his son even offered us a lift in their little wooden canoe for part of the way, which naturally we accepted with eager nods of appreciation. Sitting in my bikini amidst a pile of flapping fish wasn't the best environment for me to test out my Spanish but we managed to have a very broken conversation that went something along the lines of 'fish healthy' ¿your dinner, no? And 'gracias, gracias, gracias, muchas gracias' on my behalf. So with a little help from our new found friends we made it, only to find that surprisingly Monkey Island is indeed inhabited by monkeys, and not the type that will dance on demand. Just as I began to scale the nearest rock, panting and overjoyed to have finally made it to our intended destination, Charles exclaimed rather enthusiastically 'oh look a monkey'. Given my previous encounter with monkeys in China I didn't share his unsuspecting excitement and thankfully jumped straight back to the safety of the water just in time to see the primate leap to where I had been stood moments before, gnarling his teeth and demonstrating in no uncertain terms that we were not welcome. Despite the initial terror that ran through my body at this encounter, as soon as we'd established that monkeys couldn't swim, I'm ashamed to say that we spent the next half hour taking great pleasure in taunting the poor creature by taking turns to bang on the rock and then swim for dear life when he'd return with the same savage disposition.


Soon after Monkey Island we bid farewell to Charles, Caroline and Mark and headed for one of the main towns on the island, Altagracia. I say 'main town' but really this hamlet was little more than a few cobbled streets set around a small square, where various four legged beasts were still a common method of transporting goods and pigs and chickens roamed freely. The heat on the island, and in fact throughout the whole of Nicaragua was stifling and therefore we did little more here than meander down to the beach along a dirt track lined with mud huts, and lay ideally in the shade of a tree. Our journey from the island the following day was a little disconcerting as Abi discovered the captain of our ferry drinking beer with a few of his pals at 5am. It soon became apparent when we reached the other side that this wasn't considered common practise, and that his rather lax attitude towards his responsibility of the lives of his passengers was due to the fact it was the first day of Semana Santa (Easter). It appears that bank holidays mean anything goes. In addition to our inebriated captain this proved to be the worst day to decide to travel to Costa Rica, as there wasn't a single bus running and the border was swarming with local holidaymakers. Still we managed to make it to our destination, and unknowingly waved goodbye to the real Central America we'd spent 3 months getting to know.

Honduras

Border crossings throughout Central America certainly don’t follow any rules or regulations consistently. When entering into El Salvador our passports were checked thoroughly and upon arrival we received a stamp, which any back packer will gratefully receive if it gives them a chance to gloat to their friends at a later date. When exiting the country however we had to hunt high and low for someone to even acknowledge our presence, and when we did eventually find an official looking bod they simply waved us off in vaguely the right direction after briefly glimpsing at our passports, I could have been carrying an over sized teddy with a poorly stitched neck which I'd received as a 'present' and nobody would have blinked an eye.

Our first stop in Honduras was Gracias where we bid farewell to the pupusas of El Salvador and said hello to baliadas, which turned out to be our staple diet for the next two weeks. These are basically fresh tortillas with a filling of beans, cheese, egg, cream and avocado. I can’t really describe why this is the food of gods, as let’s face it, it’s pretty much exactly the same ingredients we’ve been surviving on for the last three months but if you ask me nicely I’ll cook you one on my return and then you’ll be sure to understand. Gracias itself was a breath of fresh air as not only were we relieved to be in a new country but we were also in an area that many backpackers leave off their tight agenda and for that reason the town was reasonably unspoilt. Although sometimes a pain in the ass, it's usually a good sign to find a town with no hostel on offer. Whilst in Gracias we took a trip to the local hot springs, climbed the highest mountain in the country and ate the tastiest street food we’ve tried so far, although to be fair we haven’t done much sampling of such cuisine in fear of getting food poisoning. Not that the comedors we opt for are much better but tables, chairs and a menu can be quite a dupe in reassuring you that your food is no relation to the community of street dogs hanging around at your feet.


Its all well and good me updating you on the epic adventures Abi and I have had during our time in Central America but it's the little every day things that seem insignificant after 4 months that are actually what make this such a magical experience. For example Latino men’s hats. The cow boy look is highly popular here, whether or not this is purely to serve the practical purpose of beating off the sun is irrelevant, the bottom line is that these guys are effortlessly cool, and as a female, observing them is a total pleasure! The other experience that cannot go unnoted is riding on a chicken bus. These are basically old 50's school buses shipped down from the states that have been 'pimped up'. Each driver goes to great lengths to fashion his pride and joy to be the envy of every other young man, aspiring to one day rule the roads, resulting in a stunning array of colours and patterns greeting you at any bus station. This glamorous exterior is just the start, the real hook being the people that run and ride them. The drivers themselves would give any boy racer at home a run for their money and it is a regular occurrence to hear a thud above your head whilst the driver hurtles off indicating that his cohort is still attaching your bag to the roof. The juveniles manning these beasts clamber to and from the roof with such acrobatic style you wonder whether they were head hunted from the circus.


The title 'chicken bus' is a clear indication of the sorts of cargo you are likely to find yourself sitting next to, but besides being squashed between a box of live stock and a mother with three children balanced on her lap you are able to combine your journey with a full days shopping. At literally every stop at least a dozen vendors will get on trying to sell you all sorts of weird and wonderful things. Now this is pretty handy when you`re being offered food or drink but for every mango seller that hops on board at least two pill pushers will follow. Each merchant is guaranteed to start with a particularly animated speech on how the medicine on offer will change your life, and then proceed to hand out samples around the bus, quite incredibly the drivers appear to have no problem with this. By referring to these salesmen as pill pushers I'm not suggesting people try to openly sell you illicit drugs, I assume that the tablets on offer are perfectly legal, but I`ve never felt the urge to test this theory out as through my broken Spanish I can just make out the words 'brain' 'inject' 'growth' and 'problem'. Quite incredibly though its these self acclaimed pharmacists that get the most business out of the locals, which is more than a little disconcerting!

As I have mentioned before, the Caribbean cost of all of these countries differs drastically from the Pacific and the main land, and Tela, our next destination was no exception. Tela had the potential to be beautiful. Its garifuna culture instantly gives it a laid back feel, and being situated right on the beach it is a popular holiday destination for many Hondurans. Unfortunately Tela's streets, like many Honduran cities, are replete with litter. People seem to have no regard for the environment they live in and despite the crystal blue waters and perfect white sand of the beach, Tela's shore had little allure because of the countless bottles, plastic bags and other pieces of rubbish that permeated my path, needless to say we didn't leave it too long before we moved on.


From Tela we made our way to Utila which is one of the Bay Islands. These are a set of islands off the east coast of the country which are famed amongst back packers for being the cheapest place in the world you can learn to scuba dive. It may therefore surprise you that Abi and I opted not to take our PADI course, this was solely to do with funds as travelling to 11 months means you have to make sacrifices somewhere along the way. Still we managed to fill five short days on the island with other activities with great ease. The islands are teeming with wild life and on our first morning at our hostel, while eating breakfast we spotted several iguanas sunning themselves in the neighbouring field. We also caught a glimpse of flying fish on the boat on the way over, Abi managed to spot a whale shark and I had a special moment with a humming bird who I'm convinced thought I was a flower! We took a day trip to an uninhabited island near by which was like something out of a fairy tale, the sort of place you end up pinching yourself just to make sure your not dreaming. The snorkeling around the island was out of this world, and we spent several hours discovering various sea bound creatures including a star fish, a sting ray and various exotic fish resembling a selection of quality street with fins. We also Kayaked right through the centre of the island through a mangrove swamp and were greeted on the other side by a couple of local guys spear fishing lobster for their supper.


Unfortunately Utila itself resembles many of the destinations up and down the East Coast of Australia which have been descended upon by an assemblage of young middle class European back packers in search of sun, sand and sex but with little interest in culture, making every second establishment on the island a tour agency, bar or cafe. Now I`d be lying if I said I didn't enjoy partying til dawn or accruing a killer tan but after a few days I needed a reminder that I was in fact in Honduras and not in a very sunny Torquay. Having said that though, although they are hard to depict, the locals of these islands are quite fascinating. We would often see white people who we would assume to be tourists or expats, it was only when they spoke that we realised they were local and actually the descendants of British pirates. Pirates settled on the bay islands in the 17th century, it was the ideal base for raiding the Spanish gold boats coming from the Central American mainland.

Naturally with every backpacker in Central America making this routine trip to Utila we met up with a few familiar faces whilst on the island, one of which being Charles. Despite Charles' undiagnosed ADHD and tendancy to talk endlessly through 'ice cream time' (a special time Abi and I have discovered while on this trip which requires absolute silence when consuming said treat in order to fully appreciate its greatness) we decided to take him under our wing. So with Charles in toe we departed the Island, stopped briefly for a night in Comayagua before heading to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Here we couch surfed, Abi and I stayed with Jose and his son Ernesto, while Charles stayed with his cousin. This was a couch surfing experience like no other, because Jose is one of the most perfect people I have ever met. I mean that in a slightly scary way. His apartment was an OCDers dream, resembling an Ikea show room with not one mug out of place. Jose himself was impeccably dressed, clean cut and a total gentleman who wouldn't let us lift a finger around the house, he even took us out for dinner and refused to let us pay. This is all well and good but spending time with perfect people can be slightly intimidating and we wound up feeling like we were holding our breath for the entire duration of our stay. Still despite being terrified of touching anything in the house in fear of disturbing the order of things, we thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of a hot shower and sofa and it was a real treat spending time with a Honduran who could actually tell us a thing or two about the history of the country.



Tegucigalpa has a few charming features including a pedestrianised centre, several museums and art galleries but unfortunately these are largely over shadowed by the absurd amount of fast food chains that imbue the city. By the same token the city also has a love for labels and drive by cash machines! This is largely due to the huge influence the States has had over the development of the country. The USA has a huge military base in Honduras, which, in all fairness, has had its positive influences as well as its bad, primarily being the fact that Honduras was one of the only Central American countries not to have a civil war in the 80's. The motivations behind the USA's interest in the country are clear, one of which being the investments it has in the countries exports. Its worth noting that in 1918 The United Fruit Company, Standard Fruit and Cuyamel (all American based companies) owned 75% of all banana crops Honduras, a statistic that changed little throughout the 20th century. Another slighly more random fact, that doesn't really relate to the above info but I'm going to throw it in there all the same, is that the currency, the Lempira, is named after Honduras' national hero who led 30,000 indigenous people against their Spanish conquerors in 1537.

Flitting from country to country in Central America, its easy to get their histories confused with one another but meeting local people and quizzing them to death is definitely a great way of distinguishing between them, and without doubt one of the most enriching aspects of travelling.

El Salvador

When asking other backpackers for advice about a country or a town it’s always worth bearing in mind that their experience of a place will be largely based around the people they encountered there, even the shabbiest of cities can be transformed into somewhere quite magical if you meet the right people. Obviously quite the opposite can also occur, which is why although I have no doubt in my mind that El Salvador is a stunning and culturally rich country, my memories of it are tainted. On first impression Manolo was one of the most charismatic people I’ve ever met, full of charm and enthusiasm for life but also one of these people whose confidence can intimidate you a little. Abi and I arrived at ‘Mumma and Pappa’s’ hostel in Tacuba after a long weary day of travelling so it was a pleasure to be met by such a odd ball host. Donning a t-shirt printed with the words ‘mono loco’, Manolo couldn’t have chosen a more apt piece of clothing. He quickly showed us to our room whilst warning us of the pet ducks that have a tendency to attack guests, which indeed they did and then ushered us back down stairs where he entertained us with tales of various encounters he’d had with backpackers. That evening he offered us his bedroom for the night to watch a movie in while he went out. We felt rather intrusive excepting this offer but our hunger for comfort got the better of us and we enjoyed an evening of being transported to a realm of fiction.

The following day Manolo insisted we take a tour of a coffee plantation with him free of charge, which again we gratefully accepted, but the more time we spent with our host the more uncomfortable I found myself feeling in his company. Manolo was a particularly tactile person which was a little over bearing for someone we’d only just met. He also made it quite impossible for Abi and I to explore Tacuba by ourselves as every time we attempted to leave the hostel he’d insist on driving us ,even if we only wished to pop down to the local shop. After a while we began to feel like his show ponies as he’d make a real point of driving with his music blaring and his windows wound down. Still when he offered to take us on a tour to the beach the following day it was a difficult offer to refuse given how much he had done for us for free, so along with a Swiss boy we accepted. The following morning he took us to the super market to stock up on snacks for the road trip. Whilst shopping he insisted that we purchase some alcohol for the evening even though he was a T-total himself. The three of us agreed that given our budget a few beers would suffice, to which Manolo looked quite put out. He insisted that this would not be enough and bought us a bottle of tequila, ‘his treat’. During the day Manolo’s slightly manic behaviour lost its charm. He took us to a crocodile infested river where he insisted on wading in and capturing one. You may assume this would be quite exciting but much like when a child with ADHD continues to pester you for attention to the extent where you refuse to give it, I felt a deep reluctance to appear too enthusiastic. That evening we were provided with a large camp fire right on the beach which would have been a wonderful way to spend an evening if it hadn’t have been for Manolo’s behaviour. He quite intentionally plied both Abi and I with alcohol while he didn’t touch a drop with the clear intention of taking advantage of us both. The next day after discussing the night with each other it turned out that both of us had ended up physically pushing him away on a number of occasions, thankfully neither of us got too annihilated and with the presence of our Swiss friend nothing serious actually occurred. Never the less, the experience left us both feeling uneasy, frustrated, and very much relieved to move on to a new town the following day. It’s a sad but true fact that western women are often perceived by Central American men to be 'easy' and therefore fair game.

So from Tacuba we made a swift exit to Santa Ana, of which we saw little more than the swanky new super market before moving on to Suchitoto, a pretty little colonial town situated next to a lake. I’d like to be able to tell you more about the place but I’m afraid my affection towards travelling had certainly wavered at this point and I felt quite fatigued by the lack of familiar faces in my life. It’s at times like these I realise how spoilt I have been with Abi’s company and how much I will miss her when she’s gone.

Despite being on a slight downer throughout El Salvador we of course still found the country’s culture, history and politics fascinating. El Salvador has a terrible problem with deforestation which is largely due to the amount of money that can be made from farming sugar cane. Indeed often throughout our time in Central America we’ve driven past fields alight at the side of the road which we later discovered to be the easiest way of harvesting sugar cane. During our visit the country was having a national election which, regardless of our personal interests, was quite impossible to miss. Every street we turned down was quite literately plastered with posters of the two opposing parties, FMLN (previously a guerrilla organisation) and Arena. To understand the significance of this election it’s important to have a basic grasp of El Salvador’s past. In a nut shell El Salvador was engaged in a bloody civil war from 1981 until 1992.During this time an estimated 75,000 people were killed, 300,000 citizens fled the country and the US government gave 6 billion dollars to the Salvadorian governments war efforts. Although the country is reasonably stable today, its infrastructure has obviously been shaken and one of the biggest problems it currently faces is gang related crime. During the war many young people fled to the US, which caused tension with the Mexican immigrants who had already staked claims over certain districts of various cities, particularly LA. To cope with this violence many young Salvadorians joined together to form an equally lethal gang called the MS13. Today many of these gang members are being deported back to El Salvador, bringing the problem home. With the proposal of solving this problem, along with the promise of lifting the working class out of poverty, soon after we left FMLN won the election. Whether or not this is a positive move forward for the country I am not educated to say but it certainly made it an interesting time to visit the country.