Aaron Around The World >> North America >> Central America >> Central America
Central America (5 March - 25 April 2012)
With more than five months spent in Southeast Asia, New Zealand, and Australia, the fourth and final leg of this seven-month trip was Central America. After a very cheap couple of months in Southeast Asia followed by a comparatively expensive couple of months in New Zealand and Australia, Kristina and I were really looking forward to getting back to cheaper travelling! Furthermore, with New Zealand and Australia being very western and therefore 'easy' to travel, we were both looking forward to getting back to more challenging travelling in some 'out-there' destinations. Other than that, we really didn't know what to expect from Central America. Of its seven countries we were doing five, with Honduras being skipped due to a lack of interest, and Belize being skipped due to a lack of time (Kristina needs to be back in Texas by May, and I need to get back into the real world after a long hiatus). Our route map and itinerary are below.
Click a link below to get into it, starting with one of the only Central American capital cities to be reputed as safe for tourists - Panama City!
And that was that - twenty-something destinations across five countries in a little over a month and a half. Admittedly, that wasn't enough time to really do the area complete justice but we knew that before we even got here. Be that as it may, I think we covered the bulk of the highlights plus a few more spots off the beaten tourist track, and probably wouldn't have gained too much more by having more time to spend here. Either way, we covered an estimated 2,700kms (derived by using this website) and it was awesome :)
Although we didn't expect to find too many similarities between Southeast Asia and Central America (and indeed there were very few), it was still interesting to compare and contrast the two more 'exotic' legs of the overall trip. The main thing that struck us almost immediately in this sense was the lack of heckling. In Southeast Asia it feels as though you are constantly bombarded with "You buy this?!", "You want massage?!", "Taxi, taxi, taxi!", and so on. Here that's not really the case. We also felt as though folk weren't constantly trying to scam us in some way, whether it be the taxi driver with the rigged meter or the tour agency charging five times the going rate or whatever. It always pays to be on your guard nonetheless, and as clued up as possible about each destination in advance. Oh, and Central American markets (of which there is at least one in every village, town, and city) are not completely full of fakes and forgeries like they are in Southeast Asia hehe. Regardless, if I had to choose between Southeast Asia and Central America in terms of a travel destination, I'd have to go with Southeast Asia. We both feel it offers more overall for the traveller. Each country is very different, the range of attractions on offer (both natural and otherwise) are very numerous, and the relevant infrastructure (accommodation, transport, etc.) is great for the lowly backpacker. And it's dirt-cheap! But, Central America is still a very worthwhile destination as I have hopefully showed.
In terms of safety, overall, everywhere we ventured in Central America felt perfectly safe with the well-known exception of most capital cities which are more akin to ghettos and best avoided (Panama City aside). Having said that, we did regularly read of and hear about the potential for thefts and muggings in a few places, and although we thankfully encountered none of that ourselves (not least of all because we took recommended precautions), we did meet a few people along the way who had fallen victim.
Of the many things that will stick out in my mind about Central America, a big one is their bus system, which I talked about on numerous occasions. In certain areas of certain countries there are high-quality, air-conditioned buses on offer, but we took none of them. We instead opted for the much cheaper alternative: the so-called "chicken" buses (I'm still not sure why they're called that). While they were something of an arduous experience at times, they were also a fantastic way to get amongst the locals and see first-hand how they 'do it'. Generally speaking, it's only the more fortunate of society that own a car in this part of the world, and that leaves a high percentage of the population left without. That being the case, the bus system is actually fantastic in terms of their frequency, the destinations they serve, their efficiency and their reliability (so often we would get off one bus to find the next one sitting there and ready to go with little or no waiting - brilliant!). Virtually all chicken buses are former American school buses that were retired from service and brought down here, where they received a custom paint job and were kitted out with a booming audio system, and in some cases a seizure-inducing lighting set up hahaha! Due to the lack of vehicle ownership by the masses, people use them to haul their luggage from A to B, and the amount of stuff some people bring on is amazing (much of it gets chucked up on the roof like our packs). They are also often filled to the point of insanity with everybody climbing over each other and falling over each other, and these are the times when the whole experience can get a bit tedious depending on your patience and tolerance levels (of which mine are generally low). Despite being packed in like sardines, people will still come on board (and climb over everyone) selling all kinds of random stuff from drinks to food to stationary and even glue (which was handy for me at one point actually). If nothing else, one thing I always enjoyed about the chicken buses were the way they were driven, or more like screwed. Ever hear the expression to "drive like you stole it"? Well that pretty accurately sums up how these buses are driven. I have no idea what the big hurry is as I'm sure they don't run to a schedule, but this is the first part of the world I've been to where traffic actually delays the buses rather than the other way round. Love 'em or hate 'em, the chicken buses are an essential Central American experience for mine hehe. In areas that aren't populated enough to be served by buses, vans (also known as microbuses) take their place. These too get filled to bursting point, to the extent that people even sit on the roof in the luggage racks.
One more thing I noticed about the chicken buses is they are all (all!) full of religious paraphernalia, which leads me onto my next observation: this is probably the most religious part of the world I've ever been to outside of the Vatican. If you walk around for more than ten minutes without finding at least one cathedral or church then you're not looking hard enough, and they are always full of folk apparently just stopping in to say a quick word or two to the big man upstairs. We were fortunate to be here for Easter, probably the most important time of the year for the locals, and got to witness firsthand how mad they are for it. They don't do Easter eggs though, which was a bit of a letdown for me personally ;)
Speaking of letdowns, here are a few of the more negative aspects we witnessed and experienced during our time here. First of all, the litter - it's everywhere! Everybody throws their trash out of the bus windows, their cars windows, and while walking down the street it simply gets thrown onto the road. It's not that there aren't trash cans around, they just rarely get used. Further to being littered with, well litter, the streets are also littered with so-called street dogs: homeless dogs who spend their days scavenging for food and trying to survive with most of their ribs sticking out. Some seem to be in pretty good shape and perfectly happy and friendly, while others look terrible and shy away from human contact - it's a horrible sight for an animal lover. Air conditioning is rare here (unlike in Southeast Asia) and so is hot water, and given the range of altitudes we were visiting we were either roasting and longing for a nice air-conditioned hotel room, or cold and longing for a hot shower hehe. Stiff shit on both fronts most of the time. The staple diet seems to include rice, refried beans, and corn tortillas, and trust me that shit gets real old real fast but if we wanted to eat cheap then some combination thereof was often the only option. And with the exception of Costa Rica, the tap water is not drinkable which adds another element of expense and forethought. The border crossings between countries are something of an experience as well. A few were well signposted, straightforward, and quick to pass through. Most however were convoluted, confusing, hot, and a real test of (my lack of) patience. There are often several folk loitering around either side of the borders wielding great fat wads of cash who offer to exchange your currency from one country to the other. I always made sure I was up with the current exchange rates and knew what I expected to get, and all of them paid up appropriately but I have heard stories of unsuspecting folk being ripped off by some of them. Again, if there's one thing I would stress above everything else, it would be "fail to prepare, prepare to fail".
And one more thing - VERY FEW PEOPLE SPEAKA DA ENGLISH! This fact caught us completely off guard. Both Kristina and I have travelled numerous parts of the world and always found at least some level of English was spoken or understood, even in Southeast Asia, but here that just isn't the case. If not for the fact that Kristina speaks a little bit of broken Spanish thanks to her school days (or Spanglish as I call it since she fills in the blanks with English hehe), we would have had a bloody hard time on this trip. Anyway, despite the few negative points above, Central America as a whole is an incredibly worthwhile destination with no shortage of stunning natural beauty and unique experiences to be had. Each country has a little something different to offer, and it's hard to pick a stand-out favourite. If I had to though, it'd be between Costa Rica with its amazing beaches and lush national parks, and Guatemala with its off-the-beaten-track wonders including Semuc Champey and the ruins of Tikal. Having said that, Panama City and Boquete in Panama ticked a lot of boxes, Isla de Ometepe and Granada in Nicaragua ticked a few more, as did much of El Salvador. And if history is your thing, there's no shortage of that here either. The locals, although not being able to understand much of what we were on about half the time, were very friendly and always willing to help as best they can. When I sprained my foot in Nicaragua, everybody was quick to offer to carry my 20kg (44lb) bag for me without hesitation. In the poorer countries, particularly Nicaragua and El Salvador, you don't have to look hard to see families doing whatever it takes to make ends meet, including pulling their children out of school to work (often selling crap to us 'rich' tourists I noticed). While prices are overall a little cheaper in those countries, we didn't find a lot of fluctuation throughout Central America.
So that's it then, good times - incredible times in fact! We're now heading back to Kristina's home in Texas where I plan to have a much-needed (believe it or not) holiday from my holiday before potentially relocating to New York in July, but I'll bang on about that as well as all the facts and figures of the last seven months in the Texas section.
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