Final Update

After I left El Salvador, I had a list of things that I wanted to see.
Unfortunately, that meant a lot of traveling and not much time for relaxation. I saw a lot, and made it as far as Huehuetanango, and met some interesting people. It wasn't very relaxing, though, as I was always on the move. I was headed to Todos Santos, when I missed the 5am bus and was told that the next bus wasn't until 11pm. I would have had to take a bus to a small town, and then try to catch a ride in the back of a pickup to Todos Santos, and it would have likely been a long, slow, uncomfortable ride. I was on that bus to a town called Chianti, or something, when I decided that enough was enough, and I was going to enjoy myself for the last few days, and relax a bit. I changed buses and headed back in the direction of Guatemala City.
I got off at the turnoff to Panajachel, a small tourist town by the edge of a very large crater lake. Many small towns are on the edge of this lake, Lago de Atitlan, and I am on the far side of the lake at San Pedro la Laguna. It is beautiful here, sunny every day, mountains around, and blue water close by. The Spanish classes are about half the price of what they were in Antigua, so I decided to take a couple
days to brush up on some issues that I have been having now that I am using the language more.
Tomorrow, I head to California to meet up with Merran and I will totally change gears and climb for two weeks. What is that anyway? Do I have to take any chicken buses to get there? How much will Tostados and Tacos and Frijoles cost at the market? Will I be able to throw my toilet paper in the toilet, or do I have to put it in a trash can beside the crapper for the next person to enjoy. If I am constipated, will the tap water unclog my system, and more? And how friendly will the locals be? If I am walking down the street, will every pickup that goes by offer to take me along for $0.25.
I think I am going to miss this place. Coming here hasn't made the decision any easier for where to go next year.

Rainy Quetzaltenango

From Santa Rosa de Copan to Copan Ruinas to Antigua to Quetzaltenango. One night in each place, travelling for several hours each day. Not really ideal, but it is part of the price that I paid for going to El Salvador. El Salvador was amazing, and I am so glad that I went.
Copan Ruinas were interesting, but overpriced for what was available to see. The guide books were quite expensive at more than $20, so I didn't pick one up. I ended up wandering around for 3 hours, and took around 100 photos, hoping that some would turn out okay.
After that, I jumped on a noon bus to Antigua. There is a lot of traffic in Guatemala city right now because of the holidays and road work, and it took about 2 hours longer than is should have to get to Antigua - a total of 8.5 hours.
I spent the night in the hostel that I stayed at before, saw some familiar faces, and then went to bed. I got up early and took three different buses to get to Quetzaltanango, also called Xela [shayla]. I was planning on a trek for the weekend and to climb the tallest mountain in central america, but it is pouring rain here, so I dont know how that is going to work out. If I end up having to stay around
here, it will be okay, because I will head to Todos Santos in the mountains, and also have a chance to see some other mountain towns.
Now, off to find a new home and see what is in store for the weekend.

Santa Rosa de Copan

Well, that was somewhat of a long travel day, but enjoyable
nonetheless. This morning in Metapan, I went to a grocery store and had some yogurt - my first since I left. I also bought some pink bananas, the first of that kind I had seen. They were short and fat in comparison to the bananas you buy in vancouver, and very tasty.
The bus ride that I took this morning from Metapan to El Poy, Honduras was very slow, but the road was so windy and dusty, that I wouldn't have wanted it to go any faster. At the border, I had to specially request another stamp for my passport. I took a series of buses and am now in Santa Rosa de Copan, a beautiful, small town with cobblestone streets and beautiful architecture. The hotel I am in is pretty grungy to other places I have stayed recently, and I don't get the feeling of safety that I have in other places. The ride here was a little strenuous as well, with the bus passing large trucks on windy mountain roads and blind corners. We made it though, even with one particularly unnerving section going through clouds and rain. It looks like it rained in Santa Rosa tonight, as the streets are wet. Tomorrow, I will get up early, walk around, and take some photos of this beautiful town before I catch the 8am direct bus to the Copan Ruinas. The clock is ticking, and I only have one week left.

Honduras

What was supposed to be a single country visit to Guatemala is turning into a whirlwind tour of great places in three countries. I am on my way to Honduras via a long windy mountain road to a town called San Ignacio. I am currently in Metapan, in Northern El Salvador. I am going to cross to Honduras this afternoon to a town called El Poy, and then stay at Santa Rosa de Copan. Tomorrow, quite early, I will head to the Copan Ruins near the Guatemalan border. I will spend one day at the ruins, and then head back to Guatemala. I will be heading into a malaria zone, so I hope to find a place that will sell me bug spray.
I am travelling solo again, and left Claes in Juayua this morning. He was going to spend a few days surfing at the beach, and then plans on heading to Belize for some scuba diving.

Scare on Volcan Itzalco

I guess I didn´t mention before that I met up with Claes at the hotel in Tacuba as planned. We got a room together but things didn´t work out for the trek. Our guide´s truck broke down and we ended up waiting around for some time before he was able to take us around for a while. Parque Nacional El Imposible turned out to be too much for us.
We did go to one place where the guide, Manolo Gonzolez, showed us a coffee plantation and explained how things work. Coffee is a huge part of the economy here, and we went to one area where they where they had coffee separated by grades. One grade was premier for export, the second was Starbucks, the third was for general grade for export, and then for other uses. It was bizarre seeing it like that. All the coffee is shipped dried but not roasted. It is roasted in the recipient country.
Incredible amounts of coffee are shipped out of this one plant, in this one small town. That night we went to some hot springs with some domestic tourists from San Salvador, had a different sort of experience, and left sorry that things didn´t work out better.
The local food here is papusas - a corn bread pancake stuffed with beans, cheese, and chicken. Covered in hot sause and combined with some sort of cole slaw, it is pretty good. I filled up on 3 of them for $0.20 cents each.
Yesterday, we went to climb Volcano Itzalco. Claes and I took the bus to the town of Itzalco, which is many kms from the volcano, so it turned out. It was at least 12 kms hike to the foot of the volcano, and it took us a long time to get there. We climbed it, but I was much faster than Claes, and I lost sight of him. At 3pm, I was still a substantial distance from the top, and the sun was getting low. I turned around to get Claes to come with me, but I passed him without seeing him. The volcano is a cone, and where we were, there was rock jutting up, so I could have been 50 meters away and not seen him. I descended pretty low, before I realized that I must have passed Claes, and hoped that he would see me. At 4pm, I saw him at the top, and whistled loudly, but he couldn´t hear me. I saw him climb a bit higher
and then didn´t see him anymore. I waited around until 4.45, but the sun was getting low, and I needed light to get out, so I had to go. I had trouble finding the train out, but eventually found the path. I was so thankful for that.
It was two hours of running to get back to the town, and I stopped at a small house and got some water.
I got back to the small town of Itzalco, found a bus, and found someone on the bus to help me out. I hadn´t been able to find a bank machine that worked for me, so I had very little cash, only US$5, and I wanted to keep that for food and transportation back to the hotel. I had a couple offers to spend the night at people´s houses. I spoke to them on the bus, but my spanish just isn´t good enough and I don´t know enough words to communicate effectively. I was worried for my
friend, who might be stranded on the volcano. The guy who helped me, directed me to the police, who were going to start looking for him.
Fortunately, I had a photo of Claes on my camera, and I showed it to the police. The police eventually took me to the station in Sonsonate, where I was able to contact the guide from Tacuba, who contacted the owner of the guest house that I am currently at. The owner of the guest house said he would come to pick me up, even though it was 40 minutes away. The police asked me a whole lot of questions, about what happened, and were going to search for him. In the end, Claes had gone down the other side of the mountain, on the tourist track, and went to a deserted bus parking lot. He walked for two hours before being passed by a car, which took him to Itzalco, the town where we started out from. He took a bus to Sonsonate, and was recognized by the police from my photo. He was taken to the police station where I was, and arrived about two minutes before the hotel owner showed up. We went for food and liquids, and then to a place where I could get cash, and then back to the hotel. I thanked the owner so much for everything, and he said that if something happened to him in Canada, or wherever he was travelling, he hoped that the same would be done for him.
We couldn´t feel more secure about travelling within El Salvadore, and I will be sorry to leave this beautiful country tomorrow. So many people have helped us out, and have been so friendly.

Tacuba

Sometimes just getting from place to place is an adventure. I said goodbye to my friends in Antigua yesterday, and eventually found the bus going to Guatemala city. People got off at stops along the way, and I was the last person on the bus. They didn´t want to go all the way to the terminal so they let me off at a corner, and pointed up a street. What choice did I have but to go. I guess it could be the same if I was in any big city and not know where to go, and had no map, but everything being in a new language makes it a bit more interesting. After talking with some shopkeepers along the road that I was directed to, I got on a city bus going to the bus station. It was then that I decided to pull out my guidebook and see what it said about local transportation. Ah, yes, they were frequent, convenient, smelly, and, what´s this, not at all safe. Muggings and murders aboard city buses. It was the middle of the day for me, and there were lots of people on the bus, so I didn´t get any bad vibes, but I did pay attention to my surroundings.
The bus terminal wasn´t marked at all, and I had to be led there. People are very willing to help a person out here, and it wasn´t the first time that someone has walked a few blocks to show me the way. The bus to El Salvadore was leaving in just over an hour, so I had some time to kill. I sat down next to a guy who turned out to be from El Salvador´s capital city, San Salvador. We spoke for a while, and I found out that he was in Guatemala city because his brother-in-law was doing something in Guatemala city, ran out of money, and needed to get some more money to get home. This guy came all the way to Guatemala City to bail his brother out. He showed me a good stand for some local food, and then on the bus we sat near to each other. When we got to the El Salvador border, the guard just looked at my stamp and didn´t
give me a new one. It seems that most of the countries in Central America have the same visa policy, and the 90 day stamp for Guatemala also works for El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.
The bus adventure wasn´t over, though, because not far after the border, I saw the road signs that showed the way, and my bus was going a different way. So, at the side of the highway, with no other vehicles in sight, they let me off. I walked about 100 meters to the junction, and within 5 minutes, a local bus came along and stopped to pick me up. I guess there are no bus stops here; people just get on the bus at any point on the road. That means in some places, the bus stops quite frequently. In some places, it just slowed down and people jumped off. Ahuachapan is the place I wanted to go to catch another bus to Tacuba.
Earlier in the day, still in Antigua, I changed 400 Quetzales, the Guatemalan currency, to US dollars, the El Salvadoran currency. It worked out to US$51 and a little bit left over in Quetzales. I got a $50 bill and a $1 bill, and there was no way that I was going to get change for the $50 in most places. I was fortunate that the local bus that I caught cost 25 cents, and the next bus from Ahuachapan cost
$0.60. I have never been on a more crowded bus than I was on the bus to Tacuba. Even the B-line to UBC on a rainy day doesn´t compare. It was fun, though, and people were friendly. I was lucky to get on at the beginning and get a seat.
After an exciting journey, I arrived at Hostal Mama y Papa Gonzales, where there is the most beautiful view from the upstairs patio. El Salvador is so beautiful, and today, we are going with our guide, Manolo, for a 6 hour hike in the mountains, and then we will head to some hotsprings. Tomorrow, we are planning on going to a volcano that is only 200 years old. It started out as a smoking hole in 1770, and
by 1960, it was 1910 meters tall - a perfect black cone, devoid of life. One of the newest mountains on earth, it is going to be a steep hike and hopefully it won´t destroy my shoes.

Parque Nacional El Imposible

Early tomorrow, I am off to El Salvador, a country where you can buy a
barreta before breakfast. I am meeting up with Claes, a Swedish guy I
met last night, in a small town next to the park called Tacuba. From
there, we are going to hike in Parque Nacional El Imposible, and camp
there. Tent rental is US$7. The national currecy is US dollars, so I
have to change my fistfull of Guatemalan Quetzales. The write-up on El
Salvador in my guidebook makes it sound terrific, so I am really
looking forward to going. Claes left for there today, and so I get to
find my own way, which sounds like it will be pretty easy, but I will
tell you how that goes later.
For now, I am off to the local bar to meet Hardy, the German dude who
is trying to get it on with a Guatemalan girl at a bar called Mono
Loco.

El Salvador? That isn´t in Guatemala!

Spontenaeity is the key with travelling.
The past few days have been amazing. Spanish school was a bit much at
8 hours per day, so I had to cut it down to six. I did that for the
last two days, so I had one more day at four hours. I met a german guy
in class who has been travelling for six months and I have spent a
fair bit of time with him. I have broken a little bit, and have spoken
english with people, but I am trying to speak spanish as much as I
can. A couple days there, I was really happy to meet some english
speaking people, but now my spanish is getting a little more fluid,
and I enjoy being able to speak it.
Last night, I went with a group to a local active volcano. It wasn´t
so active yesterday, but there were some hot spots. One Swedish guy
brough along sticks and marshmellows, and we roasted them over the
lava!
Today was my last day of classes, and I spent the time asking my
instructor questions and answering hers. We didn´t cover any new
grammar today. I also bought a spanish newspaper and will read it over
the next couple days.
And this is the good part. The Swedish guy, Claes, told me about his
travelling plans to go to El Salvador, and go hiking in El Parque
Nacionals De Imposible. With such a fantastic name, I couldn´t turn it
down. This guy has some skills in getting around on the cheap, and was
telling me about how he travelled in SE Asia in the same places that I
did for around $360 last year. I am going to try to pick up on his
skills.
Tonight, I stay in a hostel called Jungle Party Hostel. It was the
cheapest I could find over lunch and in the area that I wanted.
If I don´t write for the next few days, it is only because I am having
a great time.
Buenos Noches.