Masaya, Nicaragua

On my way south from Leon, I found that I was going to be heading right past the active volcano of Masaya.  What made this even more exciting, was the fact that you can drive to it.

In Antigua, Guatemala, there are numerous volcano treks offered to see an active volcano there erupt at dawn when you're drinking your morning coffee.  These were two day treks, and anyone I talked to that did them said that it was grueling, but very exciting to see an active volcano.  These excursions sounded hard and I had a boo boo on my foot and it was at 4000m above sea level and my knees hurt and I didn't do it.

Masaya was more my style.  You could only park at the top for 5 minutes...I think so that if it erupted, they'd only kill a few tourists.

Also got stopped by the cops for "speeding".  They're much cheaper than Mexico.  Roads are better too.

Leon, Nicaragua

Leon, Nicaragua, is hot.  Really hot. All the time.

I parked Vandrew without incident in a parking garage across the street from the hostel that I was staying in.  The town of Leon has a lot to offer.  Good restaurants and cheap beer.  It's times like these when I'm happy that I'm not a connoisseur of beer, and can enjoy a cold brew that others might balk at.

One of the big attractions in the Leon area is something called "Volcano Surfing".  There is a specific volcano, Cerro Negro, near Leon, where sliding down the volcano is possible because the prevailing winds and the direction of the eruptions mean the large rocks are thrown onto one side of the mountain, while the finer ash and smaller stones land on the opposite side.  This means you can slide down volcanic sand that's only slightly coarser than beach sand.

Coming from Canada, this was like reverse tobogganing.  Instead of cold it's hot, and instead of white it's black.  Other than that, it's pretty much the same....except much, much dirtier.

Halfway up

Almost to the top

Top of the Volcano!

Survived the ride

Santa Ana, El Salvador to Leon, Nicaragua

I didn't see anything close to my route in Honduras that appealed, so I decided to drive straight through the country without stopping.  I crossed the El Salvador/Honduras border at around 10am (after a "helper" gringoed me out of around $150US for a $60US border fee).

Got through the Honduras/Nicaragua border without incident, and without the use of a "helper"

There were approximately 17 000 potholes in the 131km of Honduras road that I drove.

I managed to avoid 6 of them.

Santa Ana, El Salvador

Antigua was a real highlight of my trip.  Spending time with my new friends was fantastic, but I was ready for some time on my own.  I drove out of Antigua alone for the first time since Puerto Escondido, Mexico.  Just me and Vandrew, on the open road.

And the roads were good.  Like most secondary highways in Canada, although most of the time with much smaller, or nonexistent, shoulders.  I drove to the border of El Salvador with no issue, got there in plenty of time, and was accosted by a man who wanted to "help" me.  He wouldn't take no for an answer, and ran from building to building with me keeping a watchful eye on my passport and driver's licence.  After a lot of waiting, and a lot of  back and forth, I was through the border.  It cost me $40US, and I was happy.

Unfortunately, the light was going, and I had to drive the last two hours in the dark.  I was stopped a few times at police check stops, but they were more intent on actually looking for contraband instead of shaking me down for cash.  They looked over Vandrew with more detail than every before, but let me go without incident.

The city I was heading to was Santa Ana, and I found it to be a very progressive city, nice roads, not too much traffic.  The address I had for the bed and breakfast that I was staying at was a bit criptic, and I was directed to an intersection in a residential area of the city.  I wandered around the area, and asked someone on the street.  After a bit of confusion, I was directed to a house a few doors down.  This is where I met Aminta, the proprietor.

Aminta, Vandrew and I outside her home

Aminta said that she couldn't put up signs, otherwise the mafia would come asking for protection money.  Nice.  I was also told that the police in El Salvador weren't very corrupt, but the politicians were as a crooked as a dog's hind leg, and that's why the roads were so nice, "they can get money (kickbacks) from roads, they can't get money from education or healthcare"  I'd never thought about it until then.

I was in Santa Ana for 3 days.  I was not robbed or threatened.  I did watch Star Wars: Rogue One in the Cinema.  Maybe it was the fact that the official currency is the US dollar, but, at least in Santa Ana, it seemed like a very Americanized culture.

El Salvador....or Calgary?

The lake was nice, but the beer for $1.25US was BEAUTIFUL

Antigua, Guatamala

So, at the last minute, Natasja decided that she wanted to go to Antigua, rather than stay at Lake Atitlan like she'd originally planned, so the two of us jumped into Vandrew, and I'd arranged for Filipe Mechanico to drive us up to the highway, as I was still suffering PTSD from the drive down.

As it turned out, Filipe thought he was just driving us out of San Pedro village, so it was up to me to drive out to the nice highway.  It ended up being no problem...it's a lot easier in the daylight, going up, when you know what you're in for...but let me tell you, the video does not give you any idea how steep the road is!

Once we made it out to the highway, things were pretty smooth.  Although there was the lingering issue of the carbon monoxide that was slowly poisoning us.  Even though there was nobody in the back, and the windows were down, we still had to stop four times on the three hour journey between San Pedro and the town of Antigua.

We made it in to town in the early afternoon, and went to a hostel called 3 monkeys.  The manager at the hostel directed me to the tourist police yard where he said I could park Vandrew for free.  The down side to this arrangement was that the doors closed to the tourist police yard at 10pm every night.  I paid for a bed in one of the dorms, but would leave before 10 most nights to go and sleep in Vandrew...oh I had missed sleeping in Vandrew!

Occasionally, I would stay out too late and have to stay in the hostel dorm.  This was okay, if I'd had enough to drink that I fell asleep without being disturbed by the snoring and general disturbances of the other patrons of the dorm...I usually made sure that this was the case.

Two days after Natasja and I arrived, our friends Cherry and Linzy arrived at the hostel.  A day or two after that, Carmel and Paola showed up.  As we were all sitting in the bar area of the hostel, Holly (a girl that we met at 3 monkeys), asked how we all knew each other.  I explained..

"Well, I met Carmel in Puerto Escondido, Mexico a few weeks ago.  She and another girl left the hostel we were staying at and went to another hostel, and while they were gone, Cherry and Linzy showed up, and we had a good time for a couple of days, and then they wen't to San Cristobal, and after they'd left, Carmel returned to my hostel.  Then her friend Paola arrived (they'd met a while earlier somewhere else in Mexico), and that's where I first met Paola.  Then Paola and Carmel and another girl went in Vandrew to Mazunte, and that's where we left Paola and the other girl, and Carmel and I went to Oaxaca, and then on to San Cristobal, where we met up with Cherry and Linzy.  That was the first time Carmel met Cherry and Linzy.  That's where the four of us met Natasja.  Then Cherry and Linzy left, and a couple of days later, Paola showed up in San Cristobal with another guy.  That's where Paola and Natasja met.  Then Carmel, Paola, Natasja, another guy and girl and I left San Cristobal in Vandrew and went to Cometan.  That's where Carmel, Paola, and the guy left us and Natasja and the girl and I went to Lake Atitlan, Guatemala together.

Then we all came here."

When I said it out loud, It occurred to me how special it is to travel in the time of facebook.

L-R Carmel, Linzy, Thomas, Cherry, Me, Paola

Paola at the lookout point

During my time in Antigua, I didn't do a lot of exploring.  I did, however, get my brakes repaired for the third time in three towns.  The place I went to was pretty fancy...it had a waiting room...and a roof.  They told me that there was a small leak in the brake lines and that was my problem.  They got it fixed that very day, and it cost less than they had originally quoted!

I also, just for a laugh, had the exhaust pipe repaired.  It cost about $30CDN, and was also done the same day that I dropped it off.

Vandrew, cobbled streets and a volcano

Random Guatemalan Christmas dog.

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

The next morning, we set off on foot to explore San Pedro and figure out our next move.  We found a hostel to go to with reasonable rates, just a couple of blocks drive from where Vandrew was parked.  There was also a parking lot area just a few meters down from the hostel where I could park Vandrew for a week for 100 Guatemalan quetzal (around $15 Canadian).  Excellent!  Things were looking up after a stressful drive the night before.

We took a shortcut back to Vandrew, and headed for the parking lot.  Some of the roads were very tiny, and I couldn't make the corner in one go, so I had to hold up the tuk tuk traffic while I shuffled around those corners.  Edging towards our goal, the roads got smaller and smaller, until we got to a dogleg in the road that Vandrew couldn't physically fit through.

I had to back all the way back to where I'd started, with Aya directing tuk tuk traffic, and Natasja guiding me backwards around the corners like a rockstar.  We got halfway back to where we'd started that day when Aya noticed that there was green fluid pouring out of the front of Vandrew.  Coolant.  It looked to me like Vandrew had blown a hose.  Fortunately, we were just at the front of the local schoolhouse, and there was a point that I could back into and not hold up traffic.

A tuk tuk driver then told Aya that he knew a mechanic, so Aya and I went off  in his tuk tuk to visit the mecanico, while Natasja started moving stuff from Vandrew to the hostel (it was only a couple of blocks away).  After a bit of waiting around, Felipe the mecanico showed up.  He filled up the coolant and checked for leaks....there didn't seem to be any, and I think engine just overheated with all the uphill backwards work.  I still wanted Felipe to look at the brakes, and he said that he would.  He also said that I could leave Vandrew at his shop for the week.  He drove Vandrew out of the tiny streets of San Pedro to his shop, then Aya and I got a tuk tuk back to the hostel...I was ready for some rest!

The "street" in San Pedro where Vandrew doesn't fit.  The tree behind the red roof is where we're trying to get to...

A couple of days later, Natasja and a couple of guys that we'd met in San Cristobal who were staying at our hostel decided to do a sunrise hike up indian's nose.  I thought it would be a good idea to join, even though the thought of getting up at 3:30am wasn't appealing.  The hike started with a drive up the seismic wave road, then a small hike in the dark up to the top of the nose.  The view was good though.

Indian Nose

Indian Nose from the top

Aya and Andrew, sitting by Lake Atitlan

One day, Aya and I took a water taxi over to the town of Panajachel on the other side of Lake Atitlan.  There was a nature preserve there where we could see monkeys and do some ziplining.  We didn't see monkeys, but we did see some tree animals that are closely related to raccoons...can't remember their name though.  There was also a little butterfly sanctuary, and ziplining!

I think there was something on the lens of the camera....kinda makes me look like a superhero though...