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ryan & debbrial

84 Blog Entries
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Trips:

Us Discovering the Latin Americas
ryan & debbrial's Travel Blog

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http://blogabond.com/ryan_debb


We met through a mutual friend in college about 5 years ago. We were friends for about 4 years and dated for a year and half. We recently got married on Sunday, May 24, 2009.

Now for the fun part... We decided not to do the typical buy a house and settling down, instead it was sell everything we own and follow our desire to travel. We are on our journey through Central and South America (backpacking, couch surfing, hostels, camping, whatever) for the next 3-4 years. While in Central and South America we plan on working at a variety volunteer camps, meeting fellow travelers, teaching English local people, surfing, enjoying the beautiful sceneries and environment, visiting some tourist sites and really engaging the culture that surrounds us.


Buddy List

TreeFrogJohn
TreeFrogJohn



Off Road Driving Chiquimula

San Miguel, El Salvador

Only 60 km to the Honduras-El Salvador boarder then another 60 km to San Miguel, El Salvador today’s destination. We headed out early again this morning leaving La Esperanza at like 8:00 AM. We were warned by the lady whom owned the hostel that the road out of town is worse than the road in.

Excellent Roads of Honduras, NOT!
Oh Great here we go again!!! She was right. Right out of town the roads were muddy step-ups with even bigger potholes.

Pot Holes that will eat your tire

Ryan checking the deep potholes

Luckily the mud on these roads actually soaks in most of the rain water leaving a still pretty solid ground to drive on. Plus, we figured if the Chicken Buses can make this trip so can we.

Chicken Bus Mobbying It
So up and down, mud, dirt, rocks, Mountains, pine trees, rivers, waterfalls, sunshine and small Mountain / country villages. We took in the amazing, beautiful views on this dirt road the whole way to the boarder 60 km and 4 ½ hours later. When we got to the boarder we barely recognized it. It was one building, one teenage kid with a gun, one old man and two baby puppies. The old guy checked our passports and papers for the car logged it all in and let us pass.

Welcome to El Salvador, Finally!
On we went, still on the rocky dirt road down the Mountain into El Salvador. Half and hour later we FINALLY came to a PAVED road. We continued heading south to San Miguel (which we almost drove right through since we were driving so much faster on the paved road and lost track of distance to time ratio). U-turn….All three of us were glad to find a hotel and get out of the van, plus Chiquimula needed a break too.

permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 28, 2009 from San Miguel, El Salvador
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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Rain, Rain Go Away

Gracias, Honduras

One day was enough in Copan; our next stop is Gracias; supposedly the capital of Central America back when the Spanish came to conquer, then on through El Salvador to Nicaragua. We got on the road mid-morning and had a smooth drive to Gracias besides the occasional cattle herding blocking our way. Here’s some pictures…..

Cow Hearding down the Main Road

Sharing the Road with Cows

We got into Gracias at lunch time, all starving we agreed to go to the closets restaurant. Driving through town we were a bit shocked. For being the capital of Central America back in the day this place (in Ryan’s words) is a “Shit Hole”. We did not see one smiling face within the 10 blocks of the town. Anyways it ended the first restaurant we saw was a Chinese restaurant (which was packed with locals so we thought it would be good) needless to say NO!! Fried rice and chop suey were the only things they had on the menu (clue #1) and both tasted like they were cooked in 10 sticks of butter and a bottle of soy sauce. After choking down lunch we searched for the hostel recommended in the travel book. This place was a “Shit Hole” too. Since it was still early in the day we decided to move on to the next town La Esperanza about 90 km away.

Within 10 minutes of getting on the road again it started raining. Ok, not a big deal. Then…….about little over an hour later the paved road turned into a dirt road. Ok, kinda a big deal. We were on this wide but rocky, muddy potholes (the size to eat a tire)-filled dirt road for another 45 minutes. Ryan totally handled the road driving the van BUT I was white knuckled and screaming the whole time; while Craig was sleeping in the back and shouting “What the bloody hell is up with this road”. Ok, big deal. The rain was coming down harder and harder, pissing cows and elephants. We finally came to a small town and pulled off the road. We sat in the car for about 30 minutes contemplating what to do. When the rain let up Ryan and Craig got out and asked a local where we were and how far it was to La Esperanza. The really nice old guy directed us back to the main road and said it was another 15 minutes to town. By this time the rain had settled down and the road turned into at least a nice maintained dirt road. In town we easily found our hostel, Casa Mia, and settled in for the rest of the rainy yet still warm evening.


permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 27, 2009 from Gracias, Honduras
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Copan Ruinas

Copan, Honduras

Copan Ruinas is the name of the town and the name of the famous Mayan ruins. The small town of Copan Ruinas is set on a steep hill with cobble Stone streets and old colonial buildings (cobble Stone roads look cool but aren‘t the most fun thing to drive or walk on). There is not much to do in town but out of town there are several natural related activities. In the morning we went to the Copan Ruins. It only took us about 2 hours to walk and after Tikal we were not too impressed. These ruins were pretty small comparatively and not as many were dug up as the map indicated. Kinda disappointing. On the other hand, these ruins are famous for the finely preserved Mayan hieroglyphics and sculptures which were actually impressive.

Sacrifice Altar

Copan Carvings

So after walking around the ruins and taking pictures we went on a natural walk through the forest (still in the National Park) imaging what the area looked like to the Mayans (as the sign at The Entrance told us to do). We came across another ball court in the middle of the forest, that was not on the tourist map, and lots of cool spider webs. The trail ended at the park parking lot where van was parked.

Since the ruins only took a few hours we decided to go to another popular attraction: Macaw Mountain. Macaw Mountain is a bird Sanctuary that collects abandoned and endangered birds. We saw, of course, lots of macaws, local parrots, toucans, owls, and hawks. My favorite was the toucans.


Up close and personal Toucan
Ryan got a great picture of one.

Ryan with Macaws

Craig with Macaws

Debbrial with Macaws

The rest of the day we went back to town and hung out with some other backpackers.



permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 26, 2009 from Copan, Honduras
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Detour !!!

Copan, Honduras

Pretty much as soon as the sun rose and the roosters started cock-a-doodle-doing we got up and packed up and on the road out of town at about 7:30 AM. Back tracking from a few days before we headed back to Guatemala City. Everything was going good since we were familiar with the roads until… we hit a detour in the middle of the Guatemala City because of a marathon. Craig and I quickly searched the van for our travel books and road map of Central America. To make the problem worse most all the streets are one-way in the city so we were up and down and back and forth etc. When we finally thought we were on the right track, about 20 minutes out of the city, we started seeing signs for El Salvador. Oooppps. Wrong road. Oh crap now its back to the city and one-way roads!! Navigating our way through the streets and stopping to ask people we finally made it out of the city and onto the correct road to Honduras. This was a 2 ½ hour detour. All was good for the next 3 hours until….again….we had trouble. On the last road and about 35 Miles from the boarder the van OVER HEATED. Fortunately we came to a stop right in front of a House. A wife, husband and little girl came out to see what was up. They brought us a bucket of water to help the car cool down. We waited about 40 minutes then were on our way again. After this we decided it was bad luck not to have a name for the van. SO we decided to name it after the town we broke down in. Her name is “Chiquimula”. The boarder into Honduras was a breeze unlike the prior and a blessing from the past two incidence. Beyond that we had no more problems, got into the town Copán and found our next hostel Manzana Verde.



permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 25, 2009 from Copan, Honduras
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Lake Atitlan

Panajachel, Guatemala

Most every city, town and country side out side of Guatemala City is abundantly green. Lake Atitlán is located in the high mountains so our drive from Guatemala City to the lake was a beautiful. The higher up we got the more agriculture fields we saw. When we were in Antigua we were wondering were the massive bundles of fresh fruit and vegetables in the market came from, guess this is where. On our drive we saw a lot of indigence towns positioned on the sides of the green mountains and surrounded with acres of corn fields, cabbage, beets, tomatoes, peppers, chiles, etc.

More corn fields

Most of the women in the towns wear the traditional Guatemalan attire: thick, colorful textile shirts tucked into a long skirt and wrapped with a wide textile belt plus a bundle or basket on their head while they walk down the streets. Three hours of driving later we arrived at Panajachel, one of larger towns on Lake Atitlán. We checked into our hostel, Villa Luptia, then roamed the vendor filled streets for sightseeing and dinner.

Ryan wearing goofy hat

This morning we took a water taxi (small 20 passenger fiberglass floating device) to another town across the lake called San Pedro. We walked up and down the market filled street and ended up back at the boating dock for breakfast. While the breakfast was great we were not impressed with the town. There really is not much to do in the town besides go to the museum, rent dirt bikes to ride around the lake (way too expensive) or swim in the lake. Unfortunately, the lake is currently covered in slimy, mushy pea green algae.


Algae in Lake Atitlan
The owner of the restaurant where we had breakfast said, “this is totally not normal for the lake and it just appeared a few days ago.” There was even a story about it on the cover of the daily newspaper. “Usually” he said, “the water is crystal clear blue”; which makes sense since our travel books said Lake Atitlán is considered the most beautiful lake in the world. It is surrounded by tall green mountains, several volcanoes and lots of small traditional villages.

Lake Atitlan

Bummer. If only we were a few days earlier. Anyways we took the water taxi back to Panajachel then hung out the rest of the day planning our next adventure to Honduras. At night we hit the town again for some drinks and ended up at a local bar called “Rock On”. There was a band of three guys: one guitar player, one bass player and the drummer / signer. They were playing Spanish rock cover songs and were pretty good! The funniest part though was a few of their groupie friends in the bar trying to head bang to the music. We stay for a few songs then headed home.

Lake Atitlan

permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 24, 2009 from Panajachel, Guatemala
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The Final Challenge

Guatemala, Guatemala

Well Night One of sleeping in the van did NOT work out so great. We started by trying to find a safe and quiet street to park on. In our past four days in Antigua we agreed this is a nice, family community town and we would have no problems sleeping on the street. We draped up sheets around all the windows, gather clothes for pillows and settled in. Well not sooo much. The problems came when Ryan and Craig tried to fit laying down on the bench seats to sleep. Neither of them fit since they are both 6 ft tall. I was laughing cause I fit, 5’ 1” tall. So the guys decided to take out the middle bench, lean it up against the second bench and we could all sleep on the floor. That was a good idea until they couldn’t fit between the front seats and the back bench either. LOL again!! By this time sleeping in the van didn’t sound like a very good idea to them and we were all cracking up. We ended up driving around to three hostels before we found one with vacant beds. Grabbed our bags and to bed.

NOW day five, the final day of buying a car in Guatemala. We took the documents we had back to the Antigua transportation office only to find out we had a few more forms to fill out and fees to pay. Back to the lawyer and the bank. Needless to say this took most of the morning since the lawyer was out to a long morning brunch and the bank’s computer system failed in the middle of our processing. Finally by noon we got all the paperwork we needed and headed down to Guatemala City to do the title transfer ourselves. In the end this proved to be the second easiest part after buying the car.


Busy Guatemala City

Busy Guatemala City

We navigated through the crazy New York City / Beirut / Tijuana-like streets to the municipal center easily and again through the DMV lines.

Guatemal City building and Flag

Within an hour Ryan had an original title to the van in his name and in his hands!!!! (This is necessary to cross boarders). So after all that we now own a car and can go where we want, when we want. And on our way to Lake Atitlán.

Guatemala City

permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 23, 2009 from Guatemala, Guatemala
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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Our Amazing Race: Challenge Buying a Van in Guatemala

Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala

Our five day car search finally came to an end!!! The first day we walked all around town like chickens with our heads cut off. We collect and call numbers out of the newspaper classifieds, searched the main street where for sale cars are parked and asked tons of locals where to buy a vehicle. And at the end of the day we got no where. Day two started off as a disappointment as well; walking up and down the streets and calling classifieds again. After about 3 hours of that we were on our way back to the hostel for a break via the main road. Our eyes were wondering back and forth, car to car hoping for something new to pop up. Then one block and a corner from hostel we saw two ladies park a “minibus” van for sale. All three of us quickly scurried across the street, dodging on coming traffic. By the time we got to the van the two ladies were out of sight. Vanished!! They could not have gone far; probably in one of the several shops roundabout. We waited for a few minutes then Craig went into the shop where the van was parked in front of to ask if she knew who the van belonged to. She said, “Yes, the family across the street behind the large wooden door” (like most the mysterious doors around here with who knows what behind them). Anyways so we rang the bell and solved the mystery. There was a long drive way that lead to several car ports, a furniture shop and a large communal house where we later found out a family of 3 brothers, 1 sister, children, spouses, and grandparents all lived. Like a typical Latin American family. The sister and her husband were selling the van. They both spoke English which was a dream come true to us at this point. Ryan looked over the entire van and went for a test drive. Since they were asking a little more than our original budget we had to sleep on it. Later that afternoon after rolling it around in heads we decided to go for it. The van is in good condition, clean engine and even better we have space to pick up other travelers in our hostels. The next morning, day three, we went back and agreed on a lower price, the easy part. Now to the nitty-gritty. 1. Ryan had to get a foreign identify number for Guatemala. 2. Pay Antigua residency tax ($3) 3. Go to the ladies’ lawyer to release her liability 4. Make double copies of everything 5. Take over her insurance, which is good for the next 5 months 6. Find someone to take all that paperwork to Guatemala City to get a title transfer. Day three was a lot more productive than day one and two. Today, day four, we went shopping for the van: ice chest, extra fuses, a jack, some tools, etc. We checked out of the Yellow House (Casa Amarillo) hostel and are waiting for the title to come back from Guatemala City, then its up the road to Lake Atitlán…… Bummer!! So the language barrier finally caught up to us in this round about adventure. The guy we sent to Guatemala City only got part of the paper work needed for the title transfer and did not actually do the transfer. Now we have no hostel to sleep in tonight and still have to go to Guatemala City tomorrow. Guess this is Night One of sleeping in the van.

Ryan and Craig in Chiquimula

Ryan & Debb with Chiquimula

Ryan and the Van

permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 22, 2009 from Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala
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Guatemala City

Guatemala, Guatemala

Nine hours later, about 7 AM, we made it to Guatemala City with no other problems (besides the lack of sleep). Originally we booked our bus ticket to Antigua which is an hour north of Guatemala City so as soon as we got off the bus in the city we had another driver meet us to get on another bus. As we drove through the city Ryan referred to it as an old Tijuana (TJ). The bus station was in downtown. All the surrounding building had bars in the windows and barbwire on the roofs. I must say to their credit that the bars on the windows were ornately designed, helping the façade just a bit. Once we got out of downtown we climbed a hill and descended into another TJ look-a-like. Despite the fact that the hills were covered with abundant green trees there were House stacked upon House on the side of the hills like TJ. We made it to Antigua in half the time (the first fast driver we have had).


permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 18, 2009 from Guatemala, Guatemala
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The small town of Anitgua

Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala

Antigua is completely opposite of Guatemala City. The town is set in a valley surrounded by three Volcanoes. The streets are cobblestone and the building are like Spanish / Italian / Southern European style.

Street in Angitua
People here are friendly and there is definitely a community / family atmosphere. We arrived here on Sunday, which is market day, so all the local people were out and about. Most the women and young girls were wearing authentic Spanish dresses and walking down the street with cloth bundles on their head.

Local ladies walking with baskets on their head & carrying babies
On the way to the market we came across a fútbol (soccer) game in the dirt where the audience was going crazy.

Soccer game in Antigua
Around the corner we came to the market. It was pretty much like a swap meet with tons of stalls with the same stuff one after another. They sold mountains of fruit, clothes, belts, watches, sunglasses, hats, toiletries, racks of pirated CDs and DVDs and tons of colorful textile blankets, purses, hair bands, tablecloths, etc.

Market Place in Antigua

Fruit stand at Market Place in Antigua

We walked around for a little longer then decided to head back to the hostel to rest before we went on a Volcano tour later in the afternoon.

Old building & Cobblestone Street in Antigua

Church in Antigua

permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 18, 2009 from Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala
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Pacaya Volcano

Guatemala, Guatemala

The BEST Adventure YET!!! It is hard to believe the amazing experience we just had. It was an afternoon tour to Volcán Pacaya (2552 m); the only active volcano near Antigua in San Francisco de Sales. There was a group of 14 us that the driver picked up from Antigua. When we arrived at the small mountain town of San Francisco de Sales we were bombarded by children trying to sale us walking sticks.

Local boy selling sticks for Volcano hike in San Francisco del Sales
We were all like “we don’t need those we are young, athletic we can climb this mountain” which proved to be true for us but some people in the group should have gotten one. Anyways we started our 1 hour hike up the mountain on a narrow, steep mud path through the dense jungle.

View of Guatemala City from Pacaya Volcano
Our guide brought his two dogs so we had them to lead the way half the time. Haha. Out of breath and at the top of the mountain we were stunned by the awe-inspiring view. We were just below the volcano base and just above all the dense puffy clouds. Ryan got amazing photographs.

Clouds at the base of the Pacaya Volcano

View of Agua Volcano from Pacaya Volcano


Debb & Ryan at the base of Pacaya Volcano

Debb, Ryan, Daniel & Craig at Pacaya Volcano

Turning around 360 we stared at our next challenging climb; up the volcano’s vertical cone. We thought we were done with the hard part but not even close. The cone is covered in black basaltic rock that is shed from the crater and is like climbing up a giant sand dune or snow covered mountain. The 20 mph cool winds didn’t help much either. In Spanish the guide told us “one step forward, two steps back”. It took us about another 30 minutes to climb from the base to half way up the volcano cone where the lava was flowing out of the mountain. Higher up we climbed the fine basaltic rock gradually started turning into a black sharp volcanic desert. We knew we were close when we felt and smelt warm sulfur gases coming from the cracks in the rocks. Just up one more level and around one more corner. One more deep breath. One for leg cramp. There it was red hot flowing lava!! Only in Guatemala does the guide say okay go for it. In small groups we climbed as close to the lava as our skin would allow us and took a few pictures before the sole of our shoes melted off. This actually happened to one guy in our group.

Lava from Pacaya Volcano in Guatemala

Lava from Pacaya Volcano

Standing next to the lava and thinking about the challenging climb we just completed Ryan and I agreed this is why we are on this trip.

Ryan touching the Lava
Once everyone had taken their pictures with the lava we were on our way back down the mountain. It was dark by this time and the now cold winds were picking up to 35 mph on the volcano cone. We had 5 flashlights to share between 15 of us; luckily it was a lot easier to slid down the basaltic rock and down the narrow mountain path. About 45 minutes later we were at the bottom of the mountain and on our way back to Antigua. Even though we were super excited about our volcano climb we were also all very exhausted from the climb and still tired from the barely any sleep the night before. Needless to say we got back to Antigua had McDonalds for dinner and went straight to bed still with a grin on our faces!!


permalink written by  ryan & debbrial on October 18, 2009 from Guatemala, Guatemala
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