Rolo on Tour

3 months of travelling through Central America will be over tomorrow and the continent of South America is waiting for me next. Time for a little resumee:

On the 19th of October 2010 some travel-greenhorn, namely me, got on a plane to Mexico to see something of the world. I discovered quite quickly that Backpacking (at least around here, as that is all I can talk about right now) is really much, much easier than I thought before. It didn’t take long and I had the impression I never did anything else in my life! So what have I done so far:

I have visited 28 different locations in 6 countries (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama). I was swimming in Cenotes and climbed 4 volcanoes. I was attacked by 3 dogs at once. I can call myself an Open Water Diver now, I went down a volcano on a board and I was dressed as a Canadian Hockey Player at Halloween. I took part in a waiters run and was flying on a 1km-canopy-cable through the air. Many cool memories will remain of the time I spent here and of the people I met on the way.
Still, travelling it is not always exciting, but that is a thing you have to deal with. As it is at home, there are always ups and downs and sometimes the places are not what you expect of them or you don’t meet people to connect with. But there is always another day and another place to go…

Now lets come to some „travel wisdom“ I gained so far:

• As most people do, I realized soon that I got too much stuff. Here we have an example how you get everything you need in a very small bag and still got your hands free for important supplies for the bus ride:

Still some little things are quite essential and I would not go again for example without a travel towel, a bandana or flip flops. And I would bring an Ipod touch, which would help getting through all the bus rides and considering there is Wifi in every hostel around here it would come quite handy.

• It is normal to see the same people over and over again. At first I was really surprised about that, but now I have seen people I know in all locations besides the first stop in Cancun and one night in Tegucigalpa. And I can tell you that it is always funny when this happens.
• Everybody is a teacher. I don’t know why, but if I ask people what they do back home, that is by far the most common answer.
• If I ask people where they come from, London is the city named most often. Surprisingly Vancouver is named the second most.
• The amount you pay for a taxi ride is inversely proportional to your spanish skills (At least that is my theory ;-)).

Furthermore my budget planning should be OK, also considering that I can always save money by drinking less, making not as many tours and cooking instead of eating out. The last aspect will also help me improve my cooking skillz further and if that is the only thing I learn on this trip ;-).

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Managed to cross the border (more on that below) as planned and am now in the middle of nowhere in Costa Rica.

It is normal around Central America to have a central square with a cathedral/church next to it, but this one, situated in the town of Liberia, looked quite unusual:

What is different here in Costa Rica? Many things… First of all, it is more expensive (I dont know if it is for that reason called the Switzerland of Central America) and travellers complain about that all the time. But the higher prices usually have a reason as it is probably generally more safe, clean, developed etc..

You also meet different people than usual here, many of them being americans who just spend their 1 or 2 weeks of vacation around here. Of course that results in quite a different way of travelling, trying to do as much as they can in that short amount of time.

People like to speak english here. I still cannot understand how the ticket of a bus company can end up looking like that:

Keep this thicket, is your passage. Have a nive trip! 😉

Coming back to crossing the border: Having made 4 border crossings so far on this trip, I can tell that this is not always easy. Especially the last two (from Honduras to Nicaragua and from Nicaragua to Costa Rica) where a little bit adventurous.

Going from Nicaragua to Costa Rica and having passed the 10km-line of trucks waiting to pass the border, we had to walk from office to office receiving all the necessary stamps. At one of those offices you have to fill out some form to get a stamp. Well what do some clever people do? They steal all the forms in the morning and sell them on the streets to all the people wanting to cross the border. I don’t know how they are allowed to do that or if the officials even get some money for closing their eyes. Anyway, we were walking around there and rejecting the offers to buy the forms for 1 Dollar ¨“Hay mas en la oficina“ (There are more in the office). At the point that was said all the kids started to laugh at the same time, as they knew that there were just no more ;-). Later we came across some boys who offered us the forms for free, we could tip them „voluntarily“, so naturally we accepted. The voluntary contribution was then of course demanded 5 metres afterwards, but as I did not want to support this kind of business I just kept walking and amazingly enough reached the office without getting beaten up.

Going from Honduras to Nicaragua I crossed the border on the backseat of a Tuk-Tuk, getting stamps and paying all the fees at all the different kind of offices which happened to be on the way. There I paid the voluntary tip of 10 dollars, which is probably a good hourly rate for riding a bicycle, but my chauffeur was really nice and he told me that all the nice tourists give him that amount, so I wanted to be nice as well. Also you probably don´t want to upset anybody in a spot where you are the only foreigner around….

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