El Salvador, Honduras, and Day 100

A lot has happened and I've left you out of the loop. I apologize. For the first time on the trip I've taken on travel partners and I just haven't felt the desire to spend a couple hours in an internet cafe. I won't hit up everything - its been a good few weeks, I survived and traveled through probably the worst country in Central America (Honduras). Happy to say it is behind me.

Hmmmm....I don't even know where to start. Four weeks is like a good damn life time down here. I left off in El Salvador. Good country, but didn't stay as long as perhaps I should have. I'm generally a lonely man and I had a stage one clinger and had to get her off my tracks. So after climbing Volcan Santa Anna I had a do nothing day in the city of Santa Anna, let my clinger take off and headed to Honduras the following day to Copan Ruinas. The largest Mayan Ruins in Honduras don't rival those of Mexico and Tikal of Guatemala, but in a country with a terribly unworn tourist trail, it's a place not to be missed. I spent four days in the town of Copan Ruinas, located a mile from the site of the ruins. My last night in town, after a late night cantina party, while chatting merryly with my buddy, I was bitten in the calf by an angry dog. Ripped my pants and broke the skin with some nice teeth marks. It scared the shit out of me, but I was fine. Crap thing was, I needed a rabies vaccine, but I'd already booked and paid $250 Honduran Monopoly money for a 7 AM bus trip to La Ceiba. Two buses and about seven hours of travel away. From there the plan was to quickly catch the last boat to Utilla, an island off Honduras' coast - world renowned for its cheap dive schools. Rabies is only a deadly virus - I'll wait until Utilla to take care of it. However, about 14 hours after I had been bitten, on Utilla, after an hour roller coaster style bout ride where I ralphed up my delicious Burger King Whopper, I learned rabies vaccine are not located on this island and in fact, in order for it to be 100% effective it needs to be given within eight hours of the bite. Wonderful news. When untreated, a human being only survives approximately 8 days once rabies is relieved of its incubation period. With supportive care, life can be extended up to a month. Awesome. The doctor, although initially very angry with me for not taking care of this within eight hours, calmed my nerves. He confidently said all dogs in Central America have been vaccinated for rabies. All dogs? Yup - ALL dogs. I guess I don't have rabies then - phew! My friends are less confident in this diagnosis and cautiously avoid drinking from my cups to avoid contracting my rabies. Don't worry Mom. I don't have rabies.

Honduras is beautiful, but the people are stupid and that gets old quick. Also, like most of Central America, any roadside is a fine place for a landfill. Finished with your bag of chips Juan? Just throw it on the ground. Maria, finished with your bag of water on the bus? Why throw it in an actual garbage when your whole country is one? Ahhh. Look an open window! FLING!...but back to the stupid part...Maria doesn't know a light, flimsy bag won't drop down to the ground on a fast moving bus, but hit and splash the silly gringo looking out the window, half way down the bus. Why shouldn't he expect to be hit with trash while gazing at the landfill that is Honduras?

So eventually. It was time to leave the country. A great day. Easter left us high and dry because the Thursday and Friday prior there were no public buses in the country. Genius for tourism. On Saturday we had one day to make our move or we'd be stuck on Sunday. Saturday was a hell of day. A shit long travel day. Count 'em up. Two proper buses, four vans, three taxis, and a bike ride across the border finally brought us to Leon, Nicaragua. We did it nearly as best we could though. No major screw ups. So from the beginning....

We walked out of our hostel outside of Peña Blanca at 6:50 am and got Taxi #1 to town. Didn't wait long for Van #1 to take us to La Guama and Bus #1 was waiting for us to arguably the most dangerous city in Central America, the capital Tegucigalpa. Taxi #2 took us to Bus #2 where our bags where quickly ripped from the taxi and a group of bus company men where competing for our business. I took the one who stole my bag first where he kindly deposited it in the back seat of the bus - as far from the door as possible. Bus #2 brought us to Van # 2 in Choluteca, Honduras - the fourth largest city and equally crappy as the first three largest. This van needed to be push started and from the tattered foam showing in all the seats and rust and holey floor it was obviously purchased sometime in the Eisenhower administration. Finally we made it to the border city of Guasaule where the fun really began. We were treated like celebrities upon exiting the bus by eager men with wads of money hoping to rip us off in exchange for Nicaragua's currency. Guys with bikes competed with our bags. You'd have to see this to believe it. It was comical. We changed some money and hoped in the carriage of the bike guy who'd managed to steal our bags first. The borders do not seem unsafe, but they are. Apparently these guys on bikes protect you from all the bad people. Our first mistake on this journey was not securing a price for this bike trip before the ride actually took place. First they took us to the Honduran Immigration Exit and then next to the Nicaraguan entry. We waited an hour there. The bike guys nudging and pushing us forward in their attempt to speed up the process. One even waited in the other line in case it was faster. After that fiasco where Nicaragua charged us nearly all the money we had exchanged we got back on the bikes and the bike guys road us out to a deserted lot, about 250 meters down the road, which was apparently the bus station. Like an ass I mentioned I had a 500 bill in Honduran Lempiras (remember in Monopoly the 500's are actually pretty good) - so magically the price was 5oo each. That's about $25 US. Are you fucking crazy bro? We didn't even have that much and it would mean losing all our money and not having any for the final two van rides to Leon. It was now 5 in the afternoon. We were tired and irritated, but luckily Norway was also really pissed off and they managed to only take our 500 (my 500). Bastards. They would have gladly cleaned us out. We were running on pennies now, but fortunately Van #3 said they could get us to Leon. Lie. We were driven about an hour outside of Leon and before we knew what had happened the bus was stopped and the drivers had disappeared as other passengers where getting off ahead of us. So with our last 40 Cordobas ($2) we limped into Leon at 7:30 at night on Van #4 and paid for Taxi #3 after an ATM stop. It was a rough 12 and half hour travel day. We had survived though and extremely happy to have Honduras behind us. We found a place to sleep for $5 US a night and slept with a smile.

I've been shitting on Honduras pretty bad during this blog, but it deserves it. The three largest cities are some of the unsafest in all of Central America. There is trash everywhere and nearly every restaurant we went to could not manage to make a correct order for us. They even have a bill equivalent to .05 cents. Case closed.

So hello Nicaragua. One city - Leon and I'm already feeling better. Went to a cock fight. Lost a beer betting with a local. I went for the white cock - the black cock won. What was I thinking? There is always that next city, that next town, and next hostel. Nicaragua. Here I come.

Chicken Buses and the Largest Mountain in Central America

While in Quetzaltenango I decided to act on the opportunity to hike the largest mountain in Central America. Volcan Tajumulco (4,220 meters). Two days before the trip I thought it a wise idea to go to the street vendor selling lukewarm beef patties with a ladle full of coleslaw and black beans from a large pot. It was only a dollar for a heaping plate. I knew it was dangerous and gave myself twelve hours to know if I had made a terrible mistake. This was Thursday and the start of my two day hike to the top of the volcano was Saturday morning. I spent Friday night on the toilet. Liquefied. I never felt sick, just couldn't pass gas without it running down my leg. I had already paid the Q400 for the trip ($50) so I wasn't letting some bacteria in my colon let me stay home. I went anyway and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever done. Unfortunately it took nearly a week before I had a solid stool again.

I forgot to read the fine print of the trip when it said "transportation provided". The meaning of this line was "public transportation provided." AKA - The Chicken Bus. A chicken bus is a converted US school bus. Either from the 1970's or 80's. Maybe even older. All I know is they look much older than any bus I rode on the 90's. They are brightly colored on the outside with racing stripes and stickers. Over the back windows it says something about God or Jesus. Inside they've wrapped the roof with handrails and added cargo storage for bags. The roof of the bus also has been equipped with cargo storage and a ladder leads to the top from the back of the bus. The driver adds as many stickers and quotes about God and Jesus as he can fit above the window for all passengers to see he is a true Christian.

Riding on a chicken bus is definitely requires an acquired taste. At least once you're off the damn thing you can look back at it with pride in having survived one of the worlds most horrifying experiences.

"How could it be so bad Matt?" you say...allow me to do my best to portray a ride on a chicken bus.

School bus seats can barely fit two normal sized people. A chicken bus manages to squeeze three to each seat. The 3rd having to sit with one cheek on and one cheek suspended in the aisle. You get the chance to rub legs with the unfortunate one cheeker across the aisle from you. Once there are three to every seat the aisle starts to fill up with people. They push and cram their way past the one cheekers holding on tightly to the hand rail, swaying with the twists and turns of the bus which immediately starts driving before you get a chance to confirm your spot. Not just driving, but speeding insanely around blind corners and hair pin turns. They beep their horns to warn anyone daring to take the turn into the other line coming the other direction. Even when you think the bus cannot hold anymore people and everyone is contorted up in each others arms and leg as if in a giant game of Twister the bus continues to stop and more passengers get on. At one point the entire front of the bus was packed, the stairs leading up into the bus was lined with four people and one guy was swinging out the open door.

All the while people keep coming on trying to sell stuff to you. There are all the normal items for sale, such as bags of sliced fruit, bread, sandwiches, chips, drinks, candies, and newspapers whose sellers magically duck and weave through the aisles to make a couple dollars. When there's no chance of even a mouse making it through the aisle they sell their products through the open windows to greedy hands reaching out for a cold drink or loaded gun to end their life.

About every hour everyone on the bus is treated to a Billy Mays impersonator trying to sell their products to the bus. First the guy with ball point pens. He holds up a pad of paper and scribbles to show how well it writes. But wait...there's more! Along with two pens you also get two black magic markers! Look how nice they write! The audience gawks. The seller "walks" down the aisle and a few customers hand over Q5 (.65 US), suddenly realizing they really need pens and markers.

Next comes the gentleman with the mystery cream. He comes on accompanied with a photo album. Page one - girl with hideous acne covered face, her eyes are blacked out in round dark holes. "This isn't you now, but buy this cream just in case...because you never know..." Unfortunately for everyone on the bus, this cream seems to be a cure all for ALL red sores on the body. Flip of the page shows a man with grotesque swollen feet. He has athletes foot, but apparently this cream also is an anti-fungal along with being an acne medicine. Sadly, it only gets worse. Flip of the page, and we have a lovely frontal nudity shot of a man with jock rash all over his genitals and upper thighs. Now its important for the audience to know, even if you don't have these ailments now, they can happen at any minute and you need to be prepared. Lastly, a close up of a woman's breast covered in pimply bumps. This is pubescent teens dream. I scan the faces on the bus to see if their jaws are dropped like mine has been, but they all seem relaxed and gazing bored at the display of pictures. Just another day on a chicken bus! This salesman takes another approach to sales. When he finishes his picture book he walks down the aisle and hands his two ounce jar of cream to every single person. I declined. As he speaks he continues to tout its importance and magical properties. People have a chance to examine it and the longer they hold it in their hands the more they realize they need it. He collects more Q5 then he gets bottles back.

Another guy comes on later in the journey with the same hand out method. He's selling SoyJoy, fruit soy granola bars. Then the man with his bible telling everyone they have two roads. The wide one toward the devil or the thin one toward Jesus and a donation to him.

Even if you don't have anything to sell or to preach you just need some type of deformity. You could be an old lady with a swollen arm or wrist begging for a few centavos or a guy with a head like tumor projecting from your stomach similar to the two head guy in Total Recall. He lifted up his shirt for all to see and hopefully shame them into a few Quetzales.

So back to the mountain. Before getting on our chicken buses we had to organize the gear into our overnight packs and ration out the supplies. The amount of food we were bringing was unbelievable. We were 6 people. Going for really just 22 hours. One lunch, one dinner, one breakfast, and some snacks. On the mountain at about 1 in the afternoon and off the next morning around 11, but we were packing as if we were going for a week. Three large loafs of bread, a bag of onions, tomatoes, apples, two large bags of mozzarella cheese, package of sliced American cheese, ham, small jar of oil, picante, "sandwich" sauce, six bags of pasta, six packets of sauce, one giant bag of corn flakes, three smaller bags of chocolate flakes, enough instant milk to make twelve gallons, two packets of black beans, and soup mix. Along with that, two rolls of toilet paper and twenty Styrofoam cups. With my current ailment I had brought along my own toilet paper, but now had no need to worry. I'm all about being full and satisfied in the back country, but this was a bit excessive.

The hike was relatively easy and we camped about a half mile from the top so we could get up at four in the morning and make it up for sunrise. I have to admit, it was quite nice to be able to eat until you were a pin cushion, because there was zero chance all the food could be eaten no matter how hard we tried. The sunrise from the top was a top ten life experience. The horizon was blanketed in a bed of clouds like the white water of a torrent river. In the distance other volcanoes stabbed their heads through the clouds for a view. It's hard to write a picture and I'm no author, but trust me...it was out of this world amazing. It was worth riding on a chicken bus.

From Quetzaltenango I spent four days on the Pacific ocean in the small town of Monterrico and from there after nearly six weeks in Guatemala, I headed toward the frontera. The border of El Salvador. I'm in the city of Juayua (why-ooo-a) right now and its actually pretty awesome. Today, Saturday, April 2nd, there is a Food Party. Well it happens every weekend, but you get to sample all the different types of food from all over El Salvador. I'm going to be adventurous today...tongue, iguana, brain...I'm Andrew Zimmern, and I'm out!

Check out Facebook for my pictures...

Me Encanta Guatemala

Upon crossing the northern Guate border from Belize I was immediately greeted by touts for taxis or shuttles at extraordinarily overpriced amounts. $60 US to my destination city of Flores? No gracias. I'd rather walk aimlessly around Melchor De Mencos, a nothing border town of 14,000 people, thank you. Fortunately it didn't take long for the public shuttle to spot the wandering gringo. For $55 US less I was cramped in the middle seat of a twelve passenger van dripping in sweat. A twelve person van stuffed with fifteen, yet continuing to stop and pick up more passengers. The van didn't really seem to have a capacity I guess. It didn't matter that people were "smushed" against the door or sitting cannonball position between rows of seats. Apparently safety regulations do not exist in Guatemala.

After four hours of Guate public transport I made it to Santa Elena and got to ride on my very first Tuc-Tuc. A tiny three-wheeled dome shaped taxi (I believe originating from India). Santa Elena leads directly by causeway to the island city of Flores. A beautiful little city with no room left for expansion. Hopefully a city stuck in a perpetual state of being. Jumping off docks into clean blue lake water and strolling cobbled streets became my daily routine.

The world famous, amazingly beautiful, ancient Mayan city of Tikal sits an hour north of Flores. The Mayans were geniuses. Plain and simple. Mapping their cities to the sun, moon, and planets. It took modern civilization until the 20th century to know what these guys knew and were able to predict two thousand years prior. Thanks to sonar imaging it's now known that the entire city of Tikal has some 17,000 stone builders. Most still buried by 1,000 years of jungle growth. Shamefully the Spanish burned most paper evidence of the writings of the Mayans so little is still known about what caused this amazing civilization to abandon their massive cities. (An abandonment which happened well before the arrival of the Spanish). What lessons will we never be able to learn from them? Are we heading down a similar road? No...I'm not going there...BUT shit, perhaps we need to remember the importance of looking in the past as advice toward our future. Millions...billions...have lived a life time of experiences and yet we often live ours without so much of a glimpse of thought into the rights and wrongs already started and ended a thousand times over. Sadly it seems to be human nature that most of us are incapable of learning certain life lessons without experiencing them first hand. In the sake of travel, I'm all about first hand, but in the case of reaping the land for resources with no thought to the long term, to the idea of tilling more land, to support more people in an Earth seemingly already stuffed to capacity...well, I hope we all don't need to experience poverty and starvation first hand in order to learn the lessons of their root cause.

I read an interesting book in the last couple weeks "The Story of B". It made a curious point about population. In the animal kingdom, what causes population growth? Answer: Lack of predators or increased food supply. In nature, when an animals population becomes too high for the food available the population stabilizes. Always. Add more food the population continues to increase. Always. Its a law of nature. More food = more population. Stabilize food = stabilized population. It gets only slightly more confusing when you throw predators in the equation. The population will fluctuate, but still remain stable over the long term. I'm talking about this because humans are not exempt from this law of nature. More food = more population. One of the many points of the book is you cannot cure hunger by making more food. We've tried this method for years and like a child continuing to try to stick the square peg into the round hole, we make more food, and amazingly more people are born and hunger and starvation doesn't go away. Population growth is the root cause of nearly all the woes this planet is facing. Interestingly, with controlled experiments it was found populations didn't suffer when a raising food supply was suddenly kept stable. No animals withered and starved. No fighting between animals over resources took place. Population stabilized. The only problem with this theory is we need to regard the human race as part of the animal kingdom. An equal subject to its laws and regulations. Not above it, but part of it. I'm capable of admitting that. Are you?

On brighter news while taking my two weeks of Spanish language lessons in San Pedro on volcano ringed Lago Atitlan I learned about the Guatemalan Civil War. 200,000 Indigenous murdered, 150,000 missing, 1,000,000 displaced from their homes. Military soldiers stormed towns, filed the villagers into churches, locked the doors and lit the churches on fire. Babies were smashed against rocks. Some grabbed by their legs and swung head on into concrete. Unfortunately, that only scratches the surface of the horrors committed, but I'll limit it to that. The survivors rarely got off without first losing an arm, leg, or hand with the swing of a machete.

I'm a USA fan. I see the fortunate life I was born into, but I sure as hell don't want it at the expense of unimaginable atrocities like this. In fear of Communism the US, during the 1980's, fueled this war by providing money to the Guate military fighting the mainly indigenous army. Not the 1880's or 1930's or even 1960's. This happen in the 1980's, less than 30 years ago. An indigenous Guerrilla army initially in search of fare labor rights and an opportunity to own the land they worked on. The land owned almost entirely by the US United Fruit Company. Later, filled with hate, they fought for other reasons. In case there are any "God Bless America", "Right wing Republicans never do wrong", "America is the greatest country in the world" people reading this...I'm not saying this to bash my country. We have done great things and are certainly capable of greatness, but we wronged here and unfortunately this is only one of several cases where the US became involved in foreign countries for causes shrouded in hidden agendas and in the past these incidents ultimately led to the death of thousands and thousands of innocent people. (I hope with the intention of protecting our way of life), but unfortunately at the expense of innocent lives. I, as an American, refuse to accept that as OK. It's important to admit we wronged, but America is too damn proud to do that. Interestingly we are involved in yet another foreign conflict as I write this with the nation of Libya. I hope for solely humanitarian reasons, but I honestly think we never know what our government is doing. Whether our president is liberal (Obama now) or Republican (Reagan in the 80's) I think it is all shrouded in bullshit.

If I've learned one thing so far from this trip it is that we are all people in this world. Whether your American (Estado Unidense to the rest of the Americas), Mexican, Guate, Spanish, Australian, or any of the some 200 countries in the world - you bleed, you cry, you feel pain and pleasure. You're no better than any one else. The people I've met are friendly, out going, love their family, and hard working. Qualities an person would respect. Love thy neighbor. Right?

Ahhh crap....I've gone off a bit haven't I?

Wrapping up...Thank you Tio Raymundo for coming to visit for ten days. We had nice walks and roof top chilling in Antigua and amazing coffee sipping time in San Pedro. It was nice to have a companion for a time.

I've hit the road again, now in Quetzaltenango (Known also as Xela - (shell-a)) and am immensely happy to be wandering again.

Peace and love friends and family.

Belize

Currently I'm in San Pedro La Laguna on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. I have been here a week with my Uncle Ray and I am likely staying another two weeks to study Spanish. My location will stand still and give me a chance to catch up on what I did a couple weeks ago.



Corozal Town in northern Belize is less than a pleasant place. I'm not really sure why I was there. It was Sunday and it seemed like a ghost town. Nobody was there. I found a hotel thanks to my taxi driver, but even though the road looked no bigger than the street I live on in my small neighborhood in Connecticut, it was apparently one of the main highways in Belize. ALL NIGHT trucks and cars where zooming by my hotel and thanks to "habitaciones sin arquitectos" (rooms without architects) the acoustics of my room made it feel like I was at NASCAR event. I walked around to look for a place to eat and discovered the only restaurants in Corozal town are dirty Chinese ones. I dined solo staring at posters of half naked girls holding beer bottles while I timidly ate the heaping plate of lo mein in front of me. I thanked my lucky stars the next day when I experienced no ill effects. When you travel like I am doing it is not always a vacation. It is life. Sometimes you make stupid choices. This time mine was going to Corozal Town.

In the morning I got a boat that brought me out to the island of Ambergris Caye and the town of San Pedro. Prices in Belize are about the same as those in the United States and after having just traveled five weeks through Mexico, I wasn't liking the changes. They have their own money in Belize, but it is also okay to use the United States dollar. The exchange is simple for even the most inept person. One US dollar equals two Belizean dollars. One Belizean dollar equals .50 cents US. Got it? In San Pedro the prices were terrible. $12 Belize for an hour on the internet, $25 BZ for a decent breakfast, and $10 BZ for a bag of tortilla chips. I brought $60 US dollars with me on this trip in anticipation of needing to use them in emergencies. That bastard at the Mexican border took the first $20 US from me and I turned the other $40 in for the emergency of having no money to buy beers at the bar connected to my hostel. I saved $4 US in one dollar bills given to me as change. This has now replaced my $60 US worth of emergency money. Hopefully I don't have a very big emergency.

The crap thing about San Pedro are all the damn golf carts. Golf carts are the main form of transportation. The taxis are golf carts and every fat, lazy, and old tourist that comes to the town (aka - everyone) rents a golf cart to drive around the town, which cannot be much more than a mile long (The island itself is much larger though, but mostly uninhabited). I walk everywhere so I was in constant danger of being run over by a golf cart. Once again, I somehow survived. I was thinking about diving in San Pedro, which sits next to the second largest coral reef in the world, but opted to simply take a snorkeling trip. Well worth it. I swam by sting rays and only remembered Steve Irwin after I was safely on the boat. I swam down and ran my fingers over their smooth "back". Thankfully it didn't pop its' tail through my heart. Coral, fish of all colors, and crystal blue water. It was awesome. In this place called "Shark Ray Alley" there were loads of nurse sharks hanging about the boat eating food thrown in by our skipper, but they took off when we got in the water. I was hoping to have the chance to swim around the harmless sharks, but settled for the rays and loads of other impressive looking tropical fish. It was an experience I'll never forget. I spent three nights in San Pedro. A couple days being stupidly hungover thinking I was 'as good as I once was' hanging with some younger guys. There was also a nightly poker game at the hostel and I lost more than I usually spend in three days traveling. Aside from snorkeling in some of the best waters in the world, I've been making some stupid choices in Belize.

From San Pedro I took a boat to Belize City, and got on a US converted school bus from the 70's and headed to western Belize and the town of San Ignacio. Belize (and Guatemala) get all of the United States old school buses. These are the main source of transportation. I'm telling you. Mexico's transportation is unbelievably nice compared to those countries and I haven't even made it to some of the more difficult countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Mexico is amazing. Go there. I'm telling you. Not Cancun though. That isn't Mexico. Cancun is meat heads from the U.S. giving us a bad name getting plastered during spring break because they never learned how to drink because we're the only country with a drinking age of 21. Was that a runon sentence?

In San Ignacio I was staying in this guest house ten miles away from the main town on dirt roads in the middle of the jungle. Check some pics on facebook and you'll see. It was very nice. Jungle hikes, swimming in clear water having just emerged from underground caves, and enjoying the peaceful sounds of nature. An American family owned the guest house and lived there with their three children. One was a nine year old boy, who took it upon himself to bother the shit out of me. He was a nice kid and I had some fun with him, but it started to feel like I was babysitting after day one. We played cards, connect four, he took me on a hike, and we made paper airplanes together. It started to feel less fun. I like kids, I'm a teacher, but sometimes I want to throw them off a cliff. Does that make me a bad guy?

I was waiting in the border line to exit Belize and enter Guatemala when I over heard a couple of woman who had hired a guide to take them across the border and help them arrive safely to their hotel: "Does anybody ever just walk across the border without a guide??" I don't consider myself a special case. There are literally thousands of travelers like myself. Well, all of them have three times the amount of stuff I do, but still, travels traveling solo, crossing borders with no guide. I hear all the time people say how they wish they could do what I'm doing. How lucky I am, etc. It's not always easy my friend. In your head, you may think its easy, but when you cross that border, and realize you still don't know the language being spoken and you have no idea where the bus station is and how to get from one place to another and everyone sees that, and knows that, and is trying to rip you off, you may not wish to travel the way I and the thousands of others are. It's amazing and I love it and if you really want to do it YOU CAN and YOU SHOULD, but it's not a vacation, it's my current life. There are good days and bad. It's hard and sometimes scary. Understand what you're wishing for before you say it.

"What do you do while your in Guatamala??"

Relax, read, drink coffee, eat, walk around, sleep, REPEAT.

adios Mexico

"Life is only what one did everyday." - Jim Harrison "The Man Who Gave Up His Name"

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do." Johann Wolfgan Van Goethe (Quoted in "Between a Rock and a Hard Place")

"You must believe it, before you can imagine it." Mark Twain (Quoted in "Between a Rock and a Hard Place"

I had left Isla Holbox at twelve noon. The boat ride to the main land was an hour. Then three more hours on bus to Cancun. I was resting my head comfortably against the window of yet another bus heading to Tulum on Mexico's Carribean Sea when a loud "SMMASSSHH" jostled me away from my day dream. I looked out the window at what caused the noise and saw a red pickup truck careening across the highway. The driver had smashed against the bus on its right, then over corrected too hard to the left and rolled over several times before resting on its side off in the median of the highway. Everyone on the bus was stunned silent and the bus came to a hault on the right shoulder as fast as the brakes could be applied. Several passengers, along with the bus driver ran after the turned truck. I stayed on the bus starring out the window. Since I don't speak Spanish and already ten men ran out I figured it to be a bit obtrusive for me to join. An ambulance came. One person was OK, but word was there was four in the truck. I have no idea if they had seat belts on. If they didn't there was little chance they survived. An hour later another bus came and picked us up off the side of the highway. I never learned the fate of the trucks passengers.

The bus picking us up had a final destination of Playa Del Carmin, an hour north of Tulum. I had no copy of my original ticket because the bus drive on my first bus had taken it. At this point it was eight at night and I was tired and frustrated trying to explain in terrible Spanish that I had payed to get to Tulum. "Mi autobus fui un accidente y.....uhhhhhh ....voy a Tulum..." The blank stare of the bus employee indicates he has no idea what the fuck I am saying. I don't have the Spanish yet to explain my problem. Luckily after feeling on verge of frustrated tears I find an employee who knows of the accident and understands enough English to understand my problem. I got on a bus bound for Tulum successfully at 9:30 PM. At 10:30 PM I arrive in Tulum and walk to the only hostel I know of within walking distance. The cheap dorm beds are full. Of course their full. I decide to pay $350 pesos (about $30 US) for a private room. It is the most I've had to pay for a night on the whole trip. The room is terrible, the sheets are terrible, the shower and bathroom are worse. There are supposedly some lovely beaches and Mayan ruins in Tulum, but I was just so pissed and tired and annoyed from the days events I decided to skip it all and plan to flee Mexico in the morning. You better Belize it! I was reaffirmed of this decision when I was about the enjoy my "free" (350 peso) breakfast at the hostel and was handed two uncooked eggs and limp white toast. I cooked it myself and ran for the bus station.

Unfortunately things don't get better. I arrived in Chetumal, Mexico, one of the large cities before Belize unsure of my next move. Because of last nights terrible display of Spanish skill I was feeling very shy and introverted. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I wanted to be in Belize and speak English. I weakly asked someone about a bus to Corozal town, the first city I wanted to see in Belize (after now going there I have no idea why I ever wanted too). Later, while still in Belize I learned had been a bus to Corozal town and whoever spoke to me had the station had no idea what he was talking about. I should have waited in the long bus line, but I dejectedly walked out to take a taxi to the border. I had turned into a cowardly wimp, not really sure what I was doing. I gave the taxi my last $100 pesos and walked to Mexico's border exit. I knew there should be no charge for me to leave. I was way under the maximum stay of 180 days and I still had the paper indicating it so, however the officer demanded I pay an exit tax of $262 pesos or $20 US. Twenty bucks is a couple dollars less than $262 pesos. I knew this was all bull and this money was going right into the officers pocket, but what could I do? I asked por que?? (Why??) and got no response other than a repeat of what I owed. I had no pesos left. I unzipped my money belt to whip the officer in the face...I mean to take out my hidden US dollars and handed it over.

I walked out of Mexico and into Belize...or so I thought. Not yet. I was simply in the "free zone" A no country zone. No mans land. I still had to go through the Belize border. A taxi said he would take me to the true border, an ATM, in Corozal town, and get me to a hotel for $30 Belize ($15 US). I didn't try to barter, that was a fare deal and I got on. There wasn't a single other person in the border office and my passport was stamped after the only question asked of me was how long I was staying and where. I made up some answers and finally....UNBELIZEABLE...

In many ways Mexico was so easy...The cities are all safe, the transportion a breeze. Now was almost the start of my true adventure. My first Central American country. My first of my goal to see all seven on this trip. The major cities are more dangerous, the buses less than luxourious. The ability to walk everywhere safely no longer available. I was off to broaden my perspective on this life and world. To learn more about myself and "the Americas."

drunk sun love

I should leave the Yucatan to myself...Not share what it has meant to me and what it is. Keep it all to myself. But I'll continue to open myself up to you and share this experience that will forever shape the man that I am and the man I will become every tomorrow.

*Work on bettering yourself and you better the world*

Merida to Valladolid to Isla Mujeres to Cancun to Holbox

I'm not done yet with Mexico, but the time is ripening for me to move on. I love this country. I love the food, the people, the air. Love. This is the longest I've been in any other country other than the U.S. I'm glad it was Mexico first. Our neighbor. One of the two. A brother of North America. A country few of us will ever experience. Fear? Rubbish (as my English friends would say). If you want fear, fear why you worried about me going to Mexico. Why are those thoughts in your head? How did they get there? I still practice common sense. This trip is still barely one quarter accomplished, so of course something terrible could still happen, but I'm never going to let that "if" stop me from walking through that door. The learning experience is far too valuable. One life.

My very first blog talked about why I'm here. A strange coincidence I could not ignore. I sign. Trust me. I still have idea where I will end up from all this. When I get serious about thinking about my life after my money runs out and I think about how I should consider my career once again, I still feel a bit uncertain. Will I ever feel ready to be at the same job in the same place for 25 to 30 years? Is that my purpose? I drop thinking about it and realize I have a year and half of experiences still to live before that question needs to be answered.

Arriving back in Merida was special because it was the very first city I'd ever been too in Mexico. It's one of the reasons I've been nearly six weeks now in this country. The best part this time happened to be the free breakfast at the hostel I stayed at. Fresh cut pineapple, melon, papaya, watermelon, and bananas. Fresh hot rolls, cereal, and yogurt. Coffee and tea. ALL YOU CAN EAT. Oh...the best part, you also get a fresh two egg omelet with tomatoes, onions and and cheese. Caliente? Just ask for a sprinkle of habanero. I debated staying longer just for the breakfast. It would not have been an unreasonable decision, but I was on a fast leg on my journey and decided to revisit Valladolid for an evening, another city I visited on my first trip to Mexico in April of 2009. I re-rented a bike and returned to cenote Diztnup. Cenotes are underground caverns filled with crystal blue spring water. The cost to enter increased from $25 pesos to $52 in the year and a half since I was last here. I now didn't have enough money to hire a six year old to guard my bike, buy a fresh coconut with a straw pushed in to slurp the juice, change euros to pesos for small children at a fare rate of 15 to 1 and also go to cenote samula which also raised its entrance fee to $52 pesos. I was irked, but there was nothing I could do. I wasn't going to ride seven kilometers back on the bike with bent peddals and half inflated tires. I was renting it for ten pesos an hour. The equivalent to about .85 cents. I guess I got my moneys worth.

I went to Isla Mujeres for four nights and Cancun for one.

I'm now in the sleepy Isla Holbox. The weather isn't great, but I still get a great feeling from this place. I have a dorm style six bed sand floor cabana for a $100 pesos a night. I wrote a haiku about a pelican. 5-7-5 write?

"The Pelican"
Constantly alert
Unsuccessful, yet alive...
...Bird fishing - SUCCESS!