Meeting The Maya

Ever since leaving Peru and its rich archaeological heritage the historical remains on offer have been somewhat underwhelming. All that has changed now that I've reached Honduras and El Salvador, whose western edges mark the easternmost limits of the Mayan empire. Of the "Big 3" indigenous American civilisations (from north to south the Aztec, Maya and Inca) the Maya are undoubtedly preeminent both in terms of longevity and cultural achievements. The Maya first appeared around 2000 B.C., were still around when the Spanish conquered the Americas, and are still here today (although not doing human sacrifices anymore). The Aztecs and Incas by comparison were mere flashes in the pan, existing for no more than a couple of centuries, and whose culture has almost completely disappeared today.

Spotting the main temple complex of Copan through the trees.

Danger Zone

Central America does not get a good press. Apart from Costa Rica there is a pervading stereotype of violent crime and gangs. some of that is justified. Honduras's economic capital San Pedro Sula has the unenviable distinction of being the most violent city in the world with a murder rate of almost 170 per hundred thousand inhabitants (to put that into perspective there are more murders in San Pedro Sula, a city of some 720,000 inhabitants, than in Germany and Italy together, with a combined population of 160 million i.e. a 220 times greater murder rate). Most of this violence is perpetrated by gangs on other gangs and so does not generally affect normal people. Nevertheless there is a level of violent crime that is of an order of magnitude more than in most other parts of the world. Why is that?

The ubiquitous razorwire gives Central America a war zone feel.

South America In 20 Photos

I thought I'd share with you some of my favourite photos from South America that didn't make it into a blog post. I hope you like them and don't forget that they (and many more) can be found in the country albums on the right hand side of the blog.

Ladies shooting the breeze by a window in the colonial quarter of Cartagena.

A yucca-type plant in one of the many ephemeral ponds that form atop Roraima.

Virgins And Volcanoes*

Nicaragua is known as the country of lakes and volcanoes, as it has the latter in abundance, and although the number of lakes may be few, they make up for it in size: lakes Nicaragua and Managua are the two largest (by far) in Central America. Activities in the country revolve either around one or the other. Isla de Ometepe, with its twin volcanoes emerging from the waters of lake Nicaragua like a pair of lopsided breasts, is a popular spot for people to go and chill and do nada, or, if they're feeling the need for physical activity, to scale the crater rim (though in the rainy season nada is about all you get to see at the top). And on the shores of the respective lakes the two great colonial towns of Granada and Leon battle it out for visitors' affections.

The wonderfully named volcanoes of Momotombo and, a little smaller and to the right, cutely-named Momotombito, on the shores of lake Managua.

America For Americans

I did, finally, go to a national park in Costa Rica. It would have been scandalous not to. Though in the end it turned out to be neither cloud forest nor volcano, which are the usual natural suspects for tourists to Costa Rica. Instead I opted for a dry tropical forest at the Guanacaste biosphere reserve in the northwest of the country. Of course, with my knack for mistiming I of course turned up in the rainy season when the dryness of the forest is not really appreciable. The park is home to the standard roll call of mesoamerican fauna, of which, as per usual, I saw precious little. It's also an important nesting site for marine turtles, and the beaches can see thousands of females coming up to lay their eggs in the season. Instead I saw a few spider monkeys swinging directly overhead (which was pretty impressive), iguanas basking in the sun, and a whole host of crabs infesting the mangroves. I went with my host in Liberia, Laura, a young Aussie girl. A fascinating character who has the fortitude to follow through with her convictions to make the world a better place, she has spent time living in protest zones and organising activist movements. And although I don't see radical activism as a sustainable way forward, I admire her principles and how far she's prepared to go to defend them. It's perhaps fitting then that the national park is also home to the hacienda Santa Rosa, an ordinary-looking old farmstead (well, it was an old farmstead up until a decade ago when some poachers burnt it down, but since it's been lovingly rebuilt) that saw its own protest against imperialism back in 1856, in what was perhaps the most pivotal episode in Costa Rican history, when the Costa Rican army defeated the invading army of the American filibusterer William Walker. His name may not be well-known outside of Central America, but his episode is familiar to everyone here as the start of US attempts at hegemony of the region.

Red-legged crabs scurrying into their burrows amongst the mangroves.

Tico Time

Costa Rica is the most stable, prosperous and visited country in Central America. It's also probably the most boring. Named the Rich Coast by Christopher Columbus it proved to be anything but, with next to no mineral wealth, and not even much of an indigenous population to enslave it became the forgotten backwater of Spain's American colonies. This proved to be beneficial to the country's future stability as it made the agrarian society, made up mainly of immigrants and their descendants, more equal; unlike other Central American countries where a coterie of families controlled the vast majority of political and economic power. It was so far-removed with what was happening in the rest of the colony (it was nominally a province of the Captaincy of Guatemala, but had very few dealings with the leadership there) that it was informed of its independence from Spain by letter a month after it theoretically occurred. Fast forward to the present and Costa Rica has been spared the wars and internal turmoil that have plagued its coregionists. It also embarked on an enlightened, somewhat socialist (though don't tell the Americans), path. In 1949 it unilaterally got rid of its armed forces, the only country of any consequence to have done so in the world (the other ones are all tiny and usually island nations in the South Pacific). Then in the 70's, seeing that it had little to offer the world other than coffee and bananas, a conscious decision was made to preserve the country's forests in an attempt to lure foreign capital via tourism.

In a country devoid of historic monuments the rather ho-hum national theatre from the turn of the last century is the most grandiose historical building.

In The Zone

Panama is known, of course, for its canal and hats, the latter of which, paradoxically, are actually Ecuadorean. Its strategic location as the shortest route from the Atlantic to the Pacific has always made it an important place on the geopolitical stage, which has been both a blessing and a curse. The country gets substantial revenue and employment just from the simple fact that it is where it is, but that has also made it victim to the whims and caprices of greater powers throughout its history.

Despite the Spanish language American influence is more predominant in Panama. Not just the predilection for  skyscrapers, but also fast food, bland urban architecture, and shopping malls.

Mind The Gap

There are a number of famous roads whose names alone evokes exotic, dreamy images amongst all travellers: the Karakorum Highway, Route 66, the Transfăgărășan, the Pamir Highway and the Panamaerican Highway are all the stuff of legend. The latter extends all the way from Prudhoe Bay, in northern Alaska, to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego ... well, almost. The Panamerican is rightly famous for crossing the length of the Americas and traversing a multitude of landscapes and climates. But what is less well-known is that it's incomplete. It has a chink. The road doesn't link North and South America, instead there is a gap of about 160km across the Panama-Colombia border where there is nothing but impenetrable rainforest. This is the Darien Gap and is one of the world's great travelling challenges. But before I figured out how to get past it without flying, I had one last stop in Colombia.

Colombia's Twin Crops: Coca And Coffee

Before Shakira came along with her truthful hips and waka waka'ed her way into the global consciousness, the most famous Colombian in the world was probably Pablo Escobar. Even though he was shot dead in 1993, when I was only 12 years old, the iconic image of him with his moustache and 70's pornstar hair are deeply seated in my popular culture unconscious. Perhaps because he has been used as the template for every Latin American drug baron in every single film since then, from the low budget El Mariachi, to big, Hollywood blockbusters. Often they'll have an exotic eccentricity, like a a killer pet iguana, just like Pablo who kept a small menagerie of hippos (who have since escaped and become a feral nuisance on the lower Magdalena river).

The modern image of Medellin that the authorities want to promote: vibrant, affluent and cutting edge.

I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Getting information about where to go whilst travelling is always an interesting process. The first port of call for many (including myself) is some sort of guidebook. These are useful places to start, with a lot of info in a single place. A mistake many people make though is to view guidebooks as some sort of Bible, as the sole, unquestionable, infallible source of facts. Mistakes can, and often do, arise and should be expected. Not only that, but in limiting yourself to a single, popular source of data you end up following a well-worn path taken by many other travellers (an entity known as the Gringo Trail here in Latin America, and the Banana Pancake Trail in Southeast Asia), staying in the same guesthouses and hostels, and perhaps only interacting only with other tourists. Instead you should spread your net wide in your search for travel tips: trawl the net, talk to friends, other travellers, locals, read books and articles and generally keep your eyes and ears open.

Sometimes more than one source of information is required.