La Libertad Punta Roca El Salvador

Guatamala City and El Salvador

Guatamala-El Salvador

My traveling partner decided to go home from Guatamala City rather than face the long bus trip and border crossings back to Costa Rica and I also planned to break up the journey. El Salvador has some great surf so I took a Tica bus to San Salvador and met a nice Perth couple, Brian and Lynsay who were booked into a place and I also got a room which ended up being the best so far. All mod cons and hot shower for $22 is pretty good. We shared a cab out to the surf the next morning and I booked into Hotel Rick which was the worst room so far!—no water pressure, no TV channels, and AC too loud to use but it was right on Punta Roca point and I hired a board for $10 for 24 hrs. I had 3 really good sessions to get my surf fix. This place reminds me of  Jefferys Bay with the rocky point stretching away into the distance. It was 3-4ft for me and the only thing against it was the dirty water because of it being right in La Libertad township. With more time it would be worth going a bit out of town to places like km59 and km61 just to get clean water. Had another stay in the good room in San Salvador before getting the 3am Executive class bus to Leon Nicaragua

Rio Dulce

RIVER CRUISE TO LIVINGSTON GUATAMALA

River cruise to Livingston

Rio Dulce and Livingston

RIO DULCE & LIVINGSTON

Now this was one of those places where you hope you got it right by going there and we did. Stayed in a room built over the river and met an Aussie who owned a similar place on the other side of the river so ended up having a night over there as well. His girlfriend owned the restaurant we were in and it served good Mexican food so it was time for many beers and food beside the river. Next day it was over to the other hotel which was set in the ‘everglades’ with another Aussie having his yacht tied up there and waited to be picked up by the river cruise boat to Livingston on the Caribbean coast. Nice way to see how a lot of people live on the river as we went into areas where the locals had small settlements and some expats had nice homes. Also stopped at a hot springs where I went for a paddle and then the river narrowed and we saw the thick jungle stretching to the sky up steep cliffs. The birdlife was amazing with lots of brown pelicans feeding  and plenty of herons around. Livingston was a bit dirty and only had about half a km of main street so had some lunch and then back to the boat, for the trip with no frills back to the Hotel Kangaroo.

Flores and Tikal

Flores and Tikal

FLORES & TIKAL

This overnight bus trip from Antigua was pretty hard work but I managed to get some sleep and a few hours laying horizontal in Flores was good for getting up and ready to tackle the amazing Mayan ruins at Tikal. You can get a shuttle bus from Flores that takes an hour and 5 of us decided to take a guide for $12 each and “Joe” proved to be a little gem with just enough English to get us around all the highpoints of this amazing place. I can die happy knowing I have visited one of the very special sites of mankind. Its one of those places where you say “yeah that’s pretty amazing” and then you go onto something else that is even better. I was truly surprised by the overall size and area of these ruins that was the centre of Mayan culture and had 150,000 people living there in its prime.

Flores itself is built on a small island and well worth a day on its own, so it got one from me before moving on to Rio Dulce.

Atitlan Lake Guatamala

Antigua Guatamala

Antigua Guatamala

Have been moving pretty fast doing this loop trip of Central America and have reached Guatamala at the top of of the loop. Pretty impressed by all we have seen in Nicaragua and now here. Skipped right through El Salvador and Honduras which don't have much to offer. Guatamala is very modern in the cities. Guatamala City is 5 million people! Got out of there by taxi to Antigua which is the historical capital and full of great buildings and things to do.

Atitlan Lake was brilliant with just a bit of pollution from some fires spoiling it from being perfect. 4 major volcanoes surround it and the water was clear as crystal. The boat stopped at 3 towns around the shores and the whole thing, including the 2 hour shuttle bus cost $30! Took all day and went straight to a free jazz recital in some old ruins back in Antigua when we got back there. Now this was the highlight, with a famous guitarist from Mexico playing with a guy from the US on alto sax. They played perfect together for 2 hours. One guitar solo had everyone screaming. They are touring Central America so I was lucky to fluke them here in Antigua.

Leaving here at 6.30 tonight for an overnighter to Flores on the other side of Guatamala. This is the springboard for Tikel, which is a famous Mayan ruin and then down to Rio Dulce where you can do a boat trip down the river to the Caribbean town of Livingston. Will be heading back to the south in about 4-5 days

GRANADA

Granada

GRANADA

This former capital during the colonial days has a lot of charm because of that history. You wouldn’t have thought so from the bus station where we ended up. It was the first ride in one of the old school buses retired from America, that we took from Rives and we ended up right in the ramshackle market .We ploughed right into it with the backpacks ‘cause we‘d been told our place to stay was in there somewhere. There wasn’t much English in there but we found it eventually only to be given a pretty ordinary room beside some noisy German girls at the top of some very steep stairs. Next day we got a great room downstairs when someone moved on. It was just one block to the main square which had the biggest Cathedral in Central America and some great colonial buildings which had been restored.

Caught some music and dancing in this city. First night in the restaurant pedestrian street off the main square, we caught a neighborhood concert by the kids and later some good strolling minstrels working the diners for tips. Next night there was some brilliant dancing in full costume in the main square. Did the obligatory tour of the main buildings in the city by horse and sulky and walked down to the seedy lake front  which needs some work. All in all one of the highlights of the trip so far was Granada.

Ometepe Island Nicaragua

Nicaragua Ometepe Island

Nicaragua Ometepe Island

Moved onto Rives which once was considered as a rival for the Panama Canal. The land here is only 40 kms wide from the huge Lake Nicaragua to the Pacific and there is a navigable river from the Caribbean Sea. So the lake was really rough from the strong wind and we took the bigger ferry across to Ometepe Island formed when an isthmus joined 2 monster volcanoes. The most impressive is Concepsion and we climbed half way up the other one the next day to get a great view back to it. There were some howler monkeys on the hard walk to this view point and we later saw some white face monkeys as well. There is also a really nice spring where you can relax after the climb. There are also some petroglyphs from a thousand years ago, reminders of a grander past.

Two nights here and then we moved on to the very old and grand Granada back on the mainland and north a bit.

NICARAGUA----SAN JUAN DEL SUR

NICARAGUA----SAN JUAN DEL SUR

We were dropped off on the highway and took a taxi for the 20 kms out to San Juan Del Sur and stayed at the recommended Hotel Isabella which ended up being the most expensive accommodation of the trip at $52 after tax! It did have a small pool and Wi Fi but nothing special. This town is really on to tourism and the cruise ship offshore was the proof of that. A nice beachfront but the surf is a taxi ride to the north and the next day I went with a surfshop shuttle and a Robert August classic mal which I managed to crash into a reef on my first ride!! The damage to the nose meant the glass could have stripped back off the deck so that was the end of my surfing and it cost me another $25 for the repair back in town—bugger! Caught a beautiful sunset that night to sooth the soul

Costa Rica / Nicaragua Border

Monteverde Cloudforest

Monteverde Cloudforest