Category: 2019 Taco’s & Toucan’s

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ROATÁN – Bay Islands, HND

Over the years I’ve come to view long travel days as a necessary evil and whether it is a control “thing” or what, but they seem to be whole lot more enjoyable when I’m behind the wheel of my own equipment.

There’s three elements to this mindset, one being that as a 15 year old Diesel Fitter with Dussin Constructions & Civil Engineering, the workshop manager drilled in to me that you can tell a lot about a person by just looking at their vehicle, workspace or toolbox – if they respect and look after the equipment/tools, work to a plan or simply wing it, or clean up as they go along as opposed to simply working in a pig sty.

The second element is that I service and maintain my vehicles fastidiously and know intimately to the point of knowing them inside out and operating them accordingly.

The final element would be as I’ve become more “experienced” on this earth with three letter statements like AGE or OLD, a certain realization of one’s own mortality comes into play. This often takes the form of ensuring one’s personal safety, all the while enjoying such so called “high risk” activities like skydiving, motorcycle riding, rock climbing and the like.

So ….. we were scheduled to take a 15 hour public bus ride to the port town of La Ceiba to catch a ferry to the island of Roatán. After an “Avocado” group discussion, we all agreed to chip in the $25 USD each to upgrade to as advertised “near new, 2019 mini-coach with individual reclining chairs and air-conditioning throughout”. What turned up was a battle scarred 2 year old Toyota Hi-Ace Coaster bus with two rear bald tires with large chunks of tread missing, in which you could see clear down to the wires of the carcass.

I spoke with our CEO – Sonia, who clearly was not impressed with the defective equipment, which saw the driver usher her over to the offices of the transport company – Berakah, who dispatched a female employee to inform me that “as to the safety of tires in such condition – you don’t understand anything about Honduran tires and roads and as we are a poor country, we can’t just replace stuff for any little reason.“

I responded that tyres being as bald as a monkeys’ arse, with chunks of tread missing and the rags of the carcass showing is anything but minor FFS.

I had to walk away before I blew a gasket and came back 5 minutes to be told that the transport company was not going to replace the vehicle or the tyres, the public bus had left and we still had a ferry to catch. The silence was deafening from the rest of the group and it appeared that the group consensus was that they just wanted to get on the road. So against my better judgement, we loaded the vehicle up and hit the road ½ an hour after our scheduled departure.

2½ hours into the trip, the driver decided to pull into Café de Palo on the outskirts of Quimistán so that he could have breakfast, while the rest of us stood around looking for the Meaning of Life. To describe the place as a travellers’ rest stop would be a stretch, as it appeared the clientele were sales people on service calls, but hey – whatever floats your boat.

Lunch was “truck stop” buffet or bakery goods at the Tio Dolmo in Guaymon about 150 kilometres (93 miles) from the ferry terminal.

We made the Galaxy Wave 4:30 PM service to Dixon Cove on the Roatán, about 65 kilometres (40 miles) off the northern coast of Honduras. My first inkling that trip wouldn’t be all plain sailing, was when the ferry ticket came with a Dramamine tablet. Basically as soon as we left the harbour, the vessel started pitching and rolling for the entire two-hour crossing, through 10-12 foot swells, huge white caps and head winds that would blow a dog of a chain.

The crew were handing out plastic barf bags as soon as they could tear them off the roll and looked to have went through twenty or so paper towel rolls in the process. Most of our group was affected to some degree, but surprisingly this “desert rat” was just fine. I genuinely felt sorry for a lot of the passengers who were obviously excited about this trip, to the point of dressing up in their finest for the occasion, only to be left driving the porcelain bus or laughing at the grass.

We get picked up just on dark-thirty by Neve, our driver who could talk the leg off an iron pot, a get an impromptu town tour of West End, where our hotel – the Seagrape Plantation Resort is located.

At this time, I couldn’t have given two knobs of goat shit for any more “Tommy Tourist” talk. I hadn’t eaten all day and could eat the horse and chase the rider. Add to this that I was as dry as a bastard calf, so within 5 minutes of receiving my room key, I’ve dropped all my gear and I’m off like an Ethiopian after a chicken, grabbed a 1/2 carton of coldies and parked up at the local cholera cart for an absolutely awesome feed of tacos and Gringas. Long day that started on an off note which ended with the whole orchestra in tune.

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COPÁN RUINAS – Copán, HND

I was up early to take a wander around Copán Ruinas and if the truth be told, if you did more than two laps of the Parque Central in 10 minutes, you’d be considered a local. There are a few side streets containing several hotels, small businesses and homes, but you’ll find the place to be more of a village in stature than a town. Its primary aim appears to be supporting and servicing the tourist trade visiting the adjacent Mayan Ruins.

First order of business when I got back to our accommodations was to check up on our El Hefe Avocado – Sonia, as it looked like she’d stubbed a toe and it decided to play up something fierce late yesterday afternoon/evening. After taking a quick look at the injury, from someone who’s had plenty of issues with digits during my rugby career, it looked to have no dislocations or fractures of the toe and no bruising to speak of. As I’m carrying some pretty good anti-inflammatories, in case I have a flare-up with my left ankle, I offered them to Sonia to see if that settles things down. Being the smart woman that she is, she got a second and third opinion of the medical professional kind and was advised to follow what I basically instructed her – rest, ice, elevate & isolate.

SO ….. at the end of all that, I found Sonia to be in great spirits at breakfast, the toe and foot were feeling a whole lot better and the day was full of sunshine. Not more a whole lot more you could do or ask for.

At 8 o’clock, we were met by a local guide to take us over to the Mayan ruins in which we spent most of the morning wandering around the huge site. These ruins are arguably the most intricate of the 22 known Mayan cities that housed over 7 million people throughout Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.

Having previously visited 5 previous Mayan ruins, I would have to say that this site seemingly had more intricately carved artefacts, but ranks well down in the “wow factor” when compared to the others I’ve seen. It’s a small thing, but I was somewhat miffed that the site managers use old photographs and artist impressions to try and express some of the grandeur of the sites that have been fully excavated, rather than allowing the public to see for themselves.

Our guide left us to wander on our own back to town, and with it being a hot morning, we ended up at a local cold stone ice creamery where Cookie Monster ice cream was my lunch of choice. Yeah I know …. but I’m on holidays, so nutritional eating care factor zero!!! Mid-afternoon saw all the “avocados” trundle off to some hot springs for spa treatments, mud masks and a meal, which to me was about as appealing as ex-foliating oneself with a cheese grater.

I decided to finish off David Baldacci’s new Amos Decker series book – Redemption, and then head back to Carnitas Nia Lola for a Happy Hour(s) or three and a pretty decent nosebag.

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COPÁN RUINAS – Copán, HND

I didn’t get much sleep overnight as the local disco, which sounded like they were just across the walkway from me, finally packed it in around 4AM. Got to give them props for their sound system as they are actually located 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) away by boat – fuck it was loud!!!!

All us “Avocados” crew were good to go by 8AM, for our 15 minute ferry transfer, then 6 hour minivan ride into Copán Ruinas, just over the border in Honduras. Well some of us that is …. I took a precursory “pre-start” check of the Hyundai Grace shitbox sauna minivan and found four bald tires, no spare tire and fluid leaking from seemingly every orifice.

We get going and find next to zero seat padding and no air-conditioning in the rear of the vehicle, where I’ve preformed my very best ‘pretzel’ yoga stance & slide, just to get into the freckle numbing seating. Yeah, I was kind of cranky when I told our CEO Sonia that I’d burn this fucken vehicle before the day was out as in all my travels, this was by far the worst set of wheels I’ve sat my arse in. Fair dinkum, you wouldn’t run it in a Shitbox Derby for fear of your mates disowning you.

We got to the Guatemala/Honduras border and I surprised myself for not coming unglued for a couple of reasons. The Guatemalan female Immigration officer was thumbing through my passport and I watched her as she rips the photo page, putting a tear clean into the photo. She looks at me, closes the passport, hands all the passports back to Sonia to distribute them back to all us “Avocados” and then simply shuts up shop and goes and hides in a back office. I make mention of this to Sonia and show her the tear, but there’s not a lot you can do about it apparently.

The Honduran side was not a whole lot better, I had to have my fingerprints taken 3 times, my passport swiped 9 times, but only after I queried the guy as to why he was taking images of our passports with his mobile phone – which I’ve never seen anywhere in my global travels.

The Honduran official gave an explanation of “it’s the process” when Sonia asked him about it. It was at this time that I had to go through the whole fingerprint process another couple of times and watching him manipulate my passport in a manner in which it was not designed or meant for. It was pretty obvious he was just fucking with me, because he could. I was at the point of smacking him in the snout because he fully understood when I said to be gentle on his handling of my passport, which spurred him on to mangle the multi-page document just to prove a point.

I left the border crossing ready to rip someone’s head off and shit down their neck. Yeah, I get that you’re some kind of minimum wage numpty that’s angry at the world for manning a border station on a Sunday afternoon, but there’s no need to fuck with people simply because you think it’s fun to do so.

Anyways, we got into our accommodations at the Plaza Copán Hotel just before the heavens opened up, signalling the start of the rainy season. Dinner was a casual affair in which we took full advantage of the Happy Hours at Carnitas Nia Lola and the food was pretty decent as well.

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RIO DULCE – Izabal, GUA

While all of the girls went for a 2-hour kayak paddle at 5:30 this morning, I took in the sunset from my casa’s porch with a cup of coffee and the on-line edition of the Sydney Morning Herald – I reckon I know who got the better deal.

At 9 bells we were all off on in a hired water taxi to go check out the Río Dulce, locally known as the “Sweet River”. For our first stop we headed inland to Guatemala’s biggest lake – Lake Izabal, and the fortified garrison of Castillo de San Felipe which was originally constructed in 1644.

From there we headed out across Lake El Golfete, towards the Caribbean Sea, stopping off at the Mayan village of Q’eqchi and the limestone caves of Aguas Termales Rio Dulce, before arriving at Livingstone around lunchtime.

Our skipper took us the Happy Fish restaurant to pre-order our lunches and continued on to Playa Capitania for a view out to the Caribbean sea. A great little impromptu fun stop was when I mentioned to Sonia that the local neighbourhood bar had Gallo for $1.90 AUD, so with her being in touch with her Catalana/Aussie self, decided this was the opportune time to settle a bet she had lost me.

Lunch was the local dish – Tapado, a seafood soup of prawns, crab, fish and plantains that is not unlike an Asian Laksa, but without the chilli, curry or noodles. I have to say it was awesome dish to wrap ya laughing gear around none the less.

It took us about an hour to get back to the Hacienda Tijax as the winds had picked up and was causing white caps and choppy conditions on both the lake and Río Dulce. Not that it was a major concern as upon arrival, I simply fell into the pool and called it good for the rest of the day.

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RIO DULCE – Izabal, GUA

Today was one of those days in which any fair dinkum fella looks forward to like a swift kick in the pterodactyls – a 7-hour bus ride through switchback mountain roads, with oncoming drivers’ hell bent on meeting their respective Gods … but only at your personal safety or demise.

Our first “yippee” for the day was when somehow our CEO “Wander Woman” Sonia managed to score yesterday’s 24 seat mini-bus and driver to transport all 6 of us “G Family” members the 320 kilometre (200 mile) drive to Hacienda Tijax on the Río Dulce.

I tell you what, I not the marrying kind … just yet, but if Sonia keeps this up, I’ll let her buy me a cerveza or 10.

A couple of hours in to the trip, we pulled up for a quick 15 minute “leak & peak” in Sanarate, before continuing on to the town of Teculután.

While the rest of the crew dined at the Hotel El Atlantico, I on the other hand had the second “yippee” moment when nothing on the hotel menu struck my fancy, I headed out on to the streets and found Cafetería Y Pupusería El Buen Gusto.

Cafetería Y Pupusería is a local family owned enterprise that served me up Carne Asada with some of the most wicked beans & rice I’ve ever had, plus a fresh cucumber, carrot, lettuce & radish salad, 3 tortillas and bottle of water – all for $4.77 AUD ….. Ab-Fab, loved it, full stop, end of story!!!

From Teculután it was a further 152 kilometres (94 miles) into the docks of Rio Dulce where we transferred to a water taxi for the 15 minute ride to Hacienda Tijax.

I’m so not a big fan of being stuck in a gilded cage, but I have to say I’m loving the accommodations and environs that this place provides – it literally is a cubby house in a rain forest and a welcome change to the hard cityscapes I’ve experienced of late.

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ANTIGUA – Sacatepéquez, GUA

Our return trip across Lake Atitlán to Panjanchel, via La Casa del Mundo seemed to be a lot quicker than the crossing to San Juan La Laguna yesterday. In under ½ and hour we were back at Hotel Posada K’amol B’ey to collect the major pieces of our luggage we stored yesterday.

By 10 AM we had located our 24 seat bus and all six of us were back on the road. We actually made pretty good time to be standing in our hotel – the Hotel Posada De Los Bucaros, back in Antigua in under two hours.

As a group, we again went our separate ways with most of them wanting to check out a macadamia plantation, while our late-comer Coco chuffed off on the Pacaya Volcano afternoon/evening hike. I amused myself with a couple of laps of the town as my broom closet hotel room was as “hot as Hades”. The room is situated in direct sunlight on 3 sides, with nothing to cool it other than a slow moving ceiling fan. You simply could not stay in the room, even with the windows open.

Speaking of hotels, the staff here have been wonderful, but they need to look the size of their clients when assigning the rooms where possible. Here’s a clue folks, I’m 6 foot 1 inches and a 110 kilograms in size and it’s not like I’m gonna run around in the shower to get wet or are any risk of slipping down the drain.

My first room’s shower was so narrow that I literally could not reach around to wash my freckle and had to step out of the shower to wash my legs. Tonight’s room is a lesson in unco-limboing when trying to navigate around the bed or use the bathroom facilities.

Tomorrow were off to the jungles of Rio Dulce, on the edge of the Caribbean Sea for a couple of days.

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SAN JUAN LA LAGUNA – Sololá, GUA

The original plan was to leave Panjanchel around 3:30PM to cross Lake Atitlán by boat and land in San Juan La Laguna for a local family home-stay for the night. Those plans changed when Sonia suggested a stop along the way, which facilitated a 9:30AM departure.

Carved directly from the soaring cliff face, La Casa del Mundo in the adjacent Jaibalito municipality is a 58 kilometre (36 mile) and a 2+ hour drive along winding mountain roads, but for 20 GTQ ($3.80 AUD) each we rode for 15 minutes in one of the local lanchas (regular ferry boats).

The stop ended up being 6 hours long, the views out over the lake made for a stunning lunchtime dining experience and allowed me to complete my Cuba blog entries and get a start on my new David Baldacci book.

Around 3:30PM were met at the dock by another lancha and ferried over to San Juan La Laguna, a town of around 11,200 that would be our stop for the night. This leg would have been 19 kilometres (12 miles) and a 1+ hour drive, but took the lancha only 20 minutes.

We would be down to a group of 5 as Lila took such a shine to La Casa del Mundo that she decided to spend the night and we’ll collect her on the way back to Panjanchel tomorrow.

We were met at the San Juan La Laguna dock by a representative of the local Mayan tourism concern, met our respective home stay family members, then dropped our gear of at the homes and met up at the local park to go on a walk of the town.

We visited the Iglesia Católica church, the Codeas Women’s Weaving Cooperative, Qomaneel Plantas Medicinales, Licor Marrón Chocolate and an art gallery thrown in for good measure.

It was just on sundown as we headed back to our respective home-stays, I dropped my camera off and headed out to do a bit of exploring before dinner. As I was starting to feel like a long-haired friend of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus, I decided to resolve that via 20 minutes with a cutthroat razor in a local barbershop and I feel like a new man – do you know any???

On my meanderings, I ended up way out along the shoreline when I got WhatsApp messages from both Coco and Sonia that dinner was ready. I’d completely forgotten about it and said for them to continue without me, as I was literally miles away. I ended up grabbing a pizza at Restaurante Rostro Maya, which to be honest, was a pretty decent offering. Upon arrival at the house, we got to chatting with Raul and his wife Maria and got to hang out with their 5 year old grandson Francis, who’s taken a shining to me.

No shower for me tonight as when I was heading off to bed, Raul informs me that the city turns the water off between 8:30 PM and 5 AM to conserve water from un-repaired plumbing and water systems. There’s a big lake at the doorstep – skinny dipping anyone???

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PANAJACHEL – Sololá, GUA

With the remnants of yesterday evenings hike still burning in our legs, I reckon quite a few of us were more than happy to have a 9:30 AM departure this morning for Panjanchel.

The town of approximately 11,100 is located on the shores of Lake Atitlán, a 3 hour and 110 kilometre (68 mile) minibus trip northwest of Antigua, in the Sololá Department.

Just in case you’re curious, At an area of 130 square kilometers (50.2 sq miles) and 340 metres (1,120 feet) deep, Lake Atitlán is also the deepest lake in Central America.

After checking into our accommodations at Hotel Posada K’amol B’ey we took a bit of an orientation walk through the town before settling on Deli Llama de Fuego for a pretty decent lunch.

While all 5 girls “sardined” themselves into a Tuk-Tuk to go check out an adjacent national park, I spent the afternoon just exploring the town at my leisure.

Just after 7PM we walked down to the Mayan owned and operated Restaurante Jose Pingüinos for dinner. As part of the meal, the owner – Jose, demonstrated the xylophone-type Mayan percussion instrument – the Marimba, is constructed and then had his two daughters and a male employee play for us during the meal. With the utmost of respect, the traditional music sounded a lot like that which accompanied silent movies or Vaudeville acts of the time.

Jose also had his daughter Michelle demonstrate how a traditional 25 millimetre wide by up to 24 metre long cotton belt is worn as a wide brimmed hat, which was quite interesting.

Our evening walk home was punctuated by an evening downpour, which didn’t do anything to dampen my spirits in the least.

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ANTIGUA – Sacatepéquez, GUA

I had to wake up the Hotel Posada De Los Bucaros front desk team member to get out of the hotel at 4AM to wander the streets with the camera firmly in hand. My wandering took me over to the Iglesia de la Merced, Arco de Santa Catalina and the Plaza Mayor where they had set up the United Buddy Bears exhibition.

The exhibition entails 144 two metre (6½ foot) tall fiberglass bears painting in representations of every country in the world, by one of their own renowned and respected local artists. The bears are meant to reflect the world coming together as one with the same ideals, goals and understanding, while promoting living together in peace and harmony on their global tour.

Breakfast was pretty decent bagel and coffee at The Bagel Barn, before I headed back to the hotel to catch up with the G crew. At 9AM all five of us strolled over to the La Tortilla Cooking School to peruse the local markets and gather the ingredients to make lunch for ourselves.

The menu consisted of the local Chicken Pepián main dish and a Rellenitos de Platano dessert made of mashed plantains surrounding cocoa & bean paste filling and then shallow fried. This was accompanied with a couple of glasses of a really good white wine, that I didn’t the name of – pity.

We got collected at 1:30 by OX Expeditions to check out the 2,522 metre (8,370 foot) and growing – Pacaya Volcano that is actually active. The plan was to hike 3.2 kilometres (2 miles), roast some marshmallows, watch the sunset and then drive home through the other three volcanos in the area – de Agua, de Fuego and de Acatenango.

We’d barely got going on the 50 kilometres (31 mile) 1¾ hour drive to San Vicente Pacaya when both myself and an Spanish speaking passenger spoke to the driver (for want of a better word) as to why he was driving like he’d stolen the bus with us in it and was fleeing a bank robbery, while us passengers felt like laundry on agitate cycle in the washer. At one point he was taking the twisty/winding posted 40 KPH mountain roads at 60-70KPH and the tires were howling in protest while he was visibly pedalling hard to keep it on the road. When questioned, his response was ‘New Tires’.

After another gobful from us, he slowed down to a pedestrian pace that was ½ the pace of traffic flow. It was at this point he decided to go full on fuktard by “brake checking” i.e. bouncing his foot on and off the brake pedal, lurching all of us backwards and forwards with monotonous routine. I’d had enough and simply said “Pull over and I’ll drive or keep going and I’m going to bitch slap you in the left ear”, which I believe the Colombian woman translated correctly as after he looked at me somewhat wide-eyed, his driving improved immediately.

It’d be fair to say that it was a bit of hard yakka legging it the 2 hours to the base of Pacaya. Our first glimpse was a ribbon of red lava snaking its way down face of the ever changing volcanic mountain. It’s a barren, eerie and unique wasteland environment that the only sounds were the winds and molten car-size boulders coming done the various slopes. There were no real odours that I’ve encountered at other natural geo-thermic sites, i.e. New Zealand and Hawaii.

We got close enough to toast marshmallows on one of the small flow lines, but your clacker valve would pucker up when hearing something coming from above.

When the sun went down, the ambient temperature went with it, plummeting to the point of having to rug up. That small inconvenience was overshadowed by being able to see all of the lava flow, all of the rolling balls of molten mass and the eruptions spewing out of the peak of the volcano – Mother Nature put on one spectacular show. Absolutely incredible. One of those “You Have To Be There” moments.

As with any adventure in getting there – you have to get back. Armed with little more than headlamps of various luminescence, we headed back the National Park entrance in pitch black darkness in which I had only one slip that the Russian judges scored at 8.2 for entertainment, but lacking grace.’

Our guides efforts in blowing up on of the OX Expeditions managers phone had resulted in a new bus and we were all pleased to say – a professional driver. The 63 kilometre (40 mile) 1½ hour trip home on an alternate route via Antigua’s back door was one in which the silence was only broken by the sounds of soft snoring. We got home around 9:30PM and as I could eat the arse feathers off a low flying duck, I snuck out for a quick feed and a cerveza or three.

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ANTIGUA – Sacatepéquez, GUA

It appears that people have come from miles around to spend some time in Antigua today. The streets are full of parked cars, the main squares a packed full of people dressed on the best clobber. As far as I can tell, it seems to be that people have chosen this day to celebrate their respective family members Quinceañera.

Not that I’d be celebrating with them as I decided to have a full on “slack attack” and try and get the Blog to date the blog, as well as downloading some Kindle books for my iPad to make the road trips a little less boring.

While banging away on the laptop keyboard, I noticed the unmistakeable sound of indiscriminate gunfire from seemingly the same heavy calibre weapon like a shotgun. The thing that was puzzling me was that it was coming from all different directions, making me think that it may be some kind of bird scaring program.

At around 6:30PM I meandered down the G Adventures Meet & Greet for the Volcano Discovery tour where I met our Barcelona born CEO – Sonia. Also attending were 3 of the 4 other travellers, with the final member arriving later tomorrow evening.

It looks like I’ll be the only testosterone proponent of the trip as the rest are firmly entrenched in the pheromones field, while hailing from Colombia (now a USA citizen), Switzerland and two from Germany.

The trip briefing went well enough, but for me there were more questions than answers, but through no fault of the CEO. I’ll give you a bit of background – I booked and paid for this trip over a year ago and it has changed considerably over that period with regards to inclusions and deletions.

I come to find out that even though this trip is sold as the “Volcano Discovery” product, G Adventures doesn’t actually take you to visit any volcanoes over the 3 week period. They encourage you to use one of their preferred vendors, at an extra cost to yourself. It also raised an eyebrow in the group when we were advised we have a 16 hour public bus trip that we could “upgrade” to a private vehicle, again as long as we put our hand in our own pockets. It’s a similar story to included meals, most of the breakfasts look now to be at our own cost.

In the end, it looks to be that G Adventures is supplying transportation, accommodation and a CEO to make sure we get around hassle free.

You may ask why I did not decide to change the trip or get my money back. With the amount of changes, it was hard to keep up with them, as it was more a matter of waiting until something was finalised. G Adventures do not give refunds to the best of my knowledge and simply issue a credit if deemed relevant.

Hopefully at the end of this trip my feelings to the whole deal will have changed from one of feeling fingered and then nickel & dimed, as that’s not what I signed on for.

After the meeting all 5 of us wandered down to La Casa de las Sopas, a local soup restaurant, for dinner which was a first for me. I had their meatball soup and a couple of cold Gallo cervezas for $15 AUD.