The Gap Year Guy

Closing

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 04:23:00 +0000

I laughed, I learned, I lived. Thanks to everyone who made my trip so amazing.

From Atlantic to Pacific: Bocas del Toro to Playa Santa Catalina

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 05:15:00 +0000

After the short time spent with my host family, I was headed for Panama. My first stop was Bocas del Toro, an Archipelago right off of Panama's Atlantic coast known for its wildlife, and Caribbean vibe. The beaches were stunning, the tiny poison dart frogs were pretty darn cute, and trying to figure out if the boat drivers were talking about you in creole behind your back was a fun linguistic challenge.

Mangroves on Isla Bastimento

Playa Red Frog on Isla Bastimento

Playa Las Estrellas, Isla Colón

After soaking up the Caribbean, why not head over to the Pacific? A hop, skip, and jump across the isthmus that is Panama puts you in Playa Santa Catalina, a.k.a. Surfing Capitol Central America.

The Pacific side was notably different. The sand was darker, the water was less clear, and the region itself seemed to be a bit less economically developed than the Caribbean side. It is interesting to see this striking geographical, cultural, and economic difference less than a hundred miles away from where I was a few days ago.

Tidepools at Playa Santa Catalina

Costa Rica -- San José and Altos de Germania

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:14:00 +0000

After a lot of time in Nicaragua, I finally made it across the border into Costa Rica, which is a bit more... um, tourist-friendly. The people are very approachable, they give accurate directions, and the bus driver didn't try to charge me more than he would charge your average tico (slang for Costa Rican person). In San Jose a mix of students, families, and street vendors peacefully meander through very clean parks where tables, booths and tents are set up for everything from chess playing to tie-dying to yoga.

After spending a couple of days in San José, I paid a visit to my old host family from two years ago in Altos de Germania. I showed up unannounced, but they welcomed me into their home again as if I had been there two days ago instead of two years. When I asked if I could stay one night Remundo (my old host dad) said "One night? Stay a whole month if you want!"

Very little had changed. They were reconstructing their house (a tree had fallen on it), but aside from that everything and everyone was the same, and we spent that Sunday the same way we spent every other Sunday when I was there. We chatted a bit, I went to the river with some of my old friends, we played soccer, and then the day ended. The next morning I packed up my things, said goodbye, and moved on.

The house two years ago.

The house now.

It's nice to know that people who live so modestly can be so welcoming and apparently happy. I think the rest of the world could learn a few things from Altos de Germania.

Isla Ometepe and the Rio San Juan

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:45:00 +0000

The volcanic island Isla Ometepe was the first of my last two stops in Nicaragua. The island, rising impressively out of Lake Nicaragua, takes its name from the Nuhatl words ome, meaning "two," and tepetl, meaning "mountain," and is the largest volcanic island on freshwater in the world.

View of the sunset from the back of the ferry

A ferry carries the entertaining mix of tourists, boat workers, island residents, and every type of cargo from bananas to empty (i think...) coffins on the scenic four-hour ride to Altagracia, the island's main port town.

The crater lake atop Maderas Volcano

Of the many available options for jungle exploring on the Island, climbing one of the two volcanoes is by far the most popular. I decided to hike Maderas, having been told by other travelers that it is the more rugged and least developed of the two. Starting at 7 AM, I followed the trail through a number of coffee and cacao plantations and then slugged the remaining three miles through mud and rocks to reach the crater. By the time I hiked back down it was already almost 5 PM.

View from the base of Volcan Concepción

Horse cooling off in Lake Nicaragua

After spending a number of days on Ometepe, I took the 12-hour ferry from the Island down south to the Río San Juan. The ferry left Altagracia at 6 PM and arrived at the mouth of the river a bit after 6 AM after a long, cold, and rather sleepless night. Despite my lack of sleep, I decided to bite the bullet and head another hour down the river to make it to Bocas de Sabalo, a sleepy river town where frogs and howler monkeys sing you to sleep and then 8 hours later join in with the countless birds and crickets to compete against the reggatone music starting to play in a strangely calming jungle cacophony.

View across the Río Sábalos, one of the tributaries of the Río San Juan.

Chillin' outside my room.

A day in a canoe is sure to keep the blues away.

León and Granada

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 23:47:00 +0000

Well, the internship is over and I'm on the road. My most recent stops were Leon and Granada -- both colonial towns with very rich histories.

Leon's cathedral

Believe it or not, this was not my first time to León. As a matter of fact, it was my third. My first visit was early on in my internship when I brought a water sample to the University located in town. That trip ended up with my debit card not working and my having to more or less pawn off my computer at the hostel My second visit was to come back, pay the hostel, and get my computer back. During that trip, however, I discovered that someone had robbed literally all of my money via internet fraud thanks to an insecure connection in one of these internet cafés. The bank recuperated the money, but as you can imagine I left town with pretty bitter (albeit misdirected) feelings toward León. I decided to return early last week and give it one more shot. And I'm glad I did. I spent four days eating, drinking, sleeping and, after months of not being able to enjoy modern amenities like flushing toilets, watching some TV. That doesn't mean spent the entire time in my hostel room, though. I got a pretty good feel for life in León by going to the market, hanging out in the park, and chatting with the kids that frequent the food stands. It's a university town, which gives the place a palpable youth-y vibe. The students are very, very Sandinista (Danielista, that is) -- to the point where they are almost completely blind to the problems that surround them -- and even though their political leanings frustrate me, I can appreciate their energy.

León's history has been long and hard (as has that of all Nicaragua). The castillian colonial buildings themselves practically say everything -- destroyed cathedrals and bullet holes in the walls tell a story of violence and war and a continuing inability to move on and rebuild a united country. If you walk through the central park at night you can see sleeping on benches both a legless war vet and a parentless 10-year-old -- one scarred by a past, the other afraid of the future.

León's liberals and Granada's conservatives fought for a number of years for power -- both wanted to be the capital of Nicaragua. During the revolution in 1979, the Sandinistas (del alma) took over León, but Somoza heartlessly bombed his own people in order to clear the Sandinistas out of the city. The Sandinistas eventually re-took the city and held it until Somoza fell.

Part of Granada's central plaza, the cathedral, and a few colonial buildings

Granada is the first European city in mainland America (founded in 1524) and Nicaragua's best-maintained colonial town -- my friend Eva, who is from Spain and has been traveling with me, says that there are a number of parts of the city that are almost exactly like the Granada in Andalusia, Spain. It was in this city where American (Tennessean, in fact) William Walker took up residence and began his campaign to make himself the ruling monarch of Nicaragua and to make Nicaragua itself a slave state of the United States. Yeah, he was kind of crazy. Upon leaving with his private army, Walker set the city ablaze, leaving much of it destroyed, and left the words "here was Granada" printed in ash. Walker ended up placing himself as the President of Nicaraguan in 1856, but was soon defeated by a coalition of Central American armies and was executed in 1860 in Honduras. Granada rebuilt quickly and managed to avoid damage during the violence in the 1980s.

As with any well-kept colonial city, Granada is pretty touristy, so I only stayed one night and managed to enjoy myself despite the throngs of camera-wielding elderly Germans and hippie backpackers.

Right now I'm on Ometepe Island, a volcanic island on Lake Nicaragua. Post to come.

The Coffee Process

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:23:00 +0000

One of my favorite experiences as a part of my internship has been carrying out the entire process of picking, de-pulping, threshing, drying, roasting, and drinking delicious coffee. The whole process takes places onsite at La Biosfera.

This is the Caturra variety of coffee. The other variety planted is Catuai, whose fruit is yellow when ripe. Both varieties from the species C. arabica, the species generally regarded to have to most robust flavor.

The coffee fruit turns a bright red when ripe, and at that point it is picked and soaked in a bucked before being depulped.

Obviously this is usually done on a much larger scale, but since we only have about 30 coffee plants, we use what very well may be the smallest coffee de-pulper on the planet.

After being de-pulped, the beans are allowed to dry out in the sun for a few days.

Once dry, the beans need to be threshed to get rid of the hard shell. This is done very easily by machine, but we wanted to do the whole process artisanally, so I filled a pillow case with the dried beans and whacked it against the floor a few times and ended up with pretty thoroughly threshed beans.

This is what the beans look like once they have been threshed. Now, its ready to be roasted.

This type of clay dish is what was used to roast coffee before machinery ever existed. The smell of fresh coffee grew stronger and stronger as we roasted them over a bed of coals.

The final product. Earthy and not too acidic. Yum.

La Biosfera in a Nutshell

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Well, my internship here is wrapping up -- I'm done on Saturday. We've gotten a lot done to improve on the existing permaculture models, add some new ones, completely renovate the water system, and ramp up La Biosfera's publicity. I'm realizing that I still haven't published any pictures of the place itself, so here are some photos of the recycling/permaculture initiatives (specifically for families with very few resources) we have going on:

Bunk beds made out of recycled truck tires. Very, Very comfortable. The wood came from a zapatillo tree that had already fallen on the property.

The posada where guests sleep (and where all the tire trunk bunks are) was made using earthbag construction -- bags filled with dirt and then stacked like bricks.

This is one of the three gardens on site, this one recently expanded. We've just started planting and some plants are already poking out of the soil.

We still haven't perfected the system, but we're working on heating our water with compost. It has worked a few times, but not totally consistent.

Compost toilets. Today an unsustainable level water is wasted in human waste management. The recycling of humanure is going to be essential for sustainability. It's not as gross as it sounds -- it doesn't smell and it's placed well out of sight, and it's really easy to do. Most importantly, it's a very effective fertilizer.

Another great building option for people with few resources. We haven't built a full-scale version yet, but this is the doghouse that we use to show how it works. You put all your non-organic trash inside of plastic bottles and they make a very useful building tool.

Mobile chicken coop. The chickens tear up the dirt, eat the bugs, and fertilize the soil in areas where you are planning to plant a garden.

Water swale. In one of my previous posts I put up a video explaining how a swale works. Well, here's ours. I spent most of last week tearing up old cement and resealing it.

This is the latest addition and in my opinion the best example of a self-incentivizing recycling initiative. A plastic bottle filled with water retracts light at 360 degrees. Very simple to install and provides 50 watts of light.

So there you have it. La Biosfera in a nutshell. In my next post I'll talk about the coffee we grow, pick, depulp, thresh, toast, and (of course) drink all on site.

Top Gap Year Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 18:07:00 +0000

Little update on the blog -- Go!Overseas, a travel site that provides users with information for meaningful abroad experiences, has listed my blog on their "Top Gap Year Blogs" list. Wohoo! Pretty exciting. Click on their logo to the right of this post and check out their website -- they`ve got some pretty neat stuff.

Gallo Pinto... It's what's for dinner (and breakfast and lunch)

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:51:00 +0000

Eating lunch today, I realized that it was my 12th straight meal of Gallo Pinto. Yup, that means breakfast, lunch, and dinner for four days straight. I felt that deserved a blog post. The strange thing is, I'm really not that tired of it. I mean come on, many Nicaraguans have been eating Gallo Pinto for every meal for their entire life, so I feel like I'm in no position to complain.

The name, Gallo Pinto, literally means "spotted rooster." How it got that name is unclear, but it has made it's way into being the national dish of both Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Some say that it got its name because the rice, after being cooked with the beans, kind of looks like a white rooster with red spots. That explanation is a bit boring, so I'm going with the one that I learned the other day: a guy named Juan had a huge spotted rooster (gallo pinto) that he was very proud of. He went around the entire neighborhood bragging about how big his gallo pinto was and invited everyone in the barrio to come to a party that weekend because he planned to kill and eat it and wanted to share with everyone. On the night of the party, the whole neighborhood came to Juan's house to eat the gallo pinto. Now, this was a really, really big spotted rooster, but it certainly was not big enough to feed an entire barrio. So Juan, in a panic and not wanting anyone to leave hungry, threw together all the rice and all the beans he had into a huge frying pan and cooked it with oil until the rice started turning red. Needless to say, the neighborhood people were not very happy to be eating rice and beans when they had been promised a big gallo pinto. Everyone left in a bad mood, and Juan soon became the laughing stock of the neighborhood. For weeks after that night, people passing his house in the street would sarcastically shout out, "Hey, Juan, that gallo pinto you gave us last night was delicious!" The name, apparently, stuck and people have been calling rice and beans cooked in that manner "Gallo Pinto" ever since.

The stuff is really not that bad. Once described as "the perfect combination of carbs and protein," it is almost revered in Nicaraguan culture, where people never seem to get tired of eating it. A Nicaraguan friend of mine once explained, "Sometimes we eat rice and beans; sometimes we eat beans and rice; but on special occasions -- we eat Gallo Pinto."

Checking In

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:02:00 +0000

My posts are becoming pretty sparse, I know. My internet situation has been... well, unreliable. We had internet installed for a while but it hasn't been working lately.

My internship is going well -- we are currently working on a petition to distribute water from the property to the surrounding community, which has no access to clean water. I'll update again in a few days with some pictures of the place where I've been staying for the past little more than a month.

Stay Classy.

Jinotega (finally posting something)

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:13:00 +0000

Okay folks its been a while since my last post, but better late than never I guess. I've been in Jinotega, Nicaragua for about two weeks now. I'm staying on a permaculture farm outside of town called "La Biosfera." I started out doing random little projects here and there in exchange for lodging, but I've now been moved into an official internship position and will be working on a few long-term projects over the next few months, so I'm really excited about that. This permaculture farm is an upshoot of a failed water bottling business that Suzanne, the owner of the Biosfera, started in order to have revenue for an alternative ecomomic development plan that she was planning to implement. Unfortunately the spring water had some bacteria in it and she closed doors on the business and decided to focus on permaculture. A couple of years ago she built an earthbag guest dorm hoping to get some cash flow from the increasing number of eco-tourists that are traveling around Central America. What exactly is permaculature? Here's a quick vid that explains much better than I can.

So basically permaculture is the attempt to ensure that the human race will stay on this planet for a long, long time without outstripping resources. Cool stuff. One thing that's important to note - contrary to what you might have gathered from the video, not all permaculturists are hippies. Suzanne is a retired Marine, so I think that pretty much makes her not a hippie.

Some of the concepts we have going are humanure recycling, earthbag construction, and swale water harvesting. I haven't really taken any pictures of this stuff yet, but here's a short little video about water swales:

My posts might be kind of few and far between while I'm here, because unless we get Internet at the Biosfera I have to come into town to use it. I'll still try to post once a week.

I'm glad I've finally found a non-gringo-infested place where I can see myself spending an extended period of time. It's nice to be so far off the beaten track that not many tourists make it out here, and those that do are people looking for a more authentic Nicaraguan experience -- the kind of people that I actually like to spend time with.

I did manage to get a few pictures of the sun setting the other day. As you can see, this place is absolutely gorgeous.

So that's that. I'll post again no later than next Sunday.

Another change in plans

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:20:00 +0000

I know I said I was flying into Managua on the 4th, but, well, I'm still in Nashville. I have a bunch of stuff to sort out before going back and my plans still need a bit more... solidifying. Details to come.

Happy Holidays

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 22:27:00 +0000

Last Wednesday I flew back to Nashville to be home sweet home for the holidays. I'll be posting again after I fly to Nicaragua on January 4th. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Catching up (finally have internet!)

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 01:54:00 +0000

After a painful week of horrible internet connection, I am now in San Salvador, where I will spend a few days before coming home for Christmas. First of all, here's what I've been up to lately:

On Monday I saw some of the waterfalls surrounding Juayúa. That was a really neat way to spend the morning.

After seeing the waterfalls, I hopped on a bus to Sonsonate, from where I planned to get a bus to Puerto La Libertad and then another bus to Playa el Tunco ("tunco" means pig). When I got to Sonosnate, however, the last bus for La Libertad had already passed. I talked to one of the bus drivers and he said that I could take his bus to a smaller town halfway between Sonsonate and El Tunco and then a friend of his who owns a restaurant could take me in his pickup to El Tunco. Since that sounded a lot more pleasant and quite frankly safer than being stuck at a bus station in Sonsonate after dark, I jumped on the bus and sort of wedged myself between a guy holding a box of chickens and an angry looking lady with her son who kept stepping on my toes (the bus was so crowded that I had to spend almost the entire ride standing). By the time we reached this guy's restaurant, I was the only one left on the bus. I tossed my stuff into the pickup bed and sat down in the back with the rest of this guy's family and we set off on the thirty minute ride to El Tunco. I don't think I fell asleep, but riding in the back of that pickup was sort of like a dream -- everything was so still and quiet and peaceful. It was completely dark except for the car's headlights, and I managed to lay down and look up at the starriest sky I had seen in a long time (since we were so far away from any city). When the truck stopped at the road that leads into El Tunco I snapped out of it, grabbed my stuff, and, after thanking the driver, walked into the noisy little town where I ended up spending almost a week.

Sitting at a beachside restaurant, the sun having just set.

El Tunco gets it's name from this rock, which I honestly don't think looks anything like a pig.

The beach consists of completely black sand, so fine it almost is like the ash you find in a fireplace. I surfed a few times and really got the hang of it, but always had to take the next day off because of how sore paddling out to the waves made me. Some of the other people at the hostel and I spent the afternoons going to an orphanage that is down the street from the town where we played soccer with the kids for hours. Honestly, I have no idea why I stayed there so long. I really don't like the cooler-than-you attitude that the surfers have, I don't like the constant noise and the 24/7 party, and I don't like how expensive the food was. Maybe I just needed somewhere to rest since I had spend most of the past two weeks spending only a few days here and there. Whatever the reason was, I enjoyed myself and met some really cool people, but I'm surely glad to be somewhere else.

Stay tuned for a post on San Salvador.

Update

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:16:00 +0000

Right now I´m in Playa el Tunco, El Salvador -- a beach with completely black sand from volcanic ash-- where, alas, I´m having internet connection troubles, which means no pictures for now. This afternoon I had my first surf lesson, and I´m catching on pretty quick. After a few days here I´m heading to San Salvador, where I´ll catch a plane to Nashville to spend about a week at home for Chrismas before flying into Nicaragua. I´ll try to get some pictures up as soon as I figure out why my computer is behaving so badly.

El Salvador -- Santa Ana and Juayúa

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:05:00 +0000

After almost 24 hours of bus travel, I arrived Friday afternoon in Santa Ana, El Salvador. So far, El Salvador has been a very refreshing escape from some of the tourist-oriented, disneylandified places I've been in the past few weeks. Santa Ana is a very authentic Central American city -- blocks upon blocks of street vendors selling everything from wristwatches to live chickens, a bustling central plaza with amazing street food, and really, really good ice cream, which Santa Ana is pretty well known for. One of the best things about the city, though, is what it lacks -- not a single american-style café with internet access and all that frappuccino mochaccino americano macciato crap. Just little pastry shops where everyone goes in the mid-afternoon to have a good cup of joe, nibble on something sweet, and read the papers. There are also none of those tourist-oriented "artisan markets" that sell "authentic" clothes, backpacks, etc. The markets here sell clothes that people living here would actually wear (not to say that I haven't bought my fair share of "authentic" stuff).

I spent most of Friday soaking up all of Santa Ana's energy -- walking around the markets, hanging out in the central plaza, hitting up some of the pastry shops, and visiting some of the famous sites such as the Cathedral and the Santa Ana Theatre.

One of the rooms of the huge building that holds the theatre. The theatre itself was completely dark, so I didn't get any pics worth posting.

The cathedral. Pigeons were flying everywhere.

Inside of the Cathedral

There was an art gallery inside the theatre, and this was one of the pieces. A kind of grim reminder of the scars that imperialism left on Central America.

On Saturday I took a trip to Cerro Verde National Park and climbed Volcán Santa Ana (which is not the volcano seen in the below photo).

Volcán Izalco seen from the start of the hike up Volán Santa Ana.

Volcán Santa Ana with a cloud settled right on top.

Atop Volcán Santa Ana. If you aren't careful up there, the wind will blow you straight over.

This morning, after spending my second night in Santa Ana, I moved on to Juayúa, about an hour bus ride from Santa Ana. Today, as on every Sunday here, there was a huge food festival. So, of course, I spent most of the day eating, drinking coffee, and reading in the park. I started out with a plate of grilled frog and rabbit and some rice and other side items. It was absolutely delicious. After eating, I walked around for a bit then grabbed a cup of coffee and a slice of flan and sat down again and read for a bit. Then, it was time for round two of grilled meat. The day pretty much followed that pattern -- eating, walking around, sipping on coffee, and eating again. I'm just gonna cover the highlights of the foods I tried, because listing everything I ate would be pretty boring.

Frog and rabbit and some other stuff.

One of the many tents under which festival-goers gorged themselves.

To the left is Rigua de Maiz, a corn pastry-type thing with coconut in it and served with a hunk of cheese. To the right is an elote loco -- a grilled corn on the cob smothered in mustard, mexican crema, and sprinkled with parmesan cheese and cayenne pepper. I rarely meet a food that I don't like, but this dude was pretty nasty. If I run across one of these again, I'll try it for a second time just to make sure, but I think I have finally found a food that I don't enjoy.

Sitting in the central park during one of my many coffee-drinking sessions.

More park sitting. I did a lot of sitting and eating, if you haven't gathered that yet.

This was the last bit of grilled meat I had - some kind of really big snake. It was pretty good, but really chewy.

Just as with Santa Ana, one of the best things about Juayúa is the lack of gringos. The central plaza was packed with people munching on all sorts of delicious morsels, and I was one of only two or three gringos out of the thousands of attendees. Tomorrow I plan to explore some of the waterfalls surrounding the town. Pics of that to come.

Caye Caulker - Go Slow

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:59:00 +0000

In Caye Caulker, Belize, there are no cars. Some have golf carts, most have bikes, and everyone walks. Signs set the speed limit at "Go Slow," but nobody needs a reminder, because on this island of a little over one thousand people, nobody has any reason to go fast. I didn't really pick up on the "slow" vibe until the second day I was there. I was walking to find somewhere to eat and this dreadlocked guy I had never seen before stopped me and said "why are you walking so fast mon?" I said "Um... I dunno." He just laughed and walked away. So for the past few days I've done my best to take it easy.

I stayed in this awesome beach cabana with an Italian guy that I met on the boat ride over. We both went in on the cabana and only had to pay six bucks a night each. Aside from the Italian, I also was living with a family of Iguanas that rustled around all night on the roof as well as an unbearable number of biting gnats (noseeums we call 'em in Tennessee).

One of my roomates.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention how amazing the seafood was -- specifically the lobster. I had lobster omelets for breakfast, lobster pizza for lunch, grilled lobster for dinner, and lobster ceviche whenever I needed a snack. And it is inexpensive, too. I got this plate of grilled lobster, pasta carbonara, and steamed veggies for only 15 bucks.

I spent most of monday SCUBA diving. About ten other divers and I jumped on a boat led by a few master divers for a trip that would make three stops -- the Blue Hole, Half Moon Caye, and Long Caye. It took about two hours to make the 43 mile boat trip from Caye Caulker to the Blue Hole, which is an underwater sinkhole that measures 984 feet across and 407 feet deep. The dive went down to 40 meters/130 feet, which is 22 meters deeper than I'm certified to dive and 10 meters deeper than anyone is supposed to dive, but hey - this is Belize. If we're paying, they'll take us. This dive was too deep for the camera, so I didn't get any pictures, which is a bummer because there were some really neat stalactite formations and I saw a few caribbean reef sharks each about 10 feet long. Here's a google pic of the blue hole from the air:

After waiting the required time between dives, we made a second dive at Half Moon Caye and a third dive at Long Caye. Here are some pics from these last two dives (Unfortunately I used the wrong camera setting so most of them are very, very blue).

On Tuesday I made two more dives at different locations on the reef (which is the second largest coral reef in the world).

After two days of diving, I spent yesterday exploring every possible meaning of the phrase "Go Slow." I got up, ate breakfast and read until lunch, ate lunch, messed around on the computer, snorkeled a bit, and then went to dinner before packing my things and going to bed to be ready for an early start this morning. Right now I'm back in Flores after an hour boat ride and a 5 hour shuttle. My next bus leaves at 9 PM for yet another visit to my least favorite place ever -- yep, you guessed it -- Guatemala city. It arrives at 6 AM and after that I'll catch another bus to Santa Ana, El Salvador. It goes without saying that I'm getting very, very tired of bus travel. I will, however, try to carry the "Go Slow" attitude with me as I travel and try to enjoy the little things I encounter as I go along.

Flores/Tikal and Caye Caulker

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 01:35:00 +0000

Last friday morning I finally forced myself to leave Lake Atitlán and move to my next destination. If I had the time, I would still be staying at the lake right now, but if I want this trip to be about volunteering and cultural exchange I need to make sure I don't spend too much time in hostels with the european crowd (people traveling from europe, particularly Germany, outnumber traveling Americans twenty to one -- as a matter of fact I have only met one American since leaving Antigua).

Going from one place to another in Guatemala almost always means passing through Guatemala City. This was at least my fifth time passing through, and my hatred for this city hasn't lessened at all. It's dirty, loud, and crime-ridden. I got out of my bus and hopped straight into a taxi, which took me to the next bus terminal, where I bought my ticket and went to the upstairs of the terminal to... well, not exactly hide but to be somewhere where I wouldn't attract any attention. Most gringos fly or take a first class bus from Guat city to Flores (my destination) rather than taking the cheap buses, so a white guy carrying all his possessions in a backpack in the second-class bus terminal isn't exactly inconspicuous. Fortunately I've gotten pretty good at putting on a "don't mess with me" face and walking at a pace that makes it look like I know where I am and where I'm going, even when I have internally entered minor freakout mode.

I got on the bus at 5 PM, and after an excruciating 13 hours of trying unsuccessfully to sleep, the bus arrived at 6 AM in Santa Elena. From there I took a taxi to Flores. Flores is a really neat island town on Lake Peten Itza connected by a short bridge to mainland. After I got to the hostel and locked my things into a locker I took a shuttle over to the Tikal Ruins -- about an hour drive. I like to compare going to Tikal to taking cough medicine. When you have a cold, you take cough medicine -- and it tastes really horrible, but afterward you're glad you took it. When you're in Guatemala, you go to Tikal -- and it can be a pretty unpleasant experience, but afterward I was glad I went. The problem is that I was a bit spoiled by Copán. It was small, but quiet and almost empty. Tikal, on the other hand, has been a bit disneylandified -- and not the site itself, rather the crowd it attracts. I was so disturbed by the huge groups of overweight foreigners that I immediately left the main attractions and headed for the quieter trails. It doesn't surprise me that so many people come -- I had prepared myself for that. What I was not prepared for was how unappreciative and disrespectful a huge number of these people were. They would walk in huge groups and talk, or yell, rather, unnecessarily loudly, completely oblivious that there are spider monkeys and toucans in the trees overhead. People would also complain (just as loudly) about how far they have to walk or how there are way too many stairs to get up to the top of the temple. Then, when they finally make it to the top of the temple, they don't even take in the view -- they complain some more and snap some photos as if they are only looking for evidence that they had been there. I wasn't quite as inspired by Tikal as I was by Copán and I didn't use a guide, so I have did little research and have almost no information about the temples in the pictures I took. Basically all you need to know was that Tikal was a giant city that completely dominated mesoamerica a long, long time ago. If you want more info, consult my good friend Wikipedia. Okay now time for some photos:

Tower IV towers above the jungle canopy.

The view from the top of Temple IV. Jungle stretches out for miles and you can see the tops of some of the other temples.

As I mentioned, the best part of visiting Tikal was just strolling around on the jungle paths and seeing all the wildlife. I wasn't able to get a picture of the toucans, which were definitely the coolest animals I saw, but here are some of the others:

One of the paths.

Do not feed the crocodile.

Pileated woodpecker.

Coatimundi

So that's that. Right now I'm in Caye Caulker, Belize and I've spent the past two days scuba diving. I rented an underwater camera and got some awesome pics, which I'll post tomorrow.

Lago Atitlán

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:28:00 +0000

I got here last Friday and planned to stay until last Monday. It's now Thursday, and I still plan to stay one more night here. Since pictures say more than a thousand words, I'll let the following pictures explain why I've stayed here so long.

Took this while Paragliding this morning.

Light coming from the recently set sun, the moon, the planet venus, and the pueblito of San Pedro.

Shy little spider monkey- this is the best picture I could get of him.

Looking across the lake at sunset.

Tomorrow morning after I climb Volcán San Pedro, I sadly will be leaving the lake and heading to Tikal, which means that I'll have to pass through and spend a few hours in Guatemala City, a pretty dirty generally unpleasant town. A rough change from my current scenery. Oh well -- I'll try to make a cultural experience out of it.

Catching up on last week... Volcán Pacaya, Thanksgiving, leavng Antigua

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:17:00 +0000

Well, I've finally made it to a place with decent internet connection, and I have some catching up to do.

First of all, some pics of Volcán Pacaya, which I visited over a week ago but never got time to write about:

View of Volcán Agua from Pacaya

Like a completely different planet

Vents that expel hot air. I was only in that thing for about 10 seconds and when I got out I was drenched with sweat.

So last Thursday, Thanksgiving, was my last day in Antigua. Antigua is a great place, but I was ready to move on. I didn't have any turkey, but did get some pumpkin pie at the apartment of some of the other volunteers. I'm slowly but surely getting used to meeting really neat people and then leaving-whether its people I meet while traveling around or talk to on long bus rides or other volunteers that I've gotten to know. For example, I met this German guy who studies in Mexico on a bus ride back from Copán. We talked for the entirety of the 6-hour bus ride about... well, pretty much everything. Then he got out of the shuttle at the airport to catch a flight back to Mexico city, and that was that - never even knew his name. It's a weird phenomenon thats happened countless times now and that I just have to get accustomed to. Anyways, below are a couple photos from my last few days in Antigua:

Walked up to Parque Cerro La Cruz, which sits on a hillside that overlooks the entire city of Antigua. A really great view and a nice place to lay on a bench and doze for a bit.

One of the other volunteers and I coordinated the kids' painting of a mural, which turned out great and resulted in a lot of my clothes being paint-stained.

On friday morning I jumped on a chicken bus bound for Panajachel, Guatemala on Lago Atitlán, the deepest lake in Central America. Apparently, the crater that holds the lake was formed some 11 million years ago by a huge volcanic eruption whose ash has been found as far away as Florida and Ecuador. I'm staying in a really small town called Santa Cruz la Laguna, since Panajachel itself isn't the most relaxing place. Most of the inhabitants of this area are native Maya, who speak Kaqchikel to each other and Spanish to everyone else. This lake is pretty amazing. The entire lake is surrounded by deep escarpments and three volcanoes located to the south. I've spent most of the past three days taking a SCUBA diving certification course. Not a whole lot to see underwater here, but it's super cheap to get certified here in comparison to Belize, where I'm headed in about a week. The idea is to be already certified when I get to Belize so that I can dive the coral reef there as well as the Great Blue Hole. Here are some pics of the lake I took the other day:

On Wednesday I'll leave here and head to Tikal, one of the most impressive ancient mayan sites discovered so far. And "heading to Tikal" entails a bus from here to Guat city and then a really long overnight bus ride from Guat city to Flores, the closest town to Tikal. This afternoon I plan to visit the natural reserve in Panajachel. Pics of that coming soon.

A quick update

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 22:17:00 +0000

Howdy, folks. The past few days have been totally crazy so I haven't gotten a chance to post until now. I'm currently in Santa Cruz La Laguna on Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. I'll be here until Wednesday, spending the mornings getting certified to SCUBA dive and spending the afternoons laying in a hammock. I've got some photos from this past week I want to upload, but the internet here is so slow that nobody is allowed to upload pictures because it would crash the system. So I might try to make it to one of the larger towns on the lake tomorrow afternoon to upload the pics. Until then, may all the raisins in your raisin bran not be raisins.

Copán Ruins #3

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:16:00 +0000

I'll wrap up these posts on Copán with a few random tidbits I learned that I think are just plain cool. Walking around the site, one really does get the feeling of stepping into a world one thousand years old. It was fun visualizing what the city would have looked like full of people carrying out their daily lives - drawing water from the river, buying and selling food and clothes in the market, going to the temples, working on the almost constant construction projects, and gathering to watch that ancient mayan ball game whose name escapes me (to be explained later...) or listen to one of the intellectuals speaking in the auditorium.

First things first- I meant to include the above pic in yesterday's post. On the south side of this huge temple is the Hieroglyphic Stairway, which holds the longest pre-Columbian hieroglyphic inscription in America and is one of the most remarkable monuments built by the maya during the Classic Period. Most inscriptions at Copán are very short, relating specific ritual and dedicatory information on the monuments. The exception is the Hieroglyphic Stairway. In over two thousand hieroglyphs on 63 steps, the text recounts much of the dynastic history of Copán, beginning with references to its founder, K'uk' Mo'.

As with the temple I mentioned in yesterday's post, the Hieroglyphic Stairway was built on top of a series of previously existing structures, some built almost 300 years before the Heiroglyphic stairway was built. In the photo above, a huge tarp stretches over the entire structure in order to prevent rain from flooding the many tunnels that archeologists have dug to explore the buried temples.

Okay, so I mentioned a ball game. Mayans all across mesoamerica played a variation of this ball game that involved a solid rubber ball that weighed about 10 pounds, which had to be struck with the knees, chest, head, and elbows towards a post that was a sculpture of a scarlet macaw.

I don't remember everything the guide said about the game, but I remember him saying that each team had around 6 players - 3 goalies and 3 attackers. The three goalies would stand in front of the macaw sculptures and try to prevent the other team from striking the it with the ball. The three attackers would have to advance up the slanted stone incline and try to hit the ball at the macaw sculptures. The game was pretty physical, so the largest members of the town were the ones that played. The games drew a huge number of spectators, and were actually about 70% acting. One team was to represent good and the other evil- the game was a microcosm for war, with each side representing the respective territory of each team and the macaws representing the cities they had to defend (or attack).

Yin/Yan, perhaps?

In the above picture is the complex where the richest members of the city lived. An interesting fact about Copán is that no cemeteries have ever been found. Rather, the remains of family members would be buried in the walls of their house. Evidence has been found that these super wealthy mayans would carve jade pieces into their teeth, implying that the mayans had also developed some sort of anesthetic (or they just had a huge tolerance for pain). Part of the reason for the burials in the houses is because of the mayans' strong belief in, or more like obsession with, the afterlife. They felt that the spirit of the deceased would be more comfortable in it's own home. Speaking of religion and afterlife, I couldn't help but notice a very strong connection between mayan religion and many eastern religions. According to my guide, there was a huge emphasis on meditation. There is also a theory that ancient civilizations from east Asia at one point made their way across the pacific and brought their intellectualism and spiritual practices to mesoamerica.

Looks kinda like lotus pose.

This picture represents a huge part of mayan spiritual beliefs. It portrays a man being swallowed by a snake and then emerging, purified, on the other side. This reveals the mayan emphasis on purification and reincarnation through death.

I still have tons of pictures from Copán, but I think I've pretty much covered all the highlights in these posts. Overall, an awesome experience that I would definitely recommend to anyone traveling through Central America.

Copán Ruins #2

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:20:00 +0000

Okay, now time for some history. Little is known about prehistoric mesoamerica, and although there are references to Copán dating back to the preclassic period, a guy named K'uk' Mo' is thought to have been the one to conquer and re-found copan and grow it into a more advanced and important city. Historians suggest that K'uk' Mo was sent by the rulers in Tikal, the great Mayan metropolis (which I plan to visit in a couple of weeks) to stage a coup in Copán. Writings from Tikal referencing K'uk' Mo' date back as far as 406 AD. According to text discovered at Copán, he was installed as ruler in 426 AD and legitimized his rule by marrying a member of the former ruling family. In these texts, K'uk' Mo' is described as a Teotihuacan warrior, which explains why the architecture at Copan resembles both Tikal and Teotihuacan and also suggests that K'uk' Mo' has roots in two of the most important classic mesoamerican civilizations. His legacy in Copán was so great that almost every ruler built some sort of tribute to him. The first two pictures below are part of a sacrificial platform built in Kuk' Mo's honor. This platform would be at the top of a large flight of stairs where the statue of Kuk' Mo' could look over the entire city and preside over sacrificial ceremonies.

In the photo above is part of the side of an altar around which is carved every single ruler of Kuk' Mo's dynasty. The scene sculpted here shows Kuk' Mo' handing the torch of rulership over to his son. They both sit on glyphs of their names and the glyphs between their heads marks the date on which Kuk' Mo's son took over.

K'uk Mo's reinvigoration of the city started a dynasty that lasted 16 generations. His son succeeded him and instituted major construction projects, including a huge tomb for his father, which he then buried under another structure, which was again replaced in a rapid (and rather strange) pattern of building structures one on top of the other, which was a common practice in classic mesoamerica. Archeologists, upon excavating a number of the structures, were amazed to discover layers of buildings dating back to different periods, some almost perfectly preserved, paint and all, due to their lack of exposure to the sun and erosion.

This is a replica of the Rosalia exactly as archeologists found it, paint and all, when the dug tunnels underneath the temple that now is in plain view (see the photo below). This was built on top of another temple, which had been built on top of the tomb and temple that had been built for Kuk' Mo'.

This is the temple under which the Rosalia was buried. That is Mario, my new mexican friend, standing in the picture.

This gives a bit of an idea of how the temples were built on top of each other

This is a drawing of what the site would look like if the layers could be peeled back to reveal what lay underneath.

The names of successors after that point have been lost and are only referred to as ruler 3, ruler 4, etc. until the 7th ruler, who took the trouble to record his place in history in various engravings. As an example of the wide influence that Copán had in mesoamerica, carvings with the name of this 7th ruler have been found as far away as Belize. It was under the 13th ruler that Copán reached its zenith with a population of over 20,000 people and saw the evolution of its sculptural style into what is seen at the site today. The sculptures made under his rule, due to their high level of detail, are considered the pinnacle of Maya artistic achievement.

At its apogee, the city would have spread out all the way across these hills.

This is one of the many stelae that are located all over the site. Each one carries the image of a ruler and is intricately carved on all sides. Usually on the other three sides are carved glyphs that describe the history and accomplishments of that particular ruler.

I've still got some more pics and a few more things to write about- I'll post that stuff tomorrow. Right now I'm late for dinner at Sandra's. Oops.

A trip to Copán Ruins

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 20:55:00 +0000

I'm going to do a series of posts about Copán, since there is just so much to write about that I could never put it all into one post. Well, I could but it would be really long and someone with my attention span would never be able to read it all in one sitting...

The shuttle left Antigua at 4:30 AM. As usual, there were about 12 of us crammed into a shuttle that was only designed to fit 10. I popped in some earphones and cranked up my ipod in an attempt to power through the entire six hours without falling asleep on such a crowded seat, but that plan didn't last very long and soon enough I was snoring away on the shoulder of the middle-aged moustached man who I later learned to be from Mexico sitting next to me. This man had a particularly strange shuttle ride considering that after I stopped drooling on his shoulder and woke up and pretended that nothing had happened, the gringo sitting next to him opposite me began to sleep-cuddle with him. What he was dreaming nobody knows, but suddenly his arm jerked up and settled down over the shoulder of our moustached mexican friend (who introduced himself later as Mario). Before Mario had any time to react, this gringo began pulling him closer into a strange sleep-hug. Mario shook the arm off and this poor gringo woke up with half the shuttle giggling about what had just happened. He was so embarrassed that he decided to stay in a hotel different from the one that comes in a package with the shuttle.

When we finally arrived in Copán, we checked into our hotel and were notified that our tour had to be delayed until 2 PM because all the guides were... busy (whatever that was supposed to mean). By now I'm pretty used to things never going as planned, so I took the opportunity to get out and explore Copán a bit. It's a really nice little town - quaint, even. I ate lunch at a local comedor - some pupusas with a beet and cabbage salsa, garnachas (fried tortillas with beans, avocado, cheese, and lime), some flan de nance (nance is a bitter fruit with a big pit in the middle that is really common in Costa Rica and that I had tried a number of times but never used in flan), and a really bold cup of Honduran coffee. Can you tell by how detailed that description is that I'm really hungry right now?

Anyways, after a quick nap in the hotel Mario and I and two women from Germany who looked very uncomfortable about everything piled into the car of one of the hotel workers and drove a quick 1 km to the ruins. Mario and I shared a guide, and aside from having to spend a few minutes mentally translating some of the architectural terms that the guide was using, the tour was great - and the site is absolutely fascinating.

My guide informed me that this particular sculpture is called "Cabeza del ansiano" -- "old man's head." Really? Couldn't come up with a more creative name?

I'll go into detail about the site's history and stuff like that in the next post, so right now I'll point out some stuff that I thought was just plain cool.

According to my guide, the above courtyard would be plugged up and allowed to fill with water during the rainy season so that, during the dry season, the wealthiest members of the city would have easy access to water. The fact that the mayans were able to do that is impressive in itself, but no mayan structure is built just for function. The mayans designed the buildings to mimic the natural world. The courtyard, when filled with water, was supposed to resemble the ocean, while the pyramid-like temple seen in the above picture represented a volcano. Also, the water would be kept at at a certain depth so that it came up to a certain spot on the structure to the left of the above picture and looked like a beach.

In the above left picture is the level to which the courtyard would be filled. Those sculptures resemble conch shells. The sculpture in the above right picture would have been located at the top of a column and would be just above the level of the water in the middle of the courtyard to look like monsters swimming around in the water. The sculpture of the dragon below would be arranged in a similar way.

The drainage system in the above right picture was used to maintain the water at the correct level.

This is a view from below of the "beach" where the surface of the water would be. It would come right up to the neck of this dude, which is supposedly some sort of water god. When this courtyard wasn't filled with water, it served as an auditorium that still has excellent acoustics. A clap from one side could be heard very clearly at the other.

This is turning into a pretty long post, so I'm going to cut it short here and continue it tomorrow, going a bit more into the history of the site and the significance of the sculptures. But before I go, here are some pics of the scarlet macaws that were flying all over the place. This is possibly one of the coolest animals ever.

Checking in from Copán, Honduras

noreply@blogger.com (Cullen Moran) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:47:00 +0000

I've taken a quick little weekend trip across the border into Honduras, where I have just finished a tour of the Ruins of Copán, which were absolutely amazing. I wanted to write this quick update since I have posted in a few days -- pics of Copán and info on the ruins coming tomorrow.