From Palenque in Mexico where we have just visited a fabulous mayan site. We got her from Chichen Itza another site & prior to that Cancun, a great resort on the Yucatan peninsular. We have also not long returned from 12 days in Cuba, an amazing experience. But I am getting ahead a little as (I think) my last epistle left off in Salvador Brazil.
Salvador was a great city with a good laid back atmosphere. We left there for a small town called Cachoeira which means waterfall in Portuguese. Cwas interesting for three reasons
1) I saw my one & only operational train in Sth America (not counting Metros or the graveyard at Uyuni Bolivia). A steam train whats more
2) Walked across this wooden bridge on whch EVERY plank was loose or rotten. You had to be so careful it was a real trial.
3) Saw cigars being hand made in this small factory. Its quite an art & the women were rolling & cutting & talking non stop. I guess that the process becomes automatic after a while. Cigars have quite a nice smell don´t they.
From there an overnight bus to the Brazillian highlands (Diamantina area) & a town called Lencois. On the way we had to wait in a big town Feria de Santana where they were having a festival. What a show!! All these floats would come by with a local band belting out all these popular songs. One after the other. And the crowd was huge. They would join in on the singing, they would clap, walk alongside - in other words have a great time. The street was lined with bars & food stalls & they were working overtime. WE sort of joined in - by being interested spectators. What a show though, noise, colour, families, young kids - a great night.
Lencois was a great little town. And for us , cooler than on the coast. It was established originally as a service town for a low key diamond mining industry. It´s now all to do wth tourism (trekking, rock scrambling, eco tourism etc). Great great area with all these waterfalls, mesas, buttes & narrow valleys. We stayed at a hostel & it was heaven. Desayuno (breakfast) was included in the room rate & what a breakfast. Buffet style so L & I were always first down & last to leave. The food selection (breads, cakes, eggs, fruits, juices, coffee) was better than a 4 star hotel. We pigged out to cover lunch & then did not have toeat too much in the evening. So we saved mucho pesos.
We did a trek in Lencois. Went for 4 days 3 nights to the Valle de Pati (pr. Patchy). An amazing valley about 100km from Lencois. It was amazing as it was a very narrow valley at the bottom of these incredibly steep cliffs (which we had to climb done!!). There were only about 20 people living in the valley, no running water (apart from rivers!!), no electricity & real primitive ablutions. There used to be 1000 there but times changed. However Mr Wilson & Dona Maria looked after us. She had this huge wood burner stove & her kitchen ceiling was covered in pots & pans. I joketh not - there must have been 50 -60 mainly pots & all as clean as a whistle. It was an awe inspiring sight but why she needed so many we never did find out. But her food was great. She could COOK & we never went hungry. Bit of an emphasis on beans & rice but when you have been out tramping all over the countryside then even tripe would look good. Well maybe that is stretching a point a little. Our bedroom was tiny & the bed was a mattress on a concrete base. We trekked to a huge waterfall on one day, then scaled a cliff the next to explore this unusual cave at the top. Unusual lbecause caves are usually at the bottom!! On the last day we walked 30 km to a small village called Kapao (pr. Kapong). Nice rustic sort of place in which a lot of hippies from Europe & the states are now calling home. We both swum in pools right under these rather large waterfalls - great fun. Also visited large caves & climbed up a very prominent butte.
So that was the Diamantina area. I would come back if only for the breakfasts.
Now off to Brasillia to pick up my passport & VISA card at the NZ Embassy. Brasillia was a nice well planned town. All the streets were numbered & the town was divided into Quadrants. So getting around was quite easy once you got the hang of the numbering system. NZ Embassy is in a class area & they had all that we needed. It was great to catch up with NZ papers again. They had the Dom so that was even better. But best of all to have the passport & feel like a real person again.
We flew from Brasillia to Manaus on the AMazon. Well actaully Manaus is on the banks of the Rio Negro. But who cares. The Rio Negro is big enough. We took a boat right acroos both rivers. What a trip. I mean the boat was a speed boat & the guy didn´t waste any time. But it took us 45 min to get across. THe two rivers are just so huge. You cant see bank to bank. It was amazing but the Brazilians had quite a large warship tied up at the port. We took a slow car ferry coming back & you could clearly see where the two rivers "joined". Actually they sort of run side by side for many miles. The black waters of the Negro form a very clear border with the murky brown Amazon waters. Quite a wierd thing to see.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Central America
CENTRAL AMERICA 2005
We arrived in San Jose the capital of Costa Rica from Caracas via Miami. Courtesy of American Airlines. The flights were OK but getting thru’ Miami International was an exercise in patience and fortitude. The Americans have gone completely overboard in terms of security. We were in transit for goodness sakes and only 2 ½ hours on American soil. But we had to go thru’ all the checks. Photos, fingerprints, X rays, some strange machine which sort of bounced you around and scanned you at the same time. Shoes off, belt off, jacket off, I was surprised that they let you keep some clothes on!! People with guns everywhere which is also off putting. Now they say, “would you rather a terrorist get into the country?” Of course not but I believe that they have taken things too far and quite frankly the terrorists are probably already in the States. The whole procedure is very time consuming and puts me off ever going back.
Anyway we arrived at San Jose Airport. An easy way thru’ customs and we were met outside by an American who persuaded us that his hacienda was the best thing since the Hilton. We thought , “why not, after all he drives us into San Jose and we get accomodation straight off” Leah negotiated a reduction so off we went. But not to San Jose. In fact we ended up north of the airport outside a town called Alluella. His hostel was quite nice –we had a pleasant room with a balcony and we had breakfast thrown in. We spent two nights there, Leah bought our dinner at the local tiendas and life was good. The house backed onto a bit of native bush and you could walk down to a waterfall. The owner whose name escapes me was one of the funniest guys I have ever met. He had an amazing repertoire of one liners and kept us totally entertained.
Until the son of the gardener was murdered by his uncle not 100 yards down the road from us. It was at 10.00pm in front of everybody: totally unbelievable and all over a debt which hadn’t been repaid. Apparently the young guy had borrowed his uncle’s car and then did some damage to it. He did not pay for the repairs, hence the debt. But I think there was more to it than that. There was talk of drugs and drug dealing which seems to me to be a more likely scenario. The police hadn’t caught the uncle by the time we left and I often have wondered since what happened to him.
We took a bus one day up to an active volcano (Volcan Poas) just north of where we were staying. Nice trip and the Costa Rican countryside is very lush but well developed. Farms, market gardens and coffee plantations everywhere. We walked up to the crater rim. It was huge and smoking and inpressive. It gets quite active at times but we struck it when it was pretty low key. Also trekked around to a lake in the side of the mountain. Highlight was the performance of a couple of chipmunks who were very tame. They would jump on you and take food out of your hands.
Then it was off to Volcan Arenal in the north of the country. We got a lift down to Alluella and picked up a local bus from there. It got really full. But a superb drive thru’ the mountains to …………. where we changed. The road was windy but the views out over the forests and farmland were tremendous. The only down side was that the bus was packed. And really hot. And really stuffy.
Lago Nicaragua and Isla Omatepe
One of my second level must do’s around the world was Lake Nicaragua and the Ometepe Islands. Reasons:
1) the lake was proposed seriously as an alternative to the Panama Canal. I wanted to see what made it so attractive an option.
2) The lake was famous for freshwater sharks. Sadly they are now feared to be extinct as the Dictator Somoza allowed the Japanese to come in and wipe them out
3) The lake is one of the biggest in the Americas
4) The island is in fact two volcanoes which just seem to rise sheer out of the lake. I had seen photos many years ago – they looked awe inspiring.
So we got a boat from the nearest Port (San Jorge) after a hairy bus ride from Granada and sailed across. The boat was ancient and full of the locals. Definitely not the tourist option and it was crowded. We arrived at Moyagalpa and found accommodation there. A nice little town with connections to most parts of the island. The island itself is merely two old volcanoes which rise straight out of the sea. Volcan Concepcion (1600m asl) and Volcan Madera (1300m asl) with nice cone like shapes. Omatepe was really lucky during the civil war. It was left pretty much alone and so everything is as it has been for a long long time. The island has a few waterfalls and has been fairly intensively cultivated on the lower slopes. Most people are poor and I suspect that there is a strong non cash economy. Most of the money would be from tourists.
We got ourselves into our usual cheap accommodation. Not too bad – double bed and a very adjacent ensuite. The locals cooked over an open fire and as wood is reasonably scarce they don’t like guests cooking there. We ate out but one night Leah wanted to dine in. Great consternation but they finally allowed her to cook her ….. (I have forgotten what it was).
The thing that got me about the town was when it rained. The main street was a hard dirt road and went straight uphill to the inevitable church. The rain turned the main drag into a river. A really fast running deep river which you crossed at your peril. It was quite amazing to watch. Rubbish from the top of the hill was washed down and you had to watch out for that as well. Cars and buses cam down and they had to be so careful. I mean they could have aquaplaned as easy as …..
We decided to do a tour around the island. So next day it was on a small bus and off along the western coast to a coastal park (chaco Verde) that we had been told about. Lots of monkeys, nice beach and great forest walks. We were let off at the road down to this resort and guess – the heavens opened. The road (alias dirt track) turned from dusty to mud in about 10 seconds flat. Out came the wet weather gear but it was almost too little too late. We had to cover 1.5 km in a torrential downpour dodging huge puddles, mud pools and running water in all directions. Arrived at this lodge like drowned rats. I must have looked terrible but all the people there were interested in was selling us something. I was happy to oblige – beer and fish and chips. Well the beer was fine, the fish OK but the chips were very ordinary. Stringy, cooked too long, soggy - they don’t know how to make good chips in Latin America. It was getting late so we decided to stay the night and use the remainder of the day to explore the so called park. We actually met another couple there – Anna from Bedford and Hywell from Wales. They were volunteers working in the northern area of Nicaragua. They were trying to help the locals with eco tourist initiatives up there. I think that she was helping them with English lessons He worked further north right up in the mountains and I think was more involved in engineering projects. Maybe water based – not a lot of good potable water in the rural areas. They joined up with us for the walk and it happened again. Half way around the rain came down. So we all got wet and we only saw one miserable looking howler monkey. I mean who wouldn’t be miserable; stuck in a tree with rain pelting down and a bunch of crazy tourists probably stopping you from finding cover somewhere. Saw a couple of decent sized spiders, a few falcons and a few frogs but not much else. Jungle was a bit on the thin side as well.
Back to the hotel and guess what – it stopped raining as soon as we got in. The beach looked fine and if my memory serves me correctly Leah and Hywell went for a swim. She said that the bottom was quite muddy and the lake was shallow. I was surprised to learn that it is only 30m asl. No wonder they wanted it as an option for a canal. I think that parts of the lake are quite deep so no problems for big ships. In fact it was the route of choice prior to the opening of the Panama canal. You would boat up the Rio San Carlos across the lake to (I think) San Jorge. Then a train to SanJuan del Sur on the Pacific coast and away to the Californian goldfields. Spanish galleons also used it as did all the pirates who would come in and sack Granada at periodic intervals.
Our room was quite good and comfortable and we managed to get most of our gear dry.
Next day it was off further around the island. Our friends told us to head for Magdalena a small settlement on the sides of Volcan Maderas. So we got two buses to a place called Santa Cruz. We then walked to Balgue and then tramped UPHILL to Magdalena. Magdalena was an alternative lifestyle farm. I think that they grew organic coffee and a few other cash crops. A few Americans there – escapees from George Bushes America. You could also use it as a start point for a climb to the crater. It was threatening rain so we gave that a miss and had something to eat. Leah was quite tempted to stay a night but we did have to get back to Moyagalpa and Granada so off we went. Tramp downhill (much better) and then a bus back to Urbaite where we had to wait for a connection. Well, a connection one and half hours later.
Now what happened in town that night. That’s right; there was this rather good band playing in the main street. They must have attracted nearly everyone in the town and put on some really good local music. They also got the local kids up to answer questions on the stage and win a small prize. The whole thing was rather good. And the group was reputed to be one of the best folkloric in Nicaragua.
Copan
Copan was a Mayan site on the border of Honduras and Guatemala. I had never heard of it before but it got a really good write up in the Lonely Planet so off we went. It was good. A very compact site but well excavated (unlike many other sites around). We teamed up with an American who had a guide. So we got all the history on the site as well as some of the guides interpretations of events. He supposedly was a Honduran archeologist who had worked on this and other sites (and knew them all!!). He gave us an interesting walk around and a quite informative talk. There were a number of stellae (large carved rocks) which had the original mayan codex carved on them. The codex was all related to the local kings who had names like Monkey IV, Rabbit, Jaguar and so on. The codex also encoded their calendar which was quite amazing. They in fact had two calendars – a sort of everyday one (20 months @ 18 days per month and a 5 day special period) and the priests calendar which had 200 days. The 5 days referred to above were considered really unlucky and (I think) that they believed in a cycle of 52 which is a common denominator between the two calendars. So the everyday calendar was 365 days!! No leap year but I think that their astronomers would have been smart enough to work out that there was a one in four year discrepancy with their calendar. The amazing thing is that the above calendars are common throughout all of pre Hispanic central America. More on that later.
The thing that struck me was the absolute ingenuity of those who decoded the writings. The codex has no basis for comparability with anything we are familiar with but someone was smart enough to do it. And there were no historical clues. Copan was abandoned long before the Spanish came through.
Copan had all the classic central American features. Pyramidal buildings, ball courts, stellae, small canals, temples, passageways (which cost extra to enter) and a nice ambience. Stonework was magnificent and the carvings were all on a grand (small) scale. I bracketed (small) as we have not yet talked about Chichen Itza, Plaenque or Teotehuacan. It was a religious centre and was supported by a population of peasants who lived locally. I think that they found a few people who were buried here and somehow they deduced that Copan declined because there was a prolonged famine. Was it overpopulation or a more demanding priestly class? I forget what our guides theory was. But I think he said that the skeletons showed signs of starvation. Now why did they not find skeletons of peasants? Well, peasants were probably not buried with any particular care and towards the end the suggestion is that they all took to the hills.
Cuba
One of Leah’s first choice destinations. I wasn’t that interested but am glad that I went after all. We booked return tickets in Cancun on a local airline (Mexicana). It was a package deal ie flights plus three nights in one of Havanas so called top 5 star hotels. We decided to stay for 12 nights so had to make other arrangements after the hotel was finished.
Arrived at the Airport fairly late (we didn’t leave until late) and then were held up outside Customs as one of our bus party was being interrogated by Cuban police and customs. So we did not get to Hotel Florida until after midnight. I got Cuban convertibles at the Airport ATM which was the first taste of their crazy currency system. Tourists are supposed to transact in Convertibles (roughly 1 USD) whereas everyone else is required to use the local currency (pesos 25 Pesos = 1 Convertible). But as you can imagine everyone wants convertibles so the pressure is on the tourists at all times. We were not supposed to convert our money to the local currency (Leah did!!) so everything costed us 25 times more than the local paid.
The Hotel was in the old part of Havana (Havana Viejo) which was good. The old section is quite run down but you could see that with a bit of money it could be made into a spectacular area. We did a walking tour and there were many highlights. Cathedrals (all closed, religion is frowned upon in Cuba), bars frequented by Hemmingway, Revolutionary museums, waterfront and main plaza. We also went through their top suburb – Miraflores. In reality it was pretty ordinary. Most places looked quite dilapidated and uncared for.
We also walked around a lot ourselves. Partly to try and book train tickets to Santa Clara but also to see how Cubans lived
Chichen Itza (CI)
A really famous mayan site on the Yucatan peninsular. As with Lago Nicaragua this would be high on my list of second level “must do’s” around the world. Very close to a first level, but one can’t be greedy. Chichen Itza was one of the many sites visited by the original Conquistadores, even before Cortes came along. As with Copan I think it was abandoned
by the time the Spanish got there.
We set ourselves a bit of a task to get to CI. If I remember rightly we got an early bus from Cancun to CI, aimed to spend the day there then another bus to Merida and from there an overnight bus to Palenque. I mean that was all about saving a nights accommodation.
We arrived in San Jose the capital of Costa Rica from Caracas via Miami. Courtesy of American Airlines. The flights were OK but getting thru’ Miami International was an exercise in patience and fortitude. The Americans have gone completely overboard in terms of security. We were in transit for goodness sakes and only 2 ½ hours on American soil. But we had to go thru’ all the checks. Photos, fingerprints, X rays, some strange machine which sort of bounced you around and scanned you at the same time. Shoes off, belt off, jacket off, I was surprised that they let you keep some clothes on!! People with guns everywhere which is also off putting. Now they say, “would you rather a terrorist get into the country?” Of course not but I believe that they have taken things too far and quite frankly the terrorists are probably already in the States. The whole procedure is very time consuming and puts me off ever going back.
Anyway we arrived at San Jose Airport. An easy way thru’ customs and we were met outside by an American who persuaded us that his hacienda was the best thing since the Hilton. We thought , “why not, after all he drives us into San Jose and we get accomodation straight off” Leah negotiated a reduction so off we went. But not to San Jose. In fact we ended up north of the airport outside a town called Alluella. His hostel was quite nice –we had a pleasant room with a balcony and we had breakfast thrown in. We spent two nights there, Leah bought our dinner at the local tiendas and life was good. The house backed onto a bit of native bush and you could walk down to a waterfall. The owner whose name escapes me was one of the funniest guys I have ever met. He had an amazing repertoire of one liners and kept us totally entertained.
Until the son of the gardener was murdered by his uncle not 100 yards down the road from us. It was at 10.00pm in front of everybody: totally unbelievable and all over a debt which hadn’t been repaid. Apparently the young guy had borrowed his uncle’s car and then did some damage to it. He did not pay for the repairs, hence the debt. But I think there was more to it than that. There was talk of drugs and drug dealing which seems to me to be a more likely scenario. The police hadn’t caught the uncle by the time we left and I often have wondered since what happened to him.
We took a bus one day up to an active volcano (Volcan Poas) just north of where we were staying. Nice trip and the Costa Rican countryside is very lush but well developed. Farms, market gardens and coffee plantations everywhere. We walked up to the crater rim. It was huge and smoking and inpressive. It gets quite active at times but we struck it when it was pretty low key. Also trekked around to a lake in the side of the mountain. Highlight was the performance of a couple of chipmunks who were very tame. They would jump on you and take food out of your hands.
Then it was off to Volcan Arenal in the north of the country. We got a lift down to Alluella and picked up a local bus from there. It got really full. But a superb drive thru’ the mountains to …………. where we changed. The road was windy but the views out over the forests and farmland were tremendous. The only down side was that the bus was packed. And really hot. And really stuffy.
Lago Nicaragua and Isla Omatepe
One of my second level must do’s around the world was Lake Nicaragua and the Ometepe Islands. Reasons:
1) the lake was proposed seriously as an alternative to the Panama Canal. I wanted to see what made it so attractive an option.
2) The lake was famous for freshwater sharks. Sadly they are now feared to be extinct as the Dictator Somoza allowed the Japanese to come in and wipe them out
3) The lake is one of the biggest in the Americas
4) The island is in fact two volcanoes which just seem to rise sheer out of the lake. I had seen photos many years ago – they looked awe inspiring.
So we got a boat from the nearest Port (San Jorge) after a hairy bus ride from Granada and sailed across. The boat was ancient and full of the locals. Definitely not the tourist option and it was crowded. We arrived at Moyagalpa and found accommodation there. A nice little town with connections to most parts of the island. The island itself is merely two old volcanoes which rise straight out of the sea. Volcan Concepcion (1600m asl) and Volcan Madera (1300m asl) with nice cone like shapes. Omatepe was really lucky during the civil war. It was left pretty much alone and so everything is as it has been for a long long time. The island has a few waterfalls and has been fairly intensively cultivated on the lower slopes. Most people are poor and I suspect that there is a strong non cash economy. Most of the money would be from tourists.
We got ourselves into our usual cheap accommodation. Not too bad – double bed and a very adjacent ensuite. The locals cooked over an open fire and as wood is reasonably scarce they don’t like guests cooking there. We ate out but one night Leah wanted to dine in. Great consternation but they finally allowed her to cook her ….. (I have forgotten what it was).
The thing that got me about the town was when it rained. The main street was a hard dirt road and went straight uphill to the inevitable church. The rain turned the main drag into a river. A really fast running deep river which you crossed at your peril. It was quite amazing to watch. Rubbish from the top of the hill was washed down and you had to watch out for that as well. Cars and buses cam down and they had to be so careful. I mean they could have aquaplaned as easy as …..
We decided to do a tour around the island. So next day it was on a small bus and off along the western coast to a coastal park (chaco Verde) that we had been told about. Lots of monkeys, nice beach and great forest walks. We were let off at the road down to this resort and guess – the heavens opened. The road (alias dirt track) turned from dusty to mud in about 10 seconds flat. Out came the wet weather gear but it was almost too little too late. We had to cover 1.5 km in a torrential downpour dodging huge puddles, mud pools and running water in all directions. Arrived at this lodge like drowned rats. I must have looked terrible but all the people there were interested in was selling us something. I was happy to oblige – beer and fish and chips. Well the beer was fine, the fish OK but the chips were very ordinary. Stringy, cooked too long, soggy - they don’t know how to make good chips in Latin America. It was getting late so we decided to stay the night and use the remainder of the day to explore the so called park. We actually met another couple there – Anna from Bedford and Hywell from Wales. They were volunteers working in the northern area of Nicaragua. They were trying to help the locals with eco tourist initiatives up there. I think that she was helping them with English lessons He worked further north right up in the mountains and I think was more involved in engineering projects. Maybe water based – not a lot of good potable water in the rural areas. They joined up with us for the walk and it happened again. Half way around the rain came down. So we all got wet and we only saw one miserable looking howler monkey. I mean who wouldn’t be miserable; stuck in a tree with rain pelting down and a bunch of crazy tourists probably stopping you from finding cover somewhere. Saw a couple of decent sized spiders, a few falcons and a few frogs but not much else. Jungle was a bit on the thin side as well.
Back to the hotel and guess what – it stopped raining as soon as we got in. The beach looked fine and if my memory serves me correctly Leah and Hywell went for a swim. She said that the bottom was quite muddy and the lake was shallow. I was surprised to learn that it is only 30m asl. No wonder they wanted it as an option for a canal. I think that parts of the lake are quite deep so no problems for big ships. In fact it was the route of choice prior to the opening of the Panama canal. You would boat up the Rio San Carlos across the lake to (I think) San Jorge. Then a train to SanJuan del Sur on the Pacific coast and away to the Californian goldfields. Spanish galleons also used it as did all the pirates who would come in and sack Granada at periodic intervals.
Our room was quite good and comfortable and we managed to get most of our gear dry.
Next day it was off further around the island. Our friends told us to head for Magdalena a small settlement on the sides of Volcan Maderas. So we got two buses to a place called Santa Cruz. We then walked to Balgue and then tramped UPHILL to Magdalena. Magdalena was an alternative lifestyle farm. I think that they grew organic coffee and a few other cash crops. A few Americans there – escapees from George Bushes America. You could also use it as a start point for a climb to the crater. It was threatening rain so we gave that a miss and had something to eat. Leah was quite tempted to stay a night but we did have to get back to Moyagalpa and Granada so off we went. Tramp downhill (much better) and then a bus back to Urbaite where we had to wait for a connection. Well, a connection one and half hours later.
Now what happened in town that night. That’s right; there was this rather good band playing in the main street. They must have attracted nearly everyone in the town and put on some really good local music. They also got the local kids up to answer questions on the stage and win a small prize. The whole thing was rather good. And the group was reputed to be one of the best folkloric in Nicaragua.
Copan
Copan was a Mayan site on the border of Honduras and Guatemala. I had never heard of it before but it got a really good write up in the Lonely Planet so off we went. It was good. A very compact site but well excavated (unlike many other sites around). We teamed up with an American who had a guide. So we got all the history on the site as well as some of the guides interpretations of events. He supposedly was a Honduran archeologist who had worked on this and other sites (and knew them all!!). He gave us an interesting walk around and a quite informative talk. There were a number of stellae (large carved rocks) which had the original mayan codex carved on them. The codex was all related to the local kings who had names like Monkey IV, Rabbit, Jaguar and so on. The codex also encoded their calendar which was quite amazing. They in fact had two calendars – a sort of everyday one (20 months @ 18 days per month and a 5 day special period) and the priests calendar which had 200 days. The 5 days referred to above were considered really unlucky and (I think) that they believed in a cycle of 52 which is a common denominator between the two calendars. So the everyday calendar was 365 days!! No leap year but I think that their astronomers would have been smart enough to work out that there was a one in four year discrepancy with their calendar. The amazing thing is that the above calendars are common throughout all of pre Hispanic central America. More on that later.
The thing that struck me was the absolute ingenuity of those who decoded the writings. The codex has no basis for comparability with anything we are familiar with but someone was smart enough to do it. And there were no historical clues. Copan was abandoned long before the Spanish came through.
Copan had all the classic central American features. Pyramidal buildings, ball courts, stellae, small canals, temples, passageways (which cost extra to enter) and a nice ambience. Stonework was magnificent and the carvings were all on a grand (small) scale. I bracketed (small) as we have not yet talked about Chichen Itza, Plaenque or Teotehuacan. It was a religious centre and was supported by a population of peasants who lived locally. I think that they found a few people who were buried here and somehow they deduced that Copan declined because there was a prolonged famine. Was it overpopulation or a more demanding priestly class? I forget what our guides theory was. But I think he said that the skeletons showed signs of starvation. Now why did they not find skeletons of peasants? Well, peasants were probably not buried with any particular care and towards the end the suggestion is that they all took to the hills.
Cuba
One of Leah’s first choice destinations. I wasn’t that interested but am glad that I went after all. We booked return tickets in Cancun on a local airline (Mexicana). It was a package deal ie flights plus three nights in one of Havanas so called top 5 star hotels. We decided to stay for 12 nights so had to make other arrangements after the hotel was finished.
Arrived at the Airport fairly late (we didn’t leave until late) and then were held up outside Customs as one of our bus party was being interrogated by Cuban police and customs. So we did not get to Hotel Florida until after midnight. I got Cuban convertibles at the Airport ATM which was the first taste of their crazy currency system. Tourists are supposed to transact in Convertibles (roughly 1 USD) whereas everyone else is required to use the local currency (pesos 25 Pesos = 1 Convertible). But as you can imagine everyone wants convertibles so the pressure is on the tourists at all times. We were not supposed to convert our money to the local currency (Leah did!!) so everything costed us 25 times more than the local paid.
The Hotel was in the old part of Havana (Havana Viejo) which was good. The old section is quite run down but you could see that with a bit of money it could be made into a spectacular area. We did a walking tour and there were many highlights. Cathedrals (all closed, religion is frowned upon in Cuba), bars frequented by Hemmingway, Revolutionary museums, waterfront and main plaza. We also went through their top suburb – Miraflores. In reality it was pretty ordinary. Most places looked quite dilapidated and uncared for.
We also walked around a lot ourselves. Partly to try and book train tickets to Santa Clara but also to see how Cubans lived
Chichen Itza (CI)
A really famous mayan site on the Yucatan peninsular. As with Lago Nicaragua this would be high on my list of second level “must do’s” around the world. Very close to a first level, but one can’t be greedy. Chichen Itza was one of the many sites visited by the original Conquistadores, even before Cortes came along. As with Copan I think it was abandoned
by the time the Spanish got there.
We set ourselves a bit of a task to get to CI. If I remember rightly we got an early bus from Cancun to CI, aimed to spend the day there then another bus to Merida and from there an overnight bus to Palenque. I mean that was all about saving a nights accommodation.
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