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Bocas del Toro oh the trip to panama...i left my cahuita friends in cahuita but met a girl named ani from california at the bus station who was also heading to bocas. twas a 2 hr bus from cahuita to sixaola past lots of banana plantations and some of the few indigenous villages in cr. then when the bus stops all these guys were yelling for us to follow them to the office where the costa ricans stamp your passport. then we walked across this ancient bridge that you can see through holes in the slats to the river. and then we had to run to the other side because a semi truck is trying to cross. the bridge doesnt even look like it could hold a car let alone a truck. then another office to get another passport stamp and tourist card, then taxi drivers yelling at us to hurry up or they cant get us to the boat in time (we missed the boat and had to wait an hour). but our taxi driver told us a long story about when the US occupied panama and one of the american soldiers fell in love with his sister and she moved to the US and eventually joined the US army. and now she has kids that are white like me with red hair even though shes black. it was a much longer story the first time. the old guys love to talk... then the water taxi ride was about 1 hour up a very pretty canal built for transporting bananas. lots of birds. now in bocas, ani and i are sharing a room at a hostel called mondo taitu, owned by three supercool guys my age that went to emory u in the ATL. the downstairs bar happens to be one of the most popular in town, and there's a whole posse of the owners' emory friends down for spring break, and our room is right next to the bar, so sleeping isn't really an option. but i didn't come on this trip to sleep... 19 Mar 06 - tired girl here. too much partying (did i just say that?), not enough eating or sleeping. hmmm, what to report... scuba diving is awesome. i am officially certified. went on a REAL (non-training) dive yesterday. hung out with a bunch of kids from quebec that were in my dive class this week. went to some beaches--boca del drago, bastimientos, playa bluff--all absolutely gorgeous. spent some QT with my very sexy scuba teacher. drank and danced a lot. my stomach has been screwy for days and i cant get any food down so i´ve been living on bottled water, fresh juices (watermelon juice is amazing), panamanian beer and nicaraguan rum. very nutritious i know. i think its getting better though. i ate a whole hamburger last night.
Boquete 23 Mar 06 - well didnt climb a volcano today. got up at 530 this morning, got a taxi at 610 or so, told him i wanted to go to the trail up volcan baru. he took me up to the park, showed me the trail and left. so i start walking and about 20 min later come across the sendero de las quetzales (quetzal trail), which i was planning to hike tomorrow. passed that and came to a locked gate and some houses. so i dont know where the volcano trail is but i hiked the quetzal trail instead. it connects the towns of boquete and cerro punta through the national park. so i walked to cerra punta and back to the boquete side of the park and then about halfway back to town before some birders from boston picked up. all in all about 27km, or 16-17 mi. the whole walk (except for the part back to town) was in cloud forest so it was super humid but also very cool (cool as in not hot, but also cool as in that´s cool, dude). was all uphill to cerra punta, mostly stairs, and then back down all the stairs to boquete. i thought i would melt when the sun caught up with me, but i was happy to be wrong. anyway i´m ready to go back to the beach so i guess i won´t hike the volcano. it would probably destroy my knees anyway to do it in one day, considering the shape i´m not in, and judging by what i´ve been told by the kids in my hostel who climbed it (and by the way they limped and hobbled for 2 days after). so the first volcano escaped me but we´ll see about the one at ometepe in nicaragua. tomorrow i will catch a bus from here to dominical, costa rica. its a beach town south of manuel antonio that is not sposed to be too crazy.
Costa Rica (again)Dominical
San Jose NicaraguaSan Juan del Sur que mas...the trip from costa rica to nicaragua wasnt very eventful. it bordered on becoming eventful when i discovered that i didnt have nearly as much money as i thought i did. apparently some must have fallen from my pocket somewhere between the hostel and the bus...or else i went sleepwalking to the bar or something...because i had just under $40 the night before and by the time i got to the border i only had $10 in colones. granted there was breakfast and a taxi and lunch...but not $30 worth. maybe $7 worth... then i changed money with one of the people yelling at me as i stamped out of cr. and he only gave me $7 in cordobas for $10 in colones. then i had to pay $8 for my nica tourist card. so i ended up paying $7 in cordobas and $2 in colones and the bus driver was very grouchy but i think the extra dollar helped. (i really need to stop letting people scam me at the borders.) then at the nica entrance the bus driver took our passports and money and got everything stamped for us while we had our luggage ´checked´. near as i can tell they just like to watch us unload and load it on the bus cuz they didnt check a damn thing, just made us stand in line for a while. although the long line gave me time to run for the atm and replenish my wallet with 2000 cordobas. then back on the bus a very nice nica girl told me where to get off (la virgen) and how to get to san juan del sur (stand on the side of the road til a taxi comes). very easy. got a very dim and dirty private room with a very disgusting bathroom and no social scene for $5 the first night and then moved into a much busier, brighter, more fun hostel called casa oro (also $5) the next day. things arent as cheap here as i thought they might be, but its a pretty touristy place. so i bought a loaf of bread and the biggest avocado i´ve ever seen yesterday morning. took me four meals to finish that avocado. avocado and cheese sandwich for lunch, supper, breakfast, and supper. i added tomatoes and onions tonight for a bit of diversity. good thing i love my avocados... tomorrow i think i will leave here and go to ometepe with 2 girls from norway. i´ve seen the pretty beaches and the wind is making me crazy. i think thats all i have to report. flor de caña (the greatest rum ever created) is super cheap here (since its from nicaragua). i would love to tell you i´ll bring a bottle back but it wouldnt make it more than a day or two. i´ll pick up some good tequila in mexico right before i fly out.
Ometepe i let the scandinavians talk me into going on a horseback ride. it was actually quite fun. although the horses are so small there i felt very guilty for riding them. i think they're about 1/4 the size of our horses. and the finnish guys are about 6'2 and 6'4, and the girls prolly 6'0 and 5'8, and me so we all looked pretty silly on our little ponies. but i had a sweet little mare --and her foal chasing after us the whole way-- and it was a pleasant --albeit very slow-- ride. we rode up to a waterfall on the side of the volcano. the guys had never ridden before and have been complaining about their asses ever since but they had fun too. the next day we hiked up volcan maderas and down to the crater lake. it was very beautiful, but quite challenging and i don't know if i've ever been that muddy, ever. literally the last hour of the hike is climbing on all fours over and under trees and tree roots and trying to always step on the roots --or swing from the branches-- because the ground is 6 inches of mud. i had mud all the way to my knees and my shoes will never be right again. one of those things i am glad i did once but dont need to do again. haha one night we drank entirely too much rum --have i mentioned how good flor de cana is-- and stayed up til 4 in the morning talking politics. a finn (Ari), a frenchman (Francois from Francia), and an american (yours truly) talking politics in sandanista territory in nicaragua. very interesting and not even as violent as one might think. i think it took 3 bottles of flor de cana to put us to bed. other than that we spent a lot of time laying in hammocks and playing cards. eventually ran out of money --no banks, atms, or places that take travelers checks on the island-- and came to granada yesterday, along with a guy from france. the five us had to pool all our money in order to make it off the island and to an atm. we made with about 10 cordobas each to spare.
6 Apr 06 - seem to be a lot of things to do here, which means that i cant make up my mind so it appears today will be spent catching up on emails, my diary, etc. the scandinavians are going to the honduras bay islands next, so i guess we'll be parting ways tomorrow or the next day. been fun to have a group but its also a pain in the arse when trying to go somewhere with everyone talking at once and all of us speak crappy spanish and do we do this or that or the other thing and argh it gives me a headache. traveling alone is kind of lonely but so much simpler. i think Francois is going to leon next as well so maybe we'll stick together. who knows. 15 Apr 06 - The night after my last email we went to a club downtown with great live local music and some dancing. The next day we went to Laguna de Apoyo which is a crater lake outside of town that has little tourist resorts around it. We just made a daytrip to go swimming and tubing on the lake and laze about the dock. It was great because the water was warm, especially compared to the pacific ocean and lago de nicaragua and there was no wind to blow sand in our faces. If i only remember one thing about southern nicaragua (san juan del sur and ometepe), it will be the wind. Then next day, Topi and the two norwegian girls left early in the morning for the bay islands, and after wandering around town with my camera for a while, i left with Ari and Francois for the nearby town of Masaya, which is famous for its artesania. Went to a packed club where we were the only gringos and then wandered around the zoo of markets the next day, where you could buy anything from sunglasses to underwear to saddles to stuffed crocodiles holding teacups (formerly living crocodiles) to big piles of dripping raw chicken. Then to Leon, which is another pretty colonial town with lots of volcano adventures to be had nearby. We thought we were going on a volcano tour that involved hiking up, watching the sunset, and then sledding/boarding down on these homemade sandboard thingies. Looked fun, but somehow we didnt make it on to the list even though we talked to the guy a day ahead of time. Don't know what happened there, but since we couldnt do that we caught a bus to the border and then a bus to Tegucigalpa.
HondurasTegucigalpa We got a big bus to tegucigalpa, like a greyhound bus with individual reclining seats and everything. Was almost absolute luxury except that there were cockroaches everywhere. Crawling on the curtains, the seats, the floor. Everywhere. Not big ones, none bigger than an inch and most half that size. But its still a bit unnerving to have them everywhere. None ever crawled on me though so it was all good. After about an hour they disappeared. We joked nervously that they had all crawled into our packs but we never saw them again. Stayed in a hotel in Tegucigalpa with HOT water, our OWN bathroom, and TELEVISION. Talk about luxury...and cost us $8/person. We got into town so late that the only food we could find was Burger King. That was kind of depressing.
Santa Rosa/Gracias The next morning we struggled out of bed and headed for the bus station only to find that, as Thursday is apparently the party day, Friday is apparently the sleeping day, because there were no buses running. We managed to hitch a ride with a Colombian couple back to Santa Rosa, but by then it was raining and we didnt feel like hitching anymore. So we took naps, caught the procession of Jesus and the saints around the park and into the church, ate more street food (since all the restaurants were closed) and then went to bed and slept for 12 hours. Today we found the buses running as usual again and came to Copan Ruinas without any hitches. Tomorrow we will go the the ruins. And there are supposed to be some fun hot springs here too, though i think these are a little more tranquilo than the last ones. Closing thoughts. I'm tired of street food. All over Nicaragua and Honduras, the street food (and bus food, because they come sell you stuff on the bus, and after you've been on the bus for 3 hours with 4 left to go anything sounds good). Fried tortillas with cheese and cabbage. Always some variation of that. Grease and cheese and flour. sometimes beans, sometimes meat, but always grease and cheese and flour. I want vegetables! Today on the bus i bought something from this lady that turned out to be two tortillas, with rice in between and also a chicken bone with no meat on it. With all the restaurants closed, we've been living off this stuff, accompanied by coca cola of course. Delicious and nutritious... Copan Ruinas
Roatan/Caribbean Coast i didnt actually intend to do a dive course when i got there. i was just gonna do a couple fun dives one or two days, go to the beach one day, and then leave. but when i went talking to the dive shops i found that with only an open water certification, my options were very limited. i could only go on afternoon dives because morning dives went deeper, couldnt go on night dives etc. so once i found that out, i was a very easy sell for the advanced class. so instead of 3 days i spent 5 and instead of 3 dives i did 6, but it was absolutely worth it. the water is even clearer there than in bocas del toro, and they have a reef. its incredible. swimming along looking at corals and fish in roughly 10m of water and all of a sudden there´s nothing but blue water in front of and below you because you swam off a 20m cliff of coral. looks just like 'the dropoff' in finding nemo. i loved it. i did several deep dives (up to 33m/100ft), a wreck dive, a night dive. there were lots of phosphorescent creatures in the water at night so you could turn off your light and see all kinds of stuff glowing. to reiterate, i love diving. i also got certified to use enriched air, which allows you to stay under the water longer, so i could do 50 minute dives instead of 30 minute ones. we just happened to time our trip to coincide with the dive shop´s anniversary party, which was quite an entertaining affair. they closed the shop midday and loaded down the boat with food, booze and people and headed for a beach further down the island. then they backed the boat as close to the shore as possible, essentially providing a swimming/diving platform and swimup bar. so we feasted on shrimp and salads and grilled stuff, drank massive quantities of beer and rum punch, and swam around playing with childrens water toys for hours. such as the large inflatable airplane that made numerous manned flights off the roof of the boat until it finally exploded. my favorites were the floating lounge chairs. so roatan island and coconut tree divers are highly recommended by me. francois left on my last day of class, and the next day i also headed back to the mainland on the ferry, and to the town of tela, honduras, which was highly recommended by the guidebook. i found the beach and the town very mediocre and unexciting. the beach was not so pretty (i suppose the drilling operation a couple hundred yards out might have had something to do with that) and also i was a) the only white person on the beach and b) the only girl wearing a bikini. a bit uncomfortable. so i left the next morning for omoa, honduras, home of 'the best hostel in honduras', roli´s place. twas a nice and friendly hostel, but i guess i didnt stay there long enough to judge whether or not its the best. they did have amazing toilets in which we could actually flush the toilet paper. miracle of miracles. was there for a whole 2 hours when francois walked in from dinner. so we´re travel buddies again. we checked out an old spanish fort in omoa this morning and then headed to the town of livingston, guatemala.
GuatemalaRio Dulce 31 Apr 06 - we didn`t go to the seven altars swimming place because the wet season hasn`t quite kicked in yet and we learned from a local that there were no waterfalls. so we just slept in livingston (and drank coco locos--fresh coconuts with the top lopped off and rum poured in!) and then the next morning hopped a motorboat partway up the rio dulce. the boat trip from livingston to the town of rio dulce is considered one of the highlights of guatemala. it is very beautiful, with jungle rising up on either side and lots of herons, kingfishers, cormorants and other birds to watch. no crocodiles though. we stayed at an "ecohostel" type place along the river, called finca tatin. its not actually a finca (farm) though. it has an open air lodge with lots of hammocks, lots of little cabinas, an open air dorm above the lodge area, and a restaurant. even the toilets have a jungle view. we rented a kayak and paddled up the river to some hot springs, where we soaked for a good while. we even convinced some american passerby to give us a beer to drink while soaking in the river. talk about luxury. the next day we took a tour to a nearby village and school and to a cave that we could reportedly swim in. it was a nice trip, but hot and a bit overpriced for what we got. didn`t swim in the cave as it required a rope descent down a slippery sharp wall to a fairly small pool in the darkness below. i decided the size of the pool wasnt worth the blood that would flow and the humiliation i would suffer in the process of getting in and out. left the next day on a boat the rest of the way up the river to the town of rio dulce, and from there caught a bus to the town of poptun, where we stayed at another ecohostel type place, this one actually a farm and called finca ixobel. although also overpriced, this place had incredibly good food, (with a buffet dinner!), a swimming pond, a bar, and lots of hiking/horseback/caving opportunities. the first night we went into town, where there was a fair going on and the finca employees where putting on a fire show. apparently pablo from argentina, who's into playing with fire, came to work at the finca and a bunch of other people decided they wanted to play with fire as well (logical progression of events). they are all really amazing and the show was very impressive. lots of throwing flaming batons at each other and swinging flaming hula hoops around their necks. I wanna play with fire too... the next day we did another cave trip, and this one was much more impressive. a 2 hr hike to the cave, through mostly fields, a bit of jungle, and some freshly slashed and burned jungle. then into the cave, which took an hour to swim/walk the entire length and then an hour back. at the furthest end is a big rocky precipice with a big deep pool below that we could jump into. underground cliff jumping--awesome.
El Peten 1 May 06 - caught an afternoon bus to tikal, strung our hammocks in the campground, and headed into the ruins about 5 o`clock. the park technically closes at 6, so we tried to get as far in as we could by six so we could still keep looking at things as they were kicking us out. we walked in through a bit of jungle, saw a peten turkey (kind of like a cross between one of our turkeys and a peacock) and some howler monkeys and then came out among the temples. they are amazing. we climbed temple 2 and temple 4 (#1 is off limits and #3 is not excavated) and then climbed to the top of the pyramid in the "mundo perdido" (lost world) section of the ruins. we got to the top of that right around 6, and as we were sitting there the jungle around began to come to life. toucans and parrots were flying all around us and talking quite animatedly. a troop of spider monkeys passed through. it really did feel like a lost world. we almost got to see the sunset, but then a tour guide started harassing us because it was after hours. it turns out that the only people who cared if we were there after six were the people whose after-hours tours we didnt buy. so we took our sweet time moseying down the staircase and then "got lost" a couple times on the way to the entrance, but the guards didnt pay any attention. a couple of them offered to let us go back up for $5. but we were hungry. went to bed super early and discovered that camping in a hammock is not my favorite thing. they`re great for naps but not all night. got up super early for a morning tour that turned out to be mostly a waste of time. was supposed to be a sunrise tour, but it went so early (430am) that we sat for probably an hour on top of temple 4 in the pitch black. francois' idea not mine. i couldnt stay awake but it was too cold to sleep so i dosed uncomfortably and was very grouchy by the time daylight finally came. then it was really foggy so there was no 'sunrise' anyway. the wildlife wasnt nearly as active in the morning as in the evening either. on the plus side, during the night and wee hours of morning, we saw a fer-de-lance (locally called a barba amarilla, it's super poisonous viper--it was a little baby one though), a tarantula, and a big scorpion. all the creepie crawlies come out in the dark!! when we finally came down off temple 4, i wandered around the ruins for several more hours--to the north acropolis, group h to the north and temple 6 to the south. all in all, tikal is amazing--both for the ruins and for the forest and wildlife. i just don`t recommend the tour guys in the parking lot.
Coban/Semuc Champey 12 May 06 - in coban i stayed the central b&b, a simple hostel with breakfast included, run by an american guy. he was super friendly and told us a lot of his life stories. and the banana pancakes in the morning were deeelicious. then we caught a shuttle to semuc champey, which was mahvelous. its in a lush, beautiful valley. the river comes rushing down out of the mountains and most of it plunges into a hole in the limestone bed, leaving just a shallow, slow moving stream above that cascades down through a set of terraced pools, where we could swim. we walked up to look at the hole where the river plunges in. i was bebopping around on the edge, looking into the hole, when i realized that the park employees there were trying to get me to step away from the edge. guess i made them nervous. apparently a few tourists have fallen in there and never been seen again... anyway it was a pretty impressive sight. i was hanging out with a very cool girl named sonia from austria, who had met Rene the guide at a bar the night before. since we were apparently in the "in" crowd, he took us to see the cave where the river rushes out from under the rocks. i guess they lead a tour there for Q100.00 or so (~$13) but we got to go for free, on the condition we didnt tell anybody else in our group. sorry francois. getting to the cave required basically rock climbing backwards down a little waterfall. sounds and looks scary but was actually quite easy. he took us one at a time and literally stuck our feet in the footholds and told us where to put our hands etc. almost impossible to screw up. prolly why he took us down there--up close and personal with girls in bathing suits. hey it was fun. the cave was pretty big, with cool formations and water raining down from the ceiling. and the river gushing out of the hole at the far end. then after semuc we went to the caves near the town of lanquin. there we went into a huge cave with amazing stalactite and stalagmite formations. i've never been in a cave like that before. the maya people have an altar inside the cave, and much of the place is blackened with years and years of burning candles. and there was a stinky chicken offering on the altar. that night we went back to the little hostel bar sonia had been to the night before. i don't remember the name, but it's run by a guy from livingston, who happens to be a wonderful singer and guitar player. so we drank beer and he hung out and played for us. i miss my guitar... sonia and i were both glassy eyed and possibly drooling but no dice, the guy's married and we met his adorable baby daughter. oh well...
Antigua
Lake Atitlan i stayed at one of these little hotels, not too far off the main trail, and had my own room for $2/ night. awesome. met a older guy from virginia on the boat, named joe, who kind of adopted me as his beer drinking buddy and person to tell stories to. his family stories were funny--his wife is from belgium and their children were born in belgium but then the moved back to the states. so his oldest kid speaks english with a french accent, and his youngest with a southern accent. cracked me up. went over to the town of santiago atitlan for the sunday market--my first real market experience. nicaraguan markets arent nearly as bustling or aggressive as guatemalan ones, and i have to say my first attempt at bargaining went rather poorly for me. i got one pair of pants i really wanted and one blanket thing that i didnt want at all, and neither at a particularly good price. oh well, live and learn. tried to go see maximon, a guatemalan deity/effigy that's apparently a combination of mayan gods, pedro de alvarado (conquistador of Guatemala) and judas. lots of towns have some sort of effigy of maximon, including santiago atitlan. but he moves to a different "caretakers" house once a year and apparently that was the day. so there was a procession in his honor and then there was a huge crowd around his house waiting for him to be moved. i hung around for a while but then got tired of waiting and went back to san pedro. the other impetus for leaving was a little tiny old mayan lady, who looked remarkably like the classic depiction of a witch--warts and all, who was following me around and talking to me in what i assume was some sort of hybrid of spanish (i could pick out a few words) and the local mayan language. anyway i didn't know what she wanted from me, i didn't have any small bills to give her, and she was getting very mad at me, so i headed for the boat. when i got back, who did i find in the hotel room next to mine but Francois. apparently the Dios won't let us part ways... we knew we were going the same direction, but independently picking the same hotels is pretty weird... we hiked up volcan san pedro (the one the town is built on). it was an awesome hike--the first half was through town and then through coffee and corn fields, and then the second half was a pretty steep climb up through the forest. heard, but didnt see, the local turkeys (francois saw them) on the way up and saw a whole troup of adult and baby coatis on the way down. hiked with 3 israelis, 2 of whom were completely worthless. i thought i was out of shape, but here is this young couple, fresh out of the israeli army, and they whined and complained halfway up, until francois and i left them behind (then i'm sure they kept complaining--we just didnt have to listen anymore), and then turned around about halfway up. even the guide was frustrated with them. but it was a really beautiful hike, and the view from the top was really special. the lowlands were all fogged in so the vista was of nearby volcanic peaks sticking up out of the clouds. back in town, i meant to go swimming in the lake but accidentally took a 3hr nap instead. san pedro is not a place to be ambitious.
Chichicastenango
Quetzaltenango (Xela) 21 May 06 - the tajulmulco hike turned out to be both a fun hike and an exercise in enduring cold and wet. we met at 5:30 in the morning, rode the bus for an hour, stopped for breakfast, and then road the bus for another hour to get to the base of the volcano. well not really the base--we cheated and started at a fairly high elevation--3100m (according to a website) and the peak is 4220m (thats 13,825ft). now i dont pretend to be in good shape, but i´ve hiked a couple few mountains and volcanos and yeah, this one was challenging. luckily i didnt have altitude problems--either trouble breathing or altitude sickness--but i did have out-of-shape-legs-carrying-fat-beer-belly problems. oh the fire in my calves and ass. but we all successfully made it to the base camp by 4 o´clock or so. i was actually doing well, staying in the lead pack, until we ate lunch. the guides badgered us into eating ALL the food so we didnt have to carry it. Except we really did have to carry it--in our bellies. and my belly was already to heavy. so the last hour or so after lunch was pretty miserable. it was thundering somewhere in the clouds below us most of the way up, but didnt actually start to rain on us until we were almost through with dinner. then it rained and rained and rained and rained all night. from 7 pm until probably 5 am. the people in the middle of the tents (like me) managed to stay dry, but no one really got any sleep due to noise and (understandable) endless fidgeting of the wet people. thankfully the guides didnt get us up at 4am to hike the summit in the rain and cold. instead we took off around 7. it was still cloudy when we took off and i was sure we werent going to be able to see anything from the summit. in my morning stupor and grouchiness i took off without hat or gloves or camera. trudged frigidly and bitterly to the tiptop and WOW. the vista was incredible. we could see all the way to the pacific ocean; to chiapas, mexico; to the cuchumatanes mountains near huehue; to the volcanos near lake atitlan and antigua. we heard and saw volcan santiaguito erupt as we stood atop the summit. and there was ice and un poquito of snow on the top. i was f-f-f-f-f-freezing, but suddenly in a better mood thanks to the view. if i had only remembered my camera. but francois promised me pics and he always takes a million of them so i´ll be ok. hiked back down to camp for a breakfast of mush and instant coffee, broke camp and hiked down. its always amazing and humbling how short the downhill hike always turns out to be. 6 hours up and 3 down or thereabouts. when the bus came rolling down the road, we descended in a mob, threw all our packs up top, and then realized there was no possible way we could all fit as the bus was already packed with standers and there were 20 of us. so half piled in that bus and half in the next bus without our bags. even that bus was packed and i was still hanging half out the door as it took off. i ended up sitting for an hour with half a cheek on the front passenger seat (i never saw a bus with a front passenger seat before that day, or since) with 2 other people, with one knee smashed into the console and the other knee getting cracked by the stickshift every 30 seconds or so. SUPER comfortable. we got seats on the next bus. the next day was my "wander the streets of xela" day and the highlight was a humungous cemetary with huge tombs and statues and all kinds of colors. also kind of eerie as almost all of the statues have been beheaded by vandals. then the next day i hopped a bus to huehuetango (its as beautiful as the ´bible´ (thats the lonely planet guidebook) says) and onward to mexico and san cristobal de las casas in chiapas.
MexicoSan Cristóbal de las Casas
Oaxaca went to Monte Alban -- zapotec ruins -- outside of town today. they were nice, but i have to say the previous mayan ruins have spoiled me. plus my stomach was grouchy again to day and there was no shade there, so i burnt myself nicely. 26 May 06 - well, i woke up late yesterday morning and decided i didn`t want to be in oaxaca anymore. so i went to the cultural museum to see the mixtec treasure--supercool horde from a tomb in monte alban, full of gold, silver, jade, turqoise, metalwork, carved bone, a necklace made of jaguar, puma and human teeth, cool stuff-- and then hopped a bus to the town of puebla.
Puebla
Mexico City 2 Jun 06 - teotihuacan was fun--the pyramids really are big 'uns! but i guess i'm truly a ruins snob now because if theres no jungle i'm not impressed. other than the two big pyramids and a couple of barely-there murals there wasnt much to see. the subway and bus rides were almost more fun. mexico city's subway is impeccably clean and nice, and it only costs 2 pesos (20 cents) per ride! theres art and photography on the walls as you walk from train to train. it gets really crowded during rush hour, but thats to be expected in the worlds largest (or 2nd, i cant remember which) city. we took the subway from the hotel to the bus station and then an hour bus to teotihuacan. on the bus rides to and from there were guys with guitars performing in the aisles. the first guy was really good and the second ok (the second guy's girlfriend tried to sing with him and that ruined it all. yikes!) i gladly gave money to the first, and ended up paying the second as he wouldnt leave me alone until i did. even though his girl gave me a headache. met up with some australians (mike, chris, and anna) in the hostel and had a bit of a long night in the hostel's roof bar. the bartender finally booted us at 4 am. on sunday, the australians and i went wandering about the historic district. there was a huge indigenous rights/anti-police march and protest going on and all the police were out in fullon riot gear. so we watched that for a while but nothing too exciting happened. even though there was a big group of guys marching down the street with raised machetes. some guy videoed us so maybe we were on mexican tv. who knows. anyone see me? that night we met and danced with some mexicans involved in the protest. they claimed to be close to subcomandante marcos, who's the big revolutionary leader in mexico, but they mighta been fulla shit. hard to say. the girl fell absolutely in love with mike the australian, and he ended up literally prying himself away when the downstairs bar closed and they had to leave. then spent another long night at the upstairs bar, hanging out with hostel employees, israeli surfers, venezualan musicians (who kept harassing the blond girls into dancing) and of course the australians, again until 4am. on monday the aussies went to teotihuacan and i tried to go see diego rivera's murals that are scattered around various public buildings and museums in the historic district, but discovered that A) everything's closed in mexico city on monday and B) wandering around mexico city (even the nice touristy part) really sucks for a lone blond girl. i went shopping for a while to avoid the infuriatingly 'friendly' boys and men outside and then retreated to the hostel and spent the rest of the day on the internet and watching movies. tuesday, the last real day in mexico, i went with anna to xochimilco--a part of town full of canals. in the aztec days, the local folks planted 'gardens' in the lake (because mexico city is in the middle of a lake that no longer exists) by piling up mud and vegetation in rows. these rows of gardens eventually became land and the lake was reduced to canals. now there are houses where the gardens were and there are bright yellow and red boats that you can ride in through the canals. it was pretty fun to sit in a bright yellow boat drinking coronas while a guy poled us down the canal. and there are people in their own bright boats drifting along, trying to sell corn, tortillas, jewelry, souvenirs, and live music to the tourists in the boats. good fun. after that to a museum housing lots of diego rivera and frida kahlo art and then back to the hostel to get ready for the final hurrah. five of the six girls in my hostel room went out to the club district to celebrate my last night of vacation. funnily enough the bar we went to was new orleans themed and celebrating its first anniversary. so it was like a mardis gras party all over again, complete with jester hats and beads. i met a kid from duke at the bar who had just graduated and moved down there for the summer. weird. there was live cuban music in a bar upstairs, so i went up there for a while with a hot tico from Cahuita. Ooh la la. we got back to the hostel about 4am then it was a 6am taxi to the airport and the story is pretty much over. i lost my jester hat, but i was still wearing my beads when i got to houston. i did take them off before i got to immigration and customs. first stop in the houston airport was a music store, where i scooped up the new harper and mason cds. so exciting! then i just sat in my gate and laughed at all the crazy americans. today im still laughing at all the crazy americans. 'course the ones in boulder are, arguably, crazier than most, but its keeping me entertained. guess that's the end of the story.
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