Rolo on Tour

Some time passed since I posted the last blog entry (Meanwhile I have not been totally lazy, as I have added now the map features to the blog.), so this one will be about the two weeks I spent in Honduras.

Copán was the first place in Honduras I visited. There you can find the most southern mayan ruins and as there is not much else to do, I went there. For me it was not that spectacular, but I have to add that I have of course seen many other mayan ruins before. Also the entry fee was quite expensive, that is probably why those beautiful parrots prefer to stay outside of it ;-).

From Copán I made my way to the island of Utila in order to do my PADI Open Water Dive Course there. The place is known to be a good and very cheap place to do it, so I gave it a try. In order to get the license you have to watch some videos, do some homework, answer some quizzes and some final exam. But of course you also do a lot of exercises above and under water. At the beginning those are really simple ones at 1 meter below surface, but at the end you are doing more complex ones at a maximum depth of 18 metres. Unfortunately throughout the whole course I had some problems, not doing those exercises, but equalizing my ears.
The day after finishing the course happened to be my birthday, so as a present to myself I scheduled my fun dives (2 free dives you got included after the course) on this day. Unluckily my ear problems persisted and moreover I got a little bit seasick on the boat so this was not as much fun as I hoped.

The course itself was very well organized and there was always some helper around if you had a problem. Especially for me that was a good thing, so whenever my ear started to cause problems, I had my ¨private tutor¨ from Holland around, who does not happen to be on the following group picture:

Helpers and students surrounding our instructor Fernando

Afterwards I backtracked to Copán to relax a little from the course. Now you might wonder why I don´t relax on this caribbean island instead. The reason for that is that you can´t do anything besides diving there and everything there evolves around that topic.
In Copán I thought about what to do next: Going back to Guatemala or head to Nicaragua next, which is what I did after some days of curing a minor case of food poisoning. Besides that I was very happy to witness Roger Federer winning the ATP masters cup in an impressive manner including beating his major rival Rafa Nadal convincingly in the finals. The other big sports event of the last week the ¨clásico¨between Barca and Real I missed though, as I visited some hot springs nearby Copán. I have to say I was very surprised how many of the people around that area were interested in that game and and how many of them had shirts of either of the two teams!
Two bus marathons later (which included one night in Tegucigalpa and feeled like sleeping on the highway plus an adventurous Tuk-Tuk-ride across the border) I managed to enter country number 4 on this trip, Nicaragua, which directly brings me to the next topic:

As I have spent now quite a lot of time in buses, especially within the last week, I thought I´d write some thoughts about that down now:

When going by bus here, first of all, you have to stop thinking about some things like „Damn, I don´t have a seatbelt!“. Most of the time you won´t have one, so you should stop worrying or not travel to this part of the world overall.

Secondly you should not watch the road. It just drives you crazy. Why? Because the bus drivers here have some kind of suicide mentality regarding their passing maneuvers. Some kind of advice like „Don´t try to overtake another car ahead of a turn or a hill!“ is unheard of over here. So you just relax and hope that „he knows what he is doing“, as you can´t do anything about it anyway.

Another point: You can´t expect to have a comfortable seat. Most people are very small here (especially in Guatemala) and the buses are built for them. In Mexico the buses are more comfortable, but many of them have the disadvantage that they turn into a „Fridge on Wheels“, as they would turn on the airconditioning on full power all the time – no matter what the actual temperature was. But I knew of this before, so that did not cause that big of a problem, still I cannot understand it, nor does anybody I met over there.

So let´s say you have managed to find some kind of position you are trying to get some sleep (which has been impossible for me so far, I really envy those people who can sleep in a bus). Then (especially in Mexico!) there is another obstacle you have to pass: Speed bumps (called „topes“ in Mexico). It is really ridiculous how many of those are around. I remember passing a village with 10 house along a road of length of 500 metres, where there were different 5 speed bumps. The speed bump building industry must have a big lobby there I suppose 😉 What those speed bumps also do is, they make the drivers go in the spaces between the bumps even faster, as they know that soon they have to hit the brakes again for the next speed bump, so they want to get back that lost time. And for the cars it can´t be too good either, so there can surely be some better way than that.

One really nice thing about going by bus here is the service. Although it can be very annoying that the bus deliberately stops to pick up and drop off passengers, this also involves that it is always full of people who want to sell their stuff: cookies, water, softdrinks, chips, newspapers and so on. Moreover their products are quite affordable. (This of course is quite logical as there is much competition among them as there is lots of them. Compare this to the service in a plane, where there is only one supplier offering food and drinks: the airline.)

So let´s turn to the plastic bags: When you spend some days over here, you will notice pretty fast that everything comes with a plastic bag. (On top of that I lately discovered that some drinks are actually served in plastic bags. Edit(4.3.2011): Fries, salsa and ice cream as well. Bon appetit!) I once saw in a bakery how somebody bought 10 donuts. Well each donut then got its own plastic bag and all of them where then of course put into another plastic bag. So where do these plastic bags end up? The mentality for many people seems to be: „Mother Nature will solve that problem for me“, so some places have really big problems with all the garbage. Especially signs like „No tire la basura“ (Don´t throw any trash here) seem to be understood as a challenge to do the contrary.
Everytime I buy something now I really have to be quick to tell the vendors that I don´t need a plastic bag; so this is my small part in fighting against pollution…

(*)BWRAF: BCD, Weights, Releases, Air, Final Okay is an abbreviation for a security check you have to do before each dive you are doing.
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I spent the last couple of days in San Cristobal de las Casas. Unfortunately it was so „fucking freezing“, as Marcelo never got tired of mentioning, so we did not do much there. One big problem was, that inside the Hostel (Casa Babylon) we used to have the same temperature as outside..

One day, we met Mike, who was on a stopover in San Cristobal and was not really appropriately dressed, as you can see below. Mike’s plan is to travel around the world for 2-3 years and then open up a hostel in the place he liked most. As a consequence of him travelling for such a long time period, he watches his budget very closely. Now a friend had told him, that you could get tacos on a specific market of San Cristobal (that is where we met him) for 1,5 pesos a piece. It turns out we could only get them for 2 pesos (which is something like 11 cents), so Mike was very disappointed ;-).

Mike, very disappointed having to spend 2 pesos per taco

Later we climbed our way up to 2 churches, from which you had good views of the city.

Marcelo, Jeremias from Argentina, me and Mike

The city of San Cristobal seemed really beautiful, but it was just too cold to enjoy much of it. You probably should go there another time in the year.

One activity I did was to visit the Sumidero Canyon. There a boat would drive you around and show you some spots. I did not really like that trip, because the boat would go super fast and then stop for 5 or 6 times to point at some ape, bird or crocodile, of which you could then try to take pictures. I would have rather enjoyed for example canoeing, so that the surrounding landscape does not fade away so quickly.

Some lazy crocodiles – maybe tired of too many visitors?

Finally this morning I got onto a bus to Guatemala. I have spent nearly 3 weeks in Mexico and have had a great time there.

One thing I want to mention is that you should not take the warnings about mexican food too seriously! The food I had was great without exception, my highlights being the Chilaquiles breakfast in Playa and a caldo (that is a soup with all kinds of stuff in it) I had in San Cristobal. Let’s see which other delicacies there will be on my future way :-).

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After having tried without success to get some sleep on the nightbus from Mérida to Palenque, I arrived there very tired at something like 6 am. From there I took a cab to a place called El Panchán, which Anastasia had recommended me. When I arrived there, I was really flashed, because all of the sudden I found myself in the jungle. The name of the place where I stayed – Jungle Palace – therefore described the circumstances pretty well. Actually it can also get a little bit lonely there, so I decided to just stay in Palenque for one night. But I think for a couple this is really a perfect place to be in for some days.

I got a little cabana next to a small river and tried to rest for a while.

Later I looked around Palenque town, where there was not really much to see, so it was time for another nap :-). For dinner, I joined 2 swedish girls and Marcelo from Uruguay. Afterwards we watched some live music, which was actually pretty good. Also it was kind of relaxing to hear some other music than the „We don’t speak americano“-stuff, which you hear about 20 times a day just walking through the streets. On top of that there was a fire show, so we got pretty good entertained over there. I discovered, that Marcelo and me had quite the same plans for the next day (Palenque ruins + Waterfalls watching in Misol Ha and Agua Azul), so we both hoped that the rain, which had just started would not last until the next day. During the night it did not look like it would stop, so it was really hard for me to take the decision to get up the next morning. The little river next to my cabana was now a big river, but the sky was more or less clear, so I packed my stuff and took some breakfast. There Marcelo and me met Linda from the Netherlands who happened to be on the same tour as ourselves.

So we started with walking around the Maya ruins of Palenque,

NED(2nd in FIFA World Cup 2010), GER(3rd) and URU(4th). We did not meet anybody from Spain to complete the picture 😉

then our next stop was the big waterfall of Misol Ha, which happened to be much more impressing than usual because of the rain which had fallen the other night. There was a little path, where you could walk to find yourself under the waterfall. Well, we kind of just ran there the way we were dressed, which ended up in us being soakingly wet and having to change clothes. We were actually so wet, that some guys asked us on the way back, if we had gone for a swim like that ;-).

In more appropriate clothing we then visited the waterfalls of Agua Azul. I could not help myself but climbing on some of the rocks:

Unfortunately my brain decided to take a break again, when I rechanged for the bus, so I forgot my swimming shorts in the bathroom :-(.

The last time I was seen with those shorts..

A 4-hour-bus-ride later I found myself in my next stop on this journey, San Cristobal de las Casas. But why was this so cold here? Marcelo´s watch knew the answer: We were on 2200 metres…

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On Thursday I wanted to launch my second attempt to get to Chichen Itza and indeed, this time I managed to go there. Well first I did some laundry and enjoyed the most luxurious breakfast I have had so far (big bonus for that hostel). Then I got onto a bus to Chichen Itza, where I had some guided tour. I learned, that the Mayans seemed to have all sorts of ¨magic numbers¨, each of which had some meanings. The guide would point at all sort of formations and tell us to count for example the number of steps. As there were also some cases where this did not lead to a magic number, I believe that some of the cases where there was magic just have to be coincidences.
Well, returning from that trip, it was nice to welcome Jeremy and Anastasia to my dorm. And the 3 of us had a really great time in Mérida. As it would take some time to write about everything, I just concentrate on the highlights ;-):

This cute tiny cat, the main reason, why I went to Hostel Zocalo in the first place (Dominik had told me about it). Jeremy called her Nacho Libre.

On Friday I managed to lose my sunglasses while we were walking around town. This did not surprise me, as I had only needed one week to become a complete dumbass. I would forget everything, especially towels and keys I always left somewhere. Any recommendations on how to avoid that??

During this walk, Anastasia looked for some bag in a shop. Luckily I saw some colorful balls lying around in this shop, so I started juggling with them. One thing led to another and Jeremy started shooting videos. I was very ambitioned to get all my tricks done, so it took us 19 tries until I was satisfied. As it turned out, this is also the amount of time needed to buy a bag 😉 Moreover it turned out that Jeremy liked the ones, where I failed, more. Afterwards I kind of felt obliged to buy those balls, but this little extra weight was nothing compared to Jeremy’s, who bought a hammock that day:

At night, there was a halloween party and Jeremy happened to have some costumes in his bag (The pirate and the canadian hockey player). So the rest of the day was devoted to finding a halloween costume for Anastasia and I think the result was kind of impressive, as we just used some sheets, ropes and leaves and there she was: a greek goddess!

No, that is not how I got my blue eye.

The party was really fun, but also as a result, we did not do much for the rest of the time we spent in Mérida. Well, we visited some traditional mexican market for several times. Although half of that market consisted of shoes, Anastasia could not make a choice. Also there was all kind of action in the streets, as day of the dead (2nd of November) was arriving.
Interestingly enough we met Rob and Claire on Sunday. We later had some great tortas (bread with meat and salsa) on the street and Claire ordered a „Crepe solo nutella muchos“ for dessert.

On Monday, we finally did something. We got by a colectivo (A colectivo is a bus, which departs, when there are a certain amount of passengers.) to a place called Cozama, where you could visit some Cenotes. But the way to get to these Cenotes was kind of unusual: There was a track, on which you were transported in some small cart pulled by a horse. Sometimes, especially uphill, it got really hard for the horse, so Jeremy and me would assist from time to time ;-).

Also, as there was only one track for both directions, there were lots of opportunities to play the Chicken Game.

Here we were the chickens 🙁

The trip was great and I recommend to anybody who happens to be in Mérida, to try it.

In the evening, unfortunately I had to rush (due to some misbooking) to catch my nightbus to Palenque, so there was little time to say goodbye to Jeremy and Anastasia at the restaurant we were at. 5 great days in Mérida were behind me and I could only hope meeting more such great people on my future paths.

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When I arrived in Tulum in the Weary Traveler Hostel, the first persons I saw where fellow travellers, whom I had met in Playa del Carmen. Luckily, as I arrived relatively early that day, I could still get some breakfast, the only problem was that I had to prepare it myself. So I got some pancakes and it turned out to be a complete desaster, but at least I was the only person having to eat that ;-). Afterwards I went to the internet cafe next to the hostel in order to write my last blog entry. Well, while I was there, I got surprised by Dominik and Jeremy, so we were back together again. We decided to see the Maya ruins of Tulum, so I went back to the hostel to grab my stuff and ran into Rob and Claire, the australian couple we had played cards with the other day. It seemed like almost the whole Hostel had moved from Playa del Carmen to Tulum!
At the ruins we asked some information guide about the ruins and he said something like: „You have two options to see the ruins. First option: You get there by bus, an informative guide will tell you anything about those ruins and later you will get back by bus. Or you can walk there, just see some rocks and go back.“ Of course we were totally into rocks ;-).

The next morning I decided to be on the safe side and not try pancakes again. Afterwards I got ready for a snorkeling tour, which was offered in the hostel. Unfortunately my expectations for that did not get fulfilled at all: We spent approximately 1,5 hours in preparation for getting to the sea to see some turtles just to find out, that you are not allowed to go in there,  so we were heading back to snorkle in so called cenotes. Cenotes are caves filled with water, where you can swim, snorkel or even dive. The problem was that my fins sucked and I also had problems with my mask, so I could not really enjoy it. Afterwards we were shooting some pictures and I hope I will be able to post one of them, which turned out to be a great shot, really soon here.

(Pic)

Edit (9.4.11.): Well, I never received that pic, too bad…

When we were diving in the cenotes, we met an underwater fotographer, who was shooting some pictures of us. Afterwards he was trying to sell his pictures by showing us the pictures he made on his laptop. Well one french guy decided that he would rather make photos of the laptop showing photos with his own camera. But what amazed me the most was the fact that the had absolutely no understanding that the thing he did there was clearly wrong.

After getting back from the snorkeling tour I ran into Anastasia, a Journalist from Sweden, who had witnessed my pancake cooking skills the other day. As we all had the same plans, we went to the beautiful beach of Tulum with Rob and Claire.  When we were there, I noticed some big wooden sticks on the beach and I was very eager to get a good picture there with us:

Most Credits here go to Rob, who pushed the self-timer of the camera and managed to climb up there in 10 seconds (and look totally relaxed!).

The next morning it was time for me to say goodbye to Tulum, so I went to catch my bus to Mérida. After some boring 4 hours of not seeing anything remotely interesting on the road I arrived there and went to Hostel Zocalo, where I was planning to stay. And again the first persons I met were Moni and Ingo, whom I had met in Cancún. After I was done getting a haircut we went out to grab some tacos (as I have done nearly every day so far). Later I was shooting some christmas pictures for them on the big square in front of the hostel where I also happened to witness probably the worst clowns I have ever seen in my life.

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