Honduras - Copan

We took a $40 luxury bus from Antigua, Guatemala to Copan, Honduras at 3:30am (changing buses at Guatemala City). It was the nicest bus I´ve ever been on! It had first class seats in the front (bigger seats - only three in a row) and had a steward serving us breakfast. The driver´s seat was completely blocked off with a door - kind of like a plane.

Copan is known for its Mayan ruins, but the town itself was very charming as well. Though I had a slight breakdown (the stinking bathroom was the last straw) and made us check into the nicest hotel in town ($58). We are high rollers.

The $58 hotel room -

View from the hotel room - Copan's central park.

On the way back to Guatemala City for our flight to Costa Rica, since I blew the budget on the hotel, we took the 6 hour $10 minivan ride. Joke from Lonely Planet (a.k.a the Bible) - Q:¨How many people can you fit in a Central American minivan?¨ A: ¨One more.¨ Absolutely true! All our bags were tied to the top of the minivan, and we were squeezed in real tight.

These are pictures of Copan ruins -

Bonus Item - Tuk-Tuk. Kind of like a golf cart, but more exciting.

Updated Itinerary

We bought our plane tickets for our next destination. We will be in Costa Rica from 5.22 to 6.5, then we fly to Peru and overland from there to Bolivia. Email me if you want to join us!

Guatemala - Antigua

More mini van ride and we arrived in Antigua. It seems there are always construction on the roads in Guatemala. We would stop in the middle of the road for an hour at a time. At first, cars lined up would honk and be generally impatient. Then people would turn their engines off and street vendors would start going from car to car selling food and newspaper.

Antigua is a colonial city with cobble stone streets - kind of like San Cristobal, Mexico but perhaps slightly more run-down looking. It feels like every fifth person we pass on the street is an American college kid (Spanish schools are very good and cheap here). Our first day here, we had bagel and cream cheese for breakfast at ´Bagel Barn´, went to an English used book store and went to ´Cafe 2000´ showing ´Music and Lyrics´ (starring Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant) on a projector screen.

Hoping pigtails would make me look younger:

Can´t post the close-up because Bill has the black-socks-with-sneakers look:

Cafe 2000:

Volcan Pacaya:

Around Antigua is an active volcano - Volcan Pacaya. It is an hour and a half uphill hike after some dirt roading in the car. We were hoping our tour group would consist of middle aged tourists, but alas, they were all young, healthy Scandinavian kids. They practically ran up the hill, talking loudly. We, on the other hand, crawled up sweating profusely, silent the whole way up so as not to waste precious energy on talking. We got REALLY close to the active lava - in fact, rather too close for comfort. We poured water on the rocks (or in Bill´s case, spat on the rocks) and it sizzled and evaporated instantly - very cool.

Dang young healthy kids and me:

Jeeheon´s quest for Korean food:

Finally, after long three weeks, I found a Korean restaurant inside a Spanish school in Antigua. I was too impatient to take a picture before eating, but here´s an after-shot:

Guatemala - Chichicatenango

So, the minivan to Chichi is suppose to pick us up at 7:45, but it´s 8:20 and there is no minivan. We are all upset and about to get into a fight (we like to get into a fight when something doesn´t go right just to add to the misery). We finally go back to the hotel to figure out what´s going on, and are told that Guatemala does not observe Day Light Savings Time, so it´s only 7:20. We have been going around in Guatemala for THREE DAYS with the wrong time - no wonder people looked at us like idiots every time we tried to reserve something.

Bill trying to take a picture of the local ladies without being too obvious:

The cemetery:

Lunch! The chicken was really good:

Guatemala is certainly different to travel in than Mexico. In Mexico, we took the public long distance buses every where, but here, we are arranging for mini-vans to pick us up from the hotels. We could take the ´chicken bus´ (converted school buses that are so named because of their liberal ´bring anything on board´policy that sometimes include live chickens), and a lot of the more ´adventurous´(i.e. young) travellers do, but I think we are just too old (or lazy).

Guatamala -- Lago de Atitlan

After a super scenic ride through the mountains (and a stop at a real dusty frontier border town), we finally arrived in Panajachel, Guatemala. Pana is on Lago de Atitlan, a lake surrounded by three giant volcanoes -- we hope they´re not active. The locals call it ¨gringotenango¨, or place of the foreigners, mostly for the hippies that came here on vacation and just decided to stay. We also visited San Pedro la Laguna and Santiago Atitlan, both smaller towns on the lake shore (in fact, stayed in the nicest hotel in San Pedro for a whopping $25 per night -- great place, run by a couple of spanish guys that traveled to central america 8 or 9 years ago and, well, just decided to stay -- seems to be the thing here). Even though Guatamala is the second poorest nation in the western hemisphere, given the friendliness of the locals and the amazing scenery, it´s easy to see why ít is such a popular travel destination.

JeeHeon posing in front of the local transportation:

Mexico - Nice Surprise in San Cristobal

So, JeeHeon and I are walking back from Spanish class in San Cristobal, when we notice that about half the town has packed the main square at about 3 in the afternoon. We figure it´s probably a fiesta or something, but even better, it turns out the Miss Universe ladies decided to pass through town on their way to Mexico City. Needless to say, the crowd (well, at least the guys) went wild. We must have over 25 photos of this, which I think probably goes in the ¨bonus items¨ category. Woooohoooooo.

Mexico - Around San Cristobal

San Juan Chamula:

From San Cristobal, we took a ´collectivo´mini van to the Mayan town of San Juan Chamula. Collectivo vans wait around to be filled up (and I mean filled up, with children on adults´ laps and even saw a live chicken in the back with the luggage) and take passengers to other towns. It´s an interesting way to get around if going a short distance. I had tons of fun embarrassing the little kids by winking at them every time they turned around to take a look at the ´Japonese´.

This was the return collectivo ride. It wasn´t as full as the way there:

Sunday is the market day at Chamula. I wasn´t so impressed with the market (looked much like the market in San Cristobal), but inside the church was amazing! The Mayans in Chamula practice a mix of Christianity and Mayan religion. There were no seats in the church, but rather, the floor was covered with pine needles, with flowers all along the sides, about a thousand candles burning and incenses. People sat on the floor, lighted about a hundred candles, gave offerings of Coca-Cola and live chicken and prayed. It was unexpectedly moving.

This is actually a picture of the market and the church in Chumula from a post card. We were told that many Mayans take offense at being photographed (I would too if some random person came up and snapped my picture), some for religious reasons, so we didn´t take any pictures.



The church also had a strictly no photo policy, but the floor looked much like this with the pine needles:

Cañón de El Sumidero:

We took a boat tour of the Sumidero canyon. On a rather gross note, Bill was (and still is) having ´overly-active´indigestion issues and was looking rather green on the 2 hour boat ride. My digestive system, on the other hand, has completely stopped functioning, so Bill and I are jealous of each other.

The canyon:

This is a very bad picture of a monkey on a tree:

We also saw alligators and exotic birds, but of course our camera battery died 10 minuites into the boat ride so we don´t have any pictures. Plus, Bill was in no mood for pictures.

Vacation from vacation: Bill found an X-Box parlor. $1 per hour to play.

Spanish class: We are taking Spanish classes in San Cristobal (2 hours a day for 5 days). This is our Spanish teacher, Marco Antonio. We think he is a romantic, because we have learned words like ´soul´, ´suffering´, ´existence´ and ´earth´ in Spanish.

Mexico - San Cristobal de la Casas

Six hours of bus ride on a curvy mountain road in the rain, we finally arrived in San Cristobal de la Casas. We got off the bus and realized that the weather here is CHILLY! Yay! No more opressive heat! I almost kissed the ground.

San Cristobal is a charming colonial town in the mountains. A lot of backpackers visit here, as evidenced by the vegetarian restaurants and yoga classes. We actually went to a Thai restaurant - expensive and terrible food. Serves me right for going to a Thai place in the mountains of Mexico, but I couldn´t resist the temptation of Asian food.

It´s not a pot belly, it´s the money belt:

A lot of cowboy hats in this town:

This is the Thai restaurant:
Dangerous combination:

This town also attracts many people from nearby Mayan villages setting up market and selling crafts. The Mayan village women wear the traditional dresses and men wear cowboy hats. It is a funny sight to see an expresso cafe next to a Mayan village lady holding a live chicken. There are also a few cute children with Bambi eyes selling stuff. I think we will have about 10 braclets by the time we leave here.

Zapatistas: In 1994, the Zapatistas, a left-wing peasant group fighting for indegenous rights, briefly took over this town. There is still some of their presence in this Chiapas region of Mexico, but like anything else, it has been commercialized, with Zapatistas T'shirts and dolls sold in the markets.

Bathroom in the closet: Our $22 per night hotel is a great deal - clean, includes breakfast and 24 hour hot water. However, it does have this funky bathroom in a makeshift closet.

Mexico - Palenque

We took a 6-hour bus ride from Campeche to Palenque. Mexican bus system is great! Their first class buses have computerized seat assignments, a/c and play movies. It has been really easy to get around in Mexico.

Palenque is famous for its Mayan ruins set in a tropical forest. According to Rough Guide, it was "founded around 100 BC as a farming village, its peak came during the seventh century.¨


That´s Bill at the very top:
Vacation from vacation: This was in Campeche. It has been incredibly hot and humid here. Even if I am sitting in the shade, sweat drips down and it feels like I am sitting in a sauna. We walked by this hotel and decided to ask if we could use their pool. We ended up spending a whole afternoon there for ordering $10 worth of food! Their marble, air-conditioned bathroom was nicer than our room at the hostel. $10 well spent.