Omoa

We made it through some rough territories. Caught a ride outta San Juan to La Esperanza where they havent finshed the highway. We stayed the night in our first encounter of a not -so- pleasant hotel where we were bug bitten despite our sleeping bags. Then made our way up to Lake Yojoa to find D&Ds renouned Bed and Breakfast Brewery with supposedly fresh blueberries that I culd almost taste on my tongue, but were not in season upon our arrival. After sampling every beer and playing alot of poker with our stash of Quetzals from Gautemala, we dicided it wasnt our scene and made headway for the Caribean coast. We are very happy here at Roli s Hostel. There is a beautiful, spacious garden, outdoor kitchen (we love to cook tortillas, empanadas, refried beans, eggs, fresh vegies, oatmeal....), free bicycles (I am in love with a particular bike that I swear I already dreamed about and want to buy it), free kayaks (tomorrow), ping pong, chess, a ceiling fan, radio!, and a shower head with actual water pressure. The climate here is a nice sweat -like the sauna I adore, and the terrain is flat so bike riding is an easy breeze. Not many cars, and the taxi we took for fun and to spare further exhaustion yesterday tardes was a bicycle as well. The beach here has been traumatized by oil rigging and central americas obbession with plastic bags. The locals LOVE plastic and packaged foods. They stand like hot shots with cheap striped grocery bags and throw trash out the window with little thought. Oh! Inspires me to do some education artwork, murals maybe, to educate people of the biodegradable-not of plastics, ect.... BUT, the government here is not yet in support of a proactive approach to this problem, and our hostel has a petition to try an encourage future awareness of the people in power. We hope to encourage our New Zealand Amigas to meet up with us here and then travel to Costa Rica for Xmas together, as we know they would love it as well. We miss you Suzie and Charlotte! Hope you are all safe and happy at home. Love and miss you. My heart is with you Grandpa, and I play my bones for you on the ocean at sunset. Love love love. Tamoura and Manuel

Off the roads of Honduras

Hola mi familia y amigos! Just a short reasurance of our health and good spirits. We have been recluse in the Honduras forest of Celeque National Pargue. There we frollicked amoungst giant granite boulders and were well fed by Alejandrena tipica comedor. She was a patient and friendly old woman who had lived on that mountain for at least 20 years. She was born in a nearby Mayan village and cooked on a traditional adobe stove with wood burning fire. We were even gifted some pino for use as candles, as the pine trees here are extremely resinus and full of a red coloring. We had the whole park to ourselves since Monday, as the rangers were not at all about hiking the couple miles uphill from Villa Verde to keep watch on us. We had a room in the visitor center with bunks for 50 Limpiars a night and 50 Limpiar parque entrar fee. No electricity, and not an english speaking person for meters circa. In fact, as we hiked into Gracias this manana we caught a ride with a bus of locals and ended up in San Juan, where we hiked somemore in the heat of El Sol tarde, searching for Agua Termales and found a ride with a familia who spoke english. Upon first contact they actually thought us European and then inquired as to why we refused to speak english when we said we were from Clalifornia. I hadn´t even noticed they were speaking English, and it took a momento for me to find some homeworthy words! Ha! Though our spanish is progressing, we find ourselves speaking our own breed of ídoiot idiomas. Now we find ourselves in La Esperanza with little idea of what we are doing here besides letting worried loved ones know we are happy travelers. We will make our way towards Lago Yojoa (for fresh picked blueberries and home made pancakes) and then to the Misquito coast (in Nicaragua?). No luck finding somewhere in Central America to ship our much anticipated backpacking hammocks with misquito nets, and so we must still stick to regions which supply lodging.

Much love to all! And muchas gracias for all your well wishes and prayers. Please try not to worry if I havent updated my blog, there is so much to see, and most of it is nowhere near the internet. Hasta la vista....

Lake Atitlan

Found a little reclusive paradise in San Marcos ashore the lake Atitlan. The city is made up of winding pathways through temperate\tropical forrest. It consists of many holistic schools and centers for care. There are fruit and avocado trees and a small market. We stayed at El Unicornio where there was cocina and enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast with Amigas Charlotte and Susie. We made sweet potato empanadas, refried beans, rice and avocada. Yum! Today we caught a boat back to pana jachal and are planning our adventure into Honduras. We are staying at the Villa Lupita on a third story next to trees and bird songs. Found a small cafe nearby along back streets with less traffic. There was a kindly drunken gentelman from Australia who has been living here for 10 years. He chatted with us and made many reccomdations for the directin we are going. We are looking at traveling to Copan ruins and from there to the Miskito coast on the Carribean coast. Our friends from New Zealand parted ways with us a couple days ago to go see TIkal, but we all made plans to meet up for Chritmas on some small islands off the coast of Coasta RIca and then we might join them in labor on a cocoa farm in the Cloud forest. Hope all is well back in the states. Having the time of our lives and staying safe in our adventures.

Post Modern Pop Civilisation

So very tired of the city. Of course, Antigua is muy bonita; its aching ruins around every cuarto and the whisps of fleurs and weeds sprouting along rooflines and even surrounding telephone cables. However, this county is globalising like mad. Personas have too much pride in their cellular phones and it seems that dinero is at too high a motivation. While comfort and quality expectations seem to be at a higher level of awareness here than in the States, the popular culture of American cinema has brought its powerful influence over these people. They are shocked, with mouth agape, at my torn jeans, and when I make a modest offer for something at market there is resentful laughter howling over my gringo face. The grocers are stocked with foreign label packaged foods, and maize, bean, and other local produce is far too scarce for comfort. The attitude seems to be, what good is a gringo without a wallet full of $? Looking forward to my shuttle to Lake Atitlan in the morning. Going to take it easy and forget about this over civilised neuva atttitude of Post Modern Guatemala. Hopefully I´ll find some fruit on the arboles and keep my hands on the land.

On Sabado Manuel y Yo went on a trek. We survived. It was disheartening at first. So silly to think how victorious our venture became when the chicken buses are an everyday event for Guatemalans. We began our morning at 4 am when I awoke and tried to revel in a cold shower. We left the house in time to trek across town to the market in search of a bus headed to Chitentanga. We were going on a mad hunt for some ´lost´Mayan ruins. Our directions were to find a bus that traveled along the Pan American Hwy Norte. We wanted to get to Tecpan and from there cross the center square and look for a path that lead into the temperate jungle. It cost 4 Quetzales a peice to ride the bus, and we realized we only had 100 Q bills. So off I jumped from the bus in a haste to find some change. The bus started off as we bumped along for an hour and half with a man yelling out the side door, ¨Chichi! Chichi!¨jumping on and off on and off again. Somewhere along the way we discovered that our water had leaked all over my lap (Oh! Thats why my bag felt so cold). Squished 3 to a seat with personas carrying bundles of fresh picked fruit in baskets on their heads, warm wrapped breakfasts in bundles, plastic bags full of juice and and a straw, and questioning stares in our direction.
In Chitentanga we almost missed our transfer as a poor girl dropped her small orange-colored fruits all down the stairs of the bus and I wanted to help her pick them up but the bus suddenly emptied and the ¨Chichi! Chichi!¨gentelman pointed us to hurry in the direction of the bus going to Tecpan.
¨Tecpan? Tecpan?¨asks the driver over and over. He looked at us like, what are you silly gringos going there for? We thought, we are on to something good now. Not even the locals know why we want to go to Tecpan. Ah! Fantasies of a small village with maybe an authentic woven wrap for these chilly nights. And then a long quiet walk through wilderness and into an ancient land of peaceful peoples. Perhaps we´ll meet a Shaman to walk with us along the way and show us his knowledge of the local flora.... Heh.
The bus swerved in and out of stops and villages. From fifty miles per hour to zero for a pickup. There were few coherent stops, and mostly the bus just spotted people with looks of exhaustion and keeled over to the edge of the road. Then took off again at top speed. We were jerked from side to side, meshing into locals and feeling their basket propped against our shoulders. It almost felt like those roller coaster rides at Disney land as they let people off, on, off, on at a time.
As we pulled into Tecpan it seemed as though someone had built a world of concrete boxes plastered with advertisements for cellular phones, Quaker oatmeal, Diet Coke, and every other name brand stemming from American culture. As we climbed off the bus, stiff from three hours of being tossed around we could hear Oingo Boingo blasting from a nearby box-ad. It was so loud we walked in tempo the whole way across town. Locals coming out of their box-ads to see the gringos. Children stared in curiosity and soon we were alone...with seven small boys following us with machetes on their hips.
The road was dissapointingly paved. As we asked every local nearby, pointing to the word Iximchel in my notebook, and asking ¨Donde esta Ece-M-tel?¨with our horrible American accents and then still following the pavement. There was curiosity abroad. As we passed farmers on their rooftops I noticed them pull out their cell phones, one by one with a look of excitement and confusion at our sudden appearance in their funny little village. As we walked on and the farmlands became fewer I began to worry about the tribe of boys with machetes. Did they mean us harm? Fantastic paranoia set in. Were they waiting for us to get beyond the boundaries of town and then beat and rob us? Were the locals really part of some conspiracy gang, cellularly informing their neighbors at the jumping off point? So, I decided to make friends. I began joking with the boys and dancing around like a clown. They laughed! and Laughed! So enamoured they became with me and my silly name on their spanish tongue, they were not ever going to go away. So we caught the next truck with our thumbs and sped up the rest of the paved drive to Iximchel.
A nice picnic. Feeling victorious. Papaya and herb bread. There were cows grazing on the Mayan landscape that appeared to be a series of networking, stone-built sewage systems. There were also tall mounds of steeply inclining stairs and oak tree looming graciously at the top. Then we noticed it.
Children.
Not a few. Not a dozen. Not even a class size. There were hundreds coming. Every direction. Guatemalan children singing, dancing, playing, romping over every pillar and hillside. We tried to hike the steep decline down to the river below and every few paces had to stop to let children hike past. There was sweat dripping off their foreheads, and eyes bulged with the incline. Then there was the release of about 30 children a time down the hillside. Jumping out of the way to let them down, we finally gave in to our disappointing fate and left in half the time it took us to reach the hidden and remote Iximche.
The children knew better what to do at a place like that anyway. It is their country after all!