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Wednesday, 17 September 2014

USA: From the east's Atlanta to the west's San Diego. July 2014.

So our South and Central America adventure had finally come to an end and it was time to relax for a bit. We arrived in Atlanta in Georgia on 4th July and spent almost a week at Matt's father's house eating well, sleeping well and staying in one spot rather well too. We visited the excellent Martin Luther King museum, took neighbourhood walks in the humid, glow-worm evenings and generally made light work of recharging our metaphorical and non-metaphorical batteries. What joy it was to do a simple load of laundry, too.

A week later we packed up the new addition to our travels, Matt's Subaru, with all his worldly belongings complete with furniture and art 'collection', a year's supply of pretzels, peanuts, crunchy peanut butter and smooth peanut butter, and drove 500 miles to New Orleans. This was the first leg of the westward journey to Matt's as yet unfound new home in San Diego, California.

We drove through heavy rain as we approached New Orleans, at points driving on freeways lowly-built above swamps and rivers, and after we checked out raucous downtown streets of Mardi Gras fame, stayed with Kaysi, a friend of a friend who put us up at her studio apartment. Kaysi's was the best US accent I've encountered, so Southern, and she was a keen kayaker, confirmed by the presence of the massive kayak we slept next to that night. We shared stories over beer and deer chili, courtesy of her brother's deer stalking. Kaysi left us to leave at our own pace the next morning when she left for work, and to think we'd met only the previous night.

Another 500 or so miles to Lewisville Lake Park in Texas where after a well-deserved lakeside beer we camped opposite a couple who were having some sort of tiff ('I'ma kill that bitch!') who were gone by morning. Endless, busy oil pumps dotted the Texan landscape.

It had long been a hope of Matt's to visit White Sands National Park in New Mexico and fortuitously the night we were due 600 miles later, a Mexican mariachi band were going to play in the park, fairly common on full moon nights. After driving through beautiful, cool, pine-scented Lincoln National Forest with its wooden houses and red American barns, we ended up camping for $10 at the Sheriff's house in a small town called Alamogordo, 'The Friendliest Place on Earth', where the US' first nuclear bomb was detonated in July 1945. After pitching the tent accompanied by the odd rabbit, we drove to White Sands for an evening of full moon mariachi action.

The next morning we drove away from Alamogordo's active missile complex (can't say I wasn't relieved) north to Socorro, Breaking Bad territory just 50 miles south of Albuquerque, Arizona. We then blazed west to Kaibab National Forest where after another 500 miles we landed a free night of camping at a seemingly unstaffed site near Flagstaff. More well-deserved beer. Pitched the tent just in time with the rumble of thunder approaching. Not long before Kaibab National Forest we'd been tempted into a 12 mile detour to a meteor site, which we abandoned when we saw the office there wanted $32 for the pleasure. So Matt had a skate in their car park instead.

Our penultimate day of driving saw us visit sweltering Palm Springs, California, then on and up to the Santa Rosa-San Jacinto Mountains, an impressive moonscape which made us fear for the car's health. It took us two hours to drive over the mountain alone until we finally made it to mosquito-inhabited Palomar Mountain on the other side, where we landed another free night of camping in the eerily-silent forest..silent except for some tent-side animal shufflings at 4am, which were shortly followed by a dawn chorus of animal sounds all completely alien to me. Now that's what it's all about.

Less than two hours from San Diego we packed up our things in the morning in preparation for some flat viewings that day. After three apartments Matt signed on the dotted line and we moved in that afternoon to a great flat in La Jolla, San Diego.

Psyching out Libertas in Atlanta, Georgia

Camping at Lewisville Lake north of Dallas, Texas

Listening to Mexican mariachi band in White Sands National Park, New Mexico -
that night, we ended up camping at the Sheriff's house

A very, very long freight train

Somewhere...somewhere New Mexico

New Mexico

Entering Arizona

Skating in Winslow, Arizona - after we didn't get to see the meteor

YEAH

Strange mountains..not long into California

Driving through California, endless humped roads. So much fun.

Approaching sweltering Palm Springs, California

Santa Rosa-San Jacinto Mountains, California

Matt missing the sign. On our way to camp on Palomar Mountain.

The morning after camping on Palomar Mountain, California

Looking down on the clouds from Palomar Mountain

And luckily straight into a studio flat the day we arrived in La Jolla, San Diego

Wednesday, 23 July 2014

From Panama to Nicaragua and Antigua, Guatemala. June 2014.

We boarded a motored fishing boat with one other person and were delivered over the border to Panama one afternoon. The first Panamanian town is Puerto Obaldia where we were to catch a 20-capacity light aircraft to Panama City from the simple airstrip the next day. When we arrived in town there was a football match in play with assault-rifle-clad players on the sidelines. In Puerto Obaldia we met the first of many men who were trying to cross illegally into the States. This guy was Cuban and had already been shot at. We later saw him at the Costa Rican border all smiles. Another we met had been very chatty with Matt, then later he found him crying at a bus depot after one of his 'accomplices' stole all his money.

Our very laidback and rich-looking pilot flew us over coral reefs and wave-battered islands, landing us in Panama City an hour or so later. From there we hotfooted it all the way through Costa Rica (staying overnight in San Jose) to Popoyo in Nicaragua, a very small town with one shop, on the coast, with a surfer for every resident. Perhaps more surfers in fact, though not in our hotel. We stayed in a run down hotel with a fantastic ocean breeze and bats at night. Here the mangrove swamp and ocean became one at high tide, and the bird-life was prolific, as it was elsewhere in Nicaragua too.

After several days of reading and surfing, we left for San Juan del Sur at 5am one morning to avoid the high tide, though our journey to the road did still take us up to our waists in muddy mangrove water with our belongings held aloft. We thought the bus might be empty at 5.30am but not so, I discovered, as I pressed my wet shorts up against all those squashed against me for the next hour or so.

San Juan del Sur is very popular with backpackers but also pale holidaymakers from the States and beyond. Here I found us a family-run hostel away from the madding crowd where we (almost) had a pool to ourselves. From here tacos and burritos became more prevalent and other than the bakery and veggies from the market, this is the way our meals headed. We relaxed for a few days in this lovely hostel, then vowed to return after another trip to the coast; off we went for a week to Playa Gigante, a remote surfing spot where we stayed in a little concrete abode on top of a very wave-battered cliff. I read a few books and Matt surfed. Big storm one day when the hill which passed the back of the cliff became a torrent of fast-moving mud, slowly seeping its way into the restaurant opposite.

With only a week or so to go before our flight to the States, it was another big journey next through a small chunk of Honduras (where I saw mules 'parked' outside houses like cars) and a night in grey and concrete San Salvador, El Salvador, en route to Antigua, Guatemala, another colonial town. We would have stayed longer if we could - after a night of drinks with another surfing Matt, we headed for Mexico.

Boat from Capurgana, Colombia to Puerto Obaldia, Panama

Puerto Obaldia airport, Panama

Puerto Obaldia airport, Panama - our lift to Panama City

Next to our clifftop hideout, Popoyo, Nicaragua

Our clifftop hideout, Popoyo, Nicaragua

San Juan del Sur, excellent Hostel Tadeo

Matt gifts his surfboard, Masachapa, Nicaragua

The cat that behaved like a dog, a bus terminal

Guatemala's pimped up ex-US schoolbuses, Antigua

Antigua, Guatemala

World Cup chocolate that was not chocolate

Palenque to Cancun, Mexico. June - July 2014.

We had only days before our flight when we arrived in Palenque, Mexico. We stayed in a well-equipped and well-run hostel which was inhabited by a strange assortment of people. We spent a day at the Mayan ruins and, when we returned to the hostel, watched Mexico play their last in the World Cup.

Our final central America days were spent in chilled out Cancun. I'd heard it was such a terrible place but I disagree, it was fine, though we didn't venture into the hotel zone. The square near our hostel(s) was lined with excellent Mexican food stalls, so we tried to fatten ourselves up in preparation for the States.

Palenque Mayan Ruins, Mexico

We spent two days in this bathroom. Cancun, Mexico

Cancun, Mexico

Colombia: Capurgana, June 2014.

......From Turbo we boarded a motored fishing boat and bounced and flew across the water to Capurgana, roadless but served by boat and light aircraft. We met French Raffa on the pier who told us about his new guesthouse venture in a traditional home, where we stayed for a week.

Happy and simple days in Capurgana; cards on the beach, a walk through farms and streams, a walk to a secluded bay for snorkelling, a walk to the saltwater and freshwater pools, many trips to local bakery, occasional football match, avocado sandwiches. I also ate a giant ant when I was there (started off pleasant and nutty then turned foul). Spent some nights in my tent (by now incredibly airless and hot), as the money we'd brought ran out towards the end, there being no cashpoints and still needing to make our way over the Panamanian border by boat.