I spend 24 days in Chile, so far the most expensive country in Latin America, I guess you get better quality for your money so the prices can be justified a bit, but it meant I spent my whole budget on just food, lodging and transportation, and the food was mostly of the fast food variety because I could not afford proper restaurants, and I still can be bothered to cook myself.

The interesting parts of the country are at both ends, the desert in the north and the mountains and glaciers in Patagonia in the south. I've already been to the desert in Peru and Bolivia, so only spend a few days in the north and didn't make it to the deep south at all because of the bad weather and high costs.

The rest of the country was nice too but, that it just not enough for me after over 500 days in Latin America. There was very little indigenous culture, instead especially in the south much more German and Swiss influences than Mapuche (the original Indians). Chile is nearly in the Developed world and that made it much less interesting too me.

Coming from Bolivia, Chile introduces some new concepts:

- You can drink the water from the tab
- There is toilet paper in the banos.
- At the butcher they use refrigerators to store the meat.
- Local transport is no longer practically free.
- There have shopping malls and McDonalds
As I spent quite a few days here in La Paz, I thought I quickly write about a typical day.

I stay in the Hostal El Solario in the old part of town new the San Francisco church. My single room without bath is 35 Bolivianas, which is 3.50 Euro or 4.2 US. First thing in the morning, I go down the street to the market to Susanna, one of many ladies offering desayuno (breakfast), which consists of a good cup of coffee and a big roll with either egg, avocado or meet. That's another 3.50 bs (35 Euro cents).

After that I walk over to work at an internet café. After a long search I found a place that just opened and has fairly good computers with enough memory.

There are literally hundreds of internet cafes in La Paz but most of them have computers that are 5 to 10 years old.

For lunch I usually go for a cheap local eatery. The most basic lunch still consists of soup, meat or chicken with some rice and chips. You can get this for 3.50 bs. I usually go for Melaneza al pollo, which is a big chicken schnitzel with salad, rice and chips, costs 8 bs.

Back to work for a few hours, an hour internet costs 2 bs. Cheaper than anywhere in South America so far. Bolivia is the cheapest country on the continent.

After two weeks of great weather with blue skies all days, it seems the wet season has started now, it is gray and it rains a few times every day.

Back at the hostal I have a chat with Jamie, an Australian who lives in Hong Kong. He is the other long-term resident. The majority in the hostal are Japanese and French, as their guide books recommend the place.

For the last week my evening entertainment consisted of one or even two German films at the Cine Teatro Municipal 6 de Augusto. The German Goethe Institut put on a film festival with films around the topic "20 anniversery of the fall of the Berlin wall". It is a nice cinema in the better part of town down the valley, a 25 minute walk from my hostel. Surprisingly I never see any other Germans at the cinema, only locals. I don´t often get the chance to see German films and I really enjoy the ones they showed.

For dinner I spend a bit more, around 20 bs, Chinese, Italian or better Bolivian food.. Sometimes when going with some people from the hostel we go for Indian, Thai or Moroccan, that costs 50 plus as it usually also involves more beers than when I am by myself.

Back at the hotel I usually listen to a podcast in bed before falling asleep.

Why do I spend such a long time here?
It is the last cheap country before heading into Brazil and Argentina, so it makes more sense to hang out here rather than there, and I am addicted to programming, so I have to do it once in a while.Nasca is a small town about 400km south of Lima, nothing special and nobody would care about it except for some acient lines in the desert outside of town. For this reason the place is full of gringos and a big number of Japanese tourist, more than I'v seen anyway in Latin America so far. I got into town last night, only the second time I arrived anywhere in the dark (the other one was St.Christobal in Venezuela) and got a room in the Hotel El Mirador for 20 soles (5 Euros).

In the morning I first checked out the various bus companies at the other end of town a ten minute walk away. There are about eight but only three of them go to Arequipa my next destination and all of them either leave in the afternoon or late evening meaning travelling in the dark which I want to avoid. People had warned me that sometimes it is not possible to only travel during the day in the bigger South American countries. Back at the hotel I talk to the owner and the tells me that there are collectivos going south all the time. I have to change in every town into a new one of these shared taxis but I should be able to make it to Araquipa before dusk.

The next decision to make is whether I just go to a viewing tower 24 km north of the town to see some of the symbols in the desert or do the proper thing and fly over them and see them all from the air. Everybody offers the flight for 150 soles (50 US dollars) which doesn't sound too bad but I don't like to pay what everybody else paid. I walk to the airport, 5Km outside of the town. There are about 10 small companies offered flight over the Nazca lines. Most planes are Cessna six seaters but two are bigger with a dozen seats. All companies but one ask for the same 150 soles, I argue that I cut out the agency in town and the transportation, but they stay put. One company offers 125 soles which is only five over the limit I had set for me. There is only a Japanese couple booked so far, so I wait for more people to show up. At the next desk four people just checked in and the guy now offers me the super special rate of 135. I tell him about the 125 next day and he agrees. I guess they would have flown with just the four people so getting an extra 15 is better than having an empty seat. The four are from Quito and speak English so we talk a bit about Ecuador before we take off.

The last time I was on such a small plane, I jumped out of it, back in New Zealand in 1993. Here we stayed pretty low for the time to see all the different symbols. The pilot flew a lot of steep curves to give us good views of the line and despite the motion sickness pill I took I felt a bit sick for a while. Some of the line were more impressive than others being in better condition I guess. We saw the little tower below us and taking the plane was definitely worth it. It was a hot day with a blue sky, such a difference from the two weeks of gray skies over Lima.

I walked back into town and had a late lunch at a cafe and then a haircut for 5 soles (1 UK pound). The late afternoon I spent on the roof of the hotel with nice views of the surrounding hills. After an hour of downloading podcasts at an internet cafe (1 sole) I had Chifa (Chinese) for dinner. I had planned for pizza, but all the restaurants offering pizza on the main road were very touristy and of full of gringos, so I joined the locals next door.Sleeping in as Bjoern and I had some rum last night. Lazy day in Bjoern's apartment. Planning to see the new Star Trek movie tonight. Because of heavy traffic in the morning we miss the train at 7:15 to Colon on the Atlantic coast. As there is only one train every day, we change plans and after breakfast at the huge central bus terminal we take a chicken bus to Colon. This must be one of the slowest buses ever, the driver stopped several times on the way to buy things and I could have walked faster than he drove. It took us about three hours for less than sixty kilometers. Every guide book warns about walking around in Colon, the poorest and most dangerous city in Panama. But at least during the day is seems fine, there is a lot of character here. We took another local bus to the Gatun locks. Most canal tourists visit the Miraflores locks close to Panama City, so we were totally alone in Gatun and saw seven big ships passing through the logs. We walked for a while to a dam on the other side of the Gatun lake and then took a bus back to Colon. It took a while because the police had set up road blocks as two banks were robbed in town in the last two hours. We walk around a bit more in search of some food and then stroll over to the terminal of the 'Panama Canal Railway'. It is a tourist train that runs close to the canal back to Panama city. The return trip to the Pacific is at 5:15 p.m. and the one way ticket costs 22 dollars. The train is cool and has a great observation car. There were two buses with French and American tourists as well as a handful of other passengers. At the end of each car is an open area where we hang out to watch the lake and canal on the right sight and the jungle on the left. The trains goes a bit too fast for my liking being a tourist train, the whole ride took just an hour. I suggest they hire the bus driver from our morning bus as an engine driver. Back at Bjoerns apartment in Rio Abajo we had the Chili con carne leftovers and going with the railway theme of the day watch the 2008 movie 'Transsiberian' which was pretty good, even for people who haven't been on that train. I spent 23 days in Nicaragua but I didn't really do much. Somehow I hit some travel fatigue and experienced some lack of motivation to travel so I took some time off. I think there were three reasons for this. After seven months of travelling it is only natural to need a break. Nicaragua was hot everywhere and it was harder to do things outside in the sun, and finally the hostels in Leon and Granada were really nice and invited me to hang around.
So I spent most of my time in the shade in the Vei Vei in Leon and the Oasis in Granada, the two main old colonial cities in the country. Most time I was working on my web sites and learning new things in the Software development world. The short trip to Isla de Ometepe, an island in the huge lake Nicaragua with two big volcanoes was nice but there also it was to hot to hike up the steep slopes. I really liked Nicaragua anyway, it was cheaper than the other countries and less developed as well. I wake up before seven as usual. It's hot in my twelve bed dorm, the fans under the ceiling don't help much as I am in a bottom bunk. I go for a quick swim in the small pool in the back of the Oasis hostel. Then take a shower and have a free coffee in the sitting area. Rather then going for the PCs right away I first do some laundry at the roof top where the clothes dry very quickly in the hot sun. Among with some other things I wask my silk sleeping bag which I haven't used or cleaned for some time, but this is a good opportunity. They do serve breakfast at the hostel but I usually get something on the street. Their menu prices are in US dollars which is something that always puts me off. So I walk down two blocks to the main market and buy some bananas, mandarines and a donut. I do eat back at the hostel with a nice cup of tea. Then it's on to do some work on my website. They have eight computers here but only two of them are fast enough for what I need to do. I finally completely cleaned up the fastest one. It had over 30 viruses on it and gave me a hard time in the past before I fully realized how exactly they work. This morning I look into Slide show controls in Silverlight 2 but only spend half an hour on it, the internet is slow this morning. My sight seeing trip for today is the large cemetery a 30 minute walk to the east. It's hot but it quite interesting. As everywhere in Central American the grave are above ground mostly in little concrete buildings that have between six and 40 spaces. There is a nice central building and lots of little statues all over.
On the way back to the centre I look out for some electronic shops. My new iPod USB cable is already broken and my second photo memory card broke as well and is now in a read-only mode. But there don't seem to be any stores selling those things in town. I also loosed my new glasses on the way to Isla de Ometepe, not sure how because it is one of the "important" items in my luggage. Problem is there it is Semana Santa or Easter Week here and no optionist is working for the next 10 days. I still have my prescription sunglasses but at night they are a bit dark. I cross the small river twice, very little water in it but lots of rubbish, people just throw everything out onto the streets. Back on the hostel I do some more work on my site and play with jQuery. For dinner I get two big slices of pizza and watch some fireworks on the main square. It is Saturday night but the hostel in very quiet, I walk over to the Bearded Monkey hostel for a while but that place has too many smokers, I like the Oasis quite a bit more.I took an early local bus to the capital, about 50 minutes away from Granada where I am staying. The bus stop in Managua is opposite the Universidad Centroamericana UCA. After turning town the numerous offers for taxis I walked towards the Tiscapa hill. On the way I bought some baked goods at the entrance of the Military hospital and a bag of fruit on the street for breakfast. To walk up the hill I had to pay 20 codobas entrance fee, but it was worth it, the view over the city and Lake Managua was great, there is also a nice crater lake just below the hill. There were guards everywhere but I was the only person up there until a small group of Dutch tourist come up in a bus. A huge statue of Augusto César Sandino, the namesake for the Sandinistas.

I had heard from other travellers who had been all over Central America, that Managua was the only place they didn't like and where they didn't feel save, so I didn't take my iPod or Camera, just the Lonely Planet and a little bit of money. I only spend five hours in daylight in the city but walked everywhere and didn't feel threatened at any time, it was the same as in all the other big cities.

Anyway I then walked to the old center. This area has been completely destroyed by a major earthquake in 1972 and most of it has not been rebuild yet, because more earthquakes may happen any time. Instead the people moved away into the suburbs and the city is now a collection of different small centers rather than one big one. Because it is so spread out, it is the greenest capital I've ever been in, there are so many trees and other green spaces everywhere, not parks but just empty fields with trash on them. It's a weird feeling, just opposite the National Assembly complex is a huge slum area where people live in small plastic huts.

The Plaza de la Revolucion in the old center is actually quite nice, on one site is the ruin of the old cathedral and on the other the National Palace of Culture, which has been rebuilt. There are hardly any people in this area, even down at the Malecon at the big lake it feels really dead. Everywhere the red and black colours and poster of the FSLN (the Sandinista National Liberation Front) can be seen. The party is currently in power again and the leader of the revolution Daniel Ortega is once again president of the country. Back in school the Nicaraguan revolution was a big deal for my left-leaning teachers and we learned a lot about the Sandinistas.

I walked on through different neighborhoods back to the University to catch the bus back to Granada.

Managua is certainly not the pretties city in Nicaragua but I think it is the most interesting one.

Back at the hostel I met five American Peace Corps volunteers and we went out for pizza and beers.Honduras felt similar to El Salvador and Guatemala, I didn't even bother with their biggest tourist attraction Copan, because it is another Maya ruin, and I had enough of those. Instead I considered learning diving on the bay islands in the Caribbean Sea.

Most of the first day I spend on the bus from the El Salvadorian border to San Pedro Sula, the second biggest city in the country. There wasn't much to see there and I moved on the next morning. Joining me was Giovanni from Sicily who spoke good Spanish with a strong Italian accent. His English wasn't very good, so we mostly spoke Spanish with each other, which was good practice for me. The boat ride from the coastal town of La Ceiba to the island of Utila was rough. The sea was pretty tough and the waves we hit swept lots of water into the boat and against the windows. The folks in the front got really wet and several people got sick. I didn't feel that good myself but had taken some motion sickness pills, so I was alright. Utila and its bigger neighbour Roatan are popular for good but cheap diving. When we got off the boat in Utila town, dozens of touts from the various diving schools tried to interest us for their courses and their associated guest houses. We ended up in the Mango Inn, one of the best hotels on the island; it was very clean and had a nice pool in a big garden. If you take a dive course you can stay in the dorms for free, otherwise it is 3 dollars for the first night and 10 each for the following nights, which was still a good deal for one of the best hotels I stayed in so far on the trip. I was thinking about taking the Open Water diving course but in the end decided against it. It wasn't so much the 250 dollar price tag but the costs for additional dives further along the road. I could have been convinced by a good diver partner whom I couldn't find, despite the fact that hundreds of people are learning there. The snorkelling I did for several days was great and was good enough for my underwater experience needs. I just had to walk a little bit away from the town along the coast, the reef with nice corals and plenty of fish was right there in walking/swimming distance. Sometimes I could see the divers below me and swim through their ascending bubbles. There was a steep reef wall next to the old light house and sometimes I felt it would be nice to get further down, but I saw a lot from the surface. Even though the snorkelling was fine, the beaches weren't that great, but after I burned myself on the first beach day I didn't spend too much time in the sun anyway.

Back on the mainland I stayed a night in La Ceiba and took a trip into the nearby mountains to do some white water rafting. At 40 US$ it was pretty expensive for a 4 hour tour but I felt like doing it. During my last rafting on Bali I did fell out of the raft but I no intentions to do so this time. Besides me there was a Canadian mother and daughter and an older guy from the US in my raft. It was pretty good rafting with many 3, 4 and even class 5 rapids and the Cangrejal river is worth the trip even without any rafting.

My next stop was in the central hills of the Santa Barbara province, rather than taking the easy way using two big buses with one change in San Pedro Sulu, I decided to take the 'shorter' way and took 5 different chicken buses, even then I ended up in the middle of nowhere and a guy on a motorbike gave me a ride for 30 minutes. With my big backpack on a bumpy dirt road it didn't feel very safe, but I made it and it was fun. I got two more free rides that day without even asking for it. On the way to the guest house near Pena Blanca, I stopped at the Pulapanzak Water Falls which was pretty impressive. It was Sunday afternoon and many local tourists came out for a swim in the pools above the falls. There was a strong current and one had to be careful not to swim too close to the edge, as dropping 43 meters down the falls is not recommended.

My last stop in Honduras was in the capital Tegucigalpa, which is not popular with tourist but was on the way to Nicaragua. Plus I always like to visit the capital city, even if it is just for a day. My main task was to send my broken iPod to the States to get it fixed by Apple, but when even the cheapest DHL, Fedex or UPS service was still 120 dollars I decided to send it by normal express mail.

My favourite thing in Honduras were "Baleadas", wheat flour tortillas folded in half and filled with beans, crumbled cheese and sour cream. The deluxe versions add with other ingredients such as beef, chicken or pork. I had at least one Baleadas a day, just delicious.I took a chicken bus to Suchitoto, a picturesque little town in the northern mountains. Many colourful colonial buildings, cobblestone streets and a big lake down the road. It was pretty hot and I luckily there were fine licuados (blended fruit juices) at many corners. A few more buses took me to La Palma near the border with Honduras. I stayed in a huge room in the El Pital hotel and had excellent and cheap local food for dinner.Like most of the big cities in Central America, San Salvador has many different faces, the city centre around the main square and main cathedral is one big market place, all the streets are filled with vendors selling mostly food and clothes but also all kinds of cheap junk from China. The government buildings up the road were interesting enough for a 30 minute stroll. Then there are more upmarket areas, I stayed in a guest house near the Boulevard de Los Heroes which is dominated the big Metrocenter shopping mall and various fast food joins. Up the hill in the university area were some nice cafes and restaurants. I also walked to the Colonia Escalon neighbourhood with even fancier shopping areas. Here I confirmed at an Apple specialist, that my new iPod is indeed already broken and can not be charged anymore. It was the weekend before the presidential election and on Saturday the left wing FMLN party took over the capital. People from all over country arrived by bus and truck to promote their party. There were Red flags everywhere and even more honking than usual. The next day the Arena party who is currently is power pulled in all their supporters and they were just as loud. The FMLN won the election for the first time, it used to be the revolutionary guerrilla organization during the civil war in the eighties. Again the little towns I visited in El Salvador were much prettier but San Salvador was the most interesting place.Today I went to the "Los Chorros de la Calera", a set of small but nice waterfalls, just a 30 minute walk away from Juayua. On the way I met a Canadian/English couple and their young daughter, they had hired a guide to get them there and I walked along and listened to his explanations. Below the various falls are nice pools, the water feeled cold at first but after a while was really refreshing. The really great thing here were some tunnels, you would walk up and around the mountain and climb into the start of the tunnel and then swim for some minutes to exit below the waterfalls into the pools. There was a strong current so you can just float down the tunnels, that was a lot of fun. Back in the garden of the hostel I met some Canadian girls and we went for a great dinner at a Mexican restaurant around the corner and ended the evening with some nice ice-cream which you can buy on every corner in the country. For today my plan was to walk along the ruta de las flores (The flower road) to a small town called Juayua which was suppose to have a nice hostel. I started out around 7:30 and after some hot dogs for breakfast on the street I walked several kilometers up the hill. Then a Ford Mustang stopped and the guy asked me whether I want a ride to the next town Ataco. Turns out he was born there but is now living in Oakland California. One of the many thousand El Salvadorians who live abroad and send money home to their families. He shows me around town and invites me to lunch with his family. It's only 10 and after visiting the viewpoint on a hill I continue walking, it is still a long way to go and I don't want to arrive in Juayua too late. It is still upload, so I take one of the local buses for 15 minutes to the next town, from there it is mostly downhill and I walk another three hours to Juayua. On the way there are many flowers indeed and plenty of coffee plantations as well. Nice views over the valleys towards some smaller volcanoes behind them. The hostel is indeed nice it has a sunny backyard with some hammocks. I meet some fellow travelers for the first time in 4 days. The town is very picturesque and quiet. I relax for the rest of the day.I took one of the red city buses towards the second class bus terminal, it was super crowded in the morning rush hour. My guide book tells me not to take these buses at all, but I never had any problems. Got on a chicken bus to the border which took about 3.5 hours. Changed my remaining Qs for a bad rate at the border and got my exit stamp for Guatemala. Tried but nobody would give me an arrival stamp in my password on the El Salvadorian side. Boarded another bus to Ahuachapan the first main town on the other side. It is much warmer here, we must be lower even though it is still pretty hilly. I checked into Hotel San Jose and the walked around town. On first sight, the prices are slightly lower than in Guatemala but it feels weird to use US dollars again, as this is the official currency of El Salvador. Got my trousers fixed in the market for 50 cents. This was the third time I was doing this and it always has been very cheap, no point in doing it myself.Guatemala, I hardly knew anything about this country before this trip except for some history as a Banana republic and the long bloody civil war. In Mexico I learned about the Mayan ruins at Tikal, the tourist town of Antigua and a beautiful lake surrounded by volcanoes. I spent 48 days in the country but only stayed in six different towns, which gives it a high days per town ratio.

Over all I would say I was pretty lazy, take the first week. It started to rain when I arrived in Flores from Belize and it continued to rain on and off for six days. So I just stayed at the Amigo hostel for the whole week, doing nothing but reading, eating and meeting people. The town is on a small Island on a big lake but there wasn't much to do while everything was wet. Fortunately the hostel and it's food was really good. On the 7th day I finally made it to Tikal and had a beautiful sunny day out at the ruins which overall are my favourite of the eight Mayan sites I visited. The site is big and there any many different temples to explore. The entrance fee was five times as much (150Q) as the ones in Mexico but at least when I visited there were hardly any people around and I had some temples for myself. I was also surprised how non-commercial it was, no vendors on site and just two lone ladies setting stuff next to the parking lot. The Mexican sites were full of people selling all kinds of things. I really enjoyed walking through the jungle and decided to join a group of people to walk to another set of ruins up north. They are called El Mirador and are so remote that you can only get there by helicopter (US$ 4000) or by walking three days through the jungle. We were a group of six, two young America guys, a French-Canadian couple, an Englishman living in France and me. Our local guide was walking with us, but the cook and second guide were riding with the six mules that were carrying food, water and our bags. The whole trip lasted six days with five overnight stays at camps near different ruins. The handful of people staying at these camps were there to guard the ruins against robbers and had to stay in the camps for six months before getting some months off.
Everybody talked about a six day jungle walk, but in reality we followed a more of less muddy path through normal forest and it wasn't super exciting, we didn't see any big animals except birds and big spiders. There was plenty of food and it was good enough but at night it became pretty cold and we were all freezing in our hammocks with just a thin blanked covering us. Being away 50 km from the closest electricity meant however, that the stars were absolutely amazing. The Howler Monkeys up in the trees were extreme loud, especially early in the morning.
The El Mirador ruins looked mostly just like big hills covered in dense forest. Some of them are currently excavated and we could see the proper temples. Is was interesting seeing some archaeological work in progress, but it was far less impressive than Tikal. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experience and the first shower after coming back to civilization was pure heaven.

The next stop was a little village named Lanquin where I stay at the El Retiro hotel, a great place with little huts and good food on the banks of a mountain river. Swimming in the strong current was a lot of fun and very refreshing. In the evening people walk over to the local cave which is interesting in itself but people come here to watch millions of bats flying out of it at sunset, it is a pretty awesome sight. Nearby are more caves and the natural pools of Semuc Champey where a river flows partly underground and partly through beautiful pools with little waterfalls. The views down from a nearby mountain are gorgeous.

On to Anigua, the old capital and most popular tourist town in the country. It is touristy for a reason, it is just beautiful with all the old houses and a huge volcano towering over it. Here I met up with Aura, a local woman in her thirties who was recommended to me as a good Spanish teacher by a fellow traveller. I had picked up a few words of Spanish in Mexico but didn't understand anything when the locals would talk to me. I had no plans to be learn perfect Spanish but wanted to be able to do the basics while travelling. We met two hours in the morning and another two hours in the afternoon, either in one of the many Spanish schools, a cafe or a park. I hadn't learned a new language since Latin in the early 80s and I was reminded by Spanish why I didn't like Latin back then. All the different forms of verbs and adjectives, English is so much easier. But I liked learning Spanish anyway and it feels good to be able to speak it, even only a little bit. I took lessons for 10 days and after that I was able to understand much more and could even talk a bit. But at that point I needed a break to reflect on what I have learned. After a few days in a hostel I moved into a room in a private house, this was not only cheaper at 60Q (6 Euro) a day, it also including three meals a day and gave me the opportunity to practice my Spanish. A one hour lesson cost me 3.75 Euros, not the cheapest rate in the country but worth it. Aura spoke good English which was very helpful especially during the first days.

From Antigua I went on a day trip to volcano Pacaya, there are several volcanoes around the town, some of them active but most of them very hard to climb during one day. Pacaya is very popular because it is easy to get to and to climb up to a stream of fluid hot lava. This was an amazing sight but also a bit dangerous, several people melted the soles of their shoes just standing close to the lava. Even when being a few meters away when I dropped a paper handkerchief to the ground, it started to burn right away.

Next stop was the beautiful lake Atitlan, surrounded by mountains and three volcanoes. I stayed a few days in San Pedro la laguna, but avoided the backpacker ghetto there whenever possible. I did some hikes along the lake but didn't get up to the top of any volcanoes. A great place to just hang out.

On to Quetzaltenango or Xela for short, the second biggest city in Guatemala, it felt like the first proper city and not like a tourist town. I spent eleven nights in the Blackcat hostel which was nice enough and offered a huge free breakfast. While waiting for my tour to start and recovering from it, I spent some time in a cheap and fast internet cafe to program a little and play with the Windows 7 beta which I downloaded and installed on a virtual machine. In a normal cybercafe the bandwith and PC memory would have not allowed this. One day I hired a bike and with fellow German Max cycled to the hot spring of Fuentes Georinas up in the mountains. A pretty tough ride but swimming in the hot water pools in the clouds made it worth it. The second trip from Xela was up to the 3772 meters high volcano Santa Mario, we started at about 2400m and it is a pretty steep hike up to the top. The views from the peak are spectacular. You can see Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, Lake Atitlan and the volcanoes around Antique over a hundred miles away. The best sight however is volcano Santiaguito just next to Santa Maria but 1300 meters lower. It erupts every two hours in the morning and has the only eruption in the world which can be viewed from above. After that I could hardly walk for a few days, coming down the steep slopes is not good for your legs.

The final stop in the country was in the capital Guatemala City or Guate, with 3.2 million people, it is the biggest city in Central America. Most tourist only use the airport or changing buses but I wanted to get a feeling for the 'real' Guatemala. I stayed in the old center and walked around town for two days and did some shopping. There aren't many sights and it is loud, dirty and crowded but I liked it. This is how I expected big Latin American cities to be. There was a nice cosmopolitan feeling in the Zona Viva, and the caotic mess of the other inner city parts, plus the suburbs which are either slums or gated communities for the rich. Once again, I couldn't confirm reports of the poor safety records. They say don't use local buses, you get robbed or shot, but they seemed perfectly fine to me. I didn't try my luck at night though.

So Guatemala has lots to offer and even after seven weeks, I only saw a fraction of it. Some things where cheaper than in Mexico, but surprisingly some things like most food were more expensive. I definitely recommend a visit.I left Xela after 11 nights, to catch the bus to Guatemala City I needed to go to the bus terminal, a 30 minute walk. But as I knew how the chicken buses work, I just walked a few blocks to the road to Guatemala City and waited for the next bus there. Hopping on like this has the advantage that I can take my bag inside the bus, rather than having it on the roof. When I take out my clothes bag out of my backpack, both bags fit right into the overhead compartments of the old school buses. There is no space on the seats as there are already three people on each two seater bench plus people in the aisle as well.

The four hour bus ride on the Pan Americana was alright, great views of several volcanoes left and right, but the air wasn't very good as the open windows let in the fumes from other buses and dust from the road. I arrived in Guatemala City around noon and turning down the plentiful others for taxis I took on of the new TransMetro buses into Zona 1 where I planned to stay. Like in Mexico City, these buses have their own dedicated lanes in the centre of main avenues with enclosed bus stops. They also have some security personal on the bus and all stations and felt very safe. I checked into the Hotel Fenix and got the cheaper room without private path and TV to save 2 Euros. I then took as normal city bus to the shopping and restaurant Zone 10 to do some shopping. My Moon handbook guide lists the outdoor adventure shop 'Big Mountain'. I needed new trousers because they stole my second pair on New Years Eve in Mexico and also new walking shoes, as mine are all worn out. The store was small but I manage to find some nice Columbia travel pants for 470 Quetzal (47 Euros). They only had two different shops but both only in small sizes. I then walked back to the hotel, a good 90 minute walk in rush hour central Guatemala. I quite like it here, it is a big city with interesting diverse neighborhoods. There is the old town, the rich shopping area, the embassy area, government buildings. I guess I just like big cities, loud and dirty, just like home in London. It may as well be my favourite Guatemalan town.Belize, is the one country in Central America that is very different from all the others. Reason one is the language, people speak English, at least some kind of it. When talking to each other, it is more a mixture of Creole and English and I didn't understand anything. When talking with foreigners it is English with a strong Caribbean or Jamaican touch. Reason two are the people, the majority is Creole, descendents of African slaves and British pirates, so you see a lot of black people which are pretty much absent in the rest of central America. Walking around in the streets of the biggest town Belize City was fun, the vibe was very different from Mexico. This is definitely third world. It was very refreshing after 12 weeks in Mexico to be able to talk to the locals again. It was actually more the locals on the street talking to me. The town has a reputation for being dangerous, but during the day I felt fine walking around anywhere. I hadn´t planned to go out at night but did go out for dinner and drinks with two young Americans I had met at the guest house. The gritty bar we went to turned out to be a bad choice. When buying drinks for the girls we talked to, they were more expensive for them than they were for us! Even a cop in there acted like a pimp asking us which of the girls we liked best. After realizing what was going on, we left and had trouble to get rid of a local guy who followed us around for a while. In the end we made it safely back to our guest house. Advise: stay at home after dark.
The next day I left for Caye Caulker, an island a few hours north east of the city. The speed boat was fun. The northern cayes are the main tourist beach attraction of Belize, people come here for snorkeling, diving and fishing. I did some snorkeling with my own gear that I had bought in Cancun and also took a trip out to the reef where there are some good corals and plenty of fish. Most impressive was to swim inside a group of a dozen of big stingrays. The little town of Caye Caulker is pretty touristy with many hotels, guest houses and restaurants. I mostly ate Chinese take away which was the only relatively cheap option on the island. In general the prices in Belize were too high for a third world country and the services offered for them. "Bella's" the hostel I stayed in was fun and a dorm bed for 22 Belize dollars or 11 US$ (the fixed rate or 2 to 1 means you can pay anything in US dollars) was much cheaper than the US$23 I paid for my room in the city. There was also nightly excitement. One night a literally bloody fight occurred between Mission, a local who worked at the hostel and some guys who tried to follow a Canadian girl into the hostel. The next night a young American was attacked by three wild dogs and lost some flesh. I somehow missed all this with my ear plugs working fine, the only trouble I had was with the plentiful mosquitoes. After 4 days on the Caye I want back to Belize City for a few hours having delicious meat pies for breakfast before boarding one of the old American school buses for the capital Belmopan. It's a small town in the center of the country with a few big concrete government buildings and a small market. They had founded this new capital here in 1961 after Hurricane Hattie destroyed much of Belize City. Two hours was enough there and I moved on to San Ignacio close to the Guatemalan border. This day I had the first proper rain since Portland in September and even though the town seemed nice enough and the surrounding countryside offered some interested hikes, the continuing rain made me decide to move on the next day to country No. 4 Guatemala. 12 weeks in Mexico, about the time I had planned to stay there. It is a big and diverse country with lots of things to see, but just like China in 2005, after three months it was time to move on. I did over 6200 km on buses which are very comfy and about 1000 on the train. Soon after my last update I arrived in Mexico City, it is a big place with over 20 million people, but unless you enter or exit by bus, this fact is not very obvious. There are many different neighbourhoods which all have a distinct feeling to them. I stayed in the historic centre in a hostel right next to the Zocalo, the huge central square with the National Palace and the huge cathedral. After reading up about the city it became clear that a one week visit would not be enough. There are so many things to do that I had to stay for two weeks. I cycled and walked around town for days, visited many museums and went out drinking and dinning at night with other travellers I had met at the hostel. One highlight was the day trip to Teotihuacan with its two massive pyramids. Other highlights include a boat trip on the canals of Xochimilco in the south and a long walk along the Avenue Insurgentes. Among all the museums the Anthropology one was the big one, but after visiting it and spending 7 hours there I wouldn't want to be near a museum for a while. One night James who I had met a few weeks before in Zacatecas and I went to a launch party of a new music merchandise web site in a fancy club. In our travel outfits we stood out against the hip young local crowd. Gaby the manager of local band "Hello Seahorse" had invited me after I had contacted her about the band. A week later I had the pleasure the see the band live in a club in the fashionable Condesa neighbourhood. Walking back 60 minutes to the hostel after the gig at 2 p.m. was no problem, the whole time I was in the city I never felt unsafe. Every morning breakfast at the hostel consisted of scrambled eggs on toast and weak coffee, for lunch it was usually tacos on the street and for dinner some other meat/tortilla variations in local eateries, nearly always very delicious.

I finally left for Puebla, a nice midsize town just a few hours east. I spend a few days there sightseeing but what I remember most about it are the nights out with two South African guys and Norwegian gal Charlie when we got pretty drunk on Sol, Modelo or Victoria beers. On to Veracruz, a town on the Gulf coast, which was just interesting enough for one day. I moved on along the coast to the nice little town of Tacotalpan with beautiful painted houses around a great zocalo. Back inland my policy of not using night buses and arriving early in the day at my destination meant that sometimes I had to stay in rather dull places. One of these was Tuxtepec which wasn't even mentioned in the Lonely Planet, so I had to find a hotel all by myself.

The next big stop was Oaxaca, some people recommended this as their favourite place in the country. It was fine but too big for me and without the charms of Zacatecas or Guanajuato. The surrounding attractions however made it worthwhile to stay for a few days. I met James for the third time, together with him, Aussie Michael and a Swedish gal I went up the mountains to swim in the natural pools, explored some small ruins and cycled up Monte Alban, on top of which are some great pre-Columbian ruins. The food in Oaxaca was also pretty good, especially the local mole and the chocolate.

Then back to the Pacific coast to the surfer's spot of Puerto Escondido. The road down the mountains was steep and windy and I got sick a few times on the minibus. The waves were great and worth the long ride. I stayed in a small hippie hostel away from the town near the best waves. Around some cliffs in the next bay lay kilometres of beautiful completely empty beaches. On along the coast to the fishing village of Puerto Angel where I did a nice snorkel day trip to several bays.

Back up into the mountains, the speed boat ride through the Canon del Sumidero was fantastic, the food in the capital of the state of Chiapas, Tuxtla Gutierrez was cheap and different as there were no tourists in town, I found some great restaurants there too. On to San Christobal, another place where "everybody goes" because it is a really nice colonial city in the mountains. Very pretty, very touristy and very cold at night. I walked 20 km to San Juan Chamula, one of the local villages where the Zapatistas people live, it was so high that it was within the clouds and I felt wet all day. Taking photos up there was not allowed. It was also the week when the locals celebrated the day of the virgin of Guadeloupe and there were fireworks everywhere. To stay warm after dark I spent my time next to the fireplace in a really good Thai/Indian restaurant where I enjoyed non-mexican food for the first time in a while. The hostel also had a nice bonfire every night which was a great place to meet people. On to Palenque, the first of the big Mayan sites and it remained a favourite, being right in the jungle and having a variety of different ruins.

The last part of the trip in Mexico was on the Yucatan peninsula, which is well known for its many Mayan ruins and fantastic beaches, because of this though there are also way more tourists here than in any other part of the country. My first stop was in Campeche, a midsize town on the gulf coast. The hostel is right on the zocalo and from its rooftop I had nice views over the square, the cathedral and the ocean. Every night some bands were playing on the zocalo and it was convenient to stay in the hostel and still watch them. I spent some time with Tereza from the Czech republic and Charlie from England. I visited the second set of Mayan ruins at Edzna, quite nice and very empty, maybe 20 people on the whole site when I was there. On to the next ruins in Uxmal, which are more popular and have a big pyramid which is pretty rounded which makes it unique. On to Merida, a bigger town with some nice old architecture. The hostel was really good too and I decided to stay there over Christmas. The holidays were not too special expect that I went out to dinner with some German and Swiss travellers in fancy restaurants. One night I paid 15 Euros, more than for any other dinner in Mexico. The highlight in Merida for me was visiting some cenotes, these are underground ponds in caves. You first take a bus for 45 minutes, then a bicycle rickshaw for 10km to get to the start of a railway track, except that the little cars are pulled by horses. You visit three different cenotes along the way and can swim in all of them. Because I am cheap and felt like it, I didn't take the bicycle or the horse-train and walked the whole thing, about 34 km in total. The last cenote was the coolest as you climb down a latter into the cave for 20 meters. On to Chichen Itza, the most famous of the Mayan ruins in Mexico, it is also the most visited and so I decided to take a room in the little town close by and be at the gate at eight in the morning when they open. So for some hours it was great but by 11 O'clock, the tour buses from Cancun started to arrive and it got very crowded. Next up was Isla Majeres, a small island off the coast near Cancun; I heard about a great hostel there and was planning to spend New Years on the island. I had hoped that compared with Cancun it wouldn't be so touristy, but it still was, just on a smaller scale. The beach was way too crowded for my taste.

I walked for whole length of the island one day meeting a death penalty defence lawyer from Louisiana on the way and having very interesting conversations with her.

Here's what happen on New Year's Eve:
I took the ferry to the main land and then a bus to the zona hoteleria in Cancun, the main tourist area, I took a long walk on the beach. Some times the fantastic beach was interrupted by a group of rocks I had to climb over. While taking some clothes of to not get them wet, I lost my trousers in the rocks and waves but got it back. The whole area was so not like the rest of Mexico, just built for sun worshippers from the north. Back in Cancun proper I shopped around various malls and shops for a new iPod, my old ones battery finally died. In the end I bought a new Nano 8 GB for 2189 pesos which is not bad, Apple has an online price of 2500 and I have seen it in other shops for 2800. I also bought a whole bunch of toiletry stuff at Walmart and some cheap snorkel/mask too. Back on Isla Mujeres I tried to charge the iPod but it did not charge either. So I went for a swim with my new equipment. When I came back I first noticed my toiletry bag in the bathroom was gone. Then I notice my classes and all the things I just bought were gone too, plus my North Face trousers which I saved so heroically in the morning. Also my USB memory stick with all my photos on it. After calling the manager we noticed the mosquito screen from the window in the middle of the room. Someone had broken through the window. After a while I found a police car and we drove to the station at the other side of the island. Some young cop spoke some English and told me I have to go to some sort of ministry on the 2nd of January. So I guess I was lucky while being unlucky, because I put the new iPod, my password, money and credit cards into my backpack and locked it, so they only took the stuff that was out in the open. I did not feel like celebrating New Year's that night. The missing glasses were the worse thing, and I wouldn't be able to replace some of the travel equipment in Mexico either.

After that I was a bit down for a few days, but I got new glasses within 30 minutes down the road and getting the police report for the insurance wasn't too difficult either. My photos weren't lost either because I still had them all on my portable hard disk. After a while it became clear that it wasn't my old iPod that was broken, but the USB cable to charge it with. With a new cable to old one works fine. The new one however doesn't, as Apple changed some cable settings in their own charger and any old USB charger doesn't work with the latest generation of Nanos. So right now I can only charge it right at a PC which is not as convenient as charging it from the wall. It also shuts down unexpectedly sometimes but overall it is much nicer than the old one and I enjoy watching videos on them.

The last main stop in Mexico was in Tulum on the coast. The Mayan ruins here were not too impressive by themselves but because they are right on the coast with the blue Caribbean waters right next to them, the look amazing. I spend some days with Gretchen from New Mexico, we were thinking of walking along the fantastic beaches for a few days but after the first 4 hours it became clear that they are too many rocky stretches on the way, some of them impassable with backpacks.

So to summarise, The Unites States of Mexico were really interesting, the food was a bit different than expected but didn't disappoint. Not speaking Spanish was not a big problem but it would have been helpful to meet more locals. I left Seattle on September 20th after spending just over three weeks there. Olivia decided to come along for the weekend to Portland, my next stop. We stayed with my friends Ed and Laura in a quiet neighborhood about 5 miles south of downtown Portland. As our first full day was a Sunday we first had the extended breakfast at a vegan breakfast buffet place, then visited Powell's, the world greatest bookstore and after walking through the older parts of the center took out to hike in the hills west of Portland along the Columbia river. We visited two great waterfalls, the second one being the second tallest in the US and the tallest I've ever seen so far. We had great Lebanese dinner and then it was time to say goodbye to Olivia again. I stayed four more days in Portland, mostly walking around and still doing thrift shopping. I met more old friends Tim Dagger and JJ Fantastic for dinners. Portland somehow attracts a lot of people. Next stop was the bay area and to save $60 I took the Greyhound bus rather than the train. Arriving in Sacramento after the night on the bus. I was shocked by the high temperature out here. I revisited the sights quickly as I had been in the Californian capital twice before and then boarded the bus to Oakland. In the bay area I stayed with four different friends of mine and again used the time there to walking around and shop a little bit. On by train to Santa Barbara, which was a great ride, there is a nice observation car and there is some great landscape along the way. In Santa Barbara I stayed with my friend Jimmy and his family in their huge house on a hillside overlooking the town and the Pacific ocean. On by train to Los Angeles where I stayed some nights with Marion, how I didn't know before but was very sweet and offered to put me up after she heard that I'm coming to town. I also met up with and Allan from the Siddeleys who now lives here and meet the Tartans a new band I quite like. Marion dragged me to a studio to record a popcast for the internet radio station she works for and that actually was really interesting. I also did a lot of walking around the streets and hills of Hollywood. Regardless of what most people say, I do like Southern California, at least for a while and I always seem to meet really nice people here. It got pretty hot over the days, getting me into the mood for things to come further south. In San Diego I stayed for a few nights in a hostel to find people to join me on my way to Mexico but in the end I crossed the border by myself. This is the first post about my current trip to Latin America. I left Germany at the end of August and have just spend three weeks in Seattle in the Northwest of the United States. I thought Seattle was a good starting point because I have some friends here and could take some time to prepare the upcoming trip a little bit and also learn some Spanish. Well I did read up and Latin America and did some basic research but I haven't learned any Spanish yet. After 4 days with my friends Arthur and Heather and their two year old daughter India, I spent the rest of the time here with my friend Olivia who I met in Beijing during my previous trip. The weather here was fantastic, pretty much the whole three weeks we had blue skies and it was pretty warm, much better than the rest of the summer. While spending the evenings with Olivia tasting the various vegan dishes of restaurants all over Seattle and spend most of my days walking or cycling to Thrift stores where I would buy some high tech travel clothes for the trip. My original plan was to buy them here new in the shops because of the weak dollar, but I found most things I was looking for in these second hand shops. I really like shopping there, the number of different garments they have is simply mind blowing. I saw literately 50 shirts I liked and would have bought if I would live here, none of them costing more than 6 dollars. I also went back to the Microsoft campus in Redmond to attend some user group meetings. One day Olivia and I rented a canoe and went out on Lake Washington for a few hours, that was great. Another day we went south to visit the state fair in Puyallup. This is a fair out in the country, in addition to the fun fair style rides they also had tons of farm animals and exhibitions as well as heaps of bad food. Today is the first 'grey' day and it is much cooler too, so on the 25 of September I will move on to Portland in Oregon and then to San Francisco. After reading about the various parts of Latin America I now feel that I should stay on the mainland and not try to do the Caribbean as well. There are just too many countries out there and I feel I shouldn't tackle to much at once. It's a shame about Cuba, which I loved when I went there in 2004, but I can always go there later.