Turn back the clock one year, more or less (you know how Thanksgiving always falls on a different date), to 2006 and here is how I spent Thanksgiving. It was Day 2 of a 5 day horsepacking trip in the Copper Canyon region. Looking back, it didn't really feel like Thanksgiving to me since I had been living in Mexico since mid-May. I was so removed from American culture that to me it would have just seemed like any other day. But, we had four Americans that had traveled down from Durango and Santa Fe for the trip so with their help, I did get into the Thanksgiving mood.

We packed up camp and left the little town of Naranjo and journeyed towards a town called Urique where we were to meet the owner's wife to re-supply. At our first stop on the trail, someone broke out a bag of Turkey Jerky, probably Diego. I also think that we had dried cranberries. We jokingly exchanged "Happy Thanksgivings" and expected that to be the end of our Thanksgiving festivities.

Eating. From left to right clockwise - Maria Jose, Ryan (my goatee is most visible), Fred, Randy, Jim, Diego, Ana, Hugo.

Imagine our surprise when Diego's wife, Ana, showed up in Urique with a typical American-style Thanksgiving. I was pretty amazed because I know that nearly much everything had been purchased in El Paso, Texas, which was a mere 12+ hours drive from the Hotel. For whatever reason, Mexico does not do turkey. There is chicken a plenty but I can count on one hand the number of times I had seen turkey in Mexico. Gravy, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce. Diego and Ana did an excellent job. I think I knew that Ana and Diego were planning a little something but I didn't know it would be quite that extensive. I do remember being asked before we left what "ginger" translates to in Spanish (ginebre for all you biliingualoids). Ginger, as you know, is a key ingredient in punkin' pie.

All in all, good times and good food with great people!

Our group was composed of
Diego - owner of the Hotel Paraiso del Oso
Hugo - Mexican wrangler/son of Diego
me
Dave - friend of Diego from Santa Fe, New Mexico
Randy - horse trip operator from Durango, Colorado
Jim - retired lawyer from Durango, Colorado
Fred - retired optomologist from Durango, Colorado

Ana - Diego's wife and preparer of aforementioned feast
Maria Jose - my girlfriend at the time from Guadalajara, Mexico

If you are interested in the entire trip, click on the Mexico link at the top of this post and you should be able to find the article that was published in TrailRider magazine about the trip. 

Finally, an update from Central America. Ive been having some login issues onto my blog and Im still not sure exactly what is going on.

 I had a great time hanging with Jacob Veverka in Honduras and also hanging out with some of his friends that live down there too. We took a really sweet hike into a nearby cloudforest (I dont get to use that phrase very often). Perfect distance and beautiful Honduran scenery. We saw the Transformers movie at a mall in Tegucigalpa which was fun too. (For the cinematic readers, i was blown away by the quality of that flick.) The best part by far though of Honduras was getting to hang out with my good buddy Jake. We celebrated the 3 year anniversary of the completion of our cross country bike trip. 

From there it was on to Nicaragua, where I still am right now. I tried to take an international bus from Tegucigalpa to the Nicaragua but I got shut out. Therefore I had to take a serious of local buses, which obviously provides way more flavor. I have found Nicaraguans to be very friendly and I am really having a good time here. In Leon, a colonial city in the northwest part of the country I hiked a volcano and volcano boarded down the front side. It was a blast, even though there was a lot of chance for injury. Out of 9 of us, only one guy got scraped up but bad things can happen when you are screaming down the hill on a 4 foot long piece of plywood with countertop laminate glued to the bottom for acceleration. Now that I know the technique, I would totally do it again.

I spent a little time in Managua, the capital city and then headed south to Granada and the largest freshwater lake island in the world (but you already knew that), Isla Ometepe.

Now I find myself in San Juan del Sur. Tomorrow we will go surfing. I swear I will post some pictures soon but it is not as easy as it is when I have my own computer.

I went from Guatemala City to the capital of El Salvador, which is named San Salvador. San Salvador is a very interesting place. 3 million of the country´s estimated population of 7 million live in the capital. I stayed at a hostel in one of the newer areas of town and I toured the city with some people I met at the hostel. They have a huge market downtown where everything is sold in dollar intervals whether it be one bra or 5 apples or 4 pupusas (the most El Salvadorean food there is). I also went to a place called the Devils Door, a place outside of San Salvador where you can see volcanoes and the pacific ocean in the distance. There I met some El Salvadorans that were back in their home country and visiting from the US. They were all from South Florida and left during the civil war of the 1980s. They had some pretty sad, intense stories of what had happened to friends of theirs during this period. I also checked out the national art museum.

On Friday morning at about 430am I got a taxi to the bus station where I caught the 530am bus to Tegucigulpa, Honduras. That is where my good friend, Jacob Veverka, is living/working. He was a peace corps volunteer for two years and just finished his peace corps committment. I always assured him that i was going to visit him but I never did, until now. Fortunately he took a job down here for one more year and this is my grace period to visit him.

This weekend we went out of the city to the town of Juticalpa where he was living with his peace corps position. Its always fun to see where people have spent a lot of time and Jacob defintiely knows the area. The department where he lived, kinda like a state, was called Olancho and he says it was the wild west of honduras. Ill take his word for that one. I met his lady friend, a very nice Honduran woman with very expressive eyes and a good nature. The highlight for me though has been the food. Jake knows what to order and that makes a huge difference. The vocabulary of food seems to vary a lot from my experience after spending time in Mexico and traveling through other areas. We had this fried banana dish that was awesome and also a baleada which is a tortilla bean and cheese combination that is super good. Somehow it is way different than a bean and cheese burrito.

I plan to spend a few more days in Honduras and Ill probably go andget a taste of the Caribbean.

I spent around a week in Guatemala, not nearly long enough, but I want to keep heading south.

I entered Guate from the north and west by leaving the Mexican state of Chiapas. The trip from Palenque, Mexico to Flores, Guatemala was about 10 hours and involved 2 bus rides and crossing the border via a little motor boat. Crossing a river is always a cool way to enter a country. On the boat I met a Mexican guy and two Brits and we ended up traveling together for the following three or four days.

Went to the ruins at Tikal, which are supposedly amongst the biggest Mayan ruins. The archaelogical site is massive and we did manage to spot some monkeys swinging in the trees. Ruins are cool and impressive, especially with my construction background. From my observation, boulders dont appear to be very lightweight. We actually spent the night in Flores, which is the closest city to Tikal. It is a very nice island community and I suspect that it is not too typical of Guatemala.

From Flores we took a night bus to Antigua. Antigua is a center for language students for whatever reason but nonetheless it is very nice. It is easily and reasonable to do tourist excursions from this city. I hiked one of the 3 remaining active volcanoes in Guatemala and it was really neat. We even roasted marshmallows on the lava beds. Pretty gnarly.

After Antigua, our little group split up and I headed for Lake Atitlan. Lake Atitlan is considered one of the most beautiful lakes in the world and I wont argue. There are three volcanoes surrounding the lake and it is so picturesque. Lake Tahoe is an awesome lake and this one is right up there. The snow capped mountains at Tahoe are hard to beat but this is close. I stayed at this diving resort on the other side of the lake. It was very chill and I slept in a treehouse a couple of nights. The only reason I left so soon was because it was full of gringos and british people. A great location, just not too much interaction with the Guatemalans.

Where next? Break out the atlas and you tell me. Im just trying to further your education people!! hahaha.

The state of Chiapas is very interesting. Chiapas is pretty much the southernmost state and has borders with Guatemala and Belize. It is home to probably the most sizeable native population in Mexico, definitely in the 100s of thousands. I took the night bus from Pto. Escondido to Tuxtla Gutierrez, about 10-12 hours.

Tuxtla is the capital of the state of Chiapas and I went there exclusively to visit the zoo, which was founded by a pioneering Mexican biologist in the 1930s. Im generally not all that into zoos but this one is in a natural jungle setting and more than one person told me I should visit it. It only includes animals and birds from the state but fortunately they have some really cool animals in their state. Jaguars and other wildcats and crocodiles and toucans and parrots and other low-lying mammals that i dont remember their names. Very well done and one of the best tourist sites Ive seen in Mexico. I checked out the actual city too and it was a very busy place. The main mode of public transportation is by colectivo, little minivans that cruise all over. The scene is pretty amazing and it appears to be very efficient. They cant use big buses because the corners are too tight.

From Tuxtla I continued to San Cristobal de las Casas, which is the main tourist destination of the state. It is a very nice little city and very manageable to get around. (Yes, it was also the main location of the Zapatista uprising in 1994 with Subcomandante Marcos). I went to Canyon Sumidero which was a nice little boat trip. I also toured two little towns near to San Cristobal. One of them named San Juan Chamula has this really interesting church. Well its not the church as much as it is the people inside of it and what their rituals are. Basically they burn candles by the 1000s and sacrifice chickens in the church and also they drink Coke or other carbonated beverages in order to burp out the evil spirits. The hostel i stayed at in San Cristobal was really fun and I met some cook people there.

Chiapas is really interesting and very lush. Worth a visit for those that like to experience our neighbors to the south!!