Juayua

We biked out of Tacuba back to Ahuachapan this morning. It took exactly the same amount of time as on the way in. The ups and downs must be pretty equal each way. It certainly didn't feel equal after nearly an hour on just the first hill! I definitely could have taken the bus but I was highly motivated to burn calories and make lots of room in my stomach for delicacies at the food fair tomorrow! I look forward to iguana and it's eggs. Mama from our hostel in Tacuba told us we'd certainly find iguana here, but her son told us it is illegal to eat them cause they are endangered! So don't know which it is, we shall see!

From Ahuachapan we got a bus to Juayua because getting here involved passing though the highest elevation town in El Salvador, Apaneca. So far we really like this town, and will probably end up staying several days longer than originally planned. We are at the Hotel Anahuac, which is very nice, pretty courtyard fulls of hanmocks and flowers. They have several waterfall tours from here, one of which only costs $1.50! How can you say no to that? They also have a tour going to the night market in Nahuizalco, which seems really neat, you can eat traditional foods such as rabbit tacos and pacayas there.

I'm enjoying El Salvador much more than I expected to. Based on what I read in my Lonely Planet book, it seemed like there wasn't much reason to come here. The book I have was written almost 10 years ago though before tourism was very developed here. I was also a bit nervous about coming here, not really sure why. I guess I was led to believe it was a dangerous place because of its history of war and violence. But we have met nothing but nice people here and have been having a nice stay so far. We are thinking about extending our time here by climbing some volcanos in the Cerro Verde National Park area. We also plan to go to Lago de Coatepeque and La Palma.

We will perhaps do some sit ups and push ups tonight and make further room for food tomorrow!

Parque Nacional El Imposible

Today we went on our tour into the park.  It was just me and Craig and the guide.  I chose to ride in the bed of the truck.  It was a bumpy one hour ride with nothing to cushion my butt or back.  It was mostly an uphill ride and we had views on both sides of the mountains. In one direction we could see the mountains and volcanos of the interior and on the other side views of the Pacific.  Of course since we are not riding our bikes today, it was cloudy, cool and a bit rainy, so it was not a perfect view, but still really pretty.  I was under the impression that the waterfalls were actually inside the park, but perhaps not because the first part of our hike was through coffee fields.  It was a steep downhill to a boulder filled canyon, the river was not very full, but there was enough water to jump off of most of the falls. The whole draw of the tour is that you will be jumping off cliffs into the series of pools that are created by the boulders.  Before we even left, I said I would jump all of them no problem.  Some of them were quite scary, but I stuck to what I said and did all 9 jumps!  Each pool of water was absolutely filled with tadpoles, hundreds of them!  I was worried about stepping on them getting out of each pool to the next.  The water was pretty cool as was the air, Craigs lips actually turned purple.  We had lots of fun though.  The hike back out was exhausting, as was the ride back in the bumpy truck bed.  I had a two and a half hour nap when we got back, and I am still tired, so I hope I can sleep tonight.  It has been so nice catching up on sleep though.

Tomorrow we have a day off just for relaxing, which neither of us really know how to do, so we shall see how that goes.  The man who runs our hostel is supposed to take us to a nearby coffee farm that his sister owns.  Not sure what there is to do there, but I am sure it will be fun and should have pretty views.  Then I imagine myself trying to read in a hammock and instead falling asleep.

On Friday morning, we will head for Juayua where we will stay for two days enjoying the food fair.  We are on the lookout for grilled iguana!

Tacuba

We rode the remaining 16km from Ahuachapan to Tacuba this morning. We didn't get going til almost 8, which I way late for us. We kept pushing the alarm back cause we were so tired. We generally start between 5:30 and 6 to have as much time out of the heat as possible. It is hard though cause we never seem to get enough sleep. Luckily it was cloudy out during out ride today and wasn't too warm. There was also lots of shade, as it was a winding tree lined road. It took just over two hours because of so much up and down. The ups were so big that I didn't even attempt to ride up them. So today mostly consisted up me pushing my bike up hills then riding down only to find another, so the process repeated itself multiple times. There was basically no flat, just up and down and none of the hills were really small enough for me to try riding up, it wasn't worth hurting my knees further. I listened to my music and I didn't mind the pushing, actually had a nice time. I let Craig go ahead of me today as an experiment today to see how much faster he'd go, and also so I didn't have to feel rushed. I stopped at Sarita and got an ice cream as soon as I got into town, and he was still only about 15 minutes ahead of me, so that made me feel good. We are staying at the Hostel de Mama y Papa. They are very nice people, and as the name suggests it is run by a mom and dad team. Tomorrow we will do a tour to the waterfalls inside Parque Nacional El Imposible. We would prefer to figure it out on our own but there is not transportation to the park and it will probably be safer for us with a guide.

I had a lovely 2 hour nap when we arrived. We will be here 3 nights and I look forward to overloading on sleep! Tonight we feast on the mutant pineapple! I have included a photo of me and the pineapple, and I am wearing my non spadex clothing that I acquired in Antigua, it is made of linen and I love it! I could have bought out the whole store but I had to restrain myself due to storage limits on my bike.

Getting to El Salvador

We were off our bikes exploring the highlands a total of 7 days, and each of those days was cloudy and cool.  So of course just as soon as we are on our bikes the sun comes out in all its glory to burn our skin, dehydrate us and cause us heat stroke!  That being said, we had views of all 4 volcanos leaving Antigua on Saturday (Acatenango, Feugo, Agua and even Pacaya).  We also had the best roads and the best scenery of the whole trip.  Getting out of Antigua and to Escuintla (40km) was almost entirely downhill and so steep in some parts that it was almost scary.  We made really good time though.  Arrived in Escuintla at just after 8 and had only been going about an hour and a half.  We stopped at McDonalds in town to take a break and it took all of my willpower not to order a Snickers McFlurry!  After an hour of break and trying to figure out the right way out of town we were on the road again.  The scenery got even better and the road stayed nice with a continuing slight downhill, a wide shoulder, and little traffic.  The day was turning out to be our best biking day so far.  We had views of gorgeous mountains and volcanos and the road was lined with a tunnel of giant beautiful ceiba trees offering tons of shade.  We had endless blue skies and miles and miles of sugar cane fields.  Truck loads of sugar cane were passing us filling the air with the sweet smell of molasses.  The day was absolute bliss. Around 10 we took an hour break at a bridge over a pretty river and watched the sugar cane trucks go by.  They are double long double decker trucks and from far away they look like giant baskets of french fries.

After our break we were hit by hills.  Not very bad hills, but a slight incline began shortly after our break and lasted for 45 minutes and was enough to wipe us out.  Our shade went away, and the sun boiled down on us and the hills continued.  And something about it was worse than any other day, although I feel it shouldnt have been any different.  After several more grueling hours, we made it to Chiquimulilla (62 miles) where we spent the night.  To my surprise, Craig was more wiped out than me, usually I am the weak link.  Turns out he got some kind of stomach bug and is finally now today recovering.  I like him better when he is sick, it means I can keep up!

Yesterday we managed to get out of our hotel in Chiquimillia by 5:30 am, after quite awhile spent figuring out how to open the gates to leave.  Neither of us felt well rested, something about the day before just did us in.  It was rather dark still, the stars were out and we rode by headlamp.  We only got a couple kilometers down the highway when we were directed off the road for a detour, only we didnt know it was a detour cause I didnt see the sign and Craig couldnt read what it said.  We were on a pot holed rocky dirt road and it was really hard to see in the dark.  We spent awhile crusing around lost and asking locals for directions, about an hour later we were back on the highway only 5 km down the road from where we got off.  My best guess is that the bridge over the river on the highway went out.  We had more hills, heat and blue sky and Craig was sick and not eating, so we only made it as far as Ciudad San Pedro de Alvarado (border with El Salvador).  All day I craved watermelon because of the heat, so when we arrived I ate an entire half of a watermelon, just scooped it out with a spoon. We died of heat all night but I slept really well.

This morning we backtracked a few kilometers to the junction for Moyuta.  Our plan was to head over the mountains and cross the border into El Salvador at Las Chinamas.  So we biked only a few kilometers up the road at the juntion and determinded that the uphill was not gonna stop and I was about to poop myself from eating so much watermelon the night before!  There were school children walking all over the place and the street was lined with houses, so nowhere to relieve myself. We decided to hitchhike and got picked up by a truck after only a few minutes of waiting.  The ride up to the top of Volcan Moyuta was incredibly pleasant.  We had views all the way to the Pacific and the surrounding mountains and a lovely breeze and of course it is always nice to ride a car instead of a bicycle up a mountain!  The downhill from Moyuta to Jalpatagua was steep and windy and scary!  I locked my arms and rode the brakes the whole way down, the wind was blowing me all over the road.  Somehow Craig found it fun, but my arms were numb from squeezing the handle bars so hard. We continued with downhill past Jalpatagua, but of course all good things must come to an end and it did when the hills came. :(  The rest of the way to the border, only about 12 miles, took us more than 2 hours.  We died of heat again.  When we finally got to immigration, we were instantly surround by a mob of guys that all wanted to change our Guatamalan Quetzales to dollars (they use US in El Salvador), they also tried to take our passports and charge us $10 for something.  I told em we would go insead and get our passports stamped on our on, and of course there was nothing we had to pay.  Getting into El Salvador was a 3 mile uphill.  My knees were hurting and I pushed my bike the whole way.  At the top we tried unsuccessfully to hitchhike, but finally got a bus to take us and our bikes the remaining 15km into Ahuachapan.  We are killing time until our hotel lets us check in  for the night at 6.  Its a real classy establishment that rents rooms by the hour during the day!  We dont mind though, we are only paying $5 for the whole night.  There is a market going on in town today with lots of street vendors selling lovely foods.  I have purchased a tiny avocado and a banana and a mutant pineapple (the stem at the top is like 6 inches across and oval shaped intead of round!).  I also got some homemade ice cream in what tasted like a homemade corn flake bowl thingy.  I plan to also try chocolate covered watermelon and some other interesting fried things I spotted!  Im so happy!

 (this view was the light at the end of the tunnel, the view just before the border, the final hill, and it was magnificent!)

 (I took much better pictures of Craig.  With the way my purse is positioned, I look pregnant, haha!)

(Fried churros and plantain chips, super delicious!)

Oh and in case you were wondering we stopped to take a break at a gas station about an hour after my initial urge to poop my pants and I got to use a real toilet instead of the side of the road! :)  AND I plan to eat another watermelon half tonight!!

Tomorrow we head to Tacuba to stay at Hostel Mama y Papa.  We will stay there a few days to rest, do laundry and visit Parque Nacional El Imposible, which is one of few places you can see native Salvadoran plants.  This is the most deforested country in Central America and it also has the densest population!

I added a map at the top, of our route the last 3 days, which I will try to continue to do.  Dont know if it is very easy to read or actually helps any. I will post maps as we go as nothing is set in stone as far as where we are going.

Semuc Champey / Lanquin

Chocolate fruit!!

I had the dinner buffet at El Retiro. Had trouble sleeping that night from cramps, but never threw up again. Felt pretty crappy all day the next day and was afraid to eat. Had only yogurt before walking into town to catch a ride out to Semuc Champey. It was harder getting transportation than we thought it would be. According to one guy because it was Wednesday, not a market day in town, regular transport wasn't running. He wanted to charge us 100 quetzales each, drive us the 10km out there, sleep for a bit and bring us back when we were done. That would have been over $25 total (7.6 quetzales = $1). If we wanted to be ripped off, we would have paid for the 165 quetzal tour. So we decided we'd walk. The road was steep and muddy and slippery and it was hot and I still wasn't feeling well. Luckily we only walked about 30 minutes before a truck picked us up. The truck had a cage like structure on the back and was already filled with locals. It only cost us Q10 and actually took a little while cause the road was so crappy, we were all standing and had to hang on tight to keep it that way. I was very greatful we weren't walking the whole way. It was really pretty scenery, a lot of corn, chocolate and coffee fields. We were dropped off about 50 ft from the entrance of Semuc Champey. Waiting at the entrance was a little old Mayan man that sold us had made chocolates! The chocolates were hand pressed into pancake size disks and were barely processed and flavored with local cardamom! I was so excited! The entrance fee for the park was Q50. We hiked to the lookout point for awesome views of the river and pools below. Since we weren't on one of the tours, we encountered no one on the trail and there appeared to be few people in the pools below. The hike was super steep and required climbing up several wooden ladders. On the way down Craig was behind me and slipped down one of the ladders. He fell several steps into me. Some how I managed to keep us from falling off. Don't know how I did it but I'm glad I did cause it was about 20 feet to the bottom. We spent about a half hour swimming when we got to the bottom. It was very beautiful. Each pool was lower than the one behind it creating a series of waterfalls, sorrounded by the lush green of the jungle. And the varying depths of the water created all shades of turquoise and green. There were little fish in the water that bite! I think they must eat dead skin, it didn't hurt but was certainly startling! :) On the walk out of the park we took a different trail back that went along side the river, and had a view point for seeing into the cave at the end of the limestone bridge. Don't remember that trail being there the last time. We were a little worried about getting a ride back, but there was a truck waiting just outside the park. Guess we were lied to in the morning about there being no transportation on Wednesday. Good thing we're not idiots. In total our trip to Semuc Champey cost us Q80, less than half the price of the tour, and it's so much more fun to figure it out on your own.

View from the lookout point up in the jungle

View into cave at the end of the pools

When we got back to out hotel, I still wasn't really hungry but figured I needed to eat and convinced the restaurant there to make me a peanut butter and banana sandwich. It was fantastic as expected, and I have been fine since.

Yesterday we took a direct shuttle back to Antigua. It was not a bad ride. Took less than 7 hours, including a few breaks. We are still in Antigua today and haven't done much. We've had pupusas twice, gotta get our fill of them as they are a Salvadoran food and we'll only find them for another 2 weeks or so. Pupusas are stuffed tortillas, the type of cheese is queso fresco type cheese and you can get all kinds of other things stuffed in them, I usually get beans. We managed to find peanut butter!!! And guava jelly (my favorite)! And completely whole grain bread all in the same store! We also got some pretty cheap sunscreen there that is made in Guatemala, and surprisingly free of poison ingredients! I also found 3 articles of clothing they are not spandex! A shirt and shorts made of linen material and a Mayan style wrap skirt.

We walked around the city and took pictures of the colonial buildings and walked to Cerro de la Cruz, which is a lookout point above the city. There are lots of flowers blooming right now, the prettiest are the purple Jacaranda trees and the bougainvillea. There are 3 volcanos that can been seen from the city unfortunaly they hid behind the clouds all day until sunset. I'm glad we got to see them though.

Tomorrow we start heading towards El Salvador. Should take two days. The plan is to do over 100km the first day as it should be mostly downhill from here. We will be doing the Ruta de Flores in El Salvador, not looking forward to the mountains that come along with that!

Chichicastenango / Nebaj

Getting to the market in Chichi was interesting. We took chicken buses, and had to make 4 transfers. The second bus was so crowded that we had to shove ourselves down the aisle in order to get out of the way of the front door. These are old school buses we're riding in and the adults sit 3 to a sit! The 3rd person in each row is lucky to have all of one buttcheek on the seat. After about 15 minutes of standing, we finally got seats which really wasn't much better than standing. I thought my arms were gonna give out trying to hold myself in the seat as the driver whipped around the mountain curves. I'm so glad it wasn't hot or it would've been miserable, instead it was amusing. :)

The market wasn't quite what I thought it would be. The main streets of the town were closed down and for several blocks vendors were set up in te streets. This sounds simple enough, but it was so easy to get lost. We couldn't tell which roads we'd been down and which we had not. And it was so incredibly crowded it was hard to even walk. People walked in train formation and if you got off the train to look at something, it was hard to get back on. It was colorful everywhere and I was tempted to buy a Mayan outfit, but I don't really have room for that sort of thing on my bike. We were never able to find the food stalls, so we settled for rice and beans on the outskirts of the market. We also got ice cream from Sarita which is my second favorite ice cream shop in central America. And I got guanabana, which is my favorite flavor. We were only at the market about 2 hours before we left for the even higher up mountain town of Nebaj.



When we arrived to Nebaj it was raining and none the streets were marked so we had no idea where we were. We wandered about in the rain until we found a random hospedaje to stay in. During the wandering I was disgusted to find that Nebaj is the dirtiest city I've been to in central america, and that's saying a lot! There was trash absolutely everywhere. Should have know this would be the case when we saw people throwing bags of trash out the bus window on the way. It made me very sad to see this. It is a beautiful area of foggy cloud forest. The place we stayed in was also the crappiest place I've ever stayed in but it was way cheap so it didn't matter. The next morning we walked down a muddy dirt road through fields to some waterfalls. The country side was really petty, as were the waterfalls and rivers, but this area too was polluted. Lots of clothes, tires and styrofoam in the river, it was sickening. I'm glad we did the walk though so Nebaj wasn't a complete waste, but it definitely won't be a place I have fond memories of. How do they expect to have sustainable tourism here amongst such filth?

We made it to Coban last night. It was a long ride in windy mountainous dirt roads from Nebaj. Found a McDonalds in town and had to partake of the Snickers mcFlurry. This type of mcFlurry was limited edition in the US when I was about 18 and reminds we of good times with Shannon so there was no way I could resist, even though I'd already has a large dinner of beans, eggs and tortillas.

I woke up at 3 am feeling over stuffed and somewhat nauseated. I proceeded to puke up my spicy egg and bean dinner which was rather nasty tasting, thankfully no hint on McFlurry flavor in there. I slept the rest of the night. But vomited again upon waking up. There was no notice this time and I jumped out of bed with my mouth full of bile only to find that both bathrooms were occupied by shower takers. And the balcony was still locked from the night, so I paced around not knowing what to do. Then I went back to our room and paced some more. Then Craig suggested I puke in the trash can. It was pitch dark in our room, and I kept flipping the switch and the light wasn't working. Finally it came on and I ran to the trash can to spit out the bile and puke out some more. Not pleasant. Shortly there after we were on a 2 1/2 hour bus ride to Lanquin. It was a gorgeous ride mostly through mountain coffee farms it was foggy and damp out. But the roads were curvy and I felt pretty crummy the whole way. I was very grateful when we arrived. I slept for about 2 hours. All I've had to eat today is some toast and coke. I think I am better, but still kinda afraid to eat.

The place we are staying is called El Retiro and is a really cool place on the Rio Cahabon. We are staying in a loft above a palapa style hut. There is river tubing here and cave explorations, and tommorrow we will visit Semuc Champey, the most beautiful place in all of Guatemala. It is best explained as a limestone bridge over the river and on top of the bridge runs small amounts of water from the river. The result is a series of blue and turquoise pools for swimming in and they are right in the middle of gorgeous rain forest. We are only about 10 km away and will be taking a bus there in the morning instead of paying the $20 to go with a tour operator. I'm very excited, it will be my second time visiting this place.

In 2 hours Guatemalan dinner buffet starts here and it is the only dinner option, hope I am up for it!

Antigua

View from Cerro de La Cruz

Volcan Agua

Best ice cream in the whole world, nieve de guanabana at Pops!

View from the patio at McDonalds, its very upscale!

Today we took a bus from Rio Dulce to the highland town of Antigua. It cost us a good bit of money with the cargo charges for our bikes but it was nice to make it here in one day. We plan on storing our bikes at our hotel here for a few days and exploring some of the higher up in the mountain towns. The roads in this area are far too steep and in very poor condition for bicycle touring.

Tomorrow will we be up bright and early to catch the bus to Chichicastenango where tomorrow (Sunday) is market day, and it is one of the biggest markets in Central America. I'm excited to see the mass chaos. I'm also excited to eat food from the vendors and perhaps find some non spandex clothing, something particularly cool, like a skirt made from Mayan textiles.

Thought for sure I'd find peanut butter here because there are so many foreigners in this town, but still no luck. Guess its avocado sandwiches for breakfast.