8-25 [Long Overdue]

All good things must come to an end, but fortunately for Seth and I, some good things end well, too. Just today he flew home, our whirlwind tour of Central America - the "impossible" five countries in twenty-five days - sadly at an end. Still, we arrived in Costa Rica with time to spare and electedto break with tradition. After so many temporary friends, here of all places we have the unique opportunity to meet old friends rather than make new ones. The world is, as I have come to know it, a strange and wonderful place made all that much more so by good friends, life of late has been made better still in the company of two of the best a fellow could ask for. My friends Kevin and Brooke - the former with whom I studied at UF and the latter his lovely wife - recently relocated to Costa Rica for work and [lucky us!] has spent the last few days playing host-cum-guides for both Seth and I. Indeed, it is with a happy heart that we have passed the last few days in northern Costa Rica not in hostels but in their homes, not with strangers but compadres. It is certainly the kind of thing a fellow could get used to: forget the perfect beach days - after so many weeks on strange roads with stranger people, perfect friends will do and then come.

8-23 [Welcome to Costa Rica]

Trip planning is, by its very nature, so completely removed from the actual act itself as to be almost absurd. What is talked about, sketched tentatively, and even planned for is inevitably so far off - and likewise foreign in fact and conception - that it is with no small sense of disbelief that I stand here, at long last, in Costa Rica. My first impressions of Costa Rica are, like so many of the countries before it, mixed. Neither overwhelmed of disappointed - I was, I knoq now, spoiled rotten by Mexico, El Salvador, and Nicaragua - I am nevertheless looking forward to putting my bag down for a minute and cultivating roots. Still, after eight weeks of travel, five months abroad, and no less than six countries, even I knoq that this will be less "journey's end" and more of "journey's respite." Still, whatever you call it, it will be a welcome change. Even if I know already that Costa Rica will not be a fantasyland of possibilities and opportunities, to my weary feet and aching back nothing sounds more sublime at the moment than going to a local market more than once, of finding a "favorite restaurant," of making honest-to-goodness friends again.* So here's my notice to the world: I'm on travel hiatus again; for now I'm just a resident.

* Not to knock "travel friends" - I love them, I do! - but they are decidedly temporary in nature.

8-21

How different things are today than yesterday. In fact, today´s tranquility could not stand in more sharp contrast to its predecessor´s frenetic pace. In fact, all we managed to do today was move from one side of the island to the other, leaving plenty of time to again enjoy the waters of Lake Nicaragua and, more importantly, rest our weary bones.
Tomorrow we´re off to Costa Rica, my soon-to-be home-away-from-home, but for now I think I´d rather enjoy the Lake a little more first. :)

8-20

I cannot remember the last time I felt this good, this happy, this complete. I climbed Maderas today, and frankly the eight-hour uphill hike has left me both mentally and physically exhausted. Which is fantastic, really. It´s the kind of bone weariness you only feel after some extreme exertion, and coupled as it is with the feeling you get of accomplishing some long-ago-imagined task... well, it´s perfection.
More than that, it´s the surest sign yet, as I nestle into my hammock on the side of a dormant volcano, that the absurd direction my life is currently heading in might actually be the right one.

8-19

We have, as the crow flies, barely moved a inch. Still, even if Granada and Isla de Ometepe seem miniscule, it took no less that two taxis, three buses, and a ferry to make to happen. [That´s not even included the kilometer-plus uphill walk with our bags!] The view of Lake Nicaragua isn´t the only thing that has changed, howeve3r - so, too, has the pace of like. After a few days of cityscapes Seth and I once again find ourselves off the beaten track and loving every minute of it. We´re holed up for the night in Finca Magadalena, a working agricultural cooperative that is located at the base of Maderas, one of Ometepe´s two volcanoes.
Below is the lake and above us the mountain - tonight we´ll swim and tomorrow we´ll climb!

8-18

Early on in the trip, Seth and took a calculated risk: in lieu of our planned stopover in Antigua, Guatemala we would visit Leon, Nicaragua instead. The reasons for this were many, not the least important being being the fact that I had already visited Antigua and, more importantly, quietly and irrationally hated my time there. Plus the scheduling to make it happen twice was going to be a nightmare of epic proportions. A visit to Leon, on the other dand, would afford us the opportunity to see Nicaragua´s two great colonial cities back-to-back and ¨judge¨ them accordingly.
Well, that which was planned has come to pass and the votes are in. The verdict? For me, Leon by a mile. Both are charming colonial cities, and although Leon is slightly older, Granada has aged better [no thanks to the American conquistador William Walker]. Still, for all its lustre, Granada feels all that much less ¨lived in¨ than Leon. Indeed, even in itsw slightly dilapidated form, Leon ended up being so much more than a colonial city. If Granada was prettier it was also shallower, and Leon´s warts bestowed an extra level of depth for all its homeliness.
Both had lovely churches, true, but the spaces between Leon´s were adorned with murals and museums, commemorating its turbulent past. For example, Leon had the museum of Revolutionary Hereos and Martyrs, while Granada had a museum of Precolombian atifacts, and I know I´m a terrible classicists to say this, but only the former left me thinking well into the night.

8-16

Lonely Planet, you´re not doing yourself any favors here. First you were off base with Alegria, El Salvador and now you´ve missed the mark with San Lorenzo, Honduras, as well. You´re on thin ice here, bub. Sure, it´s not the most beautiful town I´ve even seen, but I can assure it´s a far sight better than my last Honduran travel experience. Indeed, even if our border crossing was not as speedy as we might have hoped, San Lorenzo and the Gulf of Fonseca its perched on are both better than you led us to believe. I mean, we may be the only foreign tourists in town but hey, there´s a carnival tonight so it can´t be all bad, can it?

Editor´s Note: A large number of Candied Apples says that no, it cannot. :)

8-15

An Open Letter to Lonely Planet:
Dear Lp - can I call you LP? - I love your products, really I do, but the truth is we need to talk. The elephant in the room is Alegria, El Salvador, which is as lovely as you describe but otherwise not at all in line with your entry. Take for example, Alegria´s picturesque crater lake: although it is in fact stunning it is not 2km downhill from town [Fact: 3km uphill] and likewise not icy [Fact: warm and green].
You and I both know there are other issues but lets try not to let them get in the way of what has otherwise been a lovely day in El Salvador´s highest down. Let´s just promise to try harder next time, okay?
xoxo,
Frankel

PS Oh, one more thing. Why didn´t you tell me they sell gelt in El Salvador. One word: delicious.

8-14

Say what you will about the politics but leave the people of El Salvador be. Indeed, after only a day on La Rute de las Flores I´m already beginning to wonder why Guatemala recieves so many more visitors than its smalle, southern neighbor. [Fact: El Salvador recieved only 35,000 tourists last year - Guatemala welcomed more than half a million.] I mean, what more could you possibley want than amaiable people, adorable villages, and amazing landscapes? Take Juayua, the first stop on La Ruta, as a case in point. The town´s central park, strewn with flowers, complimented its colonial church, yes, but the seven sucessive waterfalls just a few kilometers outside of town make them pale in comparison. So, too, did our impromptu guide, eight-year-old Juan Carlos, who led Seth and I there and back (the lot of us keeping ourselves entertained with more animal calls than I can make (in Spanish) all for the company and eventually a chocolate sundae. Juan Carlos may be an extreme example, sure, but everyone we met along La Ruta was as helpful as the day is long and, amazingly, seemed downright pleased to see us. Smiles and pleasantries were the order of the day in both Apaneca and Ataco as well. Above all else, though, the latter was exceptionally well named: there, at long last, I had a taco (or three) that met my newfound Mexican standards...

8-13

Yesterday´s marathon of traveling seems to have been worth it - one day into El Salvador and its already exceeding my expectations. One of the clearest reasons for this may be the ruins at Tazumal, which were themselves much more impressive than I thought they´d be.* So, too, was Lago de Coatepeque, my first - but hopefully not last! - volcanic crater lake. Being now something of a swimming hole gourmand I feel I can say definitively that it, too, was an unexpected surprise. The combination of mountains, water, sky, and El Salvador seems a potent combination.

* More than that, though, they were also the final piece necessary to complete my Five Mayan Nations experience. Amazing, having had never before seen Mayan ruins as recently as May, I have now seen at least one site in each of the five countries there were active in. This just blows me away, really it does.