Bogota, Colombia: Crossing Borders, Riding Buses, Blending In, and How to Mitigate Risks While Traveling… (Part 1)

Since I’ve successfully managed to make it safely through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and hopefully Colombia, I think I may have learned a thing or two about how to travel safely, and how to mitigate some of the risks you will face when traveling.

I figure that I could share a few of my tips and tricks, as well as a few things that I learned along the way for those of you who may decide one day to venture out in to the unknown…

Ok, first off I have traveled through just about all of Central America by bus, so most of my post in this section is going to have to do with that particular experience. If you are traveling by air you really don’t have much to worry about. Yes, you pay a lot more for the tickets, but you also have the luxury of relative security inside the airport, and the security of your bags not being stolen, that is, if they are carryons and if you have enough common sense not to set them down somewhere and get distracted. It’s also extremely easy to change currency in the airport and there are also usually ATMS that will give you a fair exchange rate on the currency. So really as far as I’m concerned traveling by air is a cake walk.

The bus however, is a little bit different. First off, the bus is a lot cheaper and you have all sorts options as to which bus lines you are going to take and at what hours. I found that on average it cost me $30 in bus fare one way to travel from one country to the next. Compare that to paying $200-$500 in airfare and you’ll see why I’m a huge fan of the bus. If you are planning on bussing through Central America, as I did, your also looking at bus rides at a length of anywhere from 5 hours (ex. Northern Guatemala to Belize City) or longer rides, anywhere from 8-10 hours (ex. San Salvador to Managua, Nicaragua).

Now as far as I’m concerned when taking the bus, the number one thing that I had tried to make sure of, was not to arrive at my destination at night, or during the early hours of the morning. Sometimes this is unavoidable, and in many cases it is extremely dangerous. A few times that I got caught here was on the overnight line in Guatemala, returning from Tikal to Guatemala City, for example when my bus was supposed to get in at 6:30 am, but it turned out that we had arrived at 4:30am in one of the most dangerous cities in Central America. This also lead to a guy trying to steal my bag as I got off the bus, as well as me being a bit panic stricken in that situation and fleeing to the Holiday Inn as a safe option that cost me over $200 for a 1.5 day stay (Ouch!!!). This also happened another time as I had mentioned in my last post, when I was arriving in Managua Nicaragua with only 15 minutes until sunset. And trust me, when you’re in a situation like that, simply thinking… “oh shit, this is not good” is a serious understatement. So definitely always try to arrive during day light hours, or at least give your self a good hour or two to find a safe place to stay before it gets dark.

Also, when taking the bus make sure to be one of the first people to get off and do not leave any valuables what so ever in the bag that you “check”, as they put it under the bus and many times there are no claim tickets or security measures to make sure that the right people end up with the right bags. As I had mentioned, when arriving in Guate I was one of the first people off of the bus, and when the conductor took out my huge travel back pack from the cargo hold as I was walking up to claim it, a guy casually walked right in front of me and put his hands on my bag like it was his. The conductor was actually in the process of handing him my backpack when I grabbed it and sternly said, “NO! ES MIO!!”. The guy looked at me, took his hands off my bag, turned around, and walked back out onto the street and disappeared. So by being one of the first people off of the bus you can make sure that no one is going to grab your bag once they open up the cargo hold, or at least if they try you can stop them from taking it like I did.

Also, one of my number one rules, has to do with diversification, which I will talk about in a minute. But as I said, I never leave any valuables in checked luggage, so had that man actually succeeded in stealing my backpack, he would have gotten a pair of jeans, some shoes, a few guide books, and plenty of dirty underwear to go with it, which are all things that I could easily replace in a day or two. When traveling on the bus, all my cash, passport documents, and credit cards, are either on my person, or split up and hidden away in my carryon backpack along with my laptop, and that backpack NEVER leaves my side (for those of you who wonder how I can travel inconspicuously with a laptop, I wrap it in a beach towel and keep it in an old beat up carryon back pack that as I had mentioned, is with me at all times… See the picture above)

Another thing that is critical when going from country to country on the bus is to make absolutely sure that you have the correct currency when arriving because many times you will end up at a bus station far from an ATM and in a location that is really no where near where you want to stay in your destination city. So imagine arriving in Nicaragua where they only accept Cordobas, and you have a pocket full of Guatemalan Quetzales. What do you do? You can’t pay for a cab to get to your hotel or hostel. And do you really want to walk around as a foreigner with all your possessions strapped to your back asking people in broken Spanish “Excuse me, is there an ATM around here?” Talk about being in big trouble. So, what I do is be sure to always exchange some currency at every single border crossing.

Now as I said, if you’re at the airport it’s a cake walk, there’s an official booth that can change every currency in the world, and they even give you a receipt! But at the borders, it’s a bit different. When the bus pulls up there are literally dozens of guys in plain street clothes called “coyotes” with wads of cash in their hands trying to get you to exchange your money. So you really need to research the exchange rate ahead of time, and make sure that when you deal with the coyotes, their giving you the correct amount of the new currency for the old. It can get really confusing sometimes too, as many currencies exchange at 30 to 1 or even 2,000 to 1 in some cases (ex. Colombian Peso to US Dollar).

Now people will tell you, don’t ever exchange your money with the coyotes. Don’t listen to them. Now I’m not saying you need to empty your bank account and exchange all your money with the coyotes, just make sure you exchange $20 or so into local currency so that you can at least take a cab from the bus station to your hostel or hotel. I mean, yes you will lose a few points on the exchange, but in reality were talking about a few cents lost when exchanging $20, as opposed to what? Being stranded some where with no local currency, and no clue where you can get some? It’s a no brainer.

As I had also mentioned above with the brief example of what I keep in my checked luggage, diversification of my valuables is my number one rule while traveling. You can be sure that when traveling through all these countries things will happen, both good and bad. People will be nice to you, and then try and steal from you. So how do you mitigate the risks using diversification? Well, here’s what I do…

First off, when staying in a hostel I always try and get a private room. I think that if you are travelling with valuable items, such as a laptop, or numerous credit cards as I am, you definitely don’t want to stay in a dorm. Its pretty much common sense that having a room with a door that locks, as opposed to having a room with an open door where new people come in and out of everyday, is defiantly a lot smarter way to keep from having anything stolen. Now, private rooms are sometimes very expensive and I do believe that if you’re on a budget and are just traveling with an ATM card and a back pack full of clothes, a private room may not be necessary. However, I’m writing about mitigating risk here, so for someone in my situation, a private room is the smarter play.

Also, and most importantly, I always, always, make sure that I split up my cash, my credit/bank cards, and my travel documents. Here’s how I do it: First, definately make a copy of your passport. Keep your actual passport hidden away in your room, and always keep the copy in your pocket or somewhere on your person. Second, when leaving your room always make sure that you take the cash that you need for the day, plus a little extra, and one credit card. As I said, I travel with 2 bank cards and 2 credit cards just to make sure that I always have a way to either pay for a flight back to the US, should something happen, or incase of theft of my room, or a robbery when I’m out on the street, I will have a way to withdraw money.

I feel safe as long as I have 1 of the cards with me at all times (credit or ATM), and the others I can leave in my room. Now I hear people say all the time, don’t carry a lot of cash with you or carry any of your credit cards just incase you get robbed. Well yes, that’s true to an extent, you shouldn’t be walking around with hundreds of dollars and 3 credit cards, but for those who say that you should carry very little cash and no credit cards… what happens if your room gets broken into while your out during the day? If you think that’s a little far fetched I have 3 words for you… “Tina’s Backpacker Hostel.”

Pick up any guide book on Central America and one of the suggestions of places to stay in Caye Caulker, Belize is “Tina’s Backpackers Hostel”. In fact, in my guide book, that was the number one suggestion, which is exactly why I went there first when I got off of the water taxi to ask for a private room. Luckily for me, they didn’t have any private rooms left, so following my own guidelines for mitigating risk, I moved on to look for another place only later to find out that Tina’s has an average of 5 thefts a month from both the private rooms, and dormitories. In fact, two girls that were stating at Tina’s while I was on the island decided to “play it safe” and keep everything in their securely locked room while they were out during the day, only to come back and find out that everything, and I mean everything, had been stolen. They lost all their cash, credit cards, and even their passports. So in this case what do you do? By not diversifying your valuables and documents, your 100% , undeniably and thoroughly screwed. Imagine, having no way to get cash, buy a plane ticket home, or being able to prove which country you have citizenship. It’s a total night mare situation.

So, to bottom line it, whenever I leave my room, I always have a little extra cash and an ATM or credit card on me. And if I’m robbed, no big deal, I’m out a little cash and I can always hop on Skype and call my bank to cancel that particular card, but I still will have access to my money and my documents that are in my room, or vice versa.

Another thing I do with regards to the cash and credit cards that I leave in my room is to thoroughly hide them. Here’s a little tip on how I do it, I buy just a regular bar of soap at the market (in this case “Dove”) and keep the little square box it comes in. These little soap boxes are perfect for hiding you cash and credit cards in, and when you close them back up and put them in with the rest of your toiletries, I have serious doubts that someone who is breaking into your room while you are out will give it no more than a quick glance while going through all of your things in search for valuables (again, see the picture above).

So we have the bus (Check!), and diversification (Check!), so what about when you’re actually out on the streets?

Thats to be continued in Part 2…

Bogota, Colombia: In Review- The Best, and Worst, of Central America

Since I’ve been chilling out in Bogota and stuffing myself full of empanadas for the last week, I’ve had a chance to work on my blog a little. Here’ a little bit on what I thought was the Best, and Worst, of Central America…

Best Climate: Belize wins this one. Palm trees and a nice breeze…ahhh.

Worst Climate: Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica. Hot as hell + no breeze = Better pray to god that the fan in your room works!

Best Food: The giant lobsters in Belize, Café Sara’s curry chicken in Nicaragua, and definitely Arturo’s pasta carbonara in Guatemala! Mmmmmmmmm!!!!!!

Worst Food: The soggy, rubbery, slimy Chicharron (aka pig skin) at the family’s house in Guatemala…BLEH!! I seriously almost lost it at the dinner table, but hey, at least I tried it! The “hot dog breakfast” in Costa Rica was a close second.

Best Beer: Toña from Nicaragua.

Best Rum: Flor De Caña from Nicaragua.

Best coffee: Definitely café de Guatemala!!

Worst Coffee: For sure the coffee in Managua, Nicaragua. When the best option for coffee is at the local gas station you know you’re in trouble…

Best bang for your buck: Giant avocadoes for $0.30us, and breakfast and lunch for under $2.00us. Plus the coffee is amazing…Now that’s what I’m talking about! Gotta love Guatemala!!

Worst bang for your buck: Do I need to even say it?...Everywhere in Costa Rica!

Best Fruit: Guatemalan Aguacates, and Nicaraguan “Jugos Naturales”… Simply amazing!

Biggest Surprise: Definitely having a blast in Mangua and Granada, Nicaragua. So much fun that was totally unexpected… Muchas gracias to all my friends there. ;)

Best display of common sense: Throwing a long bomb with my I-Phone. Gadgets like that are totally useless things that you think you need, but are definitely better off without. But that’s just my two cents. ;)

Worst Date: The girl in Antigua who: insisted we meet at a bar, was an hour late, showed up with her sister and her cousin, and then took me to another bar because she wanted to meet up with a guy that she had met the prior night. Ummm… NEXT!!

Worst Pest: The talking “loro” next door to the family’s house in Antigua. After you hear the word “hola” 500 times in a row, roasted parrot starts to sound like a great idea for dinner!

Worst Neighborhood: For dark streets, kidnappings, and used syringes on the ground, it doesn’t get better than Barrio Martha Quezada in Managua, Nicaragua. Oh, I also forgot to mention that there are no manhole/sewage covers in the entire city… and that’s a long way down!

Worst Display of Common Sense: Arriving at the Tica bus station in Managua, Nicaragua with no place to stay and 15 minutes until sunset. Yeah, bad call.

Best act of random luck: Not knowing that the drug dealer who didn’t like me in Guatemala, was a drug dealer in who didn’t like me in Guatemala. Sometimes playing dumb, or just being dumb, is usually the best defense. :)

Best dance: Definitely on top of the bar at Reilly’s in Antigua. The best, and by far the most embarrassing! I burned the photos so don’t even ask. ;)

Most overplayed song: “I got a feelin, that tonights gonna be a good night”…

Best Karaoke moment: My room, 3am , hostel in Granada, and singing La Bamaba at the top of my lungs in my underwear after ½ a bottle of Flor De Cana and a few Mojitoes. I don’t think everyone else at the hostel, and especially the manager, thought it was as great a song as I did at the time... "Soy Capitan, Soy Capitan!!". LOL!!

Best Holiday so far: Christmas. So many cool things going on in Antigua! I loved it!!

Worst Holiday so far: 4,3,2,1… In bed with diarrhea and a fever! Happy New Year!! Whooooo!!!!!!!!

Best Bars: I&I in Belize, Reilly’s in Antigua, and that one salsa bar in Grenada. So much fun, so many good friends, and so few things I can actually remember. ;)

El Final!

Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica: What Can I Say About Costa Rica?

Maybe…

Totally Overrated
Super Expensive
Full of too many Americans
Hot as hell
But still a lot of fun!


Sounds like I had a bad time in Costa Rica? Not at all, I actually had a lot of fun there. But when comparing to other Latin American countries, I just think that CR is way too Americanized and it is REALLY expensive for what you get for your money. I remember for example, one morning I went to breakfast at this little café and ordered a “typico” breakfast off of the menu which included rice, beans, eggs, platano, and your choice of ham or sausage links. So I had decided to go with the sausage links and for a price of about $4.25US (which is A LOT for breakfast) I figured, hey this is going to be a 5 star breakfast for that price, and you could imagine my surprise when I was served scrambled eggs with a partially cooked hot dog posing as my sausage links. I don’t know what made me feel worse, paying the $200 for a night at the Holiday Inn in back Guate, or actually paying $4.25 for a luke warm "hot dog" breakfast…LOL. Not to mention that you’ll be paying upwards of around $35 per night for a private room in a hostel and much, much, more in a hotel. Compare that to living on the beach in Belize for $15 a night, or $7 a night in Nicaragua, or even $15 a night for my apartment in an amazing area here in Bogota, Colombia, (which is where I am right now) and you’ll see that Costa Rica is just way too pricey for what you get.

I also managed to surf a little in Costa Rica, which felt great since I haven’t been surfing since summer. The waves ended up being about 2-3 feet with some fun little rides. But what I will say for Costa Rica as a surf “destination” is, that from what I saw, it just seemed like an “ok” place to surf rather than what I had imagined it would be. Back in the US Costa Rica is advertised in the surf industry as this totally amazing place to go surfing, and that theirs great waves everywhere; and I’m not buying it. From what I saw, Costa Rica is a warm water surf spot full of fun little beach breaks, which are fun, but hardly worth the money if your planning a surf trip to another country. If you’re going to actually spend money to go on a surf trip abroad, I think you may be a lot better off going to Bali, or Tavarua, or somewhere where you’re going to score epic surf. If you want fun little beach breaks like CR you can just take a week off and save yourself the money and surf Newport everyday, or better yet, pull all day sessions at Trestles for a week and you’ll probably get better waves, that is if you’re willing to sacrifice the warm water aspect of CR.

With that being said, I actually did have a really great time in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a very beautiful country with really friendly people. There are some areas along the coastal road where there are rows of palm trees stretching as far as the eyes could see, and one of the beaches that I went to was absolutely stunning. I had a little cold while I was there but managed to survive and hit the beach everyday, and even managed to do a little partying the last night I was there with my surf buddy Mark from the hostel. It was his first trip to another country and we were out at some place on Saturday night drinking a little rum when he turned to me and said, “Can you believe this? Were in a bamboo hut in the middle of god knows where, drinking rum, and listening to this music with a bunch people from all over the world! This is so awesome!…To Costa Rica!!!!”

I simply replied, “I do believe it, and I know EXACTLY how you’re feeling…
Cheers!!” :)

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!