July 12 – Granada, Nicaragua

We’re several days and several countries from where I last wrote. So let’s catch up a bit.

We left Antigua Saturday morning after breakfast to drive to Volcán Pacaya. I looked at our Guatemala map and found a road that appeared to be a somewhat straight shot to the volcano, so I navigated us onto that road. A couple of kilometers out, we passed through a little town and then the road turned into a dirt road. We asked a couple of kids and they said we were on the right road, so we continued. It wasn’t the first time that a road on a map turn out to be, or turned into, a dirt road. Now something you should Central America, and it’s a shame really, is that they are several years behind on their concepts of trash collection and disposal. As often as not, it gets dumped somewhere near town and set a blaze. Cliffs and canyons are great things to throw garbage from, I guess because you don’t have to see it. But really, you can pretty much dump your trash wherever you want. So a few kilometers past town, as we snake through the mountains and basically hug the side of a volcano, the road passes several little garbage dumps, and for a little while, is pretty much composed of garbage. So after driving across the trash highway, we pass under the actual highway (which we want to be on) and end up in a crappy little town and several wrong turns later, we’re on the highway. We turn off a couple of kilometers later and head up to Pacaya.

After paying our park fees we parked at the base of the hiking trail. Passing on the disgusting looking options for lunch there, we ended up making chicken salad in a can and eating it on some of our last wheat thins that we’d brought from the States. Six stray dogs, including a cute but aggressive little pup wanted a piece of out lunch. A couple of them got some chicken juice poured on their heads when we were draining the cans. While we were eating, about 20 yards away from the car, some little punk kid managed to break the little quarter window on our car. Jackass! The window was still being held together, mostly by the tint, but it was destroyed. But nothing we could do about it. We got the “ranger” to find us a guide for the hike, and asked the “ranger” quite nicely to keep an eye on our now-vulnerable car. The hike up started out as a forested trail for the first kilometer or so. It was steep but pretty easy climbing, although the altitude made it more difficult. After a little while, we got to the edge of the wooded area and looked up at the great black cone ahead of us. The top of the volcano was nice and cone-shaped and was billowing smoke, just as you might hope a volcano would look. We took a bunch of pictures, and then our guide asked if we wanted to continue up and see lava. Of course we did. Pacaya actually had three different cones: the top one was smoking and was not climbable, the second lower down was a difficult 45 climb up and had lava, the third was an easy hike up and apparently was somewhat warm or something. We hiked up the second. The footing was loose volcanic rocks, some of which were just hours old. Every two steps forward was followed by the proverbial one step back. We made it to the top of the second cone and marveled as we saw lava oozing slowly from the earth’s surface just meters away. Our guide scrambled over some rocks and found us a sight that no one else on the volcano was finding that day. He scurried back and led us along to an area where there were two large streams of lava slowing from the earth. The heat given off felt as if we were standing too close to a campfire and our feet got too hot if we stood for two long on some of the warmer rocks. We watched the top of the lava cool first and then fold over as the bottom continued to flow. We were basically watching new rocks being formed before our very eyes. I’ve done a decent bit of traveling, but this was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

The descent was even more difficult than the ascent. We had to climb down backwards at times as if working our way down a ladder: a hot, sharp, crumbly ladder. We both slipped several times, but I managed a pretty decent fall that ripped my sock and my ankle underneath. We passed several pour souls who had booked the organized afternoon trip out of Antigua who would only scale the third cone. I can’t imagine getting 90% of the way up an active volcano and not seeing lava! They were settling for a marshmallow toasted over a warm rock. When we got to the bottom, we thanked our guide and gave him a great tip. He had been so patient and informative and had clearly given us the best tour of the volcano that anyone was getting that day.

We drove the rest of the way down the mountain and onto the highway into Guatemala City. By this time it was fairly dark. We’d pretty well avoided driving at night through Mexico and Central America because it’s about 10x as dangerous as driving at night. In Central America the roads are not just for cars. People walk, ride horses, herd cattle, bicycle, conduct business, lie down, etc., etc. in the roadways. Furthermore wild animals and stray dogs wandered out into the streets and often had no motivation to get out of the way. Literal highway robberies are more prevalent at night as well. The road into Guatemala however was a four lane divided highway, and we were only about 40 minutes outside of the city. We didn’t figure it would be too bad, and frankly, we didn’t have too much of a choice. Another obstacle we learned about is that many cars have no lights: no headlights, no taillights, no brake lights, and sometimes no reflectors even. Apparently some cars drive without their lights on because the drivers believe it allows them to see other cars better. We managed not to hit any of them, navigated the city without too much of a problem (considering we still didn’t have a map) and ended up at a clean, quiet, and cheap (although utterly un-charming) hotel in the one safe area of town. After settling in, we went out to find dinner. We had to walk by several clubs and bars toward our chosen restaurants and we both got some interested stares. We were the only gringos we saw in the area. After failing to find the tapas restaurant (Guatemala City Fail #6), we ended up at a popular Mexican place and had some decent tacos.

The next morning we found the Wimbeldon final on ESPN. Several hours later, when Federer had finally bested Roddick, we left the hotel to go to laundry. We walked the two blocks to the laundry listed in the guidebook. It wasn’t there (Fail #7). We got the car and drove to another lavandaría. Closed (Fail #8). Apparently nearly everything closes in Guatemala City on Sundays. We drove toward a restaurant that we couldn’t find (Fail #9) and ened up dead-ending in a crappy neighborhood that was bordered by a giant canyon… in the middle of the city (Fail #10). We got ourselves out of there, found what we thought was an open lavandaría, but apparently it was only literally open (the door) they were not open for business (Fail #11). Back in the car we were trying to get to our hotel when we found out where everyone was: the mall. So we parked (took 20 minutes, the lot was packed) and headed to the (joy of joys) food court for lunch. After a half-decent bagel sandwich, we headed across the mall to the multiplex to try to see Up. Unfortunately, Up was only dubbed, not subtitled. We could see Ice Age 3, Transformers, or Hannah Montana the Movie with subtitles, but Up was only dubbed (Fail #12). So we got some gelato (this was a really nice mall) and saw a man reading the Sunday NY Times… although it was in Spanish. We thought the Sunday Times, or any English newspaper would cheer us up. So we headed to the bookstore. No newspapers. (Fail # 13). Finally we left the mall. After we regrouped at the hotel for a while, Janet went and found another bookstore (still no newspapers). Fortunately, they had the English Lonely Planet guidebook for El Salvador & Nicaragua, two countries for which we didn’t have a guidebook. I’m not exactly sure what we planned on doing, but that was a good find (Success #2). We called Amazing Andy and left him a message about the broken window. We then got back in the car to go grocery shopping at the Walmart, for which we had the address. It wasn’t there (Fail #14). We drove across town to the Hiper País (sorta like a Super Walmart… and possibly owned by Walmart) and stocked up on groceries. We got back to the hotel in time to cook dinner and catch the last half of Sunday Night baseball on ESPN… which meant seeing my Rays (Unfortunately, it was the third game of a 3 game sweep by the Rangers).

Monday morning we headed back to Amazing Andy’s shop and found it with minimal wrong turns. Andy drove us the Embassy and took the car to get the rotors re-ground and to replace the brake pads. After waiting around the typical amount of time one might expect to wait at an embassy (even when arriving within 15 minutes of them opening at 8 AM), I had 20-some new pages ghetto-taped into my passport. We took a cab back to Andy’s, and the brakes were all fixed. We paid him the less than $100 (most of it parts, only about $13 labor, and he gave us the address and directions to the place to replace the window. We thanked him for all he had helped us with and we gave him a bottle of wine we had gotten for him. Andy invited us back to his farm when on our return trip… hopefully we’ll be able to take him up on that offer.

At the glass place, after a brief lost-in-translation moment when I could not understand that the girl just wanted my name for the receipt (she was very confusing and had a thick accent), they got to work replacing the window while we picnicked in the office. Half an hour and $15 bucks later, we were on the road, headed to El Salvador. Again, after only a handful of wrong turns, we saw the sign that pointed to El Salvador and took that route. A couple hours later at the border, we started jumping through the border-crossing hoops. El Salvador really wanted a description of our car, including: VIN, make, model, year, # of seats, # of doors, # of cylinders, type of fuel, and my favorite: engine displacement. I have no idea the engine displacement, couldn’t find it in the manual, so I made it up. The CRV is now a 3.6 litre! Crazy enough, it cost us absolutely nothing to cross into El Salvador and we were remiss to learn that they would not be stamping our passports. There is an agreement among Guate, Salvador, Honduras, and Nica that allows free flow of people between the countries, so that apparently means fewer passport stamps (though not less paperwork). With no map of our new country, we stopped in a small town and started asking at gas stations. The Shell was sold out; the Texaco (pronounced tex- ACK- o) didn’t have any… but they pointed us to an auto-repair shop across the street. The jovial owner of that shop welcomed me warmly and said he should be able to find a map. He made a call and then said we needed to go into town. I told him our car was too cluttered to fit him in, so he drove me in his Jeep. As it turns out, his wife worked at a travel agency in town and that’s where he took me. They were such a cute and sweet couple and surprisingly, she spoke perfect English. We had a wonderful Spanglish conversation about El Salvador and New York (the man had been to Albany to buy school buses to import to Salvador) and she gave me a touristy map that I thought would be no help for driving. As It turns out, Salvador is such a small country, the crappy little map worked just fine. We drove a little ways more down the Route of the Flowers to a gorgeous little place with perfectly outfitted cabins. There were interesting insects and birds galore and we made dinner on our little porch as it began to pour. We ate dinner, drank wine, and watched the lightning before turning in for the night.

The next morning, after lazing about a bit, we headed down toward the coast. We debated where to stay but really wanted to end up camping that night, since we hadn’t camped in almost two weeks. We ended up driving toward a little town on a thin peninsula of land between the Pacific Ocean and a small bay. Most of the road was dirt, and much of that in a sad state of repair. We somehow missed the town and just kept driving down the dirt road until we ran out of road. We knew we weren’t too far from the ocean, so we took a right down a path and headed toward it. The path thinned and thinned until it was completely blocked by brush. We turned off the path until we couldn’t go any further, and then I got out and stood on the roof of the car looking to see if I could see the beach. See, no; hear, yes. We decided to clear some brush and head for the water. After scratching past a few more trees, we hit a clearing and drove out onto the sand. We were miles from the nearest town and figured it would be a good place to camp; it was pretty much night by this time anyway.

There was about half a hut constructed on the beach out of sticks and palm fronds that we decided to refit with our tarp to create a covered area. We pitched Janet’s little hiking tent (almost all mesh) under the tarp and then started prepping dinner. As we prepped, an odd man walked up and we had a disjointed conversation about the area. He smoked a cigarette and generally hung around awkwardly long before wandering down the beach without saying anything else. Odd fellow. We continued prepping dinner (stir-fry… there were a lot of veggies to cut) when two young guys rode up on their little horses. We were starting to get hungry now and hoped this would be a quick interference. We were wrong. One of the boys was drunk and wanted to chat… which was quite difficult because he spoke the kind of Spanish even a native would have trouble understanding. It was the equivalent of a really, really heavy hick accent in English… except in Spanish… and slurred through the drink. He chatted for a long time. He asked if we had batteries for his walkman. We gave him batteries. He chatted some more. He offered me a ride on his horse. Several times. I politely refused. He told me how pour they were. He asked for money. I gave him $20 (they use the dollar in El Salvador). He thanked me and eventually he left. The boys rode down the beach a bit and then came back. He wouldn’t leave. He asked for more money. I explained we needed the last of our money for gas. He asked for food. I explained that we only had enough for the two of us. Eventually I gave them a bottle of water and told him my wife and I wanted to be alone. They finally left. This was almost an hour-long meeting and by now we were starving.

We cooked the stir fry, which turned out to be delicious and watched the full moon over the water. More people came by on their horses. This was the least-deserted deserted beach ever. Neither of us slept well because it was stifling hot in the tent and because we were sleeping on lumpy sand. Since Salvador doesn’t abide by the whole daylight savings time thing, the sun came up at 5 AM… and so did we. After oatmeal and coffee, we packed up our sandy, messy stuff and headed back to the main road. Our plan was to find a nice little beach town near the Honduras border, stay the night, and head through Honduras in the morning. After scouring the guidebook, we found nothing that suited our collective fancy, so we decided to hell with it, let’s drive to Nica! We stopped in a small city called San Miguel to find an internet café to make sure it was still reasonable to drive across Honduras. After several failed attempts to find open internet cafes, we went with the old standby of driving slowly and refreshing the wireless networks page until we found and open network… and it worked: Pollo Campestre (Central American KFC). We sat in the parking lot reading the news on Honduras (Good! The two sides were in talks in Costa Rica and there were no protests!) and then grabbed some fried chicken (but from Pollo Campestre’s competitor: Pollo Campero. FYI, in English these places are the Amenable Chicken and the Country Chicken) and headed for the border. A couple miles from the border, we straightened ourselves out at a rest stop. We were filthy and stinky and tired. We brushed teeth, changed into dirty but nicer clothes, applied makeup (one of us) and chewed some dentyne/sucked on some altoids. Then we drove to the border.

And then the fun began...

(...to be continued)

July 3 - Antigua

We’re in Antigua, and it apparently has a hold on us. I absolutely love this city: it has great food (and excellent service) a few good bars (one with cocktails that rival any I’ve ever had), beautiful architecture, a wonderful setting in between several volcanos, great weather (warm during the day, cool at night), and pretty cool people (ex-pats, tourists, and locals alike). We originally planned to stay two nights. Then added a third. It’s now the morning after the 4^th night. We actually left but were forced to come back. Darn. So anyway, how we got here:

Tuesday we got up in San Antonio and I went downstairs to use the internet. Basically the family unplugged their Ethernet cord from the family computer and plugged it into mine, which didn’t work so well, so I ended up on the family computer. The older of the two sons helped me with the internet while the younger one kept shooting at me from his imaginary gun (too cute). After we packed up the car and a short walk around town, we headed out toward Antigua. We got a little lost (navigating isn’t the same as in Mexico when we had GPS) but managed to get on the road to Antigua via a small town called Ciudad Vieja.

The landscape in Antigua is dominated by a large volcano, Volcan de Agua, which rises up just south of town. The city itself is all colonial architecture. It was once the capital of Guatemala, but after the devastation of several earthquakes, including a large one in 1773, the capital was moved to Guatemala City in 1774 and the people were told to abandon Antigua. Many didn’t so the city survived and now it’s a gorgeous little town full of church ruins and restored colonial buildings. As we drove in I was surprised by just how small the city is. We drove literally all over town looking for a hotel or hostel with parking (and failing) but town was only about ten minutes across (and this is on cobblestone roads with lots of stop signs).

We finally settled on a private room in El Hostal, and parked our car on the street for a few hours while we settled in and vegged out. We didn’t know at the time that we were required to buy a parking permit to park on the street and were pretty lucky we didn’t get a ticket. When we decided to go to dinner, we went to move the car into a guarded lot. The girl at reception had recommended parking at the service station up the road, so we tried that. The cars were all double-parked which would require us to hand over our keys, something we weren’t going to do, so we moved on. We tried at the fanciest hotel in town, but we couldn’t seem to find anyone to ask whether we could park in their garage. We tried asking a cop where we could park, and he got us a guy selling on-street parking permits. We asked him about purchasing one for the next day, and he told us we couldn’t and that we’d have to get up at 6 AM to buy a new parking pass. So we headed back to the hostel to regroup. After some internet searching and flipping through guidebooks and advertisements, we had a list of a few hotels with parking that we were going to try. We got to the first, and he said parking was for guests only. But he drew us a map of how to get to another hotel where we could park. After driving around a bit, we came to the conclusion that the place he pointed us to simply didn’t exist (a common theme in Guatemala). So we drove to another hotel with parking. I stopped the car and got out to ask about parking (for hotel guests only) and apparently left the car in drive. The cobblestone roads keep the car stationary pretty well, even when we’re in drive, so I guess I assumed it was in park. It stayed put for a while but then started rolling for a parked car. With a cop behind her, Janet managed to jump into the driver’s seat and stop it before any damage was done. From there we headed toward the market and finally found a public parking garage. We paid far too much to park the car on the opposite side of town from our hostel, but it was finally parked and we could head to dinner.

Dinner was at a great little French restaurant called L’Casserolle. The menu and conversation in the place was in three languages: French, English, and Spanish. It’s kinda fun ordering French food in Spanish. We split the rabbit in mustard sauce (conejo con salsa mustard) and salmon ala orange (which were great), a bottle of Chilean white wine, and a very rich chocolate mousse. (Apparently spelled muss in Español). After dinner we just took it easy and hung out at the hotel for a bit.

Wednesday morning I got up and went for a run. I literally ran all over the city, which is challenging because of the chicken buses (which I learned are called chicken buses because they allow animals on board as well as people) the cobblestone streets, the really uneven sidewalks (when the sidewalks even exist), and the altitude (we’re nearly a mile up). I ran 5.5 miles but it felt more like ten because of the lack of oxygen. After breakfast, we headed out to walk around the city. We went down and took pictures of the ruins of a church that have an amphitheatre built around them and now, I assume, hosts concerts. After that we went to a church that had been rebuilt time and time again and was host to Central America’s first saint, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003. Behind the church were the ruins of the convent, printing press, school, etc. that used to be associated with the church. After walking around the ruins for a bit, we went for lunch (highly recommended in the guidebook, but nothing to write home about) and then we just chilled out for most of the afternoon. Janet learned about a program to teach the children of the Guatemala City garbage pickers and I walked around town taking pictures.

Before dinner we went for drinks on the roof of Sky Café, a bar just across the street from our hostel. Janet had one of the best mojitos ever, and Sky Café became a new favorite. Dinner was at a Sushi restaurant that was also on our block. Failing to read the chalkboard out front, we sat down and ordered avocado tempura (excellent) and three rolls. The waiter brought the first two rolls, which were huge, and said he’d bring the third roll in a minute. The first two rolls were a rainbow roll (okay) and one called Mango No Come Mango, which was excellent: fresh mango and salmon. When the waiter brought the third roll (basically an eel roll covered in fresh plantains, also great), there were actually two of them. I asked but the waiter just said, yep, two. I figured it was fine and that we could finish four rolls, so we did. And after that the waiter brought out another plantain roll and another mango roll. Now we were really incredulous and asked why, and he answered simply: “Dos por uno” (2 for 1). Apparently it said that on the blackboard out front. We managed to pick at the last two rolls a bit (especially the mango roll) but we were stuffed. So yes, if you’re keeping track, that’s two dinners in Antigua and we’d had French and Sushi, both great.

After dinner we walked around and took more pictures of the ruined churches that were lit up at night. We came across Reilly’s, the Irish pub, and decided to stop in for a beer. Soon we made friends with the table next to us and a beer turned into a night at Reilly’s. Our new friends were three Brits and one Norwegian girl who had been traveling with them. They were all a lot of fun and the bar was absolutely packed (on a Wednesday night, no less) and was playing good music. We stayed out till the late (by Guatemalan standards) hour of 1 AM.

Thursday morning, again after breakfast, we went and paid for another day of parking (since we had decided to stay another day) and then walked around town (sensing a theme?). We had lunch at a typical Guatemalan restaurant (so-so) and then went for massages at a spa across from our hostel (our street was the best). It was raining pretty hard and we were in little huts, so the loud noise of the rain was pretty relaxing. Two hour long massages for a grand total of $50. Not too bad. After our massages we headed back to Sky Café and watched the rain while we had some delicious drinks. First was a round of mojitos (not quite as good as the previous day’s because they had a bit too much lime, but still better than 90% of the mojitos we’d ever had. The next round we ordered a Fidel Castro (white rum, anejo rum, fresh squeezed lemon, grenadine, and sprite), which tasted mostly like fresh lemonade and was excellent, and a sangria (made with anejo rum, honey, and very fresh strawberries). I’m pretty hard to please when it comes to sangria, and this stuff was great. So good we ordered another round of sangria.

Dinner on Thursday night was at a little Italian place called El Mediterráneo that the guidebook said was a favorite of resident foodies. Again we had fun ordering Italian in Spanish, and had mozzarella and tomato brushette, penne with fresh mushrooms in a white wine sauce (delicious) and rigatoni with calamari in a picante tomato sauce. The dishes were simple in their ingredients, but were all fresh and excellent, and we agreed that it ranked up there with some of the best Italian food we’d had in New York. We finished up with gelato with espresso, which was just that: vanilla gelato drowned in a shot of strong espresso and topped with a bit of chocolate sauce. So yes, three nights in Antigua and we’d had French, Japanese, and Italian. After dinner we went back to Reillys and had a couple of beers while we talked to the bartender and then turned in early-ish.

Friday morning we packed up the car and headed out to Guatemala City. We grabbed some sandwiches from a great little deli on our way out. We had three goals in Guatemala City: the embassy (to get more pages in my passport), a camera shop (to fix my stupid lens which is broken for the third time), and an auto shop (because the brakes are acting up). We did a lot of research before we left and had names and addresses for all of the above, including two camera shops and two auto shops. We tried several places to find a map of the city and failing at that (Fail #1), we navigated using the crappy little maps in the guidebook.

First stop: the embassy. Closed for the 4^th of July (even though this was the 3^rd of July). Fail #2.

Second stop: Frank’s Auto Repairs. After driving in several circles, we got to the address. It was a public parking lot. Apparently Frank’s used to be there, but that was several years ago. Fail #3.

Third stop: camera shops. We parked nearby the two shops and I walked to find them. After asking several times for directions , neither shop materialized. Fails #4 & #5.

Fourth Stop: Andy’s Auto repair. Again, after several circles and some fun driving (it was now rush hour) we found Andy’s. And it was open (just barely, they were closing). Success.

Andy, as it turns out, is an American from California, son of an Englishman who had lived in Belize when it was a British colony, and Andy had lived in Guatemala for 20 years. His accent was an interesting mix of American, British, and Guatemalan. He took a quick look at the brakes and said the pads needed replacing but also that the rotors were warped and that they needed to be machined. Which would have to be Monday. So Monday it would be. Andy also does all the work for the US Embassy cars, so he said he could help us out getting the right people at the Embassy. Offhand, Janet asked is he happened to know of a camera shop in the city, and he got on the phone and called a photographer friend, who came over immediately on his motorbike to look at my lens. The photographer recommended waiting until we got to Panama to have it fixed because Panama is the Canon headquarters for Central America and they were more likely to be able to fix it there. Andy gave us directions back out of town (and even offered to let us camp on his farm) and we headed back to Antigua.

We found a room at a cute little hotel with a room on the third floor with a view of Volcan de Agua and La Merced (a gorgeous restored church). We headed out to dinner again at El Mediterráneo, and had another excellent meal (mushroom bruchette, pasta with arugula and fresh parmesan, shrimp with radishes and carrots, and dessert of pana cotta and another round of the gelato with espresso). We went back to Sky Café for drinks on the roof: a piña colada made with fresh blended coconut, and a strawberry margarita, made with freshly blended strawberries. Both drinks were great, but the margarita was most definitely the best strawberry margarita I have ever had. After drinks we headed back to the hotel and watched History of the World Part I, which is even more enjoyable with Spanish subtitles. In the middle of the night we were both awakened by a crazy rooster who thought it was morning (it was not) and who crowed every ten seconds or so for a few minutes, then stopped just long enough for us to fall back asleep, and then started up again. He did this until it was actually morning.

This morning I got up and found a parking employee to buy today’s parking pass. He seemed shocked when I asked to buy one on foot. Surely someone else had parked their car overnight and needed a new parking pass, right? We had breakfast at a place next to our hotel that had excellent coffee, and now we’re getting ready to hike Volcán Pacaya, an active volcano a couple of hours south of here.

So that’s the news here.

(The map below sucks, but the yellow line is roughly where we've driven so far (since we crossed into Mexico)