Argentina

It’s been a while since I wrote anything now. My apologise for that. And this will only be a short update so everybody will know that everything is alright.

I’m in Argentina now, where I met up (finally) with Amaia in Buenos Aires. We spent two days in a luxury hotel (her birthday gift) before starting the real backpacker life again in a hostel. Buenos Aires is a really nice, and really huge, city. Amaia can give you much more details on her own blog “amaiap.wordpress.com”.

After five days in Buenos Aires we took a 17 hour bus ride to the Iguazu falls in the north of the country. The falls are 3 km long, 70 meters high. Very impressing and very wet.

Two days in Iguazu was enough before heading south again. This time on a 19 hour long bus ride to Rosario, the birthplace of Che Guevara. The city was a big disappointment for the both of us. Che’s home look like nothing more then a local bus stop and my bed in the hostel was infected with bed bugs. So we moved on to the beach resort of Mar del Plata.

Mar del Plata is the most popular holiday destination for people from Buenos Aires and that is easy to understand when you go down to the beach. I’ve never ever, on any trip, seen a beach that is so packed with people. Lonely Planets description of “comically crowded, with people standing packed together, shoulder to shoulder, knee deep in the water” is very much spot on.

New Year, New Country

First things first: Happy New Year!

My New Year was spent in the same place as my Christmas. The plan was to move on before and celebrate New Year in Venezuela, but my general health didn’t improve at all until the day before New Year when I woke up without fever for the first time since Christmas.

Before I could celebrate the New Year I had to finish what I started in that year so the most of the 31th of December 2008 was spent diving and doing a theory test for my PADI. None of it was very hard but since I couldn’t do any diving as long as I was sick did it take me over a week to finish the course. That may have made me one of the slowest PADI divers ever. But at least I have it now.

After passing the PADI course I had two reasons to celebrate that night. The hostel had a great barbecue (with free beer) and after too much food and drink, most of us ended up in the only bar/club in Taganga. It was packed full of party people and salsa dancers (I you have to label me would the first category probably do best) and I had a great night with to much beer in the end.

2009 started like the first day in any year: with a hangover. So I didn’t get much done until I left Taganga in the morning on the third day of the new year. I got a bus from Santa Marta directly to Maracaibo, the second biggest city in Venezuela and centre of their oil industry. We where three tourists on the bus, me and another Swedish couple. It was nice to have some company when arriving in Maracaibo because the city was anything but nice. We stayed in  a hotel in the old town and it all felt like a movie set. Most of it was nicely built up but nothing living could be seen anywhere, except for millions of cockroaches.

None of us had a good feeling about this town so as soon as we woke up in the morning we went back to the bus station and took a bus to Coro, where we just arrived. I’ll spend one or two days here before moving on the Caracas where I’ll catch a flight on the 7th of January.

Merry X-mas

My Christmas this year have I celebrating in Taganga in Colombia. It’s a small fishing/tourist village just northeast of Santa Marta. There is nothing much to see in the village itself, more then the beach (and it’s not a very nice beach to be honest). Fortunately I’m here with the Belgian couple that I travelled to Santa Marta with, and a Canadian guy that we met at the hostel in Santa Marta, so there is always someone to keep me company.

Since it’s around 33 degrees in the days here (and 28 at night) haven’t I got any Christmas feelings at all. I’ve given myself a nice Christmas present though: I’m taking an open water diving course. It’s been really nice to dive again and when I’m finish with this course can I dive whenever I want without instructors. No more test dives for me!

There is some bad news though. I’m sick. The hostel where I’m staying organized a big Christmas dinner yesterday but I felt dizzy so I went to lay down for a while. As soon as I came in to my room felt I the food coming up. So after giving away all the food, the same way it came in, went I to bed and slept for 12 hours. I woke up with a fever. So now I’m sick, like everybody els, but I never got anything to drink, and no party,  like the rest of the people that celebrated Christmas on the beach.

sailingpanama2colombia.wordpress.com

I know it’s been a long time since I wrote last time and it you want to know more about what I’ve been up to during that time will you have to check out my other blog, sailingpanama2colombia.wordpress.com. It’s not really finished yet, but when it’s, it will tell you the most about how I left Central America for South America.

The first four days in Colombia was spent in Cartagena. You will be able to read about Cartagena in the other blog. From Santa Marta went I, together with a Belgian couple, to Santa Marta, a city on the Caribbean coast, halfway to Venezuela. The town is the oldest surviving Spanish city in Colombia, but there is nothing old left. Nowadays is it simply a tourist town for Colombian holiday makers. Most of the city is built up by ugly concrete building and hotels.

The plan is to continue from here tomorrow and go to the little village of Taganga where there suppose to be a lovely beach and good diving. The Belgians, a Canadian and me (and however els that want to join us) will stay in Taganga over Christmas. If I feel up to it might I finally get my thump out and take my PADI. But I’ll decide on that later.

Nothing more to write here. I’ll try to get the other blog ready in not to long time. It’s just to warm to get any inspiration to sit in an Internet cafe and write…

Panama

It must been a while since I wrote here the last time because they have changed they layout for me (when I log in, hopefully not for everybody els that just want to read my nonsense) and it took a while to figure out how to get started this time. I’m blaming the late report on a bad cold, including some fever. But here I am, healthy again and ready to deliver a little update.

Last time I wrote were I in rainy Costa Rica, trying not to drown. I guess my non-drowning efforts was successful since I’m in Panama now. The trip pick up a bit in speed though because of all the rain and floods. My plan was to continue down the Caribbean coast to a group of islands in Panama called Bocas del Toro, but after spending the last two days in Costa Rica just waiting for the rain to stop (which it never did), did I change my plan. Instead of the east coast sat I my sights for the west coast, and Panama City. This was supposed to be my stop after Bocas so all that really changed was that my time in Central America is shortened by about a week (from what I heard and read is Bocas a paradise on earth where I would love to stay for a week).

The View From The Hostel

Panama City is a great city to stay in. The best really big city I’ve been to in Central America and the fact that it’s by the sea makes it very pleasant. Because of the Panama Canal, and bank secrecy, is Panama City a wealthy city and a centre of trade and banking. The skyline is dotted by skyscrapers and they are building several more. Even if there is a lot of modern skyscrapers and shopping malls, so have they preserved the old town, Casco Viejo, where I’m staying. It’s really pretty to just stroll around here and look at the old houses and all the churches. In a few years will they probably be finished with all the renovations they are making in Casco Viejo, and then will it be even prettier.

Miraflores Locks

I’ve been to Panama City for four days now, and no one can stay here this long without seeing the obvious, the Panama Canal. The place where most people are viewing the canal is at Miraflores Locks, which is the first lock (of three) that the boats pass through on there way from the Pacific to the Carribean. At Miraflores Locks is a visitor centre with a little movie theater, a museum and a viewing platform. The viewing platform is the main attraction (and of coarse tightly packed with tourists) and from there you have good view of the ships that are lowered and raised in the locks. It was interesting to see and the canal is a amazing construction, which they even are planning to expand since the largest ships still have to sail around Cape Horn.

So finally, a little look into the future. On Wednesday, the 10th of December, will I travel back to the Caribbean coast and catch a ride with a sailboat heading for Colombia. Since there is no land crossing between the two countries, is flying or sailing the only two alternatives. Sailing takes longer time (five days for sailing, one hour for flying), and is more expensive (even if I don’t think it will be such a big difference since the boat fare include accommodation, food and activities for five days), but sailing is also a bigger adventure and the boat will stop at some paradise islands in the San Blas archipelago for two or three days. As part of a school project will I start a new blog only about the sailing adventure. I’ll try to give you the address to the new blog before I get on the boat.

Costa Rrrrrrica

It’s only been a few days since I wrote last time, and that have been a time full of travelling and changed plans.

My last day in Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua, was spent on a bike, cycling in the shadow of the same volcano I climbed the day before. The guy I rented the bike from explained a route for me, in Spanish, but I looked at the map and thought I knew better and cycled the way I wanted to, not the same tourist route everybody els is cycling. After a few hours cycling, mostly uphill, with the wind constantly against me, did I understand why they advised me to take the bus to the other side of the island and cycle back from there. So halfway, after coming to a nature reserve that I couldn’t walk into because of floods, did I decide to go back. The same way that took a few hours on the way there, took less then one hour going back. Win some, loose some…

The day after I took of for Costa Rica (after a quick Happy Birthday call to my little quarter century girl…), first by boat to the main land and then bus to the chaotic border. The plan was to go to Volcano Arenal, one of the most active volcanoes in the region, spend one day there and then head out to the Caribbean coast. Getting to the volcano included several bus changes in different cities. Since the whole border crossing affair took such a long time didn’t I manage to get all the way to Arenal the same day, but had to stop (since there was no more buses) in a little town called Tilaran. I checked in to a hotel close to the bus station and asked in the reception when the bus for La Furtuna (the town closest to Arenal) were leaving in the morning. 7am, 9am, 1pm and 4pm was the answer (it was written down so I wasn’t confused with the Spanish this time) and I thought the 9am bus would be perfect. So up at 8.30 in the morning, get ready and of to the bus station in the rain (there was perfect weather in Nicaragua and as soon as we crossed the border was there overcast and later heavy rains, the first rain for me since Flores, Guatemala). So did I get the bus to La Furtuna? No, there was no 9am, 1pm or 4pm bus. The two buses to La Fortuna was at 7am and 2pm. Since the weather was bad (I wouldn’t see much of the volcano if I went there because of the clouds) and I had to wait for so long did I decide to change my plans and head first for San Jose and then directly from there to the Caribbean coast.

So here I’m, in the little Afro-Caribbean settlement of Cahuita. What they

A Rare Costa Rican Moment Without Rain

have here are, apart from reggae bars, is a national park (which you can only visit about 10% of, because of the rains and floods the last months) and a nice beach for swimming (which is covered with trees and garbage because of the rains and floods the last months).

After one more night here will I head down the coast to Puerto Viejo for one night and that will be all I see of Costa Rica. Even if Costa Rica is very beautiful and more build up then the rest of Central America, so is it also very touristy, expensive and the food is even less tasty here…

First Up, Then Down

Today, second day on Isla de Ometepe, have been a more active day then any day in Nicaragua so far. That doesn’t mean very much since sunbathing doesn’t count as active in most peoples minds. So what did I do that was so active? I climbed another volcano. This time Volcano Conception, the larger of the two volcanoes that form Isla de Ometepe. The volcano is 1650 meters high but since it’s active and there is a lot of toxic gases near the summit, is a climb over 1000 meters not recommended. And since you need a guide, and the guides don’t go higher, is there not much of an option.

The Two Volcanoes Of Isla De Ometepe

The walk up the volcano (it’s actually more of a walk then a climb) took about two hours one way. It was a walk though a rainforest and there was a good chance for some wildlife spotting. But I guess we were unlucky since, apart from the trees, the only thing we saw was of wildlife was a sleeping monkey, the tail of a squirrel and a horse. The horse was actually above the treeline where it was eating some grass in the wind. Don’t ask me why a horse would go all that way for some grass? Maybe it taste better at the top…

Lucky enough for me, was there two other tourist, an American and one Aussie, that walked at the same time as me. The both spoke more or less fluent Spanish (compared with me at least) and the became my interpreter, since only one of the three guides spoke English. All tourist attractions here advertise that their guides are bilingual, but they never specify which two languages they speak. It feels like it’s more common that the guides speak Spanish and some Indian language, then they speak Spanish and English.

So, finally, what did this little trip give me? It gave me great views of the island, some practice in Spanish, a lot of local stories and folklore’s from the guides, and last but not least, a reminder about how incredible unfit I’m…

Big Brother, Little Brother

The days in Leon never saw more action then lazy days sunbathing by the swimming pool. I went out for some more sightseeing in the town but there wasn’t very much to see, so the pool became my home for the four days I spent in that old town.

After Leon sat I my eyes on Granada, another Nicaraguan town, build by the Spanish conquistadors. But before I came that far stayed I one night at Laguna de Apoyo, a crater lake and Nicaragua’s lowest point. It was a very

View from the hostel at Laguna de Apoyo

relaxed place and it reminded me a lot about Lago de Coatepeque in El Salvador. But since Nicaragua is a bit more touristy then El Salvador wasn’t I the only one around this time. And I did have company all the way from Leon. I met an English guy (Justin, a professional photographer without a camera…) in Leon and we travelled together from Leon to Laguna de Apoyo and then to Granada. The day at Laguna de Apoyo isn’t much to write about. It was pretty, the service was slow (we waited more then one hour for our food at the local restaurant) and quite expensive by Nicaraguan standards.

Typical clean and empty tourist street in Granada

After the day at Laguna de Apoyo took we the bus to Granada, which I would describe like the little brother of Leon (since Leon is twice the size of Granada). They both comes from the same parents (the Spanish) and they have a history of fighting between them (which brothers haven’t?). Since I’m the little brother myself would I love to say that Granada is the nicer of the two, but that would be a lye. Granada is in many ways a prettier town (like me…) with clean streets and new paint on all the buildings. Unfortunately does it feel like the new paint somehow covered the charm that the big brother Leon have. Granada is also very tourist and have a more posh feeling to it (I don’t know who of my two brothers are most posh, but they can always have a fight about it…). So after a two hour walk in the city wasn’t there much els to do than go to the bar or watch some football (had no swimming pool at this hostel) and then move on again.

The place I moved on to is Isla de Ometepe, an island in Lago Nicaragua, which is formed by two volcanoes that are connected by a narrow land bridge. I only arrived here a few hours ago, so I haven’t made any plans yet. All I know is that I’ll climb one of the volcanoes and maybe try to cycle around one of them aswell.

That’s the latest report from the west. Over and out.

What Is Leon?

I’m now in Leon. That sounds very bad in my head since I worked with a guy called Leon at eBay, the place with the highest concentration of gay men of all the places I worked. Now, as far as I know, that particular Leon isn’t gay, but maybe he’s still hiding in the closet, afraid to ruin his rocker image. But I guess it could be worse, the place could be called Adam…

Anyway, my personal gibberish aside, I’m now in the TOWN Leon. It’s the old

The Cathedral in Leon

capital of Nicaragua and is now a lovely little colonial town in the north of the country. I just came back to the hostel after a little walk around the town. There isn’t so much to see to be honest. Same, same but different as most old colonial towns in Central America. Old houses, markets, plazas and more churches than can be healthy for anyone. The biggest feature in Leon, in all senses of the word, is the Cathedral, the biggest cathedral in Central America. It’s really huge, but I do think the cathedral in Mexico City is bigger (I know that is North America…) and there isn’t so many decorations as in may other cathedrals and churches in this part of the world.

Churches, markets and old houses aside, the reason I really like Leon is the hostel where I’m staying. There is a swimming pool, really comfortable beds, free Internet and a relaxed atmosphere. I might stay here for a while, just relaxing by the pool.

The plan before I came here was to go to a paradise island off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, called Corn Islands, but after a quick check at the weather forecast for the next week did I decide to skip that and spend the time and money on other places and other paradise beaches further south.

On the way from San Salvador, where I spent the last day sightseeing (churches, markets and plazas plus some really nice, shining shopping mall ) and making up for the Irish fiasco by some Swedish nostalgia by seeing Mamma Mia in the cinema, did I make a stop in Managua, the present capital of Nicaragua. Managua isn’t the most beautiful city in the world and after a earthquake in 1972 isn’t there anything left of the old city centre either. Since they don’t have any money, after many years of civil war, to rebuild anything of the old, is the city now more like a bunch of suburbs spread out around shopping malls (to compare the shopping malls in Managua with the ones in San Salvador is like comparing 7-eleven with Harrods). I did go for a little walk around though, in what once was the city centre and looked at the ruins there, before I ran back home and took shelter in my room, watching violent demonstrations on the streets of Managua on my TV. The violence had something to do with an election but I couldn’t make out more then that. Pretty nasty pictures of masked demonstrators throwing stones, shooting some kind of smoke granates and trashing cars. Probably not enough violence to make it to the news in Europe, but not very nice when you’re in the city (even if I never saw anything more then peaceful demonstrators with my own eyes).

Peaceful demonstrations in Managua

A Story About An Evening Out In San Salvador

This is a little story about how it can be, going out in San Salvador, a city in a country where you don’t know the language or any people.

I had heard from reliable sources (Lonely Planet that is…) that there was an Irish pub close to where I’m staying. The reliable source also told me that they had Guinness on tap. Well, I thought, isn’t that the golden opportunity to meet someone that speaks a language I know and at the same time remember good old days in Dublin. So to the Irish pub I went.

The place is called La Arpa Irlanda, which in my head should mean the Irish Harp (correct me if I’m wrong again…), and at first sight it all looked like the way an Irish pub normally does outside of Ireland. Irish memorabilia on the walls, harps painted here and there and all set in dark, polished wood. This Irish pub was a bit different though from the normal Irish pubs I learned to know and love in Dublin. It was different on several accounts: nobody, no staff nor customers, spoke any English, the owner was German, they didn’t serve any Guinness at all, and the beer they had was really cheap. I did stay for a while anyway. First one to guess the right reason for me staying in that place will win a pint from me next time we both are in Dublin…

After a while, just sitting in the bar watching the El Salvadorians and Germans doing there buisness (the German owner played a game of chess in the bar with a local guy, that’s how lively this place was…), did I decide to move on to something more “happening” place.

The pick for the rest of the evening was a bar just around the corner from my guesthouse. I had walked past it a few times before, both in daytime and in the evening, and it always sounded like it was a good craic. The big neon lights in the front of the building said “Karaoke Bar”, but I could hear some live music from inside. Nothing much to argue about I thought, and went inside and ordered a beer. I hadn’t more then received my beer when the band declared that that was the final song from them for the day (don’t ask me how I know what they said since it was in Spanish, but I did get the point…).

So we’re all in a karaoke bar and the live band stopped playing. Can only mean one thing? Right? Oh’yes, that mean a video concert with Sepeltura (for you who don’t know this Mozarts of our time, look them up, it’s pure quality… and yes, that was irony…) on the TV screens. During the video concert was there one guy that started jamming on an electric guitar on the stage, and another guy jamming, on a completely different melody, on a bass. After a short eternity of Sepeltura/guitar/bass was there some brave soul that started singing some karaoke… It sounded the way karaoke normally sounds, so at that point I went home…