Volcanoes, Pupusas and Bluebird buses

  Tela, Honduras
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

It just amazes me how quickly 4 months can fly by.  So much happens when you travel all of the time.  Your entire world can change in as short as a bus ride to the next town.  Every day is like Christmas, but instead of opening a material present, we open up the gift and surprise of what magic the day will hold.  I love my life on the road; I love feeling the pulse of constantly being in the moment and riding the wave of change.  So I keep going because there are just too many presents I have yet to open!

 Sven and I left El Camino del Sol just over a month ago and spent the time traveling a bit more in Nicaragua, then heading on to El Salvador and Honduras.   We checked out Isla de Ometepe and Granada in Nicaragua.  Ometepe was beautiful...a small island with 2 huge volcanoes on it!  It's trying to win for being the 8th Wonder of the World I think.

We were ready for a new country, but had some wacky border issues which created 2 days of pointless travel.  It's a long story, but in a quick sum-up:  we had overstayed our visa in Nicaragua by a few days.  We were under the impression that we could pay a small fine at the border, but unbeknownst (sp?) to us, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala had created this united visa thingie and in actuality we only had 90 days for all 4 countries.  The Honduras and Nicaragua borders don't really know what they're doing, as nice as those folks with big guns are.  So they let us pass on by and told us to go to the capital of San Salvador in El Salvador to deal with getting another visa since they couldn't help us at the actual border.  Well, we bounce our way on the old Bluebird U.S. schoolbuses to the El Salvador border where the more informed nice folks with big guns tell us we're illegally trying to cross borders and they can't let us in without paying a huge fine.  But if we want to try our luck, we can make our way all the way back down to Costa Rica to "abandon the region" to get a new visa stamp, and all will be well if we can do it.   So we opt to try our luck by continung to illegaly cross borders...those nice folks with big guns at the Honduras and Nicaragua who were clueless just let us right back in and gave us stamps to avoid any overstay fees.  Sure, we still had to get back to Costa Rica to "abandon the region" and then come back in again, but we got out of huge fines and the overstay fee we were initially happy to pay.  Banditos that we are.   Lesson learned:  never overstay a visa, especially when you don't feel like spending 2 worthless days riding back and forth in hot, cramped buses. 

Onward and upward now!  El Salvador was amazing.  The people were the biggest highlight; they were just so warm, kind and polite. 

We spent a lot of time in small towns in the mountains with cooler weather, hiking volcanoes and to crater lakes and waterfalls, and eating pupusas, the pancake-like snack/meal filled with maybe beans, cheese, veggies or meat and served with a thin tomato sacue and pickled salad.  El Salvador gets a bad rap because there is a pretty bad gang problem in the capital, but the small towns were calm and tranquil.  In Santa Ana, a bigger city, there were a ridiculous amount of security guards with huge guns standing outside of something lame like a shoe store and everyone in the city was inside with their doors locked at dark.  It was amazing how a lively city could just die at nightfall.  So we followed suit and tucked inside too.  But on the whole, El Salvador is another one of those countries that is an undiscovered gem with few tourists and a lot to discover.

We were actually in Guatemala as well for perhaps 2 hours enroute to Honduras.  Besides some lovely scenery and some lively conversation with some locals on the bus, I can't tell you much about it though.  

Of course we had to see some Mayan ruins while in Central America, so Copan in Honduras it was.  We didn't have a lot of preconceived expectations and were truly impressed with the site, the natural setting and forest and what we learned about the Mayans.  We liked the town of Copan too...really good street food.  OK, we're food tourists as well and often we judge a town on its local food.  Thumbs-up for Copan.  There were some gorgeous hotsprings nearby that we visited too...ahhhhh.




We ended our trip on the Caribbean coast in a town called Tela.  We had a really nice stroke of luck by meeting a very friendly and kind Canadian man named Fred who let us stay with him while there.  Also a traveler, he was a pleasure to talk to since he always had such interesting stories to share.  His house was a really sweet place on a hill and we liked spending time there with Fred just talking.   We visited some lovely beaches in the area and went kayaking in the mangroves in Punto Izopo National Park.  A highlight was biking out to a beach called Miami which was unique because it was on something like an isthmus between a lake/lagoon and the ocean. 

Sadly, there was also a very bad incident that occured while in Tela.  Sven and I were riding bikes to visit another beach and I was assaulted by 2 guys riding double on a bike.  "Bike-jacking" is something that does happen and Sven and I were just riding a bit too far apart, with me behind.  I could sense these guys were just a little too close and had a bad feeling.  They went to pass me and one of the guys jumped off and tried to grab my bike and bag that was in the basket.   It's all kind-of a blur and I don't know if I swung first or he did, but we got into a tug of war for the bag and bike and he gave me a pretty bad blow to my bicep, of all places.  Of course I was yelling for Sven and he turned around to see his girlfriend on the ground being kicked by this guy.  My initial reaction was to fight back, but something in my head woke up and told me it just wasn't worth it.  I let go and the guys peddled off as Sven chased them.  This is when a miracle happened because a guy with a truck came by (we were all on a very busy highway), saw what had happened, turned his vehicle around at mock-10 speed and ran the kids off the road.  They ditched the bike and my bag and ran into the hills.  So they didn't get anything...funny thing is the bag had nothing in it anyway besides 2 spoons, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, water and 2 cheap raincoats.  Our nice savior drove us back to down and that was that.  Oddly I wasn't really that upset over the whole thing.  Yes, there's a big bruise on my bicep and it hurt quite a lot, but I didn't lose any teeth.  I could've definitely fought back more, but what would have that done?  I just couldn't believe it was happening when it was going on...my head was like, "is this really happening right now, is this person really trying to rob me?"  So I've accepted it and moved on.  For as much travel as I do, besides a few petty things being taken from me out of a tent of my bag nothing ever happens.  And if this is the worse that happens to me, I'm ok with it.


Despite the bike incident, the last few days of the trip were great and we made it back to the states safe and sound.  I'm so happy to have snow in western North Carolina and be in cold weather; I love winter and the cold and have missed it the past 2 years.  I'll be in the U.S. till next week when I head to another warm place, Bali.  I'm doing a yoga training with Shiva Rea and meeting up with my wonderful friend Doah over there.  My plans are pretty loose:  practice and study yoga, maybe find some work teaching, immerse myself in another land of Hinduism and a beautiful culture.  Sven is sitting this one out and staying in NY to continue his work with baseball.  Not sure how long I'll stay; I have a work visa for New Zealand and I may hop down there after.  Why not?

Enjoy the pictures; I put a lot up this time!

Lots of love and light,
Heather