Guatemala!

A quick update on a hectic week.... haven´t spent the night in the same bed for over a week now, have covered I don´t know how many miles and sat in dozens of bus seats befreinding dozens of locals along the way. Traveled from San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua all the way up to Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Encountered a greedy ticket collector who put me on his bus the wrong place leaving San Juan. Told me he was going to Granada when he was really going to Managua (the last place I wanted to be in all of Central America). Luckily I´d studied the maps ahead of time and knew something was up before being dropped unwillingly into the chaos of Managua.

Finally got to Granada and met a highly spritual Dutch woman who comes from a long line of gypsy healers and an American doctoral candidate studying the mating habits of crickets. Went to breakfast together and listened to them get into the most diometrically opposed debate over human existance. She claiming we´re enetering a period of love and untiy, where all that matters is positive energy and we will no longer need food or water to survive. This didn´t go over too well with the hard-core scientist... but we all left as friends. Just a typical morning in Nicaragua!

My ankle by this time was as large as an elephant due to some weired bug bit. The healer took me to a doctor and who cured me. (Turns out I had an allergic reaction to whatever is was.) Total bill for a consutltation, plus purchasing three prescriptions.... take note, Pres Obama - a whopping $7.42!!

Left Granada for a night in Leon. Wasn´t to fussed by either place. If you want a charming colonial town just go to Antigua, Guatemala. I did meet a social studies professor from the University of Leon on the way to Leon. Really sweet woman who helped me plan my route through Honduras and even offered to e-mail her friends there for additional suggestions. We had the whole conversation in Spanish and she was great on coaching me on the language too. I guess a teacher is always a teacher.

Went from Leon, Nicaragua to San Pedro Sula, Honduras in one very long day of 14 hours of bus travel, plus another frontera crossing. Yet the border was sooo quiet, no one there but me - hurrah. As for San Pedro, it´s Honduras´s second largest city and not somewhere I really wanted to be, but missed my connecting bus by 10 minutes so got stuck there. Hotel was nice though even if the guy on the desk offered to come to my room and give me a personal ´massage´. Creepy.

Finally, got to Copan Ruinas on Saturday, where I was trying to go but missed the bus. Wow - what a gorgeous town; cobbled streets, cobbled sidewalk, white washed adobe houses with terracotta roofs all set on a hilside in the mountains. Visited the neighboring Mayan ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that I´m hoping to write an article on for a project a friend connected me to. The place is so inspiring it should be easy to write.

Left Copan for Guatemala City yesterday and rolled into a swanky hotel in the affluent part of town unshowerd, covered in dust with wind blown hair. It didn´t help that my hostel the night before had plumming problems that cut off the water supply for half a day and was still not restored when I left. I think the people here at this hotel wanted to fumigate me before putting me in a room. Oh well, am checking it out for my honeyteers and think it will be perfect for them. Plus the food is fantastic!

Off to Monterrico in a few minutes - a beach town on the Pacific. Checking out another hotel for my honeyteers and a couple volunteer organizations. May even get two nights in the same bed!!