Friday, September 9, 2011

Guats Up?!


This post will be heavy on the pictures and light on the prose!

I made another quick trip down to centroamerica... there were a few places in Guatemala that I did not get to go last time I was there, so it seemed like an excellent time to visit some new spots.

My trip actually started in El Salvador, a place I have avoided in the past, but my short time there was excellent. Great food and nice people. After a hearty $1.50 lunch I roamed around San Salvador for the afternoon and evening. It honestly was much like the other big cities in Latin America (chaotic, great people watching, cheap beer. massive churches, poverty and everyone selling anything you could ever imagine).

I took an early bus from Salvador (simple boarder crossing) and woke up in the crazy Guate City. A massive traffic nightmare reminded me why I was spending no time there, except for in transit. I hopped on the first shuttle to Antigua and was gone. One of the most interesting part of my transit in Guatemala were the political signs - their election is on 9/11 - so campaigns were in full-swing!

The main part of my trip was spent in Antigua (3 nights) and Panajachel/Lago de Atitlan (2 nights). I'm not going to even pretend like these places are not massive tourist traps, because they are, but they are for a reason. Unreal scenery and architecture, delicious food (yes, I can eat guac for every meal), low-key/kind/hard-working people and plenty to do.

Most of my time was spent hiking, wandering, eating, sleeping, in transit etc. etc.
I got the opportunity one morning to trek with group up an active volcano - that was fun. Also visited a very cool nature reserve and some amazing buildings/markets.

Additionally, I visited a couple surrounding towns. Chichicastenago was an impressive stop. I spent a day there visiting their famous Mayan market on Sunday. That was quite a scene, luckily I had a birds-eye view of the market since I was over a head taller than most people. I also took a boat across Lake Atitlan to Santiago another lakeside town, there is saw more avocados than I had ever dreamed possible... amazing.

Guatemala is an excellent place to explore... I hope to make it back soon!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

centroamerica - Panama y Costa Rica

Another freezing January called for an escape... viva centroamerica! It was difficult to go back and not go to Nicaragua, but it was time to check out a few new places. For this fettyfunventure Panama y Costa Rica were the targets with a last-minute, welcomed tag-along Sethman.

Left my place in DC @ 3am, shivering and was sweating in Pamana City by 10:45am - what a small world we live in... refused to complain about the heat though. Holy Panama City - looked out the window of the plane and could of swore I was flying in to Miami - massive buildings - very impressive infrastructure. The first day (before Seth arrived that night) I toured the old part of the city, visited the infamous canal and relaxed at an int'l jazz festival that just happened to be going on. Great day was topped off with some cheap cerveza with Seth after he arrived. Seth and I continued to explore the city the next day, went on an awesome hike where we saw lots of animals (and got caught in some rain) and were witness to many shenanigans that evening...

On that note we escaped the city the next day on a bus ride across half of Panama to a little town in the mountains - Bouquete. This little mountain town was beautiful (and has been found by many foreigners who now live there) - it is the outdoorzy capital of Panama. Our main activity in Bouquete was to rock the zip line and it was awesome! First time for both of us and perfect day for the zip tour. While we were there a coffee and flower festival was going on - though coffee or flowers are neither of my favorite things, there was plenty of interesting food/drink/party action that went along with it!


After Bouquete it was beach time! We bused to Bocas del Toro, Panama the next day. Bocas was a very chill, beautiful place - we explored a couple of the islands, ate some great food and enjoyed some R&R. There were some amazing, deserted beaches that we found, everyone was working on island time in this little paradise...

From Bocas it was off to Costa Rica - after a quick morning of travel and boarder crossing (actually surprised we made it to CR given the condition of the bridge you have to walk across there) we ended up in the very interesting/sketchy town of Puerto Viejo. Don't get me wrong, it was a cool spot with amazing beaches, jungle, wildlife, etc... but definitely gave off the sketchy-vibe left and right. There was more R&R to be had in PV, we did rent beach cruisers one day and visit some cool beaches along the coast. Also had some great food there. Fav meal of the trip came one night in PV - pasta w/ white sauce and some VERY fresh shrimp (lotsa shrimp - so good).




From PV we headed to San Jose to catch flights home - our day in San Jose consisted mostly of watching AFC/NFC Championship games... so American of us! We did take a stroll down the main street of San Jose, almost got ran over 10 times and Seth almost left his foot there, but uneventful mostly!

Overall nice trip - great to be warm. Seth and I were both a bit under the weather during parts of the trip - but powered through.

Panama y Costa Rica were similar and different in many ways to the other spots I have been in centroamerica, both definitely had more of a American influence than other countries and also both were more $$$ - which is very important for the backpacker... centroamerica is for $1(max) beers, get with the program CR!

SALUD