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Central America

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    29 Februari 2016
    annalovestravelingCentral Americaannalovestraveling

    New trip, new adventures

    28 Februari 2016, Guatemala ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    - even though I didn't expect the first already on my way to Guatemala. Despite my dad's reassuring me that long-distance flights are barely ever delayed, we left London (heading to Miami) 50 minutes late, since the plane was smaller than the planned one and so some people had to be convinced to take a later flight and their luggage needed to be found. Already before I had been a little worried about my connection to Guatemala only one hour after the planned landing in Miami - with the delay now I was sure I wouldn't reach it. However, thanks to my express connection ticket I arrived at the gate less than 5 minutes before it closed.
    Finally in Guatemala City, another problem came up: there was only one ATM in the whole airport - and it was out of order. At this point I was really happy that I had brought some dollars, because otherwise I wouldn't have had any chance to get to my hostel.    Baca lagi

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    Guatemala City

    29 Februari 2016, Guatemala ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Despite everyone's telling me that Guatemala's capital wasn't a really nice place to visit, I wasn't keen about leaving right away after the long flight either, so I took one day to explore the city. My first thoughts were that people had been understating, but when I arrived at the historic center it didn't even seem that bad. There is a nice historic route which you can walk all the way from the railway museum, past different churches and cultural centers, down to Parque Minerva, which contains my personal highlight: a huge relief map of Guatemala.
    Aside from that and an old mansion called Casa Mima, I spent my day enjoying the sun and eating coconuts (one of them, already peeled so you can drink the coconut water and eat the frute, costs amazing 5 Quetzales / €0,60 !). Also, I saw many women in their beautiful traditional dresses.
    In turn, the Guatemalans were rather curious to see ME, they turn ans looked at me. When I was resting at a plaza, a woman close to me in fact starred at me for two whole minutes and then asked me if she could take a picture. Even though this was exaggerated, I can't even blame the people for looking: aside from my bright hair and eyes, I am around 50 cm taller then most of them.    Baca lagi

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    Chicken Buses

    1 Mac 2016, Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    It's one of first things a backpacker in Central America learns about: the old buses that look like differently painted American school buses and charge you about 1€ for a 1h-ride. Aside from being incredible cheap, they ate known as a must-do experience.
    Basically, Chicken Buses are just really not comfortable, which is mainly because of the drivers that reminded me of the song “es gibt nur ein Gas: Vollgas“. That means, in every curve you could watch people clinging on the back of the seat in front of them and leaning into the opposite direction. After an hour you have had a compete arm workout. I was impressed by the driver's helper who stood the whole ride next to the open front door without seeming to be afraid at all.    Baca lagi

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    Volcán Fuego

    1 Mac 2016, Guatemala ⋅ 🌙 10 °C

    It was a mere coincidence that enabled me to watch a spectacle I never thought I would ever see. This morning, after having arrived to Antigua, I went looking for an Agency that would take me to another of the volcanoes (Pacaya). It wasn't that easy though, since most of them are pretty expensive and didn't go before the weekend. Only one told me they would have a trip before that, but it was only two hours later. Giving it a last try I met Rolando, an independent tour guide who offers tours to all four of the surrounding volcanoes and who also told me that Fuego was highly active right now and worth going.
    At first I was a bit suspicious of that man that didn't belong to any agency and even offered every trip for by far less money. Only after having checked his reliability with my hostel I booked the tour - and couldn't believe my luck.
    With a group of Spanish students (there are a lot of schools for foreigners here) we went to a coffee finca the same afternoon. At first it was really foggy and we couldn't see anything but lighting bucks and bats. We even heard some coyotes! But most of all we heard the loud explosions of lava at the top of the volcano, even though we were 10 km away. We waited for around two hours and were already starting to leave when all of a sudden the clouds of ash moved enough for us to see the steady eruptions and the lava flowing down the mountain. It's just impossible to describe this view!    Baca lagi

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    2

    Antigua

    2 Mac 2016, Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Yesterday I arrived at this beautiful old town and besides admiring the four stunning volcanoes (Agua, Fuego, Acatenango and Pacaya), I also spent some time walking around Antigua. It's incredible charm mostly keeps you from visiting any sights, since you just want to stroll around and enjoy the flair.Baca lagi

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    Volcán Pacaya

    2 Mac 2016, Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

    This afternoon we went to another volcano, this time getting closer. Even though you are not allowed to go all the way up to the crater anymore, we hiked around half the height of Pacaya. People offering horses followed us all the way up until we reached a former crater and the point were the lava from the last eruption in 2014 had turned solid. However, it is kept warm through the subterranean lava of the still active volcano (of the 37 volcanoes in Guatemala only 3 are still active, two of them around Antigua). In fact, it is so hot that we grill marshmallows on it.

    (Fun fact: when driving to the starting point of the hike, we passed a funeral procession. The hearse and about 50 persons were blocking a narrow, curvy mountain street.)    Baca lagi

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    Lago Atitlán

    4 Mac 2016, Guatemala ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Yesterday I arrived at San Pedro la Laguna, one of the surrounding villages of Lago Atitlán. It's really small and consists of tiny streets, around half of them looking as if you couldn't even walk there. It's impossible not to get lost there - first of what I did this morning, since my hostel is pretty far away from everything else. However, therefore it has a terrace with an incredible lake view and jacuzzis.
    I didn't do so much today. After walking a bit through San Pedro I took a boat to the nearby town Santiago Atitlán with Bruno from Paris. We did a Tuk-Tuk tour to the main sights, including a view point over the lake, the coloured cemetery and the point of the lake were Maya women keep the tradition of washing their clothes by hand. In addition, we saw a religious ceremony of a Maya priest.
    After that, I passed most of my afternoon in the jacuzzi and just went out later to have some drinks with Bruno. On my way back I met a really nice English couple who walked me back to my hostel, since I couldn't find a Tuk-Tuk to take me there    Baca lagi

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    Rainy San Pedro

    5 Mac 2016, Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    This morning me and two American guys explored the lake by kayak. You can rent them here on every corner and you don't have to be a bargaining genius to get them for only 2€ per hour. Probably you could achieve even a lower price, but in the end I feel bad to complain about prices that are already that low. We followed the route recommended by the rental to a beach on the other side of the lake, but it turned out that it wasn't a really nice place, so we headed back pretty soon. It also was better like that, since it started to get cold and to rain a bit (on the other hand, we were already wet anyway). However, it was really nice to see the landscape from another perspective.
    When we got back to the hostel, first of all we wanted to shower of the disgusting lake water (people wash her laundry here and there must also be any other kinds of dirt in there). Afterwards we still had time to grab some of the hostels Saturday brunch.
    The rest of the day I spent in the hostel, as in the afternoon the rain got really heavily and I didn't really take a trip to the village Panajachel in that weather.    Baca lagi

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    Welcome to the Oasis

    6 Mac 2016, Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    Today was a long day on the road. My first bus picked me up at 4.30 am - at least in theory. Probably it took thee driver so long to get all the stuff of the market ladies on the bus. I wasn't a big fan of this guy anyway: one would expect that people on a bus would like to try and sleep at 5 am, but he kept shouting into his phone, the breaks in between only long enough so it could ring again on maximum volume.
    After about three hours I arrived at Antigua, where I took another bus to Lanquín, a really small town at an amazingly blue river in the rainforest. When Michael (a guy from Canada) and I got off, we were instantly crowded by a bunch of locals who wanted to convince us to stay in their respective hostel. We went for the Oasis and instantly knew it was the right choice. For about 6€ we got our own bungalow, and on the edge of the hostel's restaurant we have a private river access. I could stay here forever!    Baca lagi

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    1

    Semuc Champey

    7 Mac 2016, Guatemala ⋅ 🌬 17 °C

    From Lanquín, a tour took us to the 9km away natural monument Semuc Champey. We first had a 40 minute hike to a view point, then went back down to swim down a part of the river, jumping from one step into the other. After lunch, we went into a bat cave, only lighting our way with candles. It was a continuous change between walking through knee-deep water, climbing up and down ladders and swimming (all holding the candle). At the end we tubed down the river back to our starting - of course provided with beer.
    The only sad thing about this otherwise perfect day, was that we were sold the beer by 14 year old boys. Even worse were the maybe 8 year old girls that wanted to sell us chocolate, which tried to convince us in Spanish, English and even French and German.    Baca lagi

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    Tikal

    9 Mac 2016, Guatemala ⋅ ☀️ 37 °C

    I'm barely awake enough to write this entry. After the tiring, eternal bus ride yesterday (13h instead of the 8h this distance usually takes, thanks to a completely unnecessary ferry for a 50m wide river we had to wait 3 1/2h for), I had only four hours before I had to get up for the sunrise tour at the Mayan ruins of Tikal. The bus left at 3 am since it takes 1 1/2 hours to get there from Flores and another hour to reach templo IV, the highest Mayan temple in the world (parts of the first Star Wars movie have been shot here). It definitely was a special feeling to walk through that 3000 years old town with no more than flashlights and almost on your one, since the park hadn't officially opened yet.
    We climbed templo IV and waited for the sunrise, listening to the noise of the surrounding jungle, the birds, monkeys and even pumas, otcelots and jaguars. The sunrise itself wasn't spectacular as it was pretty cloudy, but still it was a unique experience.
    At 6.30, the tour continued to other temples, palaces and pyramids. Despite the higher entrance fee, it was good that we came so early, since there were barely any other people and it wasn't that hot yet. We had enough time to walk around the huge site, where surprisingly almost all the buildings are still open to climb them.    Baca lagi

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    Making my way to the coast

    10 Mac 2016, Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    The trip took me further east, first by bus to Río Dulce, then by boat to Lívingston on the Guatemalan Caribbean coast. Once again I noticed the friendliness of the people here: once I got out of the bus in Río Dulce, a man showed me the way to the dock. While I was waiting there for my boat, I had a nice conversation with one of the boatsmen. He even showed me the close sights and bought me a “Chocobanana“, frozen banana covered in chocolate (the same exists for mangos - delicious!).
    Going through Lívingston isn't the shortest way to get to Honduras, but everyone recommended me the boat trip up there. The river is surrounded by jungle and once in a while you see a mangrove-covered island. There are also a lot of cormorans, pelicans and kranichs, and with a lot of luck you can see one of the manatees or a crocodile.
    Then in Lívingston, I forgot my plan to continue to Honduras already the next day pretty quickly. Although there is not too much to do here, this little town has a very special Caribbean charm, which is also thanks to the Garifuna culture (the earlier slaves migrated for example here). Also the incredibly cute 3-weej-old puppies and the crabs walking around the hostel contributed.    Baca lagi

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    Lívingston

    11 Mac 2016, Guatemala ⋅ 🌙 27 °C

    After being escorted by the hostel dog to the migration office on the morning, I had a nice long walk along the beach to some waterfalls, called the “siete altares“. Since it is dry season, it was rather a river, but still very beautiful. I went there with a pretty annoying Indian - nobody bothers if you want to enjoy the walk, but it's really not necessary to stop everytime you see a crane and to take one hundred completely equal pictures, nor meditating in the river.
    In the afternoon I had to pack up all the clothes I had washed (I never imagined that hand washing was so hard) and played with the puppies.    Baca lagi

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    Finally in Honduras

    13 Mac 2016, Honduras ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    Guatemala is amazing and I could have stayed there forever, but since I now had been on the road for two days to get to Honduras, using every medium of transportation possible, I was happy to finally get there. Especially after the endless colectivo rides (small minibusses that are by far less comfortable than the big busses) with their high volume folk and later christian music, being done with that for a while felt great.
    At the border, I had to wait some time and started talking to a local (and got a bag of delicious coconut water). I tried to make him conscious about not just throwing away your trash wherever you go, but I think the “everyone here does it“ attitude is too strong. I also couldn't understand why there are no ATMs at the border, but I seemed to be the only one asking for them. Anyway there were enough people who could change some of my dollars to lempira (€1 = L25).
    Unfortunately I didn't arrive in la Ceiba in time for the ferry to the bay island, but I hadn't expected that either. However, tomorrow morning it'll bring me to Utila, a snorkling and surfers paradise.    Baca lagi

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    Island chilling

    16 Mac 2016, Honduras ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    I had some ideas of what to do in Utila: going to the beach, doing a whale shark tour, snorkle every day... But the private hostel beach was so convenient and the people there so nice that I barely ever went anywhere else. I mean, why would I walk two kilometres to the public beach if I have one right outside my dorm? The only real thing I did was going out with the diving boat for snorkling. The reefs around the island are amazing and home to loads of different kinds of fish, turtles and (in the right season) sharks. Unfortunately, also a lot of small jelly fish were around and the many stings I got kept me from going out again. Usually in this time of the year you can see whale sharks, but since the last rainy season came very late, they haven't yet been spotted this yearBaca lagi

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    Río Cangrejal

    17 Mac 2016, Honduras ⋅ 🌙 26 °C

    When I got off the ferry from Utila this morning, I was picked up by the driver of the Jungle River Lodge - the name perfectly matches. The rustic jeep took me over a long, unpaved road into the jungle, where the lodge sits right at the river shore of Río Cangrejal, which got its name because of the many crabs who had lived here before they had all been eaten by otters.
    I started the day with an awesome rafting and canyoning tour with two Italian girls. After lunch, I went for the three-hour hike to the waterfall Cascada del Beluj. It is so huge that, despite its remote location, you can even see it from the street. After the sweaty ascent, I could just hop into the river right at the hostel and chill and it's natural pools.    Baca lagi

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    Chaotic border crossing

    19 Mac 2016, Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 5 °C

    Two more days of travelling lie behind me. After a short chicken bus ride from Río Cangrejal to la Ceiba, I actually got a pretty comfortable and direct (!) bus to the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa. However, from the outsides of the city it took another 2 hours for me top actually get to my hostel, since the traffic is just unbelievable. It's not only a lot, but doesn't seem to follow any rules either: the cars just try to get through any space, no matter if it is even on the right side of the street. Tegucigalpa itself is not a nice place at all, I only spent the night there because I had to pass through to get to Nicaragua. As it was already dark at my arrival and the area is rather sketchy, I didn't really want to go to buy something for dinner, even though I only had some snacks for lunch. Luckily, three English I shared my room with kindly invited me to have a bit (better: a huge serving) of their absolutely delicious curry.
    Since thanks to semana santa (holly week) all direct shuttles to León were booked up for the next few days, I took the 5.50 am minibus to the border. The migration process took a while, but that was nothing compared to what expected me afterwards. A chicken bus took me to the next town, from where I had to hop on a Managua-bound bus to Estelí and from there on a minibus to León. The real problem though was that the people at the bus stations, probably already waiting for hours, would not even wait until an arriving bus had stopped, but tried to climb in through any door and some even through the windows (like I said, semana santa isn't the best time to travel). Nevertheless, already in the Honduran bus I had met a really nice Dominican and his friends, a Nicaraguan couple with their adorable daughter, who helped me and my luggage to get on the buses. Although they went all the way to Managua, also in Estelí I met two guys who secured me a seat. After all, I got all buses at the first try.    Baca lagi

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    Télica

    20 Mac 2016, Nicaragua ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    Ok, it wasn't my first volcano hike - but definitely the first to bring me to the crater of an active volcano. It was even possible to see the magma flowing sunterraneously, through a small hole at the bottom, as well as smell the masses of sulfuric gases coming up.Baca lagi

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    Volcano boarding

    21 Mac 2016, Nicaragua ⋅ 🌙 23 °C

    It's THE thing to do in León (and, according to the guides, only here): walking up the active volcano Cerro Negro and coming down in boards that remind of bobs. Even though the main focus today was the boarding, hiking up was actually much harder than yesterday, as it was steeper and all of the rocks and the sand were loose. In addition, this time we also had to carry up the board. In combination with the almost 40°C and the sharp wind which sometimes almost blew us from the edge, everyone was happy to reach the summit.
    Once there, we put on the (really warm) overalls and got ready. The part where we slid down was actually pretty steep, so with breaking much or few you could more or less control your speed - some people didn't seem to at all.    Baca lagi

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    Hot León

    21 Mac 2016, Nicaragua ⋅ ⛅ 6 °C

    Already yesterday I walked a bit around town, but after less then 2h I had to head back to the hostel as it was just way too hot. Even despite every dorm bed having a fan I wasn't really able to sleep for the whole time I spent in Leon - after some time I moved to the hammock in the backyard.
    However, I wasn't the only one passing their time either at volcano tours or in the shade of the hostel. With 41°C it was just impossible to move much more. Even the 2 blocks to the supermarket to get some water were too far.
    Tonight, however, we went to the main square to watch the procession held for San Benito, an ex-slave who had been made a saint. Since, at usually, it took place hours later than when we had been told, we first got some typical food at a street market: Gallo Pinto, maduro, salad, panque, espinacas, ... The choices were endless.    Baca lagi

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    Laguna del Apoyo

    24 Mac 2016, Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    This lake used to be a volcanic crater that filled up with water 3000 years ago. After the heat of León and Granada, it was like heaven staying there for two days. Aside from swimming, every guest of the hostel there can use their kayaks, paddle boards, tubes and other sports equipment for free.
    There are also a lot of locals that pay a little fee to spent a day at the hostel beach without sleeping there. Yesterday evening, a group of people from Bluefield (in the Nicaraguan Caribbean) invited me to drink some Champaign with them (ok, to be honest the drinks were probably paid by the American who was with them). Today, I spent most of the time with a group of people from the capital Managua and their Guatemalan friend.
    Probably it was for the best that because of Easter all other nights this week the hostel was fully booked, because this lagoon is definitely one of the places you could get stuck at for a very long time.    Baca lagi

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    Yoga, Surf and Party

    28 Mac 2016, Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    The thing San Juan is probably most known for is the “Sunday Funday“ pool crawl. I went there yesterday and except for my phone being stolen and the high entrance fee it was a lot of fun. It started with a pre-party at the pool of the hostel Pachamama at noon. After that we went to two other hostels until we arrived at the final bar around 8 pm. Although it's mostly international travelers, I also met many Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans that only came here for the party. But unfortunately, the fame of Sunday Funday also leads to a lot of drug traffic: I never heard so many people at the same party talking so openly about taking cocaine, as if it was the most normal thing to do.
    But party is not the only thing to do in San Juan: of the countless surfing spots in Nicaragua it is one of the best. I tried it twice. On Saturday I had a lesson, today I went by myself and only got some tips from a friend (he actually taught me more than the instructor I paid the other day). Once I was able to actually catch the wave and stand up it was so much fun! It definitely hasn't been the last time for me to surf :)    Baca lagi

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