Central American Tour

PDX @ San Jose, Costa Rica

2009-12-31T06:30:45.000Z

We took off at 8:30 this morning so that we could maximize our time sitting in the Denver airport

We left the rain behind to spend twelve hours in the strange tent that is DIA. Now on to 82 degrees and sunny.

(B & R)

DIA @ San Jose, Costa Rica

2009-12-31T11:30:06.000Z

It is 2010 on the east coast and we only have 2 hours left to kill of our 12 hour layover in Denver. San Jose tomorrow morning and then who knows.

(B)

San Jose, Costa Rica @ San José, Costa Rica

2010-01-01T06:30:15.000Z

We arrived in San Jose early in the morning of New Year's Day. Since our room wasn't ready yet, we spent the morning on the rooftop restaurant drinking coffee and playing cards. Our hostel is perched atop a hill and the balcony faces out across the valley. The view to the north is spectacular. A few tall buildings rise out of the patchwork quilt of corrugated metal that covers San Jose. Beyond, clouds envelop the mountaintops.

When we finally had our room key, we slept for a few hours before venturing out of our hostel for the afternoon. It being a holiday, the city was sleepy. A few businesses, mostly American fast food chains, were open near the center of town. For the most part, however, we took in a boarded-up city scape.

Today we had our first real taste of Costa Rica. We went to the Mercado Central in the morning for a breakfast of gallo pinto (rice and beans with fried egg and plantain). Later we walked through the red light district (unavoidable) to the bus station in order to plan our next move. "Um...hay un bus...ah...para Santa Elena?... Manana?... Cuanto cuesto?... Gracias." My spanish is dubious to say the least, and I find that the unfortunate consequence of a question is an answer, which invariably proves to be a more challenging feat of linguistic prowess than the question itself.

(R)

Reflections on San Jose @ Santa Elena, Costa Rica

2010-01-03T14:30:08.000Z

The bus ride out of San Jose prompted me to reflect on the character of the city. San Jose projects a palpable feeling of filth that other cities manage to hide—or at least to segregate. In Bangkok, you expect to be repulsed and there are parts of town designated for the baser pleasures. In San Jose, the filth permeates the city and the lines between districts are blurry, if they exist at all. Instead, there is ever-present evidence of the darker sides of the city. For instance, in Costa Rica there is a more lucrative side to the tourism industry that, in other places, generally goes unnoticed. Roz, early in our stay, cautioned me, “I know you don't intend to go clubbing, but, just so you know, night clubs here aren't night clubs.” The sex trade is big in this country and the signs of its pervasive presence are ubiquitous. Used condoms line the streets, suggestive 'Night Club' signs protrude above dark gated staircases that lead into windowless cement cubes, and discarded articles of clothing on the sidewalk prompt the imagination to speculate on the happenings in these streets at night. Since the distinction between red-light district and, well, green-light district is unclear, it does not seem that individuals can feel safe in any particular neighborhood. Consequently, barbed-wire is a standard accoutrement on any home. It is uncommon to see an establishment without either spiral razor-wire, high fences topped with speared tridents, or both. And at night there isn't a single storefront unprotected by a pull-down metal wall. Hostels require personal guards and are generally more of exclusive compounds than friendly neighborhood establishments. Our own hostel presented a two-story facade of orange sheet-metal topped with spiral razor-wire and the guard refused to even let us leave without first attaining the proper wristband identifying us as tenants and assuring our re-entrance—as if to say: you don't want to get stuck on the outside. Luckily, San Jose being a place where people tend to stay in rather than go out, we happened to be staying in one of the nicest hostels around. But, that being said, it didn't feel particularly dangerous on the outside and Roz and I quite enjoyed wandering the filthy streets. The other tourists, and the cops on the street corners, gave us a sense of security. And our interactions with locals were always positive. If nothing else, the place had character. Nevertheless, we were excited to get out of the city when we did, and we have now arrived in Santa Elena, which, so far, has given us quite the opposite feeling.

(B)

Santa Elena, Costa Rica @ Santa Elena, Costa Rica

2010-01-03T19:00:58.000Z

Santa Elena is three streets, legs of an upside-down triangle. The main strip is the top leg. On it are a local cafe/leather boot store, bus station, and ice-cream shop on one side and a bakery, supermarket, a few restaurants, and half a dozen tourism information centers on the other. On the second leg are a hostel, cafe, and bank. On the third, a hardware store and pharmacy. Our hostel is off this beaten path—about 400m from the center of town by way of a dirt road. When we first arrived, the tourism center suggested we take a taxi.

Our hostel boasts a view of the Gulf of Nicoya. To call it a view is a bit of misnomer, however. A glimpse is more like it—just enough to reassure you that it's there. Our room is comfortable. It has wooden walls, a high ceiling, and a bed and nightstand that actually constitute what one might call furniture.

Two doors down is the best comida typica I've had yet, and it's far more economical than the restaurants “downtown”. It seems that Santa Elena is a perfect inversion of San Jose, if not in size and feel then in price. In San Jose, which is unavoidable for almost anyone one who visits Costa Rica, the hostels capitalize on their situation and charge high prices for accommodation. But the local food, found on just about every street, is undeniably cheap. In Santa Elena, prices for accommodation are low, attracting visitors to stay and stay a while, but food is expensive, and the touristy restaurants gouge prices shamelessly. Other than eating and sleeping, though, there isn't much to do in Santa Elena itself. Mostly, it is used as a jumping off point for the region's famous cloud forests. And so we jumped, but just a little.

We went to the Reserva Biologica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde. We arrived early, hoping to see birds and other wildlife while they were the most active and the least disturbed by visiting humans. The trails are well marked, so we wandered unguided through the forest. There was a great deal of commotion going on in the trees above us, but the culprits were elusive. In the end we managed to see a monkey, a couple species of hummingbird, several other species of birds (who shall remain nameless, for now), a snake, and a couple of iridescent insects. The resplendent quetzal evaded us. This time.

(R)

Liberia and Beyond @ Liberia, Costa Rica

2010-01-06T12:00:48.000Z

It's nice to be back in a country that enjoys flaunting large weapons. I was in Texas recently. But in Texas they don't board your classic yellow Blue Bird Co. school-bus (Fort Valley, Georgia, 1984; “your children's SAFETY is our business”) with an AK-47 to examine your identification and travel documents. Although it doesn't make me feel any more comfortable, it does make me feel a little triumphant when the guy with the gun condones my presence on a bus full of locals.

We got out of Costa Rica in an effort to save a few bucks. Hence the local bus into Nicaragua. Dollars in this fledgling tourist economy go a little further than they did down south. And, not only does our budget in Cordobas afford us more amenities that the same budget in Colones, it also saves us the embarrassments that follow from a tight budget.

While in Santa Elena, I was excited to find that Ticos share my love of extremely large bottles of beer. I bought one, of course, and was disappointed to discover that there was some sort of extra expense that I, for one, thought gratuitous. I investigated the situation and discovered that it was a bottle deposit. So, like any budget-conscience individual, I thought I would reap the rewards of returning my bottle. However, this potential source of income was cast in another light when I asked our hostel-manager, Everett, about the specifics of returning bottles in Costa Rica. He looked down at me as one would at a panhandler and informed me that my one bottle would net me about two cents. Bereft of my dignity, and wanting to leave the impression that I was above such things, I left the bottle in the room when Roz and I fled town—on the local bus, for $1.50.

I am hoping that Everett has shared his observations on our beggarly ways with his aunt, Mary, whose Soda we frequented, purchasing a $2.00 plate of Gallo Pinto to share, or splurging for two full meals and clandestinely depositing half the fare in our tupperware for tomorrow's breakfast.

We got to Liberia in the early afternoon after the bus to Puntarenas dropped us at the intersection with the Pan-American highway where we were to flag-down the northbound bus for the remainder of our trip. Liberia is in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica where it is arid and barren, but just as windy as the more tropical areas we had left behind. Wind seems to be the only constant in Costa Rica—that and Catholicism. Liberia boasts no real tourist attractions (except alien litho-spheres and more razor-wire). It is a cowboy-town, which is interesting for about five minutes. We spent the evening wandering to various public places to watch locals, judge the local apparel, listen to live Christian-rock, and try the traditional foods—including a hunk of fried cheese which turned out to be inedible. Roz wanted to give it to a homeless man, but, in fear of it being uncouth to simply hand it off, she placed it carefully upright in a trashcan in the hopes that it would, by this circuitous route, yet end up in a homeless man's stomach. We have reason to believe that this will probably be so. In the evening the locals started celebrating a late new year by, apparently, detonating mortars in the sky above our hostel. No show, just a deafening, earth-shuddering explosion every few minutes.

The following morning we got some Gallo Pinto to go and boarded the local bus to Penas Blancas, the border outpost between Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

(B)

Border Crossing: Penas Blancas @ Peñas Blancas, Costa Rica

2010-01-07T10:30:49.000Z

The guidebook said the border would take hours to cross. The man at the hostel said it would be terrible. They both said it would be easier to cross with Tica Bus. Liberia to Granada: $21, available Friday afternoon. We'd already seen enough of Liberia to know we didn't want to stay an extra day. We'd spent enough to know that our pockets wouldn't shell out another $21 without considerable remorse. So we didn't take their advice. Instead, we did what the locals do and took the local bus at the local price.

Local transit in Central America requires something akin to faith. It is beyond the rational faculty to grasp. Circumstances suggest that you are stranded for the foreseeable future, on the verge of utter calamity. You wait. You wonder. But there's no point to wondering. So, with an incredible degree of self-composure, you continue to wait. Then, suddenly, you are graced as a filthy, over-crowded, exhaust sputtering bus screeches to a halt before you. I'm almost a convert.

The local bus successfully dropped us at the border crossing of Penas Blancas. But it dropped us about 100 meters too far north. While walking to the Costa Rica Immigration Office we were redirected by a machine gun wielding border official to the entrance on the opposite side of the building. We obeyed. After finally reaching the front of the line with our heavy packs and aching backs, we were routed into a shorter line. The window was within sight. All seemed promising until I noticed that the line we were in was marked by a sign reading Entrada. But we didn't want to entrada Costa Rica, we wanted to salida Costa Rica. Apparently the border official, seeing our southbound route to the office, had assumed that we were coming from Nicaragua. We were re-routed into the Salida line. Eventually we got our exit stamps and proceeded on foot down the dusty road to Nicaragua.

I always considered borders to be somewhat mythical. That is, no law of nature necessitates the partitioning of the world into geometrical figures. The divisions are, ultimately, quite arbitrary, But myth is a powerful force in the human psyche, and civilizations are created and destroyed in the name of these arbitrary lines. Here, everything changes at the border. Costa Rica is tame. Nicaragua is wild. The chaos is palpable. We really had no clue where we were supposed to go. The taxi driver who insisted on escorting us across the border was no help. He walked us to the Immigration Office. We got our stamps. He wanted a dollar. We wanted a bus to Rivas. He wanted to take us in his taxi. We wanted to be left alone. Brendan gave him a dollar. We were left alone. We wandered about, looking for a suitable bus to take us to Rivas. All buses were headed to Managua. We were lost.

On our second or third lap of the border complex, we found a small doorway leading to a tourist information desk. The man behind the desk assured us that to the right of the building, at the blue curb, would be a bus to Rivas. We followed his directions. There was no curb and certainly no bus. Perhaps he was speaking in parables. We were lost again. Then we noticed some bustling about a small doorway in a rusty metal wall. The doorway was passage to a sort of village in uproar. On the other side, people were frying plantains, barbequing meat, selling tamales, and loading a cluster of yellow school buses with locals headed into Nicaragua. We were met by a riot of colors, smells, noises—chaos. We had arrived.

(R)

Granada, Nicaragua @ Granada, Nicaragua

2010-01-07T17:00:57.000Z

From the moment we broke through the mob of solicitous taxi-drivers into the thronging shanty-town at the border, it has been clear that Nicaragua would offer a new and robust cultural experience. There is a certain connection to the raw stuff of life that wealthy and peaceful countries lack. Formalities and procedures do have a certain place in civil society; however, nothing beats a good human interaction unmediated by regulation, code, or law. In Nicaragua, it is obvious that the mores of driving developed organically, unhindered by the impositions of forethought and planning. And our bus trip to Granada, I think, reveals much about the culture here.

I would consider it a great loss to my spiritual and intellectual growth if I had missed the opportunity to witness Nicaragua's alternative to the so-called “bus stop.” And really, why do we need bus stops? Why can't the bus just stop when it needs to? Namely, when people step out onto the side of the highway and wave their arms in the air. Nicaragua has decided that this approach is just as reasonable as the designated “stop” and so chooses to accommodate these people. How? Well, if there is just one person, an old man, say, and he only has a couple of bags, then you just slow the retired American school bus to 5 or 10 mph, open the rear emergency exit (alarm disabled, of course) and let him hobble his little heart out until he gets close enough for the rearguard to grab his bags and hoist him up into the aisle by his clothes. It's only common sense.

And really, why should the bus stop for anything? In Nicaragua, stop-signs are not to be taken seriously. Rather, the appropriate action to take when you encounter a stop-sign is to honk so that the vehicle around the corner can guesstimate your position and slow-down or speed up to the appropriate velocity to avoid a collision. A stop light is a little more serious. At a stop light you are supposed to slow down significantly before rolling through the light. This approach to traffic signals saves just enough time to make up for the couple hundred times the bus has to slow down for hop-ons. And pedestrians beware: vehicles always have right-of-way. And why not? They are bigger.

If you have ever wondered where all the retired school buses from the US went, be curious no longer. They are in Nicaragua. Nicaragua's transportation system is entirely based on the fleet of American school buses that were imported sometime in the mid to late 80s. These buses have been converted in a number of ways. First, because the “students,” as it were, are no longer carrying school bags but are instead carrying, say, kilos of foot-long hotdogs, they have welded on exterior roof racks with ladders and interior ceiling storage racks. Also, because (despite the strict law against standing on the bus, as advertised thereon) there are usually twice as many passengers as seats, they have welded a hand-rail to the ceiling to assist the passengers when the bus, for some reason or another, decelerates from 80 mph to 5 mph in a matter of seconds. But most importantly, they have installed a wide array of Jesus paraphernalia to facilitate any intersection crossings. When the driver looks left to observe oncoming traffic he sees, instead, a translucent hologram of the Lord. It is a sort of everyday faith that we lack in the US—a faith in the idea that no taxi could possibly come careening out of Jesus's face into your school bus.

Unlike in the US, the buses do not depend on a single driver. No. They have a crew of bus attendants at your service. Well, actually, they won't really serve you anything. They have very defined roles. In addition to the driver there are four attendants. One is in charge of collecting the fare. He will be the well-fed homeless man bearing the distinctive fanny-pack. Next, there will be two unmarked men crouched in the back, often recognizable by their eagerness to take your bag. They, with the help of the fare-collector, are in charge of manning the emergency exit—or, more appropriately, the in-transit entrance. Finally, there is the first-mate. He has the job of recruiting new passengers. Most people believe that if someone wants to be transported somewhere, they will seek out the transportation themselves. In Nicaragua this is not the case. Rather, bus transportation is a leisure to be advertised in the same manner as one might advertise cigarettes, chiclets, local pottery, whistles, or hammocks. Consequently, this first-mate is the designated caller. You will hear him, for the majority of the ride, yelling, as he hangs out of the door, RIVARIVARIVARIVARIVARIVAS... And the remarkable thing is that it works. Somehow, the citizens of the border-shanty in Nicaragua don't consider taking a trip to Rivas until they hear what's on offer. The general trend is to leave the bus-station with two or three other American or Canadian tourists on the bus, and by the time you've reached the city limits the first-mate will have recruited a bus-full of Nicaraguans to transport to some other city. It's a fascinating sight. To be fair, though, it is necessary to have a caller in Nicaragua. For not only does the back of the bus (your probable access point) not advertise the destination, but also, if there were no man dangling from the side of the bus advertising its destination, the prospective travelers may believe that they were boarding the bus to Fort Valley Elementary, in Georgia, as the side of the bus may suggest.

(B)

Mia Nicaragua @ Granada, Nicaragua

2010-01-08T08:00:07.000Z

Magnificent. Vibrant. Grand. Stunning. These words occur to me as I struggle to describe my experience of Granada. Language, however, is stubborn, and words fall flat on the page. They fail to express my feeling. Therefore, I surrender to experience, which will not be conquered by words.

Granada is captivating. It is beautiful. It is fascinating. It is cheap. The architecture is reminiscent of the Spanish colonialism that founded the city. It is mired in a tumultuous history. Furthermore, it has the distinction of belonging to the second most impoverished nation in Latin America. These characteristics make it a prime location for gringo tourists like ourselves.

In the mid-1800's, Granada, then the capital of newly liberated Nicaragua, fell conquest to American Imperialism. Specifically, it fell to the imperialism of one American: William Walker. With an army of only fifty-some men, Walker seized the capital and therefore the country. His brief tenure as emperor was brought to a close when the Nicaraguans, with the help of the United States, which did not condone Walker's renegade conquests, forced him to flee the city. Upon retreat, Walker ordered that the city be burned. Most of the Granada was turned to ashes. Some of the surviving buildings still show scars of the incineration. Black, sooty stains streak the walls and fill the crevices of some of the older structures. Eventually, Walker was captured and executed in Honduras.

As an American, it is strange to walk the streets of a city that was once an American conquest. Perhaps it is more strange that, in fact, I've walked conquered territories every day of my life, but I never thought of them as conquests because they were successful...and condoned by the government. Somehow taking someone's country from them is okay if you succeed.

Despite my best efforts to fake it, I do not speak Spanish. Or I didn't. Our linguistic deficiencies were growing painfully clear to us by the time we left Costa Rica. So, Spanish lessons in Granada seemed like a good idea. For four days now, we've been studying under the relentless instruction of Marta Nicaragua. Yes, that is her last name. And she is relentless. She refuses to rob us of a single Cordoba. Every minute of our four hour class is devoted to converting our faltering syllables into meaningful words, translating our bewilderment into understanding. It is fun. And exhausting. I am completely drained of energy after every class. But, I can practically order a hot dog now.

And, by the way, Nicaragua is a baseball and hot dogs country.

(R)

Nica Culture @ Granada, Nicaragua

2010-01-12T20:00:59.000Z

We finished our week of Spanish classes on Wednesday and stuck around Granada for a couple of days to soak in a bit of the culture. We started the cultural tour with an accidental celebratory dinner at the local Chinese restaurant. It was a confusing evening. We had wanted street food, but the street vendor offered us a table. That is, he offered us a table inside the Chinese restaurant whose sidewalk he was occupying. If we had only understood the Nicaraguan practice of renting out nearby table space from other businesses, we might not have ordered from the waitress who promptly came to our service. We might have said, as I imagine the locals do, “yes, I am sitting in your restaurant, but I'm just going to get the cheaper stuff outside your front door and bring it in. Thanks anyway.” Being foreigners, this did not occur to us. A small fiasco ensued. But Roz promptly put an end to the confusion by declaring/asking: “It is. Before. It prepared... (?).” Our Spanish may still be a bit primitive after only a week of study but this is powerful phrase and I urge the rest of you to try it the next time you find yourself in a jam.

The following morning we devoted to the local museums. Our first stop was a “cultural center” which apparently means that it is a Spanish colonial house just like every restaurant and hostel, except that it is not very well kept-up and you get to to pay to enter. As an added perk, we were happy to discover as we neared the end of our short walk through the courtyards that we had already visited this house for free from the back entrance. So we said “Hola” to the people who showed us around a couple of days before, and left them happy in the thought that we were so pleased with our first visit that we just had to come back.

From there it was a short walk to the convent of San Francisco. This convent-turned-museum is a little schizophrenic. It's two main attractions are a small display of local more-or-less contemporary works of art, and a collection of pre-Columbian artifacts from the nearby islands of Lago Nicaragua. The art was actually quite good which, for some reason, leaves me feeling like I have nothing much to say about it. And the artifacts were fascinating for the most part, except maybe the large hunk of stone which they describe as having no distinguishable “reatures,” being of unknown origin, having been discovered by an unknown person, and bearing the common name “None.” I'm really not sure what distinguished this stone from the many other boulders which, to be sure, are certainly very old, but really don't have much else going for them.

The most informative part of the convent, however, was the life-size diorama of the indigenous island-dwellers. They were a rare race of papier-mache peoples. Unable to support themselves, they generally leaned their foreheads, cushioned by 80s ballad-rocker wigs secured with bandanas, against the poles which support a rather strange apparatus for some unintelligible game. I challenge you to view the pictures and, with the description of the game at your disposal, explain to me just what is going on.

We ended the day with a walk through the market. The market in Granada is a sort of shanty-town in which the air is dense with meat-rot and you emerge committed to only eating packaged “food-stuffs” for the rest of your life.

Our final day in Granada we attended the first game in the Nicaraguan “World Series,” or it's equivalent. The baseball team of Granada will face that of Leon seven times over the next couple of weeks to determine who is the ultimate Nicaraguan baseball force. And so we went to the opening match with a friend, Seth (AKA “Sef” or “Sed” or really any other one-syllable utterance starting with “S”), and a teacher, Marlon, both of whom we met at our language school. We learned two important lessons at the game. First, a lesson in irony. Nicaragua has adopted two traditions from America: baseball and hotdogs (school-buses aren't a tradition). You can find a hot-dog within a block of you anywhere and at anytime in Nicaragua, and baseball is their national sport. And yet, when you attend the World Series of Nicaragua your dinner options are limited to quesillos, pork-rinds, and pizza. It's a shame. Second, there are no “seat-backs” in Nicaragua. That is, for those of you who don't know, once you get up, your seat is fair game despite “dibs,” carefully placed articles of clothing, or the presence of a friend to save the seat for you. And this, apparently, has no limits. If you are sitting with your family, for instance, and get up to grab a plate of pork-rinds, then someone else will take the opportunity to watch the game with your family in your stead and you have no culturally codified right to complain. Roz and I realized just this evening that this practice has more general application. In the grocery store, Roz left the line for a moment (for chocolate) and when she returned the lady behind us in line had planted herself in the much coveted circle of my personal space and refused to let Roz stand next to me. We were paying together, but I had to go through checkout all alone and Roz was forced to walk around and meet me on the other side.

On Saturday we made our way from Granada to Leon by mini-van. It was a pretty miserable ride. I got a window seat, but it was on the left side of the car and we were traveling north in the afternoon. Also, the driver had a habit of spitting out of his window and into mine, so I had to melt in the sun without any wind to allay my suffering.

(B)

Leon @ León, Nicaragua

2010-01-16T17:00:12.000Z

Leon is in the lowlands of Northwestern Nicaragua, not far from the Pacific Ocean. It is hot and some would say dry, but I know better. The heat makes you feel sluggish and the feeling is exacerbated by the copious quantities of hot, fried food that make up the local cuisine.

We came to Leon because, well, it was on our way north, but also because it seemed appropriate after our stay in Granada. Leon is the complement to Granada in many ways. Both cities were colonized by the Spanish, both were capitals of Nicaragua at one time, and both were flattened by earthquakes. More strikingly, both were political epicenters for the ideas that shook Nicaragua throughout its civil wars. Leon preserves this memory more potently than Granada. I suppose this is because Granada represented the conservative base that was eventually overthrown and Leon sparked the revolution that overthrew it. Monuments are not erected in honor of history's failures. In Leon, Sandino is an idol. His withering Indiana-Jones silhouette casts a shadow over the city. Murals and statues depicting Sandino, martyrs, and revolutionaries adorn every city block. Graffiti supporting Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro is more common than street signs. And you don't have to wander far to find commemoration of the site where protesting students were killed by the National Guard or where Dictator General Samoza was assassinated. The city is palpably drenched in revolution.

To emphasize this point, impromptu museums have been opened throughout the city center. What our guidebook described as “enthusiastic and knowledgeable explanations on the extensive collection of photos, articles and news clippings documenting the Revolution, its antecedents and its aftermath” was a self-guided tour of, effectively, poorly made 6th grade history posters. The displays were photocopies of old pictures, hand-written captions, and tea-stained newspaper articles dated from July of 2007 fastened to the wall with whatever kind of tape was on hand at the moment. On the upshot, some of these were scotch-taped to neon poster-board before they were masking-taped to the wall. Admittedly, even such dismal presentations as these betray the fascinating history of Nicaragua in the past century.

The Leon-ese appetite for strife and bloodshed lives on in the age-old tradition of cock-fighting. If you're going to integrate with the community by witnessing animal cruelty (my sincere apologies to roosters and activists alike) I highly recommend having as your guide a Dutchman. A detailed explanation of the practice of cock-fighting will be delivered in English fraught with such gems as, “if you have a fighting woosta an' you don' fight, you're a sissy” (on the topic of local machismo), “...when a woosta chickens out...” (on the forfeit practices of fighters), and “...breeding champion chicken things...” (on the retirement activity of champion roosters).

A great deal rides on these competitions. Nican roosters are more beloved pets than cats or dogs. Owners who train their roosters to compete are passionate about their sport and devoted to their roosters. Much of their time after work is devoted to the “training” of their roosters. But, as it turns out, roosters aren't very smart, so most of their training is simply conditioning. Serious rooster trainers walk their roosters for at least an hour a day. Rooster leashes exist for this very purpose. And so do miniature, rooster boxing gloves. You see, roosters are endowed with long, frightening claws. The claws of fighting roosters are trimmed so that tiny boxing gloves fit perfectly over them. These gloves are to protect the roosters from any harm that might ensue from ordinary, neighborhood rooster rumbles or legitimate, practice rounds. The actual fight, of course, is not so gentle. Instead, the rooster's claw is enhanced by a sharp, metal blade. The size of the blade is agreed upon by the owners and attached with a shoe and thread before the match. This is also when the betting takes place. Bets are placed with the owners before the match. Anything else is considered illegal. A round lasts until fifteen minutes have passed (a draw), until one rooster concedes the win (by putting his beak in the ground), or, in the worst scenarios, until death.

The cock-fight (or Gallera, as it is called) was interesting—perhaps more for the people than the sport—but after a couple rounds of the fight I found that I preferred rounds of beer while conversing with the Canadians who accompanied us to the Gallera. As an American, encountering a Canadian in a foreign country can cause a slight identity crisis. It's like encountering someone who looks, acts, talks, and remembers exactly like you, but isn't you. Inevitably, one is reminded of the proverbial Canadian flag that adorns the backpacks of American travelers the world over. The myth goes like this: not wanting to be identified for what they are, Americans pretend to be Canadian by sewing a maple leaf to their packs. I say it is a myth because I (and everyone, I believe) has been told this is so, or has been advised to do so, but I have never actually encountered an American who travels in this manner. I would like to know if it is true, if only to accurately measure my shame whenever I meet a Canadian abroad.

I have always felt apologetically American while traveling. It is as if I personally am culpable for the advantages of wealth and opportunity, or, worse yet, for the abuses of wealth and power.

(R)

San Miguel, El Salvador @ San Miguel, El Salvador

2010-01-19T10:19:04.000Z

Before leaving Leon, we thought it necessary to fix our rather shabby appearance. We thought that perhaps if we went for a run and spent a day at the beach we would return tanned and hard, like Spartans. So on Tuesday mid-morning, after a short jog in town, we set out for Las Penitas, on the Pacific coast, 20km west of Leon. As usual we opted for the local transportation, joining a boy and his chicken in the back of a truck to the Mercadito, and then remaining in his company (if we can trust the aural evidence), for the rest of the ride in a school bus. The Mercadito, in the nearby barrio of Subtiava, is the local raw-fish and live-crab market. It is also the only market which has discovered that bottle-caps make a fine paving alternative to gravel.

Las Penitas did not turn out to be quite the beach we were expecting. It was strange to visit a beautiful beach that no-one was yet exploiting for tourist dollars. There were few people and fewer amenities. But we did find a small bar/hotel with beach access where we parked ourselves for the afternoon. It was pleasant and it is just as well that there weren't many other people because I am not a Spartan and I returned not tan and hard, but rather pink and flabby. Perhaps next time.

We went out to the movies to finish the evening. It turns out, when you try to attend a movie dubbed in a foreign language, people expect you to speak that language. It took us a while to convince the staff that “Yes. We want. In Spanish. It's okay. Very much thanks.” Eventually, we were privately escorted by the security guard to the correct line and we did get to watch Sherlock Holmes, in Spanish, on the not-terribly-big-screen.

The following day we went north. Our goal: to get as far north as possible. Or, alternatively, in one day, to use as many currencies as possible. Two buses (paid for in Cordobas) got us from Leon, through Chinandega, with volcanoes on our right and the Pacific Ocean on our left, to the border town of Guasale. We fended off bike-taxis while we walked the approximately 300 meters over the border, and found a mini-van on the other side going straight through Honduras from one border to the other at El Amatillo. So we payed the man (in Lempiras) and took our three-hour tour of the country. The border with El Salvador was quick and easy and there was a bus waiting to take us to San Miguel for $2US. Unfortunately, El Salvador's currency is apparently useless in El Salvador, so we had to use dollars.

I don't know how a city can both give you a “good-feeling” while at the same time being obviously dangerous, dirty, and uninteresting. But this is pretty much the sensation that you experience in San Miguel. We met a lot of people that tried to help us find a hotel that doesn't exist. At first we were cautious. In our experience, it is a general rule in Central America that when people “help you” they are usually helping themselves to your money. However, for some reason everyone we met in El Salvador just wanted to help. It was nice. (Of course, we were only there for a day and the helpfulness ended as soon as we crossed the border.) We eventually checked in to a hotel by the bus-station because we were afraid of everything else we had seen.

It was similar in many respects to a motel six. We were attracted by the air-conditioning and private bathroom. Not to mention the TV with cable. And our expectations were met, for the most part. You can't expect every shower to have a shower head, just as you shouldn't expect every toilet to have a toilet seat and shouldn't expect shower-retaining walls to retain water. And you definitely shouldn't expect third-world air-conditioners to have reasonable settings. Ours had three unreasonable settings: (1) blow hot air; (2) reduce the room to 10 below within 15 minutes; (3) reduce the room to 10 below immediately. We went with (3), to start. After we had each flooded the bathroom by standing under the wall-hose for a few minutes, we decided to head out for dinner. It had just gotten dark and the street lights were on. They were strategically placed at such distances so that, instead of illuminating the street, they just served to emphasize the more pervasive obscurity. We walked a few blocks before duly noting that all shops were closed and the residents who braved the night carried night-sticks or machetes. So we heading back by way of the grocery store thinking it best to eat in. The grocery store was just closing but we managed to sneak in before they shut the doors, at 7:00 PM. Roz had the brilliant idea to have a cena of milk and cereal. Now, as an interlude, let me just note that I have only invented two things that I think are truly marketable. First was infinite coffee—I'm still working out the kinks in that one. Second was despues-de-cereal milk. After trying Roz's horchata one evening in Liberia, and noting that it tasted exactly like the residual milk after a nutritional bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I determined to market the product despues-de-cereal milk upon my return to the states. It seemed the perfect idea—I would just eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch for every meal, save the residual milk, package it, and sell it as a desert drink of, perhaps, Mexican origination. Yet, to my great chagrin, El Salvador was one step ahead of me. When we entered the milk aisle, lo and behold, we discovered “Milk with Oat and Cinnamon.” Fearing the worst (or the best) we bought a quart. Sure enough, they beat me to the punch. El Salvador: 1; Brendan: 0. We couldn't let this liquid gold go to waste, so we had it on our cereal and chugged the last pint. We spent the rest of the night nursing our stomach aches while I switched the air-conditioning unit back and forth between settings (1) and (2) at 15-minute intervals for the rest of the night.

(B)

Jutiapa, Guatemala @ Jutiapa, Guatemala

2010-01-21T13:00:23.000Z

Brendan and I are extraordinarily lucky when it comes to transportation. Our strategy is always the same: wander toward the bus station (or, if we're not sure where that is, toward the mercado) and hope that, sooner or later, there will be a bus departing for our approximate destination. The wonder is that this uncalculated and remarkably irresponsible method never fails. We show up, someone asks us where we want to go, we answer, they say there is a bus leaving this minute, we jog toward the rear emergency exit, are hoisted aboard, and are on our way. Leaving San Miguel was much like our previous departures, except that we inadvertently boarded the tourist bus (from the front door, I'm afraid). It was more expensive and lacked a certain something compared to our other bus rides, but, given the formerly oppressive heat and sweat covered bench seats, we did not complain about the air conditioning and reclining cushioned seats. Brendan was also very taken by the Jean-Claude Van-Damme movie playing on the aisle screens.

Fortunately, upon our arrival in San Salvador, we re-entered reality. This was to be the first of our sprawling-capital-city-multiple-bus-terminal adventures. It went surprisingly smoothly. As usual, we stood around somewhat awkwardly wondering how to traverse the city when someone (an officer this time) asked where we were going, flagged down the appropriate bus, and for $0.25 we were on our way. Another bus terminal, another look of aimlessness that somehow always leads us in the right direction. Having learned our lesson earlier that day, we avoided the muy caro tourist bus for the mas barato school bus to Santa Ana. Then Santa Ana to the border at San Christobal de la Frontera. Two items of note set this ride apart from the other four that day. 1) We learned that school buses, according to local custom, are mean to seat three adults to every bench seat, along with fifteen or so people in the aisle and a few chickens to boot. 2) We met seven Salvadorians just beginning their illegal immigration to the United States. They were very friendly. One had lived in Houston, another in Las Vegas, a couple others in Florida. They said that even though they had children in El Salvador and it was a wonderful country to visit, they could not live there. It was hard to find work and if they were lucky they might earn $200 per month to support their families. In the US the pay was much better. With little or no belongings in their possession, they were setting out on two weeks of dangerous travel by bus, train, boat, and foot in hopes of finding a better life in the United States. Looking out the windows at the passing shanty-towns and littered yards, we couldn't blame them. At the border, we wished them luck and walked north into Guatemala.

We made it as far as Jutiapa that night and stayed in a hotel that, judging by the guest registry and the elderly cowboy who received us, is only visited by Guatemalans. We trekked to the grocery store and settled down to a dinner of tortillas with avocado and lunch meat and a (highly recommended) dessert of left-over cereal rolled in the remaining tortillas.

(R)

Xela (Quetzaltenango), Guatemala @ Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

2010-01-23T09:30:10.000Z

I went wandering in the morning in Jutiapa. Mainly I just wanted some coffee, but I was also hoping to get an idea of the bus-scene, and maybe pick up some breakfast. I saw a lot of buses, so I figured we could just wander out onto the street and expect to catch a ride. Breakfast was a little more intimidating, so I didn't bother. But while scoping out the morning fare I did notice something that promises to bring me unparalleled joy for the next few weeks: street coffee. In the morning, in Guatemala, all the street vendors have huge pots of black coffee, on sale for 20-30 cents a cup. So I got two and headed back to the hostel doing that stupid walk that people do when trying not to spill. It didn't work. I scalded my hands despite my vertigo-walk and cursed the lady for skimping on the plastic bag—in El Salvador, coffee to-go comes in a cup hanging in the bottom of a sack. Perhaps I will make my millions by introducing the coffee-lid to Central America.

I went back to the hotel, collected my bag and Roz, and we went out to the street. We haggled with some first-mates on a couple of buses and eventually boarded a local bus to Guatemala City. Having quickly forgotten my morning lesson, I got one more cup of street-coffee—to drink on the moving bus.

We talked the first-mate down to a 15 Quetzales each (about $1.90). We congratulated ourselves on avoiding the inevitable tourist rip-off, until we noticed that we had actually haggled down to below the actual fare. Our tickets were marked for Q20, and we looked on in shame as the impoverished locals payed the full fare.

There is something about small guide-book maps that just doesn't comprehend the scale of big cities. By just adjusting the key to read 1in=500m instead of 1in=50m, it doesn't seem to capture just how useless the map becomes with that change of scale. Guatemala city is a big mess and there are whole neighborhoods that disappear between the lines on the map. We got off the bus from Jutiapa in a market, immediately lost. We wandered, despaired, drank Fanta, wandered some more, and eventually someone put us on a bus going somewhere across town. We got off when told to do so, and wandered in the indicated direction. We had been given the impression that we ought to take the metro, so we attempted to board that but, after a cop tried to pay my fare and asked where we wanted to go, we were redirected back to the stop from which we had just come. The officer was nice enough to walk part of the way with us (another police escort) and when we approached the highway he said “wait, I will stop traffic,” and proceeded to walk straight out into the middle of the highway and put up his hand as if he intended to literally stop the oncoming cars. Fearing more for his life than for ours, we hurried across the highway and back from whence we came.

Back at the stop, beneath a freeway interchange, we flagged down a number of buses hoping to find one going north. But, once again, we were redirected elsewhere. Another first-mate gestured, as he flew by on a bus to Antigua, “go somewhere over there. No not there, there.” So we wandered in that general direction until, sure enough, we were accosted by the Xela first-mate. So we boarded the school bus with full-bladders to begin our five hours of uninterrupted travel.

We soon discovered that we had boarded the express bus. It was unclear whether this was going to be to the benefit or detriment of our bladder-situation. For the buses in Guatemala earn their “express” status not by limiting the number of stops but rather by simply increasing the speed. Why on earth would they institute a system of limited, regular bus-stops when they could simply give it a little more gas? And you would agree if you had any idea what a school-bus can do. I'm not sure what Blue Bird Co. had in mind when they started building these things, but school buses have so much pickup that they can get up to 80mph going uphill on a curvy mountain road. It's really a spectacular ride. I got callouses on my hands just trying to hang on. And for some reason, only one three-year-old child in the front of the bus seemed to share our belief that this was a truly terrifying experience. I was happy to discover, however, that, unlike some people, extreme fear has the effect of causing my bodily functions to go into nearly complete arrest, facilitating my otherwise painful four-hour (express) wait for the “servicio santitario.”

I've decided that after introducing coffee-lids to Central America, I will introduce school-bus racing to regular America.

We arrived in Xela an hour ahead of schedule—right in front of a bathroom—shaken but still quite alive.

(B)

Casa V @ Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

2010-01-25T15:15:33.000Z

I will begin where I am. We live approximately 90 seconds from our school, just around the corner in a cement compound. All the houses here have the outward appearance of cement compounds. Inside it is much more welcoming, if not for the accoutrements, then for the people. We live with a family whose members, fortunately for us, have only two names. Well, two and a half. The mother of the house is Celeste. She is a preschool teacher, which gives her the welcomed predilection of speaking very slow, simple Spanish in a comforting voice. Her husband is Vinicio. Vincio is a retired teacher. He is very friendly and would like nothing more than to speak to us in Spanish. He begins slowly, usually with a question about our lessons in class that day and then offers his own brief review of the most important concepts we learned two hours ago. This is usually followed by a speech of sorts on a quasi-related topic. As we listen, nodding to indicate our (feigned) understanding, he finds encouragement and begins speaking faster. Eight or so minutes into the speech, as we are struggling to keep up but still thinking we've got the gist of it, he mentions something about, say, drugs. Then we know we've missed a turn somewhere. But it's too late, there's no going back. Drugs are followed by prostitutes, gangs, or homosexuals. We then continue “listening” and nodding in “agreement” until someone interrupts and we can make our escape. Celeste and Vinicio have two children: Celeste and Vinicio. Celeste attends school at night and attends to household duties during the day. She has a two and a half year old son named Fabien, who also lives with the family. Vincio is studying to be an engineer. He is a really good kid. He studies constantly, helps his mother and sister with the chores, cares for his nephew, talks to us for hours, and then does his homework until he is finished at 2:00am. Last, but not least, there is a dog. He is a terrier of sorts. His name is Barfy. We asked several times before we were convinced that this small, white, cuddly dog was indeed named Barfy. They are all very warm and welcoming with the exception, perhaps, of Fabien, who usually runs and hides when he sees us.

Learning a foreign language engenders in one a special appreciation for small talk. I've never been so eager to talk about the weather. That said, sometimes we try to branch out and be original. For example, Brendan told Vinicio the younger that a farmer told him that Vinicio's cousin has twelve children. I told Vinicio the elder that I have one sister, who is best. In a family restaurant where a rogue six-year old usually runs about in masks fighting dreadful, imaginary things, I looked at the child and said to him, “What shit!” (Thinking, of course, that I was saying, “How scary!”)

In another episode of tactlessness, when asked by Celeste the elder what language Brendan and I prefer to speak with each other, I promptly answered, “We prefer Spanglish.”

And so, in order to avoid further mortification, we continue our studies at ICA. We have class every morning for four hours—just the two of us and our teacher (en espanol). In the afternoon, we eat lunch with our family (en espanol) and then return to the school for an afternoon activity (en espanol). These vary from volunteering for reforestation projects (en espanol) to sampling homemade hot chocolate (en espanol). We have dinner with our family (en espanol) and then converse with Vinicio the younger (en espanol). Finally, before bed, we study Espanol. We're exhausted, but happy.

(R)

Suenos Americanos @ Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

2010-02-02T15:30:36.000Z

Xela is, as “Granada of Nicaragua” advertised itself, an “antique and serious village.” The center of town is a cultural heritage site where dilapidated edifices line the cobblestone streets. Above and to the northwest of this charming old city is the thriving modern city. It is polluted and exploited but also charming in a way. People of the new society stand out in the cultural center, with their western clothes, iPods, and cell phones; and the indigenous people stand out in the commercial center with their Mayan garments, ninos slung on their backs, and baskets upon their cabezas. The ever-present contrast between old and new, agricultural and industrial, poor and less-poor, and the smudges in the otherwise distinct line that separates these two worlds, offers much food for thought. It seems that this dual existence leaves everyone, to varying degrees, uncoupled from the stability of their cultural past yet unable to fully latch-on to the economic, political, and social developments of the first world. This current struggle in Guatemala (and Central America generally) is probably largely the result of the centuries of European and American exploitation and interference, which has left these people with “suenos Americanos” and highly oppressive economic, political, and social realities.

As a tourist here, I quickly learned that I am lucky to be from the US. But I don't mean that I have come to feel lucky in response to what I have seen here. No. That would be too trite. The cynicism of my generation wouldn't allow such a comment. Rather, I have been informed that my life is the object of other people's dreams. Many people here think of being born in America in the same way that one might think of winning the lottery, and they in turn treat me as if I am the lucky winner. I suppose they have a point, but I can't get over the disparity between their thoughts of me and my thoughts of me. I find it ironic that someone who knows little to nothing about me, save my origin, can paint my life with meaning even though I can't because the very leisure he covets has afforded me the opportunity to doubt so vigorously that there is meaning to be had.

Roz and I have been exploring this third world through our classes, excursions, and our Guatemalteco family. The classes have shed a lot of light on the culture and values here , though mostly indirectly. Our first reading assignment was about a man “without documents” making a dangerous journey to a land of opportunity so that he could feed his family. We frequently get sample sentences or questions such as: “What do you ask God for?,” “We fight for our peace,” “Children beg from necessity,” or “Pornography is repugnant to me.” And we read stories in which the moral is, apparently, “Don't be distracted by whores.” Not to mention the fact that for most of our “conversation practice” our teachers choose such light topics as illegal immigration in the US, the decline of religion in the US, the poverty of Guatemala, or the various gruesome civil wars in Central America between a US-backed dictator and the people at large. But frankly, I find this approach much more stimulating than the morally-sterile approach I grew up with. In Italy I could only talk to people about the time or the weather. Here if someone asks me what time it is I usually say “Brendan,” but if they just want to have a friendly chat about the rape and pillage of yet another small city in Guatemala, I'm ready.

Our cultural excursions have been pretty varied. We played soccer last week, which is good because that's why we chose this school. And we spent one day at a small nearby pueblo where la gente were celebrating a festival which featured two traditional dances. I'm not really sure what the tradition was, but from the looks of it the first dance was a shout out to french-revolution-mime-comedy-shows. And the second seemed to be an experiment in modern art: what if fifty people dressed up as the bad-guys from Willow and did the Thriller-dance to Mayan hip-hop? But my favorite part was when it came to my attention that the American flag has finally become a standard accoutrement in Mayan culture. The trip really only lasted about forty minutes, twenty of which were spent sitting awkwardly on display at the front of the church.

On our most recent trip we climbed a 12,300 ft. volcano just outside of Xela with spectacular views of the city and the other volcanoes nearby. As with any high-altitude hike with a large group of people from Denmark, our trip was punctuated by a number of long rests. Roz and I were pretty bored by this method so when we were granted our freedom we bolted for the top and arrived with plenty of time to ourselves before the rest of the group summitted. On top we watched the clouds move in below us while we listened to the wailings of a bereaved family mourning the recently departed in a traditional funeral ceremony.

Today for our activity we will be hearing a guerrilla warrior speak about his experience in the most recent civil war. And after that I'm going to cry myself to sleep because I have it on good authority that 26 is the worst of all the ages.

(B)

Una semana mas en Xela @ Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

2010-02-09T06:00:55.000Z

One consequence of an ordinary existence is that the events the punctuate life tend to be smaller and more spread out. Not that our current existence is ordinary. However, routine governs our daily lives to a large extent and lack of money sees to the rest. So, in lieu of grand adventures, it is my duty to report to you the smaller pleasures of our days.

I'll begin with an event that only comes once a year: Brendan's birthday. Brendan commenced his 27th year in the dark, with an assortment of pastries from Xelapan and a few presents wrapped in spanish newspaper. After thoroughly stuffing himself with pan dulce, he exited the bedroom to find a traditional Guatemalteco birthday breakfast of rice tamales, hot chocolate, and more pan dulce than an entire family can eat in a day. And if he hadn't had enough sugar by 8:00am, our school provided the final dose. During the break, Brendan's cumpleaňos was celebrated with two cakes, 25 hugs, and “Happy Birthday” sung in six different languages. My personal favorite was the Danish chorus. It turns out that our school is currently a Danish colony. Half of all the students are from Denmark. The strange thing is that this appears to be entirely unplanned. Almost all the Danes are traveling solo or with only one companion, and yet there are enough of them to field a soccer team. Among other novelties (and I don't recommend the traditional Danish candy), this circumstance provided for a very entertaining (and very pretty) serenade for Brendan on his birthday. Following an afternoon of searching for a soccer game to watch, we settled on dinner at a restaurant and bar named “Pool and Beer”. They boast their status as Xela's only microbrew and our guidebook recommended the Italian cuisine. The menu was limited (or rather, the pantry was) and we wondered if letting biology go unregulated in the third world was really such a good idea, but we enjoyed playing pool with half-length sticks on a warped table in a room that nicely circumscribed the pool-table.

Friday night was “Cena Internacional” night—a pot luck for students and teachers. Not wanting to evacuate our wallets, but wanting to provide a genuine American experience for our comrades, Brendan and I made peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwiches on white bread. Admittedly, they weren't the favorite dish at the potluck, but our host-brother and sister were so eager to finish off the plate when we returned that our elementary-school taste was justified.

On Valentine's Day we had the great pleasure of spending the day with our host-brother, Vinicio the younger. This consisted in Brendan and I helping him to construct an “Articulated Ladder Truck” out of paper. If you are wondering what that is and why we were making one, the answer is that it is a fire-truck with moveable parts and that we were helping him because it was an engineering assignment and the instructions were written entirely in English of the style quoted above. Besides, fire trucks are cool and it is fun to cut and paste. Our efforts culminated in eating three hotdogs each while watching an FC Barcelona soccer game on TV. We later worked off the hotdogs (or so we hoped) in a student orchestrated soccer game and then rounded off the evening with pizza and chocolate, promising ourselves that we would start running this week.

(R)

Zugunruhe @ Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

2010-02-16T15:41:27.000Z

We're sitting in Cafe Baviera, thinking about ordering Orgeat (the creative English translation of “Horchata”), and contemplating our next move. We've moved out of our house, sent our dead-weight back to the US, said goodbye to our guatemama, and packed our bags (during a small earthquake). We're heading North once again. Well, technically we're heading South because in Guatemala you can't just move on; you have to go back to “Guate,” and then you can move on.

Besides a couple more forays into surrounding pueblos, the drinking of some local fruit moonshine, the Carnival costume party, and the subjunctive, there was little of note that we did in the last couple of weeks. Except, of course, our ascent of Volcan Tajumulco, standing at 13,845 ft and claiming the highest point in Central America.

We conquered Tajumulco with a local non-profit tour group (all the profits go to support a couple of charities in town) que se llama Quetzaltrekkers. A Quetzaltrekker is an interesting bird. The website will boast all sorts of things about these rare guides—Spanish fluency, unsurpassed knowledge of local customs, and professional trekking expertise—all of which are more or less untrue. However, they are nevertheless an interesting and pleasant breed, and they are more than capable of getting the job done. Quetzeltrekkers are a seasonal species and Xela is an ideal staging post for the fledgling Quetzaltrekker to molt his or her home-country-identity and take on the awkward plumage of the Guate-moutain-guide as he or she migrates down the pan-American flyway. The Quetzeltrekker roost houses no permanent residents. It is nothing more than a stopover, or wintering grounds for some, and yet the constant flux of migrants manage to keep it aloft as a reputable trekking business—the juveniles feeding off the regurgitated knowledge of the “mature” Quetzaltrekkers. One reason they have managed to perpetuate their existence thus far is because they are scavengers. They use only the discarded remains of other trekkers which means that we, the costumers, sleep in (and carry) the weighty rotting carcasses of 80s sleeping bags, and ancient wal-mart car-camping tents. Moreover, they have not yet managed to scavenge a working van, so Quetzaltrekkers lead their flock by means of the cheapest and most precarious mode of public transportation: the chicken-bus.

We got up at four in the morning, Saturday, to meet the other trekkers at the Quetzaltrekker office. A short pickup ride got us to the chicken-bus depot in time for the first bus to San Marcos. We squeezed in with the locals heading to market and I was simultaneously pleased (by the warmth) and disgusted (by the smell) of being sandwiched between two large (not tall, no—they're never tall) Mayan men. At the depot in San Marcos we saw a bus with a roof loaded four-feet-high with market-wares. We pointed, exchanged looks of disbelief, and considered the possible consequences of such a high center-of-gravity on guate-roads with guate-drivers. Then the ayudante started loading our bags on top of the market-wares and I realized that the things I think are humorous to observe are terrifying to experience. At first you become afraid that you will lose your backpack. But the drivers have a way of curing that fear by making you fear, instead, that you will lose your life. For the next two hours my imagination alternated between picturing the red blur of my belongings careening off a cliff, and the yellow blur of our school-bus careening off a cliff.

Ultimately, we didn't die. We were dropped off on the side of the road in front of a giant hill which claims to be a mountain. The hike was pretty strenuous, but more because they haven't yet invented the switchback than because it was particularly difficult terrain. It was probably a two-hour hike, but it took us five because we had to stop for another meal every twenty minutes or so. I'm not really sure how the surfeit of food fits into the general stinginess of the Quetzaltrekker. The only theory I can come up with is that they bring such an abundance of food because they get to eat the leftovers—a practice which seems to align quite well with their nature. Their only other source of food is from tips.

We camped about a half-mile from the summit in a small stand of trees on the saddle between Tajumulco and a smaller peak que se llama Concepcion. We hiked up Concepcion in the evening to watch the nearby volcanoes swim in the clouds at sunset, and then we had cold pasta and went to bed at 7:45.

The next morning we arose at 4:00, packed our sleeping bags into our packs, put on all the warm gear we could find, and headed for the top. From a wind-break on the summit, in our sleeping bags, we watched the sunrise, the most impressive part of which was the shadow our mountain cast on the clouds behind us.

We broke camp and headed down the mountain in hurry. Somehow we ended up with an extra tent on top so I got to carry two back down. At the base we stopped in to a local comedor so that I could pick up some food-poisoning before flagging down the bus to San Marcos. The bus was full, but I was growing used to the concept of fitting six into a row that is made to seat four. When we turn left, four people fit on the right-hand seat and two on the left-hand seat; when we turn right, the opposite; when we are going straight, the two aisle passengers get one cheek each on a seat and lean against each other to support the other, free-floating cheek. I usually end up as part of the aisle-bridge, as I was on the ride from San Marcos to Xela, when I learned what happens when all possible bridges have been constructed. There is a joke here: how many people fit on a Guatemalan bus? Two more. Always two more. Well, it turns out to be true. After an unbroken series of human bridges had been erected from the front of the bus to the back, the driver was still stopping to pick up passengers. One of these passengers chose to wedge his thighs between those of myself and my aisle-partner, and then with a slight bend of the knees, came as close to sitting on my lap as is possible in such a situation. I'm not sure if it would have been more comfortable if he had asked, introduced himself, or acknowledged out intimacy in some other way, but he didn't—he just sat on my thigh while I stared at his back. I felt as though he had just simply mistaken my leg for a chair.

Back in Xela we completed our final day of classes, set off some fire-crackers, and gorged ourselves on chocolate “enrobed” cookies. We have been indulging in sweets while we can, under the hypothesis that we will soon be fasting to save money—a hypothesis which has never yet been empirically confirmed.

(B)

Lago de Atitlan @ San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala

2010-02-24T18:00:17.000Z

When we were finally ready to leave Xela, we just wandered around in our backpacks, thereby advertising that we were in need of direction. And sure enough, as always, we were put on a mini-van and then directed to a bus that would take us to Lago de Atitlan. We arrived in San Pedro, on the lake, a few hours later with little to no plan.

San Pedro is a small lake-side tourist destination with a number of charming and expensive ex-pat-owned restaurants connected by small alleys and dirt trails. It was a great place to relax, and spending the mornings drinking coffee and reading beside a lake full of water-birds kept me content for at least five-hours every morning. However, it wasn't long before we began to feel the oppressively long hours of such thoroughly empty days. And, to make matters worse, our reflections on the third world and specifically on the role of the tourist in the third world, had started to make us uncomfortable and homesick. But such are the ups and downs of extended journeys abroad.

While at the lake we distracted ourselves one morning by “hiking” the Nariz del India (or Nariz, or The Mayan Face, or Indian's Nose, or whatever). We sprung for a guide—mainly because we've been warned about violent bandits that lie in wait of tourists on such trails. In retrospect, I think this trail would have been fine, but the stories we've heard (In Ecuador, por ejemplo) have been so vivid as to make me believe that the saving of no amount of money could be worth that risk. So we took a guide.

One thing that I have always thought, but that I am now starting to see is merely a cultural assumption, is that mountain guides ought to be capable of climbing mountains. Incidentally, I also find myself often impressed by the ability of ancient, decrepit Mayans to climb mountains. Our Mayan guide, however, proved the superficiality of my thought. Approximately fifteen minutes into our walk to the trail-head our guide stopped, turned, and said, “This is really difficult for me, do you mind if we just take the bus?” Roz and I were a bit surprised by this, but before we could respond he went on to explain, “We can take the bus up to Santa Maria and then there will be 4km left and we'll hike back down...and, besides,” he confided in me, “it would be hard for the girl.” This last comment we laughed off (this time) and considered his request only because I had been rather sick for the last few days and hadn't been feeling particularly up for the hike that morning. We ultimately ceded the authority to lead to him—an authority that we thought we had implicitly forfeited by the purchase of a “guide”—to take us up the mountain whatever way he thought best, whether by bus or by foot. He chose bus.

We got off in a small village no more than half a kilometer from the top. But, in keeping with the theory that we were embarking on a 4km hike, he decided that we had to stop every five minutes at which point he would say something like, “okay, just an hour more. We'll break again up on that ridge in half an hour or so.” Five minutes later we would be atop the ridge where he would act as if we had just been hiking for an eternity. We indulged him in this performance. We knew this was rather difficult for him, even if it wasn't for us. And I didn't think much of his shenanigans at the time; it wasn't until after a whole afternoon with this man that it seemed natural to remember all of his actions in this light. Ultimately I think it probably took us half an hour or so to reach the summit. Along the way he pointed out to us the nose, head, and shoulders of the Indian. The first time he gave us this professional opinion we thought that we must have just misunderstood him. But he made it pretty clear by the end of the trip that he had no idea why the mountain was called Indian's Nose. I encourage you to take a look at the pictures and compare the rival theories.

We spent some time on the summit—the tip of the nose, or on the top of the head, depending on which theory strikes your fancy. It was too cloudy and too bright to really see anything, but it was nice to be up there all the same. We ate some Chikys (chocolate “enrobed” cookies) but decided that we hadn't yet done much to deserve the full lunch that we brought. And it was only 9:00 in the morning. We were supposed to reach the top around 12:00. On the way down our tour guide stopped us often to have us check out the mirador, to point out once again what he took to be a nose, or to inform us about the landscape with such useful information as “Many rocks. Not one. Many. How strange,” “Flowers,” “Looks like from Young Indian Jones,” or “Cliff. Remember that one with Sylvester Stallone? Great story. Hollywood.” This was of course interspersed with “Careful, careful. Very slowly, very slowly. Very dangerous.” And, of course, “It would have been too difficult for the girl,” over and over again. At one point Roz was bold enough to dispute this claim, but he just glanced in her direction as if he had heard a noise and, unable to identify the source, returned to spouting his gibberish at me. The next time he felt the need to justify our bus-ride with Roz's weakness I negated the assertion which, it was hard to tell, either made him angry or confused. In the end we parted ways on rather bad terms. Not so much because of our contradictory beliefs regarding the abilities of women, but primarily because it didn't take us long to figure out that all of his “interpretive” information, vistas, and the real reason for our ridiculously slow descent was that he was trying to avoid getting busted for arriving back at the office three hours early. They aren't paid for taking us on a bus (which we paid for, by the way); they are paid to take us on a hike. When we got back to office, after declining his offer to show us the market, at 12:00, he put out his hand for the tip—I shook it, and we left.

After suffering the long hours of the afternoon, once again, we decided it was time to move on. The next morning we took a boat across the lake to San Marcos, a small hippie-village specializing in yoga, massage, and spirituality. It was pretty lame, but beautiful. And our room had character, a great place to drink coffee in the morning, and numerous birds. Not to mention the giant, black scorpion that we found in our room, which the manager took care off while assuring us “It's not deadly. It will just be really, really painful.” That was a first for me.

(B)

Antigua @ Antigua Guatemala (The Most Noble and Most Loyal City of Santiago of the Knights o), Guatemala

2010-02-28T12:00:20.000Z

Antigua is old. Ancient. Well, old anyway. That's its whole claim to fame. Granted we were only in Antigua for about twenty-four hours—not enough time to become acquainted with all its wonders. It reminded us a bit of Granada, which is not surprising as most people say that Granada reminds them of Antigua. At the base of the looming Volcan Pacaya, the town has been reconstructed true to its Spanish colonial heritage. Low stucco buildings with tiled roofs and sunny courtyards line every street. Unfortunately, hoards of tourists line every street as well and prices everywhere reflect the presence of this easy prey.

Antigua has been reconstructed because, like so many cities in Central America, it has been devastated by earthquakes. Although the reconstruction lends a definitive Disneyland feel to Antigua, the remaining evidence of its past destruction is an awesome spectacle reminiscent of the great ruins of civilization. Dotting the city are crumbling churches and dilapidated buildings. Rather than depreciating the value of the city, these structures highlight its value. We visited the ruins of the Cathedral of San Jose on the center plaza. The cathedral, the original construction of which commenced in 1545, crumbled in the massive earthquake that razed Antigua to the ground in 1773. The church was reconstructed to a fraction of its original size and grandeur, leaving the ruins standing magnificently behind it. It was truly impressive, though disputable that, as the entrance ticket claims, it is “the most important monument in the country.” Nevertheless, it whetted our appetites for ruins and, accordingly, headed north.

(R)

Semuc Champey @ Lanquín, Guatemala

2010-03-01T14:57:18.000Z

Based on the uncontrollable vehicles and lawless drivers generally employed by the public transportation system of Guatemala, we decided that, statistically, it was about time for us to find ourselves in a horrible accident. Riding Guatemalan buses is sort of like gambling—you can come out ahead, but you know that in the end the house always wins. It would take extraordinary luck to win the Guatemalan school-bus challenge every time you played. And when the ante is your life, the few bucks you save and the experiences that you gain don't long outweigh the risk. And so we took a private van from Antigua to Lanquin, a remote village near the natural wonders of Semuc Champey.

The mini-van alternative was nice. However, being in a min-van doesn't change the fact that out-of-control school-buses dominate the Guatemalan highway. Consequently, I spent much of the trip wondering if it was safer to be in a mini-van with school-buses hurtling toward me, or if it had been safer being in a school-bus hurtling toward mini-vans. In the end I decided that at least I was comfortable in the van. Roz spent the trip grappling with ethical questions concerning window-rights in such a shared mini-van situation. It was a humid and stuffy trip and Roz had (we thought) control over the window immediately to her left. However, early in the trip the girl in front of us reached back and attempted to shut said window. Roz initially saw it as an affront to all that is right in the world but, because the action was done with no hint of shame or doubt, she began to question her own sense of propriety. I offered the assurance that our neighbor was obviously an uncivilized, self-righteous, barbaric a-hole, but I could tell the event continued to weigh heavily on Roz's more compassionate mind. There was, after all, a slight discontinuity between the partition of the windows and the partition of the seats, which left room for doubt. Having learned our lesson, we chose our seats more wisely next time. On the ride out of Lanquin our temporary ownership over the usage of a particular window was indisputable. With the partition clearly within her personal space, Roz was the only possible dispenser-of-wind for the forward-most window. Nevertheless, shortly into the trip, the girl behind us stretched her tentacle well into Roz's “bubble” and—with no request, no “please,” no “excuse me”—pulled the window firmly shut. This time the act was so incontestably shameless that Roz felt entirely justified in reopening the window despite the fact that it was not particularly hot or stuffy in the van and it was, as it turned out, quite cold outside. I wanted to put on a coat but my commitment to imposing my moral worldview (concerning windows) on the other passengers was unwavering and so I suffered in the name of justice.

But I'm getting distracted. There were other important things I was intending to discuss. Mainly, I wanted to chastise the country of Guatemala for being irresponsible with respect to speed-bumps and condiments. Partially I'm hoping that if I reserve my criticisms to such insignificant things then my condemnations won't reek of imperialism as does much American travel writing, but it is also the case that it is these little things that I find most entertaining.

Speed-bumps have been more or less randomly distributed throughout Guatemala because, well, there is a speeding problem here. Now I thought that the broad recurring speed-bumps in parking lots or the “speed humps” in Santa Fe were just an annoying overindulgence by construction workers or city-planners. But it turns out there is a subtle art to these bumps. One must combine the proper balance of bump severity, and intermittent distance so as to produce the desired effect of slower traffic and only slightly disgruntled drivers. Guatemala knows nothing of this subtlety. Here, a speed-bump is a formidable obstacle. They are small mountain-ranges of concrete demanding a complete stop before proceeding. With no viable constant speed there are only two apparent alternatives: 1) speed as much as possible between bumps because you have to slam on the brakes when you get to the next one anyway, or 2) off-road it. Neither is very pleasant for the passenger and I think it counts as an absolute failure when the speed-bumps force drivers to swerve onto the pedestrian path beside the road every fifty meters instead of slowing down. My other favorite part is when drivers decide that such speed-bump-rich sections of road are appropriate places to pass vehicles. Our driver would notice the car in front of us slowing down (for the speed bump) and take the opportunity to slam on the gas, pull into the other lane, and make his move. Of course, both would just reach the speed bump more or less simultaneously where they would duly come to a full stop before slowly mounting the obstacle in unison. Then both drivers would slam on the gas to try to beat the other to the next bump. It just makes the practice seem so pathetic when you have plenty of time to realize that you are trying to pass another car when your speedometer reads “0 kph.”

I think the problem with condiments stems from the poverty of the Spanish language. You see, in Spanish, as far as I can tell, the word “salsa” comprises everything within the diverse, robust, well defined, and nuanced categories of “sauces,” “toppings,” “condiments,” “salad dressings,” and “things that go on nachos.” Now I don't know Spanish, so don't attack my argument on that front; the fact of the matter is that I have empirical evidence that there is a problem here. And I know that we in the North also sometimes use condiments irresponsibly, but I have always been against coleslaw, thousand island dressing, and potato salad for that very reason. But here they just have no self-control when it comes to the three definitive condiments: ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. Even the largely contested purview of the use of mayonnaise has limits in the US (though I believe we need to rein those in a bit). In Guatemala they are all universally applicable, preferably in large quantities. During our first week in Xela I tried to find common ground with my family by making fun of shared foreigners, but the Ecuadorian favorite of ketchup on rice (and the Thai substitute of butter for frosting, for that matter) just got the response “yeah, we have that.” But really my beef is with two issues: 1) there should be no blur in the line between the common condiments and things that go on nachos, and 2) yellow mustard does not go on salad. Which is really my only point—I'm just bitter about that salad in Lanquin.

Semuc Champey was quite beautiful. The park boasts a river which is interrupted by a series of limestone pools with stunningly blue water. We skipped the tour and hitched a ride in the back of a truck. Not only did this saves us $20, but it also meant that we got the pools more or less to ourselves, and we didn't have to be humiliated with Mayan “war-paint” as the other tourists did. After a couple of days in our little resort we got the itch to keep moving, so we got a mini-van to Flores, hoping to see the ruins of Tikal the following day.

(B)

Tikal, Guatemala @ Tikal, Guatemala

2010-03-04T16:54:56.000Z

Our trip North was inspired by the famous Mayan ruins at Tikal, though there was another, subtler motive at play here. Somewhere deep down, I believed that the closer we got to Mexico, the closer we would approach the eidos of that elusive entity: the perfect Nacho. We have been seeking the perfect Nacho for some time now. In fact, it has become somewhat of an obsession. It's not that we are nacho addicts or that our American palates refuse typical cuisine. No. It's simply that we've been so disappointed with every attempt at this particular comfort food that we've be driven to hunt the platonic form of Nachos that will fulfill our wildest dreams. There's the ever-present problem of an imperfect ratio (too many or too few chips), the rampant misuse of condiments, and the unfortunate fact that “nachos” in Spanish just means “chips”, sin queso. Thus, our perpetual disappointment and our growing appetite for real nachos. The Mexican border theory was an utter failure. In the far, northern reaches of Guatemala, we ordered a “Super Nacho” described as “the works”. Unfortunately, what we were served was a plate of stale chips with whole beans, white cheese, and ground tofu smothered in some green, avocado-ish sauce and, yes, spaghetti sauce. I thought these people invented pico de gallo. But no, we ate nachos with Prego. Alas, the search for the true form of the Nacho continues.

Fortunately, Tikal was by no means a disappointment. On our journey North, we collected tips from other travelers, tips which dictated our itinerary. For one thing, if you buy your park entrance after 3:30pm, it is valid for the following day, thus granting you access to the park in the evening and the morning when the tourists are least active and the wildlife is most active. Of course, this requires sleeping at Tikal, where you are at the mercy of the two overpriced hotels. There is camping, but if you are sin tent (like us) you are at the mercy of the overpriced tent rentals—unless (like us) you stay at Los Amigos hostel in Flores and bum a tent from them for free. It was a flawless plan with a flawless execution. We arrived on schedule after 3:30, set up camp beneath croaking toucans, and entered the park. We took in the view from Temple IV (think Star Wars Episode IV) and then wandered about the Gran Plaza as the sun dipped below the horizon. Among the flitting fireflies and the howling monkeys we stumbled to the exit as night fell on the jungle. We then climbed into our sleeping bags for eight hours of painful tossing and turning on the designated concrete slab known as our campsite. Since we were unable to sleep deeply, we were able to rise before the sun and enter the park. Once more we found ourselves taking in the magnificence of the ruins in complete solitude. We were alone at almost every site and enjoyed the natural abundance of the jungle as we walked between each one. Stunning birds posed in the trees and monkeys swung from the branches.

As we did not hire a guide, I did a cursory reading of Tikal's history before our visit. May I emphasize the word “cursory”? I learned almost nothing substantial from this study, but felt it necessary to record the names of Tikal's most influential Kings. They are, in order: King Great Jaguar Paw, King Smoking Frog, Lord Water, and King Moon Double Comb, also known as Lord Chocolate. The last seems to have been a favorite, and I can understand why. Lord Water's got nothing on Lord Chocolate.

(R)

San Salvador, El Salvador @ San Salvador, El Salvador

2010-03-07T06:00:20.000Z

Having reached our northernmost destination, we left Flores in a rush to get back south. As it turns out, Tikal is a long way from San Jose, and we're still hoping to make it south to the canal before flying home. Fortunately there was a bus straight from Flores to San Salvador. We thought it was a tourist bus and we were pretty ready to indulge in comfortable seats and air-conditioning for twelve hours. And I guess it probably had been a tourist bus at some point, but by the time we got to it it wasn't much better than the school buses. It got us to our destination all the same.

San Salvador was pretty uneventful. The city itself, or what we saw of it, is kind of like Phoenix—America gas stations and box-stores. We bought dinner at a Texaco mini-mart. We had no intention of staying long so the next morning we hit the road to Suchitoto, a lakeside city known for its tranquility.

(B)

Suchitoto, El Salvador @ Suchitoto, El Salvador

2010-03-08T12:01:30.000Z

We left San Salvador for Suchitoto. No, it's not in Japan. Suchitoto is a small town in the Northeast of El Salvador on the edge of Lago Suchitlan. Its quaint feel has led people to compare Suchitoto to Antigua “before it got so touristy.” The analogy is apt, but we didn't stay long in town. Our guidebook featured a hacienda run by a local village cooperative on the lake. The Hacienda Colima was described as “an aging hacienda set in stunning surroundings...around a pristine courtyard.” We were interested in checking it out and were hoping to see some interesting birds. When we arrived (by pick-up truck) it was evident that we hadn't weighted the phrase “aging hacienda” quite enough. Somehow we imagined that we were going to a sort of a naturalist's resort—secluded, pristine, upscale. We discovered that, actually, we were staying at a crumbling colonial estancia where tourists are as rare as the birds. The employees seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see our new accommodations. Swimming in the green, circa 1950 pool, we laughed at our erroneous expectations. We wondered if the caliber of a person is reflected in the caliber of vacation resort that person visits. Looking around us, we concluded that we must not be high-caliber tourists—maybe upper-lower-class. One fact, however, was undeniable: the people who ran the hacienda were the kindest and most welcoming that we have encountered in our travels. It was as if we had found a Salvadoran host family. One by one they would come forward to introduce themselves and welcome us to their hacienda. One woman said, “I'm so happy you came.” We were positively doted on. By the end of our stay, we had reassessed our personal caliber. If the caliber of a person is reflected in the caliber of welcome that person receives, then we must be kings.

(R)

Santa Rosa de Lima, El Salvador @ Santa Rosa de Lima, El Salvador

2010-03-12T16:00:29.000Z

Having been pretty dissatisfied with the Monte Carlo in San Miguel our last time through, we decided that this time we would get as close to the border as possible, so we pushed on to Santa Rosa de Lima for the night. We were only planning to be in town for the twelve hours between our arrival and the first bus into Honduras so we stopped in at the first hotel we spotted—or, forgive me, the first “hotelito” that we spotted.

We had been traveling all day and were pretty anxious to put down our bags, take showers, and relax. So it didn't take much convincing to get us into the $20 air-conditioned room with cable and a private bathroom. Upon spotting the laced curtains and faux-velvet, tiger-adorned bed-throws, it occurred to me that I might have to confirm that we had paid for a whole night—not just the hour. But we figured if push came to shove we would just claim ignorance. And we were too excited about the shower to bother with questions.

I had noticed when I went to the bathroom that we had a Thai bathroom situation going on—a spare bucket of water and a scoop for “flushing”—but I didn't realize the consequences this would have on the shower arrangement. Roz went first and returned promptly to report that there was no water. I, without thinking much of it, went down to the main office to report this unfortunate fact, to which our host replied “do you need water?” It was about at that point that I realized our lack of water was no mistake and that the bucket and scoop was intended to be a more useful technology than I had originally considered. I, of course, said “yes, we need water”—not so much because I couldn't do without; more-so because I was feeling that haughty contempt for primitive ways that comes in the wake of having over-payed for services. He was visibly agitated, but went to turn it on nevertheless. When the small trickle of water issued forth from the shower-head he looked in our direction for applause. We weren't particularly impressed but granted the fact that it did appear to be running water. So Roz attempted once again to shower. As one might expect, she exhausted our small ration of water before fully de-lathering and so got to enjoy the bucket after all. Upon a second complaint, the staff showed us the virtues of the shower next door and then, after five minutes with the monkey-wrench, presented us with the same model of shower-head we had just witnessed. This would have been a welcome conciliatory gesture if shower-heads were at all useful in the absence of water. As it was, our shining-new bathroom-accessory only served to aid the imagination as I rinsed my face in the bucket.

The town wasn't any more impressive than the hotelito and our room had the virtue of a deadbolt so we locked ourselves in with a few beers, some cereal, and plenty of bottled water to pass the night by watching reruns of “Live from the Red Carpet,” while we awaited the morning bus to the border.

I left the shower on, hoping that we would be blessed with a trickle at some hour of the night and, upon hearing it, that I could finally wash away the film of filth that had collected on my body during the past day's travels. I never heard a drop.

In the morning I went for coffee and came back to find Roz exchanging some angry words of surprisingly cogent Spanish with the desk-clerk. She was making the argument that “full service” (air-conditioning and cable) is not an alternative to “basic service” (water) but is rather an addition to “basic service.” The proof of which was to be found in the additional cost and so, she argued, since this was apparently a point of confusion for the desk-clerk, we would be happy to receive a refund and pay the “basic service” price since he had simply misunderstood the meaning of the word “full.” The desk-clerk, apparently, had countered her first argument—“shower-heads are useless without water”—with “but you had air-conditioning” and went on to counter this argument with “well I don't have any money.” She was about to give up when in walked the boss, to whom Roz's appeal seemed more reasonable. And so we walked to the bus-station, our five-dollar refund in hand, feeling like those American tourists that people always complain about.

(B)

More on Buses @ León, Nicaragua

2010-03-13T17:00:36.000Z

Despite our best efforts to vary our itinerary, we were thwarted at every turn. We were forced to retrace our route through Nicaragua and, thus, we returned to Leon. Our second visit to Leon does not merit much interest so I will not bore you with a historical account. Rather, I would like to develop an account of an iconic figure in our travels: the chicken bus. Much has been said already on this subject—concerning passenger occupancy, luggage storage, and the real meaning of “express”—but one important aspect of the chicken bus has, thus far, been overlooked: the spirit of enterprise among a particular demographic of passengers.

There exists, in Central America, a sort of mobile market-place. Gaggles of girls in aprons, buckets of market-wares perched on their heads, board the bus for a stretch of highway and file down the aisle announcing their products in voices that assault the ear drums. Eventually, the group will file off the bus (usually via the rear emergency exit) restoring peace for a few hundred meters, at which point another group will board the bus. Thus is established a mobile market-place, populated by girls who shuttle themselves (along with their empanadas and refrescoes) back and forth along the highway. They are a frequent presence and their enterprising interruptions make it surprisingly difficult to concentrate on a book and quite impossible to carry on a conversation. Then again, they provide a recognizable service: food and refreshment for voyage-weary travelers like ourselves.

There is, however, another brand of bus-bound salesmen. This brand travels discreetly in the guise of ordinary passengers and operates on the principle of ambush. When the bus is well on its way and the unsuspecting passengers are at ease, suddenly one passenger will rise. “Perhaps it is his stop,” you think to yourself. Or maybe you don't even notice as he makes his way to the front of the bus and then turns to face his captive audience—because captive you certainly are. The salesman (identifiable by his large bag or briefcase) then launches into a well-rehearsed and dramatically delivered speech. His speech aims at convincing you that his product (usually over the counter pharmaceuticals or, alternatively, Jesus) is a vital necessity that, fortunately for you, he is offering for just ten quetzalitos. Products available on such buses run the gamut from aspirin to treatments for intestinal parasites to the glory of God. I am always surprised by the number of passengers who walk away with chewable vitamins for their children and I have come to think of this sales strategy akin to the duty-free shops in airports. Just as businessmen flying home might buy some duty-free perfume for their wives, passengers on chicken buses buy aspirin for theirs.

(R)

Granada, again @ Granada, Nicaragua, Nicaragua

2010-03-17T12:37:12.000Z

We attempted, once again, to take a different route south than we took north; once again, we failed. So we ended up doing the same awful microbus ride to Granada, with the same sketchy exchange in Managua. But we got there all the same and just in time to celebrate St. Patty's day (Roz's first Irish birthday, as it were) at the only Irish pub that we know of in Central America.

Our first order of business was to obtain hot-dogs—partially because we missed the 75-cent hot-dogs in Granada and partially because we knew that if we didn't fill our bellies before going to the pub than we would be emptying our wallets in due time. It was a little early for dinner, but our favorite vendor was on the street and we were hungry. Roz, recognizing that the hot-dogs may not be ready at such an early hour, asked, “Are those ready?” to which our vendor replied “No. They are hot-dogs.” And suddenly the dual-“to be”-verb-system shone-forth in all its semantic splendor. Because, you see, Roz did not ask, “Are those in the state of being ready?,” no; rather, she asked, “Is the essence—the ousia, the being-at-work-staying-itself, if you will—of those things Ready? Are they the substantial form of Ready itself?” To which the answer is, of course, “No. They are staying-at-work-being-hotdogs.” But, incidentally, they were in the state of being ready, so we got two and went to the park for our early dinner.

We spent the rest of the evening at the pub, drinking over-priced Guinness and observing some “locals.” They were a group of those geriatric ex-pats who come to the third-world to live in anonymity while preying on destitute young women whose overwhelming need makes them easy targets for such first-world trash. It was a depressing sight and reminded me why I was so unhappy during my extended stay in Thailand.

The next day we boarded the tourist bus to San Jose. Our stoicism is rapidly fading and we seem to be choosing comfort over economy more and more. But, it was worth it.

(B)

Panama City, Panama @ Panama City, Panama

2010-03-19T08:00:29.000Z

The relative degree of cleanliness and order surrounding us confirmed our entrance to Costa Rica. The prostitutes on the corner proved that we had returned to San Jose. Both contributed to my sense of being home—or closer to it. But our time in San Jose was brief, just a one night stop-over before our final push south. It turns out that Panama is very long and that getting to Panama City from San Jose is a seventeen hour endeavor. We decided that our best chances for accomplishing this feat rested with that reverend agent of Central American travel: Tica Bus. Tica Bus is a bit beyond our budget, but we seemed to be the only tourists in the whole of Central America who had never set foot on one. Thus, in the interests of time as well as experience, we shelled out the money for an overnight bus to Panama City.

We arrived at 4:45 in the morning—earlier than we could reasonably expect to find a hostel, let alone check-in—so we took a cab to a 24 hour restaurant in the heart of the city. Imagine Denny's, with a Greek twist, patronized by New Yorkers, and somehow misplaced in Panama. That is where we spent our first couple of hours in Panama City. In retrospect, it was really quite an appropriate introduction. Panama's possession of the Interoceanic Canal has had the undeniable consequence of rendering it very cosmopolitan, if in a confused sort of way. The Chicago-esque waterfront is lined with impressive downtown high-rises. The night-life district boasts a Hooters. Root beer, practically the only American soft-drink resistant to exportation, is stocked at the grocery store. There are, however, a few idiosyncrasies that betray your true location. For instance, as in the rest of Central America, the city buses are the familiar re-vamped school buses, decked out with Hannah Montana and Jesus stickers; the locals still confuse the English words “beer” and “bear”; your position in line is not likely to count for much; and you can buy ripped off DVDs of unreleased movies. The resulting experience is a disorienting melange of first and third world characteristics.

All this because someone thought it was a good idea to connect two bodies of water.

We paid our ritual respects to the Panama Canal on Monday. After three buses and a traffic accident, we found ourselves at the Miraflores Locks. For those of you who (like my former self) don't know how canals work, let me explain the system of locks. One might think that all it takes to create a canal is digging a ditch between two bodies of water. One might be wrong. The problem is one of height and equilibrium. The two bodies of water (in this case, both oceans) must maintain equal height through their connecting waterway. This means that a simple ditch connecting two oceans would have to be at sea level. But the canal crosses a continent. It would take a very deep ditch to reach sea level at the continental divide, even in Panama. So our ditch has to be more complicated. It requires a system that will use the equilibrium of fluids to lift ocean liners above sea level, carry them over the continental divide, and then lower them again into the sea. Locks and reservoirs accomplish this task. In this case, the Miraflores Locks and Miraflores Lake work to lift an Atlantic-bound ship from sea level to 54ft above sea level. The locks are a set of gates that control the flow of water between Miraflores Lake and the Pacific Ocean. The waterway connecting these larger water bodies is divided by the locks into two sections of water that are distinct from each other as well as from the lake and ocean. Before a ship arrives, one section is at sea level and the other at lake level. As a ship comes in, the lower locks open to let it enter the water way. Once it is in, the lower locks close, separating the water from the ocean. Then water is allowed to flow between the two sections of waterway. As the water reaches equilibrium, the ship is buoyed up to half the height of the lake. Now that the entire waterway is at the same level, the center locks open, permitting the ship to pass to the second section. The locks close behind it and water is allowed to flow between the lake and the second section of water. Thus, the waterway (and the ship along with it) is raised to lake level, 54ft above the sea. Finally, the last set of locks open and the ship passes to Miraflores Lake and the locks beyond to complete its traverse of the canal. Before it reaches the ocean, the ship will reach 85ft above sea level.

I found this all very interesting and was pleased to be enlightened concerning a marvel of engineering. Of course, as Brendan pointed out, anyone familiar with LegoLand will already understand the system of locks.

(R)

Bocas del Toro, Panama @ Bocas del Toro, Panama

2010-03-24T06:00:16.000Z

Our trip to Panama was kind of a smash-and-grab affair: we took an overnight bus from Costa Rica to Panama City to see the canal, and then we took another overnight back up to the border, stopping in Bocas Del Toro to briefly indulge in the beaches of the Caribbean.

Bocas Del Toro boasts a different clientele than many third-world “hot spots.” Though it advertises itself as a regular beach-side paradise, Bocas Town itself has only one beach, which is disgusting—waves black with filth, and sand of decomposed trash. But the town is nice enough and in addition to being a hub for surfers headed to nearby islands it is also a stopover for sailors. Of course, the sailors of today—those that actually sail—are not the drunken naval ruffians that the word calls to mind; rather, they are those mid-forties accidental businessmen, generally lost in life, with enough surplus time and money to spend a significant portion of the year wandering among the islands of the Caribbean in their sailboats—also drunk, but that's incidental. These nomadic sometimes-ex-pats are much more pleasant than the typical third-world geriatric variety. Moreover, these drifters tend to set up charter services, “adventure” tourism opportunities, and other such things (after they decide to devote themselves entirely to the drift) which brings with them whole flocks of tourist sailors. Due to the ubiquity of such money-spending-types in Bocas Town, the cafes and restaurants are not quite so gauche as the regular backpacker joints and not quite so sleezy as your typical ex-pat Irish pub. Rather, they were comfortably out of our price range. Moreover, I didn't see a single Jager-bomb special or “all you can drink” price, and it was within the reach of the imagination that the men accompanying younger women may actually have been with their daughters. The main strip of coast was dominated by these restaurants and their solvent middle-aged clientele, while the rest of the town comprised tourist services owned by German men and grocery stores owned by Chinese families. The town itself seemed to boast no local services except for the showing of a video-taped church service in Parque Central every evening.

Since there wasn't actually anything to do in town, except eat and drink, we found ourselves antsy to get out and see the rest of the island. So on our second day in town we rented some 1950s girls' bikes and headed to the beaches on the other side of the island. After conquering some hills on the single-speeds, riding across beaches, fording a creek, and fixing Roz's chain five or six times, we found ourselves a private beach for the afternoon. The waves were scary as f*** so I wasn't about to swim, but luckily there was a natural pool on the backside of the beach that the world-four waves kept full, so we used that to get wet. We spent the day watching the waves in awe and exchanging suspicious glances with the white crabs that intermittently popped out of the sand to check us out. After I finished my warm beers, we headed back to town for happy hour and spent a day's budget on pina colodas.

Our only other adventure of note was our day on the Catamaran. It was out of our budget but it's getting toward the end of our trip and, frankly, money might not bring happiness but poverty sure as hell brings unhappiness so we decided to live it up a bit during our last couple weeks. We were to spend the day sailing around the bay, snorkeling, and observing the local bottle-nosed dolphins. It was just the two of us; a crippled, deaf, aging New York man who, according to his stories, spent most of his time going through the Panama Canal; a stealthy Panamanian woman who often disappeared despite the lack of places to hide on the barco pequeno; the first-mate, “Ponce,” a local iHighSchoolDropout—the requisite accessory to any ex-pat owned business in Central America; and, of course, the captain—a liberal Texan and everything you might imagine that entails. After about five minutes on the water our captain piped up, “well, this is slow. Hows about I crank up the engine and get this thing movin?” I was glad that our American companion dissented because I wouldn't have said anything even though the trip was sold to us with the line, “you could do this trip with anyone in a motor boat but this is the only tour where you get to sail—no loud motor, just you and the ocean.” The captain got his way eventually because, honestly, he did have a point. I'm not sure that we were even moving. So we motored our way to the Bottle-Nosed Dolphins only to give up and then see them from a distance on our way to the snorkeling area. Snorkeling was okay. We saw some interesting coral and a few fish. And I am now one step closer to conquering my overwhelming fear of the ocean—or I was until our next attempt. At our next snorkeling stop we were getting ready to jump in when the captain joked, “Watch out for the sharks!,” for which we graced him with a courtesy laugh. But he went on, at first to allay our fears, “no, there aren't any sharks out there...,” but then, concerned with the accuracy of his statement, “...actually, there are sharks everywhere, but it shouldn't be a problem here...,” and at length forgetting the purpose of his oration, “...the only thing that might bother you here would be some hammerhead sharks or bull sharks, and...,” getting carried away, “...bull sharks have a really mean temper...” at which point he stopped speaking, seeming confused. So we swam off in fear and found neither reefs nor sharks. But, our fear of finding the latter made us less eager to find the former so we headed back before long and called it a day.

Leaving Bocas was a little tricky. If only because transportation down here is all independent so they have no motive to be helpful if doing so puts you into the hands of a different company. They don't want you to get where you're going; they want you to get where they're going, wherever that might be. We've had this problem before, most notably at Lago de Atitlan when we were looking for a bus to Antigua. We were tempted onto a bus that claimed to satisfy our needs, but which actually took us in the wrong direction to a highway intersection, at which we could catch a bus to yet another city, in which we could catch a bus to Antigua. It is true that we got to Antigua; but, since there was a different bus going directly to Antigua, the proper answer to the question, “Is this the bus to Antigua?,” is, “No. That is the bus to Antigua. We are actually going in the opposite direction. This is the bus that you would only take if you missed the last bus to Antigua and were desperate to get there today even if in the most inefficient way possible.” But that is not what he said; he said “Yes. Antigua.” A-hole. Well, this happened again with the boat to Changuinola. Almirente is the primary mainland port-town for Bocas, but from there to the border you have to catch two buses—one to Changuinola, and then one to the border. To shorten the trip you can take the less-frequently-run water-taxi service to Changuinola from Bocas. We were hoping to get an early bus from the border to San Jose so we thought this time-saver might help us out. We went to a water-taxi dock looking for the station with the boat to Changuinola and were promptly sold tickets to Changuinola. It wasn't until two or three boats to Almirente had loaded and left that we decided to ask about our boat. The answer, “Yes. Almirente, Changuinola, same thing.” So we boarded thinking it stopped at both. But no, the ayudante informed us, “Boat to Almirente, bus to Changuinola, put on your life-jacket.” So, again, the right answer to “Do you have a boat to Changuinola?” is “No.” But, I guess I can't blame them—they have no incentive to care about me and I guess that means I have no reason to trust them so why do I keep falling for it?

(B)

San Jose, la ultima vez @ San José, Costa Rica

2010-03-28T21:00:54.000Z

Traveling is dramatic. This is not because a traveler is constantly in the presence of wonder or in the act of accomplishing magnificent deeds. Quite the contrary. A traveler is surrounded by the ordinary and devoted to the accomplishment of the mundane. Transportation, food, and shelter are the chief interests of the traveler and all his energies are devoted to securing these necessities. Nevertheless, traveling is dramatic. It lends itself quite well to the narrative structure. The traveler, in his travels, encounters a problem, perhaps as ordinary as the obtaining of basic needs. This problem drives the action toward peak tension, at which point critical information is revealed and a resolution reached. The traveler goes on his way. Thus, traveling becomes a series of small narratives and the traveler becomes the hero of his own drama.

* * *

We were tired. Weary and worn by boat, bus, and border, we arrived, once again, in San Jose. It was late and the complications surrounding international phone calls, along with the general uncertainty of how far we would make it that day, had prevented us from making reservations at a hostel. We were foolish. It was spring break and holy week. Our fortune might not be good enough to shelter us this time. But, there we were: at an unknown bus terminal in San Jose at night.

We normally don't spring for taxis—they're expensive and a pretty good way to get scammed—but this time we decided to stray from the norm. We filed off the bus into the swarm of eager taxi drivers bidding for our patronage and, after collecting our belongings and taking quick glance at the map of San Jose, tentatively approached the nearest cabbie. “We would like to go to Tranquilo Backpackers.” “Okay. No problema. Maybe we call first to see they have room?” We eyed his cell phone suspiciously, but assented to the suggestion. “Hola. Tranquilo Backpackers? Tiene espacio para dos personas? Si, esta noche. Llenos? Gracias...Full,” he informed us. “But suggested this hostel.” He pulled a dirty flier out of his pocket. We asked, “How about Hostel Pangea?” He dialed the number under my watchful eye. “You want to talk?” he asked. “Sure,” I said. He handed me the phone. A voice said, “Hola?” “Hola. Habla ingles?” “No.” “Tiene camas esta noche?” “No. Estamos llenos.” The voice was abrupt and certain. “Gracias.” “All the popular hotels full,” our cabbie said, “it very late.” We looked around us. The terminal was deserted. The other travelers had long since departed in little red taxis. He flashed his photocopied flier at us again. “I take you here.” I looked at Brendan. His glance confirmed my own discomfort with the developing situation. “We would like to go to Tranquilo anyway. We can figure it out from there. Will you take us?” “No.” We turned our backs on him and approached the only other remaining cabbie. “Tranquilo Backpackers?” we asked, forgoing sentences, English or Spansih, for the moment. “Si! Si!” “Usa el contador?” “No. Dos mil colones.” “No. El contador.” “No.” Our choices were a driver that refused to take us where we wanted to go or a driver that refused to use his meter to take us where we wanted to go. “Okay,” we said, and started walking into the night, roughly guided by the recognizable cluster of downtown buildings.

After a couple blocks of venting our anger and frustration while scanning our surroundings for trouble, I said, “Wait, I recognize this place.” “Me too,” said Brendan. Indeed, we were in the red light district of San Jose, just a few blocks from our original hostel.

We arrived at the familiar, razor wired compound to find that they did, in fact, have room for us. We put our bags next to our beds and went to the bar, feeling satisfied with ourselves for having avoided a scam and disappointed with ourselves for having wasted so much time considering a scam. But we were relieved enough to give the nachos in Central America one more chance to redeem themselves. They didn't quite pull it off, but we didn't seem to mind.

* * *

Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Denouement.

(R)