Monteverde, Costa Rica

Santa Elena is a quiet little town, a triangle of three streets full of shops and restaurants that cater to the gringo tourists.  It reminds me of several other little towns like this we've been to, although this one has the distinct advantage of being surrounded by lush mountains and views over the Nicoya Peninsula down below.  As soon as we checked into our hostel, we were given the (wide) array of tour options we had.  Several different reserves for hiking and animal-searching, an aviary, an insect zoo, a "serpentarium", a bat zoo, and an assortment of coffee tours and cheese factory tours and, of course, the canopy zip line tours.

We, being us, remained non-committal and decided to skip the tours and just do our own thing.  The next morning, we took the public bus to the Monteverde reserve, which is the main reserve in the region.  We had heard lots of conflicting opinions about whether it was really the best, or whether the smaller ones were less crowded so offered a better experience overall, but we decided to just go for it.  Places get famous for a reason, and we were arriving early enough (7am as they opened) we hoped we could beat the crowds and have a good time.

The road from town to the reserve is only paved about half of the way.  Apparently as the reserve began gaining popularity, the locals were concerned that if access was too easy, so many people would come that the park would be overrun and the very thing people wanted to see would be destroyed.  So the roads remain unpaved.  We were dropped off about 15 minutes before the park opened, so we walked around and right away began finding totally awesome bugs.  Metallic silver beetles, huge hairy caterpillars; we were thrilled before we'd even walked in the gate.  Once they did open up, we were the first ones in the door.

The park is actually very well set up for visitors.  Right in the gate there are about four different trails leading off in different directions.  You tell the attendant how long you want to hike, and they draw you a route through the park, which helps break up any congestion.  Not that we had to worry about it, there are definite perks to coming in off-season, and we only saw maybe a dozen other people the entire time we were in the park.

The forest was beautiful.  A cloud forest is different from a rain forest, in that while it doesn't get near as much rain, the clouds roll through bringing lots of moisture.  The canopy overhead was dense, blocking out a good deal of the sunlight.  The relative darkness, combined with the fluctuating mist as clouds rolled through, actually make it difficult to spot much wildlife.  We could hear birds now and then, but rarely were able to see them unless they were actually flying around.  We soon realized that we were highly unlikely to see any sort of mammal (the park does have a few, such as sloths, but they are mostly nocturnal), and were probably not going to really see any birds either.  This was a little disappointing, as this was our last chance to see the infamous Resplendant Quetzal.  The Quetzal is the national bird of Guatemala, and was highly prized by the ancient Maya for its unusually long and colorful tail feathers, which they used to dress the king.  The birds are today endangered, as they only live in narrow bands of altitude in cloud forests, and quickly die in captivity, so you won't see one in a zoo.  For months we had been hoping to see one, but this was our first, and last, real opportunity, and it was pretty clear it wasn't going to happen.

With that realization, we turned our attention from the skies down to the dirt, and started hunting bugs.  We were quickly rewarded, and the fun kept coming.  We saw bugs and beetles of every color, delicate spiders, colonies of ants, huge millipedes, and all sorts of caterpillars.  Under every leaf a new little wonder would surprise us with an unusual shape or color combination.  This, of course, meant we were walking very slow.  Usually when we are told a hike will take us four hours, with our long strides it means we can cover the distance in two.  But turning over leaves and logs meant our four hour hike took us seven.  We'd planned ahead though and brought some sandwiches from a little bakery, so we were good.

Since I was trying to take pictures of the bugs, which was difficult to the low light, David often wandered up the trail ahead of me.  Just as I was finishing up with a particularly nice tortoise beetle, David comes running and yells a single word.  "Quetzals!  Quetzals!"  I caught up and we ran back up the trail, running into another couple who were, fortuitously, with a guide.  The guide was ridiculous, pointing into the dark tangle of trees after just a moments glance.  "There is a female!"  He had a great little telescope on a tripod and had it set up in two seconds, and with much grace they let David and I take a look as well.  The females aren't as colorful as the males, but we could see her bright red chest and green face and strange little tuft on her head.  More strikingly was the gigantic green and wiggling grub she had hanging from her mouth.  "She is waiting to take that back to the nest, but is checking things out to make sure the coast is clear," the guide told us.

There were at least four of them flying around, and although the guide pointed out the males for us, they were too quick to get the telescope focused on.  Still, we were pretty thrilled and thanked the couple and the guide profusely for helping us out.  It was so satisfying, when something you've been wanting and thinking about for months just suddenly happens.  We continued on down the trail a bit, chatting happily, when suddenly David looks up and sees another female.  This time it was close enough we could use our binoculars.  As we admired her, a male comes along and finds the perfect perch to let us admire him.  His tail feathers weren't particularly long, but he was still gorgeous.  We watched them for about ten minutes before they finally flew away.  We continue down the trail, marvelling at our luck, when another male comes along. He was singing away, and this one did indeed have the long emerald green tail feathers.  He gave us quite the show, again from a perfect little perch where we could watch him.

We felt like all our Christmases had come at once.  The birds were too far away to photograph unfortunately (google one, they are worth it!), but with the binoculars we had quite the performance.  For a shy bird that most people don't get to see at all, for us to see that many that well was really unusual, and we feel extremely fortunate.

But don't kid yourself.  We still kept looking for bugs.

Leon, Granada, San Juan del Sur, and at long last, Costa Rica!

We spent three days in Leon (I'm using a hybrid American/Spanish keyboard and can't figure out how to make the accent mark dangit), mostly near the pool in our hostel as the heat was intense.  We saw a lot of churches, and had some truly excellent pizza, the best we've had since we were in Xela.  We did go to a terrific museum, that had some Picasso and Chagal and Matisse, and a lot of great pieces by Central American artists.  I generally have a pretty low threshold for enjoying museums, but I really enjoyed this one.

We stayed at the Lazybones hostel, which overall was great (did I mention the pool?) however we did get some visitors in our room at night.  It was hot, so we weren't using the mosquito nets because they blocked the fan.  The first night David felt something crawling on him, which in his half asleep daze he thought seemed like a cat, although it was too small and there was certainly not a cat in our room.  I'm thinking it was a mouse, as there were some nibbles to some food we had.  The next night something hit my face.  Something fast and leathery.  A bat!  I actually think bats are pretty cool, but getting slapped in the face by one while you are trying to sleep is decidedly uncool.  Anyway, we used our nets after that, guess they were there for a reason, cause we didn't see any mosquitoes.

From Leon, we jumped in bus to the capital, Managua, where we stayed just long enough to get off the bus and get on another to Granada.  We sat next to a local guy named Alan, who is a medical student and spoke pretty good English.  He was getting ready to go to Germany to get his PhD, and was nervous because his german wasn't very good.  Can you imagine going to college in a third language?  But he got a scholarship, so that was his best option.  We asked about the weather, wondering if it would be as hot as it had been in Leon.  He said not as hot, but he promised it would be very dry. "We only get rain maybe twice a year."  Cue rain for the next three days straight.

Granada is a lovely colonial town, making comparisons with Antigua, Guatemala hard to avoid.  But it hasn't yet had quite as many coats of polish, and still retains a slightly grittier feel, in the good sense of the word.  It has had more coats of paint however, making it quite pleasing to look at.  We holed up at the Oasis, a sister-hostel to the Lazybones, also with a pool which we enjoyed.  I even met a friendly Peace Corps Volunteer who was taking a little vacation from her rural outpost, and I think I may have talked her into going to nursing school in Albuquerque when she finishes.  It is hard to resist such a great path!

Granada is on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, a huge freshwater lake.  The lake used to have maneating bull sharks in it, the only freshwater shark in the world.  But a lucrative trade in shark fin saw the quick decimation of the species, which supposedly still exist in small pockets down the river that leads to the Caribbean coast.  We rented bicycles and rode several miles down a peninsula.  It was raining a bit, and we got splattered with mud from the tires.  But at the end of the road we saw a family of howler monkeys, much bigger in size than the ones we saw in Guatemala, and a beautiful species of jaybirds that we've been coveting since we saw their picture in a bird book in Honduras.  It was a great ride.

From Granada we decided to head to the beaches of San Juan del Sur.  Though still overcast, our luck held and it didn't rain, giving us one last chance to get some sun.  You know how sometimes walking the beach you will see some dumb little fish washed up on shore?  Here we saw three pufferfish (still puffed up!) and a large parrot fish with a huge set of teeth on him.

We were up early the next day to head to the Costa Rican border.  We had been warned this would likely be our most difficult crossing, and indeed it was.  By far.  Approaching the border we passed miles and miles of semi-trucks, which were stopped along the side of the road, single file, inching so slowly toward the border that the drivers were wandering around the street in little groups.  I can't even imagine how long it takes them to get through, but I can't see how they would all get through in a day.

Once we got to the border, the usual group of "helpers" attached themselves to us hoping we would change money with them.  But they proved quite useful in navigating the maze to the immigration office.  After paying three different sets of "fees" (all of which were supposedly legit, according to our guidebook), we got flustered and jumped on an international bus.  These busses are far more comfortable than the chicken busses, and also far more expensive.  But we were confused and decided just to splurge for the convenience.  After waiting a bit for the people who came through on the bus to finish at Nicaraguan immigration, the bus drove us over to the Costa Rican side and we got in line.  Luckily the rain had stopped, because we were standing outside in line for over two hours. At one point, there was a mass movement as 50 - 75 people in line ahead of us suddenly left the line and walked away.  I have no idea what they were doing or where they were going, or why they all decided to leave at once.  But it probably saved us another hour of waiting, so we were grateful for the mystery. Once we finally made it into the building, we saw that there were exactly two officials moving people through.  They were friendly and efficient, but hopelessly backlogged.  There must be some rhyme or reason to why the Costa Rican government doesn't just hire a few more people, as this crossing is notorious for being long and awful, but I can't imagine what the reason is.  We made it through, the officials making a show of everyone on the bus getting their bags out to be inspected, but then just waved all the backpackers through without checking anything on us, though they did a cursory check of the locals.

Next came the intrigue of us finding our stop.  The bus was express to San Jose, but we wanted to get off before that at the turnoff to the cloud forest reserve of Monteverde.  The guy who sold us our ticket said it would be no problem, but of course he was now nowhere to be found.  We talked to who I thought was the driver and one of the assistants, but we didn't know the name of the place we wanted to be dropped off, and that seemed to be confusing them.  We weren't even really sure what would happen when we got dropped off on the side of the road, we just assumed that we would be able to find another form of transport to the reserve.  The drivers sort of smiled and nodded and blew us off, so as we took off we were stressed that they might not stop where we needed to go, but were also stressed that they would, because we weren't sure what we would do then.  Then the rain started, which is never a friend to a backpack.

But, as usual, it all worked out.  They dropped us off at the right place, just after the rain stopped.  A cabbie tried to get us to pay $50 to take us direct, but he also admitted the public bus would be by just over an hour later.  We waited (and looked at bugs, natch) until the bus came, and we paid about $3 for the ride to Santa Elena, the town outside of the reserve.

Sorry there are no pictures on this post (and I got a great one of the parrotfish!), but this afternoon I was checking out the camera and the bus hit a bump and I managed to format my camera card.  groan.  I'm pretty sure I will be able to recover the pics once I get home (at least I hope!), but there is no doing it from here.  Technology is the best thing ever, until it isn't.

Butterflies and murals in Nicaragua

There are two ways to tell the story.  I can say we spent 12 hours on a microbus, two taxis and four busses to cross two borders through sweltering heat and torrential rain.  Or I can say, breakfast in El Salvador, lunch in Honduras, and dinner in Nicaragua!  I tend to like the second version better, and hope to forget as much of the first version as possible.  Except we found a friend on our last bus, a Nica cowboy complete with hat and gigantic belt buckle.  Despite our inability to understand much of what he was saying (at least we got the gist), he talked with us for a while in a dusty bus stop waiting for the bus to arrive.  (We were afraid we were going to have to wait for an hour in the heat, but the bus arrived and soon took off early, much to our relief.  It stopped at a store and the driver bought a drink, then we returned to the bus station.  We sat for about 20 minutes and we took off again, where he picked up a few people along the way, and then returned to the station again!  D´oh!)  Our bus eventually arrived at another tiny town, and we all crammed and I mean crammed into a little microbus, where despite having my pack in my lap I still was getting very friendly with two other passengers sitting opposite me.  All the travel had taken longer than we had expected, and we were arriving at the Nicaraguan border right at 5pm, in the rain, and we weren´t sure if we were going to be able to find a bus on the other side or if we were going to have to get desperate and hitch.  But after making our way through, with no bus in sight, we found our cowboy waiting for us on the other side with a taxi.  He even negotiated a decent price for us.  Our stop was only about 20km down the road, and he was off farther into the highlands.  I can´t say it enough, we just keep meeting these super friendly people who go out of their way to help us, despite the language barrier.  People are awesome.

We were in the town of Somoto, a small town that had made a claim to fame based on the recently discovered river canyon that is the start of the Coco River, which is one of the longest in Central America.  Of course by recently discovered, they mean discovered by us white people.  Anyways, we hired a guide who hiked us in through gorgeous farmland to the canyon.  When the water was deep, we swam down along, letting the current help push us through a beautiful and, at times, deep canyon with steep rock walls.  We got out and clambered along the sides and over huge rocks when the river turned into shallow rapids.  It was great.  At several points along the bank we came across huge numbers of yellow butterflies drinking along the banks.  When we would walk by, they would all start flying around all at once, leaving us to walk through what we termed "Butterfly Cloud".  Our guide was great at talking slow and simply, so we were able to feel all fancy talking in Spanish all day.  The only issue we had was the water itself.  We had imagined some sparkling mountain spring, when in fact it was very brown, full of all that farm runoff and who knows what else.  We kept our shirts on to protect from the sun, and lets just say they were nowhere near as white when we were done.  Anyway, it might not have been as magical as we´d hoped (except for those butterflies!), but it was still beautiful, and a very fun day.

We spent another night in Somoto, and then moved down the road to the college town of Estelì, which is notable for being full of murals.  I am a huge fan of graffiti art, and have been taking photos at every opportunity all along the way, so I was pretty excited for a city full of murals.  Some were political, some were for kids, and some I have no idea what they were.  We just walked through the city like we were on a treasure hunt.  We found a terrific little restaurant, but unfortunately Estelí is also a cigar factory town, and it is impossible to enjoy eating anything when someone behind you is smoking a stogie.  I´ve been spoiled by living in so many cities where public smoking is illegal, and while the smoking down here isn´t as bad as it was in Asia (in fact most of the smoking I´ve been around has been by the Europeans, not the locals), I sure will be glad when I get home and can eat in a restaurant without fear of nasty smoke defiling my meal.

We are now in León, another college town, historically the arch-rival to Granada, where I think we are heading tomorrow.  Back around the time of the US Civil War, the city of Leòn thought they could finally defeat their poltical enemies in Granada by inviting William Walker into town.  He was an American who came down with a bunch of mercenaries he called "fillibusters", which apparently is another way to say pirate.  He did indeed defeat Granada, but instead of handing the city over to León, he decided to stick around as the new "President of Nicaragua".  You see he thought he could make some improvements, little things like reinstituting slavery, and hopefully give some backing to the Confederacy.  What he did do was to unite the bitter political enemies who, with some help from the Costa Rican army (back when they still had one), were able to drive him out.  Being a good sport about it, he had the good grace to burn the city of Granada to the ground on his way out, and posted a sign "Granada was here."  His awesome sense of humor somehow wasn´t enough convince the locals to let bygones be bygones, and he was captured by the Honduran army and executed.  The truth is I find this embarassing tale terribly interesting, and having found out that William Walker himself wrote a book about his exploits (I assume while he was still happily president) which I am desperate to find.  If not here, I´m hoping ebay will be good to me when I get home!

If we were in the mood to hang out, I think we would enjoy León a lot, but for whatever reason we are both feeling pressed to move on.  I don´t suppose that has anything to do with the horrible realization that we only have about 5 weeks to go!  Ack!  We still have so much ground to cover if we want to make it to Panama City.  And we are still thinking we want to go to the Corn Islands, and down into some other out of the way places in Nicaragua.  Will we make it?  Stick around to find out!

El Salvador

After another two night stay in Antigua at our favorite hostel (The Yellow House) with our favorite hostel staff (Julia!), we decided to chicken bus it to El Salvador.  The tourist shuttles are always easier (and more than twice as expensive), but generally go from one capitol to the next, and we wanted to stop before San Salvador.  We found a rough guide online for which busses we wanted to catch, and we crossed our fingers it would work out.  At our first stop, we knew what we were looking for, but then a friendly guide looked at us as he was getting off and said "Are you going to the border?"  We said yes, so he motioned for us to follow him.  We have had really good luck with friendly strangers helping us figure out where to go, so we followed him off the bus, and, as is the custom in bus stations, were immediately beset upon by 15 guys hustling us over to a bus.  We loaded our packs, and barely had time to sit down before the bus took off.  It only took us about five minutes to realize something was wrong from the direction we were heading, and the bus assistant soon confirmed our worst fear.  Yes, we were heading to the border, but instead of El Salvador, we were going to Mexico.  D`oh!

We got off at the next little town and grabbed another chicken bus in the opposite direction.  (I´m afraid our helper was a little embarassed to have "helped" us, but it wasn´t his fault!)  Back in town we were more careful about stating WHICH border we wanted to go to, and quickly found the right bus.  From there we made it to the border, did the customary long walk from one side´s bus stop to the other side´s bus stop, and after just two more busses made it to the pretty mountain town of Juayùa.  Finding street addresses is always difficult.  Even if the streets are marked, which they often aren´t, most people use the age-old method of "It is two blocks down and three blocks over from the yellow and white gas station".  We asked a local guy if he knew the way to the hotel we wanted to go to, and he pointed us down a street.  We cautiously headed in that direction, but I guess he could see our hesitancy because he ran up behind us and proceeded to walk us the rest of the way.  Many travelers opt to skip El Salvador altogether.  While the country has its share of volcanoes and waterfalls and jungle, you can find all of that bigger and better in surrounding countries.  Added to that is that the country is still trying to get tourists to trust it as a safe and interesting destination.  While options for tourists are expanding, the infastructure is still pretty basic.  But what the country does have is an extremely friendly and outgoing population.  Everywhere we went people smiled at us and said hello.  From little kids to old grandmothers, everyone who passed us had a friendly greeting.

We came to Juayùa specifically for the feria gastronomico, a food fair they have every weekend.  Booths were set up all around the main square, and we walked around looking for something weird to try.  We finally settled on frog.  It was marianated in a green sauce, almost like a pesto, and was served with rice, a tortilla with a weird white paste stuff inside, a small salad, and some delicious fried plantain.  I´ve never had frog before, and it tickles me to say it, but it tastes like chicken, only chewier.  For dessert we had a chocolate covered frozen banana.  There was a piragua guy, which is sort of like a snow cone, but then they put all sort of weird thick goop and powder and stuff on it, so the banana just looked more appealing.  Maybe we´ll try a piragua another time.

We also found a little place to get haircuts.  The lady was great, and it only cost $1.25 each!  We found that the hotels were expensive, but just about everything else is really cheap.  Our original plan had been to scoot through the country after this, but since we were enjoying it we decided we could spare another night.  In an unusual decision for us, we decided not on the cute little colonial town, but instead decided to spend a night in San Salvador, the capitol.  Our first hour-long bus went smoothly, and at the bus station we quickly found our next bus and got on.  It was still fairly empty so we figured we´d have a few minutes to wait, but it started to fill up fairly quickly.  Then a man got on and started making some kind of announcement.  This happens often on the busses, and is usually someone trying to sell something or give a sermon or whatever, so I´ve stopped even trying to figure out what they are saying.  But then he got off, and a few people followed him.  At first we wondered if there was going to be another bus that left sooner, but most people stayed on the bus so we weren´t sure.  We waited a few more minutes, and then someone else got on and said something, too quietly for us to make out, but again a few but not all the other people got off.  We decided something was up, so David got off the bus to take a look around, and sure enough across the street he found another bus station.  We unloaded and went across, and were even lucky enough to find a deluxe bus with more comfortable seats and curtains over the windows which was leaving promptly.  After we got on, a very nice lady came over to us to ask what we had paid for our seats, just checking to make sure we hadn´t been overcharged.  (We hadn´t, the two hour bus ride was just $1.25 each.)  These El Salvadoreans are just nice!  I still can´t figure out why so many people stayed on the original bus though.

We arrived at a rather chaotic bus terminal in San Salvador, and were able to quickly jump in a cab.  The neighborhoods in San Salvador are pretty clearly demarcated between the good side of town, the bad side of town, and the stuff in between.  We chose the good part of course, up near the university where the college students and most of the backpackers go.  Unfortunately we hadn´t really thought about it being a Sunday, and to our chagrin most things were closed.  We tried walking around, but with so few people around we just couldn´t be sure of how safe we were, not to mention there just wasn´t much to look at anyways.  We did end up in a mall at one point, which was a little weird.  They even have Cinnabon here!  Sadly it was at American prices, and I wasn´t willing to pay $4 for it.  ;)

Still we found a little local joint to have lunch.  For dinner we caved to convenience and went to Pizza Hut.  (The street was loaded with American fast food joints, there were even two Burger King´s less than a block away from each other.)  The Pizza Hut was fancified though, with waiters and a full menu of pastas and sandwiches and other stuff.  We went for a special take out deal, two pizzas for $9.  When we got back to our place we found one pizza was thin crust and one was thick crust.  Who knows why.  While we were waiting though, there were two young local guys sitting near us, talking in a mixture of spanish and unaccented english.  They had some tattoos and piercings, but were wearing jeans and polo shirts.   We started talking, and they told us they had each grown up in Los Angeles since they were little kids.

"But I got into a little trouble, and so I got sent back here a year ago.  It was really weird having to come back to a country I didn´t even remember.  I wish I could go back to the US, but I guess it will be alright here.  Gotta make the best of it anyways!"

They didn´t elaborate on what kind of trouble they had been in, but coming from LA and knowing the history El Salvador has with gang troubles, I could imagine.  But I was really impressed with their attitudes about it.  Neither tried to complain about how the mean old USA had treated them unfairly.  Whatever they had done, they were taking responsibility for it, and for the consequences they were now facing.  They weren´t thrilled with their new life, but they were making the best of it.  They got their food and as they said goodbye they directed us down the street to where we could find some "ladies".

It´s good enough for me, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah...

Our stop in Lanquin was the sublimely located "El Retiro", which is right on a river deep in a lush valley of green rolling hills.  This was our third experience with a jungle lodge, and it didn´t disappoint.  Well, truth be told we didn´t have many bug sightings, but we did get to chase out an adorable black and red snake from our room one night.  Obeying the rule that if anything is especially flashy it is probably poisonous, we treated it with caution, but it was only maybe 18 inches long and couldn´t get any traction on the concrete floor, so it was throwing itself around in a most amusing way trying to get away from us.  As soon as it hit the grass and had something to hold on to though it literally disappeared.

The big draw here is the nearby Semuc Champey, which is billed as the most beautiful spot in Guatemala, or, depending on who you talk to, in all of Central America.  A river comes crashing down a canyon and then plunges underground before coming back to the surface farther downstream.  But a small amount of water from the river and from the surrounding canyon flows along the surface in a stepped series of natural pools.  The river water here was colder than anywhere else we´ve gone yet, but the water in the pools is heated by the sun.  After swimming around at the bottom where the pools form a waterfall to rejoin the river coming out of the ground, we sat around in the pools, where little fish swam all over nibbling at our skin.  That last part was a little creepy.  One little fish might have been kind of cute, but there were dozens around each of us.  We then hiked up a very steep but scenic trail up to the top of the canyon for a view of the pools from above.  On the way down we ran into a family of howler monkeys, including an adorable little baby.  We were glad they weren´t feeling territorial and didn´t throw their poop at us (as howler monkeys are known to do).

We then went to the cave.  Unlike the ATM cave in Belize where we wore fancy helmets with headlamps, here we went in holding candles, which gave the whole experience a very different feel.  One little candle doesn´t illuminate much, but when you get ten, it was surprising how great it looked.  We swam through parts, climbed up a rope through a waterfall, and jumped into some deep pools.  (We had to trust the guide that the pool was deep enough, cause we couldn´t see, and David was the first one to try it.)  We´ve had several experiences where we feel like Indiana Jones coming across some ancient artifact, but this adventure was decidedly straight out of The Goonies.  We didn´t find any pirate treasure, but we still had a great time.  Afterwards we jumped in the river with innertubes and floated down some rapids for a bit.  We even got to stand in the back of a pickup truck for a crowded ride back to the hostel.  Another very fun day.

We are now back in Antigua (again), and for our last hurrah took a trip out to Volcan Pacaya.  It turns out caves and waterfalls and ruins aren´t all Guatemala has to offer.  You can also get up close and personal with hot lava.  Magma.  It is just fun to say, magma.  Say it.  Magma.  Told you so.  The crater was spewing smoke when we arrived, but besides the lava it has a tendancy to spew poisonous gas, so is strictly off limits.  We were underneath the peak, watching a river of lava flowing rapidly down the side before slowing and spreading out across the lava field.  It was unbelievable how close we got.  We knew there had been an accident and some people had been killed a few weeks ago, so we were determined not to get ourselves in trouble.  But the lava was flowing so strongly that we didn´t have to go very deep into the field at all, and were able to do so above the flow where we didn´t have to worry about it falling down on us.

We got within a few feet of one of the flows, which was moving much faster than I´d imagined, a couple of feet a minute.  The heat coming off it was incredible.  The rock in front would crumble away, exposing the red lava which had a consistency of sandy molasses, or molten glass maybe.  Then the outer layer would cool and turn black again, until it pushed foward another few feet and another chunk would crumble down.  We watched a small ledge we stood on initially get completely engulfed by the flow, it was mezmerizing.  Up above we could see where the lava was much hotter, running like water, and every few minutes there would come a loud rumbly belch from the crater overhead.  Just incredible.

On the way down we found a gigantic grub on the trail, bigger than my thumb.  David, surprisingly, wouldn´t touch it though.  "Grubs gross me out." he said.

We are still trying to figure out our route, but I think we will be heading to Juayua in El Salvador for the food festival this weekend.  You never know what to expect with internet access in a new country, but hopefully I´ll have another update soon.

Belize it or not, we swam with a manatee!

Sleep deprived from several nights spent sweating instead of snoozing, we boarded a chicken bus to Belize City.  The bus was packed with folks headed to an "Agricultural Fair", which from the street seemed to be the equivalent of a state fair, so we had to sit with our bags in our laps.  It was hot, but the bus was using the latest in AC technology, Model 4-50, which is four windows down driving at 50mph.  (People love telling that joke down here.)

From the Belize City bus station we got in a cab for a quick ride to the water taxi terminal, and soon were on our way to Caye Caulker.  There are lots of cayes in Belize (pronouced "key"), but Caye Caulker is the favorite of the backpacker set.  The town was surprisingly empty, it turns out May is a quiet season caught between the dryer weather of April and the beginning of summer vacations in June.  We happily splurged on a room with air conditioning, and since it was off-season were able to negotiate the rate from $60 a night down to $35.  This was still a big splurge on our $50 a day budget, but we didn´t regret it for a minute.

When we arrived the island was in the middle of a huge windstorm, which kepts things comfortably cool but stirred up sediment in the water so made for less desirable snorkelling or diving.  So we spent several days napping and walking along the beach and watching the sunrises and sunsets, and didn´t begrudge the wind for a second.  When it finally died down we scheduled a snorkelling tour of the barrier reef (second in size only to the one in Australia I believe).  We got in the boat with a pair of Aussie girls, and took a 25 minute boat ride down the reef.  As soon as we pulled up, a six foot long nurse shark passed under our boat in water that was only four or five feet deep.  As soon as we got in the water, a school of jackfish and a gigantic grouper swam through us.  We went to four different sites, and we saw just about everything we could have hoped for, including a frenzy of feeding nurse sharks, green turtles, a moray eel, sting rays almost as big as me, a school of barracuda, porcupine fish, puffer fish, a parrotfish as big as my torso, and even a manatee (otherwise known as the sea cow).  Our driver saw a boat cleaning their fish over the side, so stopped to let us watch the feeding going on underneath the boat.  A huge swarm of sting ray and even a huge spotted eagle ray were swarming around, and right in the middle was a gigantic Loggerhead Turtle.  I was amazed by the size of the turtle, and just as I was thinking "I could easily fit my entire fist in its mouth" it turned and swam right towards me.  I backpedaled furiously (we were only about ten feet away) and crashed into one of the Aussies behind me, but just as it reached me it decided it wasn´t done with the fish guts and turned around and went back into the frenzy.  I´m willing to bet turtle attacks are relatively rare, but still.

Our day of snorkelling was so successful we decided we didn´t need to go out for a dive, which would have been fun, but I´m pretty sure we just would have seen more of the same.  (The exception being the famed Blue Hole, but we´ll save that for next time.)  Caye Caulker is a great spot that I´d recommend to anyone that is ready to live by the local motto, "Go slow". 

This morning though we took the water taxi back to the mainland and took a shuttle back to Flores in Guatemala.  Our travel was delayed for a half hour when traffic suddenly halted to allow a funeral procession to march over a mile down the road - the highway! - to the cemetary.  It was a full military funeral with lots of people in uniform and even a marching band.  Our driver was extremely frustrated, but it was kind of interesting for us.  Tomorrow morning we are headed to another jungle lodge in what is billed as the "most beautiful spot in Guatemala".  I never trust hype, but I´m sure it will be a nice place to see for a few days.  We are still a little irked that we missed a week of Spanish class thanks to my dental adventure, but I´m not sure we want to spend any more time in Guatemala, as much as we love it here we are itching to get down to El Salvador and Nicaragua.  Hopefully we will find another spot to take some classes along the way, but I´m guessing we will be out of Guatemala by the end of next week.

You betta Belize it!

We left Antigua (again) for a 90-minute shuttle into Guatemala City.  Heavy rains with some awesome lightning sent people running for cover, giving the streets a very deserted feel as we drove around.  We did see what looked like a room in a building one story up where the outside wall to the street had been removed, and in the room was a statue of a man with some office furniture around him (also possibly made of stone, although it was hard to tell in the dark).  David swears he saw the beginnings of a gang fight there, but I was too busy staring at the weird statue to notice.  lol
We then got on a bus up to Flores.  I'm never a fan of night busses, but this one wasn't bad as far as they go.  We arrived 12 1/2 hours after we left Antigua, and quickly hopped on a colectivo minibus to the Belizean border, about two hours away.  Big sections of this road are still unpaved (although not as much as the guidebooks warned us about), and the rain made the road muddy and slick.  But that was probably better than the dust storm it would have been on a dry day, so we didn't complain.  The border crossing was rather uneventful, although the Guatemalan agent must have somehow realized that we had been spared the usual 10Q "fee" when we came back from Honduras, because he charged us each 20Q.  Very obnoxious.  It is so lame when you know you are being, basically, robbed, and the guy knows you know he is robbing you, but for the sake of just getting across the border without hassle you fork it over anyway.  20Q is still only $2.50US, which isn't worth a fuss, but the principle!  The principle!

A half hour and a short cab ride later, we were in the city of San Ignacio, our stop for the night.  Although it is one of the largest cities in Belize, it feels very small, just a few crisscrossed streets with lots of shops and banks, although there are what seem like homes stretching off in every direction.  What we noticed right off was the heat.  It is maybe 90F, with a humidity to match.  We've felt the heat in other places, but without an ocean breeze we are really feeling it here.  I've done my share of complaining about cold water showers, but here even the cold water is only "cold".  I can't believe I'm pining for a real cold shower, but it sure would help relieve the heat.

The other weird thing is that people speak English here.  I've gotten so used to speaking in Spanish that I am having a hard time not saying "buenos dias" and "gracias" all the time.  I'm sure many of the people also speak Spanish anyway.  They also speak Creole, which I think comes in both English and Spanish varieties.  Whatever it is, through in that Rasta accent and I can't understand a word of it.  Another oddity are the large numbers of Chinese living here.  The Chinese restaurants far outnumber any other kind of food in town, which was great for me, as the Guatemalan´s best attempt at asian food was my plate of "Chow Mein" which was actually angel hair pasta dressed with butter.  So I had some chicken fried rice one night, and some Sesame Chicken the next, it was awesomely unexpected.

Our first adventure was to a place called Cave´s Branch.  Basically you get in the river (the water was cool and delicious) on an innertube, and you float down the river, which winds its way through a series of caves.  Cave tubing is a popular tourist attraction here, and hoards of cruise ship passengers arrive on busses from the coast.  While there were a lot of them, they were in full cattle mode, and were easy to get around.  Must be all that buffet or something.  Since David and I were coming from San Ignacio, instead of arriving with a busload of 30 people, it was just the two of us with our guide.  He snaked us around the masses and farther up the river so we got to go through an extra cave, which we fully appreciated.  The last cave was the best though, I´m talking caves that are the length of several football fields, and the river just eases you down and through.  The last cave has a little waterfall coming over one side, and a partially collapsed celing in on part with the sunlight and jungle plants reaching down into the cavern.  It totally felt like the beginning part of the "Pirates Of The Caribbean" ride at Disneyland, minus the gloom and smell of mildew.  After the cave we went through some minor rapids, which was fun too.  A totally great day.

The next day was even better.  We went to the ATM cave, which doesn´t stand for Automated Teller Machine, but I´ll have to look up the Maya to remember the full name.  We went with Nick from England and a married couple from Utah.  After driving for an hour or so, we then hiked through the jungle for another hour, crossing three times through a small river.  We saw herons and owls and what are called "Jesus Christ" lizards, which are so named because they can stand and run so fast on their hind legs that they can literally run across water.  Our guide pointed out different plants all along the way, telling us which ones would cure upset stomach and which ones would give you an itchy rash, helpfully called Poisonwood, and which ones were an antidote for Poisonwood.  He showed us one vine covered in sharp needles, which he said can grow up to three miles long!

Unlike any tour I´ve ever been on before, the guide was totally relaxed and kept encouraging us to take our time and not to rush.  We took full advantage of this, and what was supposed to be a seven or eight hour tour stretched into almost 12!  It was great, and we tipped appropriately.

Eventually we came to the mouth of the cave, from which the river pours out.  After putting on helmets with headlamps, we jumped in the river and swam into the cave.  From there we followed the river deeper and deeper into the ground.  Sometimes the water was ankle deep, sometimes chest deep, sometimes we had to swim, twisting through crevices and over boulders and underneath huge stalagtites and gorgeous curtains of rock.  We saw huge crawfish, a few bats and a totally creepy cave spider.  As if cave spider wasn´t a creepy enough name, this one is called a Scorpion Spider.

At some point we left the river and climbed up into an overhead passageway that we never would have found on our own.  (The cave follows the river for over two more miles from the point we veered away).  The passageway was tight at first, but soon opened up into a series of large caverns, and this is where the ancient Maya would come to bring offerings to the Gods.  There were pots all over the place, many well preserved thanks to the calcium sediment dripping from the celing which coated and protected everything.  We had to take off our shoes and walk around in our socks here to help preserve the site.  Farther back we started coming across the bodies, 1000 year old preserved skeletons lying where they fell.  The cave is named after the most perfect of these, a skeleton of a young girl laying on her back, limbs askew.  Talk about "Pirates of the Caribbean".  It was creepy and awesome and humbling all at once.

After a third night that was too hot to sleep through, we were ready to head to the beach.  Note to any travelers coming to San Ignacio, do yourself a favor and get a room with AC!