Shar's Excellent Adventure

Christmas In Puerto Vallarta

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 02:17:00 +0000

I have been seriously lazy about adding this blog, yes I know Christmas was a while ago but I have been busy, a little thing called the Olympics came through town.

Puerto Vallarta is a great place to spend the holidays. This is the first time I have been in a tropical place for the holidays and I highly recommend it. It was a little weird hearing Xmas carols while sweating on the beach, especially white Christmas.

This trip I opted to stay at a new hostel that just opened up. It is part of the Vallata Sun Hotel. The location is great, it is in old town, a block from the beach just up from Olas Altas. The hostel is run by a couple of Mexican nationals who are both backpackers themselves. In their off season they hit the road on their own adventures, they have been to 40+ countries and are a wealth of information. Due to this they know what it is backpackers want and need in a hostel. They are great people, due to the holidays and most people being away from home on Christmas eve they cooked a whole Turkey diner with all the trimmings for the hostel guests (at no extra charge to them). They also put candy canes and Santa candies on all of our bunks. A very unexpected and thoughtful touch and one that everyone there appreciated. Cost of a bunk is $17.00 a night and includes a breakfast of toast/bread, cereal and fruit. An excellent value.

Christmas in Mexico is celebrated on Xmas eve, that is when the big masses are and when the families get together. My mom and her husband live 6 months out of the year in PV so for Xmas eve we went to a restaurant called Que Pasa. As part of the payment for diner, people had to bring a toy for the local kids. One of the owners dressed up as Santa and there was an elf. Pinada's are big in Mexican celebrations so they had 3 of them for the kids, a reindeer, a santa and a Christmas tree. We all had a great time celebrating with the local kids and their parents and it was great to see them whacking away at the pinata.

On Christmas eve a lot of the streets in the local hood are closed to cars and families pull out BBQ's and there is dancing and partying. All in all a good time was had by all. Because PV is a tourist town most shops, restaurants and bars are open during both Xmas eve and Xmas day.

I am currently on another adventure. I started in Costa Rica and in 3 months I fly home out of Lima Peru via New York. If you want to come along the link to the new blog is http://backpackingcentralandsouthamerica.blogspot.com

Backpacking Central America - Summary

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:50:00 +0000

I've been home for 3 months now and still my backpack is not unpacked. There it sits by the front door fully packed "just in case". In case of what I am not sure, I'm pretty sure that if I unpack it I'll have to face the reality of the adventure being over. If it's still there in a few months I will seek professional help.

Not that reality is that bad, I had work lined up for when I got back so no financial crunch. My piece of crap 86 Bronco that I had left parked, outside in the snow when I left 4 months beforehand started 1st try after a battery re-change. I got home just in time for May long weekend. The 1st long weekend after winter when every resident of Vancouver gets in their car and parks on highway #1 to get out of town. I headed to Cultus Lake with some friends a short 1 1/2 hour drive from Vancouver. I have also made it over to Victoria this summer and in a few weeks over to Tofino for some surfing. I saw some beautiful places on my travels but there really is no place like home, British Columbia is one of the most beautiful places I've seen so this summer I am going to play tourist in my own province.

I am defiantly hooked on traveling and fully intend to keep exploring. It's a big world out there and I want to see as much of it as I can while I'm here. This trip was my first "big" trip and I did it solo in countries that I didn't speak the language of. In the beginning it kind of scared the crap out of me. During the 1st couple of weeks I constantly asked myself what the hell was I doing and why did I think I could possibly do it? The turning point was in Mexico City, I wanted to go to a museum on the other side of town. I didn't want to take an organized tour, I wanted to take the sub-way and mix with the locals. I've never been in a city with that many people before or on a sub-way the size of the one they have. I knew odds were slim that there would be many English speakers around and I was right, I didn't meet one on the trip there or back. Once I mastered the sub-way I knew that no matter where I went I'd be okay on my own.

I left Vancouver in January and returned home in May. The 4 month trip through 7 countries cost me about $3000.00 Canadian ($2700 US). I didn't do any of the "big ticket" items as I have done most of them, I do highly recommend you give them a go if you have never tried them. White Water Rafting, Zip Line Trips, Bungee Jumping, Fishing Trips, Whale watching trips, day boat trips, horse back riding ( did do one of these this trip), will all run you about $30.00 to $60.00 US. There are some really great multi day/camp out hikes that will run you about $150-$300 US.

Things I learned On My Trip

- Latin people are incredible - Some of the locals I met on the trip live on next to nothing and are in living conditions that North Americans would consider sub-standard. Yet they are friendly, warm, helpful and most of all happy. It makes one take a look at what is and is not important in life. Seeing a farm family come into town on Sunday for church dressed in their best cloths and in their donkey pulled cart brings home how trivial it is to care about what you have and the brand names on your stuff. I much prefer the Latin outlook on life, they value what they have and although they may want to better their situation it is rarely based on the "keep up with the Jones's" attitude of North Americans.

- Never trust cab drivers - Although I always got to where I was going and in no way felt threatened my wallet took a few hits. Some tips: Always agree on a price before you get in. If you can keep your backpack in the back seat, just in case your driver wants to renegotiate once you reach your destination. They can't hold your stuff hostage you can pay them the agreed price and walk away. If you can share cabs; usually at bus stops & hostels there are people going the same way, ask around. Most people are happy to cut their costs down by sharing.

- Beware mystery chicken bus snacks - During those long 6-12 hour long bus rides food vendors will board the bus, they stay on for a stop, get off, cross the road and catch one going the other way... Repeat for 8 -12 hours per day. There is everything from drinks to chicken and candy. Some food is not identifiable. Sometimes it may seem like a good idea to take a walk on the unknown side but it rarely is. I should add that these buses do not stop for more than 5 minutes at a time, there are no bathroom stops. You can train your bladder to hold out and avoid liquids but mystery bus food could cause more than a little discomfort.

- Get the top bunk in hostels - It's a matter of preference some people don't like the top bunk but I prefer it. - Closer to the fans; in 90 degree heat the closer to the fan the better. Head is not by the lockers; most lockers in hostels are next to the bed and a lot of them are metal. You won't get thrown up on; sadly in the hostel in Panama in the dorm room next to mine someone partied a little too hard. They were sleeping on the top bunk and tossed their cookies over the side, total party foul. I met the guy that was in the bottom bunk at the time and he got hit, apparently not a way you want to wake up. The down side; some of those bunks are really high 7 + feet and there are no ladders. If you are drinking and find you don't feel well getting down can be a challenge.

- Bargaining is a national sport but there is a line - Mexico was the most expensive country I was in Panama would come in 2nd, the rest are very cheap but in all most of the vendors are people who are just scraping by. I think because the money is so different you sometimes loose track on exactly how much something is. I found myself in Guatemala negotiating for a hotel room, it was a private room with my own bathroom and they wanted $35 Quetzal's, I offered $20.00 and then I did the math and realized I was haggling over approximately $1.75 US. The hotel is local family owned; they live on-site in rooms that are not as nice as the ones they rent out. The grandfather lived in a room with no bathroom. That $1.75 a night was not going to break my budget but it could make a huge difference in their world so I offered them $30 which they accepted. I met some backpackers on the road who would spend an hour arguing to get a better rate and some of them do. Personally I prefer to pay a fair market price if my budget ever got low enough that such a small amount of money would make that much of an impact it's time to go home.

- Patience - Nothing in Latin America happens quickly; if you go to a sit down restaurant it is expected that it will be a 2 - 3 hour event. They will never bring you the bill/check unless you ask them for it. It's part of their culture; they consider it rude to ask if you want your bill or to just bring it. You can't just say hello to someone; there is a ritual involved that involves 10-15 minutes of small talk. It is considered rude to not chat which leads to everyone being late for pretty much every thing. Line ups are standard everywhere; they never move quickly. Banks are especially horrible it's not uncommon to have to spend an hour in a line up. On the upside most of them are air conditioned so you may find yourself bypassing the ATM in favor of the teller just for some relief from the heat.

- Don't give money to the street kids - As cute and as sad as they are they do not get to keep the money. Either their parents get it in which case it is bad because if the kid can earn money they won't enroll them in school. Or they are working for someone and they take the money making it bad because it encourages child slavery. It's hard to do, my friends and I got swarmed in Leon outside a bar at 2am by 6 little boys aged 8 to 10. As bad as you feel for them and as crappy as it makes you feel you aren't doing them any favors by giving them money. I have bought them food and drinks, that they get to keep.

- A positive attitude and a smile will go a long way - There will be things that will aggravate you. Seeing the humor in a situation will make things easier. Getting frustrated and voicing it will not. People are more inclined to help you out if you don't abuse them, in most cases they have no control over whatever issue you are having. A smile is contagious if you do it you will find others around you doing it.

- Hablo español- My Spanish is pretty basic, so it is embarrassing to speak it; I keep thinking I'm butchering their language. I can form Tarzan like sentences but it isn't pretty. Despite that it is preferable to give it a try, the locals appreciate it and although they may laugh and correct you when you mess up the fact that you are trying will score you points. The locals talk fast so it never sounds the same when they say it as it did in class, its okay to ask them to speak slower. There are 2 forms of you in Spanish, tu is for friends and people you know well and usted which is more formal. Always opt for the formal, the Latin culture is very etiquette sensitive and you could offend someone by using the casual version.

I am definitely going to continue to travel, during this trip I met a lot of people who were doing volunteer work as they traveled. I would have liked to have done more on this trip but I would want to spend a couple of months doing it so it would be more of a 6 month trip for me. Lots of people were working at hostels to help defer the costs of their trips, a free place to stay and free or discounted meals and drinks for a few weeks can help extend your travels considerably.

San Jose Costa Rica

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:01:00 +0000

Having learned my lesson on late starts when going through borders I headed out for San Jose at 7am. Again a boat ride over to Almirante a 2 block walk over to the bus depot where I caught a bus to Changuinola for $1.60, a 1/2 hour ride. The bus from Changuinola to San Jose only runs once a day and leaves at 10am. I already had my ticket ($11.00) as I had to purchase it when I entered Panama. The bus goes the same route that I came in on, over the scary bridge. In order to clear customs we had to get off the bus and walk across, I was so hoping we would get to stay on the bus although that too is scary, not sure how that thing stays up with that weight. At least I got over before the bus came, don't think I'd have been able to go at the same time. There were no charges at customs this time on either side however my flight home was out of Costa Rica and I had to show my itinerary. If you are not flying out of the country you have to purchase a bus ticket back to Panama to get in.

The bus does not drop you off in San Jose at a bus terminal, it just pulls over on the side of the street and out you go. Having had a bad experience with meter cabs last time I was here I opted for a pirate cab this time. The guy gave me a price of $2000 Colon's to go to Tranquilo Hostel which it turned out was about 20 minutes away and that was all he charged me. Who knew from now on pirate cabs it is they are more honest than the "official metered" cabs.

Tranquilo Hostel is in a great area, right downtown so you can walk to pretty much everything. It was $10.00 a night for a bunk in a dorm room 8 bunks to a room. Included was free Internet/WIFI, coffee/tea, kitchen with fridge and pancake breakfast (with fruit) that they cook for you. They do sell beer but you can go to the market down the street and get your own and bring it in.

As I had not done any shopping on my travels I walked on down to the market to see what I could find. There are lots of souvenir shops full of the usual merchandise however I'm not really a fan of the Costa Rica key chain, etc. I did find a few things but I can't tell you what they are as they are gifts for people when I get back. Nothing overly tacky although I do enjoy giving people really bad gifts so I can watch them squirm as they pretend to like them ;-) I resisted my evil impulses this time but there is still a world of tacky gifts in Vegas so I don't think I will be able to keep from going over to the dark side, spaghetti strapped "I got laid at Coyote Ugly" 1/2 shirts for everyone!

I met some great people while in San Jose and got in some much needed drying out from alcohol, 2 beers in 4 days.. Okay they were 1 litre ones but still a significant drop in consumption. San Jose is a nice place, lots of shopping and the area I was in is very safe. The clothing stores do seem to specialize in skank wear, especially the glittery kind and they have lots of jeans that are really cheap so if shopping is your thing then this is the place to do it.

The hostel will arrange for cabs to the airport at a cost of $20.00US which I decided to do. I was going to take the bus at a cost of $1.75 however I would have had to walk 12 blocks across downtown at 4 in the morning which is never a good idea in most cities. As it turned out I made a very good decision. There was a torrential downpour the morning I was leaving and I mean it was really coming down so I was very glad not to be walking.

And so ends my Central American journey. I am still having a few issues dealing with the fact that I'm done and things don't really seem right but other travelers I've talked to warned me that it happens to all of us. Once I have adjusted a bit I will write a blog about what I have learned on my travels. It probably doesn't help that I'm in Las Vegas, just gives it more of a surreal feeling. My first night here I was like a country rube at the carnival, but that's a story for another blog entry.

On my travels I met a lot of incredible people from all over the world and from all kinds of different backgrounds, all of us with our own reasons for being on our journeys. The thing that we all have in common is that none of us fit into the "normal world" or want that lifestyle. At last I've found my own kind :-) Thanks to all of you! The places I went to were great but the people I met along the way are what made my journey truly amazing.

For the folks who have been following my blog, thanks for joining me on my travels. If you are planning a trip I hope I have been able to give you some useful info. If you have any questions or need clarification please ask if I don't know then someone I traveled with probably will. If you have been toying with the idea of running away from home and doing a big trip but have had reservations I hope I have dispelled a few myths and fears. If nothing else then I hope that I have been able to keep you entertained. As for me, I can't imagine not traveling again and I am already planning my next escape.

~ The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. ~ Saint Augustine

Safe travels to all. Happy trails amigos.

Bocas Del Toro Panama

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Sun, 03 May 2009 04:59:00 +0000

To get from Puerto Viejo to Bocas Del Toro I caught a bus to Sixaola, the cost was $1.75 and it was about an hour ride. Cleared Costa Rica customs and got my stamp out. After that it is a walk across a very scary bridge, again with the height issues if I couldn't have seen through the planks I would have made it across a lot faster. At Panama customs I had to go purchase a bus ticket out of the country, you are not allowed in unless you have a way out, the ticket was $11.00 and is good for 1 year for the bus from Changuinola (the closest town by the Panama border) to San Jose Costa Rica. Lots of folks I met had changed their airline itineraries on the computer before printing them out to Panama City as the place they were flying out of to avoid having to purchase the bus ticket. Sorry I didn't think of it but as I was heading back to San Jose I was going to need the ticket anyway. There is also a $5.00 US charge for US & Canadian passport holders to get into Panama. Seems our governments are not very nice to the people of Panama and charge them a lot of money to enter our countries so it is a retaliation fee.

Unfortunately we made a miscalculation on our departure time from Puerto Viejo, the last ferry to Bocas Del Toro leaves at 5pm and we did not have time to take the bus and none of us wanted to spend the night on the mainland so we had to catch a cab from the boarder to Almirante where the ferry leaves from. There is another route via Changuinola and then a ferry but they are dredging the canals so the service has been temporarily suspended. Too bad cause it sounded really cool, the canals are suppose to be beautiful. Anyway we hooked up with another guy so there was 4 of us in the cab at a cost of $8.00 each. We made the ferry with 5 minutes to spare, the cab driver called ahead and reserved us some spots so we made a beer stop along the way, good thing he made the reservation as it was a full boat. The ferry costs $4.00 and takes about 35 minutes, the ferry is a large speed boat that is covered, a pretty comfy ride and some nice scenery along the way, it is a very beautiful area, everything you would imagine the Caribbean would be.

We checked into the Hieke Hostel which is located on the main street across from the park, cost of a bunk in a dorm room was $10.00 an night and included a kitchen, cook it yourself pancake breakfast, free coffee all day and free wireless Internet. It is a nice place, rooms are clean, plenty of bathrooms, the staff is very helpful and a great vibe. Again ran into folks I had been meeting up with along the road, among them 3 French Canadian guys I ran into initially in Semuc Champey and again in San Pedro and again in San Juan Del Sur. I have no idea what their names are but I'm pretty sure they think I am stalking them and are a little afraid.

There is a lot of things to do in town, restaurants and bars everywhere and a couple of beaches 1 within walking distance that is not so good and one you need to take a bus to, cost of the bus is $2.50 US (Panama currency is US dollars) each way and the beach is okay but not up to Puerto Viejo standards. To get to the best beaches you need to take a boat and that costs $'s, anywhere from $5.00 each way up to $20.00 if you do the whole day tour that includes a visit to a few beaches, some snorkeling and a trip to Zapatillas, the cost does not include the fee to go onto Zapatillas which is an additional $5 to $10 as it is a national park. The fee is based on if the captain of the boat you are on can talk them into a discount.

We did not succeed in evading the rain, which kind of sucked but again we had a few days that the sun came out of hiding for. However not for long enough that any of us wanted to pay $20.00 for something we might be doing in the rain. As luck would have it we met some Canadian guys who have property on one of the islands along with a sail boat and a run about boat. They took a bunch of us from the hostel out for the day and we did a trip to Bastimentos Island to Red Frog Beach. There is a $3.00 charge to go to the beach as it is on private property. Bet you are noticing a trend here, as nice as the place is there are $'s attached to pretty much anything you want to do. After the beach we went back to the Canadians sail boat were we sat around, snorkeled and made pina coladas for the rest of the day.

I went out to a couple of bars one was on an island across the way at a hostel called Aqua, on Wednesdays and Saturdays they have free drinks for women folk, finally something that was free yippee, well almost you have to take a water taxi there at a cost of $1.00 each way. The other bar was just down the street Barco Hundido Bar. One of the cooler ones I have been in, part of it is on a dock and there is a swimming hole with a wrecked ship that runs under the dock. Not sure how wise that is with a bunch of drunk tourists running around, they do have a sign saying swim at your own risk things will cut you so I guess they are off the hook. Was fun watching all the fish swim around, no tourists gave it a go while I was there. I also had a few coupons for free drinks so a happy place for me.

I was now down to 3 days left on my travels and the rain was not letting up so I opted to head back to San Jose for some shopping as I had not been able to pick up anything on my travels due to the whole backpack weight space issue. It was really hard to say a final goodbye to the folks I was traveling with 1 has another 6 days and the other a month so they were off to Panama City. Happy trails amiga's, it was great sharing time with you!

So off I go to solo on the last leg of my Central American journey to San Jose.

Puerto Viejo Costa Rica

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:16:00 +0000

Getting from La Fortuna to Puerto Viejo was a rather painless endeavour. The Dutch couple decided to head to Monteverde so we parted company and I headed out on my own, but we are facebook buddies for life LOL. I found a great site for bus schedules for Costa Rica all the info you will need to find your way around.

I caught the 7am bus out of town going to San Carlos for $1.50 US, I had to make a transfer there to the bus for San Jose, the driver was very helpful and yelled at me to get off when he saw the San Jose bus coming up the street from the depot and I made the transfer, cost of the bus was $7.00. I have kind of gotten used to bus employees yelling at me, not sure I'll be able to take transit when I get home without someone to yell and shoo me off the bus, "vamous, vamous".

The bus goes to the Atlantic terminal and I needed to get the bus to Puerto Viejo at the Terminal Caribenos, the terminals are about 10 blocks apart, I could have walked it but we got in at 11:15 and the Puerto Viejo bus was leaving at 12:00 if I missed it I'd have to wait until 2:00 (Note: the last bus leaves for PV at 4:00pm if you miss it you have to spend the night in San Jose) so I opted for a cab. I have decided that I really do hate cab drivers, I asked this one how much to the other terminal and he said he had a meter. Well the meter was rigged cause he charged me $5600 Colon's which works out to $9.85US. As he was holding my backpack hostage in his trunk I had no choice but to pay the creep but lesson learned. I usually don't put my backpack in the trunk for just this reason but I was tired and in a hurry, my bad.

The bus from San Jose to Puerto Viejo takes 4ish hours and cost $8.00 US. You will notice I am using a lot of US pricing, it is because most of the prices are in US $'s but you can pay in either currency.

At this point I have 12 days left before I head out of Central America and a few of my road buddies are also heading home in May so a few of us arranged to meet up from our various points in Puerto Viejo. I was going to stay at Rocking J's hostel however one of the road buddies I was meeting mentioned Hotel Puerto Viejo, I was the first one in the others were not due till the next day and a couple the day after so I checked it out. I ended up booking a room there, it was $8.00US a night for a private room with shared bathroom & kitchen along with free WIFI and was in the middle of town. Rocking J's was $7.00 for a dorm and is a little outside of town. Some other folks that I knew from the road stayed there and said it was great, I did attend a party there and a fabulous time was had by all. For the most part I'm okay with dorm living however every now and then I treat myself to my own room in order to keep my sanity, living & sleeping with 8 strangers every night can get on your nerves after a while. Within minutes of getting in the room I had my shit spread out all over the place, what a great feeling. Mine all mine mwhaha! No having to consider someone else, wake up when I want, sleep when I want, don't have to lock my stuff up, total paradise. The folks that run the place are surfers and the atmosphere is great, very chill.

I was in Puerto Viejo 4 years ago, it has changed a bit, lots more people selling stuff, they put in sort of a mini mall and they have taxi's now. There is still only 1 paved street (not paved well, potholes everywhere) and most of the same restaurants and bars are still there. Puerto Viejo is a surf town and home to one of the best waves in Costa Rica Salsa Brava. I got to see it in full force last time I was here, alas this time I arrived too late in the season and it was a shadow of it's former self so most folks were surfing Playa Cocles. The rainy season seems to have started early this year and there was a killer lightning storm one night, I sat out on the beach under a tree to watch, the whole sky would light up and then the thunder came, it was an awesome sight.

The best way to explore the area is to rent a bicycle for $2.00 for 24 hours pack a lunch, snorkel gear and hit the road. There is a stretch of 15 kilometers of potholed filled road that will take you to one of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean Manzanillo. The road is pretty flat there are a couple of minor hills once you get close to Manzanillo so the ride is pretty easy. I should mention that the bikes are the old fashion kind, no hand breaks, no gears, it takes some getting used to. Mine was a pretty pink and white one (my friends are laughing their asses off with that visual) with more than a little rust.

By day 3 everyone who was suppose to arrive had gotten there and they too where experiencing the joy of the private rooms. All of us are female and we are all traveling alone and have been doing so for 3-7 months so none of us felt obligated to hang out together all of the time, always good when you can find like minded people. Funny because we are all very different partially due to culture (none of us are from the same country or part of the world) and partly because we are different personality types and have different backgrounds. I think it's my favorite part of traveling, getting different perspectives and finding out about how people live in other places. It does make me a little ashamed of myself as well, they all speak at least 2 languages and all I have is bad English, some Spanglish and almost forgotten French from high school. It seems to be a North American thing, in Europe they have to take other languages in school usually 2 of them.

I stayed in Puerto Viejo for 5 days, there were a few nice days weather wise but as previously mentioned the rainy season started early. So with 7 days left and a now seriously damaged liver and a few less brain cells, what to do what to do... Panama was not part of my original plan as I didn't think I would have time but now I do so we all decided to pick up and head down to Bocas Del Toro. One of my friends is flying back to Switzerland out of Panama so it seemed like a good idea as I had not been to Panama before, ah the freedom of travel. So off to Panama we go!

La Fortuna / Arenal Volcano Costa Rica

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:00:00 +0000

The trip to get from San Juan Del Sur Nicaragua to La Fortuna / Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica took about 10 hours. I left San Juan Del Sur at 10am on the Chicken bus, you take the bus marked Rivas and get them to let you out at the Pan American Highway (La Virgen) the cost of the bus was $10 NIO's. You then walk across the highway and catch a bus to the boarder, cost of the bus was $20 NIO's. There was a bit of an issue with this bus, the buses are old school buses and the bus was packed which of course doesn't mean that they don't try to cram more people in. I spent the trip standing on the front stair at the front door (with the door open) and my ass hanging out clutched on to the side handle. All was going fairly well until the big bang and the bus started swerving all over the road. Got to say I thought they might end up scraping my ass off the Pan Am HWY. We had blown a tire, kudos to the driver who managed to keep us on the road and not flip us. A 15 minute break for a tire changed and off we went, except the reason the tire blew was because too many people were on the bus so 10 minutes later all you could smell was burning rubber as the wheel well rubbed on tire #2. No problem we pulled over and they took a hammer to it and dented it up more, problem solved.

The boarder between Nicaragua and Costa Rica was brutal, it was so busy it took over an hour to just get the "get out of Nicaragua" stamp on the passport there are no signs telling you what to do and it is a bit confusing. So tips for crossing the boarder.

Don't buy any papers off the guys selling them, you don't need them

There is someone at the entrance gate to the actual boarder from the bus stop with offical ID tag etc, I don't know if you have to pay them to go through, they charged us a 1 but then no one asked to see the paper she gave us so watch the locals and see if they pay it... If not politely decline as it probably isn't offical.

Once you are through the little hole in the fence go straight ahead to the building in front of you (far one not the closest one that would be too easy) Go around back where all of the people are lined up and get in line

There is a 2 dollar charge to get out, You get a stamp

Once you have it head back to where you came from and hang a left towards were all the big trucks are walk past the weigh scales and on the left hand side a guy will check your passport to make sure it has a Nicaragua exit stamp. This is not customs keep going straight then follow along to the right where you will see lots of people on the left side there is a sign for a restaurant, go into that building walk to the end of the hallway and on the left is customs, no charge to enter Costa Rica and very fast, one stamp and you are done

The bus stop for local buses is right across the street from the restaurant when you come out of the building. There is no ATM so you can't get the local currency (Colon's) but they take American money or if you have Cordobas (NIO's) you can change them with a money changer at a not so good rate.

I caught the Upala/San Carlos bus it does not go directly to La Fortuna but it will go to the fork in the road (San Carlos is 1 way, La Fortuna the other) this was a 6 hour ride on some very bumpy roads, the cost was $8.00 US. When they drop you at the corner see which way the bus goes and walk the other way 2 feet to the bus stop, the bus comes by every hour and it is $1.00 (500 Colon's) to go to La Fortuna.

I stayed at a hostel called Gringo Pete's in La Fortuna. Cost for a bunk in a dorm room was $5.00 a night or $2686.00 Colon's, there is a kitchen. I ended up getting a bunk in the shed LOL a separate building in the back yard, it was actually very nice and clean. Pete is a great guy, very helpful when it comes to tour and local info. I took a hiking tour up the Arenal volcano, 2 hours up then back down and they take you to an observation point to watch the lava at night. After that you get a trip to the hot springs, cost for the trip was $21.00 US ($12028.00 Colon's). Food in restaurants can get expensive, the usual cost is about $3000.00 Colon's, beers are $1000.00 Colon's, the national beer is Imperial. We had a BBQ at the hostel one night which was great, everyone brought something including marshmallow's a great little bonding experience.

La Fortuna is a pretty touristy place, there is a souvenir shop every few blocks but it is a cute little place. I found a local bar to hang out in and most nights I was the only visible tourist in the place.

As previously mentioned I lost all of the photos on my camera of this leg of the journey so I have a few I took on the way out of town, the rest I am hoping to get from the nice Dutch couple I traveled with on this part of the journey. Some more folks I have run into a few times in various places, we finally just gave up and did this part of the trip together.

Next stop Puerto Viejo Costa Rica.

San Juan Del Sur Nicaragua

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:30:00 +0000

I caught a mini bus from the ferry terminal in San Jorge at a cost of $5 NIO’s, the person I was with paid $10 so it varies from person to person. We got to Rivas to catch the bus to San Juan Del Sur and one was just pulling out when we arrived. I decided to waste some time in the market till the next bus arrived. There are a ton of cab drivers in Rivas as Granada and San Juan Del Sur are so close the price of a cab if you have 4 people is not outrageously expensive. The problem is the cab drives are bottom feeding liars, they all kept telling me there are no buses to San Juan Del Sur due to the holiday, when I told them I just saw one leaving they come up with oh but there isn’t another one for 3 hours, when I pointed at the bus in the depot that was parked with San Juan Del Sur as the destination they said oh but it takes 3 hours… It takes about an hour and costs $20 NIO’s. So moral of the story is never believe anything a cab driver in Rivas tells you.

San Juan Del Sur is a town on the Pacific coast and is very popular with the backpackers and surfers. I checked into a hostel called Casa Oro the cost for a dorm room was $150 NIO’s. This is the first hostel I stayed at where they made you where a wrist band, they also have a million rules like; No outside alcohol, no drinking after 10pm, they shut the Internet including the wireless access down at 10pm, reception closes at 8pm and a security guard comes on and he locks the door so to get in or out you need to get him to open the door. Some people I had met in Ometepe shared a locker with some other people who took off for Costa Rica it was their lock on the locker so they took the Dutch folks passports to reception and left them for them. The person at reception didn’t tell anyone else she had the passports, so the Dutch people freaked out thinking the other people had taken their passports to Costa Rica, they asked 5 people at the hostel and all of them said they didn’t have the passports. It was at the point where they were going to hop on a bus to the border and try to catch up to the other people, finally the one who had took the passports came back on duty and they got them back. At 7 pm one night I went to reception and asked if they could change over $10.00 US to NIO’s, they told me no as they were closing, they closed at 8pm. We blatantly disregarded their rules and snuck in booze the whole time, it brought back fond memories from my teenage years. Before I came to Central America I was not a big rum fan however I am now drinking a lot of Flor De Cana, it is not at all like Bacardi or Lambs Navy and it is so cheap, a large bottle of 7 year old cost $100 NIO’s and can last me 4 or 5 days. The hostel does provide a good shuttle service to the various beaches at a cost of $80 NIO’s for a return ticket. You can’t get to the beaches any other way unless you hitch a ride or have a car as no buses go to them and it is too far to walk. Some people who were surfing said that Nicaragua is cheaper than Costa Rica for board rentals but when you add on the extra transportation fee that you don’t have to pay in Costa Rica I think Nicaragua is probably a more expensive place to surf which is okay if you are a good surfer as I heard they have better waves but as a kind of crappy surfer I would prefer to save the money. They do have much better waves for beginners than El Tunco in El Salvador, I bit the bullet and rented a board and paid for the shuttle out to Ramanos. You can catch waves pretty close to the shore there is either none or very little paddling involved which I was thrilled with. The waves were also smaller so I was getting up about 80% of the time. There is a resort on the beach, it is the only place there and there is no shade on the beach itself so if you want to hide out of the sun you need to pay at least $5.00 for the privilege of sitting under cover, not an issue as a beer will cost you $40 NIO's (they are normally $20 NIO's). For surfers who actually know what they are doing there is Maderas beach which has bigger waves and a stronger current.

San Juan Del Sur is a nice little town, when I got there all of the people from Semana Santa where on their way home. Some folks told me the town was packed for the holidays, people were sleeping on the beach as accommodations where hard to come by. I am kind of glad I missed that. It is a very nice town, has the whole beach/surfer vibe thing going for it.

I did check out a few of the bars, for research purposes only, the Iguana bar is pretty good ;-) had a great time it is a party town but most folks go to bed pretty early so they can surf the next day so by 12am most of the bars are shutting down. It is more expensive than other places I have been to in Nicaragua but I had been warned and it is a major tourist spot so it is to be expected. Street food like chicken and gallo pinto (beans and rice) ran about $80-$100 NIO’s. When you are used to paying $50 NIO’s it is a bit of an adjustment, in reality the difference is only a few dollars but it sounds like so much more. A note on gallo pinto, it comes with everything. I am now on month 4 of eating it and I now find myself ordering things with no gallo pinto, I think it will be a long time before I will ever do the rice/beans thing again. I am also getting a little tired of the banana chips, as tasty as they are every meal is a bit too much of a good thing.

I did have some really good pictures of the town of San Juan Del Sur along with pic’s of my next stop in La Fortuna however I should not be allowed to play with cameras. I was looking at the pic’s and somehow managed to delete them all so the visuals on this posting are a little thin. I have some people who are going to send me pictures but not until they get home in a few weeks. I will put them up when I get them. Lesson learned, never never hit delete until pictures are loaded on to the computer, it could have been worse I only lost about 200 but it was very stupid of me. So here is a link to some pictures on google of San Juan Del Sur.

Ometepe Island Nicaragua

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:58:00 +0000

Ometepte is an island in Lake Nicaragua that was formed by 2 volcanoes, one of which is still active. It looks like an island from a fairy tale, most people who have been there call it magical and I have to agree with them. There are 2 options to get there; on Monday's and Thursday's there is a ferry out of Granada that takes 3 hours. The other option is the one I used as I left on the Wednesday to avoid travel during Semana Santa. To get to the Island of Ometepe I caught a chicken bus out of Granada from the bus depot by the market. The bus goes to Rivas which is a town very close to the ferry terminal the cost of the bus ride was $25 NIO and took about an hour. As there was 4 of us we decided to take a cab to San Jorge where the ferry is at a cost of $20 NIO's each and a 15 minute ride. There is a shuttle bus that you can take for $10 NIO's and a chicken bus that is probably even cheaper but we were also running late and if we missed the

ferry it was going to be a 2 hour wait for the next one.

The ferry takes both passengers and cars. There are suppose to be 2 fares; $40 NIO's for the basic cattle option and for 1st class (air conditioning + a bar) it is $60 NIO's. The ferry was packed and we ended up spending the 1 1/2 hour trip standing on a deck at the front of the boat and yet they charged us all $60 NIO's so I'm not sure what was up with that. In Central America you don't pay when you board boats, buses etc. instead once you are underway someone comes around and collects money, they are a very trusting people much more so than North Americans. The guy on the ferry was one of the grumpiest people I have met. on my travels. I had to pay with a $100 NIO bill and he bitched about having no cambio (no change) he was not happy when I said I had nothing smaller and I would not give him the money till he found the change. He gets my vote for biggest dick in Nicaragua and not in a good way ;-)

When we got to Ometepe we gained 2 more people in our group a Dutch couple that we had met in Granada and had gone to Alpoya with. They had some money issues, the only ATM on the island only takes credit cards, no debit cards and that was all they had. One of our group was from Europe so they arranged a complicated money transfer between bank accounts via the Internet so she could withdraw it from her account and give it to them so it worked out in the end. If you are going over take all the cash you will need for your stay, as well as the debit card issue the ATM may also run out of money or break down and the ferry's and launches don't take credit cards.

With it being Semana Santa the locals at the ferry dock warned us that it would be almost impossible to get accommodations, not sure if it was true or not but most places are a bus ride away and the buses are not all that frequent so none of us wanted to take the chance of getting somewhere and having nowhere to stay and no way to get back so we chose to stay in Moyogalpa the town that the ferry docks in and just did side trips to other places.

The 6 of us stayed at a hotel that ends in Negra, can't remember the name but it is right across from the hotel Ometepetl, we got 2 rooms with bunk beds. The rooms came with a TV, I have not had a TV since the beginning of my trip in Puerto Vallarta so I was pretty happy at the prospect of getting to watch one. How sad my life as become in some ways LOL. Only 1 station showed some shows in English but I did get to see Cheech & Chong up in smoke so it was well worth paying the $150 NIO's per person for me. There are lots of good restaurants on the Island and some good street food options, prices are about $15 NIO's for a street hot dog, $25 NIO's for a street hamburger, $50 NIO's for street chicken and $100 - $200 NIO's will get you a decent meal at a restaurant . One of the places we found was Yogi's, it is owned by a Canadian guy named Jerry who has been kicking around Central America for 10+ years. He was a great source of information on a variety of topics. If you are looking to stay on Ometepe for awhile he takes volunteers for various projects and in exchange you get a free place to stay (and it looks pretty nice) as well as free food. He tried to talk me into baking brownies (not special ones) in exchange for my diner, he didn't believe me when I told him I can't cook, really it's more than that, I've made people ill with my cooking so.... He has my web site address and may read this anyone who I have ever cooked for is more than welcome to leave a comment on the damage I did to your digestive systems/food poisoning etc. to prove that I am not lying.

There were a lot of Nicaraguans on the Island for Semana Santa and I got to see a few precession's, I even participated in one. Didn't really do it by choice, they go down the street and stop at every intersection for a prayer. I wasn't sure on the etiquette of just cutting through the crowed to get to my hotel so I wandered along at the back for 3 intersections. There were lots of folks partying on the island and the bars made a lot of money over the holiday, I tried to do my part to contribute. I also spent some quality time at the beach doing nothing, there is a nice one about 4km out of town, it was packed with Nicaraguan families having a great time, lots of beach soccer going on. I also rented a bicycle one day, cost of the rental was $20 NIO's per hour. I rode up to Charco Verde and back, at 1pm when the temperature was around 34C the ride was 24km in total. Not something I will do again anytime soon, by the last 5km I was looking for a pickup truck to get a ride back to town good thing there was a beach on the way to cool off at, had to share it with some local livestock but they were very nice about letting us use it. I didn't end up doing it but if it had been a few km more I just might have. Way too hot to be playing that game. The Dutch couple did the volcano hike, a 6 hour hell journey up and back. They said they liked it but it is something you do need to be in good shape to do, a couple of them came back with some pretty good wounds.

One of the guys that was traveling with me really liked Ometepe, there is a group out of Vancouver who are setting up a community on the island, they have a bid in to purchase 75 hectares of land by the lake side. The plan is to sell off plots for $50,000, $25,000, $10,000 & $5,000 US as well as giving people who don't have the money the opportunity to buy in by working on the property in various capacities. There will be a residential section as well as a farm and eventually facilities to rent out to tourists. They will know if they have the land in June and plan on moving people in sometime in December so they can live on site while they build their own homes (there are currently buildings with kitchen facilities on the property) . If you are interested in getting more information let me know and I will get you the contact info for Maria who is currently on Ometepe and she will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

I left Ometepe on Sunday and headed to San Juan Del Sur. I decided to take a launch instead of the ferry to get off the island, only because time wise it was leaving an hour before the ferry. One of the scariest rides every, the boat, and I use the term loosely has no rails and looks like it really shouldn't float. There are a couple of benches bolted to the deck and the boat was packed with people and cargo. The cost to take it was only $30 NIO's so a savings there and luckily it was a calm day on the water. I really wouldn't have wanted to be on it in rough water. The launch does not pull up to a dock on the mainland, instead it pulls up to another boat and they run planks from one to the other that you have to navigate in order to disembark (no rails, just pieces of wood). Not very comforting when you are wearing a 40lb pack and carrying another 10lb one. All that was running through my head as I teetered across was how fast could I get them off if being my usual klutzy self I fell in. It didn't happen so on to San Juan Del Sur I went.

Nicaragua Leon Granada

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:47:00 +0000

The chicken bus from the Honduras/Nicaragua boarder to Leon was a grand total of $33 Cordoba - NIO ($1.64 US) for a 3 hour ride. We got dropped off on the highway so had to get a cab into town to the hostel at a cost of $20 NIO each for the 3 of us.

Leon Nicaragua

We stayed at Big Foot Hostel in Leon. It is a very nice place, great atmosphere nice common area and they have a pool and pet turtles. Okay more of a wading pond but still nice to dip in after a hot day at the market. Cost for a bunk in a dorm room was $120 NIO. One of us (not me) did the volcano sledding ($25 US and includes a mojito at the end), she said it was okay but not as much speed as she thought she would get going down however lots of folks coming back scraped up from tumbling off their boards so I guess you have to try it and see. Another friend stayed across the street at Via Via which she said was good as well. I personally like them, we went for diner one night and there was a raffle to aide street kids. I bought 3 tickets for $10 NIO and won a big bottle of rum and 2 packs of smokes. Score for me, always nice when you can get all of your bad habits met at one time, well maybe not all but 2 out of 4 ain't bad.

Leon is a nice little place, very colonial lots of old buildings and nice streets, lots of churches, it is a very safe place I went out a few times at night and had no problems. I have been noticing that I have lots of pictures of churches, can't really avoid them here. I like the buildings and so far I haven't burst into flame upon entering them so apparently god is on a coffee break or has something really evil planned for me later. The market in Leon is great, there are food stalls that serve all sorts of meals. My personal favorite was the pancakes, they are rolled up and filled with cheese. Two of those some mystery meat and a coke totaled $30 NIO.

Granada Nicaragua

I took a shuttle bus from Leon to Granada, the difference in cost between it and the chicken bus was only a few dollars and this way I didn't have to change buses in Managua. Cost for the collectivo van was $40 NIO and they dropped us off by the hostel in Granada. Our little group picked up another backpacker from Finland in Leon who I had met previously in San Pedro and Utila and we lost one from Canada who headed back to Guatemala.

We stayed at the Bearded Monkey hostel in Granada a bunk in a dorm was $130 NIO. Great location and the people are awesome, if you are passing by in the next month make friends with Dave the bartender, he is a party all on his own and a great dancer.. Thanks for the tunes, I could have lived without the 2nd bottle of rum :-(

Granada is like a fairy tale city, all pastel colors and very old buildings, it is located on Lake Nicaragua so there is a lot of beach front along the city. While there I did a couple of little excursions. I went to Laguna De Apoyo for the day, a lake in the crater of a volcano, the cost for a taxi for 5 people was $50 NIO each and a $25 NIO entrance fee for the car to get into the park. Great swimming and a very beautiful place. When we left we saw a lot of monkeys playing in the trees we must have pulled over 4 times to try to get pictures but they are quick little things and after a day of sun and lazing in a hammock I was not very fast. Okay I'm not all that quick on my better days but they really were moving.

Excursion number 2 was a boat ride on Lake Nicaragua through the islands just off Granada, they are pretty small. Most of the islands are privately owned and have houses on them and they are some very nice houses with many water toys (jet ski's, boats etc.) however there are a few for sale if you are interested. We also got to visit the island with the monkeys on it. The trip only takes about an hour 1/2 2 of us went and we had the boat to ourselves, at a cost of $300 NIO's it was well worth the money and if we had bargained we probably could have got it down but neither of us wanted to bother.

While in Granada the Semana Santa holiday started (Easter), lots of parades and religious stuff going. I'm not sure what's up with the purple clan members, kinda creepy and strange. The most important part of the holiday for backpackers is it's the week were getting anywhere in Central America gets difficult as buses are full and accommodations are hard to get and pricey. The smartest thing to do is to find a place you don't mind spending 4 days in and riding out the holiday. We decided to go to the Island of Ometepe.

Honduras - Utila - Tegucigalpa

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:12:00 +0000

I did end up making it into La Libertad in El Salvador, a nice town and more lively than El Tunco but I am pretty happy with the choice to stay in El Tunco. Also got in some more surfing no more injuries so all is well.

Next stop Utila Honduras. The folks that ended up in El Tunco who I met in San Pedo (3 of them) decided they too wanted to come to Utila so we all decided to go together. The buses to Honduras leave very early from San Salvador so we arranged a pick up truck ride in (takes about an hour) so we left at 6am. Since there were 5 of us we could not all fit in the cab so I drew the short straw and got the bed of the truck. It was actually pretty fun, most of the locals ride around back there and I made all sorts of friends on the road, people were waving and smiling, I got my royal wave perfected. The lady at the drive through coffee shop got a good chuckle along with the shotgun armed security guard.

From San Salvador we caught a chicken bus #119 from Terminal de Oriente to El Poy in Honduras for $1.75 (4 hour ride). People always joke that there are no chickens on the buses anymore but in this case it really was a chicken bus, a guy in the back had 4 crates of live chicks he was transporting, all the way to the boarder all you could here was chirp, chirp chirp. The bus lets you off on the El Salvador side and you have to walk across the boarder. Didn't have to check out of El Salvador but did have to check in to Honduras which was a $3.00 US fee. Caught a taxi up to a town called Nueva Ocatapeque that is about 10 minutes by car up the road. They have a bus depot in a hotel there, we caught a bus to San Pedro Sula for $120.00 Lps - $7.75 US (an 8 hour ride), so far all the buses lined up and we did not wait more than 1/2 an hour between transfers. We got to San Pedo Sula and the plan fell to shit. We were too late to get a chicken bus out to El Ceiba so the only option was the 1st class bus at a cost of @240.00 Lps $15.00 US for a 3 hour ride (note the locals pay a different rate it is $10.00 US). It was a very nice bus but after we had saved so much money by using chicken buses it was a little disappointing to have to cough up the cash.

Got to La Ceiba at 9:30 pm to find the hostels all full, we managed to get in at the Banana Republic but 2 of us slept on couches/the floor at a cost of $50 Lps. If you are going to have to spend the night in La Ceiba you should make a reservation as it fills up fast with folks having to spend the night before heading to/coming from Utila.

The ferry to Utila leaves at 9:30 but you have to be there at 8:30 to get a seat. Groceries on the Island are pricey so we did a food run at 7:00 am to get some staples and by that I mean mostly booze. The ferry costs $425 Lps - $23.00 US, the boat is pretty small but the ride across wasn't too bumpy.

I wanted to take the open water PADI dive course. 1 of the others is PADI certified so she wanted to do a few dives and the rest just wanted to snorkel. A friend from San Pedro was already here and she had just finished her dive course so she sent me an email while I was in El Salvador with the info on the place she was at. The place is great, it is called Paradise Divers and is located 1/2 a block from the ferry dock. This is the only locally owned dive shop on the Island and is owned by a lady names Rosa who is a great lady. Nice rooms and cheap diving, the course cost me $235.00 US and included free accommodations. The folks not diving paid $65 Lps - $3.00 US each for their dorm beds. They have a kitchen which helped to keep the costs down a bit, but the local street food is pretty cheap you can get Baliadas with meat for $20 Lps. The staff at Paradise are awesome and the atmosphere is very chilled. No hard sell here you either want to dive or not, no one is going to give you a sales pitch or try to convince you. They do several trips a week where they go out and look for Whale Sharks, they had 2 trips out while I was there and found them both times. Most of the Islanders have really cool accents, a cross between pirate and Jamaican. The folks on the island are a diverse people, a mix of just about every color due to British rule at one time, Spanish locals and the slave trade, they are a very resilient and down to earth bunch of people. They tell great stories about everything from fishing and diving to surviving hurricanes.

A word of warning, if you are not going to dive on the island odds are good that you won't be able to get cheap accommodations. The dive hotels are mostly reserved for people who are diving, understandable as that is how they make their money so you will probably have to go to a non dive hotel and pay a little more for your accommodations.

There are a few bars on the Island, somewhat like San Pedro in Guatemala they too seem to rotate which bars are busy on specific nights. There is one that I found fascinating, it is called Tree Tanic and is located in the branches of a tree in a hotel. I took lots of pictures and posted only a few here, to see more go to
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35635562@N06/3409682219/. It took 10 years for them to build it up to this point, all hand made with bits and pieces of whatever they found to build with. They have the coolest bathrooms in Central America they even have toilet seats. One of the mysteries of traveling here.. Who keeps taking the toilet seats?

I ended up staying on the Island for 5 days, I had a great time and met a lot of new people as well as seeing some others that I had met in San Pedro. We did run into a little issue, there are 3 bank machines on the Island however they went down and for 3 days no one could get any cash out. So a suggestion if you go, make sure you have enough cash to get you through your time there just in case something goes wrong with the ATM's. The ferry will not take Visa, you have to pay cash to get off the Island, we had several folks stranded with out enough money to leave. Lots of sad people who couldn't afford to go to the bar or eat for a few days.

From Utila I headed off on my own to the capital of Honduras Tegucigalpa, in order to get to Nicaragua it is the easiest and most direct way to go. I caught a bus from La Ceiba to the capital, the bus was $120.00 Lps and took 7 hours. I got in at about 9pm and my taxi driver suggested a hotel, Los Primos. It is located about 2 blocks from them main plaza downtown, it was $120 Lps a night. Private room with a shared bathroom. I did get out and walk around to see the sites, there is a lot of history here. On night 2 I caught a show in the plaza that was a musical that taught about the African history of Honduras. Sadly I forgot to take my camera out with me so no pics. There was also a world cup soccer match on my last night there, Honduras vs. Mexico; Honduras won and the party in the city went on all night. They do love their soccer, the manager of my hotel and a few others got some beer and used one of the rooms with a TV to watch the game.

The bus to Nicaragua was $70 Lps, it was via the Mi Esparanza bus company. As I was sitting in the bus depot waiting for my bus a couple of travel friends from San Pedro/El Tunco/Utila showed up. A very small world indeed. There are a couple of routes you can take to get to Nicaragua from here, we chose the Rio Guasaule border crossing. A bizzar experience, we couldn't get off the bus as the locals swarmed us. There are guys with bikes who will take you and your luggage to the customs office and then the 3 km to the bus depot on the Nicaragua side. They are very pushy and fight amongst each other, almost had a few brawls break out. They also grab your backpacks and load them onto their bikes. A fun little game of where is my shit ensued as they steal it off each others bikes. I ended up yelling at a couple of them and strong arming my backpack back. End result a long hot walk through the boarder and to the bus depot so I would recommend that you use their services but don't pay more than $20 Lps. Cost to get out of Honduras free. Cost to enter Nicaragua $7.00 US. Pretty painless, I find it kind of funny that not once in my travels has anyone asked to see my backpack or searched it. Too used to going through the US/Canada customs I guess.

Next stop Leon Nicaragua.

El Salvador - San Salvador - La Libertad - El Tunco

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:09:00 +0000

Caught a shuttle out of San Pedro that went through Antigua and dropped me off in Guatemala City were I caught a bus to San Salvador, cost of the whole trip was $300 Q. You can do it by Chicken bus a lot cheaper but I was being lazy. The bus terminal in Guatemala City was in a pretty sketchy neighborhood (the ticket counter was encased in bars) but they were some of the nicest people I've met on the trip. A guy that worked there stored our backpacks in his room for us and the folks at the cafeteria were great too. A friend from San Pedro was coming the same way so we traveled together for this part of the trip. The trip took about 7 hours including the 2 hour layover in Guatemala City. Crossing the boarder into El Salvador was very easy. You go into Guatemala customs to check out of the country and the El Salvador customs is a guy who looks at your passport and waves you through. No stamp which kind of sucked I would have liked to have had one as a souvenir.

We got into San Salvador at about 7pm, it was not at all what I was expecting. Very Americanized, Burger Kings, Pizza Huts, gas stations with real 7-11 like stores. We arrived the day after the elections, the rebels who fought against the government in the civil war won (FMNL). Lots of people/journalists in town to cover the election, kinda of cool to be there when history was being made.

We got bunks in a dorm at Ximena's Guest House which is located in a very nice area of the city, one of the safest places apparently. The cost for a bunk was $7.00 (the official currency of El Salvador is US dollars). It is also only a couple of blocks from the largest mall in Central America, visiting malls was not really in my travel plans but I needed to replace my running shoes which got stolen in Antigua (not by a local, pretty sure it was a tourist). The place is huge, I only saw about 1/2 of it I found the shoe warehouse at that point so got my new sneaks and got out.

We spent 2 nights in San Salvador. The first day we went for a walk, I forgot my camera, I left it sitting on my bed so I will get some picks off my travel buddy and post them in the next day or 2. I am pretty sure we logged about 20km. Started with the Zona Rosa District that has a bunch of Museums, we went to the Museo de Arte MARTE cost to get in is $1.50 (50 cents if you are a student). Great art all of it from El Salvador artists, some pretty angry stuff from the 1980's. We checked out the exterior of the theater which is beside it and then walked down to the Museum of Anthropology but that one was $3.00 to get in so decided to pass on it.

We then headed to the historic district, found a great little local cantina and had a beer then headed down to the cathedral and the National Palace where we found the local market. It is the biggest street market I have ever seen, it takes up about 8 blocks and it is jammed full of vendors and buyers. You can get pretty much anything you would ever need here. Movies are 3 for a $1.00, CD's, cloths, shoes, produce, fruit and all very cheap, a pair of jeans will run you about $6.00. During out 6 hour walking marathon I didn't see any other tourist which was kind of nice for a change. The locals in San Salvador are very nice everyone was smiling and saying hello, we didn't run into any issues in any part of town that we went to.

Day 2 we caught the chicken bus out of downtown El Salvador (60 cents) and headed to La Libertad (1 hour ride) for a chicken bus change then on to El Tunco (25 cents about a 20 minute ride), free if you can get a pick-up truck to stop and take you. We ended up checking into Papaya's which is a hotel/hostel. They didn't have any dorms available ($7.00 a night) but they did have a room with 2 beds and it's own bathroom for $16.00 a night which works out to $8.00 each. The place has free WIFI and a full kitchen including a fridge. El Tunco is a very small surf town, when we got in there were a lot of surfers, a swell had come in and they had all come up from Nicaragua, by day 2 the swell was gone and the hard core surfers were off to Nicaragua for a swell that was coming in there. The majority of tourists here are El Salvadorians, it is so close to the capital that it is very popular with them. There is also a holiday on right now, part of the whole 6 weeks of Easter thing so lots of them have this week off work.

The nightlife here is not an all out party, there are 4 or 5 restaurants/bars, a bonfire on the beach is about as crazy as it gets which after San Pedro is a nice change. Food in restaurants runs about $2 - $3 for breakfast, dinners can cost anywhere from $3.00 for a burger to $9.00 for seafood. I heard a rumor that there is a pupusa stand somewhere in town that you can get a couple of pupusa's and rice for $1.50, I haven't found it yet. The general directions given to me by a surfer are it's a shack over the bridge... Haven't found a bridge yet either but everyone at the hotel is looking for the place so one of us should find it soon.

I took a surf lesson yesterday, I have surfed twice before but I kind of suck at it so thought a lesson wouldn't hurt, and yet it did. It was $15.00 for an hour. My instructor didn't speak English so he had to put up with my Tarzan Spanish which resulted in much communication via hand gestures. I kind of thought he would take me to the nice little wave beach, I was wrong... I got to go out to the big kid waves which involved a great deal of paddling, something my scrawny little arms had issues with. The waves break on the reef, not something I knew so I didn't realize putting your feet down was bad.. Got some cuts on my feet out of the deal and lost some skin on a knee but pretty minor flesh wounds. Got a bit of a fat lip from the board in the face on one run, forgot to put hands in front of face when coming off. All in all it was awesome, got up on all but 1 wave (submarined it) it wasn't pretty and I didn't stay up for the full run on a few but did better than I have in the past. I will be getting in some more surfing while I am here the cost to rent a board for the day is $10.00.

Some of the folks from the hotel in San Pedro showed up here the yesterday. Hung out with them last night along with some Aussie surfers. We got interviewed for a documentary on tourism in El Salvador if I don't end up on the cutting room floor it could be my 15 minutes of fame LOL... And you all thought I'd get it by being on cops, bad girls bad girls whatcha gonna do....

Heading into La Libertad in the next day or so, there are no banks or bank machines in El Tonca or any real grocery stores, just little ones that sell very basic stuff.

If you are looking for people you met traveling visit Lost Trekkers a free international people search

I live up the river on the right

Escape From San Pedro Guatemala

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:21:00 +0000

Escaping from San Pedro is not as easy as one might imagine. There are some people there that have been trying to get out for months.. Everyone says that they are going but no one ever does. Unless you purchase a ticket you remain trapped in the Bermuda triangle of Guatemala. After 3 weeks of being there it was very hard to say goodbye especially with the awesome sunrise this morning.

I took 2 weeks of Spanish school while I was there, I'm not sure how useful it was they teach you things like how to say My Mom and my grandmother came to see me play chess etc.. Not really travel related so taking just 2 weeks didn't give me a lot of vocabulary I could use on my travels. If I was going to take 6 or more weeks it would have been great as they do teach the whole grammar thing. I am still trying to memorize verbs so who knows if I really need it my subconscious may be able to pull up the info.

With going to school it was hard to get out and see anything outside of town. I did make an excursion to San Marcos which is a town across the lake. There are cliffs to jump off of and a whole bunch of Yoga classes and spiritual healing centers. Maybe should have spent more time there and less time in the bars.

The last hotel I stayed at the Penelue was great. Really nice people who run it and the folks staying there where all there about the same length of time I was. Nice rooms and cheap they have dorms and rooms with shared bathrooms a private room with bath will run you about 30Q. I had some friends who stayed at the Pinnochio and they said it was great as well as a couple at the San Franciso which also got good reviews. Lots of us left today and it seems we are all heading to the same place so I"m sure I'll run into them on the beach in El Salvador.

Some great places to party in San Pedro; The Budda Bar, Barrio, Flying Dog and The Alegre. There is a system each bar seems to have it's night and the rest are dead and it rotates through the week so everyone gets a turn at having the crowd. There was a music festival over in Santiago however due to overindulgence the previous evening I was unable to attend however some friends went and said it was great.

There really is no way to describe what San Pedro is about, you have to experience it yourself but I highly recommend that everyone stop by for a week which may turn into a month, if you find yourself looking for a job it's time to get out, your liver will thank you.

Having escaped I have now arrived in San Salvador, El Salvador. Looking forward to exploring a new place.

SanMarcos

Guatemala Reality TV - Pimp My Tuc Tuc - San Pedro

San Pedro Guatemala - Paradise

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:13:00 +0000

I caught a bus out of Antigua to San Pedro at 2pm ($65 Q ticket purchased at the hostel (Black Cat)), the ride was suppose to be 3 1/2 hours however that time estimate didn't take into consideration the road construction about 1/2 way here that resulted in an hour delay and we had to drop some folks off at another town on the other side of the lake so we arrived at about 7pm. The bus of people were great, we hit the road construction and an Irish guy on the bus pulls out a 2 litre jug of the local moonshine called cusha. Smells a little like pain thinner but by the second swig you start thinking it's not so bad. There were 12 of us on the bus so we all took swigs (except the driver) and purchased a few CD's for the rest of the trip to play in the bus from the road side vendors who were taking advantage of the parking lot the road had turned into. All in all one of the best bus rides so far some Argentina girls, a couple from South Africa, Irish Dude, American girl and a couple of guys from Germany.

American Girl & I got off the bus and decided to get a room together (we had just met on the bus) for the 1st night and look for other accommodations in the morning. We ended up being roommates for 3 nights.. On the 3rd day we were out for breakfast and she said "By the way thanks for not killing me in my sleep glad your not a serial killer" to which I replied "and thank you for not stealing my stuff" LOL

Went to the bar our first night in (surprise surprise) were the special of the night was $4 Q Cuba Libra's.. Yup that's about 60 cents a drink and met up with Oregon guy and Czech girl that I had met in Flores along with Aussie dude, Toronto guy and German girls. Once happy hour was over we went over to the Reggae club and had a few tequila shots. Long story short it took me an hour to find were I was staying and then I couldn't remember what room I was in so spent some time looking through windows and trying the key in doors to try to spot my bags in a room.

San Pedro is awesome, they have some of the coolest streets, tiny little paths the run all over the place, very easy to get lost but that's part of the fun cause you find new little shops and restaurants all over the place. Lots of great people as well and from all over the world most of them have been traveling for a long time so they have lots of tips. Also met up with the guy from Kelowna who was in Antigua, he is sharing a dorm with Irish guy from the bus. It is a very small world indeed.

Spent yesterday checking out other hotels as I am going to be here awhile I want to find somewhere cheap and in an area that is easy to find. Moved this yesterday into a new place by myself ($35 Q) but I'll be moving again on Monday. This place is okay but shared bathroom and a little on the scuzzy side so found a place today that is available on Monday for $30 Q has a private bathroom and a shared kitchen not that I have any intentions of cooking but the fridge to keep beer cold is a good thing. I've been living on street meat since I got here, $10 Q for 3 taco's, $8 Q for street chicken LOL the hepatitis A shot was probably a good idea. So far all good and the food is very tasty. There is a guy on one of the side streets who has a stand called Phat Burger, every time you walk by all he ever says is "Phat Burger" in a baritone voice, sometimes you don't even see him it is just a voice coming from somewhere.

So for folks that have been to Osoyoos this is the same kind of thing on an international scale, we are all from different countries and with way more bars and cheap drinks, same kind of vibe everyone is friends with everyone and all are just looking for a good time.

I signed up for Spanish lessons yesterday at the cooperative school ($675 Q for the week 4 hours a day for 5 days), Oregon, Aussie and Czech girl also registered 2 of them started today but mine does not start until Monday. Aussie guy is doing the home stay where you live with a local family so I'll find out how it goes and maybe do that for the last week I am here. It would be good to be able to practice Spanish.

Went kayaking yesterday which was great but the wind picked up so getting back involved some work arms are a little sore today. Kayak rental was $10 Q

Tons of Internet cafes here. The one I am using is D'noz it is right by the dock. They have WiFi and all you have to do is buy a beer to use it.

Room for #35 Q - Moving out Monday -------- Streets

Streets

Semuc Champey / Antigua

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:16:00 +0000

Caught a shuttle bus from Flores to Semuc Champey / Lanquin for $100 Q a 7 hour bus ride that involved a car ferry (BC Ferries should outfit their boats this way LOL check out the motor, 1 on each side) at one point and the last 1 1/2 hours on a 1 lane dirt mountain road that makes the old Hope Princeton look like the autobahn, pretty interesting when 2 vehicles meet up.

Stayed at El Retiro Lodge in Lanquin, a really nice place lots of Cabanas and right by the river, dorm rooms are $35 Q a night and they have all you can eat diner @ $40 Q which was kind of lost on me as all I can eat isn't much but the food was great. They have swings as seats at the bar which was my favorite part of the place. Sadly the weather sucked it was raining and cold, I still would have stayed the extra day if it was just the rain as they have a great tour that involves caves and wading chest deep in water with a candle, a 10 meter bridge jump and playing in the river pools but wasn't interested in the cold and one of the locals told me it probably would not get better anytime soon so rather than sit and drink (unless you are doing the tour that's about all there is to do, not much in town) I decided to move on and return at a later date. So off to Antigua I go, $125 Q and another 7 hour bus ride. The shuttles are pretty comfy normally but this one was full so we were all a little squished.

Got to Antigua which is a beautiful colonial town, it used to be the capital of Guatemala until the earthquakes and lava hit then they moved it to where Guatemala city is. Lots of reminders of the quake many of the buildings are 1/2 fallen down which just adds to the charm of the town. Lots of Spanish schools and gringos. I checked in to The Black Cat Hostel, it is right by the main square, dorms are $60 Q and include breakfast in the morning so not a bad deal. Lots of folks here, met a guy from Kelowna, a chick and a guy from Oregon and more Brits. Got some great travel tips as most of them were working their way up from Nicaragua. Just did the 1 night here, I will come back on my way through to El Salvador and stay a few nights, I am going to be in San Pedro taking Spanish immersion classes for at least 3 weeks and I'm really looking forward to not taking a bus for awhile, I got a tip on a great hotel for $15 Q a night were you get your own room with a bathroom, I am so looking forward to that and unpacking, so I'll see how it pans out. Bus to San Pedro (Shuttle) $75 Q.

Czech girl from Flores just came in to the Black Cat to use the bano she is on the shuttle to San Pedro an hour ahead of me, Oregon guy from Flores is already there.. Small world, you find after a few weeks that you keep bumping into people in the strangest places. All very random, or is it? San Pedro should be good, they are both crazy :-)

Flores - Tikal Guatemala

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:13:00 +0000

The trip from Palenque to Flores takes about 8 hours and is a combination van, boat, bus trip, the cost is $340 pesos. The bus leaves at 6am from El Panchan which is also were I got the ticket from. Sadly my dumb ass travel alarm clock is having issues, I bought it just before I left from my trip so it has been used twice I paid $10 for that f%cking piece of crap. It is a simple clock with a battery dial style so you would think there is not much that could go wrong with it but... The minute hand gets stuck once in a while and time stands still which is what happened the morning I needed to be up at 5am. Luckily I had a gecko roommate that night and at 5:30am he started chirping which woke me up. A bit of a rush to get my crap together but made it to the bus stop with 5 minutes to spare.

I used San Juan travel for the trip and other than a bus mechanical issue it was great (it didn't break down but it was pretty sick by the end of the trip), all of the connections were set up with people waiting for you. The first part of the trip is a 4 hour van ride to Frontera Corozal; where you clear Mexico customs at a cost of $100 pesos or $10.00 US. Then a 35 minute boat trip down the river, climb a steep mud bank to the bus for Flores. There are money changers on the bank of the river so you can change pesos to quetzals which is recommended as there are no banks in Flores who will change it for you. You get ripped off a bit but if you are not returning to Mexico it is worth it. 5 minutes into the bus ride we stopped at Guatemala customs in Sayaxché they don't check bags or anything you just show your passport and tell them how many days you want, I got 90 just in case I end up staying longer than planned. There is a $40 Quetzals charge to get into Guatemala. Than a 3 1/2 hour bus ride into Flores with a stop at the ATM machine in case you need $'s.

There were a few folks from El Panchan on the bus and we all decided to stay at Los Amigo's hostel. It is one of the best hostels I have stayed in. Funky decor including a swing in the lobby and lots of nooks and crannies. I got a dorm room with private bath for $40 Q and the couple with us got a private room for $60 Q. The hostel has a restaurant that is really cheap the average meal is $25 Q - $60 Q and they are huge. They also have beer and blender cocktails that run about $15 Q. This is a very busy place and for the most part is usually full, the staff are incredibly helpful and you can book most travel arrangements through them. Check out their web Site for some great travel advice on getting through Guatemala. They also have a couple of pet parrots that although cute can be very noisy and a few dogs and cats who have the run of the place. If you want to meet people this is the place, as well as the folks I came in with from El Panchan I met a ton of others who it turns out were all going to Tikal the same day. I highly recommend the blender drink with Strawberry juice, Bananas and rum in the huge fishbowl glass, very tasty. I had a brief stint as a street performer, I spent the first night hanging out with a fire dancer from Montreal going from restaurant to restaurant doing her show and collecting $'s.

I booked my trip to the Tikal ruins though the hostel and once again it was via San Juan Travel. The buses leave at various times but I wanted to be up there as early as possible so I booked on the 5am bus which gets you to the ruins when the park opens at 6:30am. The cost was $60 Q including return, you can take whatever bus you want back they run at 12:30pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm and the last one goes at 6pm. No need to book the return just show up at the bus stop 10 minutes before the bus goes. Again alarm clock f*cked up but a couple of others in the dorm where on the same bus so crisis averted... Clocks and time are not my friend :-(

The park is huge, I didn't get a guide but I did purchase a map it costs $150 Q to get in to see the ruins. The ruins are beautiful, it was foggy when we got there so it gave it a very ghostly appearance. The wild life was also very active in the morning and I saw howler monkeys, regular monkeys all kinds of birds and a wart hog looking thing. Most of us headed out on our own little adventures in the park and bumped into each other through out the day. You get through the park via dirt roads and paths through the jungle, for the most part I took the paths over the roads way more interesting. There is something about walking through the jungle with no one else around that makes you feel connected with nature. In some cases I would go an hour before running into anyone else. Some of the ruins are incredibly high, number IV and V are particularly scary, 4 is the tallest one but V has the nastiest set of stairs on it. For the most part you don't climb up the stairs of the ruins, they don't want to damage them so they have ladders and stairs up the sides so you can get to the top and sit and enjoy the view. Again with the height issues on both IV and V, I stuck as close to the back wall as I could get. Funny story the first place I went to was where Temple 1 & 2 are, not realizing that there was a set of stairs off to the side and not seeing the sign in Spanish that said no climbing; I actually climbed the front stairs of Temple 2 which is a total no no but the guard saw me do it and didn't say anything which is good because they can kick you out of the park for it. I also met a Shaman at Group F who works for the park we had a lovely conversation in Spanglish he was very fascinated with my tattoo and kept poking me in the arm. Kinda of freaky he had the whole black lips thing going but super nice he took me around and showed me were the howler monkeys were. All of the people who worked for the park were great in many cases I was the only one in the section of ruins and they would walk around with me and try to explain about them; I really have to learn Spanish there is a whole world of info out there I am missing. Anyway 7 hours later I had managed to see all of the ruin sites so I headed for the 2pm bus and back to Flores which broke down 70km into the trip, not a big deal we waited by the side of the road for the 3pm bus and they picked us up. I got back with very sore feet and a layer of sweat and bug spray coating me. Had the best shower ever, they have lots of hot water here.

I took a ton of pic's at the ruins but blogger is a pain in the ass to load pictures on (you can only do 5 at a time, it messes up the formatting and I have to individually move each one to where I want it by default it just piles them up at the top of the page) and I am just getting too lazy to spend 3 hours formatting. So here is a link to them on Flickr if you want to see more. Click on the picture and then to see it large click on "all sizes" at the top of the picture.

Flores is a town on an Island, it is very cute and old world. The people are great and the lake is clean so I've been doing a lot of swimming because it gets very hot here. There are any number of tours you can take including a boat across the lake, renting a canoe etc. There are a ton of restaurants laundry facilities etc. pretty much everything you need in a 6 block radius. The streets are either stone or dirt and the taxi service is motorized Tuc Tuc's that cost about $5 Q for the most part you don't need them on the Island but if you want to go across the bridge to Santa Elena they are a great alternative to walking in the heat. I have been in Flores for 3 days now and am leaving tomorrow it has been a very relaxing time, they have lots of book shops so I have stalked up and spent some quality time in the hammock in the lobby reading. There is a restaurant down the road that I have coffee in every morning with my new friend. Talkative little fellow and drinks my coffee instead of buying his own.

Next stop on the tour; Lanquin / Samuc Champey.

Palenque / El Panchan Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:56:00 +0000

Caught the 11pm bus out of Veracruz to Villahermosa at a cost of $418 pesos and a 6 hour ride. I provided some entertainment for the folks at the ADO ticket counter. When I went up to get my ticket I couldn't hear what she was saying, she is behind glass with the speaker. There were sirens going by and the speaker was not the greatest; and as it turns out I have no idea how to say Villahermosa, you would think it would be easy but not so.... I finally just wrote it down and passed a note to her which resulted in much laughter from her and me. Having done this a few time now I know she is going to ask for my name which will result in much confusion so I write it down and pass another note through before she asks, resulting in more laughter. Now there are 4 clerks standing around smiling at me and waiting to see what happens.. Next up seat selection, luckily I know a few numbers so that went okay. Long story short by the end of the purchase I had 4 clerks laughing their asses off and a long line up of people waiting to buy tickets who were not laughing so much. When I went to go catch my bus outside all of the clerks came out to say goodbye. So glad I could entertain the locals LOL

Got to Villahermosa at about 5:30 just in time for the 5:45 bus to Palenque at a cost of $106 pesos and about a 2 hour ride. Met up with a couple of people on that bus, a couple who were in the same hotel as me in Veracruz and a guy with a Canadian flag on his backpack who it turns out was in disguise and was really from California. Seemed like a nice enough guy but really you shouldn't be able to buy Canadian flags unless you can show proof of citizenship, as much as I sympathize with the plight of the travelers from the south don't be screwing it up for us. Anyway it ended up we were all going to El Panchan (Mayan for "heaven on earth") which is just outside of Palenque on the way to the ruins so we shared a cab $50.00 pesos for all of us and our packs. El Panchan is basically a plot of land that one of the archaeologists who worked on the site bought. Now he has divided it amongst his children who run a bunch of different businesses including places that rent out cabanas and other accommodations and a couple of restaurants. There is an Internet place but in 2 days it has never opened so I have had to go into town to check the Lost Trekkers site and approve ads. Not a big deal the vans (Collectivo's) go back and forth between town and the ruins very regularly usually it is only a 5 minute wait to flag one down. The trip into town is 10 pesos and another 10 pesos to get back. The town is nice enough but very hot, there is not much to do there a few pubs and some shopping. El Panchan is a lot cooler than town due to the heavy jungle foliage there are spots of sun but most of the paths have tree coverage so it's a lot more bearable.

I found a cabana down by the river at the Jungle Place. Very basic a bed a table and a fan, it does have electricity and a small porch on the back over the river (stream), there are shared bathrooms the cost is $100 pesos a night.

After dumping my stuff in my new home and on very little sleep I hoped a collectivo to the ruins. The park gate is just outside the driveway into El Panchan so I walked through, there is a $20 pesos charge to enter the park, then I flagged down a collectivo for $10 pesos.

The fee to get into the Palenque ruins is $51 pesos which includes entry into the museum as well. If you go give yourself at least 6 hours to get through the whole park, it is huge and there are many stairs involved if you want to go into the buildings, make sure you have lots of water as well. They charge $10 pesos if you need to buy it while you are there and you have to go outside the ruins to get it. Not a big deal, your ticket is good for the day so you can go in and out as much as you want. There are also food stands which are pretty cheap and some expensive restaurants. There are a ton of people selling souvenirs as well as guides offering their services. I didn't opt for a guide all of the signs for the buildings have English translations but you would probably get more of the history and more of a jungle walk with a guide, they were promising to show me howler monkeys.

The ruins are incredible most of them are dated from 600 BC to 800 BC, Palenque itself started as an agricultural village in the 4th century. The ruins are in pretty good shape considering they were buried under jungle for a very long time. It does get really hot in the main area as there is little shade so I broke it up and did some ruins that were in the jungle then a building in the main part then back to the jungle. The ruins cover a very large area so wear comfy shoes. There were a lot of people there when I went but it was still possible to be the only one on some of the trails in the jungle and be the only one in and around some of the ruins in the jungle area. I did have some issues with the whole height thing, I am not a fan of high places so going up the big buildings was okay but down was another matter. It's kind of scary when you are looking down, those stairs look very little and there is the added challenge of getting down while lots of people are coming up. Luckily my fear of looking like a sissy girl is stronger than my fear of heights, by the 2nd building it wasn't so bad but I was very careful and developed a side step maneuver to get down rather than the head on route.

El Panchan is a great mix of people from all over the place, at anytime you can hear 3 or 4 different languages being spoken and the atmosphere is very relaxed. The restaurants at night have candlelight dining and the one I have been going to Don Muchos has live music that starts at about 8ish. They also have good food and the prices are great, there is very little on the menu over $100 pesos for the amount that I eat they have a whole range of choices in the $30 - $50 peso range, beers are about $17 pesos depending on what you drink. Having been into town a few times, I am very happy with the decision to stay outside of town the whole jungle thing is much better for me than the town thing.

Met some great folks here, Kiwi guy, Holland girl, Montreal chick, Italian dude, Hungarian guy, some Brits and more. El Panchan attracts a wide variety of folks from all over the world.

Next stop Flores Guatemala, got here after an 8 hour van, boat and bus extravaganza.. Details to come but I'm taking the day off tomorrow to do some swimming and lazing, next day Tikal ruins.

My cabana in the jungle and trail leading to it

Shots Of The Ruins

Veracruz Mexio

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 03:42:00 +0000

Left Mexico City for Veracruz, took the Ado GL bus it is the deluxe one for $400 pesos (only $40 pesos more than the regular bus) the ride took about 5 1/2 hours. No food which kind of sucked, ETN and Primera gave me some kind of sandwich and cookies/nuts.

Had a bit of an issue with a cab driver in Veracruz, told him I wanted to go to the Hotel Amparo which I had found on the Internet before I left Mexico City. He tried taking me to another hotel, one that he no doubt gets kick backs from far away from the central zone and $200 pesos a night more. A battle of wills began, I wasn't getting out or paying him and he didn't want to take me to where I wanted to go... I won he finally gave up after 10 minutes of us sitting in front of the hotel.

The hotel Amparo was listed in my footprint guide as a good place to stay. They were right, a single room with no TV cost me $150 pesos a night (if you want the TV $180 pesos). It is right in the historic zone a few blocks from the zocalo and the malecon. You can pretty much walk to anywhere you want to go. There are a ton of similar hotels in the area so if they are full there are other choices. The bathroom is hillarious, the bathroom is the shower. Brings back the days of the family trailer.

I have spent most of the time walking around checking out the sites. There is free live music all over the place in this town, you can't go down a street without running into a band. There are free shows pretty much every night in the zocalo as well. Last night there was a band in every square, a bit of sensory overload when you got to the place where they merged into one. I like Latin music but 2 different bands at once is a little too much of a good thing.

You may have noticed that while in Mexico City I didn't mention any clubs, that is because I was being good and stayed out of them. Well that lasted until last night when I found a metal bar down the street with live music and all you can drink beer for $60 pesos (yup that's just under $6.00 mi amigos) and it is 1/2 a block from the hotel..

Veracruz is a beautiful place, I took a boat ride around the harbour today at a cost of $75 pesos for a 45 minute tour. Things here are much cheaper than the other places I have been. The road side stand food is $8 pesos a taco the beer is cheap and the tours are cheap. This is a big tourist destination but mostly for Mexicans so the pricing reflects it. They have several beaches in town (a bus ride away from where I am) but due to the heavy shipping traffic in the harbour they are kinda polluted. If you take a 6km bus ride down the road there is a beach called Boca Del Rio. I however did not make it there, it is very hot here and baking on a beach was not something I wanted to do when it was that far from where I am staying. I only like to stay out for an hour or so now and then I've had enough. In the next couple of weeks they are having their carnival, too bad I won't be here apparently it is a great week long party. My Spanish is improving a bit the front desk folks at the hotel think it's funny that I can actually ask for my room key without having to use my pocket English to Spanish book, which has come in very handy here.

I have found a great coffee place called El Grand Café de la Parroquia they are famous in Mexico for their coffee they have one called Lechero. You get a shot of coffee in a glass delivered to the table and then another guy comes by with a metal tea kettle filled with hot milk and dumps it in. It is very tasty. A great place to people watch as it is across from the Malecon, they have patio seating and they have live music courtesy of the band that sets up on the corner of the street. They have been in business since 1808.

Next stop heading out on the night bus tonight to Palenque but I will be staying just outside the ruins in El Panchan. Seems you can get a cabana in the jungle for $80.00 to $100.00 pesos a night, no electricity but there is an Internet cafe in the main compound. Bus from Veracruz to Villahermosa $400.00 pesos and just over 6 hours. Bus from Villahermosa to Palenque $106 pesos and about 2 hours. Should be there by 9am ish.

Cruise Ship That Came In - The World - Privately Owned Residences On The Sea. Cool Way To Live incase you want to run away from home and sign up here is a link to The World Web Site

Hotel Room

Street Bands - These Folks can dance..

Mexico City - The Adventure Continues

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:07:00 +0000

Yesterday I went to the Frida Kahlo museum where she and Diego lived. I took the metro / subway from the Zocalo there at a cost 2 pesos (that's 20 cents folks) if you check the map it is a long way I started on the number 2 line Zocalo and I got off at the Viveros station on the Number 3 line . The subway was very easy to navigate and there are maps in each station. The trip involved changing trains 3 times each way and it was very easy even for people like me with no sense of direction. I only messed up twice and both were easy fixes. There are many signs pointing the way to the other platforms. In one of the stations they have unearthed some Aztec ruins which are displayed. The trains are great and so are the people (all 1.4 million of them who were on the same time as I was) as far as I could tell I was the only non Mexican on any of the trains I took but folks didn't seem to mind got lots of smiles and nods and a few seat offers. Vendors who sell bootlegged CD's get on at every station, they have backpacks on that have speakers inside and they play (very loudly) samples of the songs from the CD's which cost $10 pesos, lots of people buying. When we pulled up to a station the vendors turned it off and looked around for the police so I'm assuming they are not suppose to be doing it.

It is a bit of a walk from the subway station to the Frida house it takes about 20 minutes. The cost to enter the museum is $55 pesos and no pictures are allowed (except in the court yard area). I did get lost several times trying to get there, ahh if only I had some sense of direction, so it took me over an hour to find it even with my handy map. It was well worth the trip lots of cool stuff, the house has been preserved pretty much as it was left when Frida died. Lots of photographs of them together so a different perspective.

In the park by the Palacio Bella De Artes I found the Museo Mural Diego Rivera that has a mural by Diego Rivera that was originally on the wall of the Hotel Prado which was destroyed in an earthquake in 1985. They also have a part of one on display that did not survive, the picture didn't turn out very well do to bad lighting but you can see bits of it. The back of it is totally charred from the fire after the quake The cost to get in is $15 pesos an extra 5 pesos if you want to take pictures. No Flash allowed.

If you are in Mexico City there is a museum for just about everything so no matter what your tastes may be you can find it.

I did run into a protest on my travels today not really sure what it is about, something about saving lives. They took up the entire street, a little bit of a surprise but as they had police escorts I figured it was safe.

Life at the hostel is great, we had some live music the other night a 3 piece band. I have met a ton of people here. The sisters from Argentina, my rasta roomie from Spain, and the one from Germany (I think, we nod & smile a lot), the women from Denmark, the guy from Columbia, a bunch more from Argentina this seems to be a popular place, the couple from Victoria, some Brits and some Aussies. A great mix of very nice people. The staff here at Moneda have been great very helpful.. And best of all there is lots of hot water and great water pressure. While on the subject of people a shameless plug for my Web Site a free International People search site Lost Trekkers

All in all Mexico City has exceeded my expectations and I highly recommend that you put it on your travel list. They have the cleanest streets I have ever seen, everywhere there are city workers sweeping day and night. You can't even see a smoke butt anywhere. I will not miss the organ grinders, horrible music and they want you to pay for it. Like nails on a chalk board.

Next stop Veracruz on the Carri bean tomorrow.. Now I am off for one last stop at the bakery.

Aztec Ruins In The Subway Station (yup real ones)

Diego Mural That Did Not Survive The Quake

Street That I Live On (National Palace on the right - I'm in the building on the left beside the pink one)

Live Entertainment at Hostel Moneda

View From Deck Of Hostel

Mexico City

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:11:00 +0000

I arrived in Mexico City at about 5:30 I thought there were a lot of cabbies in Puerto Vallarta, turns out they got nothing on this place they were swarming.

I followed all of the guide and forum rules and purchased a ticket from the "official" taxi stand. They have set prices based on what zone of the city you are going to. From Terminal Norte to the Zocalo it was $85 pesos. Very cheap considering the amount of time it took to get here and the traffic which was bumper to bumper for the last 20 blocks. Turns out the largest market in Latin America was on the same route we were taking so tons of people and cars out on a Saturday night.

I found a hostel on the Internet before I left Patzcuaro, Hostel Moneda it is located 1/2 a block off the Zocalo (Calle Moneda #8) it faces the side of the National Palace. They offer free breakfast & dinner as well as Internet and WI FI. Can't beat the price for $205 pesos a night for a 4 bunk dorm and as it turns out I have it to myself so far. I went out for a short walk after dinner last night, you can't beet the location of this place and there is a 7-11 right next door so I can get my junk food fix.

Sunday I went in to full on tourist mode, I am now cultured LOL.. Sundays in Mexico City is environmental day, they encourage everyone to ride bikes, roller blade etc.. They close off the main streets leading to the Zocalo and the Zocalo which is the biggest traffic circle I have ever seen to cars, it was pretty cool to see so many people out on wheels. Most of the museums are free on Sunday's so I did my best to cover as many as I could. First up was Palacio De Bella Artes, they have some Diego Rivera murals and an exhibit by Navarro. I did manage to get a couple of pictures of the main gallery including the Diego murals but most of it is off limits to photography. The building itself is a work of art, I can't believe the architecture and history here, being from Canada we don't have anything older than a couple of hundred years old so something built in the 16th century is not something we see. The market is right beside the museum so I took a quick tour through while I was there, it is huge and they were just setting up when I went through so I am going back tonight to get the full effect.

Next up the National Palace, wow they lived good back then. The President doesn't live there now and what isn't open to tourist is used for government offices. Very high security here, they have army dudes everywhere and you have to show ID and go through a metal detector to get in, you have to go through one on the way out as well as putting your bag through an x-ray scan. Good thing I changed my mind on taking those little souvenir nick knacks from 1842 that I was eyeing :-) The size of the place in incredible and they have Diego murals everywhere as well. The presidential living quarters have been left intact and you can go through them, they are roped off but you can get close enough to see. I really wish I knew Spanish on this one there were lots of signs explaining what things were but alas I could not read them, I did take a stab at the constitution but other than a couple of words I was pretty much lost. You can take pictures here but no flash allowed

On to the Cathedral, according to the tourist info the largest and oldest one in the Americas. No expense was spared on this place there is gold everywhere and 5 story ceilings. It must have taken a lot of donations to build this, as well as the main altar there are corridors down each side with more altars off them, I counted 10 and all very elaborate. It is still used for services so lots going on today and parts of it you could only go into if you were there to worship. As I would probably burst into flames at the touch of holey water I didn't ever try to fake it to get in. You can take pictures but no flash allowed, it was a little uncomfortable doing so when people are sitting in pews praying and crying so I found someone else taking pictures and followed them around so I wasn't the only tacky tourist.

I made a stop at the square on the corner of Moneda on the way by where there are vendors and there was a native dance show going on. Great costumes those headdresses are something else. Kind of ruined the illusion when I ran into a couple of them carrying cell phones in 7-11 later.

Last stop on the tour was the museum 2 doors down from my hostel, have no idea what the name of it is (there is a sign today it is the Museo De La SHCP) They don't do anything small here this place is also huge with tons of little rooms featuring different artists, all of it was great but in particular there was a sculpture exhibit that was awesome. Mostly modern art. Again no pictures allowed and security in every room to make sure you didn't take any.

Although I wore my comfy runners my feet are letting me know that they are not happy. Wonder is I can find a broke backpacker willing to make some coin by giving me a foot massage.. Think I'll see if I can find one.

Day 2 - I never did find a foot massage.. Ah well maybe tonight.

Included with my Stay at Hostel Moneda is a free walking tour which I opted to take today. It went to a few of the same places I went to yesterday but the guide spoke English so he explained a lot of stuff. So Mexico City is built on top of a lake and Aztec ruins. The city is sinking and most of the buildings are tilting a little. There is some Aztec ruins by the hostel so that is were the tour started.

I also got into the part of the Cathedral that was closed yesterday and got some info on it. They started building it in the 16th century but it was not finished until the 19th century. I guess they had issues with contractors back then too :-) Got some more info on the Diego murals at the Palace De Independence as well, seems he was suppose to do all of the walls on the 1st floor but had a difference of opinion with the government on what to paint so only 1/2 the floor is done. If you look at his paintings he has snuck in government soldiers attacking the people, a swastika and other anti government things. Seems Diego has communist leanings and was a follower of Marx and he has also incorporated that into his paintings, he also put Frida in a few of them.

The tour also included walking around the neighbor hood were our guide Alex gave us tips on restaurants that were open late, 24 hour pharmacies and other local landmarks including the post office which is also a museum. Part of the tour included a stop at a bakery. I happen to love baked goods but I have never imagined anything like this place. They have been in business for over 100 years and it is the biggest bakery I have ever seen. It is called Pasteleria Ideal and you can find it on Centro 16 Septiembre about 4 or 5 blocks down from the Zolaco. They had cakes in there twice as tall as me so I took some pictures, these cakes are on tables but they are only about 2 feet high, the rest is all cake. The entire top floor is dedicated to just cakes. Guess where I'm going tomorrow.

I have to say that this is a beautiful city and the area I am in is very safe. I have been out for walks at night and the streets are full of families out having a good time. Not once I have felt uneasy or uncomfortable. Our tour guide Alex also told us that this area is very safe and not to worry about going out a night.

Palacio De Bella Artes

Diego Murals - National Palace

Living Quarters National Palace

Cathedral

Janitzio Island Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:19:00 +0000

Today we went to a little island off Patzcuaro called Janitzio . In order to get there you need to take a boat, it costs $40 pesos return. While Todd was purchasing ticket I was approached by a very tiny and very old lady of Purepecha decent selling bags of nuts. Nothing unusual there as the place is very popular with the tourists and there are a ton of vendors. I politely declined the offer of nuts and then things got kind of strange. She started talking a mile a minute and kept pointing to my eyes and her eyes, couldn't understand what she was saying as she was using the native dialect and not Spanish (like I would have understood Spanish either) but I got the impression that my eyes were freaking her out. Luckily I got my ticket so off we went, the folks that I am staying with said she may have been a native witch, they had a name for it but I have forgotten what it is. Don't think she put a hex on me but I guess I'll find out.

The boat ride took about 40 minutes and was packed with locals heading over to sell their wares along with musician who played all the way over. All in all a very festive ride. The Island is tiny but very high, the buildings cling to the side of it and look like they may all slide off at any moment. When we docked on the other side a kid of about 10 years old grabbed my arm to "assist" me off the boat and then wanted money LOL Being a complete sucker I gave him a couple of pesos although in hind sight probably not a good idea to encourage that behavior.

After yesterdays horseback ride and lava climbing I was not so sure if I would be able to make it to the top of the Island. There are 6 million stairs all of them crooked and sloped and they wind and twist their way up to the top with very few landings. There are shops lining the route the whole way up most of them on 30 degree angles. The shops are kind of strange, they sell everything from hand made high quality products to booby mugs and soft porn art. A little something for everyone it would seem. There is also a hotel with an Internet cafe which I was rather surprise to find in such a remote location. I did make it to the top of the island where there is a statue of the guy holding his hand up, I did however decline to purchase a ticket to go inside it and climb the other million stairs to get to the top. The walk down was much easier but a little more scary, tuck and roll head and elbows in.

The boat ride back was awesome, we landed on the party boat. The band had 4 members including a drummer and they were very good. Our fellow passengers were totally into partying and they danced the whole way back. The boat has long bench seats down both sides and island seating in the middle. At one point everyone including us joined in on a Congo line that went around the middle island of the boat. Defiantly on of the best boat trips I have ever been on, the party folk ended up hiring the band and taking them with them when they got off.

After that it was off to the town square for a coffee/beer and some people watching. Ran into a guy from Vancouver who just got into town and is driving a Volkswagen van down to Guatemala, it is a very small world. Then off to the bus depot to purchase my ticket to Mexico City at a cost of $310 pesos, the ride is 6 hours so I should get in at around 6pm. Found a great hostel online so I will check it out and see what it's like when I get there. Again my hosts cooked an awesome meal and Cosmo's were involved, I think they may be my new favorite drink. A big thank you to Todd & Shannon for your hospitality I had a great time and appreciate you showing me your neighborhood I can see why you love it here and chose it as your home.

Mexico City here I come. 40 million people in 1 place, crazy I don't think there are that many people in Canada.

Patzcuaro Mexico Finally

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:37:00 +0000

So a bus from Barra De Navidad to Manzanillo (about an hour and $52 pesos), then an 8 hour wait until the bus to Morilia that left Manzanillo at 10pm ($480 pesos) arrived in Morelia a 6am, bus to Patzcuaro ($32 pesos) left at 7:30 and arrived in Patzcuaro at 9ish. I did take the opportunity to explore Manzanillo while I was killing time, it seems like a nice place and the food stand a short walk from the station was great and cheap, I got a beer and beef tortillas with beans for $42 pesos and it was way more than I could eat. I have to say those ENT buses are great! I slept all the way to Morelia, the seats go all the way back so you are almost lying flat, there is a really nice foot rest and tons of leg room, they also run movies all the way (in Spanish) I kept the head phones on all night in the hopes that I could learn via osmosis. Don't think it worked but it was a nice try.

Some info on bus Stations
Manzanillo - No Internet - No lockers but you can leave your stuff with the bus company you are will be taking.
Morelia - Internet Cafe - Don't Know about lockers didn't look

While I am in Patzcuaro I am staying with some friends from Vancouver who moved here 2 1/2 years ago. They are the best tour guides ever, in the 2 days I have been here they have taken me all over the place showing me the sites. I have seen things there is no way I would ever see on my own. I have also learned about driving in Mexico, the shoulder of the road is for driving on and the safest place to be to avoid oncoming drivers who are passing. Passing at any point is acceptable at some points one 1 lane roads there will be 4 cars across, 2 oncoming and 2 on your side. I can now id no tell hotels, they are the ones with very little parking and big garage doors so you can drive in and hide your car LOL I'm sure that info will come in handy one day.

I got in to Patzcuaro at 9am and by 11 we were out seeing sites.

First stop was the shops in Centro, this is an artisan town and almost everything is hand made. There are some amazing craftsman here, the work is incredible and you can watch while they are doing it. Patzcuara is very well know for thier day of the dead ceremonies, 1 of the largest in Mexico. They have dolls called Catrina's that are skeletons dressed in elaborate outfits and demon art. We also went through the market, tons of people at some points you couldn't get through the crowds, mostly food stuff and lots of cheaper arts and crafts.

Next off to the ruins, Tzintzutzuntzan. These are incredible and they are still rebuilding much of it. When we went there were only a few other people around and none in the same area so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. We then headed to the village and checked out the market and the Tempo. Most of the locals dress the same way their ancestors did, the modern world of jeans and T shirts seems to have passed these folks by. The entire region is very conservative you don't see anyone in shorts or skimpy shirts so the 2 conservative shirts I have are getting a lot of wear. Then it was off to Tupataro to check out a very funky church. Funny old wood building but a fantastic mural on the ceiling and an incredible amount of gold on the alter. Kind of a strange mix. Todd has a blog he writes about his experience on being a Canadian in Mexico and he is an incredible photographer, the pictures on his blog are way better than the ones I took so click here Tupataro Church for pic's (3rd post down). If you are thinking of visiting this area he has some great posts with a ton of info.

Day 2 was a 2 hour journey to the Paricutin volcano. We went to see the church that the volcano demolished, both Todd and Shannon had been here before so they knew all of the history. It actually took out the entire town over the span of a few years and all that is left is a few pieces of the church. The trip to it involved an hour long horseback ride as it is situated in the middle of the forest. A very strange and magical place, the lava didn't take out the altar, it goes right up to it and stops. As a result the locals think it is a sign from god and make pilgrimages to it and leave gifts on the altar, I'm not sure how they reach it, one of life's little mysteries. After the horseback ride you have to climb mountains of lava rock to get to the church, as I am not the most coordinated individual I'm kind of surprised I made it in and out in one piece. My friend Shannon was not so lucky, she took a little tumble down a hill of rock and gouged her arm up a bit.. Not too bad, a flesh wound but it was scary, some of those drop offs will kill you.

After that we headed back to the homestead with a stop in a small town called Paracho that specializes in making guitars. It is a famous town where may musicians from all over the world come to have a guitar custom made. The day ended with Shannon mading an excellent meal and feeding me cosmos. I haven't broken it to them yet but I may just move in. The house guest from hell LOL

Barra De Navidad Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:34:00 +0000

The bus ride from Puerto Vallarta to Barra De Navidad takes about 5 hours. There are 1st ($180 pesos) and 2nd (150 pesos) class busses. In Old Town you can pay for them and catch them at the corner of V.Carranza and Aguacate.. Just look for someone on the sidewalk selling tickets. I opted for the 1st class bus, lots of leg room, comfy seats and most important a bathroom. They also run movies (in Spanish). The bus makes several stops along the way, about 6 of them, it is a very windy road to Barra De Navidad and the scenery is great.

I arrived in town with out booking accommodations, a local told me about the place I ended up going to. The Hotel Sands is right on the water, it got damaged pretty badly in the last earth quake and they just reopened it. The street it is on is Morelas good luck finding it I've seen 3 street signs since I've been here but it is a small town so you will find it eventually. It is a typical budget hotel as far as the room goes, no TV and just a fan but it is clean and roomy and best of all has hot water. There is also a pool which is nice and a couple of bars and the price of the room includes Wi Fi and Breakfast in the restaurant which is beside the marina where the fishing boats dock (see pic's for the view from my table this morning). Lots of character, tons of outside nooks and crannies filled with over sized couches and chairs to sit in. I have posted some pic's because they don't have a Web Site. The people here are great and I will defiantly come back. Single room rates at $375 pesos a night (about $30.00 US).

As my liver is recovering and I am detoxing I was good and stayed out of the bars last night and instead opted for a nice cold latte in a great coffee shop which I have forgotten the name of. I will be heading out to try a few bars this evening, I am going to start with the one in the picture here. AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Kiss and most of the bar is actually on the beach.. How can you go wrong.

Update.. I did go out and try out a club but not the one above. I found a great place that overlooks the beach called Piper Lover. There were a bunch of incredibly nice and a little crazy folks from Kelowna hanging out there. I got to meet Piper who is a great guy, so thanks to all for the good time and the tequila shots! Detox wasn't working out so well anyway and no one likes a quitter.

Next stop Patzcuaro.

Hasta Luego Puerto Vallarta

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:52:00 +0000

I just left Puerto Vallarta yesterday. Had a great time (what I remember of it, blackouts are a bitch :-) A big shout out to my fellow alki's at the Roxy, the bus ride the next day was a little rough not sure whether to thank you or hate you. I never did get any pictures in there, I'm not the sharpest stick in the pile sometimes. A big thank you to Luis and the rest of the staff for keeping me for the most part out of trouble you rock! And Rick you will be in Costa Rica before I am so would appreciate any travel tips you would care to part with. Email me at webmaster@losttrekkers.com.

I did manage to loose about 10 lbs out of my pack, along with some cloths; my blow dryer and I have parted ways. So I'm down to about 30 lbs now which is way easier to manage.

On the Saturday before I left I was in a restaurant / Bar called Cafe Roma which is down by the river and markets . Every Saturday they invite a bus load of kids down who live by the dump and feed them pizza and juice. The official organization is Children of the Dump. They do some great work with the kids, please check out their Web Site for more information on what they do. I had the opportunity to chat with Art the gentleman who runs the programs and was amazed at what they have been able to do and how far things have come since they started. As well as feeding the kids Fox and the gang at Cafe Roma collect donations that they give to the organization once a week. They have live music and karaoke and all tips generated are given to the kids, you can of course just donate while you are in there for a cerveza when there is no entertainment. The week I was there they had collected $10,000 pesos. If you are in Puerto Vallarta I highly recommend that you either take a tour of the Children of the Dump facilities; they have info on their Web Site or stop by Cafe Roma and make a donation.

While I was in Vallarta I stayed at the Posada Lily A low budget accommodation located in Old Town about 1/2 a block up from Los Murtos beach. Had a great room with a balcony and a view of the ocean. They didn't have anything smaller available when I checked in so I got a room with 3 double beds for the price of a singe (about $35 US) so score for me! They don't have a Web Site so I have posted a couple of pic's here. I have also stayed at the Posada Roger just down the street, also a good place, they have a pool and are a little more expensive at about $55.00 US. If budget accommodations aren't your thing, I have heard that Los Arcos is very nice.

I do prefer the Old Town part of town, I can walk almost everywhere in about 10 minutes including downtown so in 5 years I have never taken a cab which saves on money. If I do need to go anywhere else I take the local buses, at .55 pesos you can't beat it and they very often have entertainment on them including musicians and clowns. A great way to spend some time with the locals. I also eat at a lot of road side stands average cost of a meal is 20 peso's, look for where the locals are eating it's usually a sign that the food is good.

I had a great time in Puerto Vallarta and am looking forward to returning next year... Now on to Barra De Navidad.

The Malecon Puerto Vallarta

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:01:00 +0000

I made it to Puerto Vallarta and did manage to get some sleep on the plane. I got a posada (hotel) a 1/2 block up from the beach, with a balcony so I can hear the waves crashing the room is huge. There are 3 double beds but I got it for the same price as a single so score for me.. I'm thinking I should sublet to supplement my beer budget. The first night was a few drinks, food and bed. Nights 2 & 3 involved some quality time spent bending my elbow at Andales (their website seems to be a bit messed up) and The Roxy, I will get some pic's before I go and post them. Day's 2 & 3 where spent on the beach and siesta's recovering from nights 2 & 3. So tonight
I went for some good wholesome family fun.

Sunday's in Puerto Vallarta are family days. Everyone gathers the clan together and heads down to the malecon, a stretch of very wide sidewalk that runs along the sea side. When in Mexico... My Mom resides here for 6 months a year so we met up and went for a stroll. There is live entertainment, concession stands that sell everything from taco's and crepes to pies and corn on the cob. You can also find vendors and artists selling their wares and in a lot of cases making the products while you watch. They also have a sand castle building exhibition with some great sculptors. There are a ton of people and vehicle traffic pretty much comes to a complete stand still. I have been eating taco's and quesadilla's off road side stands for the last couple of days so tonight I opted for crepes, they were very tasty mushroom & cheese for the main meal and chocolate for desert.

After a few passes on the malecon we stopped in at a lovely establishment called the Cheeky Monkey for a $1.00 Margarita. Turns out that was only for the regular lime which I'm not a fan of so we splurged and got the $2.00 fuzzy navel ones, very tasty. Great view of the malecon so good people watching.

Going to pass on the bar's tonight and head across the street to the Oxxo (Mexican version of 7-11) and pick up a beer then walk down to the beach and watch the waves for awhile.

I am the worst packer ever

noreply@blogger.com (Trekker Shar) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:58:00 +0000

Killing time before heading to the airport, got no sleep gotta love those early AM flights. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had a plan of sleeping all the way to Puerto Vallarta... Might have worked had I not hopped myself up on caffeine now I'm hyper and kinda naushis. I am sure a yummy airport breakfast will make it all better.

Turns out packing is not something I'm good at.. I have always thought I was a light packer in 10 years I have never checked baggage, then again I have never gone anywhere for this long.. So the pack weights in at 39.5 lbs, I am sure I can find something to stick in it to get it over 40lbs if only I could find a crevice to put something in, hoping the zippers hold out that would be a piss off. I also have a day pack with the computer and other assorted crap which should add an extra 10lbs to the load , pretty sure I will be ditching some stuff in PV. Loosing the deodorant, towel, toothpaste & shampoo should shave at least 4 lbs off. Do I really need the snorkeling gear or can I live with using a pre spit in rental? hmmmmm big decisions that will need to be made after todays trial run.