the famished road

We are headed to a little surf spot in Nicaragua, its 600 miles away. This post covers the journey and stop over’s.

Here’s a map of the route since leaving Mexico City, if you are anything like us your Central American geography may be patchy.

Antigua

We decide to visit Antigua on route in Guatemala. Dave has been to Guatemala before and it’s more expensive than many of the countries in Central America so it’s just a quick stop over for us.

Our 9 hour shuttle bus took 15 hours with 3 changes and a delay at the border due to strikes. I pass the time listening to a guy who can’t decide whether he should build himself a house or not as it will all be destroyed in 2012 when planet X messes up our gravitational pull. Apparently our magnetic field will switch round and only those souls that can adapt to the new vibration frequencies will survive, the others will instantly vanish from our dimension, mmm.

A so called chicken bus but they warrant a grander title really.

In a traffic jam we watch a gang of shady looking men jump out of the car in front to take a leak by the roadside. All of them are packing cocked pistols, glinting from the waistbands of their jeans. They look like real jumpy bad guys and we feel like we have victim stickers on our nice touristy van. In the few vunerable minutes my imagination runs through many filmic scenarios, all of which end bloodily. Then we are away and my paranoia gets packed away in its special box for later, though I prefer to call it caution (Dave might beg to differ on occasion). Our little mini bus is diverted to drop most of the travellers off at some old lake, Dave and I travel solo in the last mini bus and bump around hairpin mountain roads for 4 hours, we know the drill but beacuse of the delay we're bloody hank marvin.

We arrive in the dark but know its Antigua as you can feel the cobbled streets under the wheels. Pricey hotel, pricey food, mmmm very nice bed and lovely sleepy.

wooden arches of our muffin breakfast square

Antigua’s a top tourist destination, famous for its spanish mudejar-influenced Baroque architecture the and the proximity of three large volcanoes that dominate the horizon in every direction you look.
Hunapú or Volcan de Agua (Volcano of Water), 3766 meters high.
Acatenango, last erupted in 1972, is 3976 meters high.
The Volcan de Fuegi (Volcano of Fire), is 3763 meters high. "Fuego" is famous for being almost constantly active at a low level, smoke rises from top daily. We climbed none of the above.

Sky café

We mooch about the town for a day of rest in its quaintness. here’s some pics……

I should have bought the god mask

We found these paintings and got the text on the photographs translated. They were thanking the Virgin of guadalupe and Juesus for protecting Jose Perez and Salvador Morales (the guys who wrote them or had them made for them) for saving them from the distaster of the twin towers.. Salvador Morales was a cleaner in the buildings (I presume Jose perez was too) but they were lucky enough not to be there when they fell so say thanks to the Virgin for keeping them still under her blessed mantle. Though it looks a bit like they think the others were not worth saving.

We arrange a wake up call at 6 for our onward journey but instead of knocking on our door the hotel manager wanders through the whole building at 6.30 waking all their guests yelling ‘ HONDURAS?’ Those crazy latinos. Most annoying bus entertaining yet, its just too early for 80’s pop videos full blast, Leo sayer,Nooooooooooooo!!!! Elton john (actually hes a guilty plesure), but crowded house, Mierda ! We had to change in Copan and it was stinky stinkin hot, finally arrived in Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras) at 11pm, on face value the guide might be right about this place the only patch of charm we found was our room, here it is….

A glowing church was the only reference point in a town with no proper centre to it, and we made a bee line for it to get back to our sanctuary after the guide sent us to a café reminiscent of a bogna regis working mens club. Wishing we had the hitch hikers guide and were drinking pan galactic gargle blasters we picked at some greasy food while being subjected to a bontempi entertainer who's cheesy ear splittingly loud croons were not even in time with his not so trusty keyboard. RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!!!!!!!!

This very large varnish spayed sandwich summed up the town. Photo taken while waiting for the bus outta there at 4am the next day

Nicaragua

Up at 3.30 for the next leg (accidentally got up an hour before we needed to like donuts) and we stand in an empty dark street vulnerably waiting for a cab cus the mad receptionist wouldn’t order us one, I unpack and swiftly re-pack my paranoia as a cab arrives.

Arrive in Managua at lunchtime (Capital of Nicaragua) into the driest month of the year, temporarily leaving our perpetual spring behind, shame! On first site the land is dramatically parched and the locals more traditionally dressed. Boy it’s hot, really hot, our room has no windows and the electricity is out so we stagger to a local street café and make ourselves hotter with vegetable soup? must have road lag. A local decides to do an unflattering charicature of dave and we begrudingly gave him some small change, here it is....

It feels a bit like a scruffy Brazilian town but it turns out to be an even worse capital than the last one we were in. Its cluttered sprawl rises above a large lake and could be amazing but the water is so polluted it can’t be used for anything; we are told if you get too near it the smell is very bad so we don’t. They have been dumping waste water and chemicals into it since 1927. We hear Germany is donating large sums for a vast clean up next year, so perhaps we should come back in 10 years time.

made by the barba papas

Apart from hanging out in the air conditioned mall shopping for computer accessories we visit the cities saving grace. The magnificent Cathedral Metropolitana de la Purisima Concepcion, locals call it, La Chichona for its resemblance to women’s breasts.

Every body’s favorite glittery praying room

Time to finally reach a destination we want to go to, next stop San Juan del sur, surfs up people!

mucho touting in the morning from a persistent group of men who really want to get us onto thier particular bus. They are screaming into our faces, I try screaming back to no avail then we make a u turn and decide anyone who wants us that badly? As we walk to their bus we have to smile, even after we have agreed to go with them they continue to babble at close range, I suppose until we are actually on the bus any dazzed tourists are an easy poach. Shame they bullied us onto the non direct bus though. The children selling travel snacks & tat filter in and out of the bus, the last one tumbling off after the bus has picked up a bit of speed, just to chance that last minute sale. I hope this will be the first and last time we have cheesy puffs for breakfast, mmmm teeth covered in furry orange goooo!!!!!

St Cristobal

Marco leader of the Zapatistas (thanks for the photo world wide web )

St Crisobel is the vibrant cultural capital of the Chiapas area of Southern Mexico. It is the home of the famous Zapatistas uprising against the government, more about them later. We have come here for all these reasons and to try and invest in a laptop as all the Mexican cafes have WI FI and we are bored of internet cafes.



It’s a very pretty town, with charming streets of brightly painted houses. We stayed in a classey hotel using the excuse we may need a Mac delivering to room number 23.



Our room opened out onto the roof terrace overlooking the mountains & courtyard of the hotel.


Heres our David outside our room in the sunshine doodling.

The town is renowned for its pure mountain light and the buildings glow magnificently. As does our lady of guadalupe, Marys fabulous icon is everywhere in Mexico and has symbolised the nation since independence.


jackies tea towl lady & the churches lady


We spent about 10 days here getting the computer, I wouldn’t advise anyone try it, and no it isn’t cheaper than at home this side of the US boarder.

The first morning with the laptop it miraculously told me in its odd electronic voice I looked beautiful, what a machine!!!!!



The town radiates out from 2 main squares, one with a circular café bandstand, the other with its open plaza, white arched government buildings and a very typical fine mustard cathedral.

Chiapas mountains surround the town making it an easy spot to storm in decent. The indiginous farmers sick of the poverty due to new legislation by the NAFTA formed a peaceful masked protest group the zapatistas.



No longer allowed to set their own prices for their produce coupled with a land grab induced by US loans, they followed the enigmatic Marcus into the streets in non violent protest. They had amazing local and international support from downtrodden farmers everywhere, they were treated like rock stars and supported by them; Tom Morello of 'Rage Against the Machine' spoke very inteligently on the subject, (thats the power of a cool attention grabbing image).

All this but still the army & government cheated them and perpetrated targeted violence against their women to demoralise unity. So the zapatistas stormed villages and took over the government building in the centre of st cristobal. Unfortunatly they didnt get anywhere with the government who quickly made promises only to break them later on.

They are quiet for the time being but will rise again when the government isn’t so right wing apparently. There cause is wanting; “a world in which many worlds fit not just a mono world with no space for them”. Sounds fair enough really, up the revolution!

St cristobal is rich, the whole of Chiapas is, lots of natural resources making the indigenous street sellers that have had to come into the towns to survive an even sadder sight. Theres a road around the outside of st cristobal, where many indigenous from the hills now live, they call it the circle of misery.



The Indigenous women wear purple embroiderd shawls and thick black felt like skirts, which they fold around their waists so they hang down in a cone shape. The wool stands out in peaks like fake gorilla fur.
Their children sell peanuts in the day and at night quirky ceramic animals their mothers have made, we have about 20 of them and enough protein for a few weeks.

So the comparitively rich kids wander about (camera in hand) on the very slippy (polished by many feet) paving stones exploring the city.

Each end of the town has a hill and mirador views.

half way up one with a view of the other

We visit 3 museums…..

The first is very amusing, lots of really bad mannequins depicting rural activities.

The second is out of town and out of the comfort zone. The pavements crumble as we cross a dirty river. Clean colonial buildings are replaced with dusty makeshift markets josseling for space. The street widens out in that 'nowhere edge of cowboy town' kind of way. Its dusty and slightly edgy. You could so easily miss this side of the city and be none the wiser to its existence.

These Tin ovens are the only thing we photographed in this area it just didnt feel appropriate.

The indigenous medicine museum is interesting, though it was a shame to be using humming bird blood. Funnily they adapt to include modern ingredients, coca cola is now used in ceremonies to ward off evil sprits.

very tiny original Chiapas indians

Our 3rd museum was the house of Na Bolom (a famous anthrapologist) whos rooms and gardens teemed with artifacts (perhaps too many were taken?). His wife was an amazing photographer and her work is a great historical document.

Back to town and the place I love to photograph, the market, excellent displays….

One indoor market particularly blew us away with its juxtaposition of pink meat and kitch godliness.

and then this grassy altar.

A true artist

Our fixation with graffiti and painted out graffiti continues....

hot dogs

nazi bush

We spent a lot of time in the cultural café, open to the sky with indigenous shops & Zapatista stuff round the edge. They hold photography exhibitions and music events, oh and of course they have free WI FI, here’s our little laptop. I lovingly made it a case out of denim coverd cardboard with a padded pink lining.

We also ate in a vegetarian center with free cinema attached. Great place, though the serene smiling yoga students who floated by regularly did make us want to embrace the dark side, so we went to see a Joy Division documentary to balance out the ying. Poor Ian, the rest of the band were proper lads and didnt have a clue about the extent of his inner turmoil, unbelievably none of them had even read the lyrics he wrote for their last album (Closer) released just before he died. Tony Wilson of factory records, what a dude though.

Bamboo yoga student transport

local embodery

Night out at the Da Da club with a jazzy funk band. We were sitting way too near for the faces the lead guitarist was making, It was a relief when a drunk local decided to join in.

We stayed on 2 extra days to see some documentaries about the Zapatista movement at a delightfully tiny cinema. It had 4 intimate velvety screening rooms with boxes and seating for 10.

Then made our move out of Mexico and on our way to Nicaragua.