Big Corn Island has been very cool, very mellow. The flight here was a bit intense, I don't like those little planes! There were a few violent grabs of Antons arm while in flight...We found a pretty decent hotel, $17 a night and we have TV, A.C that
always works, and a fridge! The island is really pretty...it's also insanely relaxed. Island life mon!
Friday night we went out and got very drunk, we partied with this dude from here that had ridiculously thick glasses and kept trying to talk to us about god. We were drunk enough that it didn't matter. We bought some blow from him for ridiculously cheap and bought him a few beers for his trouble. It was a little sketchy but whatever. 10 dollars for half a gram? I'll take it!
Saturday we went snorkeling and found some cool coral. There was a ship wreck we wanted to check out but by the time we were heading out the waves were way too big and we were getting exhausted. We found a good restaurant and were planning to go out later but we ended up falling asleep at 7 and sleeping till the next day! Haha, it was needed though.
Sunday we partied it up again, resulting in a very bad hangover for me come Monday. Gobs of beer, rum, and cocaine...that'll do it. When we woke up we took pain killers and muscle relaxers, but instead of just feeling good they KNOCKED US OUT. We ended up sleeping for most of the afternoon, and went and ate gobs of lobster that night for the big b-day. Anton drank, I watched, and we went to bed pretty early.
Now we have just woken up and are at the internet. We're going to go find some good eats somewhere new...I still don't feel all that super, I think I might be starting to get sick so I'm pounding water and Vitamin C.
Big Corn Island gets two thumbs up from me.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Honduras - Part of Nicaragua
We went to Rotan on July 14th, Monday (which is the bigger of the two islands) and it was extremely gorgeous. Muy muy! It was more expensive though, our air conditioningless room was 25 bucks! Patooey! We wandered around and drank at a fun bar on Monday night, met some cool people and watched the sun go down over the island. Tuesday we woke up early to go kayaking and snorkeling! It was SO fun. We rented the kayak for 8 hours at around 1145...we went out really far and snorkeled for awhile right at the start, then we kayaked to another bay on the island. It was such a workout. oh my gosh. After awhile it was like my arms weren´t even part of my body they were so tired and just on autopilot. We explored corals and bays and chased fishes for awhile, we saw a sting ray and this wild fish that cruised on the
bottom of the sand and slightly underneath it that was totally the color of the sand. He was so cute. We harassed him for quite awhile. We went ashore and took a break and had a few beers and some chips and salsa...there were more tourists in the second bay and there were lots of tubby pale kids to giggle at. There was also a chic with boobs the size of my head that I was pretty scared of. We put on sun
screen like 8 times during the day (more about that later) and after snorkeling for a couple hours started the ridiculously long journey back to the rental place. As the sun was going down we went out farther into the ocean and watched it....and then we all went overboard! We were fidgeting around trying to get in a good viewing
position and it all went to hell. Anton lost his sunglasses, we both lost our goggles and snorkels, and we each lost a flipper. Naturally without our goggles it was a loss to try and find stuff, and it was also way too deep. We were so deliriously tired from rowing and everything that it was just hilarious. I was laughing so hard it took everything in me to get myself back on the kayak...and then I fell off again. That resulted in even more laughing and weakness and inability
to get back on the Kayak. I managed, and it was a very long long long
journey back to the rental place.
Once we got back I started to realize that I was of course very very sunburned. I was a mess. I was also covered in bug bites. My back had like 15 bug bites...grumpy alecia resulted. I moped for awhile and then we got some super sunburn cream and that cheered me up. Luckily the sunburn on my back kinda destroyed the bug bites...they were gone the next day...I don´t know how that worked but I was glad. It was pretty ridiculous...My back and my legs were pretty fried. That cream worked wonders though. On Tuesday we just took it easy...wandered around and ate and stuff. There was a really yummy place called the Cannibal Cafe...the shirts there said 'We´ll have you....FOR DINNER'. Mildly amusing. Wednesday we took the ferry back to La Ceiba at 6AM and had to wait around 7 HOURS for the stupid ferry to
the other island, Utila. We finally got to Utila and it took forever to find a hotel. Utila was kind of annoying. It was super pretty and all...but everything was closed like 5 days a week...everything was mainly open MWF and the roads were super torn up and everyone was not all that nice to us because we weren´t divers. They´re an exclusive bunch, jeez. We made it fun though. We stayed there for 3 nights. We had to switch hotels after 2 nights but it wasn´t a big deal...we
took the ferry back to La Ceiba at 6 in the morning and took a taxi to the bus station. We got a bus to the capital, Tecegulpa or somethign like that? Some weird name I can´t pronounce. That place was freaky. It was so dirty and polluted...our hotel was in a pretty sketchy area and the only places around us only served fried chicken. We went across the street to get a beer and the bar was in a cage, like jail because it was so sketchy. We sat down for a beer and this WASTED guy
comes up and starts begging Anton for money...we told him no like 15 times and then he tries to sit down in the booth next to me. Anton of course was not having any of this and stood up and picked him up off the booth and the guy fell to the floor all wasted and dramatic. This did not deter this dude. A bunch of the people in the restaurant were yelling at him and he tried to sit down again! A cop with a massive
gun came in and slapped him hard on the back (it was such a hard slap, oh man, he was not messing aruond) and the guy flew towards the door and walked right into the wall next to the door he was so drunk. The cop pushed him out finally and we decided we had seen enough of that place. We bought some beers to go and went back to our hotel to read and watch CNN.
We were going to take a direct bus from there to Managua, Nicaragua but it was full, so Sunday we took 4 different public buses and one dude on a bicycle carriage and finally made it to Managua. We found a hotel and took a taxi to a sports bar and had some food and beverage and everyone here is much nicer. It´s also super cheap. It was mad hot though.
We were in Managua for two nights. That city was ehh, it was pretty boring and just big city ish. We had fun wandering around on Monday though. We saw a dead cat that Anton insisted on taking pictures of. Now I skip through that section on my camera very fast. Dumb boys. The hotel we stayed at was $15 a night but it had air so we were excited...needless to say there was a ´´power outage´´ at 7AM Tuesday and we both woke up sweating and miserable. There wasn´t even a fan, just dank and hot (and managua is a pretty warm place). The guy assured us it would come on later and that didn´t happen everyday. We were out all day and came back after dark and it had returned, so we were glad. We went out and had drinks that night and when we returned it was still on.
We woke up around 6:30 with no power. We´d asked around the day before and nobody else had power out so we figured he was just lying to save money and rarely had people stay at the dump more than a night to figure it out. So I freaked out. I started yelling at the guy and telling him to stop lying to me about there being a power outage and turn the shit back on. He´s like ´´oh no, it´s power outage, no power from company´´ so I walked across the street and they had power, he said that it was only on this side of the street. So I walked next door and asked if they had power, which they did. So I resumed yelling at him and told him that he needed to turn it back on ASAP or refund some of our money. He grumbled something about one hour and I returned to my room. I waited like 45 minutes and of course it didn´t
come back on. So then I lost it even more and yelled at him for like 20 minutes and he kept making up excuses like he couldn´t turn it back on and all this bullshit and cowering and then he got one of the ladies to talk to me and she was making up different lies and then the guy started yelling ´´shut up! shut up!´´ and giving me the bird and I just laughed, and they then found a guy that spoke english who told
us FIRST that there was no power because, and i quote, ´´the light in the clouds was here now´´ and we told him that we were told we´d have power and didn´t give a shit about the sun coming out, then we were told that they´d only turned the power off in our room (which wasn´t true because previously he´d demonstrated that the power was out in the lobby to try and get me to shut up) because we had to leave because that was the end of our stay! At 7 am they try to tell us that! I told them all a few choice words and we got ready and showered and hung out for a couple hours to piss them off and then left, Anton threw the key at the guy as we left. We also left a
toilet full of lots of crap and toilet paper, which i imagine was a very fun thing to clean up, considering you can´t put toilet paper in the toilets there. Haha. Fuck them.
So Tuesday we went to Granada. It was a really cool city. We found a decent hotel with a good fan for like 15 dollars a night, the only problem with it was the ceiling was so low Anton couldn´t stand up all the way. He hit his head on the door frame about 6 times, I estimate. Poor boy. Granada is beautiful though, It´s really old and has lots of cool old buildings and a really nice central park area with
fountains and statues and lots of trees. There are also horse drawn carriages all over, which I of course loved.
Tuesday neither of us felt all that great so we wandered around and had some food, had some drinks at a pretty cool bar but decided to call it quits pretty early due to our lack of feeling good. There were also lots of really douchey traveler people there, which was amusing. This one guy was trying SO HARD to get laid, he was just so desperate. He hit on anything that walked in. We laughed at him for awhile.
Wednesday we explored some more, we had a really good meal (I had pork and Anton had a massive full fish), went to a market, and went down to the lake just in time to get caught in the rain. We stood under a tree and waited for it to stop, then resumed our wandering. We went out for some drinks that night but the cool bar we liked was closed for a private party, so we explored a few other places. One had like 2 people in the bar, one of whom oddly enough used to live in Murray. His daughter was also born there, I imagine in the same hospital as me. Random! We went to another bar that was pretty lively but the drinks were expensive and the service was so horrible. We found some yummy Nicaraguan Cheladas at the third place, but they were closing so we went to the only bar open past 11 and finished up there with warm rum that was really gross. They didn´t even have shakers at this place!
Ridiculous.
Thursday we got up around 10 and got our stuff together, we had to take a bus back to Managua and then another bus to La Roma, where there was a boat that would take us to Bluefields. We got there at 6 only to be informed that the boats only left at 5.30 in the morning and at 2.45 in the afternoon. So we had to stay in a creepy little town in a pseudo creepy hotel. It had a good lock though, heh. We found a good restaurant there and had bacon wrapped steaks (hey, we´ve only been eating one meal a day...) with rice and fried plantains. Fried plantains are everywhere here. They are tasty, but we´re starting to miss potatoes. They´re not as easy to find.
This morning we had to wake up at 4.30 to catch the boat. It was a speed boat with room for like 15 people, it zipped us down the river in about an hour and a half. We were planning on taking the ferry to Corn Islands but after much confusion and incorrect answers we finally found out that the ferry is broken. Of course. So only one boat a week goes there and it´s on Wednesday. SIGH. So we got plane tickets for later this afternoon. They were $65 which is annoying compared to how cheap the ferry was, but we can´t hang out in this shitty town for a week and especially not when it´s Anton´s birthday on Monday! We´ve been very stingy overall though, so I don´t think it´s a big deal. Anton is very annoyed though. He´ll get over it. I´m almost kinda glad I don´t have to endure two 9 hour boat rides...I think the one will cause enough spewing for me. Well hopefully not, but I can´t
imagine I´ll feel too great.
So we´re killing time here for a little while...gonna get some Lobster (hopefully), a lot of the restaurants we go to are out of it or it´s expensive so we´re crossing our fingers that the places we read about do not have those problems. I´m not sure if the Big Corn Island is going to have internet or not. They don´t even have an ATM so I wouldn´t be suprised either way. But the only boat a week leaves Corn
Islands Thursday morning, so that´ll be the soonest we´ll be back to
the main land.
Nicaragua overall is beautiful. I think the people here are a bit nicer than in Honduras. It´s hard to say though. There´s dicks and there are really helpful people in each city. This place definitely feels more tropical. Hopefully the Corn Islands will be nice and drug fueled and wasted and all of that...we´re going to actually get a nice hotel there if possible for a few nights...I´m excited about that. A-C, cable TV, hot water....Where do you think this is, America!?
In other news I´ve read gobs of books. I´m out of control.
-How We Are Hungry, Dave Eggers (big fat EHHHH, not impressed)
-Rant, Chuck Pahlaniuk (i liked)
-The Traveler (don´t remember who it´s by, but it´s way good. First part of a trilogy.)
-Scar Tissue, Anthony Keidis (Love love loved it.)
-The Reality Dysfunction (massive 1224 page sci'fi book...i know. GLIVEN! I´m a huge nerd. But I loved it. Totally loved it. It´s also the beginning of a trilogy...i´m fucked.)
I´m currently reading the Kite Runner, which has made me cry like 3 times already and I´m only halfway through. I guess the ending is even worse...I´m going to be a mess. Poor Alecia, such a crybaby.
Miss everyone!
bottom of the sand and slightly underneath it that was totally the color of the sand. He was so cute. We harassed him for quite awhile. We went ashore and took a break and had a few beers and some chips and salsa...there were more tourists in the second bay and there were lots of tubby pale kids to giggle at. There was also a chic with boobs the size of my head that I was pretty scared of. We put on sun
screen like 8 times during the day (more about that later) and after snorkeling for a couple hours started the ridiculously long journey back to the rental place. As the sun was going down we went out farther into the ocean and watched it....and then we all went overboard! We were fidgeting around trying to get in a good viewing
position and it all went to hell. Anton lost his sunglasses, we both lost our goggles and snorkels, and we each lost a flipper. Naturally without our goggles it was a loss to try and find stuff, and it was also way too deep. We were so deliriously tired from rowing and everything that it was just hilarious. I was laughing so hard it took everything in me to get myself back on the kayak...and then I fell off again. That resulted in even more laughing and weakness and inability
to get back on the Kayak. I managed, and it was a very long long long
journey back to the rental place.
Once we got back I started to realize that I was of course very very sunburned. I was a mess. I was also covered in bug bites. My back had like 15 bug bites...grumpy alecia resulted. I moped for awhile and then we got some super sunburn cream and that cheered me up. Luckily the sunburn on my back kinda destroyed the bug bites...they were gone the next day...I don´t know how that worked but I was glad. It was pretty ridiculous...My back and my legs were pretty fried. That cream worked wonders though. On Tuesday we just took it easy...wandered around and ate and stuff. There was a really yummy place called the Cannibal Cafe...the shirts there said 'We´ll have you....FOR DINNER'. Mildly amusing. Wednesday we took the ferry back to La Ceiba at 6AM and had to wait around 7 HOURS for the stupid ferry to
the other island, Utila. We finally got to Utila and it took forever to find a hotel. Utila was kind of annoying. It was super pretty and all...but everything was closed like 5 days a week...everything was mainly open MWF and the roads were super torn up and everyone was not all that nice to us because we weren´t divers. They´re an exclusive bunch, jeez. We made it fun though. We stayed there for 3 nights. We had to switch hotels after 2 nights but it wasn´t a big deal...we
took the ferry back to La Ceiba at 6 in the morning and took a taxi to the bus station. We got a bus to the capital, Tecegulpa or somethign like that? Some weird name I can´t pronounce. That place was freaky. It was so dirty and polluted...our hotel was in a pretty sketchy area and the only places around us only served fried chicken. We went across the street to get a beer and the bar was in a cage, like jail because it was so sketchy. We sat down for a beer and this WASTED guy
comes up and starts begging Anton for money...we told him no like 15 times and then he tries to sit down in the booth next to me. Anton of course was not having any of this and stood up and picked him up off the booth and the guy fell to the floor all wasted and dramatic. This did not deter this dude. A bunch of the people in the restaurant were yelling at him and he tried to sit down again! A cop with a massive
gun came in and slapped him hard on the back (it was such a hard slap, oh man, he was not messing aruond) and the guy flew towards the door and walked right into the wall next to the door he was so drunk. The cop pushed him out finally and we decided we had seen enough of that place. We bought some beers to go and went back to our hotel to read and watch CNN.
We were going to take a direct bus from there to Managua, Nicaragua but it was full, so Sunday we took 4 different public buses and one dude on a bicycle carriage and finally made it to Managua. We found a hotel and took a taxi to a sports bar and had some food and beverage and everyone here is much nicer. It´s also super cheap. It was mad hot though.
We were in Managua for two nights. That city was ehh, it was pretty boring and just big city ish. We had fun wandering around on Monday though. We saw a dead cat that Anton insisted on taking pictures of. Now I skip through that section on my camera very fast. Dumb boys. The hotel we stayed at was $15 a night but it had air so we were excited...needless to say there was a ´´power outage´´ at 7AM Tuesday and we both woke up sweating and miserable. There wasn´t even a fan, just dank and hot (and managua is a pretty warm place). The guy assured us it would come on later and that didn´t happen everyday. We were out all day and came back after dark and it had returned, so we were glad. We went out and had drinks that night and when we returned it was still on.
We woke up around 6:30 with no power. We´d asked around the day before and nobody else had power out so we figured he was just lying to save money and rarely had people stay at the dump more than a night to figure it out. So I freaked out. I started yelling at the guy and telling him to stop lying to me about there being a power outage and turn the shit back on. He´s like ´´oh no, it´s power outage, no power from company´´ so I walked across the street and they had power, he said that it was only on this side of the street. So I walked next door and asked if they had power, which they did. So I resumed yelling at him and told him that he needed to turn it back on ASAP or refund some of our money. He grumbled something about one hour and I returned to my room. I waited like 45 minutes and of course it didn´t
come back on. So then I lost it even more and yelled at him for like 20 minutes and he kept making up excuses like he couldn´t turn it back on and all this bullshit and cowering and then he got one of the ladies to talk to me and she was making up different lies and then the guy started yelling ´´shut up! shut up!´´ and giving me the bird and I just laughed, and they then found a guy that spoke english who told
us FIRST that there was no power because, and i quote, ´´the light in the clouds was here now´´ and we told him that we were told we´d have power and didn´t give a shit about the sun coming out, then we were told that they´d only turned the power off in our room (which wasn´t true because previously he´d demonstrated that the power was out in the lobby to try and get me to shut up) because we had to leave because that was the end of our stay! At 7 am they try to tell us that! I told them all a few choice words and we got ready and showered and hung out for a couple hours to piss them off and then left, Anton threw the key at the guy as we left. We also left a
toilet full of lots of crap and toilet paper, which i imagine was a very fun thing to clean up, considering you can´t put toilet paper in the toilets there. Haha. Fuck them.
So Tuesday we went to Granada. It was a really cool city. We found a decent hotel with a good fan for like 15 dollars a night, the only problem with it was the ceiling was so low Anton couldn´t stand up all the way. He hit his head on the door frame about 6 times, I estimate. Poor boy. Granada is beautiful though, It´s really old and has lots of cool old buildings and a really nice central park area with
fountains and statues and lots of trees. There are also horse drawn carriages all over, which I of course loved.
Tuesday neither of us felt all that great so we wandered around and had some food, had some drinks at a pretty cool bar but decided to call it quits pretty early due to our lack of feeling good. There were also lots of really douchey traveler people there, which was amusing. This one guy was trying SO HARD to get laid, he was just so desperate. He hit on anything that walked in. We laughed at him for awhile.
Wednesday we explored some more, we had a really good meal (I had pork and Anton had a massive full fish), went to a market, and went down to the lake just in time to get caught in the rain. We stood under a tree and waited for it to stop, then resumed our wandering. We went out for some drinks that night but the cool bar we liked was closed for a private party, so we explored a few other places. One had like 2 people in the bar, one of whom oddly enough used to live in Murray. His daughter was also born there, I imagine in the same hospital as me. Random! We went to another bar that was pretty lively but the drinks were expensive and the service was so horrible. We found some yummy Nicaraguan Cheladas at the third place, but they were closing so we went to the only bar open past 11 and finished up there with warm rum that was really gross. They didn´t even have shakers at this place!
Ridiculous.
Thursday we got up around 10 and got our stuff together, we had to take a bus back to Managua and then another bus to La Roma, where there was a boat that would take us to Bluefields. We got there at 6 only to be informed that the boats only left at 5.30 in the morning and at 2.45 in the afternoon. So we had to stay in a creepy little town in a pseudo creepy hotel. It had a good lock though, heh. We found a good restaurant there and had bacon wrapped steaks (hey, we´ve only been eating one meal a day...) with rice and fried plantains. Fried plantains are everywhere here. They are tasty, but we´re starting to miss potatoes. They´re not as easy to find.
This morning we had to wake up at 4.30 to catch the boat. It was a speed boat with room for like 15 people, it zipped us down the river in about an hour and a half. We were planning on taking the ferry to Corn Islands but after much confusion and incorrect answers we finally found out that the ferry is broken. Of course. So only one boat a week goes there and it´s on Wednesday. SIGH. So we got plane tickets for later this afternoon. They were $65 which is annoying compared to how cheap the ferry was, but we can´t hang out in this shitty town for a week and especially not when it´s Anton´s birthday on Monday! We´ve been very stingy overall though, so I don´t think it´s a big deal. Anton is very annoyed though. He´ll get over it. I´m almost kinda glad I don´t have to endure two 9 hour boat rides...I think the one will cause enough spewing for me. Well hopefully not, but I can´t
imagine I´ll feel too great.
So we´re killing time here for a little while...gonna get some Lobster (hopefully), a lot of the restaurants we go to are out of it or it´s expensive so we´re crossing our fingers that the places we read about do not have those problems. I´m not sure if the Big Corn Island is going to have internet or not. They don´t even have an ATM so I wouldn´t be suprised either way. But the only boat a week leaves Corn
Islands Thursday morning, so that´ll be the soonest we´ll be back to
the main land.
Nicaragua overall is beautiful. I think the people here are a bit nicer than in Honduras. It´s hard to say though. There´s dicks and there are really helpful people in each city. This place definitely feels more tropical. Hopefully the Corn Islands will be nice and drug fueled and wasted and all of that...we´re going to actually get a nice hotel there if possible for a few nights...I´m excited about that. A-C, cable TV, hot water....Where do you think this is, America!?
In other news I´ve read gobs of books. I´m out of control.
-How We Are Hungry, Dave Eggers (big fat EHHHH, not impressed)
-Rant, Chuck Pahlaniuk (i liked)
-The Traveler (don´t remember who it´s by, but it´s way good. First part of a trilogy.)
-Scar Tissue, Anthony Keidis (Love love loved it.)
-The Reality Dysfunction (massive 1224 page sci'fi book...i know. GLIVEN! I´m a huge nerd. But I loved it. Totally loved it. It´s also the beginning of a trilogy...i´m fucked.)
I´m currently reading the Kite Runner, which has made me cry like 3 times already and I´m only halfway through. I guess the ending is even worse...I´m going to be a mess. Poor Alecia, such a crybaby.
Miss everyone!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Honduras
We have made it to Honduras!
We got mad ripped off leaving Flores! On our bus ride up to Tikal a guy that was WORKING ON THE STUPID BUS asked us where we were going and such and when we told him he offered to sell us a bus ticket, as the bus left at 5.30 in the morning. Us, being trusting, took him up on it and bough two tickets for 250 each, which was like 75 bucks all together. In the morning we were talking to our front desk friend at the hotel and he was kinda confused and asking us why we weren´t going to the bus terminal for the bus, we showed him the 'ticket' and he was like umm...i don´t know...i don´t know.... and then the guy that sold us the ticket showed up in a taxi. Our hotel guy told us that he was a bad person, Mal persona, and we´re like oh good...shit...so the mal persona was like ´come, get in my taxi, i take you to the bus terminal!´´ we were like okay, got in, and then he tried to sell us another ticket, as the ticket we had took us to the border but we wanted to get to another city. at this point we told him hell no, that we would buy it there. after observing him for the last few minutes it became extremely apparent that this guy was coked up OUT OF HIS MIND, constantly eyes darting everywhere, sniffling and rubbing his nose. So I´m getting ready to leap out of the cab if the driver turns down any alleys or anything sketchy, but he actually does take us to the terminal. he starts frantically scribbling another ticket, blabbering and not making any sense, trying to take our old ticket which i ripped out of his hand. one of the bus terminal workers came up immediately (probably seen this happen before) and we ask him if it´s a real ticket. it´s not, of course. so I told the frantic coked up mal persona to go...well, to go fuck himself and that he is a piece of shit and flipped him off, and we walked to buy a real ticket. the real tickets were like a third the cost...so i guess we paid about 75 dollars for the taxi from the hotel to the bus terminal. hahahaha. neither of us were too upset or anything, it was definitely a learning experience, and it was just so ridiculous that we had to laugh.
anyways, we took the bus ride to the border and luckily there was a black dude on the bus that was going to a similar point in honduras. he spoke english but he was Garifuna, and had such a thick carribbean accent mon! the garifuna people are a mix of rebel slaves that the british shipped off from another island and the natives from honduras. we were actually going to the specific town in honduras to see their dance festival. so anyways, we caught a taxi with him from the terminal, through the border, and to the next bus terminal to catch another bus to Puerto Cortez, which was our final destination for the night. Honduras is way more tropical than Guatemala was...it´s gorgeous. Definitely very poor and very humid though. there are lots of cool tropical trees and such. Me gusta! anyways, the Garifuna guy (who was shoeless, by the way) was talking to us and helping us figure stuff out, though we could barely understand him. he was moving from belize to honduras to live with his mom again, i think. his accent was absurd. He learned english from da streets mon! So we caught our bus to Puerto Cortez, where there were NO tourists, absolutely none, and found a hotel with air conditioning. we got cleaned up and blasted the ac and watched CNN for awhile, which was nice. we decided to go to the neighboring town Baja Mar for the dance festival that evening. Baja Mar was so absurdly poor and everyone was black. We were the only non black people there. There were no restaurants, no hotels, garbage everywhere...everyone was really nice though! we ordered a beer at the ¨bar¨, which was really somebody´s front porch, and watched it rain for awhile. the people todl us that the festival was the following day, but that this night there was a big cookoff to kinda get things started. we walked down the beach to where all the little huts were set up with people cooking and found one that was more like the previous bar and sat down. the little kids were amazed by anton. they kept playing with his guaged ears and poking at him and such. there have been so many little kids that just look him up and down and look amazed...people aren´t as tall here, heh. i took a picture of the little boy and anton, and he was so excited to see himself on the camera. he begged me to let him take a picture too, so i let him take a picture of a few little girls and of his mom. they were all so ridiculously excited. all the little girls were pushing eachother out of the way and trying to get in the front of the picture. we ate a fish with these fried plantains that were delicious and had a few more beers...at this point we were getting eaten alive by mosquitos so we caught on of the few cabs that goes through that area and went back to Puerto Cortez. everything there was ridiculously cheap, beers were under a dollar, we went to another restaurant and anton got this huge burger and fries for like 3 dollars...mad mad tight. Then we passed out.
the next morning (yesterday) we took a bus from Puerto Cortez to San Pedro Sula to catch the bus to La Ceiba, which is another town on the water. We had to go really inland and out of the way but there are no direct buses, so whatever. We arrived here and found one of the recommended hotels for the town, Hotel Rotterdam, and checked in. 13 dollars a night. There is no air conditioning and no tv, no hot water...but the lack of air conditioning combined with the cold shower isn´t so bad. it actually reminds me of being little and being hosed off after swimming, that´s exactly the way our shower is. La Ceiba is more of a party town, so we went out last night and drank and explored. We had a pretty good meal and found some cheap drinks. Then we passed out.
We were going to try and take the ferry to one of the bay islands today but we decided to stay another night. We´re using the internet now and then we´re going to find some food and figure out how to take the ferry.
Honduras is not as apt to bartering prices, things are pretty set (though still ridiculously cheap, cheaper than Guatemala). everyone tries to rip us off though. now we´ve started writing down everything so we make sure we know how much it costs. we add up what we order at restaurants and they ALWAYS try to charge us more, and then claim there´s no tip. needless to say we´ve been some pretty cheap tippers lately. damn hondurans!
the diarrhea has finally subsided. anton was very excited to have some solid stools this morning. i´m sure it will be back soon though. owell!!
i was constipated for a few days and didn´t think my bacteria filled excrement should be sticking around for that long, so i took a laxative. at one of the bars last night it was like OH MY GOD ITS KICKED IN and i dashed to the bathroom. toilet paper, check. seat on toilet, check. all is well! i did my business and such, and then went to flush. nothing. i´ve certainly fixed lots of toilets in my day, so i took the lid off the toilet and tried to figure it out. i failed. so....i ran from the bathroom. just booked it. it was so much poo too. sweet embarassing bathroom story number two!
i´ve gotten 4 mosquito bites so far, but we´re on anti-malaria medicine so all is well. one of the buggers flew up antons pants and bit him like 4 times when we were at baja mar, poor boy. the anti-malaria medication gives you really weird hallucinatory dreams. every morning we describe our wacky dreams to eachother...they´re not scary necessarily, but they are always similar enough to current life to kinda throw you off. right before i woke up yesterday i had a dream where anton and i were fighting and then i was watching the news and i started to tell him about the news story and i was talking out loud and woke myself up. then i was all delirious and was still mad at him for a few minutes before i figured out what the hell was going on. wild stuff! better than malaria though!
We got mad ripped off leaving Flores! On our bus ride up to Tikal a guy that was WORKING ON THE STUPID BUS asked us where we were going and such and when we told him he offered to sell us a bus ticket, as the bus left at 5.30 in the morning. Us, being trusting, took him up on it and bough two tickets for 250 each, which was like 75 bucks all together. In the morning we were talking to our front desk friend at the hotel and he was kinda confused and asking us why we weren´t going to the bus terminal for the bus, we showed him the 'ticket' and he was like umm...i don´t know...i don´t know.... and then the guy that sold us the ticket showed up in a taxi. Our hotel guy told us that he was a bad person, Mal persona, and we´re like oh good...shit...so the mal persona was like ´come, get in my taxi, i take you to the bus terminal!´´ we were like okay, got in, and then he tried to sell us another ticket, as the ticket we had took us to the border but we wanted to get to another city. at this point we told him hell no, that we would buy it there. after observing him for the last few minutes it became extremely apparent that this guy was coked up OUT OF HIS MIND, constantly eyes darting everywhere, sniffling and rubbing his nose. So I´m getting ready to leap out of the cab if the driver turns down any alleys or anything sketchy, but he actually does take us to the terminal. he starts frantically scribbling another ticket, blabbering and not making any sense, trying to take our old ticket which i ripped out of his hand. one of the bus terminal workers came up immediately (probably seen this happen before) and we ask him if it´s a real ticket. it´s not, of course. so I told the frantic coked up mal persona to go...well, to go fuck himself and that he is a piece of shit and flipped him off, and we walked to buy a real ticket. the real tickets were like a third the cost...so i guess we paid about 75 dollars for the taxi from the hotel to the bus terminal. hahahaha. neither of us were too upset or anything, it was definitely a learning experience, and it was just so ridiculous that we had to laugh.
anyways, we took the bus ride to the border and luckily there was a black dude on the bus that was going to a similar point in honduras. he spoke english but he was Garifuna, and had such a thick carribbean accent mon! the garifuna people are a mix of rebel slaves that the british shipped off from another island and the natives from honduras. we were actually going to the specific town in honduras to see their dance festival. so anyways, we caught a taxi with him from the terminal, through the border, and to the next bus terminal to catch another bus to Puerto Cortez, which was our final destination for the night. Honduras is way more tropical than Guatemala was...it´s gorgeous. Definitely very poor and very humid though. there are lots of cool tropical trees and such. Me gusta! anyways, the Garifuna guy (who was shoeless, by the way) was talking to us and helping us figure stuff out, though we could barely understand him. he was moving from belize to honduras to live with his mom again, i think. his accent was absurd. He learned english from da streets mon! So we caught our bus to Puerto Cortez, where there were NO tourists, absolutely none, and found a hotel with air conditioning. we got cleaned up and blasted the ac and watched CNN for awhile, which was nice. we decided to go to the neighboring town Baja Mar for the dance festival that evening. Baja Mar was so absurdly poor and everyone was black. We were the only non black people there. There were no restaurants, no hotels, garbage everywhere...everyone was really nice though! we ordered a beer at the ¨bar¨, which was really somebody´s front porch, and watched it rain for awhile. the people todl us that the festival was the following day, but that this night there was a big cookoff to kinda get things started. we walked down the beach to where all the little huts were set up with people cooking and found one that was more like the previous bar and sat down. the little kids were amazed by anton. they kept playing with his guaged ears and poking at him and such. there have been so many little kids that just look him up and down and look amazed...people aren´t as tall here, heh. i took a picture of the little boy and anton, and he was so excited to see himself on the camera. he begged me to let him take a picture too, so i let him take a picture of a few little girls and of his mom. they were all so ridiculously excited. all the little girls were pushing eachother out of the way and trying to get in the front of the picture. we ate a fish with these fried plantains that were delicious and had a few more beers...at this point we were getting eaten alive by mosquitos so we caught on of the few cabs that goes through that area and went back to Puerto Cortez. everything there was ridiculously cheap, beers were under a dollar, we went to another restaurant and anton got this huge burger and fries for like 3 dollars...mad mad tight. Then we passed out.
the next morning (yesterday) we took a bus from Puerto Cortez to San Pedro Sula to catch the bus to La Ceiba, which is another town on the water. We had to go really inland and out of the way but there are no direct buses, so whatever. We arrived here and found one of the recommended hotels for the town, Hotel Rotterdam, and checked in. 13 dollars a night. There is no air conditioning and no tv, no hot water...but the lack of air conditioning combined with the cold shower isn´t so bad. it actually reminds me of being little and being hosed off after swimming, that´s exactly the way our shower is. La Ceiba is more of a party town, so we went out last night and drank and explored. We had a pretty good meal and found some cheap drinks. Then we passed out.
We were going to try and take the ferry to one of the bay islands today but we decided to stay another night. We´re using the internet now and then we´re going to find some food and figure out how to take the ferry.
Honduras is not as apt to bartering prices, things are pretty set (though still ridiculously cheap, cheaper than Guatemala). everyone tries to rip us off though. now we´ve started writing down everything so we make sure we know how much it costs. we add up what we order at restaurants and they ALWAYS try to charge us more, and then claim there´s no tip. needless to say we´ve been some pretty cheap tippers lately. damn hondurans!
the diarrhea has finally subsided. anton was very excited to have some solid stools this morning. i´m sure it will be back soon though. owell!!
i was constipated for a few days and didn´t think my bacteria filled excrement should be sticking around for that long, so i took a laxative. at one of the bars last night it was like OH MY GOD ITS KICKED IN and i dashed to the bathroom. toilet paper, check. seat on toilet, check. all is well! i did my business and such, and then went to flush. nothing. i´ve certainly fixed lots of toilets in my day, so i took the lid off the toilet and tried to figure it out. i failed. so....i ran from the bathroom. just booked it. it was so much poo too. sweet embarassing bathroom story number two!
i´ve gotten 4 mosquito bites so far, but we´re on anti-malaria medicine so all is well. one of the buggers flew up antons pants and bit him like 4 times when we were at baja mar, poor boy. the anti-malaria medication gives you really weird hallucinatory dreams. every morning we describe our wacky dreams to eachother...they´re not scary necessarily, but they are always similar enough to current life to kinda throw you off. right before i woke up yesterday i had a dream where anton and i were fighting and then i was watching the news and i started to tell him about the news story and i was talking out loud and woke myself up. then i was all delirious and was still mad at him for a few minutes before i figured out what the hell was going on. wild stuff! better than malaria though!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Flores, Guatemala
We have made it to Flores, where the Tikal ruins are just to the
north! Monday was a busy day of bus rides...we took a shuttle bus
(which is more like a large minivan) from Lake Aitlan to Antigua. We
had a wonderful meal there...we had Argentina sausage, cappuchino´s
and tea, 2 twelve ounce steaks (i had about six ounces, anton had like
18), french fries, and it also came with a full salad bar that had
different pastas and veggie salads and such. $45!! It was so much
food. Oh, we also had tiramisu that was killer...mad tight.
We finished that and took a Chicken Bus (the public buses...everyone
is packed in like chickens. They´re kind of like a school bus but
with less wide aisles. And blasting mariachi music.) But anyways, we
got to Guatemala City and had to take a taxi to the bus terminal where
we took a much improved coach bus to Flores. It left around 8:15 and
we arrived at 4:15AM. It had individual seats...but of course none of
the lights worked and there was a padlock on the bathroom. We
managed a little bit of sleep but it was hard...the Guatemalans are
definitely a smaller breed of people than we are. Especially poor
Anton. He´s too big for everything. We just make sure he has an
aisle seat and can either put his legs into the aisle or i put my legs
up and he takes my leg room...it´s like a puzzle. It´s fine, though.
We make it work. It definitely would have been a good idea to bring
one of those U shaped neck pillows...Owell tho. It´s been nice to be in the same place for a few mnights, I much prefer
relaxing and taking my time to frantically packing in too many
activities. Anton feels the same way, so I think we´ll continue to
get along.
When we got off the bus Tuesday morning we were in Santa Elena, which is
like 10 Kilometers from Flores. We sat at a little cafe for a couple
hours reading and looking at stray dogs waiting for stuff to get open.
So many stray dogs.
Flores is a little island on the lake that is surrounded by Santa
Elena...there´s a little road bridge that connects the two. I love
Flores! It´s so pretty, and it´s small so we can figure our way
around pretty well...our hotel is 12 dollars a night and is right on
the lake. Tuesday we slept all day in our hotel and woke up around 5 and (get
this) watched TV!! What the heck!!? Our stupid 12 dollars a night
hotel has TV, hot water, AND a fan. We are truely living like kings
here. We just had a really yummy dinner...cream of asparagus soup
that was not at all creamy and very delcious...I had beef stroganoff
that was rice, veggies, and beef in a really tasty sauce, Anton had a
shishkabob of meats that included Venicin, some sort of jungle rodent,
and a beef of some sort. I liked mine better, but we were both very
happy. Mine had lots of veggies, something I´ve definitely been
missing. Tuesday night we got mad wasted, as per usual. We talked to some hippie chics that got robbed at Tikal at machete point. Pretty absurd. Mad mad wasted.
Wednesday was a nice relaxing day. We slept in, checked out the island, walked across the land bridge to use the bank...ate pizza...booked our tickets for today´s tikal trip and basically just drank besides that. Mad drinking. We met some random people and ran into one of the groups of british chics that was on our volcano hike with us...we told the one really annoying one that she was annoying which was funny. We were drunk enough that it didn´t matter and I didn´t feel bad. Though even now when I´m sober I don´t feel bad. Dumb asian bitch would not stop squealing and freaking out about everything. Jeeeez.
This morning our bus left for Tikal at 10AM, which was hard. Anton had to shake me pretty hard to get me moving, I was just a tad hungover. But we managed and ate burritos on the minivan where we talked to a dutch family and picked up some hitchhiking israeli chics. They didn´t have shaved legs and I was scared.
Anyways, Tikal was SWEET. We probably walked about 6 miles because it´s such a big park, there are the main ruins in the center and then lots of other seperate ruins. One of them we climbed up about 60 meters on this rickety wooden ladder. I was like shaking. I was so scared. It was worth it when we got up there though, you could see for just miles and miles and miles and it was all the tops of the jungle canopy and there were a couple of the other tall ruins poking through...very beautiful.
After our mad partying and wandering and the intense heat and humidity I was definitely ready to leave at 4, I had a headache and was so beat. I passed out on the bus and when I woke up felt much better. We layed and read for awhile and festered in our stink, showered, and went for food and drinks. I ordered nachos but apparently nachos here just means tortilla chips and no cheese. Whatever. Anton had like 3 dinners and was finally full. Tomorrow our bus leaves at 5:30AM for Honduras...it´s about an 8 hour bus ride. I´m going to try and get some mad sleep.
So I guess besides the intense diarrhea everything has been good. But yeah...intense diarrhea. We started our anti-malaria antibiotic today so hopefully that will alleviate it slightly...but i doubt it. It´s a huge plus that bathrooms rarely have toilet paper, you have to throw the available toilet paper in the trash cans (which smells lovely), and nowhere has soap..
Mad, mad, mad tight.
In other news, like everyone here has 1-3 babies. I swear I´ve seen
more babies in the last week than in my entire life. These girls that
look like they´re my age have one baby on the back, carrying a
slightly older baby, and holding hands with a toddler. And then
they´re also begging for money and trying to sell us yarn bracelets.
Definitely making me feel extremely fortunate...there has been some
very intense poverty. Plus chics that look my age are probably
actually like 15. Ridiculous. I guess it makes sense though since
like hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans died in the civil war in the
80´s...lots of the 30-50 year olds are dead. Time to repopulate. But
yeah...way too many babies. I was reading that in Nicaragua abortion
is completely illegal, even if it´s to save the mothers life!
Unbelievable! I guess that´s what happens in a country that´s 60%
catholic and like 25% evangelical. There are evangelical churches
everywhere. I read that lots of the Catholics got killed in the war
because they actually had the balls to speak out against the
killing...so then the evangelicals took hold!
north! Monday was a busy day of bus rides...we took a shuttle bus
(which is more like a large minivan) from Lake Aitlan to Antigua. We
had a wonderful meal there...we had Argentina sausage, cappuchino´s
and tea, 2 twelve ounce steaks (i had about six ounces, anton had like
18), french fries, and it also came with a full salad bar that had
different pastas and veggie salads and such. $45!! It was so much
food. Oh, we also had tiramisu that was killer...mad tight.
We finished that and took a Chicken Bus (the public buses...everyone
is packed in like chickens. They´re kind of like a school bus but
with less wide aisles. And blasting mariachi music.) But anyways, we
got to Guatemala City and had to take a taxi to the bus terminal where
we took a much improved coach bus to Flores. It left around 8:15 and
we arrived at 4:15AM. It had individual seats...but of course none of
the lights worked and there was a padlock on the bathroom. We
managed a little bit of sleep but it was hard...the Guatemalans are
definitely a smaller breed of people than we are. Especially poor
Anton. He´s too big for everything. We just make sure he has an
aisle seat and can either put his legs into the aisle or i put my legs
up and he takes my leg room...it´s like a puzzle. It´s fine, though.
We make it work. It definitely would have been a good idea to bring
one of those U shaped neck pillows...Owell tho. It´s been nice to be in the same place for a few mnights, I much prefer
relaxing and taking my time to frantically packing in too many
activities. Anton feels the same way, so I think we´ll continue to
get along.
When we got off the bus Tuesday morning we were in Santa Elena, which is
like 10 Kilometers from Flores. We sat at a little cafe for a couple
hours reading and looking at stray dogs waiting for stuff to get open.
So many stray dogs.
Flores is a little island on the lake that is surrounded by Santa
Elena...there´s a little road bridge that connects the two. I love
Flores! It´s so pretty, and it´s small so we can figure our way
around pretty well...our hotel is 12 dollars a night and is right on
the lake. Tuesday we slept all day in our hotel and woke up around 5 and (get
this) watched TV!! What the heck!!? Our stupid 12 dollars a night
hotel has TV, hot water, AND a fan. We are truely living like kings
here. We just had a really yummy dinner...cream of asparagus soup
that was not at all creamy and very delcious...I had beef stroganoff
that was rice, veggies, and beef in a really tasty sauce, Anton had a
shishkabob of meats that included Venicin, some sort of jungle rodent,
and a beef of some sort. I liked mine better, but we were both very
happy. Mine had lots of veggies, something I´ve definitely been
missing. Tuesday night we got mad wasted, as per usual. We talked to some hippie chics that got robbed at Tikal at machete point. Pretty absurd. Mad mad wasted.
Wednesday was a nice relaxing day. We slept in, checked out the island, walked across the land bridge to use the bank...ate pizza...booked our tickets for today´s tikal trip and basically just drank besides that. Mad drinking. We met some random people and ran into one of the groups of british chics that was on our volcano hike with us...we told the one really annoying one that she was annoying which was funny. We were drunk enough that it didn´t matter and I didn´t feel bad. Though even now when I´m sober I don´t feel bad. Dumb asian bitch would not stop squealing and freaking out about everything. Jeeeez.
This morning our bus left for Tikal at 10AM, which was hard. Anton had to shake me pretty hard to get me moving, I was just a tad hungover. But we managed and ate burritos on the minivan where we talked to a dutch family and picked up some hitchhiking israeli chics. They didn´t have shaved legs and I was scared.
Anyways, Tikal was SWEET. We probably walked about 6 miles because it´s such a big park, there are the main ruins in the center and then lots of other seperate ruins. One of them we climbed up about 60 meters on this rickety wooden ladder. I was like shaking. I was so scared. It was worth it when we got up there though, you could see for just miles and miles and miles and it was all the tops of the jungle canopy and there were a couple of the other tall ruins poking through...very beautiful.
After our mad partying and wandering and the intense heat and humidity I was definitely ready to leave at 4, I had a headache and was so beat. I passed out on the bus and when I woke up felt much better. We layed and read for awhile and festered in our stink, showered, and went for food and drinks. I ordered nachos but apparently nachos here just means tortilla chips and no cheese. Whatever. Anton had like 3 dinners and was finally full. Tomorrow our bus leaves at 5:30AM for Honduras...it´s about an 8 hour bus ride. I´m going to try and get some mad sleep.
So I guess besides the intense diarrhea everything has been good. But yeah...intense diarrhea. We started our anti-malaria antibiotic today so hopefully that will alleviate it slightly...but i doubt it. It´s a huge plus that bathrooms rarely have toilet paper, you have to throw the available toilet paper in the trash cans (which smells lovely), and nowhere has soap..
Mad, mad, mad tight.
In other news, like everyone here has 1-3 babies. I swear I´ve seen
more babies in the last week than in my entire life. These girls that
look like they´re my age have one baby on the back, carrying a
slightly older baby, and holding hands with a toddler. And then
they´re also begging for money and trying to sell us yarn bracelets.
Definitely making me feel extremely fortunate...there has been some
very intense poverty. Plus chics that look my age are probably
actually like 15. Ridiculous. I guess it makes sense though since
like hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans died in the civil war in the
80´s...lots of the 30-50 year olds are dead. Time to repopulate. But
yeah...way too many babies. I was reading that in Nicaragua abortion
is completely illegal, even if it´s to save the mothers life!
Unbelievable! I guess that´s what happens in a country that´s 60%
catholic and like 25% evangelical. There are evangelical churches
everywhere. I read that lots of the Catholics got killed in the war
because they actually had the balls to speak out against the
killing...so then the evangelicals took hold!
Monday, July 7, 2008
sunday and monday
sunday we had to get up earlier than any sane person would like to catch a bus to chichicastanengo for a massive marketplace thing. we had to get up at like 6. absurd, but we survived considering we didn´t get wasted the night before.
the market was massive and chaotic. there were booths and booths and booths of bags and textiles and bead jewelry and such. i got an anklet and anton got a shirt and a pair of shorts. the shirt is one for Gallo, the big local beer here. naturally.
we had a lunch and explored, had to catch a bus to lake aitlan at 2. the lake was filthy but beautiful...it had three volcanoes surrounding it. the little town we were in was pretty...just one main street lined with restaurants and booths and people forcing textils on you. we ended up buying a scarf of sorts for about $2 because the lady was so persistant. i have never tried harder to say no and failed. we found a hotel for about 10 dollars that the guy promised had "agua caliente...si si agua caliente". there was no agua caliente. it was slightly above cold...but it was rather unpleasant. i guess you get what you pay for. at least in this one there was no dung water surounding the toilet and i didn´t spill beer all over the bed so it didn´t smell like shit. the extra two dollars over the antigua hotel really went a long way!
we went out last night and had fondue and wings, anton had 6 tacos for about $3...we drank beers and tequila and got pretty good and drunk. i called my parents which was sweet and anton called drew...we left and went home to pass the f out.
only to be awakened at like 7AM by the loudest push lawnmower EVER. like, it sounded like he was shoveling marbles and it was screeching and just terrible. neither of us were very pleased. we had to catch a bus at noon so we got ready and left around 10...took a shuttle back to antigua and had THE BEST breakfast-lunch-dinner so far....cappuccinos, argentina sausage for appetizer, 12 ounce steaks, fries, a salad bar with pasta, potatoes, different veggies...then tiramisu. it was 337 quetzales including gratuity. so.....45 dollars. hahahaa. so awesome.
now it´s computers and soon a 2 hour bus ride back to guatemala city followed by a TWELVE hour bus ride overnight to Flores, which is where the Tikal ruins are. we´re going to pop mad xanax and hopefully get some sleep...we´re taking the public bus so i imagine we´ll be stuffed in like sardines. should smell great.
on the plus side, antons diarrhea is finally slowing down. there were like 4 explosions yesterday. i have yet to diarrhea, but i also eat like half as much.
we´re going to spend 3-4 nights in Flores...we´re going to maybe pay like $15 dollars a night so we can avoid cold showers and the loudest lawnmower in the world. we´ll be so spoiled.
the market was massive and chaotic. there were booths and booths and booths of bags and textiles and bead jewelry and such. i got an anklet and anton got a shirt and a pair of shorts. the shirt is one for Gallo, the big local beer here. naturally.
we had a lunch and explored, had to catch a bus to lake aitlan at 2. the lake was filthy but beautiful...it had three volcanoes surrounding it. the little town we were in was pretty...just one main street lined with restaurants and booths and people forcing textils on you. we ended up buying a scarf of sorts for about $2 because the lady was so persistant. i have never tried harder to say no and failed. we found a hotel for about 10 dollars that the guy promised had "agua caliente...si si agua caliente". there was no agua caliente. it was slightly above cold...but it was rather unpleasant. i guess you get what you pay for. at least in this one there was no dung water surounding the toilet and i didn´t spill beer all over the bed so it didn´t smell like shit. the extra two dollars over the antigua hotel really went a long way!
we went out last night and had fondue and wings, anton had 6 tacos for about $3...we drank beers and tequila and got pretty good and drunk. i called my parents which was sweet and anton called drew...we left and went home to pass the f out.
only to be awakened at like 7AM by the loudest push lawnmower EVER. like, it sounded like he was shoveling marbles and it was screeching and just terrible. neither of us were very pleased. we had to catch a bus at noon so we got ready and left around 10...took a shuttle back to antigua and had THE BEST breakfast-lunch-dinner so far....cappuccinos, argentina sausage for appetizer, 12 ounce steaks, fries, a salad bar with pasta, potatoes, different veggies...then tiramisu. it was 337 quetzales including gratuity. so.....45 dollars. hahahaa. so awesome.
now it´s computers and soon a 2 hour bus ride back to guatemala city followed by a TWELVE hour bus ride overnight to Flores, which is where the Tikal ruins are. we´re going to pop mad xanax and hopefully get some sleep...we´re taking the public bus so i imagine we´ll be stuffed in like sardines. should smell great.
on the plus side, antons diarrhea is finally slowing down. there were like 4 explosions yesterday. i have yet to diarrhea, but i also eat like half as much.
we´re going to spend 3-4 nights in Flores...we´re going to maybe pay like $15 dollars a night so we can avoid cold showers and the loudest lawnmower in the world. we´ll be so spoiled.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
it´s not always the best idea to black out the night before hiking a volcano.
last night was retardedly drunken. we took a mixture of soma and vicodin that feels pretty much the same as heroin but less intense and drank like 50 beers each. we made friends with a chic from seattle and a local dude whose name i don´t remember. i talked his ear off in spanish or at least tried to. i think i did alright.
we stumbled around and i whined about being hungry but was too lazy to do anything about it and then i blacked out.
i guess when we got back to the hotel i spilled beer or water on the bed (we were both too wasted to remember, naturally) and so anton had to take the sheets off and flip the mattress. needless to say i woke up naked and still wasted on a bare mattress at around 9AM...a pretty depressing site. we both forgot to brush our teeth or wash our faces and the combined bad breath in the morning was stuff of legends.
when i woke up i was in the really energetic still drunk pre-hangover zone and was very afraid of the coming hours...luckily i ended up feeling more or less okay. we did some travel agency junk, ate ham pizza from a street cart and got picked up for our volcano hike around 2:30. it was a little over an hour ride to the point where you hike...the hike was INTENSE. it was 3 kilometers like STRAIGHT UP a mountain. many breaks were required for us fat americans. the tour guide and the locals were laughing at us. there were a bunch of kids trying to sell sticks and dudes with horses saying 'taxi! taxi!' i imagine fat americans are their dream because they´re too lazy to walk up the mountain themselves. needless to say the trail had lots of taxi droppings to avoid.
the volcano was pretty sick. there was lava we could see and just tons of black rock and steam and such. i guess occassionally it spews debris and kills people, but the volcano was nice while we were up there. there was an odd abundance of stray dogs that i guess just live up there...very strange. we hiked back down, took our shuttle back, ate subway and are now here. we´re both pretty exhausted...no drinking tonight. just xanax, a shower in the dung water hotel, and bed. and tonight i´l remember to brush my teeth.
last night was retardedly drunken. we took a mixture of soma and vicodin that feels pretty much the same as heroin but less intense and drank like 50 beers each. we made friends with a chic from seattle and a local dude whose name i don´t remember. i talked his ear off in spanish or at least tried to. i think i did alright.
we stumbled around and i whined about being hungry but was too lazy to do anything about it and then i blacked out.
i guess when we got back to the hotel i spilled beer or water on the bed (we were both too wasted to remember, naturally) and so anton had to take the sheets off and flip the mattress. needless to say i woke up naked and still wasted on a bare mattress at around 9AM...a pretty depressing site. we both forgot to brush our teeth or wash our faces and the combined bad breath in the morning was stuff of legends.
when i woke up i was in the really energetic still drunk pre-hangover zone and was very afraid of the coming hours...luckily i ended up feeling more or less okay. we did some travel agency junk, ate ham pizza from a street cart and got picked up for our volcano hike around 2:30. it was a little over an hour ride to the point where you hike...the hike was INTENSE. it was 3 kilometers like STRAIGHT UP a mountain. many breaks were required for us fat americans. the tour guide and the locals were laughing at us. there were a bunch of kids trying to sell sticks and dudes with horses saying 'taxi! taxi!' i imagine fat americans are their dream because they´re too lazy to walk up the mountain themselves. needless to say the trail had lots of taxi droppings to avoid.
the volcano was pretty sick. there was lava we could see and just tons of black rock and steam and such. i guess occassionally it spews debris and kills people, but the volcano was nice while we were up there. there was an odd abundance of stray dogs that i guess just live up there...very strange. we hiked back down, took our shuttle back, ate subway and are now here. we´re both pretty exhausted...no drinking tonight. just xanax, a shower in the dung water hotel, and bed. and tonight i´l remember to brush my teeth.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Guatemala City, Antigua
GUATEMALA!!!
We partied it up last night in Guatemala City. We found a place where we could get a bucket of 9 beers for about $10, including gratuity. Mad tight! Needless to say we had quite a few cervezas. This morning we checked out of our hostile and took an hour and a half bus ride to Antigua. It was a pretty intense bus ride, the driver was mad bookin´ it. There were some pretty tight corners... the bus was packed to the brim and there was wild Spanish music bumping. Very amusing.
We found a hotel here that is $8 per night for a private room and private bath...it´s a shitty place but whatever. There is hot water and such. It´s far better than the $45 per night we payed in Guatemala City! Antigua is far prettier than Guatemala City was...it´s up in the mountains and volcanoes, there are lots of tree covered peaks that are half hidden by the fog...very very pretty.
We just went and got fried chicken...I guess Guatemalans are obsessed with it. It was very tasty...now we are in a travel agency finding out about flights from here to Havana. Tomorrow we are going Volcano hiking and then Sunday we are going to a town a couple hours from here for the Chi-Chi market. Then we have to make our way to a town called Flores to visit Tikal, which is Mayan ruins. We´ll probably leave for Havana on the 10th or 11th or so...hopefully...we´re still waiting to
hear about prices and such.
Everybody here is very nice and helpful...very few people speak English so we´ve had a good time using our Spanish. Anton is actually pretty good considering he only started learning a few months ago.
I guess that tickets to Havana flying back into San Salvador would be almost $600 for the two of us...we´re trying to see if roundtrip from Cancun would be cheaper. I think we´ll do it either way though...we both really want to see Cuba. I think i´d have to smoke a cigar while I was there just to say I did...then I´ll proceed to cough up both of my lungs and collapse to the floor. Should be cool.
We were at a Pharmacy earlier buying Ibuprofen and checked the price of Vicodin...7.5 miligrams, 20 pills for about 15 dollars. Are you kidding me? That´s so tight. We didn´t buy any but maybe later...I wish they were that cheap in Mexico! There they are like $5 for one pill. F that.
So far nobody has offered us any cocaine. Maybe when we get further south it will start flowing like water.
Oh mad sweet. Round trip out of Cancun is only $400 for the two of us. Hmm...decisions decisions.
Wooooooooooo!!
We partied it up last night in Guatemala City. We found a place where we could get a bucket of 9 beers for about $10, including gratuity. Mad tight! Needless to say we had quite a few cervezas. This morning we checked out of our hostile and took an hour and a half bus ride to Antigua. It was a pretty intense bus ride, the driver was mad bookin´ it. There were some pretty tight corners... the bus was packed to the brim and there was wild Spanish music bumping. Very amusing.
We found a hotel here that is $8 per night for a private room and private bath...it´s a shitty place but whatever. There is hot water and such. It´s far better than the $45 per night we payed in Guatemala City! Antigua is far prettier than Guatemala City was...it´s up in the mountains and volcanoes, there are lots of tree covered peaks that are half hidden by the fog...very very pretty.
We just went and got fried chicken...I guess Guatemalans are obsessed with it. It was very tasty...now we are in a travel agency finding out about flights from here to Havana. Tomorrow we are going Volcano hiking and then Sunday we are going to a town a couple hours from here for the Chi-Chi market. Then we have to make our way to a town called Flores to visit Tikal, which is Mayan ruins. We´ll probably leave for Havana on the 10th or 11th or so...hopefully...we´re still waiting to
hear about prices and such.
Everybody here is very nice and helpful...very few people speak English so we´ve had a good time using our Spanish. Anton is actually pretty good considering he only started learning a few months ago.
I guess that tickets to Havana flying back into San Salvador would be almost $600 for the two of us...we´re trying to see if roundtrip from Cancun would be cheaper. I think we´ll do it either way though...we both really want to see Cuba. I think i´d have to smoke a cigar while I was there just to say I did...then I´ll proceed to cough up both of my lungs and collapse to the floor. Should be cool.
We were at a Pharmacy earlier buying Ibuprofen and checked the price of Vicodin...7.5 miligrams, 20 pills for about 15 dollars. Are you kidding me? That´s so tight. We didn´t buy any but maybe later...I wish they were that cheap in Mexico! There they are like $5 for one pill. F that.
So far nobody has offered us any cocaine. Maybe when we get further south it will start flowing like water.
Oh mad sweet. Round trip out of Cancun is only $400 for the two of us. Hmm...decisions decisions.
Wooooooooooo!!
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