A Ride To Remember

Seriously, the past few days have been quite a drain. And for those of you non-traveler types out there I don't know if you would have survived. Basically after leaving Antigua the road has been long and if I count correctly we have been on no fewer than 13 buses and a few taxis thrown in there as well. I guess there was a sort of break when we arrived in the Selva Negra for a night but other than that we have been going on all cylinders. For some reason sitting on a bus all day really wears you out as well. Maybe its because I'm a tall drink of water and I like to stretch my shit out.

Getting from Antigua to Matagalpa (our planned highland stopover for a night) was quite a journey. After leaving La Siesta Boris walked us to the stop and directed us to get on the bus to Masaya. Easy enough and after 5 minutes or so it comes and we hop on. This might have been the worst of the buses since the road was being built ie bumpy, it was overcrowded, and it stopped every 30 seconds or so. Making it to Masaya the bus is a mud pit and we find a bus to Tipitapa. We go here to avoid Managua and the filth that we know it to be. A guy we hiked with had gotten mugged a few weeks before and we try to avoid crime at all costs. Makes sense id say. From Tipitapa to Sebaco and from Sebaco to Matagalpa. All of these are old North American school buses that have been painted in various schemes including, but not limited to, hot like flames, love of Jesus, multi color circus bus, etc. I just cant describe how ridiculous some are on the inside they are all the same and all overcrowded. On the last leg of this journey to Matagalpa Ashley stands up to find his wallet missing. There was an old man who had bumped him a few times and thus we found the very crime that we were trying to avoid. After calling the credit card companies and figuring out what all had been lost we relaxed at Roticeria La Posada for some good ol fried chicken and cold beer. Just when we thought all had been lost in central American humanity the family at the next table sent us a liter of beer for no reason other than kindness. Not all bad folks down here.

Heading up to La Selva Negra or the black forest, a hotel and coffee plantation run by German immigrants, the rain starts coming down. We check into this rather expensive, rather non backpacker kinda place and decide to go for a hike to search for the howler monkeys, pumas, and the elusive quetzal. This ends up being quite a wet venture seeing as how it wasn't raining when we started it shortly started and we were soaked by the time we arrived home. Needless to say rainy weather is not the best time to spot wildlife. Chilled the rest of the night and made a plan to get up early the next morning to make it to Tegucigalpa (capital of Honduras) to continue on to Guatemala the next day. After a mad internet search for buses heading north we find nothing of any substance and head for a travel agent. He finds us a bus leaving Managua at 2pm and getting to Sebaco about an hour later. We take it, eat some bread, and head back for Sebaco to find our Transnica luxury bus. We make it back there what ends up being about 3 and a half hours ahead of time. We hang out in this dirty little town and find a little food stand with some chairs. The family running the place ends up being nice and we hang out for a couple of hours taking pictures with them, talking about the states, and about our travels. Obviously this is what I was told we were talking about. We decide to go stand next to the road for fear that the bus might not know it is picking us up and blow by on the quick Pan American Highway. We end us standing next to the road for about an hour and a half and this is a bad thing because we had expected the bus in the first 30 minutes. See, the problem was that, for some reason, we had the wrong time of day. Our watches were an hour ahead because of daylight savings time or the lack of it and we never really figured it all out. During this extra wait we are contemplating what we can say or do to this dirty travel agent that sold us fake tickets. Luckily the bus finally shows and stops without us even flagging it down and we jump on. This is luxury with plenty of leg room, so much in fact that there is a fold down leg rest. Movies, air conditioning, snacks, drinks, in one word: ejecutivo.

Border crossings were easy if not pushing it since we made it to the Honduras border at about 459pm and it had a closing time of 5pm. Close one but these guys are pros so I guess they know what they are doing. Make it to Tegucigalpa and get a cab to Hotel Hedman Alas the hotel that the bus company that we will be taking the next day to Guatemala owns. We come to find out that there is really no relationship between the 2 identically named entities and we cant book tickets until the following morning, if they aren't sold out that is. That night we ate Chinese food and decided to share an order of chicken fried rice (pretty safe) meant for 5 people. We hadn't eaten too much all day and thought it no problem but it turns out this plate is big enough for about 10 people. Literally the largest plate of food ever. We make it back and our armed guard lets us in. That's another thing I have failed to mention is that every place from ice cream parlors to banks to photo shops have armed guards and these guys at minimum have sawed off shotguns but I have seen Uzis, M16s, and all kinds of high powered hand guns. A bit scared but when they are in your hotel I suppose it is a good thing. Next morning with a 5am wakeup call to get tickets we are successful and get the heck outta town. This is a bus ride leaving Tegucigalpa connecting in San Pedro Sula, the Copan Ruins, Guatemala City, and finally to Antigua. The bus left at 545am and arrived in Antigua at about 8pm. You do the math.

Luckily, the bus ride was quite scenic and we saw the sparsely covered highlands of north Nicaragua change to completely covered and lush forest in Honduras to pine covered to volcano based in Guatemala. Beautiful ride just tiring seeing such movies as K Pax, Assault on Precinct 13, Boat Ride (the most hilarious of the bunch starring Horatio Sans and Cuba Gooding on a gay cruise, just imagine the ensuing antics), Honey, and Hotel Rwanda. I know there were others but I tried to sleep through some of them and apparently succeeded. Made it to Antigua and here we stay. Sweet as town just as cute as can be with cobbled streets and old style buildings and enough church ruins for anybody. It is in the middle of three volcanoes and is a perfect temperature at probably about 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Not much going on here in the 'land of eternal springtime' but the place is a gringo heaven with all its shops, markets, restaurants, cafes, hotels, and bars. It is known for its language schools and the book says all the bars in town make for a bunch of half ass language students and professional partiers. Letcha know later what's going on here later.