Sky and Sea

Last time I wrote we were in Copan Ruinas. Before we left Copan we took a guided hike through the surrounding mountains. The hike itself was great, with some nice waterfalls and other sights along the way, but the most entertaining part probably came from the guide himself, who spent the entire hike stopping to roll himself joints. Getting stoned while you guide tourists down a cliff face using a rope probably would not pass OHS in Australia, but I guess they do it differently in Honduras.
However the real highlight of the hike came at the end. You know when you have gotten to the highest point in a hike, and all you have left is the long, frustrating walk back down the hill? I hate that feeling, and it seems someone in Honduras does too, because they solve it through the "Canopy Tour". Apparently in the USA this is called zip lining and is getting quite common, but this was the first time I've seen it.
Stretching down the hill were a series of 16 cables, that were in fact all giant flying foxes. The shortest is a couple of hundred meters, but 3 or 4 of the longest ones were over a kilometer in length. You put on a climbing harness and hook in to a wheel on the cable, and off you go. Some of the cables span across a gully, so you suddenly find yourself 200 meters or so above the ground, hurtling through the sky. Definitely the best way I've ever ended a hike.

Following another long day on Honduran buses, we are now in Utila, one of Honduras' Bay Islands, on the Caribbean coast. (Much worse than the buses was the ferry to get here - 1.5 hours on the surprisingly choppy Caribbean sea - I'm still not meant for boats)

Utila is a small island that is right in the middle of the coral reef that runs down the Caribbean coast. Its a big tourist destination in Honduras, and everybody comes here for one reason - to dive. Actually, we were surprised at just how little else there is to do here. There aren't many beaches (surprising for an island in the Caribbean)and its too hot to do anything land based. As a result, Utila feels a little like a ski village or like Kraabi in Thailand (rock climbing) where everyone is pretty much there for one reason. All the conversation in the bars and restaurants at night is about the day's diving, and there are probably more people here trying to work as dive masters than there are short term tourists.

Its very different to inland Honduras. Whereas inland the people look much like the people in Peru or Bolivia, here the people have a much heavy black African influence. And they speak a bizarre mix of English and Spanish, with an accent that reminds you of the West Indian cricketers. While most people can switch into English when speaking to a tourist, when you hear them talking amongst themselves, its pretty much its own language.

Like everyone, else, we took to the water. For us, it was the Advanced Open Water course - 7 dives in three days, including a deep dive, and wreck dive and a night dive.

The wreck was a deliberately sunk cargo sheep at about 30 meters depth. Have you ever jumped into the water from a boat where it was really deep, and it seems like there is nothing but blue - no life, no shapes or features, just water? That's what it feels like when you jump in before the wreck dive. Then you start descending into to the nothingness and suddenly, after you descend about 10 meters, a shape starts to come into focus below you, and eventually turns into a ship. It's quite an experience, as was swimming through the windows of the wreck.

The other big attraction of Utila, which everyone chases from the boat between dives, is the whale shark. As you sit on the dive boat you get a warning from the captain that there may be a whale shark around, and everybody gets their snorkels one and sits by the edge ready to jump in. So far this has been as far as its gotten for us. I'm not convinced the whale shark was ever that close - but they sure know how to build suspense (and get you back the next day)
Kate is out "whale sharking" (its a verb here) again today, but I chose to stay on land - again, still not meant for the boats. Apparently in Belize I can dive with (non-whale) sharks. That will have to be enough for me.

¿Donde estan las turistas?

It is getting a little strange now. In San Salvador and La Palma there were no tourists. I was a little surprised, but figured we had ventured to places that didn´t really attract that many tourists. I was also beginning to congratulate myself on being such an intrepid traveller that I had finally left the gringo trail behind completely - all those gap year back packers wouldn´t dare to get into the ´real´Central America, like we had.

These were thoughts going through my head as we completed an all day public transport odyssey to get from La Palma to Copan Ruinas, where we are now. Our journey looked like this. Get a bus to the border (1 box of live chickens on this bus). Walk across the border, get a taxi to the next town. From there, a bus to La Entrada (At first no chickens, but when our bus broke down and we all piled onto another bus, 2 boxes of chickens). This was a three hour trip. Then, wait in La Entrada for the next bus. La Entrada merits the following description in the guide book. "an unattractive gateway town, known mainly for narcotrafficking. Something must have gone wrong if you have ended up in La Entrada" After a one hour wait, the bus headed to Copan Ruinas (two hours, and one box of indeterminate live animal - probably chickens)

But this is where my self congratulation about being an intrepid traveller ran into some problems. There is no doubt that Copan is firmly on the tourist trail. The town exists primarily because people come here to visit the Maya ruins outside the town. Every second store is a combined travel agency / internet cafe and in between them are endless restaurants offering happy hours and desayuno americano.
Despite all this, there are still virtually no tourists. There is no one else in our hotel, and each place we have eaten at has been empty. When we visited the ruins yesterday, which are about 4 or 5 acres in size, we were the only people there. It appears that going to intrepid places had less to do with not seeing other tourists than I thought.

Its all a little hard to explain. There must be tourists at some point, because something must be keeping all these places afloat. Obviously it must be low season, though the guide book never mentioned this, but there seems to be even more at play. The best I can come up with is that it must be a matter of recessions in Europe and the USA killing the tourism market. Maybe the fact that there have been no new arrivals from Europe for a week is also having an effect.

We did eventually run into one group of tourists - an organised tour of about 20 improbably good looking Danes, all aged around 19 or 20 in their year off between school and uni. They turned out to be a lot of fun, and it was the first time we´ve gotten properly drunk here. They have an interesting way of dancing where they put a chair in the middle of a circle and then people of the opposite sex dance around them in some sort of quasi lap dance style. I have never been more disappointed not to have my camera than when Kate was sitting in that chair. She claimed to be uncomfortable, but pictures would have shown she was loving it!

BTW people, don´t be shy to leave a comment or drop me an email - its always good to hear something from back home.

Thunderstorms and a hunt for Salvadorean cash

Today´s update comes from the small El Salvadorean town of La Palma. Those of you who carefully memorised my travel plans the fiftieth time I told you about them will remember that El Salvador was never on the itinerary - but after the emergency landing in the plane, I´ve now here for the second time in a week.

The reason for the change of plans was basically the Guatemalan weather. For the three days we were in Antigua the weather followed a very predictable pattern. Sunny in the morning, getting cloudy in by around 10 or 11, and developing into a thunderstorm at about 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

On top of that, Guatemala seemed to be full of towns that were interesting to walk around, for their 'mix of Maya and colonial Spanish cultures' or other such reasons, but didn't really offer that much to actually do.

So we changed the plans a little bit, and started by heading to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.

There can sometimes be, I think, a bit of an art form to reading a lonely planet guide. The LP very rarely comes out and says a place is not worth visiting or best avoided. But if you read carefully, you can usually figure out whether a place will actually be worth visiting or not. It is fair to say that on this occasion, we failed to read the LP to that level of detail.

In fact, it wasn´t until we were on the bus to San Salvador, that I noticed that, according to the guide book, one of the primary attractions of San Salvador is that the high murder rate (pretty much the highest in the world, actually) comes mainly from the gang land suburbs, and if you avoid those, you probably won't get murdered. A highlight indeed.

Getting a taxi from the bus terminal to our hotel, it was apparent that the residents of San Salvador are not entirely convinced that murders are confined to the gang suburbs. Either that or we were driving straight through gang land. I've never seen so much barbed wire - every house and shop is covered in the stuff. Adding to the feeling of a warzone are the police. Every couple of minutes you are passed by a ute with three or four policeman standing in formation, all facing outward, on the tray, in full camouflage gear and with machine guns slung around their necks. They also have on balaclavas. I guess in a city with 100 000 gang members, being a police man is best done anonymously.

Needless to say, after one night we headed straight for the bus terminal to move on. For obvious reasons, there aren't many tourists in El Salvador, and thus no tourist buses, so it was the public transport network for us. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed in myself when I realised how much I wanted to avoid the normal public transport and get a nice air conditioned bus. Club med tourist.

Unfortunately, as we got to the bus stop Kate and I realised we were completely out of cash. Not fancying a walk around the city with back packs on, nor the idea of leaving Kate alone to watch the bags while I looked for an ATM, we had the Taxi driver who'd taken us to the bus stop turn around and drive us to an ATM. This is where the problems started.

We pulled up outside an HSBC, oddly located in what was really starting to look like one of the gang suburbs. Fortunately, ATMs in San Salvador are guarded by soldiers with AK47s. I wouldn't say that makes you feel safe, but it helps. Less fortunately, not many Salvadorean ATMs seem to accept foreign cards, and this one was no exception.

The next ATM also failed. At the third ATM, the bank said it took international transfers. Unfortunately it was a Saturday, and that is apparently the day that in Salvador, you pick up the money your cousin in the USA has sent home. Accordingly, there was a line around the block waiting for the bank. And of course more machine guns. Plus one guy who was carrying what looked to me like an anti tank gun or rocket launcher.

So off to the fourth ATM - which, to my great relief worked.

From there is was off to La Palma, in the North of El Salvador and towards the Honduran border. That is where we are now. Its a tiny town, and, though it is in the LP, is clearly not on the tourist trail. As far as I can see, we are the only tourists here. Western tourists that is. It seems this is a weekend retreat for middle class (though not wealthy) San Salvadoreans. Our hotel is full of them. They are generally very friendly and polite, as is everyone in Salvador, guns or no, so its really quite nice.

Tomorrow its over the border to Honduras, up to some Mayan ruins, and then on to the Caribbean coast, as the beachy part of the holiday begins. Apparently, there are whale sharks to be found.

First Contact

We finally threw our packs down on the floor of our hostel room at about 11pm last night, relieved that we had eventually made it to Guatemala and found a place to stay. We had booked accommodation, we thought, but both places with the name of the place we book - El Gato Negro - we adamant that they had no record of us. Fortunately, after about half an hour of walking the streets of Antigua, trying to decipher the Lonely Planet map, with packs on our backs and fronts, not looking the slightest bit prone to being mugged, we established that the second black cat had a spare room, even if we hadn't booked it.

It all started out as the easiest of long haul flights. Wanting to put an end to the seemingly endless goodbyes and the restless waiting around, we arrived at Sydney Airport with three hours to spare - one of the first times in my life I've made it to the airport without once stressing about whether I was going to miss check in.

The early check in seemed to pay off too - a free upgrade to premium economy made the idea of a 14 hour flight to Los Angeles that much less disturbing. It also left us with time to have a final drink with mum and dad.

Before we knew it though, it was boarding time, and we took our places in seats 14 A and B. I have to say, I will find it difficult to return to normal economy. And to further improve my mood, the captain announced that, due to favourable winds, today's flight time would be (only!) 12 hours and 14 minutes.

I would tell you more about the flight, but the comfortable seats meant that, apart from two hours watching District 9 (Highly recommended, BTW), I slept pretty much the whole way.

Whatever good things I might have to say about V Australia, I can't say the same about LAX. It seemed like the cliched 'Fortress America' arrival experience. Although there were only 7 people ahead of us in line, we waited for about 45 minutes to get to the immigration desk.

As I approached the desk, fast losing my faith in the notion that I was not a criminal and perfectly entitled to enter the USA, the customs officer gave me a stern look.
"How long you staying"
"Just in transit - heading to Guatemala tomorrow"
"Who's that?" (nodding towards Kate, who was waiting next in line)
"That's my girlfriend, we are travelling together" I replied hesitantly, suddenly concerned that I should have said we were married, as the customs officer continued his stern look.
"Tell her to come over"
I gestured to Kate, wondering whether Kate had some criminal record she had failed to mention to me.
"You travelling with this guy?"
"Yes..." Kate seemed as wary as I did.
"Well, he tells me that he is going to propose real soon, don't you worry!" And the customs officer burst out laughing. "I feel a baby coming on, maybe in September, oh yeah, that's right, sooner than you think" He continued to laugh while we gradually unwound and found ourselves with even less to say than when we thought he was going to send us to Gitmo.

The next morning it was off to Guatemala, via Dallas. Another 45 minute wait, this time to get out of the States, seemed all we had to worry about, until, approaching Guatemala City, the pilot made this, somewhat cryptic, announcement:
"Folks, we're approaching Guatemala now, but there is some serious weather around the airport, that means we can't land at the moment, so it looks like we are going to have to circle until the weather clears. Now, unfortunately, it looks like that weather is pretty set in, so we don't have enough fuel to wait for it to clear"

I could tell that no one had really listened to the announcement, because no one on the plane seemed concerned that the pilot just said we couldn't land and didn't have enough fuel to stay in the air. When he repeated the announcement in Spanish, there did seem to be some murmuring.

Moments later the pilot came back and announced that we were going to land in El Salvador instead of Guatemala.

Personally, I would have been happy to start my holiday on El Salvador, but it turns out you can't leave the plane in these situation. So, about an hour later we were back in the air, and about 4 hours late, we landed in Guatemala city, and made our way to Antigua, where the hostel search began.

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