New Year in Honduras

Leaving Guatemala was a pain in the ass. It took me about 10 hours to get to the border of Honduras, everyone tried to rip me off, and I still wasn't feeling too well from the party the night before. To make it even better, for the entire van ride back to the capital a Spanish woman and her son were sitting next to me who both suffered from terrible motion sickness - they consistently puked every ten minutes for the entire trip. It was horrible.

By the time I got to the border it had already closed for the day, so I was forced to stay in some run down ladino town about an hour away. Bright and early the next morning I once again avoided getting ripped off by the van drivers trying to charge me the gringo price, and I got to the border unscathed - just in time to be forced to pay more bribe money to the immigration agents both leaving Guatemala and entering Honduras.

My first stop in the new country was a town called Copán Ruinas - the location of another famous Mayan ruins site. The vibe in this small, colorful mountain town was very relaxed - lots of pleasant people going about their business without too much concern for time or urgency. It was a much welcomed break from the previous two days of hellish travel. I hiked down a cobblestone road from the town to the ruins, taking in the tranquil mountain scenery. I wasn't too happy about paying the ridiculously high entrance fee, but I justified it by convincing myself that, as the country's main tourist attraction, it was a justified contribution as a tourist to Honduran infrastructure and development (or so I like to think...).

When I got to the ticket check, I was greeted by a flock of macaws. I have never seen wild macaws before - it was very cool. They were tame enough to let me walk right up to them and take pictures though, so I have a feeling they were domseticated for the tourists. Either way, they weren't in a cage and the could have flown off into the jungle if they had wanted to, so I'll keep believing that I ran into a flock of wild macaws. There were also a bunch of strange guinea pig things running around.

The ruins were very cool - nowhere near as amazing as Tikal - but interesting enough to spend the afternoon wandering around admiring the ancient architecture. The main attraction was the array of stelae - amazingly well preserved carvings that were scattered throughout the complex.

I spent the night at a bustling backpacker hostel in the center of town and caught the 6am bus the next day to start my journey up to the Bay Islands to do some Caribbean relaxing for New Year. 11 hours, two buses, a shared taxi, and a ferry later, I arrived on the island of Utila - known to be the least expensive and most backpackery of all the Bay Islands, so I figured I'd meet a good crowd to spend the holiday with.

I was expecting something Thailand-like with tons of cheap hostels, seaside restaurants and cafes, beautiful white sand beaches, etc... It wasn't like that - definitely not Thailand, not really Honduras, not really Caribbean - I'm not sure what I'd call it. There aren't great beaches here, and the sandflies are too vicious to allow you to relax anyway. I walked into a bunch of hotels looking for a room, but half of them were full, and the rest were either too expensive or no one was around to ask about prices or availability. Frustratedly, I gave in and went back to the main dock where everyone was hawking their hotels and dive packages. One guy handed me a flyer and sold me on his hotel - $250 for an advanced scuba certification course including free housing and two extra free dives. That was the cheapest dive certification I've ever seen, so I signed up. (The last time I dove was in Thailand over a year ago, so I've been getting a little rusty.)

I settled into the dorms and put down my bags after the long day of travel. No one I ran into at the hostel seemed too friendly, so I wandered off on my own to find dinner. (I later found out it was just beause they were all hung over from too much partying. They were actually very friendly.)

Bright and early the next morning, I set off for my first dive. The weather sucked above water (rainy season here), but I was gonna get wet either way so it didn't matter too much. I did my first dive to 100 feet, which was very cool - we explored a huge reef wall, which was pleasant but nothing extraordinary. We did a few tests to see the effects of nitrogen narcosis, but I wasn't affected by it... Apparently when you dive past 30 to 40 meters, the nitrogen in your blood concentrates to the point that it effectively gets you high. Lots of fun, but it can be dangerous when your life depends on being in control and aware of your oxyen level and surroundings. For lunch we went to a tiny island off the coast where the locals cooked up some delicious fish burgers. We asked what kind of fish was used, and the answer was, "multifish." Whatever that is, it was fantastic. The second dive was mostly meant to teach us about underwater navigation techniques.

The next day we did some of the best diving I've ever experienced. First, we did a wreck dive - about 15 minutes off shore there was a huge cargo tanker that had sunk to about 100 feet. Coral had taken over and converted the ship into a new reef. I have never felt such adrenaline on a dive before - it was awesome! We swam through the cargo hold and the wheel house, confusing the grouper and snapper as we invaded their territory. As we swam around the outside of the ship, my instructor stood on the bow and did a Titanic-esque pose with his arms extended and then slowly fell forward into the depths below. I think I'm hooked on wrecks now - it was really great.

For the second dive we went to a huge sand patch where we did a bunch of bouyancy excercises - swimming through hoops without touching the sides, obstacle courses, flipperless running sprints across the bottom, ultimate frisby, matrix style sword fighting with out fins. Basically we just spent an hour playing. Awesome.

I spent the rest of the day relaxing in the sun and meeting the rest of the people at my hostel. There were three Canadian guys from Vancouver, a kid from Maine, two Australian girls, and a Dutch kid who was staying in my dorm room with me. They're all a little nuts, but definitely fun.

Then as the sun began to set, we loaded up our gear and hopped back on the dive boat for my first night dive. It was very strange at first - descending into complete darkness with only a flashlight lighting up the plankton in the water immediately around you. Once we reached the bottom, everyone's flashlights collectively illuminated an entirely alien landscape. The reef at night is completely different. The colors are much more vivid with flashlights because during the day a lot of the sunlight is filtered out and all you can see are greens and blues - not so at night. The reds and oranges come alive. The coral also animates at night to feed. What normally just look like stony skeletons and bare branches during the day explode into fluffy, flowering tentacles. The shrimp, crabs, and lobsters scower the bottom for food. Octopus hide among the rocks and coral and hunt down unsuspecting fish - changing colors and patterns as they move between backdrops. It was absolutely fascinating.

The island, as I said, is a unique mix of cultures and people. The local population is made up of black Caribbeans, ladino Honduran immigrants, and white settlers who have been here for hundreds of years. Spanish is spoken and understood by most everyone, but the main language is an English Creole that sounds similar to that of Belize or Jamaica but has an odd Scottish twang. The strangest part about this mix is that the English and Scottish settlers who came centuries ago are completely integrated into local life. Imagine a young girl with blonde hair and blue eyes running around screaming profanities in Jamaican Creole. It's very hard to get used to.
New Year's Eve was a very relaxing, sunny day. The hostel we were staying at held a potluck barbecue for dinner - everyone brings some kind of meat - so we all ate delicious food and then set off tons of cheap fireworks before heading up to a bar called Treetanic to start the festivities. What a cool bar! It was designed like a nautical treehouse set back in the forested hills outside town. Afterwards we went to another more popular bar downtown, where we did the countdown and danced the night away. I met some Honduran girls, and we went back to their house to party local-style. It started raining so I camped out under a balony with a group of Dutch friends, who got a big kick out of teaching us Dutch profanities (neuken in de geuken). I ended the night eating fresh avocados with some friends back at my hostel. The door to our dorm room sealed itself shut because of the humidity and no one could pry it open, so Jasen the kid from Maine, Thijs the Dutch guy, and I were all locked out. We ended up just crashing in another empty room until the morning when we were finally able to get in.

New Year's day was easily the best day so far this year :) We all woke up late and lounged around the hostel drinking out of gallon-bottles of water and piecing together the stories of the previous night. Everyone was planning to go on a dive during the afternoon, but I tried signing up too late - they ran out of room. I went and hung out by the boat anyway, just in case someone else was too hung over to go and decided to cancel (very likely). I ended up getting a spot! We drove around to the northeast side of the island, which they rarely visit, and which is also close to the spot where they occasionally catch a glipse of the famously elusive whale sharks that spend their winters feeding in the area. I had my fingers crossed - it's always been a dream of mine to swim with a whale shark.

The first dive was fun - we mostly just fooled around while hovering over the reef. Half way through the dive I started feeling the effects of the night before, and I decided I would sit the next dive out. Jasen and two other divers agreed. The other 10 divers did the second dive while we waited on the boat.

Just after they had all descended, our captain spotted a very agitated school of tuna a few hundred meters away, and he pulled the boat around to check if it might be because a whale shark was feeding. The four of us that were still on the boat put on our masks and fins and sat on the bow just in case we spotted one. Sure enough, as we were looking down into the water just below us, an enormous spotted shark ascended at our feet. Too excited to think, the captain had to remind us -- "jump in!!!" We hopped in right on top of it and a swam like maniacs to keep up. I swam right over it for a while, close enough to reach down and feel its rubbery skin. It smacked me with its tail accidentally, so I backed off a little. Still, I was so exited that after a solid minute of swimming alongside the gigantic 30-foot fish, I completely forgot that I had been holding my breath underwater - no snorkel. We were blessed with about 15 minutes of its attention - longer than most people get to enjoy - before it swam back down to deeper water.

When everyone else got back on board we joked with them and said "Did you guys see anything interesting down there? We saw a big tuna or something.. we're not sure what it was, but we have a picture. You think you could tell us what it is?" The Spanish guy showed them his pictures, and everyone got incredibly jealous. But then only a few minutes later we spotted it again and they all got a chance to swim with it for a few more seconds before it disappeared once again.

What a way to start off the new year!!! I have never had such an exciting dive trip in my six years of diving. 2009, day one - I got to check another item off my "things-to-do-before-I-die" list :)

That night, we went back to the hostel and grilled wahoo steaks on the barbecue and went to sleep early to catch our 6am ferry the next morning back to the mainland.

A Backpacker's Christmas

Spending Christmas in Lago de Atitlán has been incredibly relaxing. I woke up early on my first day here and bought a fresh loaf of coconut bread to munch on. Later on, I rented a kayak and spent the afternoon exploring the lake at the base of Volcán de San Pedro. The serene beauty of the landscape dissolved any remnants of North American stress that I had carried with me from the States. It's really hard to worry about anything when you are floating around on calm waters enjoying a sunny morning beneath the silhouettes of three enormous volcanoes. A good chunk of my book and a sunburn later, I headed back to the village to grab a late lunch. While I was in the middle of enjoying a huge, spicy beef burrito beside the lake, Mira and Milly showed up - they had finally arrived from Antigua. They were planning on going up to the main Catholic church later in the evening to check out Christmas mass, and I decided to join them for the experience. I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on a hammock on my hotel balcony with a great view of the sunset behind the mountains on the far shore of the lake.

Around 8pm, I met up with Mira and Milly near the pier in the middle of the backpacker part of town, and we climbed up the steep cobblestone rode toward the center of the Mayan village. Waiting for mass to begin, we sat down at the front of the plaza and watched local life over cold beer and greasy tacos. Women and girls from all over the village slowly made their way toward the church, dressed in traditional skirts and blouses with the addition of ornately decorated church shawls. The men who passed by were dressed mostly in western clothes, but occasionally an old man would don traditional clothing as well - short white cotton trousers with colorful patterns sewn down the legs and cotton shirts with equally intricate striped patterns - and usually a cowboy hat.

We wandered up to the church entrance and realized we might have waited a bit too long. It was already packed!!! It seemed like there were about a thousand people crammed into the aisles. We squeezed into the back of the crowd. Luckily, the locals are very short and we had no problem seeing all the way to the front. I only stayed for about twenty minutes to get a feel for the atmosphere, but it was definitely worth the climb up the hill. The priest directed the service in both Spanish and the local Mayan dialect, marimba music - adapted for church hymns - played in the background, and old women shawled their heads in piety. The energy and faith shared by the congregation filled the room with each song they sang. The sermon given in Mayan was fascinating to listen to. The language sounds so foreign and ancient to my Anglo ears. It sounds almost like a mix of Arabic, Spanish, and Mongolian - lots of strange sounds we don't hear in English. Punctuating the sermon were frequent, loud explosions coming from the plaza behind us - children setting off fireworks to celebrate the occasion. Occasionally, one would burst so powerfully that we could feel the deafening pressure envelop the entire congregation.

I left early and headed back down to the village to get some sleep - I was exhausted from a loooonnggg dayy of kayaking around the lake and eating burritos ;) Thankfully I had some earplugs, otherwise I never would have been able to sleep through the raucous night of fireworks and celebration.

I slept in for my first time on Christmas morning, and spent the better part of the early afternoon lounging in my hammock and reading my book. I heard someone call my name from the street below, and I looked down to find the Brits and their Irish friends heading into town. Jenny ran up to give me a Christmas present - a stick of local artisan ginger-chocolate. I had lost track of them the day before, but it's a small village so I assumed I'd find them again before the big Christmas dinner that was being planned. They had gone up to the village market the day before to pick up ingredients, and we planned to meet at Milly and Mira's hostel (which had a stove) later in the evening to cook up a few dishes from each of our backgrounds: a potato dish by the Irish, potato pancakes by the Czech (how appropriate for Hanukah!), and something curried by the Brits. I headed up to the the market later on and bought noodles, tomatoes, and some other spices and vegetables to make a traditional New Jersey dish --- pasta a la whatever is around. I also picked up a pineapple and a bottle of rum, figuring you can't have a good Guatemalan Christmas without either.

I got to their hotel just before dark to find a huge spread of ingredients covering every possible surface. One table stacked with chicken legs and chunks of beef, a chair covered with vegetables, a pair of stools piled high with rum, beer, and fresh limes. Before I unloaded my ingredients, I promptly got the most important step out of the way - Cuba Libre numero uno. Matt and I headed down the steps through the garden to the terraced lawn on the edge of a cliff overlooking the lake to see what we could do about starting a campfire. Being in the tropics, there was very little dry wood or kindling to be found, and we also needed some skewers to do the meat grilling, so we wandered over to a small shop where the owner seemed to have a way of finding anything we could possibly need - he had already provided us with butter, limes, water, beer, lighters, and cutlery - so why not firewood and skewers? (By the way - his shop was about the size of the back of a pickup truck.) We explained what we needed to the guy and he led us across the street to his workshop/patio. Lo and behold, he had a stockpile of firewood rivaling any I've seen in the American northeast before winter! And the skewers? He just so happened to be building a roof for his patio, and he had a 15 foot long piece of skewer-thick, scrap metal lying on the ground next to a huge wire cutter. He cut us a few rusty pieces just the right length. Nobody wants to eat off of rusty skewers though.. but not to fear, he also had sandpaper to clean them up to a fresh sparkle. We still needed some kindling, so we grabbed a few dead cornstalks and dried husks from his garden and back we went to start our campfire by the lake.

After the fire was satisfactorily burning with a vengeance, I headed back up to the "kitchen" to help everyone else prepare the meal. The original 8 of us turned into 10 and then 13 and then 15 as we collected some South Africans, Guatemalans, and a French girl - and then, completely by surprise - the Brazilian/Guatemalan/Colombian/Argentinians and the Canadians showed up that we had met and partied with in Semuc Champey! The night was destined to be incredible. Conor and Karl the Irish guys worked on skewering the meat, Mira the Czech sliced onions and potatoes on his frisby, Jo the Brit crushed mint, limes, and sugar into a modified Coke bottle to make mojitos, Jenny worked on fresh guacamole and a garden salad, Matt stoked the fire and started working on the stash of beer, the South Africans worked on setting up tables and chairs on the terrace and covered them with banana leaves (makeshift plates) and candles, Milly the German slaved over the stove making potatoes and onions, vegetable coconut curry, and rice, and I cooked up a tasty, fresh tomato and garlic pasta sauce to put over an assortment of noodles that I found in the market. Karl, who was obsessed with the Sopranos, was ecstatic to have authentic Jersey Italian food.

Finally, after everything was done cooking and the sun had definitively set, the whole mob of us sat down family style for the most lively and eclectic Christmas dinner I have ever had the privileged to enjoy. More food than any of us could possibly eat, and more rum and beer than we could ever collectively finish off. After the first course, we remembered that we had been grilling the meat and potatoes over the coals of the campfire. Barely able to take another bite, we forced ourselves to eat a second course. The guitars eventually came out and the rest of the night was spent singing, laughing, and story telling in a Babel-esque smörgåsbord of languages and accents.

Somehow, I woke up at 7 the next morning to start a looonggg, painfulllll day of travel. Life is good.

Lots of Traveling and Colonial Capitals

Instead of taking the easy way out and paying $20+ for a tourist shuttle from our jungle hostel to the next destination in Antigua, I decided to stick with Mira and Milly the Czech guy and his German girlfriend and opt for cheaper public transportation. We had to be up at 4:45 to catch our first connection back to the regional hub (only a few hours after we had gotten back from the party the night before). The first leg of the ride was crowded and rainy - our bags which were strapped to the roof of the van got soaked. When we were dropped off in Coban, we hurried into the closest comedor to get some breakfast. After coffee and a tiny portion of eggs and beans with corn tortillas, we made our way to a bus station to catch a ride to Guatemala City.

Within twenty minutes, our bus had already broken down. We didn't really mind though - we had no problem going with the flow, and we weren't in any rush. Finally the five Guatemalans under the bus fixed the problem, and we were on our way again. I napped for a few hours and awoke to a completely different landscape. We had crossed to the other side of the mountains and entered the rain shadow. Only a few dozen kilometers from the dense jungles of Alto Verapaz, the southern state was almost desert-like in its dryness. Our bus thumped along through the shrub land scenery to the beat of Mexican love ballads. It seemed like a movie - too perfect and too tacky to really be happening.

Eventually we made it to Guatemala city. No one on the bus seemed to know where we had to go to find a connecting bus to Antigua - everyone we asked gave us different advice, and both the Lonely Planet and my Rough Guide had conflicting information. My map made it seem like the two stations were within walking distance of one another, but the LP made it look like it would be a $10 cab ride - big difference. Finally, a Guatemalan guy asked us if we were going to Antigua and said we could just follow him - it was walkable he said. When we got off the bus, a bunch of taxi drivers surrounded us and told us that all the bus stations had been rearranged and the new one for Antigua was a short cab ride away, but definitely not walkable. The three of us and the Guatemalan guy squeezed into a cab with all of our bags, a guitar, and Mira and Milly's two surfboards. We had a great time joking with the cab driver about surfing through the streets of Guatemala City - each of us took a blind spot and helped the driver navigate.

We made it to the bus station just in time to catch our connection. --- First a note about Central American buses. Remember the big yellow school buses you used to ride as a kid? When their North American life is over they are shipped down to Central America to be used as public buses. The drivers paint them psychedelic colors and post tributes to Jesus and patron saints on every free inch of wall and dashboard space. They are very trippy, and very fun. --- Off we headed for Antigua, rolling and sliding across our seats as the manic driver raced around switchbacks, tires squealing at every turn of the wheel.

As we rolled into town, I started to get flashbacks of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Antigua is the old Spanish colonial capital - a beautiful collection of stuccoed homes, businesses, and churches laid out in a grid surrounding a central plaza in the shadow of an enormous, active volcano. It was destroyed during an earthquake in the 70s, but has been revitalized by becoming a UNESCO world heritage site. We checked into a cheap hostel after our 10 hours of travel and met up with the British kids. We got some dinner at a restored colonial courtyard restaurant and enjoyed some of the best Guatemalan food we had tasted up to that point. The next morning, I wandered around the city by myself and soaked up the rich and relaxed energy of the cobblestone streets, brightly painted stucco, and lively Mayan market at the edge of town.


After I had seen all I could, I hopped in a shuttle to Panajachel, a small backpackery town on the northern shore of Lake Atitlan. Completely unexpectedly, the shuttle stopped at another hostel and picked up the British kids. Some Israeli girls hopped in the van too, and decided I might as well try out my Hebrew since it had been a while since the last time I had used it. I asked one of the girls where in Israel she was from and what they were doing in Guatemala. They were doing the typical post-army trip to Latin America. She asked me if I was Israeli, and I said I was from New York. She then switched into English - "Really? Me too! I'm from Long Island!" Go figure...

We bounced through the mountains until we rounded a turn and came to a spectacular view of the huge lake below us with the silhouettes of four giant volcanoes on the far shore. We leisurely strolled through the streets of the laid back village and boarded tiny motorized wooden fishing boats to get to San Pedro on the other shore of the lake. I sat in the back with a local Mayan family, and I helped the old woman in front of me hold up a tarp against the leaky window to keep from getting soaked every time we hit a wave. The two women sitting next to me were dressed completely in traditional Mayan style - embroidered cotton skirts, lace shawls, and elaborately braided hair. They were all speaking their local Mayan dialect, and I was fascinated listening to the ancient sounding glottal and fricative noises that I have never heard in any other language. One of them turned and startled me with perfect Spanish, asking me where I was from, where I was going, why I was there, how I liked Guatemala, why would I ever want to leave, and when I was coming back. She showed such passion for her country, even though her people had suffered from decades of discriminatory policies and conditions of near-slavery at the hand of Ladino governments. They taught me a few phrases in Mayan, and then we docked and parted ways.

When we arrived in San Pedro, the Brits ran into some of their Irish friends, and we sat down for drinks on lakeside dock with a fantastic panoramic view of the mountain scenery. An old Mayan woman stopped by to sell us a few loaves of freshly baked banana bread and cinnamon roals, which we devoured instantly. After checking into our hostels, we met at an Israeli style lounge down a long sandy path through the village. We sat on pillows on the floor and had some tasty Middle Eastern food and beer while the Shantim around us chatted in Hebrew and smoked the local herb. Exhausted from a long day, I went back to my hostel and crashed early. What a relaxing and peaceful place to spend a few days for Christmas!

Party in the Jungle

The next morning, I hitched a ride through the jungle up to the Tikal ruins. I had no idea what to expect as I hadn't seen any pictures. I assumed it would be a large, open field with tons of tourists and scattered archeological ruins. In reality, it was a series of enormous Mayan temples spread out through a maze of dense Guatemalan jungle. You have to hike through the forest - dodging psychotic howler monkeys and scavenging coatimundis - to even get to the first set of temples.

To give some insight into my perspective, I have been reading a book called 1491 -- it's a snapshot of Indigenous American societies just before the arrival of Columbus. Basically, and contrary to what most American children are taught growing up, the Americas were highly populated with technologically advanced societies before the Europeans arrived and killed off 95% of all natives by introducing smallpox and other European diseases. The Incan empire, for example, was one of the largest and most sophisticated human civilization of its time (before we killed them off...) How many huge empires have ever been able to produce enough food for the entire population to be well fed? The Incas did. Anyway, the book talks a lot about the Mayans. They were very advanced in comparison to Europe at the time. For example, they developed the number zero far before Europeans ever learned about it through trade with India. What I find most fascinating about the Mayans, however, is that they're still around! Fifty percent of Guatemala is indigenous Mayan - they still speak Mayan languages, eat cuisine that has been prepared the same way for thousands of years, and maintain traditions that have been practiced since the time of the very pyramids I was going to see.

With this in mind as I explored the ancient temples, I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of what I was seeing. Forget Egypt - these things are incredible! Unfortunately, English doesn't have the right words to describe what the ruins were like, so you'll just have to look at my pictures.

Afterward, I got a ride into the town of Flores - a beautiful village on an island in the middle of a jungle lake. The atmosphere was so relaxed and the energy so bright that I would have been completely content staying for a few weeks, but I only stayed for a night and caught another shared van the next morning to a place called Semuc Champey - smack dab in the center of the country.

Joining me for the ride were some fantastic people, which was a relief because we drove for seven hours, and it was nothing I would call comfortable. I met three Brits from northern England - a young guy and his sister who were visiting their other sister who had been living in Guatemala studying Spanish for a few months. The youngest sister loved Guatemala so much that she had just called her company back in England and told them she wasn't coming back. There was a couple from Austria who had been traveling throughout the region for about four months and didn't have plans to stop any time soon. Another couple - a Czech guy and his German girlfriend - were surfing their way from Mexico to South America -- livin the good life. A Polish guy and his German girlfriend also joined us for the ride. After a while we changed vans, and I ended up meeting a very inspirational 71 year-old English/Israeli widower who had spent his single life traveling the world, volunteering and doing humanitarian work between sessions of helping mentally ill children in the UK. He had just finished a program in Antigua teaching poor indigenous children, and he came away from the experience beaming with enthusiasm and energy. The guy also wouldn't stop talking - I heard more Israeli war stories and dry British jokes than I'll ever be able to remember.

The lot of us ended up staying at the same hostel in the middle of the woods, hours from civilization. I could go on and on about the beauty of the mountain switchbacks we bounced through to get to this spot, but I'll never do it justice. All I'll say is that I had no idea how stunningly beautiful Guatemala was. I never expected to climb 5,000 feet from the Caribbean into the highland jungle where we stayed.

We were in the middle of Mayan country, and everyone around us was indigenous. Their Spanish was pretty good though, so communication wasn't a problem. I ended up rooming in a dorm-style loft with the British kids in the open attic of a shed. It was actually very cool. That night we all gathered in the dining hall of the hostel, and shared a dinner of chow mein and pickles with all the rest of the foreigners within a 100 mile radius. The next day was British Matt's birthday, so we did a little celebrating before midnight, and ended up having a great time getting to know all the groups of travelers that had happened to converge upon the same unlikely place at the same unlikely time. At some point, they kicked us out so they could turn off the generator and go to sleep, so we stumbled across the street to the river's dock. We lit some candles and sat beneath the vastness of the milky way discussing everything from the nature of God to the looming Mayan apocalypse in 2012. Mario, a Guatemalan and his Brazilian wife who live in Miami, told us story after story of life in his country. It was a spectacular night.

Now on to something I will take time to describe --- the trek to Semuc Champey. The next day, we stumbled out of bed to discover a crystal clear blue sky and a warm morning sun. We ate breakfast and headed across the street to the river to try out the rope swing. The girls were hesitant, but Matt reminded them that they had no choice - it was his birthday. We met up with the rest of the hippie gang and hiked down the hilly dirt road and over a rickety suspension bridge toward the entrance of the park. The weather was perfect, the company was great, the air was crisp and fragrant, and I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd rather be. None of us had any idea of what to expect from Semuc Champey, but my cousin Oren had recommended it to me as a must-see, so I took his advice blindly - I'm so glad I did.

We were trailed by local kids trying to sell homemade chocolate to the gringos. We bought a few bars - some flavored with cinnamon, some with cardamom, and some with the carbony flavor of burning... Once we got into the park we took a trail that climbed straight up the side of a mountain for about 1.2km to a viewpoint that overlooked the entire valley below. Absolutely breathtaking! Cradled between two jagged peaks flowed an alpine river that was crossed by a natural limestone bridge, created by millennia of mineral deposits. Water trickled out of crevaces in the hillside, which flowed over the limestone, resulting in a series of bright turquoise pools of cool spring water. After our long, sweaty hike up the slippery mud trail, we couldn't wait to get down to the pools to cool off. Absolutely amazing - one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

Eventually we hiked along the river back to our hostel, and we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the pier and jumping off the rope swing. That night, we went to the only other restaurant in the entire village to celebrate Matt's birthday. Everyone we had met over the past two days joined us for dinner and drinks. After a few beers, the rum made an appearance, and the party got more and more lively. The Brazilians at the end of the table were the real party animals, and João, the father of Mario's wife, came over to tell Matt that he had made an arrangement with the two Mayan girls working in the kitchen. "Don't be so British, Matty! Come on and relax! You can pick the girl you want tonight!! They are so pretty!" We didn't stop laughing for about ten minutes. Eventually, Mario hooked up his iPod and started playing some dance music. He and his wife made space on the restaurant floor and pulled everyone else out to dance. Randomly, the young guy behind the bar climbed up on a chair and replaced the light with a strobe light - we partied and danced till the wee hours of the morning. Never would I EVER have expected to find myself in the middle of a Guatemalan jungle, hundreds of miles from civilization, surrounded by Mayans who can barely speak Spanish, joined by free spirited travelers from England, Brazil, Czech, Germany, Guatemala, Colombia, Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands, the US, and Poland, dancing to samba, techno, and Bon Jovi, and having the time of my life.

Into Guatemala

Belize seemed like a transit stop on my way to the real meat of my trip - Spanish speaking Latin America. As my bus climbed the hills toward the Guatemalan border, I could feel shift in the language gradient. By the time I reached the capital - Belmopan - I started seeing the first street side signs in Spanish. I fell asleep for a while, and then by the time I woke up, everyone I had boarded the bus with had gotten off and an entirely new group of people were crowded into the small leather seats - all of them speaking Spanish. The transition was that fast.

The border was as much of a border as any other border I've crossed -- two countries, two sets of customs assholes trying to rip you off. I got through fairly quickly and was only forced to spend three dollars bribing my way to the Guatemalan side. I dodged the hawkers like a pro, and I avoided paying three times as much as a should have for transportation. Instead of hopping in a cab or private minibus like all the other helpless tourists, I walked across the muddy, dilapidated bridge separating the two countries and wandered into a small, very non-English speaking town that was infinitely more sunny and colorful than the Belize side. I found a nice old woman in a convenience store and decided to try my luck at asking about public transportation in Spanish. Naturally, it started to come out in Chinese, but I stopped myself before she noticed, and I found out that there were frequent shared buses to my destination that only cost $4 for the three hour trip rather than the $20 the other guys were asking.

I waited at the gas station across the street and sent my last few text messages home while I could still pick up the phone signal from Belize. The rain clouds that had covered the sky all morning disappeared as soon as I got to Guatemala, and the sun illuminated the vibrantly painted buildings at the peaceful intersection where I waited for a ride. Two young Guatemalans wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots waited with me quietly. No one seemed to notice me. It was really nice to see local life going on around me without any regard for the occasional tourist passing through. On my other travels, I would have had a crowd of people gathered around me either asking for money, smiling, or staring me down. None of that here - just happy Guatemalans doing happy Guatemalan things.

A small red van pulled up about ten minutes later, and a stubby young guy with a bright smile and a cowboy hat hopped out and ran around to open the side door. The two guys that were waiting with me hopped in, and the driver looked at me and said "¿Flores?" I responded, "no - El Remate." He said "yeah sure, I can swing by there too. It'll be 4 bucks." I hopped in and we sped down the bumpy dirt road toward my next stop - the base from which I would explore the main Mayan ruins at Tikal. The drive was stunningly beautiful, and it brought back generic memories of driving down beautiful roads in tropical countries all over Asia. Lots of dirt, lots of jungle, lots of cows, lots of sundried leathery locals. I'm starting to realize how much developing countries have in common. The building materials are of the same low quality, life is universally rough, simple pleasures keep people entertained, naked kids are part of life, and people burn everything. The main thing that distinguishes the different societies is the way they react to their poverty. To look at a pair of polar opposites: Thais take life lightly and are constantly smiling and laughing - Indians are drowning in the misery of their filth. Guatemalans, luckily, belong to the happy category.

As we drove on, we ended up stuffing a total of 25 people into the van (not exaggerating). A grandmother, her three grandchildren, an infant, and their dog all shared my lap for a good half of the trip. I didn't care though - Guatemalans are friendly, and they got a big kick out of the awkward gringo they were crushing. Eventually, the driver yelled back to me "oh yeah, weren't you going to El Remate? I passed it." He put the van into reverse and backed up about 20 meters before giving up and hopping out to open the door and pull me through the 15 people sitting between me and the fresh air. I paid him and asked what to do next. He told me to walk in the direction we had come from, and eventually I'd find what I was looking for. "Actually," he changed his mind, "just hitchhike with the next van that drives by. It'll be easier."

I wasn't tired, it was absolutely beautiful out, and I was in the mood for an adventure - so I just decided to walk. I did eventually stumble upon a road sign that pointed me in the right direction, and I found my way to El Remate - a beautiful lakeside village on the road to Tikal. I happened upon a cliffside hotel with outdoor bungalows overlooking the lake. For 3 dollars, I spent the night under the stars on a comfy mattress with a mosquito net, and I awoke refreshed the next morning to roosters and the sunrise.

Next up - Tikal, the Mayan ruins.

Day 1 - Belize City

In great contrast to the last time I started a big trip, I had absolutely no problems getting to Belize. Even on a day when the entire northeast was being pummeled with snow, sleet and rain - and all flights (after mine) were delayed by at least an hour, I left on time and arrived early!
As I already mentioned, my life for the past eleven months has consisted completely of school, work, and more school. I haven't had a chance to do any leisure reading or even leisure thinking - so naturally the first chance I get to let my mind wander, all I can think of is school. As the Yucatan Peninsula began to appear through the clouds on our descent toward the Belizean coast, I couldn't help but appreciate the beauty of the tropical jungle landscapes, coastal swamps, and coral atolls that were racing beneath my window in the context of my environmental biology class. Stop! You're done with classes! This is vacation now!!! I smacked myself in the forehead and forced myself to imagine the pristine beaches of Honduras where I'd have nothing to do but think of nothing and drink cheap rum drinks. Much better.

Jaime from CouchSurfing promised me that he would pick me up at the airport, and told me not to worry about how to tell who he was because he would recognize me.. I don't know how he planned to do that... All I knew was that he had a white Jeep. I waited outside the tiny terminal for about an hour, and was just about to give up and hop in a $20 cab into the city when a green Toyota pulled up and a guy around my age yelled "Max?" out the passenger window. We introduced ourselves and I hopped in. Jaime turned out to be a 25 year old Latino, Spanish-speaking lab chemist who worked in a hospital just outside of Belize City, who hated Belize and hated Barack Obama. His friend Mark was driving the car - he was a 20 year old Creole, Creole-speaking lab chemist who worked with Jaime and thought he was crazy because he LOVED Belize and loved Obama. They spoke English most of the time, but they kept accidentally switching into Creole, which is damn hard to follow.

We stopped off at a Belizean place for lunch, and I got some roast chicken with rice and beans. Mark is a vegetarian and couldn't find anything to eat, and Jaime doesn't like to eat at all, so I enjoyed my meal alone. They were very interesting characters... They were on a lunch break and left me to finish eating while they went back to work. I spent the next few hours wandering around the city and taking in the Caribbean atmosphere before I met up with them to get dinner and some drinks.

For the largest city in the country, it's very unimpressive. There is nothing I would call "urban." Mostly just small crowded, lively, and very colorful streets surrounding a small port where fishermen and cruise ships share docking space. I was approached by the usual beggars and con artists, but after abandoning my soul and any hint of patience while I was in India, I wasn't falling for their tricks. "I'm sorry you haven't had a job in 29 years and you have no legs, buddy, but you're not getting my wallet. Get lost." Traveling has definitely opened my mind, but it has also taken away my compassion. I'm not a walking ATM.

The warm 90 degree sun and vibrant Caribbean colors of the back streets of the city were very relaxing after my time in grey Beijing and the cold winter of New Jersey. Months worth of stress began working its way out of my system to the beat of the reggae streaming from every storefront.

Speaking of Beijing, this city is FULL of Chinese people!!!! Half of the signs were in Chinese. As my Belizean friends put it, the region is undergoing an Asian invasion. No one knows why, and no one really cares too much. (The story of Belize..) I decided to mess with their heads, so I walked into a Chinese grocery store that clearly was only frequented by other Chinese. The ladies at the front counter giggled to each other, "Why did that white guy come in here? He can't even read anything on the shelves." I walked back up to the register with a can of my favorite tea from Beijing, and asked them in Chinese "do you guys understand Mandarin? How much is this?" After they recovered from the shock, they all screamed and started rapid-fire interrogating me. We all had a good laugh at how much China sucks and how much Belize sucks more. (They don't feel comfortable around so many black people and they don't like the hot weather.. did I mention that Chinese people are brutally honest in their judgement?)

Mark picked me up a while later and decided to give me the grand tour of the city. We spent about five hours exploring EVERY street in the city. Multiple times... It was definitely something that most visitors to Belize City never experience. I was priveledged to see every major drug dealer's house and BMW, every illegal street racing spot, every scene of a murder or a rape in the past five years, every slum, every gas station that used to be something else a few years ago, every school that Mark had attended, the house of every girl Mark had had a crush on since he was 5, and every house of every person he knew --- which I'm assuming is every person in Belize... I saw the hospital he works at about four times, and I drove by the city's one casino at least eight times. It was quite the tour.

Jaime turned out to be a little nuts, but as I learned during my tour of the city, Mark was a very interesting guy. He told me all about the problems of Belize and how they will never amount to anything as a country as long as they keep killing and robbing each other. People are too poor, the government is too corrupt, and the nearby tropical archipelago and local girls are too beautiful for anyone to ever accomplish anything. Mark loves his country, but he feels strongly that the only way to get out of the cycle of poverty is to get out of Belize. He plans to go to Spain.

We had some Chinese food for dinner and ate it sitting on the sea wall that looks out toward the barrier islands. Lobster is so abundant and cheap that I treated myself to a $4 lobster chow mein. We talked philosophy. Life was good.

We met up with Jaime for a few drinks, and I passed out as soon as I got back to the apartment. It had been a very long day. Bright and early, Jaime drove me to the bus station, and I hitched a ride to the Guatemalan border. In total, I spent less than 24 hours in Belize, but I definitely got to see more of it than most tourists who just head straight for the beaches. Thanks CouchSurfing!

Next up - Guatemala

First Entry - 3 Days Till Departure

Hey everybody - back again for another adventure. This time to a place where I can actually speak the language! I visited Central America once before when I went with my family to Costa Rica, but it was mostly about enjoying the beaches and sights -- I didn't get much of a feel for local culture, but I was also young at the time. Now I'm gearing up for a 5 week long trip through the entire isthmus. Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, (and mayyybeee El Salvador). I'm counting on CouchSurfing to save me money on hotel rooms, (they aren't as cheap as in Asia where $2 a night was common!!). If you haven't heard of it, definitely check it out --- www.couchsurfing.com --- very cool.

I've been working nonstop since I got back from India, so I'm using this trip as a way to unwind, detox, and take a hiatus from the mayhem of "real life." Two days after I finished an incredibly difficult spring semester in Beijing, I started the most physically and mentally demanding job of my life - at the Beijing Olympics - working 7 days a week, 18 hours a day, for three months.... and then I got back to New Jersey a week after my university classes had already begun, so I had NO time to transition back to America or to relax after such a crazy year! FINALLY, this is my first time to live for a while without any commitments, and I'm doing it alone. Just me, my backpack, a few pairs of shorts and tshirts, a pile of books, my camera, and a Moleskine notebook! 

I'll be sure to update as much as possible, and as always --- feel free to email me and leave me comments along the way! 

3 days and counting!

~ Max

As always, I'll be posting my pictures at: 

http://picasaweb.google.com/maxwelltwo

(And if you want to check out old ones, visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/mxmrshll)

My email address: mxmrshll@gmail.com

Skype Address: mrshllmx