It's not a Mexican vacation until you get robbed by the Police

On our first night in Cancun, Jamie and I were amped up to go out. We had been traveling for 19 hours that day and had spent the previous several days in dirty, chaotic, stressful places. We showered, drank a bottle of cheap cane liquor, grabbed a couple of "road sodas" and then went out to the street to catch a bus to the hotel zone.

I knew we were not supposed to drink on the streets, but it was past midnight, not many people were out, and I did not think it would be a problem. To be safe, we wrapped them up in paper. Sure enough, a pick-up full of cops pulls up to the corner where we were standing and, despite our best attempts to play it cool, they were on to us like sharks to blood.

Three of them jumped out, each holding a machine gun, and told us it was against the law to drink in public. At first, I tried to say we had just arrived, grabbed a couple of beers, and were heading right back to the hostel. My attitude said "No problem amigo." Did not fly.

They told us we were going with them, so we hopped in the back of the truck. As we drove off, uncertain of where we were going, I sternly interrupted the mumbling officers to remind them that I spoke Spanish and understood every word, lest they do too much colluding in front of us. Not wanting to beat around the bush, I asked the officers what we could do to avoid going to the station. They chatted between themselves and replied that the fine would be $150 USD each. Aghast, I told them, truthfully, that we did not have that kind of money on us, to which they replied that we would have to go to the station and spend 36 hours in jail.

They drove us to a dark dead-end street and shut off the truck. At this point I started to get nervous/frightened, because they did not seem willing to budge and I was not willing to give up $150 so easily. Jamie and I openly discussed our options in English: He though we should demand to speak to someone from the consulate. I was certain that would not fly with these guys, and wondered if we should try and call their bluff about going to the station. I was, however, doubtful of our prospects for staying whole in prison if it should come to that. As I became more certain we would have to pony up, Jamie kept a cool head and decided we should just keep talking with them.

We decided to play up the fact that Jamie had lost his debit card (true) and was waiting for a new one in Cancun. The story somehow took on a life of its own and soon we were saying that we had both lost our cards, were living on our last few pesos and waiting for replacements. For a while, they did not want to accept this and said we would have to take our chances at the station, where, they made clear, things would be much more difficult.

I played dumb and willing, but unable, to help. Jamie said we should offer them the 2 beers we had left and a bag of chips. Embarassed at such a silly idea but willing to try it, I relayed this offer, adding that we could all go out for some beers like friends. They did not jump at the suggestion but did not scoff either, and the mood loosened up a bit. Ultimately, I said I would give them every last peso in my pockets, which came to around $10 USD, but that we could not offer anything else. They finally accepted, to my extreme relief. Once we had agreed, they frisked us both, obviously checking for more money. One officer found my wallet but did not notice my credit card.

True to my word, I gave them every last coin in my pockets, and Jamie threw in a few Jalapeno chips for good measure. They became friendly and smiling, and one officer even put his hand on my shoulder and told me how to get back to the our hostel. My elation at getting off so easy far outweighed the anger and frustration at having been outright robbed at gunpoint.

Our story is amazingly common. The very next night a friend of ours lost almost $40 to the police after they caught him peeing behind a tree. Another traveler reported that a friend of his was held at gunpoint until he agreed to go to an ATM for hundreds of dollars. I will concede that these situations usually are borne out of dumb decisions by travelers. Nevertheless, the impunity with which these armed robbers operate is truly unsettling and has no place in such a great country. Afterwards, I found myself worried about jaywalking, not wanting to give the swarming patrols any further excuse.

Despite the fact that, as many will point out, a public drinking ticket in the US would probably be more expensive, I'll take the rule of law any day.

Travelogue: Next Steps

Tommorrow I will fly to Santiago, Chile, spend a couple days there, and then head to the far South to volunteer on a "farm" in Patagonia. I signed up for an organization called "WWOOF" (Willing Workers on Organic Farms, google it) and found the listing below. Sounds amazing, and my hope, pending confirmation that Thomas is not insane, is to spend 6-8 weeks there before exploring more of South America. I think it will be an amazing opportunity to see a beautiful part of the world up close, to get my hands dirty, learn some new skills, and, importantly, live for a time without spending money.

Apologies for the late notice, but due to the enigmatic scheduling and pricing of flights, I will be spending 7 hours in Miami tomorrow. If anyone is dying to see me, we can meet on South Beach for a mojito.

See below for a more thorough explanation of what the heck is going on in Chile. After reading you will know as much as I do.

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My name is Thomas, I am from Holland , I travelled around the world several times and came across this natural paradise in Patagonia , Chile. I fell in love with the valley , the waterfalls , the untouched jungle (Cold Jungle) I am active and enterprising , I need help building log cabins , perfecting my dams, turbines and windgenerators to make electricity. I also bought materials to build a katamaran and heaps of tools for all kinds of mad scientist projects. I own this beach right on the estuary. Plenty of fishing seafood , swimming kayaking and more. Dolphins and curious sealions often come spy on us strange human beings . I heard a ferocious roar of a puma (american lyon) a while ago. All I need is a few helping hands as the challenges of survival in pure unadulterated nature are many . Lodging in tent, meals rich in fishs. Come see . Adelante. Bienvenidos! But I need wwoofers remain 3 weeks or more.

Total freedom to choose from...to participate in whatever projects you enjoy :


1) exploring & clearing the jungle ( small scale ) using machetes
2) making a path to the lake ( 6 kms )
3 building a bridge over the stream/small river involving some cement work
4) farming and 2 greenhouses .
5) making repairs .......tents or structure or broken tools
6) some work involving chainsaws
7) setting up tents and alternative accommodations
8) building log cabins
9) cutting, drying and storing firewood ( using only dead trees )
10) cooking with woodstove , baking whole wheat bread or raisin bread
11) installing copper tubes into firewood systems in order to make hot water for
boiling baths and hot showers ( involves bending and soldering copper tubes )
12) washing your own dishes and /or taking turns ......I am not the maid
13) fishing witha net and collecting buckets of seafood ( mussels ) for meals
14) Smoking and preserving seafood which I give to friends , no charge .
15) Sailing a catamaran to go into town for shopping and picking up volunteers
16) Enlarging present DAM/reservoir to store 20 times more water
( Water is delicious and safe and used for drinking , cooking and generating electricity )
17) Some small scale electric projects ( mostly lighting and music )
18) taking care of livestock ( limited to 3 goats at present ) the challenge here is to keep them safe from PUMA
19) Learning , participating and actually helping in various projects .
20) Taking photos of projects and activities ...in order to improve my very amateur
internet site and helping me prepare the way for ADVENTURE TOURISM
some time in the future

Tikal to Cancun

We arrived in the small town of Flores, Guatemala, late at night after more than 16 hours of travel. We couldn't make much of the town in the dark and were unsure of whhat it had to offer, so we took the first hotel we saw, right outside the bus station. It was by far the worst place I have ever slept. Dingy concrete rooms surrounded a dingier courtyard. Shared bathrooms were dark and disgusting, and the place generally smelled of waste and refuse. On top of that, multiple cockroaches were crawling around our room when we entered. I pulled the bed out from the wall and tried to sleep tight in my sleeping bag until the suffocating heat forced me to brave the bugs and sleep coverless.

The next day we took a trip to the mind-blowing ruins at Tikal. Truly in the jungle, the park encompasses 100 square kilometers, only 20% of which has been excavated/restored. Street signs on the road that enters the park (the kind that would show deer in the US) warn of jaguars and snakes crossing. The site is a tourist mecca, so it is high-priced and relatively crowded, but for good reason. Towering structures of stone rise out of the trees, looking down upon amazingly well-organized plazas. We climbed several of the larger temples and were rewarded with vistas of endless jungle, all the way to the horizon, as well as the surrounding structures. It was impossible to resist closing my eyes and imagining the plazas teeming with Mayans involved in some sacrificial ceremony (no historical knowledge here, so I channeled images from Mel Gibson's Apocalypto)

We had to spend another night in Flores, but found a cheaper and better hotel in the daylight. It would have been a good deal regardless, but the attendant actually gave me the wrong key so we ended up with a large room that had four beds and a private bathroom for about $4 each. We ate our second meal in two days at the same friendly roadside eatery and chatted with the young daughter as she tried to practice english and get Jamie to give her his passport. The next day we awoke at 4:45 AM for a bus to Chetumal, on the border of Mexico and Belize. We spent all of 5 hours in Belize, but had to pay $15 for the privilege. The day was grueling, 19 hours of travel to Cancun.

Crossing the border into Mexico felt like going home for Jamie and I. Strangely, after having been through a few Central American countries, we realized how developed Mexico is and how comfortable we had become with it. Tacos, beer, accomodations...it all seems easier and cheaper in Mexico. Mexico has by far been the biggest surprise of my trip. Having lived so close to it for so long, I am shocked at my misstep of not having explored it sooner. One could easily spend several years exploring and not see it all.

Having said that, we all know Cancun is a different animal. I was here seven years ago for a high-school graduation trip and did the hotel all-inclusive thing. Now, I'm staying in a $8 per night hostel and eating on $3 per day. In that context I am seeing that Cancun was and is a true Mexican city, even if it does have several miles of coastline that might as well be The United States. As the saying goes, "When in Rome...," so we ponied up for a Spring Break bar crawl on our first night. Like watching Snakes on a Plane, you need to be able to suspend disbelief if you are going to enjoy it. We felt our age, however, as we laughed into our beers upon hearing the emcee scream "showing me your fucking beers and say USA!" That pretty much summed up the evening.

I'll spend a couple more nights here and head on to phase two of my trip: Chile.

Perquin, El Salvador to Bay Islands, Honduras

We caught a bus on the side of the road headed for Honduras. The dusty, dusty--can't emphasize that enough--dusty, rocky road winds up, down, and around the border mountains. People had to cover their faces with scarves and cloths to block out the dust and babies were buried beneath blankets by protective mothers. The border was not much of a border--no gates or demarcation, no stamps. There wasn't even a representative from El Salvador present. Our border crossings have been hit or miss--sometimes you pay unoffical "fees," sometimes you walk right through. Here, the Honduran official that boarded our bus tried to hassle me a bit, but thankfully let it go and sent us along with a smile.

A couple hours later we arrived in Marcala, a small town surrounded by fragrant coffee plantations and beautiful countryside, but itself a dusty, dirty, and dodgy place. We just spent the night and headed out in the morning for La Ceiba, on the Caribbean coast. A two hour bus ride to the side of a highway, a half-hour bus to a larger town, a three hour bus to the large city of San Pedro Sula, and a four hour bus to La Ceiba got us there by evening.

In a relatively short time we had been transported to quite a different world. Coastal Honduras, in contrast to inland Central America, is heavily influenced by its Afro-Caribbean population. There is a definitive "island" vibe in the food, music, and people. The town is known for its parties, so we drank cheap rum on the beach and went out to a local disco which, despite the crumminess of the town, was fancy enough for any European city.

The next morning we boarded a ferry for Utila, the cheapest of the three famous "Bay Islands." After an hour and a half struggling not to vomit, we arrived to a strikingly "white" bunch of salesmen, all pushing various dive courses and hotels. The island has developed a world-famous diving industry, and many travelers and expats end up living in Utila owning, operating, or working in dive shops, restaurants, hotels, and related businesses. Almost all travelers are in Utila to get certified, so we baffled with our plan to just "chill out."

I'm honestly not very clear on the island's history, but English is the official language and the local population seems to be a mixture of white colonial descendents and afro-caribbean descendents of slaves. The owner of our hotel lamented that they are governed by Honduras and made clear that her daughter "don't speak no Spanish."

The ferry to get to the islands was quite expensive ($23 each way), so we lived a spartan existence in our time there, abstaining from alcohol and cooking our own rice and beans with sparing amounts of vegetables.

We spent a lot of time at the beach. One day we rented a kayak and paddled out to Water Cay, a deserted island with picture-perfect beaches, palm trees, and turquoise water. We ended up missing Water Cay and landing on another small island that had a deserted house on it. Nobody else showed up and we had the place to ourself, save for the pelicans. We collected coconuts, paddled out to deep waters for a swim, and just lazed around in complete serenity. The coconuts proved difficult to open, but we perfected a technique that involved a 50lb piece of coral and were savoring the milk and meat in no time.

After a few lazy days we embarked on a grueling day of travel--16 hours of ferries, taxis, buses, and minibuses to get to Flores, Guatemala, jumping off point for tours to the epic Mayan ruins of Tikal.

Travelogue: San Salvador to Perquin

We left San Salvador after four nights and headed for the small town of Alegria. This tiny mountain town (population 5000 or so) is postcard charming, perched on a green mountaintop and surrounded by beautiful flowers. Our simple hotel, a converted home, was right on the plaza and came complete with old folks sitting on wooden chairs around the garden, chatting the days away. The room we stayed in came with a large poster of Jesus' face. On arrival we walked to nearby Laguna Alegria-- a cold, sulfurous lake in the crater of a dormant volcano. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with a few cold Pilsner beers.

After a night in Alegria we took four chicken buses and a pick-up truck east and north to the small town of Perquin, in the mountain jungle near the border with Honduras. This area was an intense battle ground during the Civil War, and our hope was to take a guided tour with a local ex-guerrilla guide. Our "hotel" was a converted wood mill, simple and super cheap ($6). One of the workers there told me times have been really tough over the past year, with tourism markedly down. He actually asked us to pay part of our stay in advance because they had no cash to buy soap, toilet paper, and food for the guests.

We ate all of our meals during our 2.5 day stay at a local eatery we found on the first night. A lovely woman cooked in the open kitchen while her husband sat watching tv and drinking beer in the dining room--he did help bring out the plates and collect our bill. She cooked up big plates of rice, salad, steak, tortillas, and beans for about $2--we really enjoyed our meals and her friendliness and, on the day we left, hugs and kisses felt natural.

On our first day we toured the local museum, filled with artifacts related to the war. It has the original radio equipment used by the guerrillas to send clandestine broadcasts to troops and supporters, 500lb American bombs dropped on the town, and bullet-proof cars donated by Mexico and France for guerrilla leaders. Evidence of the fighting is obvious 17 years later: The area is littered with tunnels, trenches, and bomb craters that would swallow a minivan.

A former combatant, Ephrain, showed us around and shared his story: He joined the guerrillas when he was 15, two years after his father and brother, non-combatants, were murdered by the military government. He took a grenade blast on one side of his body and now has limited mobility in his right arm and leg and metal plates in his head. When asked whether he believes war is useful, he said, "it was a bad thing, but we had no other choice."

While in Perquin we took an emotional trip with another ex-combatant to Mozote, where, in 1981, almost 1000 villagers were killed by soldiers attempting to eradicate the guerrilla threat. Oscar, with war scars of his own--his leg and arm were shattered by bullets--answered our questions patiently and told of his time in the war. His eyes spoke of sadness, on the verge of welling with tears as he told of his experiences: finding the bodies of decapitated children burning in Mozote, helplessly watching friends die as helicopters rained fire upon his platoon, and feeling that fighting was the only way out of a repressive situation. The one lighter moment of the trip came on the banks of the pristine Rio Sapo. We spent an hour diving and swimming in a pool set between cascades and boulders, thrilled at having found a clean body of water in Central America. We left Oscar with hearty handshakes and lingering smiles, feeling unable to truly express our gratitude at his having shared such a difficult and emotional experience.

That afternoon Jamie and I said goodbye to Ciaran as he headed for Nicaragua and we for Honduras.

Update

For the few avid "Crisis" followers: I am still alive and well, but have been hopping quickly between dusty cities on dusty buses with spotty access to internet; I am back in Mexico, which in terms of development now feels like home, and will be filling in the blanks soon.

In the meantime, a reflection from my trip to El Salvador:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-santiago/revisiting-american-invol_b_177841.html

Best,
JS

Travelogue: Antigua, Guatemala to San Salvador

We left Antigua on a chicken bus bound for Guatemala City--notorious, even amongst hardy travelers, as a dirty and dangerous place. We hopped off the bus somewhere along a busy highway, as we had been advised, and hopped into a taxi driven by Milton, a former computational math teacher turned taxista. Despite his best efforts to screw us we had been advised of the going rates and was able to get what we wanted. Turned out to be a great, thoughtful guy and of course gave me his number in case I ever "dropped by" Guatemala City in the future. He dropped us off on a dirty chaotic street in front of a dirty chaotic hole-in-the-wall bus station. Inside we paid for tickets to El Salvador and dropped our bags to go exploring for a bit. Central Guatemala City is crazy. Stores, food carts, people, trash, animals, trucks, smog...all heaped right on top of each other like a living, moving collage. People were absolutely gobsmacked, to steal a term from my Irish mate Ciaran, that three "gringos" were just walking around, eating and scoping things out.

The bus to El Salvador was great. The border crossing was easy: quickly stamped with no fees and no trouble. Hordes of food vendors boarded on the Salvadoran side and we got our first taste of pupusas, the national dish. We made friends with people around us including a heavy-machine operator just returned from an 8-month trip to Australia and a freshly graduated doctor from San Salvador. We had intended to stop at a small town just across the border, famous for its weekend food fair, but were convinced by the young doctor, Gonzalo, to continue on to San Salvador.

We found, to our complete surprise, that we had inadvertently stumbled upon a truly historic moment. The presidential election was to be held two days away, on Sunday, and it was widely expected that the leftist FMLN would end their rivals' 20+ year reign. The sale of alcohol was to be cut off nationwide from midnight Friday to midnight Monday, so early Friday was supposed to be a big party and Gonzalo offered to take us out.

The machine operator, Carlos, rocked my world with his story. He had been in Australia visiting his brother and sister, who had emigrated there during El Salvador's 12-year civil war. Apparently hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans ended up in Australia as part of a refugee program (also, 2 million out of 7 million Salvadorans live in the U.S.) He himself had fled earlier to Mexico City--he was in danger, as were many, because he refused to pick sides in the war. For a period of several years, he had no contact with his family and they thought he had been "disappeared" by the government. After a glorious reunion and his trip to Australia, he is now trying to relocate there with his own family.

Our first night in the city, Jaime and Ciaran were attacked a couple blocks from our hostel. Upon realizing the attackers did not have knives, they fought them off and escaped more or less unharmed, but shaken up.

As far as tourist attractions go, there is not much to see in San Salvador, but what we saw was remarkable. We saw a city that, despite its reputation as dangerous and worth missing, embodied a friendliness that boggled the mind. In conversation we told locals about the mugging and they invariable apologized. I think, despite the inexcusable violence, we all recognized that the attack was one of opportunity--two drunk guys, clearly not familiar with the place, walked by three drunk guys who "owned" the place--and did not represent a pattern of violence endemic to the city or country. At every turn we met people fully willing to welcome us into their daily lives, whether it be on the street, in the market, or at the celebration of an historic victory. More to come on the elections, but this section of the travelogue ends here.