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So I’m back… pretty much… in the NYC… Brooklyn to be specific… I drove up from visiting with family in North Carolina which was really fun… until the old home videos came out… most horrifically the video of my 3rd grade school play… in which an overzealous teacher had put so much makeup on me that I looked very much like a junior drag queen…

Tonight I’m heading out on the town with Polly and whoever else I can get to go out and get drunk and crazy on a Wednesday night… so that will be fun as all get out…

Then tomorrow I have the Joey Ramone Birthday Party at Irving Plaza with Dennis and whoever else we can find to go… which should be really fun as the Bouncing Souls are playing… if only for 20 minutes… Then I need to find a way to get my stuff from Marzena’s and get back to Long Island… which hopefully will be possible… because I really would like to see Amy and her baby tomorrow… How exciting is that?

Anwyay… gotta run…

LATA!

I’m back….

…in the United States anyway… for better or worse… I apologize for the lack of updates over the past 10 days… but I’ve been traveling heavily… spending about half of the past 10 nights sleeping while on either a bus or a train…

But let’s begin chronologically…

So let’s go back to the wonderful town of Puerto Vallarta… where I was scheduled to leave early in the morning on Monday the 2nd… I woke up and got to the bus station later than expected and so ended up in getting into Guadalajara after the last bus left for my next destination… I pulled out my cell phone and sent a text message to my friends Cristian and Carlos Ernesto who I had met my first time in Guadalajara… They came and got me at the bus station. After checking out my schedule for my dwindling time in Mexico, I decided to spend the rest of my time in Guadalajara… because I enjoy it there so much and I have friends and everything… so why spend the rest of my time bussing around?

Cristian and Carlos and their families and friends made me feel right at home and I got to see real Mexico… Eat real Mexican food… and get a taste of the heart of Mexico… which was really an awesome experience…

After a few days in Guadalajara I really had to leave… and I said goodbye to my friends and boarded a 15 hour bus to the border at Nuevo Laredo… I spent one night on the Mexico side before walking across the international bridge, crossing a pseudo-finishline of my trip… though I still had many thousands of miles to go…

My second night on a bus was spent on the way from Laredo, TX to Houston… where I arrived at 3am on Sunday the 8th… then I had to wait around the sketchy-as-hell Greyhound station until after 4am when the Amtrak station opened… Then I had 2 1/2 more hours before the train came… When I finally boarded the train, I had approximately 39 hours of travel time before reaching Orlando, FL.

About halfway through the trip we had a 6 hour layover in New Orleans.. which I used to walk down to Bourbon St. to drink beer in the streets and relive my glory days (aka last June) with Polly… all the feather boa and pastey-plastered craziness that was our time in New Orleans…

Sufficiently buzzed, I made my way back to the train and passed out for the night… waking up for the full day of train-sitting fun.

A note about trains: They take FOREVER… but if you’re not in a rush they’re kinda fun…

Arriving in Orlando, I rented a car and shot the 4 hours down to Naples where I had my first real bed and real (non lumpy-styrofoamesque) pillows… Definitely close to heaven…

Kate informed me yesterday that she booked her flight for the wrong day so I need to be in Savannah tomorrow night… I checked the auto driveaway website and it turns out that I’m going to be able to drive someone’s car up north… all gas paid… I’ll either be in a Taurus to Raleigh, NC with a $50 bus bonus to get me the rest of the way to NY, or in a Jeep to Connecticut… I’ll find out tomorrow… Either way is fine with me though…

Phew… so that’s my last 10 days in a nutshell… Tomorrow I’ll be on the road again… behind the wheel… WOOHOO!

Not sure how I feel about returning to “normalcy"… I think I’d rather still be in Guadalajara… but I’m kinda ambivalent about it all at the moment… but I’m not home yet… That’ll be the true test…

Me and the sun are at odds again… I spent like 5 hours out in the midday Mexican sun without sunscreen of any kind… and I don’t know what I was expecting but I’m a little crispy… Not terrible… but definitely a little burnt…

I’ve just been maxin’ and relaxin’ in Puerto Vallarta… a very cool place, indeed… the beach is beautiful and the perfect temperature… not so warm that it’s not refreshing and not so cold that it’s torture to get in… it’s just right…

I’m paying $29 (Yeeps!) for my hotel room but I’m like 10 steps from the beach and have air conditioning and a seaview balcony (pictures below)… Not much of anything exciting going on… just me getting sunburned and not wanting to leave… which I was supposed to do today… but I cut out another town I was going to visit… it was kinda out of the way and I’d rather spend more time enjoying Mexico than sitting on a bus watching Anacondas for the 4th time… (Yes.. I really have seen it 3 times… and it doesn’t get any better with age…)

I’m gonna throw a bunch of pictures up… all sorts of stuff… descriptions at the top of the popup windows.

Only 5 more days in Mexico… AHHHH!!!!

 

  

Church in Oaxaca

  

Plaza garden in Oaxaca

  

View from bus to Mexico City

  

Weird cacti

  

Sunset from bus

  

Neruda sculpture in Guadalajara

  

Pollution (from forest fire) - Guadalajara

  

Mexico has Sevs!

  

Mexico loves Erik Estrada...

  

Agave field - Where tequila is born..

  

Pretty tree on beach cliff - Puerto Vallarta

  

Beach sunset - PV

  

Sunset from my balcony - PV

 

Moderatto feat. Belinda - Muriendo Lento

The video can be found HERE

’nuff said.

Ok… so to update from the other day…

I missed 2 buses… The one up into the mountains, and then one to Mexico City… Losing a total of $30 in the process…

Missing the first bus I decided to skip the mountain town because the next bus there wouldn’t get me there until late at night, so instead I decided to just go straight to Guadalajara… Then I missed the bus I had a ticket for ansd had to take the next one… Luckily the woman at the ticket counter took pity on me and only charged me half price for the second ticket…

Once in Mexico City, I had to take a taxi from one bus terminal to another… which I was kinda nervous about… It’s VERY common in Mexico City for taxi drivers to take you somewhere, beat you, rob you, and dump you on the street… Luckily the bus terminal had an authorized taxi booth where they mark down the driver’s information and everything before sending you off…

I arrived at the other terminal and bought a ticket for the midnight bus to Guadalajara so I wouldn’t arrive too early (it’s a 7 hour ride)… I killed 2 hours exploring the huge terminal and getting a quesillo torta, a sandwich of this really good stringy cheese with jalepeño’s and other stuff… before boarding the comfortable bus and falling asleep…

I woke up in Guadalajara and navigated the local bus system to get downtown, avoiding the $7 cab fare in the process… and then went out exploring… I noticed the pollution right away… and people were walking around with surgical masks on… It kinda freaked me out… But later while watching the local news I saw that it’s not a normal thing and it’s just because there’s a huge wildfire burning just outside the city…

Guadalajara is a beautiful city, though… with lots of beautiful colonial architecture… It’s also a very cosmopolitan city… the 2nd largest in Mexico after Mexico City (the largest in the world)…

Tomorrow I head down to the coast to spend a few days relaxing on the beach in Puerto Vallarta before beginning the last stretch of travel toward the US border…

Sorry for the boring entry… not too much exciting going on… Gonna go find something to do right now so maybe later

Here’s some pics.. Beginning with a shot of the roof deck in my Mèrida hotel… and a pic of the (very newborn) kittens that were at the hotel as well… Then there’s a few pics from Palenque… including an ancient toilet!!

I’m now in Oaxaca (pronounced “wah-ha-ka") where I’m just spending one night before heading up into the mountains to try check out remote mountain life for a couple days… I probably won’t have internet up there but I should be in Guadalajara on Tuesday… though I’ll probably be getting in really late so don’t expect an entry til about Wednesday or so… assuming all my transportation stuff works out…

Anyway… off to enjoy my day here in Oaxaca!

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Picture it… San Cristobal de las Casas… a picturesque colonial mountain town in the highlands of the turbulent Mexican state of Chiapas, home of the largest population of Maya descendent indigenous people… and also the heart of the Zapatistas… an armed movement of poor indigenous people against the Mexican government’s policies which threaten to destroy their culture.

There have been many bloody conflicts in the surrounding mountains in the past 10 years or so… though it’s been relatively quiet for the past couple. Overall, this town at least, remains calm and pleasant… with many foreigners getting “stuck” here because of the beauty of it…

I, unfortunately, am strapped for time in Mexico so I’ve only had about a day and a half to explore a bit… but what I’ve found is quite nice… pretty little hotels, tons of nice, cheap, little restaurants… lots of handicrafts… it’s very nice indeed…

Now to bring you up to date:

Before I get to San Cris yesterday, I spent 2 nights at Palenque, yet another ancient Mayan ruin. It probably seems pretty repetitive from the pictures… “yeah, yeah… another big pile of rocks..” you might be thinking… but when you’re there on the ground they each have their own very different feel… my Lonely Planet describes Palenque as “the most romantic of the Mayan cities” and I would have to agree… there’s just something about it… the jungle setting… the subtle differences in architecture from the other ruins I’ve been to…

I met a couple from Seattle in the shuttle van on the way to the ruins proper and then we met up with a couple Kiwis (New Zealanders) and we chipped in to get a guide… which proved to be very informative…

While waiting out by the entrance for the rest of the group to finish exploring on their own, I had a funny experience… Two Mexican women approached smiling… the older one said “queremos sacar unas fotos contigo… ” (We want pictures with you) and then I picked out other phrases such as “muy guapo” (very handsome)… After getting photographed with the daughter and then the mother (as I found out they were), the mother thanked me and said “tus ojos son muy bonito” (you have beautiful eyes)…

It was really funny… At first I thought they were trying to rob me… which I feel really bad about now ‘cause they totally weren’t… and I hate having to assume things like that when traveling… but that’s how you don’t get robbed…

I have a bunch of pictures from the past few days which I will post as soon as I get my pictures dumped to a CD… ‘cause I have no space left… I’ve taken over a gigabyte worth of photos… and something like 350mb of video clips… and that’s only been since I got the new camera in Honduras…

Voy a almuerzar… hasta mas tarde!

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I was supposed to leave Mèrida today… but I couldn’t get a ticket yesterday for the bus I wanted… so I decided to peruse more of Mèrida’s offerings… I ended up spening a few hours in the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Ateneo de Yucatan… a modern art museum showing work of Yucatecan artists… There was some really cool stuff there.. I really liked Miguel A. Cime’s paintings… I’ll post pictures below…

There was another exhibit with sculptures from a woman named Naomi Siegmann. This was really cool… the exhibit was called Plantae II and was composed of different sculptures mimicking nature and plants with materials like bronze and old tires as well as real wood and leaves… very cool..

There’s also a night picture of one of the courtyard areas in the hotel as well… and a picture of a church built by conquistadors on the location of a Mayan temple, using the stone from that temple… insulting as hell, eh?

The rest of the day I’m gonna spend on the roof deck at the hotel in a lounge chair or in the jacuzzi

Then early bed for an early bus tomorrow… 8:30am for an 8hr bus trip.. WOOHOO!

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I spent like.. all of today walking around the entire city… enjoying the beauty of it most of the time… then becoming frustrated when trying to find an intersection that didn’t exist… or… more accurately… exists in more than one place…

I started heading up Pasaje Montejo… which is Mexico’s answer to the Champs Elysee… It’s a nice boulevard with beautiful old mansions and nice trees lining it and there’s sculptures every few yards in the middle of the wide sidewalk… very nice indeed… until I stumbled upon a (disguised, thankfully) Walmart…

I went in just to look around… and it was weird… being bombarded with thousands and thousands of products… I haven’t had that experience in months… everywhere I’ve been since Panama City, you have the choice of 4 or 5 shampoos… not 30… It’s overwhelming… I (disgracefully) plopped down some money on hair gel stuff… ‘cause I couldn’t get anything decent anywhere else… and if I ever want to go out in Mexico I’m not going to be able to wear my grubby, sweat stained and faded hat… though my hair is so overgrown that it’s almost as bad… Some pics below…

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Another day.. another ancient city and another modern one… I’m now in Merida… an old colonial town which seems to have kept up activity over time… so it’s a mixture of the old and the new… it’s both quiet and bustling at the same time… The place I’m staying is an old colonial mansion converted into a hotel by a Mexican artist… and there’s a couple rooms with dorm beds… where I’m staying… for $6… and the place is beautiful… with quirky decorations (quirky artist owner) and a rooftop sundeck with jacuzzi, stereo, and minifridge.. woohoo! I spent like 45 minutes soaking as the sun set just before I came to use the internet… que rico…

On my way here I stopped at Chichèn Itzà… which was beautiful… if crowded… some pictures of that, along with a couple more from Playa del Carmen follow…

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There was sun today… I woke up at 7am to check… then got up a few hours later and walked down to the beach to discover that there were insane winds… I decided to stick it out anyway… and spent a few hours trying to devise a way to deflect the relentless sand blasting I was receiving… being that all I had to work with was sand, I didn’t do very well… I did manage to enjoy it very slightly, however…

Tomorrow morning I have to be on a bus at 7:40am to head inland to the (huge) ancient Mayan city of Chichén-Itzá… one of the biggest sites… and also (probably) the most visited… and being that I’m going to arrive around 11, I think I’m gonna be swamped with annoying guys in Hawaiian shirts and cheap sunglasses shuffling their whiny families around on their day trip from Cancun… I’ll just try to imagine that they’re not there… and hopefully find some quiet places for contemplation…

In the early afternoon I’m going to head out again if I can find a bus to the city of Merida… a modern city which supposedly has some nice museums and colonial architecture… as well as some cool places to stay…

On a different note: progress.

I’ve been away 87 days today… woohoo! I’ve traveled a total of (only) 3,564 miles so far (as near as I can calculate)… for an average of 40.9 mi/day… which is nice and leisurely… nothing like what I’m going to be doing the next 4 weeks or so… My 3 remaining weeks in Mexico are going to be pretty grueling… and then I’ll be covering quite a few thousand miles on the way home from Texas over the following week… So yeah… I’m bracing myself for some long-mileage days… Though the roads from here on out will be pretty much paved… well paved even… and the buses are all air-conditioned and comfy… and they can travel much much faster… and that will help..

I’m in Playa del Carmen… which is… err… touristy… as hell… but the beach is unbelievable… and that kinda makes up for some of it… It was cloudy all day today so the beach was a no go… and if there’s no sun tomorrow I’m gonna skip town… ‘cause there’s really nothing here for me if there’s no beach… I’m planning on coming as close to black as I possibly can before I get home… there’s a picture below to show my progress…

I also included some pictures from the little Maya ruins at Tulum… it took me like a half hour of waiting to get a picture with no annoying tourists in it… but the results are beautiful.. as you can see… there’s also a picture of an iguana who scared the crap out of me while sitting on a rock waiting for the tourist herd to clear… he just wanted some garbage that some ass had left on the rocks… people have no respect, I tell ya..

Finally I’ve included a pic of the view from the hostel roof lounge/kitchen area… it’s better if you stand up but I was too lazy

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Twelve hours of a combination of boats, buses, and waiting… with one border crossing in between… has brought me into Mexico… a bit of a shock after being in Central America for almost three months… the towns here could almost be in the States somewhere… shopping malls, McDonald’s drive-thrus and whatnot… pretty creepy…

I’m in the town of Tulum… which is about 2 hours south of Cancun on the Caribbean coast. Tomorrow I’ll be visiting the Mayan ruins which are on a cliff at the shore… it’s supposed to be really pretty… then in the afternoon I’m hopping another bus to go an hour north to Playa del Carmen, another coastal resort city… but much less crazy than Cancun… and it has a couple really nice hostels… so I’m going to hang out there for a few days and get some more sun…

Hope all is well!

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Tomorrow I’m headed back into Spanish country when I cross into Mexico. I have to get up early to catch a boat back to Belize City, then switch to a bus to Chetumal across the Mexican border. From there I have another bus ride into Tulum where there’s Mayan ruins right on the shores of the Caribbean.

All this time along the water is quite enjoyable.. hope NY is nice and warm for everyone…

Lata!

Hey… after 3 trips to Belize I finally managed to get to the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Caracol. The place is HUGE… but only part of it has been unearthed. The site is literally in the middle of nowhere… 2 hours of rough dirt roads through the jungle to get there… and that is about half as much as it used to take only a couple years ago…

The site is amazing… and we stopped at the Rio On Pools on the way back for a dip and some granite rock basking… pictures at the bottom…

There’s also a ton of pictures from the past week or so… They’ll be labeled in the top of the windows they pop up in so you know where they all were…

Tomorrow I’m off for the Caribbean island of Caye Caulker (Caye is pronounced key)

Enjoy!

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Finally the sun came out today… on my last day here in Placencia… I got a good 6 hours of sun time in… without horribly burning myself even… I also did laundry finally… after my longest time yet… 29 days… a seemingly impossible number when you think that I only have 10 pair of underwear…. you do the math…

Tomorrow morning I get up early and get on a boat to a bus to the mountains for a couple days where I hope to explore the hard to reach ruins of Caracol deep in the jungle. I’ve been trying to go every time I’ve been in Belize but there weren’t tours going out because the roads were too bad.. but now it’s the dry season so hopefully I’ll finally get to go…

Hmm… that’s about it.. I’ve been enjoying meals at Omar’s and the restaurant at my hotel… ‘de Tatch’… good stuff…

Internet is REALLY expensive where I’m going for the next 2 days so I won’t be posting but once I get to Caye Caulker I’ll be able to post relatively cheaply from the island…

Tek kyer!

Placencia… it has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Just kinda rolls off your tongue without too much effort… It’s the perfect name for the place, really… This is my 3rd time here and it’s still as shockingly beautiful and friendly and cool as the first time… I’m back at my usual hotel here.. the Seaspray… which has only become nicer since Hurricane Iris tore the whole town apart about a month after I left here 4 years ago… This is a definite splurge at $25 a night… Youch! But it’s really nice… right on the beach.. with a beachfront bar/restaurant… and nice beach chairs and stuff… and I couldn’t really imagine staying anywhere else here… it’s just my place here I guess…

So yes, $5 internet in effect… and I’m trying to keep under the $1.25/15 minute mark so I’m gonna run but all is well… maybe some pictures in a couple days…

Just a quick entry to mark my last day/night in Guatemala… Tomorrow I hop on a boat to Belize… where I’ll spend my first 4 days sitting on the beach at Placencia… sunburn or no (I will wear sunscreen tho, lane… I promise).. just hopefully not as bad as the last time I was there and I had to stay a couple extra days ‘cause I couldn’t move, let alone put a backpack on my crispy shoulders…

I’m in Livingston, Guatemala right now.. on the Caribbean coast, but unfortunately without a beach… I met a few people on the boat down the river from Rio Dulce and we had dinner/drinks and then went down to this place where there was traditional Garifuna (Black Carib) drummers.. which was very cool… They’ll be on the boat tomorrow as well as the bus trip to Placencia… so that’s cool… umm.. yeah.. so thats whats up… I need to go.. internet is ridiculous here… and it will be for the next 2 weeks so only sparse updates for the next couple weeks…

Lata!

Tomorrow I’m leaving Antigua for the Eastern Guatemalan town of Rio Dulce. I’ll be spending a night there before continuing on by small boat down the river to Livingston on Guatemala’s tiny Caribbean coast. I’ll be there until Friday when I’ll be on the first (and only) boat to Punta Gorda, Belize.

Once I get into Belize internet is gonna be a little more sparse and a lot more expensive so I’m not going to update as frequently and probably won’t post any photos for a while. I’ll be in Belize for 2 weeks before I hit Mexico and then I’ll post all my pictures and stuff from there.

I’ve only got a month and a half left of my trip? Where has the time gone? I mean… a month and a half is still an incredibly long trip for most people so I should count myself extremely lucky to have the opportunity that I’ve had… and I am really thankful to everyone who’s made it possible…

Oh.. and to Michelle (and anyone else): send me an email at bestdception@gmail.com so I have your address. And it’s nice to have email from people

Anyway… this internet place is closing down shop, so if I don’t update for a few days, don’t freak out…

Oh… and one more animation.

Love you all!

Hey everyone… hope your Easters went well… I’ve spent the day splurging on all sorts of good food instead of the dry processed cheese and strawberry jelly sandwiches i’ve been forcing myself to subsist on all week to keep costs down…

Pad thai with tofu… ’nuff said.

I tried making an animation of some of the pictures I took of one of the Good Friday processions… you can find that here. Enjoy!

Wow… it just keeps getting crazier and crazier here every day…

I thought the town was overrun when I first got here… but the real flood of people only started arriving yesterday, when pretty much every Guatemalan is given days off of work through Easter. It’s hard to even walk in the middle of the streets in some places.

Yesterday I went to see one procession which actually ended up being a reenactment of some of the scenes leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion. There’s pictures of some of it, including someone (one of the apostles I assume) being dragged off by Roman guards, a woman (forget who she’s supposed to be) who wiped Jesus’ face with a cloth as he carried the cross with the miraculous image of Christ on the cloth, and a couple other guys (apostles again?) who are walking with Jesus, followed by Jesus bearing his (golden) cross on one of the big, wooden processional “floats” carried by a whole bunch of people.

Then today was mass hysteria with all the Good Friday activities. First I attended one of two reenactments of the crucifixion. They both were happening at the same time, so I chose the one at the main cathedral on the central plaza. This crucifixion was of a 500 year old wooden carving of a dying Jesus (wounds and blood and all) made with movable arms and legs for use in the reenactments. Then in the afternoon I found a procession mourning the death of Jesus. There were floats bearing the image of a grieving Mary, and a couple of other people… don’t know who they were, but theres a picture of one dude here nonetheless.. and he looks mighty unhappy.

Tonight was the biggest procession of all, I believe. I just came to the internet place straight from there. I couldn’t get very good pictures ‘cause it was dark and the crowds INSANE… but the main float (which was HUGE) had all these angel-like figures holding candelabras… putting off a ridiculous amount of light… and at the top was a glass coffin of sorts holding the same wooden sculpture of the (now dead) Christ that I had seen crucified this morning. All in all it was a very sad event… the marching band playing the saddest music you could ever hope to imagine… and thousands of people standing in silence, frantically making the sign of the cross and kissing their rosary beads… it was very touching… seeing all these people with so much faith…

There are 2 more processions tomorrow and then one on Easter Sunday itself, and I’m sure I’ll check all those out as well. I believe today was the biggest day however.

I’ve also included a few pictures of the elaborate alfombras (carpets) of sawdust, pine needles, flower petals, and fruit that people lay out on the cobblestone streets to mark the paths of the processions. They’re quite pretty.

That’s all for now… time to go eat something.. I’m famished.

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Why do the good shows always happen when I’m away from home??

The Bouncing Souls are playing at the Downtown in Farmingdale on April 21st… those of you who are on Long Island better get your asses there and have fun for me… It’s not often the Souls play a small Long Island show…

The Souls are playing a show on May 19th at Irving Plaza too… A “Joey Ramone Birthday Bash". I’m planning to get home on that date… and people should come with me to the show… and pick up a ticket for me too before they sell out =)

Anyway…

Didn’t do too much today… walked over to one of the churches where there was a 17 hour vigil going on… 6am until 11pm… there’s at least one every day this week… there wasn’t much going on when I was there… just a whole lot of people sitting in the church praying but I must have gotten there during a lull.. ‘cause there are other activities that go on intermittently throughout the day…

I’ve become stuck at this restaurant every day I’ve been in Antigua so far… they have this triple-layer sandwich of curry hummus, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and onion… and my god it’s the greatest thing ever… Curried hummus… who’d a thunk it? It’s probably the most amazing combination ever… and I plan to make it part of my diet when I get home…

I arrived back in Antigua, Guatemala today after a half hour boat ride followed by a 2 1/2 bus ride. I’ve only been here a few hours but I saw my first procession already. They started early this morning and there were 2 today… there will be more and more everyday until Good Friday when the whole town pretty much explodes into parades.

So I found this parade as it skirted the central plaza and even though it was relatively small it was still quite an experience. There’s this huge wooden floats with religious statues on them from whatever church this procession was for… except instead of being on wheels and pulled by a truck or something, there’s a whole bunch of people underneat… CARRYING these things… it’s quite cool to watch… then there’s a marching band playing music and a whole bunch of people in dark purple robes marching and little boys carrying these huge incense burners that fill the whole street with dense smoke. Along the edges of the procession are lines of men dressed as Roman soldiers keeping people out of the parade area (not that anyone’s trying to get through or anything…)

I’ll be here until next Tuesday morning when I’m heading out to start making my way to Belize. Some nice fresh pictures hot off the presses below. Oh… there’s a picture of this little creature that existed in my sheets in San Pedro la Laguna too… thats kinda amusing…

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I’m now in a town called San Pedro la Laguna… which is on the shore of Lago de Atitlan… “the most beautiful lake in the world” if the locals will have anything to say about it… and who can argue… I haven’t had a clear day to take a picture fully showing how beautiful the lake really is yet… but I do have some pictures from around sunset that I’ll post along with this entry…

I’ve somehow got it in my head that I want to work on a farm this summer… specifically an organic farm… and I e-mailed 3 farms in the Riverhead area and one has already gotten back to me with a promising response… so I’m really excited about that… even if the pay is really bad, at least I won’t be doing something I hate just for the sake of money… not that I’m not going to need as much as I can get when I get back… but still…

Before I left Xela to come here, I visited the Natural History Museum… which is really, really creepy… the room with all the dead stuff most of all… I got some pictures even though I kept getting yelled at by the old man watching the place for taking them… I just couldn’t miss out on pictures of things like the Devil of the Sea… a creature which surely does not and has not ever actually existed… alongside specimens such as a stuffed pair of piglet twins who share one head… and a stuffed dog… adequately labeled “Chow Chow"… the most disturbing of all, however, is a human fetus in a jar… which I actually think IS real… Pictures of all these wonderful things can be found below…

I also climbed up to a vegetarian restaurant on a hill overlooking the city… I’ve included a couple pictures from that trek, as well as a picture from my hotel balcony showing the house where I stayed while I was studying Spanish last time I was down here…

That’s all for now… Back to my heavy relaxation and the aruduous task of volcano-watching and tofu-eating…

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I’m still here in Xela… for one more night anyway… yesterday I made the trek up to the Fuentes Georginas hot springs… far up in the clouds clinging to the side of a volcano…

The journey involves a half hour ride in an old American school bus sitting with 3 indigenous Mayan women (one with a baby in a pouch of intricately-embroidered fabric on her back) in a seat designed for 3 American elementary school children…

The bus drops you in the town of Zunil… which is pretty enough as it is… a very much agricultural town… where this time of year with the lack of rain, the patchwork of mountainside fields on the hills are dry. Down in the valley below, however, an intricate system of tiny irrigation canals snakes through the bright green plots containing all sorts of different vegetables… the scent of onion making it the most pronounced… the scene is completed by men walking along the canals and, using a shovel-like device, throwing the water over the fields… It’s amazing how labor-intensive it is… all day walking along and shoveling water…

Once off the bus, you need to find a pickup driver willing to drive you up the mountain through the fields and clouds… The drive is beautiful as it is on a road which clings to the side of the steep mountain. Theres a line painted in the middle to separate it into lanes… but they are certainly not wide enough even for 2 vehicles to pass without being really careful (which the pickup drivers are not)… Last time I was here I walked the 9 kilometers up with a couple of my fellow Spanish students… and that was a beautiful walk…

Today, however, it was thick clouds a few minutes after ascending from town… so conversation with my driver ended up being the highlight… I was actually really amazed how well I was able to carry on conversation… using only the present tense and my rudimentary Spanish vocabulary. We just chatted about our families and our homes… he going on for some time about how much he loves his region of Guatemala… I sharing my lacking descriptions of the beaches and mountains of New York… and finally discussing how he had friends up in New York working to keep their families going… It was quite a nice experience… as I don’t think people in any other country have been as interested in carrying on a conversation with a foreigner… especially one with only a basic understanding of the language… though I suppose mine is better than some…

Once we arrived at the Fuentes, I went for a soak… the water being actually just barely warm… which was somewhat disappointing… but I found out later from my driver that this is owing to the fact that it’s the dry season… and the lack of rain means a lack of water to be heated in the mountain and drop into the pool from the cliff that forms it’s back wall… The experience was still just as atmospheric as it should be… Though emerging into the cold air was somehow less refreshing and more tortuous than it was when the water was nice and hot…

The drive down the mountain was pretty quiet… as we pretty much used up all the Spanish conversation I’m capable of on the way up… I hopped on the bus back to Xela to ponder the day’s experiences…

Back in Xela I hiked way up a steep hill on the edge of town to this little vegan restaurant with a view looking over the entire city… The food was as excellent as the view… which together more than justified the arduous climb…

I didn’t take my camera along for the day’s adventures so I wouldn’t have to worry about it… but I managed to snag a few pictures from the internet to give you an idea of what it all looked like…

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So I’ve been walking all across the city for like 2 hours trying to get my cell phone activated with a prepaid Guatemalan cell company… ‘cause they have rates of 10 cents a minute to the US… which is even cheaper than the internet places charge for sometimes-crappy internet calls… I tried one place and the woman sent me to this other place like 2 miles away… I tried 3 places there… and then came back where I started and spoke to another woman who told me that it would definitely work with one of the companies that told me no… Gah! I’m not walking back there… at least not today… I feel all gross from being kinda sweaty from walking with the horrible exhaust and dust feeling like its stuck on me… like being in Manhattan for a whole day in the summer kinda… Just plain grimy…

Anyway… Gonna go back to my room and shower and rest a bit…

Ok so this town has amazing food… I must say… I was able to get a Chinese meal last night with tofu… which was really good… then for lunch today I went to this place where I got a sandwich of curry-hummus with huge avocado slices and lettuce/tomato… that was ridiculously good… and then tonight I went to this place where I got a yellow Thai curry vegetables dish with tofu… So good… Yum… eating in this town is so veg friendly… ‘cause it’s so touristy really… but that aspect of it is ok with me..

Tomorrow I’m headed over to the city of Quetzaltenango (usually called by the original Maya name: Xela)… the second largest city in Guatemala which is way up (like a mile and a half altitude)… which also is where I spent 2 weeks of intensive Spanish study last time I was here… I plan to visit some amazing hot springs on the side of a volcano while there… and possibly check out the HUGE Mayan market in the semi-nearby town of Chichicastenango…

I made an amazing discovery today while perusing the market… there were TONS of stalls selling ripped-off music… So for $10 I was able to stock myself with 8 cd’s worth of stuff… including the Keane album and Nirvana Unplugged in NY… and a Malacates album (a Guatemalan ska band) among others… Now I’ve got plenty of music to occupy me aside from the radio.. Score!

I walked around town this afternoon and took a few pictures… displayed below for your viewing enjoyment…

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Wow… it’s been a long day… I woke up at 4am in order to get to my bus which left La Ceiba, Honduras at 5am and I only got into Antigua, Guatemala at like 8:30pm… that’s a long friggin day right there… but the bus investment paid off… the bus was WAY comfortable and there was beverage/snack service… which was nice cause then I didn’t have to buy any food when the bus would stop for a break…

So Antigua… the first place I’ve been that I ‘ve been to before… almost 4 years ago now… and it’s changed quite a bit since then… (as much as a 500 year old city with no new construction allowed can)… there’s a lot of fancy restaurants and american fastfood restaurants around… and even though they’re inside old buildings, it still takes away from the effect of the place… basically a crumbling colonial city… I’ll take some pictures tomorrow when it’s light out and post them tomorrow… It’s really the kind of place where you can’t take a bad picture… there’s earthquake tumbled old cathedrals all over town and beautiful old colonial homes.. with volcanoes in every direction… it’s a lot like Granada in Nicaragua… but somehow a bit prettier… if over gringofied these days…

But that’s what’s up…

..WHOAH there goes gravity…

Err.. Yeah.. anyway..

So I’m back on the mainland after my week out on the island of Roatan… which is F&/(’ing amazing… it’s beautiful… in every way… I spent my days diving and my nights at the bars with my fellow dive students and the instructors and divemasters in training… which was quite fun… God I love it there…

I did my PADI Open Water scuba certification course which involved 4 dives out on the reef which were AMAZING… the reef there is in pristine condition… and I got to friggin swim with a little sea turtle… SO ridiculously cool… he was probably about a foot across… and SO cute… it was so surreal… he was just hovering like a foot from my face checking me out like ‘what the hell is this weird thing doing down here?’ I also saw larger turtles but they stayed further away… Hmm… the coral and the fish were beautiful as well… If I only had an underwater camera I’d be able to share some of this with you all.. but I d0n’t…

After I finished my open water course I wanted to do one more dive and opted for a night dive that was going out… it counts as an Adventure dive so I can eventually apply it toward earning an Advanced Open Water certificate…

During my stay I also decided that the beard that I’d been growing for the past 6 weeks or had to go… ‘cause it was making my mask leak a bit… and it was just getting to long… So 2 blade cartridges later (and one funny facial hair-do) later… I was clean as a whistle… With less facial hair than I’ve had in years… Upon seeing me Georgia (one of the dive instructors.. from England) began calling me “Mickey Mouse Bum-Chin” ‘cause my face was all pale where the beard used to be… And some people didn’t recognize me… But my mask stayed nicely sealed afterward so it’s all worth it… I’m gonna grow it out again now… fun fun… There’re progress pictures below…

I do have some other pictures from the island though… though I was too busy chilling out to even think about it for the most part… Tomorrow I’m getting on a bus that’ll take me from here (La Ceiba, Honduras) to Antigua, Guatemala by tomorrow evening… I leave here at 5am and get into Antigua at 7pm… YIKES! But I paid a lot of money ($60) for a luxury bus so it’s no biggie… and they take care of all the border formalities so that’s great as well..

Anwyay… I’m gonna go call some of you… Enjoy the pics

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Hey all… I’m now on the Caribbean island of Roatan… and it’s beautiful… but that’s all I can say for right now cause internet is like 20 cents a minute here… Ack!

So Marzena left me this morning at a little after 6am… I sat and plotted my next move for a couple hours while I watched Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (in english) before getting weirded out by being in the big empty apartment by myself… I got here (La Ceiba) a little before 4 and got an overpriced hotel room… but there’s a/c and tv to occupy me at least…

Yesterday for Marzena’s last day we spent at a much, much nicer beach we found on the outskirts of town… there’s a nice resort hotel there and we just parked ourselves in front of it and made use of their on-beach bar facilities… Then we ate dinner at the pretty nice hotel on the top of a hill with really nice night-time views of the town and the water…

It was really cool to have a friend from home down here for a week but it went by SO fast… Now I’m readjusting to being on my own again.. which is kinda weird… but it shouldn’t be long til I’m back in my routine again…

I head out from here in the morning for a 2 hour boat ride over to the island of Roatàn, where I’ll be spending the next 5 or 6 days getting my PADI Open Water SCUBA certificate… which should be amazing… I don’t think I’m going to be able to call or e-mail from there so I might not update for almost a week… But for now I posted pictures to my last entry for your viewing enjoyment…

¡Adios!

I’m now in the peaceful (maybe?) town of Tela on the Caribbean coast of northern Honduras… We made the trek over from Copán Ruinas on Tuesday and that took up most of our day…

Yesterday we spent a little while down on the beach… which is nice if a bit garbage-strewn… We also moved into another hotel which has spacious apartments with a/c, tv, and a kitchen and everything… and it’s really nice…

We woke up early this morning to go on a tour of Punta Sal, at the tip of a long peninsula jutting out into the Caribbean. The boat ride to land took about an hour before we got on shore for an hour or so of hiking through the tropical forest where we saw a lot of these crazy crabs and HUGE spiders (but no monkeys unfortunately)…

We met the boat on the other side of the peninsula where we reboarded and made our way to another spot along the shore where snorkeling equipment was handed out and we explored a little offshore reef along the coast… At first Marzena was freaked out by the prospect of breathing underwater but after some coaxing she grew to love it…

After an hour or so of snorkeling we got back on the boat and went to this small settlement of houses on a nice beach where one of the two families allowed to live in the National Park have their homes. They cooked us a great lunch which a little green parrot watched us eat in the open-air thatched dining area… After lunch we had a couple hours to just relax on the gorgeous beach before heading back to town…

I have a bunch of amazing pictures from the trip but I don’t have my camera with me to put them online… I’ll post them asap, so check back.

Hope everyone is well..

TTYS

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…but it’s ok… ‘cause I got to ride a crazy horse yesterday…

But to start at the beginning (or where I left off anyway), I met Marzena at the airport on Saturday and we went straight to the bus station and onto a bus for 4 hours to the town of Copán Ruinas… a town right near the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Copán where we spent Sunday.

Then yesterday was Marzena’s birthday and we booked a tour to this huge coffee & cardamom farm… where we spent like 4 hours riding horses (which I did NOT expect to make me feel as hurt-up as I do today…) which was amazing… we swam in a mountain river, learned about coffee and cardamom production… I got a scrape on my face from a tree branch, and Marzena’s horse decided to scrape her leg along a barbed wire fence… this in a addition to the general aches and pains that a day of horseback riding brings… We’re now quite sore and are about to head out to another town for a couple days of more fun…

Gotta go catch the bus… Later!

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