In Defence of the Inca Trail

When you´re backpacking you´re not supposed to book ahead. Booking in advance is cheating, it´s for flashpackers and people on holiday. Except for some things you have to and one of these things is the Inca Trail.



 

The start point at Ollyantambo

The Inca Trail is rapidly disappearing from the South American traveller´s itinerary. You have to book at least a month in advance, which in reality means three, resulting in a rigidity unsuited to your average gringo. Thus the Inca Trail is largely populated by short-trippers - families on their once-in-a-lifetime holidays, uni students on summer break and old Australian women with something to prove.



Luckily I have sisters. Sisters who, when I announced I was trotting of to Latin America, demanded to come out for a bit and since they were forcing me to be in Lima by a certain date it made sense for us to suck up the extra cost and tread in the paths of the Incas

But was it worth it?



I think yes.

Llaqtapata - High Town in Quechua

Trekking to Machu Picchu whether it´s via the Inca Trail, the Salkantay or the Lares really makes you appreciate quite how isolated the citadel is. So isolated in fact that its existence remained a mystery because the Conquistadors, even with their new fangled technology (horses), couldn´t penetrate the area. As you climb up and down it never looks as though there ought to be a city just over the horizon or round the next mountain. On the Inca Trail you pass several ruins, many of them Tambos or guest houses for the original users of the trail- this I think is partly what gives the trail its edge. This part of the Andes is not the most beautiful and those seeking jaw dropping scenery in Peru would be better off sticking to Colca Canyon and the Cordillera Blanca. But the ruins give the Incas a presence outside of beleaguered Machu Picchu, a reminder that this civilisation was once the biggest empire of its day, that beautiful, colonial Cuzco was one their city and these impassable mountains were and are their domain.

The trail´s crowning glory is Intipunku, the Sun Gate. Contrary to most reports you do not get to watch the sun rise over Machu Picchu from here.The authorities have deemed walking the final 6km in the dark too dangerous - a tendency to European standards of safety is one of the trail´s cons. However climbing up to Intipunku and getting your first sighting of Machu Picchu set in its mountainous context below you is amazing. A 45 minute walk downhill past one final appetiser of a ruin and you are in the city itself, right next to that infamous rock from which everyone has their picture taken. Day trippers and alternative trekkers unfortunately enter the city at its midpoint and must climb up through it before reaching ´that view´- not quite as impressive.

Of course the Inca Trail has its bad points. The sheer number of people for one, although quite how many of us there were wasn´t revealed until lunch on the third day which everyone has at the same spot. The loos are horrendous even for a veteran of British festivals! And if you get a pedantic Spanish guy in your group well...

No trip to Peru would be complete without a visit to Machu Picchu which definitely deserves its title as one of the new wonders of the world. If you are going to trek it and have sisters who will be restricting your itinerary anyway, not to mention book it all for you, then strap your hiking boots on, grab your backpack and whatever you do don´t buy a sodding walking stick.

As this picture was taken a man blew angrily at us with a whistle.

Inca Trail Costs with Cuzco Explorers

Trail itself: $300

Porter to carry stuff: $90 (divided by the three of us)

Tips: 40 soles

Hiking Boots and Guide Dogs

I´ve written before about the possibility that travelling has turned me in to my Mother. Well today I would like to explore whether I am turning in to my Geography teacher. On one school trip involving cagoules I promised myself that, unlike my teacher, I would never wear hiking boots with shorts and I would never buy a fleece.

Well guess what... I did both.

Hiking (or if you want to sound more hardcore, trekking) is the travellers bread and butter. Back in the UK if I asked said to a friend ´Hey let´s go hiking in the Peak District this weekend!´ I´d probably be met with a scowl. Yet  here in South America I am regularly comparing notes on treks, enquiring in to those I want to do and advising on how to fall asleep at 4000m with only a three season sleeping bag.

Snow-capped peaks and icy blue lakes

At least once a month out comes the hiking boots, fleece and oh-so-useful zip off trekking trousers and off I wander into the jungle, or down a canyon, across a valley, or up a mountain. Undoubtedly the best, most awe-inspiring scenery has been found whilst hiking. I have stood at the bottom of canyon on the Quilotoa Loop in Ecuador about to cry at the ascent required, climbed to the top and then exclaimed ´Isn´t it a lovely view´! I have frozen to death in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru, stomping along for an hour without feeling my toes and then forgotten all about it at the sight of a particularly blue lake and an especially pointy snow-capped peak.

Sin Cola and a happy sister

My sisters (who have joined me for three weeks) and I recently returned from the Colca Canyon. On day one we hiked in to the canyon, on day two we hiked along the valley floor to the Sangalle Oasis which was unusually and thankfully deserted. On day three we got up at 4.30am to climb out of the canyon (a 1000m ascent) before the sun came up. It was on this third day, in the pitch black with no view to speak of that I found another reason to love trekking. The dogs. The friendly Sin Cola (No Tail) who had helpfully eaten our unwanted rice the night before accompanied us the whole way up. A look of fond concern on his face Sin Cola guided us up the switch tracking path turning what was supposed to be a three hour, uphill slog in to a walk in the park.

Challa and a still happy sister

The dog collecting happened again a few days later on the Isla del Sol in Bolivia. Strolling along the ridge line we were joined by the beautiful Challa (named after the village we poached her from) who guided us all the way south to Yumani. Faithful to the end she tried to bed down with us at our hostel only to be cruelly turned from the premises.


Tomorrow the sisters and I are off to hike the Inca Trail. The fleece is packed, the boots are waiting by the door. The phrases inter-locking spurs and v-shaped valley will be echoing in my head as we hike, although I´ve long since forgotten what they mean, and hopefully in amongst the Incan ruins and the stunning vistas there will be, patiently waiting, another dog eager to go walkies.

A Whale of a Time in the Poor Man´s Galapagos

Since I arrived in Ecuador I´ve had a touch of the green-eyed monster. Everywhere I go there are backpackers as scruffy as I jumping on planes to Ecuador´s crown jewel; The Galapagos Islands. Whereas on the mainland $1000 can easily last you over a month, on the Galapagos Islands it might last you a week. Clearly for me Lonesome George and his compatriots were off limits.

However Ecuador does provide for the cash strapped backpacker: one tiny island nicknamed, as so many islands on South America´s Pacific coast are, ´The Poor Man´s Galapagos´. However what Isla del Plata has over other contenders for this second rate title, and even over the Galapagos itself, is whales. Massive, jumping, Humpback whales.

Pelicans at the ready.

I had been going to miss out Ecuador´s coastline completely but then I heard that July/August were prime whale spotting months with whale sightings all but guaranteed. I fled the delights of the Andes and jumped on a couple of buses (one of which decided to play Predator vs. Alien at 1am) down to Puerto Lopez. That evening a tour was swiftly arranged and the next morning a very excited me sped down to the beach to catch my boat. In Puerto Lopez there is no harbour, or even a dock. Instead there is an end of the beach were boats attempt to come in as possible to the shore and passengers wade through oily waters to reach their boats. Boats for dragging gringos out to sea were far outnumbered by fishing boats coming in with the mornings catch. As we waited for our boat we watched the hordes of Pelicans dive bombing weary fisherman as they hoisted crates of eels on to the beach and laid out their fishy wares.

The journey out to sea was uneventful save for a Spanish man continually vomiting. I, unusually, was spared this fate but perhaps only because I was so busy looking for whales. Eventually we heard and saw an enormous splash. It must have been a whale! Quickly a few of us scrambled up a rickety ladder, circumnavigating the pile of vomit, for unimpeded views of the whales. At first we would just see three fins breaks the water and see what looked like massive dolphins diving deep with a farewell flip of the tail.

The best shot I got.

And then, it was impossible to predict where, a whale would erupt out of the water, arching its back in an impressive display for our awe struck boat. After a while it seemed as if the whales were competing with each whale jumping further out of the water and closer to the boat ´til they couldn´t have been more than 20m away. I tried initially to get that money shot and almost succeeded until I realise that these beautiful creatures were better appreciated with my own tow eyes and not through the lens of a camera.

I see Boobies!

The highlight of the day behind us we headed to the island itself in search of the Galapagos's most famous bird, the Blue-Footed Boobie. To my delight I discovered that whilst the female boobie (stop sniggering) quacks the male makes a whistling/hissing sound exactly like the sound lecherous Latino men make to intimidate blonde gringas. We also saw the comical Red Frigate Bird the male of which has an enormous wobbly red breast which he waggles at the other birds in some sort of display of macho pride. The baby of this species are sometimes called Teddy Birds because their down is so fluffy that they actually appear bigger than the adults!

A few more birds later (Golden Albatrosses and Red-Footed Boobies) we headed back to the boat and wearily to shore. The waves were enormous and it felt at times like we were on a roller coaster. Sea sickness began to set so I though I´d prove my claim that I can sleep literally anywhere. I dozed bolt upright whilst everyone turned green around me and was non too pleased when our guide woke me up to check if I was okay! However soon the shore was in sight and I was quickly cheered by the thought of the unbelievably fresh plate of calamari that awaited me.

Existential Question Time in Tatacoa Desert

When travellers get together there are a few things they inevitably end up talking about.
First there is the expected ´where are you going? / where have you been? / where are you from?´ - a boring necessity.
Second there´s the ´did you transit Miami´ discussion which usually involves recounting all know USA border nightmares.
And third there´s the ´what do you miss about home?´. For Brits the list is usually a roast, Marmite and proper chocolate. For me, it´s duvets.
So imagine my delight when we arrived in San Agustin to discover our room had a duvet. A beautifully warm, soft, perfect example of a duvet. For four nights it was bliss, but then we had to move on. Well obviously I couldn´t go straight back to being cold at night. I need to be let down gently so, en route to Bogota, we thought we´d stop in the desert.


As you do.

El Labaryinth

El Desierto de Tatacoa is a somewhat surreal place. For one thing you just don´t expect a desert to be there. The jumping off point for Tatacoa is a leafy, green town called Villavieja. The only thing about its typical plaza that hints of anything unusual is the statue of a giant prehistoric sloth replacing the usual one of Simon Bolivar. But a quick mototaxi ride takes you into the Sloth´s old stomping ground, now turned to desert. Tatacoa is not a sandy desert a la the Sahara but looks more, I imagine, like Arizona (the boyfriend who watches a lot of golf confirms this). There are two sections, the more impressive and smaller red part and the larger, sparser grey part.


Our surreal few days began when our taxi driver dropped us at the Observatory where we were greeted by Xavier, the Astronomer, like old friends. Jokes were made about him joining us in the tent before we wandered out to a small hill which was to be our bed for the night. Xavier enthusiastically started tackling the tent whilst Mike and I stood looking bewildered, not sure how to help. Suddenly the two police officers who had been leaning against the observatory watching thought they would join in. Soon the age old question ´how many people does it take to put up a tent´ was answered... two gringos, two policemen and an astronomer.

With our bed for the night all ready we set off to explore the part of the red section known as ´El Labaryinth´ - the name turned out to be pretty apt. Thinking we were sticking to the main path through the towering rock formations getting back shouldn't have been a problem. Except it was. Turns out most cacti look the same and one rock dune is much the same as another. We eventually made it back before dark fell but only just and only after a somewhat unorthodox clamber back to the mirardor.


Evening activities were limited to lying in our tent, with the flap open, gazing at the stars and pondering the mysteries of the universe. The next day we awoke early in order to complete a 16km hike before the midday sun. There is just one road the runs through and in to the desert making getting lost fairly difficult even for us. Our hike took us through cacti fields, across rugged bolder strewn landscapes and across cracked, red earth - all without leaving the road.

The grey part

As strange as the the landscape was the Colombians themselves decided to provide us with far odder sights. On our way in to the desert I had giggled at the sight of two people, on a motorbike, leading a horse. But Tatacoa added to this with three people on a motorbike with a lamb and then two people on a motorbike with a calf. Why and where the lamb and calf were headed I have no idea but I hope they enjoyed the 50kmph ride.


After one more disgustingly hot attempt at El Labyrinth we headed back to Villavieja and on to Neiva. To the Boyfriend´s disgust he was, as usual, shunted in to the back of the camionetta (a jeep taxi) whilst I got the warm inside. However when we set down in Neiva a lopsided smile assured me all was well. ´I have been speaking the universal language of banter´ he cryptically declared before revealing he had been swigging aguardiente  with the locals whilst I had been making polite conversation with the driver.


Typical.

Two Days of Solitude

The Lonely Planet has a habit, where Colombia's concerned, to describe anything a bit otherworldly, a bit off track, as being straight out of a Gabriel García Márquez novel. After a while it leaves you slightly infuriated; 'well yes' you think, 'the place where he lived and wrote obviously bears some resemblance to the world of his books.' It's a bit like going to Edinburgh and exclaiming (as I have)over the castle's similarity to Hogwarts.

Now I have no idea if García Márquez has ever been to San Cipriano, a minuscule, ramshackle village, deep in the pacific jungle, but the place is, undeniably, like something out of a storybook.

San Cipriano is home to roughly 300 Colombians mostly descended from African slaves brought to the area to work on the banana plantations. It's proximity to a crystal clear river peppered with idea swimming spots has made it a popular weekend retreat for Calianos but where it all gets a bit odd is the fact that in San Cipriano there are no cars.And there are no cars because there are no roads. Well there is a street, in the sense that there's an unobstructed passage land between the houses, but once the houses end so does the street leaving only a thin, muddy path that winds itself deeper in to the jungle.

'If there's no road' you're probably thinking 'how did you manage to get there?' Obviously if stepping in to Colombia where actually like stepping into One Hundred Years of Solitude we would have levitated there, or rode in on the back of a friendly Jaguar, but it isn't and we didn't. Instead we sat on a flat wooden cart attached to a motorbike (complete with a picture of a scantily clad woman on the seat) and using some physics far beyond my paltry GCSE we were propelled along a disused railway track through the jungle to the T-junction of corrugated iron that is San Cipriano.

The whole journey, which takes about an hour, is a wryly comedic one. For a start only the motorbike's back wheel rotates giving the driver the appearance of being bizarrely motionless and not too dissimilar to a child on a motorbike ride outside a supermarket. Then, because there is only a single track, you will occasionally meet a similar cart coming in the opposite direction. Protocol dictates that each driver switches of his engine, sits back and along with his passengers stares at the cart opposite. For a few minutes nobody speaks before one driver (it always seemed to be us) throws up his hands, climbs off his bike, pulls off the two dazed gringos and their enormous backpacks, before lifting the cart, bike and all, clean off the tracks. The winning driver then trundles past, smug looks from his still sedentary passengers, before bags, cart and people are all thrown back on the tracks and the journey continues.

It is the journey that makes San Cipriano such an alluring destination but the village itself is delightful enough. It is unlike anywhere else in Colombia I have, or will visit, devoid of the usual town square filled with impossibly old men, fruit sellers and a statue of Simon Bolivar. Instead it is just two 'roads', a few kids playing 'three and in' on a bedraggled football pitch and an excellent rope swing swaying above a particularly deep and secluded section of river. For two days it was bliss, before rice, beans, fish and plantain three times a day became a bit too much and jumping back on the H.M.S Bikini Babe we headed back to hot,dusty and boringly modern Cali.

A Lost City Found and a Maternal Revelation.

My Father (who thinks he's a funny man) spent my childhood following my Mother around Europe's various Greek and Roman ruins deriding their 'half-built' state and questioning why we kept taking him to 'buildng sites'. This coupled with a particularly hot traipse around The Valley of the Tombs in Cyprus when I was twelve left me with a deep seated conviction that as an adult I would not 'do' ruins.

However, since I left for Latin America, I have, in fact, become my Mother. I now own a fleece, have enjoyed a rainy hike in Boquete, Panama, and never miss an opportunity to use the loo. So it is no surprise then that last week I signed up for a five day trek to the Cuidad Perdida of Teyuna deep in the Colombia jungle.

Three days hiking to some rubble and the back again all whilst sleeping in hammocks - my Mum's idea of Heaven, my Dad's of Hell.

The hike turned out to be possibly the highlight of my trip so far. Yes it was hard but not overwhelmingly so and we had two brilliant guides, Jesus and Gabriel (so we knew we were in good hands), who were constantly on hand to slice up watermelon and oranges for the weary. Carlos, our translator, knew where all the best, and safest, parts of the river to swim in were and would suggest a dip just as you were thinking 'I'm getting a bit hot'.

The one with the two waterfalls

Over the five days I became quite a connoisseur of these spots weighing up the pros and cons of  'the one with the two waterfalls' versus 'the one with the big rock you could jump off'. My favourite place was 'the one with the really fast current'. There existed in our group a French guy, named Jean, who had a penchant for almost getting swept over rapids. At the spot in question he and a Dane named Rasmus (a common name in Denmark it would seem; his mate was also called Rasmus) finally got dragged down stream. Frantic cries from Gabriel instructed the two to swim with it and to the opposite bank. They then walked upstream and dived back in, across the current, back to cheering group. Well after that we all wanted a go and one by one we swam down the current, off to the side, walked upstream and dived back to safety. 

Lost City Found.

The ruins themselves, although not the trek's highlight, were impressive enough. Two hundred stone terraces soaring above the jungle where the Kogi Indians (who still inhabit the jungle) used to dwell until the Spanish arrived with their European diseases and the city was left to the infected. To my delight at the very top of Teyuna we found six army personal guarding the site from gold diggers, guerrillas and clumsy gringos alike. I may be turning in to my Mother but I am still a Cowley girl and naturally I had to have a picture with the soldiers, wearing one of their hats. The resulting photo definitely trumps my sisters' usual Notting Hill Carnival London Bobby efforts.

So after five days of only washing in streams and having run out of clean socks and t-shirts it was time to return to modern Colombia. In no time we had exchanged the lush idyll of the jungle for the laughably bureaucratic traffic police who impounded our jeep not because it contained twelve people instead of seven, or because the engine and petrol tank were connected by a rubber tube running through the passenger cabin, but because our diver didn't have the correct piece of paper. Civilisation Indeed.

Drink up, me 'earties, Yo Ho.

They say half the fun is getting there and whoever ´they´are they might have been referring to the border between Panama and Colombia. There exists, in the Americas, an optimistic road called the Pan American Highway. The romance being that you can drive all the way from Canada to Argentina on one, nicely paved, road.

And it would do if it weren´t for the Darién Gap.

100km of dense jungle filled to the teeth with bandits, guerrillas and other people who might want to kill or kidnap you. The Darién presents an interesting choice for the pan American traveller...

Do you      a) Fly (boring)

                 b) Do an awkward but cheap mix of flights, boats and buses

          or    c) Sail there

Despite a long family history of sea sickness (my grandfather a WW1 pilot reportedly couldn´t even fly over water without turning green) I plumped for ´c´ and signed myself up for five days onboard a 40ft yacht named ´Impetus´ sailing first through the stunning San Blas archipelago and then across the sea to Colombia´s colonial jewel, Cartagena.

The San Blas Islands number somewhere (it depends who you´re talking to) between the neat 365 to 400 + tiny islands, most sporting little more than a few palm trees, a white sandy beach and an appealing strip of coral reef. A few are home to the island´s autonomous, indigenous people the Kuna Yale. On our first day we hadn´t been on the yacht for more than thirty minutes when two Kuna men appeared in a dugout canoe with ten live lobsters milling about their feet. Bargaining between them and our First Mate ensued and five minutes later we had purchased seven lobsters (one each!) for $20. The second night the event was repeated with enormous red snapper replacing the lobster´s role. Thankfully both our Aussie First Mate and Norwegian Captain were excellent cooks and did the unbelievably fresh food justice.

Dinner!

The first three days were spent cruising between the islands and diving off the boat. Our Captain took us to an amazingly wrecked wreck just a few meters below the water line where we could snorkel amongst the tens of tropical fish and bright corals. Foolishly I indulged in a bit of free diving down to the cabins and swam away with two painful stings on my elbows.

On our first night, between mugs of rum someone noticed a spotted eagle ray gliding past the boat and only a few inches deep. We all rushed over to the side and spent the next half hour watching the graceful creature and its companion ripple around the pool of light our boat created. Having not bee lucky enough to see one when diving in Utila this definitely made up for it!

However after three days of bliss it was time to set sail and we awoke on the fourth day to see the palmed islands slipping out of sight. For a while all we could see were the jagged, forested peaks of the prepossessing Darién before they too disappeared leaving us alone at sea.

Dinner!

Then the sea sickness set in. Clearly my grandfather is alive and well in my veins as I spent most of day four lying on my back listening to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, then Down and Out in Paris and in London and finally before sleep claimed me most of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. However the next morning the seas had died down and I managed to force down a few spoonfuls of oatmeal, enough to provide a base for the mariners secret weapon; seasickness tablets.

I spent day five feeling like superwoman able to stumble about the boat, sit down, stand up and eat at whim. Amazing stuff! The elation didn´t even subside as night fell because sitting on the deck admiring the bio-phosphorescence around the boat I heard a splash. A loud splash, too loud to be the tuna who had been flinging themselves out of the water all day. Looking down I saw a phosphorescent trail loop under the boat and then out of the water arched two dolphins. The rest of the crew were summoned and we spent our last waking hours on the boat being guided towards the glow of Cartagena by the sparkling dolphins and their ghostly leaping shadows.

The next morning we had arrived in Cartagena and all that remained to be done was to find our land legs and, like the true pirates we had become, hit the rum.

Up Creek and Paddling



Chicken bus heaven

A feature of Central America, that initially causes amusement and the swiftly becomes everyday, is the use of decommissioned US school buses as a primary means of transport. The Chicken bus, so called either because you're packed in like battery farmed chickens or because you're more than likely to be accompanied by a few. feature more often in the life of a traveler than rice and beans.

But eventually you do tire of the posters of the Virgin Mary, the written exclamations 'Jesus es el Señor' and the old ladies who cackling hand you a mango as you alight. So Rachel and I, in the last week have entirely swapped buses in favour of boats. It started with a quick one hour hop over to Isla de Ometepe- a twin volcanoed island in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua. After climbing a volcano and relaxing in a hacienda entirely staffed by flirting fifteen year olds we set off in search of the holy grail. A town that could only be reached by boat, El Castillo on the 'mighty' Rio San Juan!

It says something about a place when the easiest way to get there is by a twelve hour boat across an eerie, misty lake followed by a three hour (one and a half express) lancha up the river. However finally, after zig zagging across the river to pick up and drop off all of Nicaragua, you reach a bend and there stands El Castillo. One road lined with wooden stilt houses nestled in verdant rain forest and perched above it all the crumbling fort that gives the town its name.

 So enamored by boats have we become that our tearful goodbye to Nicaragua could only be conducted by boat. Stamping out in San Carlos we glided down the nomansland of the Rio Frio before stamping in at Los Chiles, Costa Rica and much to our consternation... getting on a bus.

Captain Jack Sparrow hell

You realise you've gone a bit off track when the toothless old man who runs your hotel apologises that there's no running water upstairs but if we need to brush our teeth there's plenty downstairs (and gestures to the river), but tiny, sleepy El Castillo does get its fair share of visitors. Principally for acting like and imagined town out of Pirate story.



El Castillo de la Inmaculada Concepciòn de Maria (the fort) was originally built by the Spanish as a river block (it overlooks a set of fairly nasty rapids) to catch pirates as they snuck up and down from the Caribbean to the wealthy city of Granada who would otherwise be carting off the gold they themselves were carting back to Queen Isabel in Spain. At some point we, the British, got in on the act, took the castle and started making it difficult for both the Spanish and the Pirates.



The entire town.



History dispensed with by the morning we chose to sample El Castillo's other delight, kayaking. After tackling the rapids that make El Castillo so strategic (an experience complicated by the drybag of cameras clipped to Rachel's chest) we enjoed a peacful paddle through the Rio San Juan's tributaries and waterways. The air punctuated by unknown birds, unseen monkeys and the ocassional river turtle fleeing from our amateur splashing we seemed a world and an age away from dusty Leon and chi-chi Granada.





Sandinistas and the Pig Witch - an unlikely couple.

I have always had reservations about visiting somewhere like Auschwitz. I worry that the solemnity of the place would fail to impact properly on me and I´d find myself thinking about what I was going to have for lunch. For things like that I´ve always preferred to stick to the history books over real life.

Depictions of torture on the side of La Veinte Uno

Bit, if there´s one thing they know how to do in Central America it´s an atmospheric museum. In San Salvador we visited the house of Archbishop Oscar Romero whose assassination (along with six Jesuit priests, the housekeep and her daughter) is credited with kicking off the El Salvadoran Civil War. The clothes that the nine had been wearing that night, still bloodstained and ruptured by bullets were hung in the museum, invisible man style for the full effect.

If that disturbed our English sensibilities that we were totally unprepared for the Museo de Leyenda y Tradiciones General Joaquin de Arrechada Antigua Carcel de la Veinte Uno. Technically it is the National Guard's 21st garrison which until 1979 held and brutally tortured an assortment of political prisoners, freedom fighters and lunatics. I was expecting akin to Stasi Prison with its chillingly stark rooms that barely suggested what took place within them.I'd forgotten I was in Central America. Interestingly in the few rooms of La Veinte Uno the white walls were covered in simple black drawings depicting the set up of each room and the activities the prisoners might have been engaged in. Outside, the garisson's walls were further drawings of the methods of torture used on the prisoners.

So far, so affecting and quite a moving tribute to the inmates. However the rooms were far from empty. In some bizarre attempt to remind visitor's of Nicaragua's rich cultural history, as well as its violent one, they had set up life sized plastic models of characters from Nicaraguan fairy-tales. And so began our tour round possibly the weirdest museum I have ever visited. We learnt, in the same breath, about the horrors inflicted on prisoners and also about the Pig-witch, a pig with the head of a woman who runs about robbing people.

In fairness to this strange museum the cast of Nicaraguan fairytales are an interesting lot but it does detract slightly when you walk in to a cell and come face to face with Toma tu Teta.

Toma tu Teta (Grab the tit)

Eyeballing her enormous nipples scared me more than any hauntingly bare room ever could. Toma tu Teta is a character who due to her massive breasts and manish arms is unable to get a man. Instead she runs around town, chasing unsuspecting men and ordering them to 'toma tu teta' (grab the tit) whereupon she will force them to suckle until she is satisfied and runs off!

My other favourite character was el Duende. Anyone who's her studied the Andalucian poet Garcia-Lorca will understand el Duende to be the dark, momento-mori of inspiration that is necessary in the creation of great art.

El Duende - inspiration or gnome?


To the Nicaraguan's he is a gnome. A gnome who steals away unbaptised babies at that. I could only smile as I remembered my Spanish professors warning that understanding Lorca could only be achieved through an understanding of el Duende. A gnome.

So after our confusing experience at the museum we fled from lefty, Sandinista Leon. Leaving behind its political murals and chaotic streets we exchanged it for conservative Granada where our liberal souls have been ashamedly soothed by its pastel painted order, where the museums focus on the pre-Columbian and gloss over all that nasty business with Sandino and the company, in Leon at least, he keeps.

Sad times in 'Sleepy' Suchitoto.

This post was going to be about the sleepy El Salvadorian village of Suchitoto. It was going to extol the place's colonial charm, it's white washed building and their red tiled roofs. It was going to wax lyrical about pupusas, the latest in a long line of food stuffs that involve tortilla, and it was going to say that Suchitoto is the perfect place to chill out for a few days.

Then we decided to walk to the waterfall.

Yes that's right, after surviving a night in San Pedro Sula (Central America's murder capital) it was in tiny Suchitoto that Rachel and I had a gun pointed at our heads and our bags emptied.

In the role play section of my GCSE Spanish oral I had to pretend to have been robbed so I am blaming the entire incident on my Spanish teacher Senora Costello, it was her who taught me the word 'testigo', clearly equipping me for this event in my future.

This picture come courtesy of Rachel who didn't get her camera stolen

I actually didn't have to use my muddled Spanish. Rachel whose fluency makes her the best travel buddy ever hastily described what happened whilst I attempted to chip in and just generally make a nuisance of my self. As amazing as her Spanish is Rachel is not clued up on her gun lingo. After repeatedly describing the weapon as a pistola the policeman asked us to draw it and then glancing at our attempts (Ms Lewis, my art teacher never prepared me for this) sighed and corrected us. 'Un revólver'. This was followed by a surreal moment in the police station where everyone was getting their guns out for our comparison and drawing their own version of what we attempting to describe.

The report finished and our contact details left (they even asked us for our facebook, not the most official of channels) we were done. Our entire foray in to violent crime lasted about two hours and left us both with a deep sense of annoyance. It is just one of those things and Suchitoto is genuinely a great place to visit. It was only after our mishap that we learnt you could get the tourist police to walk you down to the falls and avoid such unfortunate incidents.

But, as my father said when I called him to break the news 'you live and learn' and I guess we will.

Getting Muddy in the Mangroves





The great thing about volunteering at the Iguana Station is that you get to see a side of the island your average visitor doesn't venture to.



Mr Osgood and his well behaved dog Popali.



Every Monday, at our weekly meeting, there's usually a great clamour to sign up for a trip and more specifically to go out with one person, Mr Osgood.



Osgood (the Mr is a Caribbean sign of respect) is a reformed Iguana hunter and former chief of police for the island (presumably at the same time). A living legend, he lives next door to the station with his mad German wife Elke. Occasionally when we're chilling on the balcony across the darkness will float Mr Osgood's cry of 'Sammy I hear you' or 'Sammy, what you do?'.



So Once a week Osgood leads a few excitable volunteers through the mangrove swamps of Rock Harbour and over the petrified coal of Iron Bound on an iguana hunt. Except only Osgood, with his hunter's eyes, is any good at spotting them so the rest of us pretend to be looking for knees and elbows (supposedly how you find them) whilst he gets out his fishing rod, bootlace attached, and wrestles a vicious pregnant female from her tree.

Washing our boots at Rock Harbour





Rock Harbour on the northern side is Mr Osgood's favourite hunting spot, and ours too since he will usually leave us to swim on the rarely visited beach whilst he runs off to catch a few more iguanas. Getting there also involves a 100m wade across the lagoon, made more difficult by the station's un-official dog, Beauty, who gets tired halfway across, tries to turn around and ends up getting carried the last 50m.



Guess which foot I lost to the mud?





I reckon the reason why we love going out with Osgood, apart from his hilarious stories and dire warnings that I will die on the mainland, is that he lets you feel like you're ten years old again. Squelching though muddy bogs, jumping from precarious mangrove root to precarious mangrove root, losing a foot or two in the stinking mud, it's like everything your Mother told you not to do.

We return with pillowcases of iguanas, caked in mud and after all that adventure, in need of a nap!





Yo no quiero agua, Yo quiero bebida

How an Iguana celebrates Easter.

If you're a backpacker and you happen to be on the isthmus during Semana Santa (Easter) you'll probably make a beeline for the solemn, purple robed processions of Antigua, at the very least you'll probably head to the nearest village with a pretty catholic church and join in with their festivities.

If you're Honduran however you'll probably head to Utila, and if you're a backpacker who just so happens to be stuck on the island for a month you're probably going to have to join in.
So this week past my fellow iguana people and I experienced Semana Santa the young, middle class, Honduran way. Overnight it seemed the island's population had trebled in size and the usually peaceful dynamic between the Utilians and the divers was swamped by young Hondurans in tiny skirts and dresses and even tinier bikinis. Whoever said Honduras was a conservative country obviously never met any Hondurans.

Suddenly our usually tranquil Tranquilla Bar was full, the standard soundtrack of last year's hits were thrown out in favour of the Honduran Top 40 and instead of my mad Belgian Diving Instructor dancing like a lunatic to Rihanna we had cool, self possessed Honduran couples dancing the Salsa to anything with the right beat or wildly chanting their battle cry 'Yo no quiero agua, yo quiero bebida'.

In the queue for the loo, instead of chatting to Aussies and Canadians I was having discussions with boys from Tela about Honduras's best beaches. For one week Utila didn't feel like a solitary outpost in the Caribbean but the very heart of Honduras.

And then over the weekend they all went home, back to their processions and six hour church services, leaving Utila shell shocked and eerily silent.


Idyllic Water Caye



After all these people the residents of the Iguana station decided we all needed some peace and quiet and luckily Utila was willing to provide. Early Sunday morning we jumped in to the good ship 'Lady Fanny' with our captain Bobby and set sail for Water Caye.

Off the Southwest coast of Utila, still in sight of the mainland, are a collection of tiny islands known as The Cayes. Only one is properly inhabited, boasting on its tiny strip of land a dive school, cafe's, plenty of houses and even a school. However we motored past Pigeon Caye to our own private island, Water Caye.

Shut your eyes, imagine a desert island and you've pictured Water Caye. Ridiculously pretty we spent the day snorkeling in the shallows, watching the Caye's resident pelicans fish, swimming in crystal clear waters and flopping down, shaded by palm trees, exhausted by the sheer cliché of it all.

An Easter barbecue was all we need to round off a not very Holy but uniquely Utilian Holy Week.

Darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me...

Shortly after anyone arrives at the Iguana station, once the where are you froms and where have you beens are out of the way, the next question is inevitably, 'Are you going to dive?' Followed by 'When?' and 'Who with?'.

You see whilst we all pretend to make the nauseous boat ride over (they actually hand out sick bags when you get on) for the sake of the iguanas, the islands biggest draw is its diving.
Slap bang in the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef Utila is supposedly the cheapest place in the world to do your PADI courses and you get to see some pretty awesome fish at the same time.

So it was on Friday that myself and three other 'iguana people' donned out wetsuits and prepared for the Open Water.

Except they don't let you dive in just like that.

First we had to sit through three and a half hours of possibly the world's cheesiest instruction video, followed by a cold afternoon in the pool, followed by a second cold afternoon in the shallows off the dock.

But finally on Sunday we suited up, jumped in the boat and then jumped off it again. I'll spare you rhapsodical descriptions of the underwater world but suffice to say it's pretty cool. Even when you're not seeing much in terms of fish (barracudas, angel fish, spotted drum fish etc.) the coral formations are enough to keep you open jawed. My favourite site was one nicknamed 'The Labyrinth' which looks somewhat like an underwater canyon with several swimthroughs and tight valleys which required our newly acquired and excellent buoyancy control. When all you can see for 360 degrees is fish and coral it's hard to think anything other than the hackneyed 'awesome'.

If anyone's heading out to Utila at anytime I can't recommend my dive schhool Bay Islands College of Diving, not only the cheapest place on the island but one of the most professional and bang next door to the hyperbaric chamber. My instructor Nick was everything you need when you're descending 18m in to the deep blue sea, meticulous, reassuring and Belgian.

The advanced course is next so stay tuned for tales of night dives, wreck dives and being 'drunk' underwater.

Rice and Peas - The Island of Utila

Apologies for not having written since I arrived but two planes, an intolerable five hour layover, a bus and a boat later I arrived on the Honduran island of Utila.

Utila is a bizarre place. Years of being a stop off for pirates and smugglers has left the island with a culture quite unlike the Honduran mainlanders. The ethic mix of the island is diverse. There are the white utilans decended from Pirates who have strong Caribbean (rice and peas) accents. Then there are the black and hispanic utilans with the same strong accents. Then there are the most recent arrivals, honduran mainlanders who get accused of everything from stealing schools' computers to eating all the fish and all the iguanas.

It's the iguanas I am here to protect. Despite not knowing anything about the reptiles before I left I have become quite knowledgeable about the 'Swamper' Utila's endemic species of Iguana. For instance did you know iguanas have two penises? Or that, like a shark, once they bite in to something (a nice squishy finger) their jaws won't release until they want them to!

Current estimates have it that there are 10,000 swampers on the island but the people I'm working with would put it closer to 3,000 which is why this last week has been a haze of iguana feeding, catching and cage building with the odd sunbathe on the beach and the occasional beach party.

Life on a Caribbean island is good.

Apologies that are no photos, they will follow shortly

Welcome- getting ready.

If I'm this excited playing crazy golf imagine
what will happen when I see my first llama.

So welcome to my very first blog post on my very first blog.

Yes I too have decided to clutter up cyber-space with my own mis-spelled ramblings and opinions.

Why?

Well I'm about to head off to Latin America (first stop Honduras) for six months and that's a little more interesting to write about than getting delayed on the tube or walking my dog on the common.

I've spent the last few months spying on other people's travel blogs, people who are travelling further and for longer than I'm able to. I've found their advice invaluable but have also kept my excitement kindled during the long gap between flight booking and departure date. I can only hope to live up to the likes of Bacon is Magic and Never Ending Voyage but I'm going to put my best foot forward, jump on the road and try.