Ola! Again!

Here we are. Again

. But before starting off, it's time for a short but serious prelude...

Central American countries all are of exceptional natural beauty. At least WE think so. Apparently in contrast to the opinion of the locals; they don't seem to realize what they have and what it's worth... on the contrary!

To get a better picture: catering in public transport in Central America is characterized by some twisted human 'sushi pick-up system' (you know these automated belts, with seats around it, and you can pick whatever sushi looks good...). Imagine dozens of market vendors jumping in the bus at almost every busstop (which is pretty often if you imagine that there are NO real busstops and hence busses stop about every few kilometers...). The vendors enter busses screaming, loudly continuing their way through the bus selling all kind of shit ('fresh' icecreams, chicken, drinks, fruits, complete meals with rice and meat, pancakes, baked bananas with mayonaise and tomato salsa, quesedillos, etc, etc), all nicely packed in plastic and other non-degradable materials... And then, after having finished eating and drinking, everyone (from grannies to babies) all throw the garbage out of the bus totally unashamed, regardless where the bus is (moving or not, parking area or not, in front of someone' house or not, etc). Taking into account the massive amounts of food (and to a lesser extent drinks) the people here take in (they are all pretty fat), it's a mess on the streets and the surrounding areas. A big big BIG mess!

Yes, these are poor countries and people may have other things on their minds, but it's no excuse to litter the environment in this way and to this extent. Everyone can keep their garbage until leaving the bus and then throw it in the bin. And yes, there are plenty of bins here.... Hearing at the same time from locals that climate change in Central America is a serious threat, it makes us angry, frustrated and sad at the same time.... people wake up! Do something! Start changing your own behaviour, maybe the next generation will pick it up....

Ok, enough. Let's talk about Honduras. Despite the unstable political situation we decided to make a shortcut through western Honduras to get from El Salvador to central Guatemala. Although Honduras is huge and we saw just a tiny part of it, it made an excellent impression! Our first stop was Santa Rosa de Copan, a small town famous for its tobacco. In Santa Rosa we visited the cigar factory 'Flor de Copan' and got a private tour through all departments of the factory, from the hangar where the tobacco leaves were being fermentated (a cheap way of getting high is just to be there....), the ironing and stripping of the tobacco leaves, the hall where hundreds of (mostly) women were rolling different sorts of cigars with their hands and wrapping every single cigar with its characteristic label, to the hangar where (only) men were making all the different boxes for packaging, handpainting and printing them with the logo of the specific brand. One and a half hour later two freshly rolled Flor de Copans left the building.... if you can't see them, you can smell them....

From Santa Rosa we went to Gracias, an ancient capital of Central America, but now nothing more then a small colonial town with a very high 'men-with-moustache-and-cowboy-hat-and-boots'- density. Although some food poisoning made Marco sit on/ lean over the toilet too often, we anyway enjoyed our time here, albeit spending quite some hours in a very stinky humid room without windows, but in the good company of some local animals. Less developed than Santa Rosa de Copan, more edgy than Suchitoto (El Salvador) and more down-to-earth than Antigua (Guatemala), it was definitely worth a stop for a couple of days. Gracias, Gracias!

From Gracias we moved closer to the Guatemalan border, to the village of Copan Ruinas. Here we visited the ruins of the ancient Maya city of Copan with origens dating back to 250- 900 AD when about 30,000 people were living here. As we were the first ones in the early morning the place was totally ours. The morning dew on the grass of the Gran Plaza with its piramids, hieroglyph terraces, statues and sculptures, the sun shining through the thick clouds, gave it an almost surreal and theatrical appearance. Copan is famous for its statues and sculptures. To protect all these beauties from the elements, there is a nice museum where the most important sculptures are being preserved. You enter the museum through the mouth of a serpent, then walking through a tunnel which symbolizes the body of the serpent and then you suddely stand face to face with a true scale replica of the most important temple of ancient Copan: la Rosalila. This huge red- coloured and beautifully decorated temple gives a good impression of how the city in the jungle used to be in the old days. Besides the royal ruins we also visited Las Sepulturas which was the residencial part of the city of Copan. This site is without a doubt less visited and (maybe because of that) a little creepy, with a group of men looking like junkies with machetes, 'guarding' the entrance

... One of them even turned out to be (or act like) a museum employee and/ or guide.... why they don't just wear a uniform or something like that?

Somehow not really looking forward to going back to Guatemala (what is it with Guatemala?), we still stuck to our plan to give it a second chance. We are here now and it's THE opportunity to see the country anyway and draw our own conclusions in the end.... standing in a f&^cking bus for 4 hours all the way from Chiquimula, we finally arrived in the village Rio Dulce situated on Lago de Izabal. Rio Dulce is nothing more then a typical 'one-street-with-very-heavy-truck-traffic-and-hookers-being-promoted-on-the-streetcorners-but-you-don't-see-them'- village, including the traditional 'by-the-hour'- hotels with names like 'The Love Nest'

.... And when you think that's all: you are wrong. Strangely enough there are a lot of grey North Americans with too much money and big yachts. A weird place. For us it was nothing more then a starting point for a river trip over the Rio Dulce to Livingston on the Caribbean coast.

The trip over the Rio Dulce was impressive, but way longer than was planned (double as long). Finally we arrived in Livingston. First question that came in our minds.... are we still in Guatemala or are we being kidnapped and taken to Jamaica??? Livingston is a completely different Guatemala, unconnected by road and hence only accessible by boat this felt like a Caribbean island with mostly black Garifuna people (decendents from the slaves of the island of St. Vincent) walking like gangsta rappers, a lot of hash, weed, coco locos (coconuts with the top sliced of and filled with a good dose of rum), dreadlocks ('ya man, everything's gonna be alright')

. All in all a very relaxing vibe for doing nothing besides drinking, eating and swimming in a the waterfalls and pools of Las Siete Altares (7 Altars). This was a good way of ending our second visit to Guatemala and starting our trip to Belize which is supposed to be an even better Caribbean paradise!

Note: People, where are you? We miss you! Although we completely understand that daily life goes on for everyone, don't think we are not interested in how you are all doing. Let us know what's going on there: small things, big things, whatever!

M&L

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