Central & South America

Hey fans,

So, its hard to find a way top contact home when you are on a beach where it is hard to find a convience store. So, that was our latest predicament, not a bad one though. We spent the last week on the beach called El Zonte (pronounced Sonte, we were laughed at when we said Zonte). While we were there we caught a few surf lessons, which let us catch a few waves. Its pretty fun stuff, we now plan to find somewhere to surf in a few more places (aka Costa Rica, Panama, etc).

Before El Zonte, we were in San Salvador. Big city, not my cup of tea, too much confusion with buses and too much walking for not enough fun. We actually ended up in the red light district around sundown, fortunately a local was friendly enough to acutally drive us back to our hotel.

Gotta go, times up,

Will blog soon, we are in more civilized places.

Peace everyone, hope the weather is improving.

Later
Craig

it was thursday night and we had our malaria pills that day. i actually slept that night, contrary to that last few weeks after i had the pills. i guess all i have to do to go to sleep after having malaria pills is to be hungover and climb a mountain. we came into el salvador last friday, we werent able to cross the boarder because we took the advice of a local whom told us that we could get across the boarder with one bus insted of having to go back to guatemala city and then to the boarder. we made it to the southern boarder insted of the central boarder, that wasnt so bad. the bad part was that we had to take 3 busses to get there insted of two, and it used more money so we didnt have enough money to get across the boarder but we had just enough to get on the bus to the last town which had an ATM. we so we ended up staying the night at the town with the atm. we made it to San Salvador the capital city of El Salvador in good time. El Salvador has a population of about 2 million. so if you want to know what its like just picture toronto, where the malls are partially outdoors. they have all the same major brands we do for food like: subway, macdonalds, pizza hut, KFC and so fourth and so fourth. we found an ninendo we but it cost $600 USD, it was rediculous. we went for long walks around the city to try and find the conservatory garden, and the art museum. but they were definately worth it. we left for el zonte two nights after we came to San Salvador. el zonte was very small. it probably had a population of less then 150. but it was a really cool surfing community. there werent even any grocery stores so we had to eat at resturants for every meal, which wasnt horrible. we learned how to surf from a guy named alex who owned the place we were staying at. the waves were really fun to play in. the salt water made my hair super crazy; it was awsome. the beach was about 50 metres away from our hotel room so a swim was never far away. the only reason we ever needed to know the time was when the sun was too hot to go to the beach. that was about 11-3 so we stayed in the hammocks till then. surfing is the most amazing sport ever. i will definately come back to el zonte in the future. i really do enjoy lying in a hammock, surfing, sipping licuados de fruita, and swimming. we left el zonte on sunday. and after much travelling we having finally made it to the boarded town of......blank (i dont know the name of it) in Honduras. but it seems pretty cool. the people in El Salvador were all very helpful and nice. dispite the lack of tourist destinations, i suggest you hit the southern beaches for some surf and turf. Even though we were there for 7 night if i ever blogged again while i was there it was say something similar to what i have said above. tomorrow we head to copan to check out the ruins, we stay there for two nights, then move on to the bay islands which means.....you guessed it, more surfing. But we will actually have internet, so its really exciting.

Technically I'm no where near El Zonte... nor even in El Salvador... but that is besides the point. So, we left San Salvador in favour of the beach life, which suits the three of us quite well... there are no complaints about endless beaches, palms, and awesome point breaks. We headed to El Zonte ( pronounced sonte ) to learn us some surfing skills. We arrived to hear that the breaks were much to large for us to learn in, as was the next day, finally we got out for our first leasson. We all got up and were "surfing" in white water.. which is basically just the small broken waves close to shore. We were all stoked for our next lesson, so the next day we went out to practice what we had learned. We got out there and leigh discovered that he was missing a fin.. bummer, because they are expensive to replace. Craig and I stayed out for about an hour, and then headed in because the mid-day heat is terrible on white skin. At four that same day was to be our second lesson, but Alex.. the owner of the "resort" we were staying at and our surfing teacher, got a nasty ear infection and had to go to San Salvador to see a doctor. We didn't get our next lesson for another two days, which was simply learning how to turn and then practicing. That day we were to continue into real waves and try catching them, but Alex randomly went back to San Salvador. So, we did spend some solid hours getting the training, but we never got to try it on real waves... BUT, we have nicuragua, costa rica, panama, ecuador and peru.. which all have amazing breaks... I'm sure we'll spend some more time amongst the breaks again. Our time In El Zonte was awesome, we got a damn nice tan, learned some surfing basics.. got some seriously cool shells... got to see an amazing sunset out last night.. and spent countless hours in the surf, just swimming in the waves. I got some nice pictures of some locals surfing and of some beach art I sculpted outta the sand.

So, now we are on our way to Copain ruins in Honduras. We are spending the night here in Nueve Ocotopeque, and tomorrow heading for Copan, staying there two nights, seeing the ruins and some other attractions in the area. We then head out to the Bay Islands for three nights, do some more snorkelling... work a lñittle harder on our tans.. and maybe hike a trail or two. Next, we plan to head into the mountains to a small off the beaten track town for two nights, then hopfully onto Nicuragua the next day.

All is well with the three amigos,

we all miss home a little, but were having fun down here.

I miss you guys, were definatly going to have a huge "get together".. or "round" if you will when we get home,

happy trails,

Ryan.

P.S.: All you Hosers that are reading this and not leaving anything for us to read need to TAKE OFF EH! and to dang well write a comment... the parents are definatly winning in that respect... common show some love!

i woke up this morning suprised i felt so well. we had partied pretty hardy with some people from BC canada, and Denmark. we had a really fun night. we were up late drinking and up fairly early for some reasons. Craig and I went out to the supermarket to get some supplies for mac and cheese. we had made it to the supermarket and bought the mac and cheese, milk and juice. but we werent able to find any butter right away and the place where we could get butter was up town; and when i mean up town, i mean a higher altitude. so we decided against that. we used oil insted, which we have now discovered as a bad choice. we went back to the hippie compound/hotel and i made the mac while craig went back to bed and while ryan was continueing to be in bed. we found out after we made the mac that our neighbors had butter that they would had lent us, oh well.

We have a interesting shower, the water gets heated as the water goes down through the nozzle. so i went to turn it on and it wouldnt rotate, i tried both ways fairly hard and nothing happened. well i eventually tried hard enough so it turned on. the shower works so that when you first turn it on its really hot, and when you continue to turn it it gets cooler. so i attemped to turn the noozle to make the water more cool i would get shocked, nicely i might add. and i was a bit wet by that point so trying to go against shower with the hanging wires and electrically taped connections. i had to eventually use a cloth to turn down the heat, but overall, a good shower.

we eventually got on our way up to the indians face, which is a mountain that looks like a face from the side. this wasnt no small mountain, it went up aboot 1000ft. to start we had to got around another smaller city because it was on the other side of the lake. We had made it around the town quite quickley and after a frustrating talk to the toll booth guy about our discount we headed up to the mountain. the first bit wasnt to bad we there were actually a few stairs. we had made it to the first hut/checkpoint of the mountain we stayed there to look at the town and the lake below, the view was amazing, there was a cold wind that blew over the mountains and passed over the town and went up the mountain we were on, the wind felt so nice after climbing in the heat for so long. as we got higher we found many farms on odd angles and wondered why someone would make a farm so high and at very slanty locations, but we then realized that there werent to many other places to build and that coffee beans grow better at higher altitudes. we saw a few workers carrying huge sacks of cofee beans both up and down the mountain. we didnt see any other travellers up there which was much better then all of the tourist places we have been too. the path got very rocky and sandy the higher we got up. at one of the overhangs at about 400ft we had stopped to take a break and i went and spat over the edge of the cliff, and to my astoundment the loogie just hung in the air for a while and flew back at me, i almost spat on myself. we continued up the mountain and made it to a point where the towns were starting to become hazy because we had made it to where some of the clouds hung, it was a really cool experience, i didnt like the clouds being there but, i didnt want the sun to be there just as much. By that point the air was getting a bit thinner and we had to take a couple more breaks. It took quite a bit longer to catch our breath´s but we eventually got used to it...a bit. we eventually made it to the top of the indians nose aka the highest point of the mountain. craig had already run out of water while ryan had a bit of water left and i had almost half left. i attribute that to the fact that i had the least to drink last night. the view from the to was so amazing, ive never experienced anything like it. standing on top of the mountain made me feel like was on top of the world. we all were relieved that the climb was over and took our time to enjoy the scenery and the amazing view.

when we all rested and got our fill of the landscape we headed down. it was a relief to be heading downhill and much easier too. the heat wasnt so bad the higher you get up because it got much cooler and more bearable. we did the same path we did before except at about 150ft from the ground we took a detour to the statue of santa maria and the cross it overlooked the town and was very nice. we noticed the path going up to the statue and thought we could get down that way. technically there was a way down but it was more made for water to stop too much erosion of that area, we took it anyways. there were many stones in my boot after that part of the hike. when we got down to the bottom we sat down to empty our boot me and craig sat down on some rocks and ryan sat a on an upstep. we saw ryan jump up and start shaking and hitting his leg, we went over to him and found out that he was standing on an ant hill. and they had bit him all over, im sure that wasnt the highlight of his trip up the mountain. we were all very thirsty and hungry at this point so we took the final trek back to the hotel.

today was definately a lot of work but definately worth it.

leigh

We arrived to Tikal at around 3:00 in the afternoon and set up our tent underneith an enormous tree. Sitting in the rather large tree was what we've dubed the "all in one bird," which makes such a strange call that you can't believe thats its only one bird. I'm going to post a video with the sound on facebook so that everyone can hear what I'm talking about. We then headed to the Tikal Park entrance to pay our entrance fee and climb one of the numerous temples to watch the sunset. We climed the building called simply "the Pyramid" and waited a top the temple for darkness to come. The views from these temples are nothing short of awe inspiring and no words I could post here would ever do them justice. Along our way we bumped into a fellow Canadian traveller and spent the evening together over a beer and some nahos! The walk back t our tent was just as amazing as the views with so much noise from the wildlife. We slept in as much as the sun would alow us and got up in our own time, taking our sweet ass time. We had a quick breakfast of peanutbutter and jelly sandwhiches and headed back into the Park with our ticket from the night before and did a four hour tour of the different plazas and temples. We climbed the highest temples and also hit the only temple which has writings on it "the temple of inscriptions." We were boiling in t-shirts and shorts, which by the end of our trek were absolutly soaked with sweat. After all that walking I felt that a cold shower was an absolute necesity and headed to the stalls directly. We sat down to play some cards and have some lunch after the showers. At around 4:00 we started packing up our gear and getting ready to take the shuttle bus back to Santa Elena. Once in Santa Elena we had to search for the bus station which turned out to be one of the longer walks we've been on with our packs because the guidbook was slightly outdated as to the location of the bus terminal. Once we found the terminal we purchased our tickets to Guatemala City, we headed across the street to eat at one of the 'Comedors' which are super cheap resturaunts and the three of us ate for just over $3 USD a piece. We then hung out at the bus station, played some cards and waited for our overnight bus, which left at 10:00 pm. Overnight buses, as I may have mentioned before, (Possibly only in my journal) are like trying to sleep in refridgerators. Your absolutely always too cold and the limited square footage is a huge downfall. The only real benifit is that you don't have to pay for a night in a hotel. We arrived over an hour early in Guatemala City, entirely due to our bus drives lead foot. At one point we were speeding in the opposite lane passing stopped vehicles and, as one might expect, a car was driving in the opposite lane heading straight for us. (As I see it, I just plain expect that the lane which is designated for on comming traffic... will have just that! ON COMMING TRAFFIC! Apparently the bus driver thought otherwise.) I was really wondering how we were going to go any further because beside us in our own lane is a solid line of traffic, STOPPED! Unduanted, the bus driver swerves onto the opposite shoulder and continues to speed! Menwhile, I'm stuffing my stomach back down my throat, and rubbing my eyes because some sort of white light blinded me. Once in Guate, we read that we were in one of the more dangerous parts of two, which happend to be the red light district. We took the books advice and splurged for a taxi ride to the other bus station. Some how, along the way from the first buss statin to the second we managed to lose the only phrasebook we had. I'm not point any fingers, but Craig was the last one to have it! We took the first bus too Panajachel and arrived there at around 12:00, just in time for lunch. We found a fellow gringo (local talk for white boy) who suggested a place to eat and we dinned with him. His name was Bill, and he was getting dental work done. Apparently he was saving money that way. EKK! After lunch we got enough money to stay the week in San Pedro, switched bills into smaller increments, and got a giant bottle of hand sanitizer. From there it was off to the boat docks to get our ride over to San Pedro, we let a couple boats go by trying to get a lower price, even had a few gents from the UK in on it with us, but it was all for not, the boat company has a monopoly and we needed to get to San Pedro. We paid our fare and headed acroos the lake.

Happy trails everyone,

adios,

Ryan.

P.S. Hope everyone made it through the blizzards alright and are safe and sound!

Miss you all.