From Darkest Peru

We caught a bus south in order to escape the sprawl of Quito and get to a turn off for a pretty volcanic lake we were planning to visit.  Unfortunately, one of the down-sides of getting up at six am is being pretty tired and we missed the city we were suppossed to get off at.  Having avoided paying more for our mistake, we made the decision to keep pushing south towards Cuenca (in classic colonial spanish style the city's full name is ridiculously long: Santa Ana de los cuatro rios de Cuenca).  The mountains were beautiful as always, and with the good hitching here we reached the city that very night.

Carnaval was still on-going and it was fun to see foam and water flying everywhere.  However, it made hitching a risky prospect and at least once J got a face full of foam from a passing vehicle.  Another consequence of the festivities was that nearly everything in Cuenca was shut on the day we arrived.  And we mean everything.  This wasn't so terrible as we the city is very pretty and it is enjoyable just to wander through the old centre.  Not holding out much hope we strolled through town towards the Museum of the Central Bank, which was next to some Inca ruins.

It was surprisingly open.  Numerous toursits were drifting towards it suspiciously, exclaiming to find it both open and free.  There were numerous exhibits on the Pre-Columbian society that lived there, conquered in the late 15th century by the expanding Inca empire, where it became Tomebamba, the most important city in the northern empire.  Next to the museum, the ruins of the military/administrative hub of the city, called Pumapungo still remain.

We were informed that the usual archeological series of small walls were once barracks, homes for the sacred virgins, canals and religious baths and a foundry.  It was very interesting and a really nice peaceful place to come for picnics or reading since it was free access so we were pleased.

Having failed to get the the National Park we had meant to go to, we heard of a petrified forest to the south-west and made the decision to go there to get our camping and forest-wandering fix.  Again, we underestimated how easy it is to hitch-hike in Ecuador and we made it in a day's beautiful hitching in mountains and through dairy farms

We crossed a beautiful but somewhat dangerous mountain road past a valley that is being converted into a hydro-electric dam followed by mile after mile of banana plantations in the province named 'El Oro' after the fruit, reaching the park as firefly illuminated night fell.

There was a very large pavilion for maybe as many as a hundred people to eat, and inside large meeting rooms we could see rows of shiny mountain bikes, presumably for hire.  However in all this they forgot to provide space for people to actually camp.  We set up in the eating area, which we were grateful for when a tropical rainstorm lashed onto the roof for much of the night (and thankfully brought the temperature down a bit with it).

Armed with our ever present tin of pulses/beans and some cheap fresh local cheese (the cheese in Ecuador is both tasty and cheap.  It was explained to us by a lift from Colombia who worked in dairy products that while Colombia had been conned by free trade agreements and much of its dairy products were from the U.S.'s leftovers, Ecuador imported barely any dairy and had a strong and plentiful local industry), we set off into the forest picnicing.  As well as the 100 million year old fossils, many of which still had bark or rings visible, the site is in a very current rainforest as well and we enjoyed the abundant life as much as the fossils:

At this point we were a bit concerned that we were moving too quickly and would reach our next planned destination (Trujillo, Peru) days before we asked Couchsurfs, and indeed before any had replied at all!  This rapid pace was arrested somewhat the next day due to border faff.  The hitching remained as good as ever and we watched the landscape become increasingly arid and desert-like from the cabs of several trucks as we made our way to the Peruvian border at Alamor.  Here we found the 'border control' to be the porch of some man's house, the only indication it was a border control being his posession of a ink pad and stamp.

However, he was the Peruvian border guard and we found ourselves once again needing to officially exit a country before we could be allowed into the next one.  A backward glance across the blasted desert showed a distinct lack of an Ecuador border and we were told we need to back to the nearest town Zapotillo.  When we arrived back there however, we discovered that the border police in this town didn't have the authority (or possibly skill?) to wield a rubber stamp and that we had to go another couple of hours to the town of Macara in order to be allowed to leave.  This was pretty frustrating, but the aforementioned great hitching here made it doable and we did reach the correct town and settled in for the night.

The next day we crossed into Peru, back on the Panamerican where we belong and headed south.  We got away from the border in a collectivo since they made up over half the traffic there.  We've done this at quite a few borders, however this "collectivo" was only a normal estate car.  Refusing to accept the limitations of this, the driver managed to get seven other people and two live goats (plus baggage) in there in an immpressive defiance of physics.  The hitching here was as good as in Ecuador and we rarely waited more than 10 minutes.  This was a good thing as the land had turned into a fully fledged desert with dunes and vast, stunning vistas of nothing;

and the heat was punishing, so we were very glad that people were as friendly as they were as there was little in the way of shade to hide in.  One lift told us that the area in the picture flooded every year during the rainy season and so everything we could see was underwater a few months ago.  The further south we moved though, the scrub grew even thinner and the only thing breaking up the landscape was the occasional cement factory and ruined shacks.

When we arrived in Trujillo, we relished in the chance to do all kinds of luxurious things like lie on a bed and shower.  We also went for a wander to eat.  On the recommendation of a fellow Couchsurf who has been in Peru for a few months, we went to get some ceviche.  It was a huge helping (we shared one) of fresh scallops, crab, mussels, octopus and a lot of some delicious fleshy fish with yuca, something like yuca, all covered in a sharp lime sauce.  It was amazing and at the risk of this becoming a food blog, we've also been enjoying some other Peruvian food in the last couple of days.  Chica morada is a drink made from purple corn and with the cloves and cinnamon tasted for us like Christmas.  Cheap and easily wowed as we are, we have also been enjoying lots of fried corn that gets handed out as a side/appetiser often with garlic/lime sauce.

We're going to be here for a couple of days exploring before we move south.  There are nice fruit and veg markets here.  Peru grows everything from dozens of types of potatoes, to tropical fruits, to olives, so there is plenty options for us to munch on over the next few days.

Also, for those who didn't get the joke in the title- what were you doing with your childhoods?!

Good Browsers

We hitched and bussed our way across the mountains to just south of Popayán by the time it got dark.  We met someone else hitch-hiking and the three of us asked a family who had watched us unsuccessfully hitch for over an hour if we could sleep on their porch, to which they said yes.  Furthermore, they were having a birthday party for a five year old, and we received food and cake in return for entertaining the kids by telling them the English pronounciation of Spanish names.  Then a surprising amount of photos with us were taken.  This came on top of someone asking us to pose with her for a photo earlier that day on our journey for reasons she couldn't explain.  But it was a fun evening and good antidote to us both feeling a bit tired out.

Early the next day, we caught a ride on the back of lorry trailer for six hours through mountains that ranged from near vertical farms, to jungle, to cacti-filled desert:

it was beautiful, though as you can see quite dusty on our rear perch.  It was a good day of hitching however and we got all the way to Ipiales on the Ecuadorean border.  Checking our emails we found an Couchsurf invitation from someone who has a english language school there in town to come stay with his family and help out with some classes for as long as we're in town.  It was a pleasant surprise and we spent a couple of days in town, running lessons, resting and C recovering from a slight tummy bug.  We went out to the nearby Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Slab:

The church is right in the middle if you peak closely, and we also went down to it:

which was very pretty (though surely there was plenty of easier places to place a church we thought), the altar was backed by the uncut rockface within the church, which we liked more than the frequent gold-covered gold theme.

While eating in a little fonda, we also got to see a Colombian soap-opera, which was as truely terrible and hammy as people say.  It's hard to tell if it was worse than those in Mexico, but it was close.  Every woman under 60 was unable to display emotions as she was Botxed and the male "actors" had clearly confused expressing emotions with having a big hat and/or moustache.  At no point did anyone have a normal conversation and there was pathetic music that went "bum bum buuum" at dramatic moments.  C found it hilarious.

While in Ipiales we also both did some English lesson type things with various age groups.  We were kind of thrown in there with little help/idea, which was OK since J teaches anyway and we both have some teaching english experience but it was a bit ad-hoc and they didn't know that we weren't intimidated or anything.  It was fine though and even filled some of the 'doing a project' craving we've both been feeling.

On Thursday we crossed over into Ecuador and went to check out the graveyard in the border town of Tulcan.  But not for Edgar Allen Poe type reasons (although C still has his "Goth boots"), but because it was filled with lots of topiary of many animals and indigenous imagery and characters;

We travelled the rest of the way to Quito, but had a bit of a problem when our Couchsurf wasn't answering his phone to give us some directions.  Ok, we thought, there was a second Couchsurf who did give us directions, we'll just go to an Internet cafe and get them.  But we had reckoned without the insanely early closing time of nearly everything in Quito.  In the end J used a travel agent's computer for two minutes to get the info and we found the place.  There were a number of other Couchsurfers staying there as well, including some who had spent the last few months coming up from Chile and Argentina.  Although they had motorbikes, we shared similiar interests and budgets and thus were able to do a good info swap.  We even got a good map of Argentina, which will be the best (read only) map we've had since Mexico!

There are lots of excellent new fruit here as well and we've been enjoying cheap glasses of Taxo juice.  While searching for a exhibition of local artists we accidentally found the national history museum with lots of varied and interesting pottery, metalwork and manipulated skulls from various Pre-Colombian cultures in Ecuador.

On Friday we found an English language second hand bookstore, which usually lurk near hostels for other travellers like us who are as addicted to books as ever but not quite there with the Spanish to attempt grown up novels yet.  This one was a bit of a treasure trove and (J clutching an Isabel Allende, who she is in love with, novel tightly to her) we explored for what we thought was a reasonable amount of time.  The owner popped out and after only an hour or so returned and was heard (by C who was hidden in Science Fiction) having this conversation with the assistant-

"Did the Scottish girl buy anything then?"

"Oh, they're actually still here."

"Really?" Note of surprise.  "Hmm.  Good browsers."

Well, we try.

It is Carnival here, and although there is nothing as flamboyent as across the continent in Rio, we did come across many people doing different regional dances:

and many more people spraying everything that moved in foam.

Today we attempted to go to a "Carnival mask-making workshop" making masks out of recycled objects.  But when we got there we discovered everyone else either was, or was in the company of a, five year old.  It never occured to us that it would be a solely childrens activity...  The masks looked like paper and glitter affairs as well, and we made a hasty exit.

Tomorrow we're moving south, so this shall be our last post in the Northern Hemisphere.  On that note, one of the tourist attractions here is the "middle of the world" monument and line which countless people photograph themselves straddling (the line, not the monument).  The thing is, that this place is not in fact on the equator.  And if it is not actually on the equator, you may as well photo yourself standing astride a line drawn in the dirt of your own garden and not have to pay for the priviledge.  Anyway, if anyone wondered why we aren't there, there's your explanation.       

Art new and old

We arrived in Bogotá safely, having had a very nice lift with an electronic engineer who had just taken over his grandfather's small farm and was full of really interesting chat.  We also got to try lots more Colombian food like, a chilled oatmeal yoghurt drink called avena fria, delicious broth-like soups and Aguapanela, a hot sugar drink which did indeed come with a lump of cheese to go in it.  We got into the city, eventually got to our host's and promptly fell asleep.

The proper exploration of the city began on Monday.  Unfortunately, Monday is the day most of the museums are closed.  We did manage to get into the Donacion Botero, a large collection of works by and belonging to the artist whose sculptures we found in Medellin.  We quite liked them, the majority being big, chunky, lively figures like this version of the Mona Lisa after a few more empañadas

With much of the museums we had come to see shut, we just wandered around enjoying the city, both the old centre and some of the newer parts.  There was a lot more street art and graffiti than anywhere we've seen since Mexico and quite a few slogans and remains of paint-bombs on almost every government building.  Some of the street art was pretty impressive

We also had a really amazing lunch of Ajiaco, for surprisingly little money, given how stuffed we were at the end of it.

While there we explored a few areas of the city (though in a city of more than 8m people, it would take a lot longer to see it all), spent time in the Gold Museum, which has a large collection of Pre-Columbian metalwork and artifacts, and went out for drinks a couple of times with our host, who was a bastion of knowledge on Colombian Metal music.

It is our experience that there are an awful lot of police and army present all the time here.  We've been asked for documents a few times, just sitting in a park or on a bus.  And everywhere we've hitched there has been army and police checkpoints, staffed by teenage, bored-looking people, who sometimes just seem to require a thumbs-up to check everything is alright.

Though the distances aren't very large, the fact they cross over enormous mountains made hitch-hiking not the easiest we've had it.  And while we are enjoying Colombia in many ways, we have encountered some problems.  The hitching has also been complicated by people not being particularly keen to pick us up compared to parts of Central America.  People who have picked us up have explained that the recent history of the country explains this hesitancy, which we totally understand and can appreciate.  The far graver problem has been the lack of cheap beans in supermarkets.  Let us explain.  Ever since our first visit to Fred Meyer supermarket in Fairbanks, Alaska, tinned beans have been the mainstay of our hitching road food.  In Canada they came with maple syrup (whether you wanted them to or not), in the States it was tricky to find them without added bacon fat, in Mexico and Central America they switched to refried red or black beans, but all the way through we've pretty much been on a bean heavy diet.  Beans exist in Colombia, but not in any super-cheap and easy form.  We're experimenting with other tins, but it's just not quite the same.

We got some buses on Thursday to escape the urban sprawl of Bogotá and started hitching south.  Yesterday we arrived in San Agustín, via some amazing views of the Magdalena River, which runs almost the whole length of the country and featured heavily in some Gabriel Garcia Márquez books we read recently (we're somewhat underwhelmed by them to be honest, mostly about the concerns of old white men and their difficult bowels)

San Agustín is famous for its Pre-Columbian ruins and sculptures.  We found a nice camping site and today explored the biggest site in the area.

They're completely different to anything we saw in Central America.  This should be obvious, since we are thousands of miles away, but it can be easy to conflate everything called Pre-Columbian into one.  Very little seems to be known about the people who made these sculptures, you can tell because all the information pretty much describes what you can see in front of one, which is an archaeologist's way of not admitting they don't really know.  But they are still amazing to see and we can make up our own interpretations.

Someone who tried to sell us a guided tour did try to say that the statues show clear evidence of contact and cultural exchange with India and Egypt.  It's not that this is impossible and obviously we're not experts but, they didn't really.  The one supposed to be an elephant (only according to this one guide) could just as easily have been a javelina or ant-eater with added fangs (and they were big into fangs the sculptors were).  It just seemed to be one of these theories that tries to make history more "exciting" and that we came across in a few places in Mexico and probably will again in Peru.  It's never enough to appreciate what we're sure of and that ancient civilisations really did, we have to imbue them with magical powers, 21st century knowledge, and ideally have it all master-minded by a race of white people from Antarctica (true conspiracy theory).

Tomorrow we set off on a wiggly route to Ecuador, hopefully they have beans.

Medellin and Manizales

Our second day in Medellin, we went downtown and explored.  The main attraction in the centre is many statues by Fernando Botero, a Colombian artist, who claims to be the most Colombian there is.  Given that he doesn't live here anymore, we're not sure what Colombia thinks of that, but his work consists mostly of human and animal figures that look like the Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine and we rather liked them.  In the background is the striking Casa de la Cultura.

We have also been enjoying Colombian food.  Lots of juices with fruits we had never heard of, like lulo and tomatoes de los arboles.  Also, lots of shops which are half deep-fried parcels of things and small pies and half sticky cakes.  Being from Scotland, we feel at home, and are expecting to run into the Aberdeen advertising slogan for pies any second now.  There is even a Colombian only, vaguely nationalist orange soda.  Sound familiar?

We also rode the city's cablecars (and they didn't even break under the weight of all those empañadas), which is part of the metro system and a way locals actually use to get around as it is a very hilly city.  So these views came with a metro ticket.

Though there were strict warnings against any unsuitable behaviour.

Good job it said that, you never know when the urge to prance and/or bustle about is going to overcome you.

The next day, it was more cablecars out to Parque Arví, an eco-tourism park near the city.  It is really gorgeous and we were so high above the city in the cablecar that took us up there it was like being in an aeroplane looking down.  We wandered the park all afternoon;

and had lunch up here (where we were not supposed to be, shh);

but gave us views like this;

On the way back we met this chap (which the internet has been unable to help us identify);

We spent the next day chilling and watching another Colombian film, Los viajes del viento (which featured a surprising amount of accordian rap-battles) and eating chargrilled arepas.  On Thursday it was time to try our first hitch-hiking in South America.  We hadn't heard good reports about Colombia (that it was safe (especially in the west where we are), but could take a long time).  We certainly waited a while but still made it to Manizales in one day, so we shall see how things continue.

We are even higher in the mountains now and Manizales is a beautiful town, clinging to the steep slopes of several hills.  The town centre is very pretty and the statue in the main square asks the important cultural question "What if Simon Bolivar had been half-man, half-condor?!"

Yesterday we went for a walk out to a park, messed about and picnicked;

And today we hiked all the way into town and then up the 113m high cathedral tower, which gave some dizzying;

but stunning;

views.

This has been interspersed with munching plantains coated in local cheese and drinking lots of coffee, as we are right in the centre of Colombia's coffee region.  Tonight we are going to some local thermal springs as a reward for all the hilly hiking, and tomorrow we strike out for Bogotá.  Wish us luck.

Messing about in boats

Despite 'Wind in the Willows' being a childhood favourite of C's, we have to disagree with Ratty about the pleasures of boats.

Our nautical nonsense began with a visit to the Panama Canal.  This seems like the obvious place to go in Panama and we searched for other things in Panama City to see and visit, but basically it's all about the canal.  There's an exhibition centre and museum at one of the three locks.  We saw a cruise-ship coming through, which was pretty impressive, and some parts of the museum had interesting facts and scale models of crazy, steam-punk, Victorian machinery.  However, the overall experience is actually kind of ridiculous, turning one of the world's greatest engineering projects into a low-grade local aquarium level of entertainment.  There were several pointless exhibitions about whales, pictures of wildlife, and a lack of any actual, in-depth history of the Franco-American project and war against Colombia etc (the museum made it out that Panama woke up one day, decided to become independent and the U.S. just happened to show up around the same time with a canal plan).  What there WAS was a 3D movie.  It used all the power of 3D to make you really believe you were at the Panama Canal.  Which of course we were, but you can never be sure until you've seen it in 3D film with lots of needless pointing and birds flying into the audience.  It should be said that we actually enjoyed this experience greatly.  How could we not?  We were next to one of the most incredible feats of engineering ever known, a testament to the genius and hubris of the Industrial Revolution.  But it wouldn't be the pinnacle of Western civilisation without a 3D movie, the lamest and most kitsch invention since nodding dogs.  The juxtaposition of the two couldn't be a funnier microcosm of our culture.

Still giggling, the next day we struck out for Portobelo, which we had been told was the best place to start finding boats from Panama to Colombia.  The port did not seem to exist and the local gringo hostel advertising itself as "experts" on the subjects of boats and local captains just wanted to sell you a $500 island vacation/sailboat cruise.  We camped out for a couple of nights, trying to gather information and exploring the town, which had lots of pretty colonial/pirate era forts, which are now the haunts of vultures.

Also, as you can see, we had our own tour guide.  A small dog with ridiculous ears appeared during our first day and proceeded to hang out with us until we left.  She never begged for food, just curled up near us, slept outside our tent, followed us to the shop and back and generally made sure we were all in order.  She is probably recounting to fellow street-dogs about how she had to look after some helpless backpackers for a few days.

When we moved up the coast to Miramar, as we had heard that more boats left from there for San Blas, we wished we still had someone as organised as her.  Our first real piece of bad luck was that the seas were too high for anyone to go anywhere for three days.  We amused ourselves swimming in the Caribbean, eating very tasty seafood in the little restaurant we were camping outside and by the second day finding a couple of other confused tourists.  Boats were supposed to leave on Tuesday, but for one reason or another did not.  By Wednesday we had multiplied to a crew of nine and were able to get a small launcha boat to El Porvenir.  We got completely drenched on this journey of about two hours and one of our companions spent the entire time cackling maniacally behind us.  El Porvenir is the capital of the Guna Yala autonomous region, which covers a stretch of the Caribbean coast and many small islands.

We caught another short, much drier, boat to Carti, a main port in the area.  Our tempers were a little strained here to discover there is actually a road from Panama City direct to Carti which two people we met there had successfully hitch-hiked.  We would recommend this route to anyone else trying to make it to Colombia, as even though in Carti things are still very ad-hoc, there are a lot more boats.  While cooling our heels for another day we went swimming in the beautiful, clear blue waters.  A cargo boat would have been willing to take us down the coast for $100 each though this would have taken five days.  In the end a gang of eleven of us got another speedboat to Puerto Obaldia, where we could get stamped out of Panama and he would wait for us to take us to Carpurgana in Colombia.  Of course, the migration office in Puerto Obaldia had closed at 5pm sharp (we arrived at about half past) and there was one more night to wait there.  The next day, we only traveled the half an hour to Carpurgana as rough seas meant there were no boats for the final leg of our journey until the next morning, Saturday.  Because there was neither Internet, Western Union, nor ATMs at many of these places, we were running short of immediate funds, not to mention desperately needing a shower.  Finally we crossed the bay and made it to Turbo, not sorry to see the back of the Caribbean and seas in general for a while.

We had a Couchsurf arranged in Medellin, but the aforementioned financial faff delayed us getting a bus until six in the evening for what was supposed to be an eight hour journey.  It turned into a twelve hour one due to delays, and meanwhile the brutal air-conditioning had us shivering (bonus luxury we do not think).  We rocked up in Medellin this morning and seem to have fallen on our feet as our host is lovely.  We've been discovering some of the many Colombian baked goods, showering, sleeping and generally starting to feel a bit more human.  Tonight we also enjoyed a Colombian movie, Contracorriente, which we'd heartily recommend if anyone feels like a very beautiful film about love, responsibility, and Doing the Right Thing.

Thus restored, we've remembered to be excited that we are on a whole new continent and shall begin exploring tomorrow.

(Not so) Rapid Transit

We rented bicycles and set off to see where we could go and maybe find a quiet part of the lake.  Full of energy, the wind in our hair, J's bike broke after 5 mins of cycling.  We went back and swapped it for another bike.  We set off again, less cocky this time, but all was well and we cycled for a few hours around the island unable to see the volcano for the clouds or to find a route to the enormous lake that surrounded us.

After 45m of descent over a reproductive-ability damaging excuse for a road, we found a quiet strip of sand with a few little houses and numerous locals bathing and playing in the lake.  The water was as warm as the Pacific had been and we splashed and scrubbed and generally had a good time.  Of course by the time we cycled the twelve odd kilometres back we were sweaty again, but at least it was fresh sweat.  Since we've been in the tent lately we've been waking with the light at about 6am and often going to bed around 9pm since we lose the light at 6pm (and had failed to get new torch batteries).  Thus we were up and on a ferry back to mainland by seven for a full day's hitching into Costa Rica.  C had read about the very scary threat of a $28 tax on people leaving Costa Rica so we were prepared for the worst.

We got there fine, though we had to collect a form and pass a policeman through a gate to gain access to the immigration checkpoint.  Costa Rica were taking this 'having a border' business seriously indeed.  We were stamped out of Nicaragua (occasionally paying a dollar for seemingly random pieces of paper) and when coming in to Costa Rica we were asked how long we were planning to stay, where we were going next and for evidence of that (though not about yellow fever vaccinations which the internet had told us they would and the inoculation of which had led to C vomiting on a temple's grounds prior to leaving the UK (for which he remains very sorry)).  However, given that they accepted the printout for a flight leaving Beunos Aires on the 29th Oct 2012 with a hand scrawled note of "2nd June 13:00" as a valid itinary, seems to suggest it's still not nearly the Vogon hassle that the UK is. 

We actually managed to hitch from the border and were left at a crossroads with one route (the larger one) apparently taking a large coastal road towards Panama, the other being the Pan-American, that went by San Jose (the capital).  We decided that this was supposed to be a Pan-American journey (though sharp observers or those who know how to navigate Google Maps, will notice we've not been following it that strictly) and ... waited for a lift. 

The next day we got stuck in the urban sprawl of San Jose and Cartago and ended up walking about 8km with our backpacks.  It was like actual hiking or something.  We were eventually rescued by a very friendly cheese merchant who took us up into the moutains.  Which were surprisingly cold.  We shivered the night away, but in the morning very much enjoyed the Costa Rican equivalent of a road-side greasy spoon.  This consisted of a huge pile of gallo pinto, fried cheese, fried plantains, fried dead thing and strong coffee.  Thus heartened, we continued hitching.

Maybe we should take a brief interlude here to explain how we feel about Costa Rica.  Obviously it is great that it is relatively peaceful and prosperous for Central America.  The story of its development is interesting.  Although only a minority of places in the world can develop in this model (i.e. solely tourism) because the global economic system and global tourism industry rely on the existence of exploitation in other areas and gross inequalities in global wealth distribution, things that haven't existed in Costa Rica (natural resources to be seized or a large indigenous population to do all the work) helped to highlight the stories of other countries.  This does mean it is more expensive than everywhere else in Central America and Mexico (though the notes for colones are extremely pretty and colourful).  This is not great for us, also the tourist attractions are in national parks and beaches and we've done enough of both these things for our tastes for a while.

However, we will always habour a true resentment of the place for the simple reason that it is No Country For Hitch-Hikers.  OK, so we had been spoiled since coming south of the Rio Grande, hour-long waits were starting to seem almost unacceptable and we were getting too used to being in the back of a pick-up almost as soon as we put out our thumbs.  But Costa Rica gave us more consistently long waits than the U.S.A.  Meanwhile, the amount of insulting/baffling gestures and perplexed looks increased ten-fold.  It clearly just isn't the culture there, and in fact, pretty much everyone who picked us up was either not from Costa Rica or had lived in the U.S.A (mostly New Jersey for some reason).

But it really is as beautiful as everyone says.  We never saw the coast, but we went from flat plains, through rainforests and chilly mountains, to the world's largest crop of pineapples (which are not from trees at all, but a shrub/cactus like affair where the fruit sprouts out the middle).  Every half hour or so, we were in a different micro-climate.

Interlude ends.

The next ride we got took us across the cheeringly named Mountain of Death, which is the highest point on the whole Pan-American Highway (at 3,451m or 11,322ft).

Due to the speed of the hitch-hiking, we had to spend another night camping in Costa Rica and were rapidly running out of colones as we hadn't expected to be there for so long.  But we managed to make it to the border, thanks to some friendly Panamain truckers.  There we experienced about half an hour of panic/dread/depression as the customs official announced that the guys on the way in should have stamped us (though they did take our passports at two separate points they did not do this).  Without that, the customs man said he could not stamp us out.  We'd have to live here forever with a handful of colones and people giving us rude gestures from their large, spotless four wheel drives.

Luckily, the officials decided it was more trouble than it was worth (we had caught them right before their lunch-break) and stamped us out anyway (with no fee at all, hurray!).  So, we walked into Panama (making sure they stamped us in) and caught a bus as far as David (as it was cheap) to get away from the border.  We still had an hour's daylight left, so tried to get a bit further down the road.  First impressions were not good and we began to wonder if we were in another Costa Rica.  Night was falling and we pushed our luck under a street lamp, but were just giving up (this is not artistic embellishment, we'd stopped thumbing and started to pick up our bags), when a large car pulled up containing a large guardian angel.  Five minutes later, we were humming along in his air-conditioning chatting about all kinds of things.  A couple of hours later, we were munching yuca and coconut patties and drinking strong black coffee and an hour after that, we finally parted company but he left us with some friendly traffic police who let us sleep in their hut.

This morning we made it to Panama City quite easily.  We haven't found a Couchsurf, but as we had had neither a real bed, nor a shower in 2013, we've splashed out on a hostel (with beds and fans and breakfasts and free water and everything!).  After relaxing for a bit, we enjoyed a delicious meal of mystery meat stew and fried fish and a wander round the old town.

Tomorrow we're off to see the city and the world's most famous water-filled ditch.    

P.S. We're sorry, but there will be no pictures this week as the computer doesn't want to play along.

Happy New Year

We had booked our volcano boarding adventure with Quetzeltrekkers Nicaragua, and were very excited.  We booked into a hostel as we would return to Leon too late to get out to our camping and raccoon filled spot, ate some ice cream to cool us off, and with an hour and a half to spare J tripped gaily off to do some Couchsurf busywork online.  What she discovered was that volcano boarding was cancelled.

As we we had decided to leave Leon the next day it was our last chance, and she delivered the news to C before heading to the Quetzaltrekkers office to retrieve our money.  Somewhat forlornly she enquired if anyone else in town was running volcano boarding.  A man also loitering in the Quetzaltrekkers office waved and announced that his group were leaving a hostel opposite ours in twenty minutes.  This gave J just enough time to run to the hostel and beg pathetically and when they agreed to our joining at the last minute we jumped into action and joined the group.

In the interests of not breaking them, we left cameras at the hostel, but this image is of the same slope we went down and the same Guantanamo style jumpsuits.  The boarding was a lot of fun (even the bit where C fell off and bounced on his face for a bit) and the walk up the volcano stunning with views of the sunset and sulphur jets, some parts of the ground hot to the touch.  The tour group we had joined however gave us a lot to think about.  There were several very lovely people, of course, and though the whole activity was a bit beer-based and not everyone was lovely (the tour guide could have done a better job of reining in some of the young mens comments, given there were also kids and also that they weren't funny), its not really that that we are pondering.

The thing is, you can get by in certain areas of Nicaragua only spending dollars.  All hotels, hostels and tourist restaurants/bars are priced in them.  Tourist material is all in English.  And its terrifyingly easy to never talk to anyone from Nicaragua, certainly not in Spanish.  The tourist strip of the same destinations is like its own little world.

The next day we hitched to Granada (the centre of said tourist strip) and checked out some bookshops with books in English, a benefit of the cultural imperialism that we cannot help but enjoy.  We obtained, and J has since started and could not recommend more strongly, Open Veins of Latin America, an amazing work of history and analysis (including all kinds of imperialism) that anyone interested in the region should read.

In Granada we also visited the Chocolate Museum, as the museum part was free.  We did learn some interesting things about chocolate, but mostly the staff are just supposed to sell you the expensive "make your own chocolate" workshop and the all you can eat buffet.  Also, we felt like the museum's historical sections skimmed over the darker side of chocolate production.  It's not that every museum has to be a searing indictment of global capitalism's cruelties - though it would be nice =) - but the story of exploitation is so essential to the story of chocolate, that the way it was told came across as dishonest white-washing, designed to allow tourists to indulge guilt-free.

Our couchsurf was another hostel, and a very kind man he is too, to let us camp for free.  But the hostel was only another example of what has been making us feel uneasy recently.  Its an amazing place, basically a treehouse built up the steep side of a jungly hill

and staffed by volunteers.  Everyone there is young and english-speaking.  Everyone has been to San Juan del Sur, the big beach resort.  Most people are not even trying to speak spanish or learn how many cordobas there are to the dollar.  All the activities people go off to do each day are far beyond what the average Nicaraguan, let alone a poor one, could afford.  There's a sense the entire country is an adventure playground here for our amusement, and that each central american country is nothing more than its tourist centre.  When people ask where we went in El Salvador they mean which beach and are amazed to hear we didn't even see the sea there- they have never heard of the museum at Perquin.

All this starts to sound pretty smug if we completely discount ourselves, but we're not.  It's a constant niggle trying to find a balance between accepting you can't break every stereotype and privilege and just enjoying the odd slide down a volcano, and trying to get off the beaten track a bit, see the country itself and learn about where we actually are.  Hitching is a godsend here.  You end up making conversation in potted spanish with people from every different walk of life in the country.

Bearing this in mind and with all these thoughts, we undertook an expedition to the Caribbean Sea, which failed in all important respects, except getting far from the beaten track.

Google maps lied.  It says there is a road (the BR20) between El Rama and Bluefields.  Anyone who does not believe us look it up.  One hitch also lied to us about this road.  This road does not exist.  It is not there.  The only way from El Rama to Bluefields is by riverboat, which we could not afford.  So after a long day's hitch out to El Rama on New Year's Eve, we spent the night in a slighty suspicious hotel by the river that gave the impression of being patronised by pirates down on their luck, listened to some enthusiastic fireworks and the next day found ourselves in a town that had shut down for the 1st of January, trying to hitch-hike back the way we had come.

This made us look both desperate and pathetic.  Traffic was slow to the point of non-existance and we ended up in one small town (more a suburb of El Rama, which is not a metropolis)  for six hours.  The advantage of looking both desperate and pathetic are that people pity you.  We received:  free Fanta, a bag of doughnut-like things, two huge plates of chicken and rice, and two slices of cake.  Also a small boy let us play with his baby rabbits.  Eventually we got to Juigalpa that night and hitched on again today, with much more success.

With some free bananas from a friendly trucker, we got to Rivas, which contains a port for ferries out to the Ometepe islands in Lago Nicaragua.  It seems very pretty here, though we have not explored yet, though the views approaching the islands were quite something

We are squarely back on the gringo trail, although remain as cheap as ever, as we have begged a camping spot in someone's yard for a fraction of the normal prices.

Tomorrow we intend to give ourselves a much needed clean in the lake.