Backpacking Central America - Summary

I've been home for 3 months now and still my backpack is not unpacked. There it sits by the front door fully packed "just in case". In case of what I am not sure, I'm pretty sure that if I unpack it I'll have to face the reality of the adventure being over. If it's still there in a few months I will seek professional help.

Not that reality is that bad, I had work lined up for when I got back so no financial crunch. My piece of crap 86 Bronco that I had left parked, outside in the snow when I left 4 months beforehand started 1st try after a battery re-change. I got home just in time for May long weekend. The 1st long weekend after winter when every resident of Vancouver gets in their car and parks on highway #1 to get out of town. I headed to Cultus Lake with some friends a short 1 1/2 hour drive from Vancouver. I have also made it over to Victoria this summer and in a few weeks over to Tofino for some surfing. I saw some beautiful places on my travels but there really is no place like home, British Columbia is one of the most beautiful places I've seen so this summer I am going to play tourist in my own province.

I am defiantly hooked on traveling and fully intend to keep exploring. It's a big world out there and I want to see as much of it as I can while I'm here. This trip was my first "big" trip and I did it solo in countries that I didn't speak the language of. In the beginning it kind of scared the crap out of me. During the 1st couple of weeks I constantly asked myself what the hell was I doing and why did I think I could possibly do it? The turning point was in Mexico City, I wanted to go to a museum on the other side of town. I didn't want to take an organized tour, I wanted to take the sub-way and mix with the locals. I've never been in a city with that many people before or on a sub-way the size of the one they have. I knew odds were slim that there would be many English speakers around and I was right, I didn't meet one on the trip there or back. Once I mastered the sub-way I knew that no matter where I went I'd be okay on my own.

I left Vancouver in January and returned home in May. The 4 month trip through 7 countries cost me about $3000.00 Canadian ($2700 US). I didn't do any of the "big ticket" items as I have done most of them, I do highly recommend you give them a go if you have never tried them. White Water Rafting, Zip Line Trips, Bungee Jumping, Fishing Trips, Whale watching trips, day boat trips, horse back riding ( did do one of these this trip), will all run you about $30.00 to $60.00 US. There are some really great multi day/camp out hikes that will run you about $150-$300 US.

Things I learned On My Trip

- Latin people are incredible - Some of the locals I met on the trip live on next to nothing and are in living conditions that North Americans would consider sub-standard. Yet they are friendly, warm, helpful and most of all happy. It makes one take a look at what is and is not important in life. Seeing a farm family come into town on Sunday for church dressed in their best cloths and in their donkey pulled cart brings home how trivial it is to care about what you have and the brand names on your stuff. I much prefer the Latin outlook on life, they value what they have and although they may want to better their situation it is rarely based on the "keep up with the Jones's" attitude of North Americans.

- Never trust cab drivers - Although I always got to where I was going and in no way felt threatened my wallet took a few hits. Some tips: Always agree on a price before you get in. If you can keep your backpack in the back seat, just in case your driver wants to renegotiate once you reach your destination. They can't hold your stuff hostage you can pay them the agreed price and walk away. If you can share cabs; usually at bus stops & hostels there are people going the same way, ask around. Most people are happy to cut their costs down by sharing.

- Beware mystery chicken bus snacks - During those long 6-12 hour long bus rides food vendors will board the bus, they stay on for a stop, get off, cross the road and catch one going the other way... Repeat for 8 -12 hours per day. There is everything from drinks to chicken and candy. Some food is not identifiable. Sometimes it may seem like a good idea to take a walk on the unknown side but it rarely is. I should add that these buses do not stop for more than 5 minutes at a time, there are no bathroom stops. You can train your bladder to hold out and avoid liquids but mystery bus food could cause more than a little discomfort.

- Get the top bunk in hostels - It's a matter of preference some people don't like the top bunk but I prefer it. - Closer to the fans; in 90 degree heat the closer to the fan the better. Head is not by the lockers; most lockers in hostels are next to the bed and a lot of them are metal. You won't get thrown up on; sadly in the hostel in Panama in the dorm room next to mine someone partied a little too hard. They were sleeping on the top bunk and tossed their cookies over the side, total party foul. I met the guy that was in the bottom bunk at the time and he got hit, apparently not a way you want to wake up. The down side; some of those bunks are really high 7 + feet and there are no ladders. If you are drinking and find you don't feel well getting down can be a challenge.

- Bargaining is a national sport but there is a line - Mexico was the most expensive country I was in Panama would come in 2nd, the rest are very cheap but in all most of the vendors are people who are just scraping by. I think because the money is so different you sometimes loose track on exactly how much something is. I found myself in Guatemala negotiating for a hotel room, it was a private room with my own bathroom and they wanted $35 Quetzal's, I offered $20.00 and then I did the math and realized I was haggling over approximately $1.75 US. The hotel is local family owned; they live on-site in rooms that are not as nice as the ones they rent out. The grandfather lived in a room with no bathroom. That $1.75 a night was not going to break my budget but it could make a huge difference in their world so I offered them $30 which they accepted. I met some backpackers on the road who would spend an hour arguing to get a better rate and some of them do. Personally I prefer to pay a fair market price if my budget ever got low enough that such a small amount of money would make that much of an impact it's time to go home.

- Patience - Nothing in Latin America happens quickly; if you go to a sit down restaurant it is expected that it will be a 2 - 3 hour event. They will never bring you the bill/check unless you ask them for it. It's part of their culture; they consider it rude to ask if you want your bill or to just bring it. You can't just say hello to someone; there is a ritual involved that involves 10-15 minutes of small talk. It is considered rude to not chat which leads to everyone being late for pretty much every thing. Line ups are standard everywhere; they never move quickly. Banks are especially horrible it's not uncommon to have to spend an hour in a line up. On the upside most of them are air conditioned so you may find yourself bypassing the ATM in favor of the teller just for some relief from the heat.

- Don't give money to the street kids - As cute and as sad as they are they do not get to keep the money. Either their parents get it in which case it is bad because if the kid can earn money they won't enroll them in school. Or they are working for someone and they take the money making it bad because it encourages child slavery. It's hard to do, my friends and I got swarmed in Leon outside a bar at 2am by 6 little boys aged 8 to 10. As bad as you feel for them and as crappy as it makes you feel you aren't doing them any favors by giving them money. I have bought them food and drinks, that they get to keep.

- A positive attitude and a smile will go a long way - There will be things that will aggravate you. Seeing the humor in a situation will make things easier. Getting frustrated and voicing it will not. People are more inclined to help you out if you don't abuse them, in most cases they have no control over whatever issue you are having. A smile is contagious if you do it you will find others around you doing it.

- Hablo español- My Spanish is pretty basic, so it is embarrassing to speak it; I keep thinking I'm butchering their language. I can form Tarzan like sentences but it isn't pretty. Despite that it is preferable to give it a try, the locals appreciate it and although they may laugh and correct you when you mess up the fact that you are trying will score you points. The locals talk fast so it never sounds the same when they say it as it did in class, its okay to ask them to speak slower. There are 2 forms of you in Spanish, tu is for friends and people you know well and usted which is more formal. Always opt for the formal, the Latin culture is very etiquette sensitive and you could offend someone by using the casual version.

I am definitely going to continue to travel, during this trip I met a lot of people who were doing volunteer work as they traveled. I would have liked to have done more on this trip but I would want to spend a couple of months doing it so it would be more of a 6 month trip for me. Lots of people were working at hostels to help defer the costs of their trips, a free place to stay and free or discounted meals and drinks for a few weeks can help extend your travels considerably.

El Salvador - San Salvador - La Libertad - El Tunco

Caught a shuttle out of San Pedro that went through Antigua and dropped me off in Guatemala City were I caught a bus to San Salvador, cost of the whole trip was $300 Q. You can do it by Chicken bus a lot cheaper but I was being lazy. The bus terminal in Guatemala City was in a pretty sketchy neighborhood (the ticket counter was encased in bars) but they were some of the nicest people I've met on the trip. A guy that worked there stored our backpacks in his room for us and the folks at the cafeteria were great too. A friend from San Pedro was coming the same way so we traveled together for this part of the trip. The trip took about 7 hours including the 2 hour layover in Guatemala City. Crossing the boarder into El Salvador was very easy. You go into Guatemala customs to check out of the country and the El Salvador customs is a guy who looks at your passport and waves you through. No stamp which kind of sucked I would have liked to have had one as a souvenir.

We got into San Salvador at about 7pm, it was not at all what I was expecting. Very Americanized, Burger Kings, Pizza Huts, gas stations with real 7-11 like stores. We arrived the day after the elections, the rebels who fought against the government in the civil war won (FMNL). Lots of people/journalists in town to cover the election, kinda of cool to be there when history was being made.

We got bunks in a dorm at Ximena's Guest House which is located in a very nice area of the city, one of the safest places apparently. The cost for a bunk was $7.00 (the official currency of El Salvador is US dollars). It is also only a couple of blocks from the largest mall in Central America, visiting malls was not really in my travel plans but I needed to replace my running shoes which got stolen in Antigua (not by a local, pretty sure it was a tourist). The place is huge, I only saw about 1/2 of it I found the shoe warehouse at that point so got my new sneaks and got out.

We spent 2 nights in San Salvador. The first day we went for a walk, I forgot my camera, I left it sitting on my bed so I will get some picks off my travel buddy and post them in the next day or 2. I am pretty sure we logged about 20km. Started with the Zona Rosa District that has a bunch of Museums, we went to the Museo de Arte MARTE cost to get in is $1.50 (50 cents if you are a student). Great art all of it from El Salvador artists, some pretty angry stuff from the 1980's. We checked out the exterior of the theater which is beside it and then walked down to the Museum of Anthropology but that one was $3.00 to get in so decided to pass on it.

We then headed to the historic district, found a great little local cantina and had a beer then headed down to the cathedral and the National Palace where we found the local market. It is the biggest street market I have ever seen, it takes up about 8 blocks and it is jammed full of vendors and buyers. You can get pretty much anything you would ever need here. Movies are 3 for a $1.00, CD's, cloths, shoes, produce, fruit and all very cheap, a pair of jeans will run you about $6.00. During out 6 hour walking marathon I didn't see any other tourist which was kind of nice for a change. The locals in San Salvador are very nice everyone was smiling and saying hello, we didn't run into any issues in any part of town that we went to.

Day 2 we caught the chicken bus out of downtown El Salvador (60 cents) and headed to La Libertad (1 hour ride) for a chicken bus change then on to El Tunco (25 cents about a 20 minute ride), free if you can get a pick-up truck to stop and take you. We ended up checking into Papaya's which is a hotel/hostel. They didn't have any dorms available ($7.00 a night) but they did have a room with 2 beds and it's own bathroom for $16.00 a night which works out to $8.00 each. The place has free WIFI and a full kitchen including a fridge. El Tunco is a very small surf town, when we got in there were a lot of surfers, a swell had come in and they had all come up from Nicaragua, by day 2 the swell was gone and the hard core surfers were off to Nicaragua for a swell that was coming in there. The majority of tourists here are El Salvadorians, it is so close to the capital that it is very popular with them. There is also a holiday on right now, part of the whole 6 weeks of Easter thing so lots of them have this week off work.

The nightlife here is not an all out party, there are 4 or 5 restaurants/bars, a bonfire on the beach is about as crazy as it gets which after San Pedro is a nice change. Food in restaurants runs about $2 - $3 for breakfast, dinners can cost anywhere from $3.00 for a burger to $9.00 for seafood. I heard a rumor that there is a pupusa stand somewhere in town that you can get a couple of pupusa's and rice for $1.50, I haven't found it yet. The general directions given to me by a surfer are it's a shack over the bridge... Haven't found a bridge yet either but everyone at the hotel is looking for the place so one of us should find it soon.

I took a surf lesson yesterday, I have surfed twice before but I kind of suck at it so thought a lesson wouldn't hurt, and yet it did. It was $15.00 for an hour. My instructor didn't speak English so he had to put up with my Tarzan Spanish which resulted in much communication via hand gestures. I kind of thought he would take me to the nice little wave beach, I was wrong... I got to go out to the big kid waves which involved a great deal of paddling, something my scrawny little arms had issues with. The waves break on the reef, not something I knew so I didn't realize putting your feet down was bad.. Got some cuts on my feet out of the deal and lost some skin on a knee but pretty minor flesh wounds. Got a bit of a fat lip from the board in the face on one run, forgot to put hands in front of face when coming off. All in all it was awesome, got up on all but 1 wave (submarined it) it wasn't pretty and I didn't stay up for the full run on a few but did better than I have in the past. I will be getting in some more surfing while I am here the cost to rent a board for the day is $10.00.

Some of the folks from the hotel in San Pedro showed up here the yesterday. Hung out with them last night along with some Aussie surfers. We got interviewed for a documentary on tourism in El Salvador if I don't end up on the cutting room floor it could be my 15 minutes of fame LOL... And you all thought I'd get it by being on cops, bad girls bad girls whatcha gonna do....

Heading into La Libertad in the next day or so, there are no banks or bank machines in El Tonca or any real grocery stores, just little ones that sell very basic stuff.

If you are looking for people you met traveling visit Lost Trekkers a free international people search

I live up the river on the right

The Adventure

Welcome to my adventure or as some may call it my mid-life crisis. Traveling is something I very much enjoy. Up until this point I have only had the opportunity to do it on a very limited basis, a couple of weeks a year during my annual vacation kind of thing.

I have always had travel envy towards people who can take a couple of months off and hit the road and vowed that if I ever had the opportunity I would take it. Well now it is either follow the dream or let it die so after much plotting and scheming I found a way to do it.

I have never been a "normal" person, the dream of the house in the burbs, the 2.5 kids and driving a mini van makes me cringe and want to run far far away. I have done the career thing making it as far as Marketing Manager for a software company however I found that the corporate world was also not for me. So about 4 years ago I started building a website after a couple of years of total frustration from trying to learn ASP programing and a few billion cups of coffee I finally got it finished and launched it. It is a free site so it doesn't make much money but it does bring in enough that it should cover the food costs for my trip. The site is an international people search site called Lost Trekkers, if you are looking for someone feel free to drop by my stomach thanks you. I have been lucky enough to find a job working for the City as an auxiliary employee that allows me to pick up work when I need it which is the money I have been able to put away to pay for my adventure and something I will be able to go back to when I return... until itchy feet syndrome strikes again.

The adventure begins in Puerto Vallarta Mexico and ends in Costa Rica. I am going on the trip by myself and will be backpacking it and busing it. I have my footprint guide to Mexico/Central America and have been doing a whole lot of research on the Internet. Being a single female traveler has a few draw backs but I have found the forums and other peoples blogs a great resource for information. I plan on visiting Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, I have 3 1/2 months and from the research I have done I'm thinking I will spend a large part of the time in Guatemala. It seems to be the least expensive country and I want to take Spanish classes for about a month so I think it will be a great place to live for awhile.

In preparation for the trip I have been doing a lot of shopping. The backpack was the hardest item to get and involved trying on many different kinds in all shapes and sizes. This being my first time doing this I'm sure I'm going to find that I don't need one this large but I'd rather have extra room than not enough. The trouble being if I actually do fill it up I won't be able to pack it around without the aide of a Sherpa :-) I have visions of falling over backwards and doing the turtle... The pack does have a detachable day pack which I think I will find very useful. I'm not sure if I'll need it but I also got a "pack protector" which is a steel mesh that can go over the pack to prevent anyone from slicing it open and getting at the stuff in it. I actually got it more because it has a tether on it so if I need to I can lock the pack to a stationary object for short periods of time. The info on the Internet from folks went both ways on the need for it so I'll see how it goes. All in all I dropped about $300.00 in Mountain Equipment Coop including purchasing a water proof case for my laptop, re-chargeable battery's and charger and the Canadian flag patches to attach to the backpack.

I am very much looking forward to the start of the trip.. For those of you who don't live in Vancouver..... We don't normally get snow however this year has been some very freaky weather, it started on Dec 15th and has not let up. Vancouver people don't know what to do in the snow, we get rain in the winter and maybe a couple of days of the white stuff, most folks can't drive in it, no one has snow tires, the city's don't have the plowing/sanding/salting equipment to get rid of it so all in all it has pretty much shut down all of southern British Columbia as well as a large part of Washington State. My dreams are filled with sun, sand and warmth. I am pretty sure that it is the only thing keeping me sane at this point. Someone turn up the heat!