Imediatelly after the border you notice the difference. Everything is more dirty, disorganized, less like Europe. I felt like I´m back to true Latin America.

We on purposed came on one of the days, when there is a train. At the trainstation we learned that only Executive and Popular class tickets are left, no middle class. Having been warned from the Popular, we bought the Executive and waited.

The train came. Half an hour later the train moved couple of meters. Half an hour later again a few meters. Later we learned they were unloading cargo – heavy beds – and needed the cargo cars close to the train station. With an hour delay we were finally allowed to board.

Executive class has chairs and windows. That was a good sign. No, the windows were not functional all (some could not be opened and some could not be closed) and our chairs could not be lowered either. But there was a flat screen showing Bolivian railroad ads in English. Now this really is Executive, isn´t it?

Some time later the train started to move. Now all the difference between classes has been eliminated. The whole thing was moving so slow, that the busses on parallel road were overtaking us. Worse, the train was shaking and bumping so much so, that reading or sleeping was impossible. Now that is Executive, but as in “execute them all!”

I almost forgot, there was a dining car. In was too hot inside and even the overprised beer did not provide sufficient remedy.

Three hours later, we were happy to reach our destination Tupiza. And I did pity those continuing for another few hours to Uyuni. We decided right away, that our original plan to catch the train in few days to go to Uyuni needs some changes.

In Tupiza we read the Altitude Sickness description in Lonely Planet and Wikipedia. Realizing we are now above the line of danger (2600m a.s.l.) we started to observe the simptoms on both of us. On Misa more. So we decided to stay a few days to aclimatize. I got bitten by a swarm of local wasps to make things better.

The last day of our aclimatization we went on 5 hour horseback riding tour. Through the stunning countryside with features such as Puerta del Diablo and other puertas. I could not sit on my ass for some time afterwards.

caballos de tupiza at EveryTrail

Next day we went with very scenic bus over a pass to another Valle on the other side. The sign “Welcome to the best climate on Earth” welcomed us. What a place! The have very tasty wine, nice colorful landscape and almost no rain the whole year. And supposedly also wild pumas. From Cafayate we did the one day touristy tourist trip to see all the rock formations and different colors of the landscape. Stunning, just wait for the pictures.

Going to Salta ve decided to hitch-hike. The first hour and half nobody stopped. Everybody was indicating, that they go just around the corner or were full (inlcuding a motorbike with the whole family). The a stylish Argentinan grendma with SUV took us. On the way we overtook just about everybody who did not stop to take us. She said, she almost newer took hitchhikers because thay all have dreadlocks and tatoos. We almost had not hitchhiked in Argentina before. Match. We reached Salta in about 2 hours, so even with the waiting time it was faster that a bus.

Salta is quite an urban center. They have a party street, roughly the equivalent of Stodolní. Except for the timing: it starts at 11pm and ends any time after 6am depending on the place (some go up to 10am, but they said thay can do this only by bribing and good connections with local mafia). Anyway it was fun. Especially watching the locals, how they dress.

The next day we spent mostly bus hopping with hangover. We stayed for the night in Humahuaca. Nice place, although we spent ages trying to find a decent place to eat. Either too classy or too … dirty. After watching the sunrise at the Monument de la Independencia we set off to Bolivia, which is just around the corner, but worlds apart at the same time.

San Ignacio are ruins of Jesuit town in really bad shape, but huge in size. Somewhere I read it was the least visited UNESCO World Heritage Site in the world. That kind of speaks for itself. On the other hand, the weather was not nice – it was raining – so we had the whole place for ourselves which made it more impresive experience.

In San Ignacio we finally decided to not go to Paraguay again. We went to Posadas to change all remaining millinons of Paraguayan money. From Posadas we wanted to catch a bus going west. Without a guide book for Argentina we had no clue where to. I heard there is a big city called Salta in the west, so we were asking for a bus there, but all were full. One of the ticket sellers suggested we should go to Tucuman instead, that it is a tourist destination only 5 hours from Salta. We never heard of it before, but decided to get on the bus, which left 30 minutes later. 8am next day, we were there.

After the mostly hot east, this was really cold and rainy place. But the local culture of Italian style espresso cafes made up for the weather.

In the hostel we shared a dorm with a secret agent. He said he worked for the governments. What exactly he did for them? Change them. But at the time being he was on some sleeping pills and did not seem to be able to survive even ceremonial gunshots.

Tucuman is a place, where Argentina declared independence in 1816. Every night there is Luz y Ruidos show in the Casa de la Independencia, which we could not miss, or at least we thought so. I was reasonably entertained until they had to slowly read the name of all 29 signatories of the declaration. But Misa did not enjoy this hour long show as it was all in Spanish and “if it was her project these days, her friends would laught at the siplicity”.

Overall Tucuman was after a long time a city, where I could imagine to live for some time.

Almost all tourists come here to see the falls. There is a city public transport to the falls, which is super convenient. The park entrance feels like big tourism factory, which it is with some hundred thousand visitors per month. However once inside, the crowds are not that annoying.

The tour starts with bus ride to “Primera Vista”, the place where you can see the falls for the first time. That was already impresive. Later you learn, that it is just a small part of the whole thing. The 3km walk shows you more and more waterfalls, it really is incredible.

The highlight at the end of Brazilian side walk is a view on Gargantua del Diablo from a pier over waterfalls close by to the gargantua. It´s on a sort of step in the falls so there is water falling from above and also falling down under the pier. Everybody gets wet, including the cameras. The only exeption is Japanese tourists – they have plastic ponchos and camera covers.

There is a bird zoo next to the waterfalls, so to round up a tourist day we went there. In many cages, you walk inside with the birds. Generaly that is a plesant experinece (like in the humming bird cage), but the last cage with a lot of hungry huge parrots might get a bit scary.

Over another bridge is Puerto Iguazú, Argentina. It feels much less polished than Brazil, this you can feel already at the border, but somehow I felt more comfortable at this side.

The Argentinian side of falls is also reachable by public transport, the entrance again feels like tourist factory, but the difference is inside the park, where you can walk or take a train instead of a bus. Also Argentina contrary to Brasil does not allow Helicopter flights over the falls, so the park is a bit quiter (but you can still hear the Brazilian helis).

Walking between the falls is equally nice as on the other side, you just get different views. To top up the experience we went on a boat trip, which in the end goes inside one of the waterfalls. Totally wet experience.

The highlight of this side is a pier directly over the Gargantua del Diablo. This is so impressive, that for this I would give to the Argentinian side one point more. (But this is on the other film, so no pictures for now.)

I could not wait to start the adventure with my brother in South America. To get from London to Asuncion, Paraguay, took me 27 hours. Vasek arrived the same day early morning, got us a hostel during the day and picked me up the airport in the evening. He did one more thing – he bought a cup of cappuchino at the airport. It turned up a big mistake.

The next morning he found himself unable to move far from the bathroom. We even had to change the hostel, because in the original one we were staying in a dorm and he could not make it from the top of a bunk to the toilet in time.

So I started exploring the city (and its surroundings – it took Vasek a while to recover) by myself..with no knowledge of the culture and more importantly the language. Trying to use English would have been just pathetic.

There were quite a few differences how the place worked to what I was used to. Police was pretty much on each corner. I talked to them – well, they talked to me – when they stepped into my way and did not allow me to certain areas of the city, where I would have been mugged for sure. On the other hand I was sure that if somebody did try to rob me, finding a help would not have taken long and the police would have been sure who is the tourist and who the thief .. by that time I was sooooo gray-ish white (yeah, thank you London), that whithout opening my mouth locals were asking me immediately “¿De donde eres?”.

I liked traveling by bus .. you can get on and off a bus wherever you wish as long as you give the right signal. This is how I was going to a botanic garden and had to go back at least a kilometer, because I did not see the button and nobody else was getting off.

In the botanic garden there was a ZOO as well. I saw a puma .. one check on my South American to-do list .. but more scary were the huge ants that were walking on raylings. Also I believe I saw a crocodile or something like that, which was unconvenietly big under water and not in a cage. Hmm, I was not brave enough to go and check. I just saw the kids on the other side of the pond how quickly they ran off.

A different day Vasek made a call to Makka, an Indian village off Asuncion. When Jose heart that I do not speak Spanish and not know how to get around he offered to pick me up at the hotel and take me to the tour himself. I was hoping Jose was like Winnetou and Makka full of wig wams, but I was SO wrong. Today, Indian villages look like slums full of corrugated-metal-sheet houses on dirt and rubish. Indians wear Adidas and put on traditional costumes only if you pay .. pay a lot.

Appart from Ausincion we visited one estancia (imagine a farm) in the middle of nowhere .. though close to a well described village in a guide book. We went for a walk and were looking really carefully for why this place was supposed to be so amazing but for a long time it seemed there was nothing. No animals at the estancia, no horseback riding tours, no breathtaking handicrafts. Then dinner was served .. so much delicious meat at once I hadn’t seen since I moved to London. And terere (cold mate). And hammock. And it turned to be such a relaxing place that we were happy to find it. Even though it wasn’t meant to be the last “end of the world” we visited on our journey.

Simply, until we got to Argentina, I had a several culture shocks, including the one when I refused to go even close to a doctor’s door, where Vasek was searching help. Supposedly the other half of Paraguay we haven’t visited speaks German and is better organised then Europe, but we didn’t take the risks and traveled rather outside the Paraguayan borders.

Muchas gracias a todos que encontré. Estan muy amable. Espero que un dia puedan visitarme en República Checa o que yo puedo regresar.

Adiós Centroamérica.

English summary:
If you don’t understand my basic Spanish, then either this was not meant for you or you really should have paid more attention in those Spanish classes :)

Chicken busing from Flores to Semuc Champey was not really money/time efficient, but was fun anyway. Semuc Champey itself was wonderfull. The one day tour with river swing, caving with candles, bridge jump (I skipped on this one) and the waterfalls of Semuc Champey makes clearly for one of the best days I have spent in Central America.

Chicken busing from Semuc Champey to Xela was harder than expected. The road might have the most scenic views in Guatemala, but it is a bit of exageration to call it a road in many places. I did not make it in one day, I had to stay in Huehue. On the other hand I got to ride on the roof of the bus and I got to take my bakpack from one bus, jump on the roof of other bus and fasten my backpack there. All while listening to “mira el gringo, que hace!”.

Xela was super. Very much so due to Quetzaltrackkers. First they took me to the top of Santa Maria, which was a tough hike with some lava and sunrise watching as a reward. Then their beneficial party, where I just had to drink, because “it’s for the children”. And last but not least the three day hike to Lago Atitlan was a perfect thing to round it up. With Maya sauna, smoothies ordered from the jungle and sunrise over Lago to finish.

full moon santa maria at EveryTrail

Lago was nice although the boat ride against Xocomil was rought.

And Antigua was nice too, although I spent most of the time here reading, having a rest and generally preparing for the next jump out of Central America. But not home fortunately…

Joya de Cerén
This place is called Pompeii of the Americas and that is exactly what it is. A little town buried under volcanic ash around 590 AD. There are three or four complete family houses, each offering a special service for the comunity – sauna, common hall, shaman’s place. The place seems a bit out of scale, or at least for me it felt a bit too small to imagine I would live in these houses, go in the the sauna etc.

Ruinas de San Andrés
At only 5km from Joya de Cerén this was the natural next stop on the Maya trail. Retrospectively after seeing the other places, this is not really interesting. But these were the first Maya pyramids I had seen, so I was quite happy to stop there.

Actun Tunichil Muknal Caves
Now this is big stuff. This is the most expensive tourist atraction I have done so far – $80. When the street vendor tried to sell me on the A.T.M. Cave I was a bit sceptical to his arguments. He said it was so expensive because the guides have to be really well trained. Also that I should really feel priviledged to be allowed to visit a place like that. And the last argument, that Belize will probably close the caves to public any time soon, so this was the last chance to see it, was particulary suspicious. In retrospect I believe all of those are true.

This place is crazy. First part of the caving is a bit of claustrophobic experience. We had to squize through narrow places, swim, go almost under water at places all while the only lights were our tiny head lamps. We also lost one member of the group – elderly fatish German man – who sudenly realized he could not swim. Well 10% losses are natural for any adventure, aren’t they?

Then we had to climb quite high on slipery rocks and over a gap between the rocks. It seemed like we would loose the German women here, but in the end she did well. Then we had to leave the shoes there and continue barefoot.

After crawling in a very low hole we entered the dry part of the cave. The place was huge and there was one pot that the Mayas left there over a thousend years ago. I though ‘wow’. Than I was told this was just the begining.

As we went deeper and deeper there were more and more Maya artefacts everywhere. We really had to watch where we step. Artefacts were only surounded by pink tape. One time the German lady looked down on the pink tape and realized she was standing on the wrong side. Opps Maya artefats on the bottom of her feet.

There are also a couple of human remains. A skul here, a bone there and a full skeleton at the end. That one seemed to me as being in prety relaxed possition enjoying himself before dying, but I was called that it was 20 year old female who died in particulary painful way, which can be assumed form broken spine and dislocated pubis bones. Kind of creepy. The whole place is believd to be a sacred place for the Mayas, where they went to practice sacrifice rituals. When we turned our lights off and were told that the ancestors of Mayas never come to caves becase the believe caves are full of ghosts, it feld a bit creepy too.

I did not take any pictures inside, but this promo video shows most of the stuff.

Tikal
This is big stuff too. Big as in high. I was told there would be hords of tourists, but in the end it was not as bad as expected. Morning bus at 4:30 a.m. packed with tourists. Arriving and park entrance at 6:00 a.m., another 6 buses in front of us. Arriving at archeological place entrance at 6:30 a.m., tourists are waking up, I’m running to the temples. 6:45 a.m. breakfast at the top of Templo II, alone, no tourist in sight. 7:00 a.m. first tourists enter Gran Plaza, I move to the top of Templo IV to wait for the fog to lift up and the temples to pop up from the jungle; about 10 tourist there waiting already.

I did not study hard the history of this place. It is preatty impresive just watching it. After all I don’t believe that anybody knows exactly what the Mayas were doing in the temples, so I prefer to leave it to my imagination than to the guide’s imagination. I stayed 6 hours walking through basically all the big and small temples. The norther part was particulary tourist free even later douring the day. It was also the northest point of this trip in Americas.

It has been 6 days since I have not stopped in any place for more than one night. Hitchhiking on pick-up vans does not excite me any more as much as it did back in Panama, but still it is a nice way how not to sweat while travelling. I thought I was already used to central american “hitting the road”, but this time I got a few new surprises.

I left Playa El Tunco without swimsuit and one of my 4 t-shirts. That was not a good start.

Then in Santa Ana I saw my bus sitting at the terminal and I thought I have time before it leaves. The next time I looked, it was already gone. I ran out of the terminal after the bus, caught a green bus, paid for getting to “the border”. 2 hours later I was at the border, but different one that I wanted to. At least it was still border with Guatemala.

I intended to get to Chiquimula after crossing the right border at Anguiatu, so even there at San Cristobal I asked for a minivan going there. No se preocupe. You’ll get there even from here. Fine I thought for a while.

I was sitting in the back of the van when we suddenly stopped in the middle of nowhere. Another similar van stopped in opposite direction. The driver told me that I have to change here. So I did.

I put my backpack at the back of the van and wanted to enter by the passenger door. The van was so packed that I could not. The driver told me to stand in the back next to my back pack and closed the door. I was squeezed there like a piece of oversize luggage. The last row of seats pushed my ass against the rear window. The van was not high enough for me to stand straight so I had to bend forward and support myself by holding the last but one row of seats. Not to comfortable. Even worse, I could not see outside. On the plus side, I had an exclusive view of some a pair of wonders. Y estas no habían sido hechas. But my neck hurt next day.

Chiquimula to Rio Dulce was a boring bus-hoping as usual. Just that by another accident I got to see the center of Zacapa instead of just passing by the highway around.

Rio Dulce was fun. The hostel was super tranquillo. The nice bit was, that the boat to Livingston came to pick me up right at the hostel. Bear was waiting for it with me.

The boat down the Golfete and Rio was super nice. Just I have sun burnt my right hand.

Livingston was super nice village. The first of Garifuna settlements on my way.

It rained the whole night. It still was raining a bit in the morning, but much worse, it was windy. I wasn’t even sure the 7am boat would leave in such weather. It did. But I still wasn’t sure it is going to reach the destination.

The first couple of minutes we were going straight against 2m waves. Every wave hit the front of the little boat splashing water all over the boat and the passengers. We had the “exclusive” front row seats, so we got the most of it. I was soaking wet in the first 30 seconds and could not see much as the sea water was coming in my eyes.

Next we turned left and accelerated. This was slightly better water wise as only every tenth wave sprayed me, but was much less comfortable anyway. We were literally jumping from one wave to another. Every time we hit the water it would feel like jumping on a hard chair from second floor. The next day I could hardly sit on my ass.

The journey should take 90 minutes, but due to the weather and occasional slow down when the jumps were too big, we arrived to Belize 2 hours later, totally soaked including the back packs. Cell phone soaked, clothes soaked, only the passport had made in dry. The immigration officers were just laughing at as and let us enter with no problems.

I had to take another boat to Placencia the same day, but luckily the weather there was much nicer and my ass did not get more spanking (although again only the front row was free when I got to the boat so I was a bit afraid).

The next day we were hitchhiking from Placencia to Hopkins. Easy 2 hour 4 car hitch. Now I want to stay at least two nights here. And learn garifuna drumming.

So we arrived in Suchitoto. Very nice place in the north of El Salvador. The local tourist attraction is bueatiful waterfall over strange black hexagonal stones. Quite similar to the one in El Nancito actually. The locals told us it was not safe to walk there, instead we were advised to get a police escort. At first it seemed like a strange idea, but this is the way it is in El Salvador, they want tourism so much, that police will escort you to many places free of charge just to make sure you get a good experience with no violence mixed in. So we went to police station in the morning and asked for a tour to the waterfals in the afternoon. When we arrived at the police station in the afternoon, they had no cars disponible. Failure 1. We stayed in the police office for more than an hour discusing bittorrent, megaupload and such things which if any police officer could speak english I would not discuss in his presence.

Then finally they got a car. From their colegues who just came in in full armor and with machine guns. We were escorted to the waterfalls. Walking towards the spot I told the policeman: “I heard there was not much water this time of year”. He replied: “That’s not really true. There is NO water at this time.” So there we were, watching waterfalls without water. Failure 2.

We decided to leave the next morning to Chelatenango department via the ferry. The hostel owner’s brother promissed to give as a ride at 11am. By the morning he has forgotten such promise. Failure 3. We took the bus to the ferry and as we were getting there we saw the ferry just leaving. Failure 4.

We sat at the “terminal” for about three hours. At that point the locals said it might not come anymore because when there are not to many people the ferry owner simply goes home to enjoy the afternoon with his family. So we went back to the hostel we left that day. Big Failure.

Because we got some free food from the owners we wanted to cook them something for dinner. The hostel owner’s brother promised to bring a working owen for the evening. So we bought chicken and veggies and prepared everything only to find out the owen was not comming. Not that the guy would forget his promis again, this time he simply pretended he said that we could clean their ugly dirty owen if we want to use it. That would not happen and they can do whatever they want with the bloody bird. Failure 6.

The next day we woke up early in order to have better chances at cathing transportation. While eating breakfast we realized nobody brought the room keys to the kitchen – so we were locked out and had to wait for the owners to get second key. Failure 7.

Finally we caught buses and arrived to La Palma, where we wanted to climb the highest salvadorian mountain. But we were told that 1pm is already too late to do that. Failure 8.

The next morning we woke up early again to make the highest mountain finally. We went to San Ignacio from where there should have been a bus at 9am. We arrived at 8:45 so I thought finally the timing is right. Except for the fact, that the bus did not arrive. No mountain again. Failure 9.

We went back to La Palma. There was supposed to be a festival in the afternoon. But the place was dead all the time untill the late evening when we went to sleep. I was woken up at 4:45am by fireworks. So there had been a festival, just that we have slept right through it all. Big Failure 10.

On the plus side, they have excelent coffee in La Palma. Finally a perfect expresso at Café D’ Café. And their big sign explained a lot of what was happening with my travels lately: