Granada, Nicaragua: Just Perfect!

I ended up hanging out in Managua for 3 days and having a great time at the hostel with my new friends. Since I had made my decision to just relax and take my time going through Nicaragua, I decided that I should definitely do some exploring and head over to Granada which was only about 40 min away by the collectivo bus. I had remembered during one of the conversations with the owner of my apartment in Antigua, Guatemala he had mentioned that his friend from Germany had just arrived from staying a few days in Granada and had said that it was really amazing. Everyone at the hostel that I was staying in seemed to also agree that it was a really great place and that I should definitely check it out.

Now one of the things that I found out while travelling through all of these countries, is that may times the best information that you can get is from other travelers. So here’s a tip; when a bunch of different people recommend that you go somewhere (“different people” being the key words), because that really liked it, or they think that you may really like it, they are most likely right and its probably a good idea to make a little detour and go check that place out. And that’s exactly what I decided to do. Also, on the other side of the coin, if you find that people are telling you to avoid a certain area or certain place to stay, because of this and that, you can bet that they are probably right as well and that place should be avoided. Now I’m by no means saying that what you do on your trip should be dictated by what other people tell you to do or not do, or by what people suggest you should do; but rather the things people say can be used as a great source of information. There’s a quote by Woodrow Wilson that goes, “I not only use all the dreams that I have, but all that I can borrow”, and that makes a lot of sense to me. Despite what some people think, there’s not one person who knows everything. So, what I really love to do is to listen to what people have to say, and listen to their experiences, and borrow their knowledge to expand what I know. And you can really learn a lot from people when traveling.

I ended up in Granada 40 minutes later, and the people that I had listened to were spot on... It was absolutely gorgeous!

I’m going to go ahead and post some pictures below of beautiful Granada, as well as a video that I shot in Granada’s Parque Central. For those that have been reading my blog since Antigua, you know that one of my favorite things to do is to just relax in the park and take in my surroundings. I always found it to be really peaceful and just lovely. I managed to shoot a 360 degree video of Parque Central in Granada and I love the video, because it really shows how beautiful everything is there, and you can really hear all the different sounds of the park. I hope it will give you some sort of feel of what it was like to be there, because Granada was really great.

In the mean time, I’m on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica right now and the surfs up so I gotta go… Enjoy!

Managua, Nicaragua: A Pleasant Surprise

By far, I think one of the coolest things about traveling is that your plans are always changing and you never really know what to expect. As I rode into Managua on the bus, the area seemed less and less like a big capital city, and more like one big barrio in which the poverty had been laid bare. I was totally stunned as we passed an area that I could only describe as a “tent city” where people lived in homes completely constructed out of garbage. There was a fire burning in the middle of the tent city, and it definitely looked like a place that if you walked into, you would not be walking out of. The bus pulled up to the Tica station in Barrio Martha Quezada and it was starting to get dark, so I knew that I had to find a place to stay FAST; because the absolute last thing I wanted to do was to be walking around in the barrio at dark looking for a room.

So I grabbed my gear and headed down the street to a hostel that was in my guide book. I managed to get about ½ way down the block when a guy from the street came up to me and started badgering me about a place to stay that he knew about, that was safe, and really cheap. Now normally I would not stop and listen to some guy from the street who was obviously stoned out of his mind when it’s getting dark in the middle of the absolute worst neighborhood I have ever been in my life, but what the hell. As it turns out, the hostel he was talking about was right next door to the one I was going to anyway, so I decided to check it out. Apparently, for every person these street guys refer from the bus stations the hostels give them a dollar, so I could see why he was so eager to help me.

It tuned out to be Hostel Dulce Suenos and it was absolutely fantastic. The hostel had a really nice common area with a TV, a bar, and little kitchen, and stairs that lead up to a roof deck with hammock and a little table and chairs. I also had a really comfortable room, so I was happy. I settled in, and as it turns out there were some really cool people staying there too. So, we all introduced ourselves and I found out that 2 of the girls at the hostel were working in Nicaragua on various projects to help the people in this country, and another one was an anthropologist doing research and was going to be living in a remote village for a couple of months with the indigenous people, which I thought was really cool.

As our little group headed out for dinner a few blocks away, to what would become my favorite place to eat in Managua “Café Sara”(she makes the most amazing fresh juice smoothies, and curry chicken…OMG), I had asked one of the girls if it was safe where we were going and if we should maybe take a taxi to the restaurant. Now, I know everyone has encountered at least one person in their life who “always has to be right” or who always “has to know everything” because I have encountered several in my time; and why people are like this I have no idea. Anyway, after I asked if we should take a taxi to the restaurant because the area appeared to me to be super dangerous, the girl snapped back at me “are you kidding me!? Its only 3 blocks and you want to take a taxi?! Blah blah blah” like I’m some sort of imbecile or something, and I’m thinking, “given the fact that this place looks like a hell hole and the streets are pitch black…YES, I would like to take a taxi!”. But I figured that she must know the area, and that she probably knows what she’s talking about as far as safety goes, so I just said, “Ok, just asking because I’m not familiar with this place yet, tranqillo”. Well, half a block later she made the most interesting remark, “Hey did you guys know that a few months ago I was kidndnapped from here”.

“RED ALERT”, “RED ALERT”….ALL CREDIBILITY HAS BEEN LOST!!!!

So needless to say, after I heard that I managed to defy millions of years of evolution with in that half block, and became the first human being ever on the plant to actually grow eyeballs in the back of his head.

After dinner the 4 of us ended up buying a bottle of “Flor de Cana”, which is a damn fine bottle of Nicaraguan rum, and went back to the hostel for a few drinks. A few of us sat around until the early hours of the morning on the roof deck sipping on rum, joking about the “safety expert” in the group, and trading stories of our travels and experiences while enjoying the nice cool Nicaraguan breeze. It was really great, and just what I needed.

When I had arrived in Managua from San Salvador earlier that night, I had planned on leaving the next day for Costa Rica, but it’s funny when you open up and talk to people and start to find out what their all about, sometimes you get some really good insight on life. Sitting around that table that night with the rum I guess one of my new friends must have noticed that I had been rushing through my trip in Central America trying to make it down to Colombia and she gave me some really good, simple advice, and that was “to just take it easy”. She was right, after days on the bus, and days of traveling down from Belize, and back through Guatemala, through El Salvador and Honduras, I just needed to settle down and relax for a while. And that’s exactly what I did. I found some great people to hang out with and wouldn’t you believe it, ended up settling down for a few days and having a great time in a place that I would never have believed it possible to…

Granada, Nicaragua: On the Road Again

Well, as it turns out, I had a really interesting trip from Belize down here to Nicaragua. Since my plans were to head down into South America, my trip to Belize took me a few hundred miles in the wrong direction (although it was well worth it!). So I decided to really blaze my way down as far as I could on the bus to make up for lost time. This meant back tracking all the way from Belize down to Guatemala City, and then heading into El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. I figured that I would try and stop in each country, and if I liked it, I would stay for a few days, and if not, I’d move on to the next place. I actually had a pretty brutal bus schedule for my return. It was as follows:

4 hours from Belize City to Flores, Guatemala

9 hours overnight from Flores to Guate (Guatemala City)

6 hours from Guate to San Salvador, El Salvador

10 hours from San Salvador to Managua, Nicaragua

I wanted to knock out the whole trip back to Guate in one fell swoop, so last Saturday morning I boarded the water taxi on Caye Caulker totally hung over from a Friday night of rum and lobster, and head for the la frontera. It’s funny because as I remember it, our motto for the last night in Belize (a bunch of people that I was hanging out with on the island were all leaving on Saturday as well) was “hey, we might as well be hung over on the way home…whooo!!!” It seemed to make perfect sense at the time to keep drinking, as do many “drunk ideas”, so true to our motto, all of us were pretty haggard as we left the island the next day.

I had arrived in Flores, Guatemala 4 hours later and had a 6 hour lay over until my over night bus to Guate. Being in Flores hungover with my huge backpack, laptop, and basically everything I owned, and with nothing to do on top of that, was not the most relaxing experience. However, I decided to make the best of it and met a few cool people in a very short period of time. I ended up sitting at a little restaurant right on the shores of Lago Peten Itza nursing a beer for a few hours and talking with a fellow traveler about our experiences in Guatemala. It was really great to hear her stories about learning Spanish as she traveled through Guatemala, because she seemed to go through a similar experience as I did, where she totally withdrew from talking in English, and actually avoided people who spoke English for a period of time. I had actually done the same thing in Antigua when I was learning Spanish and I could totally understand where she was coming from, because when you’re learning Spanish it is way too easy to revert back to using English when talking to people, and therefore you really make no progress in learning the language. It really is a double edged sword though, because if you are avoiding other travelers because you strictly want to stick to your Spanish, you’re also going to miss out on talking to a lot of cool people.

After we parted ways, I boarded the over night bus to Guate. The over night buses are great because you can sleep pretty much the whole time and when you wake up your where your supposed to be. The one huge disadvantage though is that you get to your destination at some weird hours sometimes. So I had arrived in Guate at 4:30am, which is not the best time to be arriving in one of the most dangerous cities in Central America, if not the entire world. I mean, you know you’re in a really bad neighborhood when there are guys with shot guns guarding the passengers as they get off the buses. Not to mention that I was half asleep and just barely caught some guy trying to walk off with my backpack, which was stored underneath the bus. So given the situation, I thought it would be best to hop in a cab right away and get somewhere safe, where I could sleep. One of my friends had told me that there was a Holiday Inn in Guate, so I figured given the hour and the danger factor, the Holiday Inn would be a good choice. So I ended up staying at the Holiday Inn for a night, which totally screwed my budget because I ended up having to pay over $200 for the day and a half I was there. Now I knew it would be an expensive stay, but $200…shit! When I was checking out I was seriously thinking, “I just came back from Belize where I lived in a shack for $15 a night on the beach, and now I’m paying $200 for a one nights stay Guate… Yep, I’m a moron”. But hey, everyone makes bad decisions sometimes during a trip, especially when you are half asleep and don’t know what the hell you are thinking…LOL.

I arrived in San Salvador the following day and had about 3 or 4 hours of daylight left to walk around and check things out. San Salvador actually reminded me of parts of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel valley where my grandfather lives. I was staying in this little neighborhood, and walked around and there really wasn’t much there except a few little parks so I decided to make my way onto Nicaragua the next morning at 5am. So that night, I headed out to Zona Rosa, which according to my guide book is supposed to be the place to “see and be seen” in San Salvador, and had dinner. It was really interesting because I went to this really fancy restaurant and the waiter walked up to me and brought over a plate with some flowers laying on it. The flowers were about 3 or 4 inches long and still attached to the stem and were closed (like they do when the sleep for the night) and he was telling me that the flowers were really special in El Salvador and was having me smell them and inspect them and everything, kind of like you do with a glass of fine wine, and I’m thinking, “Ok this is weird, why is this guy having me smell a plate full of flowers?” So, I told him that they smelled great and this and that, and then he takes them away, only to return a few minutes later with the plate of flowers but this time they were cooked and drizzled with olive oil! Now I had never really eaten actual flowers before that looked like they were straight from mom’s garden, but they were really good!! They had a kind of sweet taste and were really nice with the olive oil. I ended up having a great meal, as I would need it for the monster 10 hour bus ride to Managua, Nicaragua the next morning.

As I arrived in Managua, Nicaragua on the bus I flipped open my guide book and saw the most interesting phrase…”Managua is far from the world’s safest city. Theft and muggings are common, and as a tourist you look like a walking wallet.” YIKES!!!

To be continued…

*** Until then, check out some of the SICK breakdancers I filmed last night doing their thing on the streets here in Granada. I’ll be posting more on my adventures in Managua, as well as Granada soon. But these guys were seriously bad ass and I wanted to put the video up so, Enjoy!!

PS. There was a really loud band in the background playing some traditional music that unfortunately drowned out their little ghetto blaster, so I thought they could use a little MJ and helped them out in the video… ;)

Caye Caulker, Belize: Just Cruising in Belize

After scaling the Mayan temples in Tikal (see previous post), I was ready for some serious R&R, and given the fact that the Belize border was only 1 hour away by bus, I was definitely excited to get over there and check things out! So I headed off to Belize from El Remate on Wednesday morning, and arrived in Belize City around 12:30 in the afternoon.

Before I had left I had already decided that I was going to be staying on Caye Caulker, which is known as the “backpacker’s island”, and is about 45 mins north of Belize City by water taxi. I had heard that Caye Caulker was supposed to be a bit more economical than the tourist laden San Pedro on Ambergris Caye, and really relaxed as well, as the islands official motto is “go slow”. If your not familiar with Belize, it sits north east of Guatemala, right on the Caribbean and is littered with tiny little islands know as Cayes. A giant barrier reef sits just east of the keys and it is home to some of the best diving and snorkeling in the world.

I was definitely excited getting on to the water taxi, and when I arrived on Caye Caulker it seemed like I was on a completely different planet, as it was so different from Guatemala. The water was an amazing array of light blues and had different colors stretching as far as the eyes could see. The beach was full of white sands and littered with palm trees and hammocks, and even the streets were sandy paths as opposed to roads, as there are no cars and thus, no asphalt any where on the island. I was also really surprised at how small the island was. It seemed to me that if there was a storm, the island was so small I could imagine it just washing away.

So, as I walked around the island looking for a place to stay I knew that the Belize Dollar was only a 2:1 ratio to the US Dollar (in Guatemala its 8:1) and that things were going to be a little more expensive there, and I was right. Most places were going for any where from 60BZ to 100BZ which is $30-$50 per night. I ended up finding these little “shacks” that sat up on stilts all the way down at the south end of the island for $30BZ or $15 per night. And I’m not joking one bit either about the “shacks”. They consisted of a door, a room with a bed and some faulty outlets, and a bathroom with PCV piping that supplied a cold shower. So I thought about my situation and decided that living in a “shack” on the beach in Belize for a few days was still a hell of a lot better than sitting at my desk in San Diego crunching numbers all day like a chump, so I decided to go for it and take the “shacks” as my temporary home.

That first night on Belize was great as I became accustomed to the culture and laid back life style. Everyone pretty much just cruises around the island drinking rum, eating, and playing in the water. You begin to see the same people over and over again and it’s really easy to make friends and find people to hang out with for the night. I actually think I was hanging out with different people each night I was there, as people are always coming and going to and from the island. It’s crazy there because as I had posted from the island internet café…Ever heard the saying, "where the wine flows like water?" Well in Belize, "the rum flows like water" and the rum is REALLY good! So I really tried to follow the old philosophy, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. Needless to say I was pretty much hammered off of rum every night that I was there…LOL.

One of the definite highlights of Caye Caulker is the “Jolly Rodger”. Now the Jolly Roger is basically this really big guy named Rodger who sets up a few picnic tables on the side of Front Street next to a huge BBQ. It’s important to note, that next to the BBQ were buckets filled with about 50 fresh Lobsters! I ended eating at the Jolly Roger just about every night because for 25BZ you get: a HUGE grilled lobster, rice, potatoes, garlic bread, cake for desert, and 3 rum punches. So you can definitely see how easy it is to start off your night feeling good with a belly full of fresh lobster and 3 rum punches! Now, that’s living in paradise!!

My last day on Caye Calker was by far one of the highlights of my trip. I decided to take the all day snorkeling adventure tour out to the barrier reef. It was truly amazing because I was snorkeling with all sorts of fish, sea turtles, eels, sharks, crabs, lobsters, rays… you name it! Our guide Carlos even brought along an underwater dive camera and we came away with some of the most amazing pictures I’ve ever seen that looked straight out of national geographic (he even got a cool one of me snorkeling above the reef). So after 3 days of snorkeling, rum, lobster, and more rum, I decided to make my way back and leave Belize when I got word of a storm coming in that was expected to hit on Saturday.

Belize was a truly amazing place and hopefully one day when I’m an old man I can make it back there, buy a boat, and spend the rest of my days drinking rum and diving for fresh lobsters. Until then, I’m heading south towards Panama and into Colombia. Next stop, El Salvadore. Hasta Luego…

*** I put together a little youtube movie with some video and all the pictures that I took while I was in Belize, as well as some of the pictures that our guide Carlos captured with his underwater camera and have posted it below… Enjoy!

El Remate, Guatemala: The Mayan Temples of Tikal

Update on my laptop situation: Ok, I got really lucky and it turns out that my power supply was not fried after all. I think I may have just blown up the faulty outlet in my “shack” while I was staying on the beach in Belize. So I chilled out there for about 4 days and had an amazing experience there (post coming soon). Yesterday, I took a 6 hour bus ride back across the border to Flores, and then another 9 hours bus ride overnight back down here to Guatemala City as I’m heading into El Salvador tomorrow. Anyway, I got in at 4am and was so haggard that I just decided to check into the Holiday Inn (which was $140us…Ouch!) rather than looking for a cheap hostel in the middle of the night in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. I decided to try my power supply in one of the outlets in my room and low and behold and it worked! Whooo! So I’m stoked and my laptops back in action and well, here the post back from last week on Tikal…

After spending the last 10 weeks in Antigua learning Spanish, I decided to head about 9 hours up to Peten in Northern Guatemala to check out the Mayan Ruins of Tikal. The ruins date back to as early as 400BC, encompass more than 3,000 stone constructions, and are located in the midst of a dense jungle. Tikal was a massive city that supported as many as 90,000 inhabitants during the height of the Mayan civilization around 900AD.

Tikal has been featured in various motion pictures such as Star Wars among others, and really embodies a mythical quality that you cannot find anywhere else in the world. Walking trough the jungle along the various paths and causeways to the temples is as close to something straight out of an Indiana Jones movie as you’re going to get. There are all sorts of birds and monkeys, and just from the noise alone, you can really feel that the jungle itself is alive. It’s a bit strange too when you’re out there, because the Jungle has a really unusual smell. I want to say that it’s a crisp smell, kind of like the forest, but it’s really strange and very hard to describe.

So, as you make your way down the main causeway, you will have about a 20 minute walk to the entrance of the site where there are various paths that split off to each of the different temples throughout the ancient city. One great thing about Tikal is that it’s a “hands on” experience. Once you arrive at one of the massive temples you can actually climb up to the top! You’ll see in some of the pictures that I post below that I have some photos taken on top of temple IV, which is the tallest temple at the site, and it’s great because you can actually see temples I and II in the background and how high the temples rise above the jungle. The pictures also point out the density of the jungle itself as there is nothing that stands in between each of the temples but jungle. Tikal was a really amazing experience and something that I will never forget. I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

I also wanted to mention a little bit about El Remate, which is where I stayed during my trip to Peten. It’s located a long the beautiful shores of lake Peten Itza about half way between Flores and Tikal. It was a really beautiful place with horses, wild turkeys, chickens, pigs, and all sorts of other animals running around along the beautiful countryside. I stayed at “La Casa de Don David” right along the lake, and I would like to sincerely thank my friend Kelsey and her family for the warm wonderful hospitality which made my stay something I will remember for a long time. I have included a link below to La Casa de Don David if you’re curious about the accommodations, El Remate, or would just like to see some beautiful pics… http://www.lacasadedondavid.com/

Caye Caulker, Belize- Blog update "Uh oh".

I arrived in Caye Caulker, Belize yesterday and I've already hit a major rode block with my blog. So when I got into town I decided to go with ULTRA cheap accommodations since Belize is a lot more expensive that the rest of Central America. Anyway, I basically ended up renting this shack on stilits, seriously that's what it is and im not joking one bit either, for $15us per night.

Apperantly, the wiring in the place was less than professional because when I plugged in my laptop's power supply inside the room, sparks started shooting out of the outlet, and since the powesupply didnt turn on, I'm assuming that its fried. So, my laptop is basically useless at this point unless I can find a universal powersupply somewhere, that seriously presents a problem for my blogging as I need my laptop for all my pictures and to help with the video editing. Right now I have a great blog post of my trip to the Mayan ruins of Tikal ready to go, as well as some pretty amazing pictures that are currently stranded on my laptop. So, well have to see how this plays out because I really enjoy what Ive been posting on my blog and I guess Im going to have to figure something out with regards to the pictures and videos moving forward.

Other than that, Caye Caulker is really beautiful. I'd post pictures if I could...LOL!
Anyway, tomorrow will probably be my last day here and Im going to do an all day snorkling adventure out on the reefs swimming with some sharks! It should definately be a great time!!

Another thing about Belize... Ever heard the saying, "where the wine flows like water?" Well in Belize, "the rum flows like water" and the rum is REALLY good! Speaking of which, it's time for another rum punch... Hasta Luego!!

Antigua, Guatemala: Farewell Antigua!!

This week is my last week here in Antigua, Guatemala which I have called home for the past two and a half months. I’ve had some great times here, and some amazing experiences. I have met some wonderful people, and a few people that weren’t so wonderful. I know that it’s going to be sad leaving, and although I really like it here, and I love my Spanish school, I think it’s high time to get out there and do some hardcore traveling!

As far as my Spanish goes, I have made a lot of progress and I can have small, simple conversations, but I’m far from fluent. I would really love to spend another month or so here at the school, however, in taking some advice from Tim Ferris (the author of the 4 Hour Work Week, which is one of my favorite books) on one of his blog posts; the goal of progressing with language learning should be to lose the training wheels as quickly as possible, and to accelerate your learning by screwing up as much as possible in uncontrolled environments (check out the link, it’s a great post on the subject). So I believe that it’s high time to get out there and start really using my Spanish!

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/09/22/why-language-classes-dont-work-how-to-cut-classes-and-double-your-learning-rate-plus-madrid-update/#more-609

As far as my last week of preparation goes, I have also switched my strategy of learning Spanish from spending a lot of time on the grammatical aspects of the language (which I have been doing in, and outside, of class for the past 9 weeks), to just powering through and learning as many words as possible to expand my vocabulary. Proper grammar can take years to learn, and I think it would give me a better ROI for my time spent during my last week here learning a massive amount of vocabulary. So, for the past few days I’ve been hanging out in my spare time and just memorizing flash cards. A LOT of flash cards.

With that said, on Sunday night I’m going to begin heading to Belize by way of Petén. Now I know that I had said in one of my earlier posts that I wasn’t going to go to Belize, but that was before I found out that I could easily take a bus there from the Mayan Temples of Tikal for about $16 rather than the $430 for a round trip flight from Guate. So I’m definitely going to check out Belize for a few days and sample the giant lobsters that I’ve heard so much about!

After a few days in Belize, I’m planning on taking a 3 to 4 day bus trip south, through Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and down to San Jose Costa Rica, and then on to Panama City. I’ll probably end up hanging out in Costa Rica for a week or so just to check it out, but I really think that there’s going to be way too many gringos there for my liking based on what I’ve heard about the place from other people I’ve talked to. You know, I could never understand why Americans like to go places where there are a lot of other Americans, and where a lot of things are “Americanized”. If you like that sort of thing I guess more power to you, but you’re probably better off just staying in the US and saving your money.

So those are my tentative plans, and as of right now I’d like to say, “Farewell to Antigua! I will truly miss you!” Hopefully, I’ll be lucky enough to live a long life and make it back here some day. In the mean time, look out giant lobsters… Here I come! Oh Yeah!!!

PS. I also decided to post a video that I made earlier today (in Spanish), as well as a few of my favorite pictures from the last 2 ½ months here in Antigua (at the end of the video, so be sure to check them out).

**Please excuse my Spanish, as the video was made spontaneously with only 2 takes by speaking off the top of my head... Enjoy!!