Central America

februar - april 2016
Et 42-dagers eventyr av annalovestraveling Les mer
  • 35fotspor
  • 4land
  • 42dager
  • 174bilder
  • 0videoer
  • 2,3kkilometer
  • Dag 10

    Tikal

    9. mars 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.
    Les mer

  • Dag 11

    Making my way to the coast

    10. mars 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.
    Les mer

  • Dag 12

    Lívingston

    11. mars 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.
    Les mer

  • Dag 14

    Finally in Honduras

    13. mars 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.
    Les mer

  • Dag 17

    Island chilling

    16. mars 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 yearLes mer

  • Dag 18

    Río Cangrejal

    17. mars 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.
    Les mer

  • Dag 20

    Chaotic border crossing

    19. mars 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.
    Les mer

  • Dag 21

    Télica

    20. mars 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.Les mer

  • Dag 22

    Volcano boarding

    21. mars 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.
    Les mer