Captivating Copan Ruinas

(Part 3 of the Volcano Trail series.)

The first "real" day of adventure had come. Today's agenda was to drive 7 hours from Antigua into Copan, Honduras, crossing the border at El Florido. Though Copan was dwarfed in size by the grand Mayan ruins of Tikal with its soaring temples, its strength lay in the ornate stelae and intricate stonework which were the finest in the Mayan world.

The van ride was uneventful. There wasn't much scenery to appreciate, and I doubt if anyone would have anyway, since most were groggy from last night's festivities and silently cursing the early 5am start. Traffic flow was better than expected, and pretty soon we arrived at El Florido where C. collected the passports for validation at both the Guatemalan and Honduran immigration offices. Money changers were soon crowding around our van, and despite some misgivings about getting a raw deal I parted with my leftover quetzales and was soon examining the lempira notes. After a few minutes delay caused by my passport (Honduran authorities had to double check entry requirements), we continued on to Copan.

After a cheap, sumptuous steak lunch, five of us walked the 1km or so towards the ruins. The whole visit took a mere couple of hours - we happened upon different impressive stelae, the ball court, the Hieroglyphic Stairway, and altars. All the while, our local guide Virgilio was telling us fascinating facts about the various kings and their reigns of power over Copan - with very exotic names like Moon Jaguar, Smoke Serpent, Eighteen Rabbit...(Crouching Tiger?!)...you get the idea. All this information, while educational and made all the more so by Virgilio's enthusiasm and "interesting" use of English, proved to be too much to digest - that 430am wakeup call and long travel must've taken a toll - thus towards the end, I simply shut my ears off to the commentary and concentrated on taking pictures. To sum up, a worthwhile visit to one of the most important Mayan ruins.

Stay tuned for more posts from my Central America trip.

Nostalgia in Antigua

(Part 2 of the Volcano Trail series.)

The first order of the day was to call up the Continental Airlines baggage claim office. Bad news - turns out my bag would not be arriving till the following day in Guatemala City - a bit of a problem since by then I will be on the road to Copan, Honduras. Uh oh. Eventually I instructed the agent to forward the bag to Roatan, where I would pick it up in a couple of days. Trying to shake off the sinking feeling in my stomach, I made my way to Parque Central to meet up with M. for brunch. I suggested we walk a few blocks to Rainbow Cafe, one of coolest hangouts in Antigua with a different style of live music played every night, and where they served arguably the best brownies in town (as my Spanish classmate N. can attest to, having wolfed down tons of them).

Afterwards, I decided to play tour guide and show M. around town. We headed for the handicrafts market where M. was almost (but not quite) tempted to purchase some lovely colorful scarves. The adjacent public market is a combination really of a dry goods and wet market, plus a thriving second hand clothing bazaar. Yes, this is where those old clothing donated to charity actually wind up in. Imagine my astonishment at the sight of one of my professors proudly wearing a T-shirt with a huge logo of Delilah's Den - a popular strip club in Philadelphia! Anyway, we also made a stop at the newly-restored Spanish cultural center (pictured), as well as the local McDonald's outlet. This branch is undoubtedly the most beautiful one I've ever set foot on, without the obstrusive golden arches, and being a converted colonial house it came with a huge garden complete with water fountain. Interestingly, a Happy Meal purchased here entitled the customer to 30 minutes of free Internet access ("McInternet"), a concept yet to be adopted in the US.

After we parted, I walked over to Parque Central and sat there watching the locals spending a lazy Sunday afternoon sitting around and relaxing, and listening to the live bands performing onstage across the street. Later that night, I checked into the hotel and met C., the tour leader, and some of the other members of our tour group. I wasn't too surprised to see that there were a lot of young Aussies among them who were on holiday for several months while I was content enough to be away from work for two and a half weeks. C. had organized a basic salsa lesson which I happily joined - turned out to be loads of fun with laughter all around as we gringos got tangled up practicing the moves, much to the amusement of the native hotel staff.

Stay tuned for more posts from my Central America trip.

HELLO again, Antigua

(Part 1 of the Volcano Trail series.)

I watched each of the bags slowly move on the creaky conveyor belt in Guatemala City airport, wondering where mine was. With increasing impatience I tried to spot my gray duffel bag, probably sandwiched among all those huge suitcases the Guatemalan natives had brought with them. From time to time the bags belt would bunch up against one another causing some to fall on the ground. This necessitated the baggage crew activating the blaring siren signal, stopping the entire belt and reloading the fallen bags, and restarting the whole darned thing. Quite comical actually. I had a laugh at my own feeling of deja vu, since only last May I had witnessed the same exact thing happen.

Finally the last of the bags were claimed by their owners, and mine was nowhere in sight. Roughly a third of the flight's passengers suffered the same fate. Apparently all those suitcases did not fit into the plane's cargo area, and thus we were the unlucky ones. After filling out the baggage claim form at the counter, I decided to find a shuttle van to take me to Antigua - the scene of many amazing memories from my last vacation. Waiting for the van to leave, I exchanged the usual pleasantries with the woman seated next to me, and to our amazement, M. and I discovered we were part of the same tour group and spent the hour-long ride exchanging travel stories.

Don Juan greeted me warmly when he opened the door to his house. We talked about the old times, my current trip and luggage predicament. Dona Amalia walked by with a noticeable limp and saw me - she had fallen down some stairs, broken her hip, and was on the long journey back to recovery. And as usual, the numerous (6 in all) grandchildren came by to play and were surprised not only at my presence, but also that I had still remembered all of their names.
There was another student staying at the house, J., a gregarious German (the rarest of species!) hell bent on learning Spanish – in addition to his classes, he played on three futbol teams with the locals, and insisted on speaking only in Spanish, even to the extent of using it in emails to his friends back home knowing full well that they didn’t speak the lingo! (“No me importa!”). After dinner, he plopped onto the bed in my room and we spent the night discussing our experiences in Antigua, and a wonderful book of Spanish idiomatic expressions translated into English he had found. Predictably, we cracked up over the curse expressions and slang words for private parts. Perhaps I shall buy my own copy - yes, it would be useful to learn how to say “Go to hell!” in another language.

Adventure at the Travel Show

It comes as no surprise to my friends that less than two weeks removed from my Central America trip, I was checking out various exhibitors' booths at the "Adventures in Travel" show in NYC. I had also made the trip to the Javitts Center last year, and this year's offerings brought pretty much the same: scuba diving outfits (there was a shallow pool for first-timers to try it out), Caribbean islands' tourism offices, hiking/biking tours (those sound dreadful), African safaris, and a large number of companies hawking trips to Latin American countries (Peru, with Machu Picchu as the star attraction, seems to be a perennial favorite).

It proved to be a fun, entertaining way to pick up some ideas for my next big trip - among some of the diversions were attending a seminar of responsible travel given by National Geographic Society, tasting some fine Bulgarian grappa, watching Lebanese dancers strutting their stuff on stage, and getting a quick qi-gong massage on one of those chairs where you put your face through the hole. I was amused to see several booths offering spa vacations - not that I have something against them, but quite a stretch of the concept of adventure travel, one has to admit - although after a hard day of white water rafting, that is precisely what ageing boomers pushing their bodies to previously unknown limits need to recover.

Lots of attendees were walking around carrying bags of glossy brochures. No wonder, each exhibitor had gone to all that trouble to stuffing them with the most unrealistic pics and accompanied by glittering prose that makes the destination seem like the world's best, thus they were eager to shove them into the most hands as possible. I seriously doubt that 90% of the people will actually get around to reading them once they get home (I took only 3, honest) - most will suffer the indignity of landing in the recycling bin with nary a page turned.

Moreover, let's admit it - getting freebies is a big part of the fun. I was pleased to note that the giveaways had improved from the usual pens, keychains, mugs, and notepads. Some of the more interesting articles in my stash are a couple of colorful Guatemalan bracelets, a sample of Sri Lankan tea, and vegetable capsules made from a plant called Maca which grows only in the Andean highlands of Peru. Reading off the label, among its magical powers are being an aphrosiciac and "has been noted to promote hormonal balance, including thyroid support". Amazing claims indeed.

MEET (MEAT?) MARKET WOES

(Event happened sometime July 2005). Not exactly about travelling - my first brush with speed dating, as recounted in an email to Guin, which originally appeared in my Xanga blog, and reprised here due to popular demand.



ok so about the speed dating. after a year of cajoling and convincing from my girl friends who had found success doing it (if you're not sure as to how the thing works, check this out - http://www.hurrydate.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=frontstatic.howItWorks), i decided to take the plunge and try out speed dating. my friend H. found this website which catered primarily to asians (click2asia.com - doesn't this suspiciously sound like a discount international long distance calling service to the Far East???) so i thought that'd be a nice way to dip my toe into the waters, so to speak (i talk in such a cliched manner huh, como se dice "dip my toe into the waters" en espanol?). also i thought i'd be more comforable in this setting coz the chances of attracting white chicks is much smaller anyway...so there i found myself in a club in Chelsea w/ all these trying-to-be-cool asian guys and trying-to-look-americanized asian girls hahaha - they separated the throngs of single lonely asians into groups of 15 guys/girls each, thus my $25 (only $10 for girls!) conceivably bought 15 dates (talk about cheap dates haha)...due to some annoying no-shows only got to "meet" 12 girls, 10 chinese and 2 koreans (strangely, no filipinas - altho there was a token filipino guy and also a token white guy with an asian fetish probably lol)...i would say that physically i didnt really like any of them, but personality wise maybe 2 or 3 were interesting to talk to...some were unspeakably boring, some didnt even bother to hide their disdain/contempt/boredom and made no effort to initiate conversation (esp. the woman who works 13-14hrs a day incl weekends at IBM - she complained that she didnt have time to date but this event had TOO MANY guys - so she was pissed at answering the same old questions - i wound up just trying out my zany one-liners on her so as to alleviate the situation, since it was pointless to engage in conversation - she laughed, albeit not spontaneously but in a somewhat deliberate manner, as if she chewed on my joke for two seconds and then decided it WAS funny, and THEN burst out laughing - geez, gimme a break), some did initiate conversation but it was the usual job interview -like questions (e.g. what do u do? where do u work/live? yada yada)...acting on a tip from a guy acquaintance, i tried to steer the conversation away from the ho-hum same old same old dialogue and towards the topic of vacations (their latest trip, most memorable experience, etc) with some degree of success - i found out that a few of them had been on caribbean cruises and since i havent been on one yet we wound up discussing the merits of the Western Caribbean vs. Eastern Caribbean, weight gain due to the buffets, staid vs. lively cruise lines, etc. - also, i made my usual jokes and sarcastic comments (you know how i am, dear Guin) and much to my annoyance (me puse furioso!!!), they failed to elicit laughter from a few of the serious minded women (thus they were "eliminated" immediately in my mind)...at the end of the night we were supposed to turn in our forms where we indicate who we want to see again by checking on the "yes/no" box beside each name - and guess what? i chose NONE. yes, that's right. none. nadie. zip. zilch. this predictably enough elicited groans of dismay from my legion of women friends, and thus the accusations of my alleged pickiness were rehashed once more (and once again, i'm denying it haha) - as u said in your email below, "la calidad es mas importante que la cantidad"... so there's the story. maybe i'll have better luck next time, or maybe i'll run into the same old women again...another girl friend is asking me to accompany her to a hurrydate event in a couple of weeks time so maybe i'll try my luck there, this time with a white (or mixed) crowd - hopefully i'll be in top form with the jokes hahaha.

Ladies Night at Frida's

(Event occured on May 18, 2005. Dedicated to Bro. Patrick)

If there is one thing the hordes of Spanish language students love to do in Antigua, it must be bar hopping. The logic is quite simple: bored foreigners faced with the prospect of sitting around in their host families' houses generally prefer to hang out and meet other foreigners in bars (and converse in their native tongues, unfortunately). As expected, one soon becomes familiar with the drink specials on offer at each bar, and the respective timings of that crowd-drawing phenomenon called Ladies Night.

At Frida’s, Wednesday night was THE night. Yes, the place was named after the famous artist Frida Kahlo - numerous portraits of her adorned the walls. The gang found an upstairs table quite easily, and soon the place was bursting at the seams with gringos out for a night on the town. Quite the scene indeed. Mojitos were the night's special bargain – only Q5 ($0.67) for ladies but Q10 ($1.33) for lads, and the bar management was canny enough to provide different-shaped glasses to implement their pricing structure - short, stout glasses for the former, and tall, skinny glasses for the latter.

As I stood there talking to Byron, suddenly there was a brief commotion by our table and I saw an angry waiter stride away with a ladies' drink in his hand. Turns out that the vigilant waiter had seen Patrick (the dude beside me in the pic) holding on to Hannah’s glass briefly, and intrepreting this as an act of deception (and cheapness), he went ahead and snatched the drink right out of poor Patrick’s hand, at the same time sternly reprimanding him, “For ladies only!!!”. Never before had anyone seen anything like it. We all had a good laugh about the incident later, and Patrick took the good-natured ribbing in stride, and everyone acknowledged that what made the whole thing doubly hilarious was that as a seminary student he fit the unlikeliest profile of a petty thief.

Ten Commandments for Travellers

In keeping with our travel theme, and with the memories of my Central America trip still fresh in my mind (more posts to come), this is a great time to share some things that travellers should keep in mind when exploring faraway lands. The list is courtesy of Chris.

1. Thou shalt not expect to find things as they are at home for thou hath left home to find different things.

2. Thou shalt not take things too seriously, for a carefree mind is the beginning of a carefree holiday.

3. Thou shalt not let other travellers get on thy nerves, as we are all here for the same reason and thou art paying good money to enjoy thyself.

4. Thou must know at all times where thy passport lies, for a person without a passport is a person without a country.

5. Thou shalt not worry for he that worries hath no pleasure. Few things are ever fatal.

6. Remember that thou art a guest in other lands, and he that treats his host with respect shall in turn be respected. To learn to say "Please" and "Thank You" in thy host's tongue will make thee thy host's friend.

7. Thou shalt not judge the entire people of a country by one person who was a poor host.

8. Thou shalt remember that to err is human and to forgive is divine.

9. When in Rome, thou shalt be prepared to do as the Romans do.

10. Thou shalt reward good service if thou art lucky enough to receive it!

Do I Need a Visa???

Unfortunately I find myself asking this question every time my travel plans involve going outside the good ol' US of A, much to my annoyance. U.S. citizens by and large get a free pass into other countries, with the notable exception of Brazil, China, and Cuba (you know you ain't supposed to go there haha), among others. Lucky bums. Unfortunately, this privilege doesn't extend to unlucky souls holding a passport from a third-world country. Moreover, each country's entry rules vary wildly even for different groups of citizens of the same country, depending on their alien residency status - for example, being a permanent US resident, I've been exempted from obtaining (and paying for) a visa to Switzerland, Canada, and Guatemala - while my non-US permanent resident friends didn't share in this same good fortune.

So, as someone who's almost been denied boarding on two flights due to ignorance of the flight crew regarding entry requirements (the first time on the verge of tears before the Swissair staff came to their senses), almost been denied entry by land in Central America (same reason), had to suffer the indignity of schlepping to consulates with reams of paperwork and waiting in line for eternity and paying ridiculous amounts for visas, compounded by similar ignorance exhibited by other countries' consulates and tourism boards of their own regulations, it was a godsend to stumble upon a site which gives an authoritative answer to the question, "Do I need a visa?". Check out official passport and visa requirements which are supplied and updated regularly by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) before making your holiday plans.