However, just to share a little news with my friends ...

I got MARRIED about six weeks ago!

I first met the wife (Chika) in Argentina then again in Peru, Japan, Micronesia and we spent seven months travelling together from Colombia through to Mexico. Well, we recently got married in Chicago.

Actually, the travel site is a GREAT place for this entry :-)

I've attached a 4 minute video clip of the Big Day and would like to say a HUGE thanks to our videographer Frank. Not your 'standard' wedding video! Job very well done Frank. Its more like the 'Rock Video' of the wedding world :-)

Make sure you've got some sound turned on as its a GREAT sound track too!

Enjoy....

Russ and Chika from Turning Point Productions on Vimeo.

Dawn Over Tikal. Guatemala

This is the land of the Maya, and there's certainly no shortage of ancient ruins around to remind you of that. It's impressive to see the enormous structures the Maya were building some 2000 years ago, and learn a little about their complex civilization. However, I don't want this entry to turn into a long, dry history paper - if you want to know more about the Maya, then you could check this out.

I think it's one of those things that comes across best in pictures - and trust me, I took a few of those!

The most famous of the Maya sites run from Honduras through to Mexico, so I'll post the pics in the relevant country galleries when I get a chance.

Palenque. Mexico

The first of the sites we visited was Copan in Honduras, often referred to as the 'Paris' of the Maya world because of the fine artworks produced there. Heading through Guatemala brought us to Tikal - the Mayan 'New York' with some high rise temples reaching over 64 m. (A steep climb to the top.) Tikal is set in the middle of the jungle and provides an incredible sun rise setting - sitting on top of the tallest temple, listening to the jungle waking up as the sun climbs behind the temple backdrop, and the mists slowly clear from the treetops. The scene is topped off with the roar of howler monkeys echoing across the jungle as they start their day. Well worth the 2:30am start!

Our Maya ruins trail will also lead us up through Mexico, to Palenque, Tulum, and finally on to one of the new seven wonders of the world, Chichen Itza where our Latin America adventure will come to an end :-(

Honduras has plenty of great destinations to its name, but the one most appealing to me was The Bay Islands - because that means scuba diving.

Initially we were torn between visiting Roatan or Utila. I'd quite like to have seen both, but there's no convenient (or affordable) transport between the two. So at the end of the day, the cheapskate in me won out and we went to Utila.

Utila has a 'party' reputation, no problem for me, I can party as hard now as I could when I first started travelling 10 years ago - it's just the recover factor that's gone on an exponential curve! Anyway, the $5 per night accommodation was too good to pass up. And once again, we'd lugged with us several kilos of pasta, pancake mix, and various other food stuffs so finding somewhere with a kitchen was a must. After trudging around several places, we ended up staying at 'Cross Creek', a dive operator who also offered decent accommodation, a well equipped kitchen, and of course diving. No need to ever leave the 'hotel.' :-)

Finally! A Seahorse.

For the first time in Central America we'd also found reasonably priced diving with 10 dives costing $250. Sign me up!

One of the problems I tend to associate with islands such as these, over run with dive operators and specializing in large, cheap open water classes is that the diving is often pretty mediocre and the dive sites resemble Tokyo's Shinjuku station at rush hour!

Happily, this was not the case with my dive experience during the six days spent in Utila. Some great dives; caves, maze like channels, more gorgonian fans then I've ever seen anywhere, I even managed to find a seahorse for Chika (although it took a couple of dives and a LOT of looking.)

All in all, a nice way to pass a few days.

Cross Creek even organised a themed BBQ/party night which happened to coincide with my 2000th day 'on the road.' Talk about good timing.

Some Beautiful Diving

I was most impressed that despite having the theme set by someone else, both Chika and I were able to produce costumes from our backpacks. The given theme was Pirates - quite appropriate for a Caribbean island. Hardly surprising then that 30 people turned up dressed as Captain/Captainess Jack/Jackie Sparrow. I was particularly impressed with the origami bird that Chika made for her shoulder.

I took a slightly different twist on the theme, fixing a couple of 'pirate' DVD's to my chest, went as a 'modern day' movie pirate. Unfortunately, nobody else got the joke.

Guess my mind just works a little differently. Good thing or Bad thing, you decide. :-)

In general, Central America tends to get a bit of a bad rap when it comes to food. Rice and beans during the week and beans and rice at the weekends. But, there's a lot of good stuff out there if you look for it and are willing to experiment a little.

Along the chain of small villages that make up the "ruta de las flores" in Western El Salvador, Juayúa is famed for its weekend food fair. No surprise then that we arrived in Juayúa on a Saturday, hungry and ready to eat. Of course you could find your 'beans and rice' here if you really wanted to, but why would you with options such as:

Miss El Salvador

'crazy' corn, lobster, seafood chili, BBQ beef/pork/chicken, tacos, burritos, endless varieties of local soups, grilled sausages, kebabs, fresh fruits (chocolate dipped strawberries!), juices, and some excellent local coffees.

In short, I ate myself silly for the whole weekend! I usually lose a bit of weight when I travel, but I think that balance may have been re-adjusted in Juayúa. And, as if that wasn't enough, Juayúa was also hosting the 'Miss El Salvador' contest!

Arriving in El Salvador certainly brought with it a change in feeling compared to the other areas of Central America such as Panama and Costa Rica.

In all the time spent in El Salvador we only saw 8 other travellers and minimal tourist development. In some ways El Salvador reminded me a little of Colombia - With its recent civil war history and the rest of the world looking at it as a 'trouble spot' - yet the people there are amongst the friendliest and most helpful we've met. Like Colombia, I feel that the people there make a very special effort with the travellers they meet because they know the world looks at them and their country as drug producers, guerrillas or just bad people. Simply not fair and certainly not true.

El Salvador had a pretty tough history even through the more recent years. I only really remember it as a place that was being mentioned on the news a lot when I was at school. The civil war there started in 1980 and ran on until 1992 - although the history runs way back beyond that.

It was a war between the right-wing military government of El Salvador (U.S. funded to the tune of 7 Billion Dollars) and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition of four leftist and one Communist guerrilla group. Basically a long and very bloody war of the oppressed people against a brutal military dictatorship.

One of the first places we visited in El Salvador was the small village of El Mozote which became infamous as the site of a brutal massacre by Government troops at the end of 1981. The north eastern areas of El Salvador were considered to be something of an FMLN stronghold and it was in these areas that the government implemented 'death squads' whose role was quite simply to wipe out whole communities.

Although this happened in many areas of El Salvador, it was the scale of the massacre in El Mozote that makes it stand out.

Almost 1000 men, women and children were tortured and killed in this small rural village. Only one person managed to escape and survive. Everthing in the town was destroyed including all livestock. Nothing was left alive.

The Memorial Rose Garden

There are believed to be numerous, as yet unidentified, mass graves around the village. However, the one that has been exhumed is perhaps the most tragic of all. In 2003 an Argentinian forensic team uncovered a mass grave in which they found 146 bodies. Of the 146 corpses, 140 of them were aged under 12 years old, and the average age was 6 years old! The youngest was just 2 days old!

This site has now become a dedicated momument to all those who were killed in the village. The childrens mass grave transformed into a memorial rose garden.

When we were there, we were lucky enough to meet two very interesting people. One was an English girl who was working for the church. She had helped create the original mural and rose garden in dedication to the children 4 years earlier. She had just returned to carry out a little repair work on the paint job.

The other was an American author who had published a book about the Mozote Massacre. He had been in Mozote back in 2003 when the forenic work was being carried out on the childrens grave. He had just come back to El Mozote after 5 years with thoughts of updating his book. Both these people were able to give us an amazing insight into the tragic events of the village and what happened afterwards.

On March 7, 2005, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reopened an investigation into the El Mozote massacre because of the new evidence found by the team of Argentine forensic anthropologists. Unfortunately however, recent efforts by lawyers in El Salvador to reopen the case, which was shelved in 2000, have repeatedly failed, even after a court ruling that year stripped protection under the national amnesty law from suspects in the most egregious human rights violations.

War... what is it good for!

There is no denying that.. well, they really do have some canal there in Panama! And watching Green Turtles come ashore to nest in Costa Rica was VERY cool. But, overall they lacked something. Or maybe its actually that they have too much of something ... Overpriced, hugely overdeveloped for tourism, 'For Sale' signs abound, Real Estate operators in every small town, Condos and 'Gated Communities' springing up everywhere and an apparent WAVE of North Americans in search of the next property bargin. Not really my scene.

What worries me most is hearing that the very people who have inflicted this 'Cond-hell' on countries such as Panama and Costa Rica now consider it too developed and expensive and have started to move into other areas such as Nicaragua - I can only hope that Nicaragua doesn't go the same way!

Still, things seem to be looking up as now i'm in El Salvador... and lovin' it!

I've covered quite a lot of ground since I last posted any updates. I've crossed from Colombia by yacht to Panama, onwards into Costa Rica and Nicaragua. By this time tomorrow i'll be in El Salvador.

Of course, i'll fill those gaps as and when I get chance. My laptop has recently died so it makes updates a little more difficult (especially photo galleries.)

Anyway, the big news (and purpose of this post) is to say that i've finally bought a flight home!!

I'll be flying from Cancun Mexico back to Chicago and then onwards to Washington DC, Boston, New York and finally ..... MANCHESTER, ENGLAND!

I've posted a COUNTDOWN TIMER on the homepage www.1smallworld.com

I arrive back in Manchester on the 11th November. I'll be looking forward to catching up with you all for a few beers over Christmas.

See you soon.
Russ

Now its back and its bigger and better than ever as the new player allows multiple tracks and playlists! So now there are 15 tracks to choose from or just set it playing and enjoy about 40 minutes of music streamed to you over the Internet.

Its all in Spanish, but don´t let that put you off and there are 3 instrumental tracks by Joe Satriani too.

Enjoy!

Colombia was great - I made it out alive AND with all my belongings still belonging to me (but only just!) Anyway, I have found some time to post the photo gallery for Colombia which you can find here:

COMPLETE COLOMBIA PHOTO GALLERY (81 Photos)

I've also spent a little time creating a new look for the Travel Gallery Archive page. I think it looks a bit smarter.

There's still a few Blog entries to add to the Colombia section and bring the South America part of this trip to a close, but for now its onwards and upwards into Central America.

Gadgets Galore!

After a pretty chilled-out week Hostel sitting in Popayan, it was time to move on again. I was heading to Cali, generally considered to be the Salsa capital of the country as well as the major hub of Cocaine distribution, Drug Barons and money laundering. Sounds like something of a party town! Although, of all the available options, I thought I’d better stick with the Salsa.

I tried two days of Salsa lesson whilst in Cali, day one was a little better than day two as it was only hampered by heavy walking boots and a lack of natural rhythm whereas the second day of lessons had all of the above and a nasty hangover. I didn’t make it to a third day!

From Cali I was heading north via Salento in the Colombian coffee region to the Northern city of Medellin. It turned out to be an eventful bus journey as only a couple of hours outside of Cali – in the town of Buga I had my daypack stolen! Seemed to be a very apt town name as ‘Buga!’ is very similar to the words that passed my lips once I discovered the theft :-)

Typically, I don’t travel with much in the way of valuables. HOWEVER, the recent trip to Japan (irresistible technology wonderland) and the buying power of the Pound against the Dollar in the States meant that I had amassed something of a ‘Gadget’ collection: Laptop, Nikon SLR Camera, Canon Camera, 160GB Ipod, JVC Noise Cancelling Headphones, numerous memory cards and battery chargers. All tucked in one easy to carry (or grab, as the case may be!) bag.

The bus was never crowded, in fact for the first hour or so of the journey there was only Chika and I on the bus. Our main packs and day packs all had to go inside the bus and were carefully stashed directly in front of us, less than one meter away . Chika’s main pack was sandwiched behind the driver’s seat, supported on one side by the drivers seat and on the other by a waist high plastic partition. My day pack was next to her main pack, so on one side it had the back of the drivers seat, on the other the same plastic divide, Chika’s pack on the third side and my leg blocking the last side. Blocked on four sides - quite safe, I felt!

Scene Of The Crime.

A few other people had joined the bus by now, but it was the four Colombian men that got on near Buga that were going to be the real problem. A very professional act as I found out later - a distraction man, a blocker, a grabber and a fourth to finally walk away with the goods once the bus moved on. Studied under Fagin and graduated under David Copperfield I’d suggest as the disappearance of my daypack was nothing short of Magic!

The whole episode unraveled in a space of about 15 seconds and I was only ever aware of one man – the distracter. As the bus slowed ready to stop on the outskirts of Buga, the old man sitting directly behind us began to stand. He pulled himself up using the headrest on the back of our seats and as he did so he ‘accidentally’ dropped his medicine. A few tablets dropped onto our seat and I turned to help him pick them up! It only took about 5 seconds, but that was enough. I watched him walk slowly from the bus and cross the road in front of us. The bus was just about to pull away as I looked down to where my leg was and my pack had been. The empty space staring back at me created a heart sinking and adrenalin rising effect all at the same time! I leapt up and calmly asked the driver to please wait and quickly explained that my pack had been stolen. Without further consideration I jumped from the bus and scanned the scene for someone to chase after. There are those who might say that it’s not the best idea to chase after robbers in Colombia! As one of the passengers later said to me, 'it’s lucky you weren’t shot!'

However, of all the people walking away from the bus, nobody was carrying my pack. My heart sank again. Everything had been going so well.

I noticed a couple of well dressed men standing at the bus stop, on the pavement just behind the bus. I wandered over to ask if they saw anything and as I rounded the bus, there, sitting in the road, directly behind the bus was my daypack. The two men at the bus stop told me that the robber ran off and pointed towards a small market. I grabbed my pack and thanked them. What I didn’t realize is that they were part of ‘the team’. Their job was to carry off the pack once the bus had gone. I can’t believe I even THANKED them! :-)

Still, it turned out ok in the end. I got back on the bus and chained the pack to the seat! We were carrying on to the ‘Coffee Region’ of Colombia – not sure about coffee but I certainly felt like I could do with a beer!

San Augustin

I've been in Colombia for almost three weeks now and so far so good. Infact i'd go further than that to say its been GREAT.

The border crossing was very smooth and remarkably relaxed. I'd expected a strong military presence at the border but found almost none. It would have been quite easy to wander through into Colombia without completing the border/visa stamp formalities - although probably not advisable. Anyway with a 60 day visa stamped in the passport I continued on into the Guerrilla heartland :-)

I didn't particularly want to travel on the bus after dark as bus hold-ups and robberies have been known - although much less frequent these days. So, I made it as far as the town of Pasto before settling for the night. Actually, I quite liked Pasto. Nothing of particular note for the tourist, but the place had a nice feel and so I stayed for three nights before heading on to Popayan (where I am currently.)

From Popayan I spent a week traveling around a large loop to San Augustin and Tierra Dentro. Taking in some of the finest archaeological sites that Colombia has to offer and generally enjoying the beautiful countryside. On the way to San Augustin we were stopped by several very young military personnel. Not a checkpoint as such, we were just flagged down in the middle of nowhere. I'm still not sure which 'side' stopped us - The Guerrillas or The Army? Still, things didn´t go too badly and after a rather half hearted bag search we were on our way again.

So now I find myself back in Popayan and i´m Hostel Sitting for a week. When I arrived in Popayan I had a recommendation for a good hostel and so went to check it out. What I hadn't realised at the time was that the hostel belonged to a Scottish couple that i'd met just over a year and a half ago in Venezuela. It is indeed 1smallworld.

For anyone heading through this way you should definitely check out the new hostel in Popayan - easily the best in town and the Hostel Trail website is great for anyone travelling in this part of the world.

Anyway, they asked if Chika and I would like to help out for a week while they went off to Ecuador to renew their visas. So, for almost the last week we've been settled here in Popayan... 'working' ;-)

It has at least given me plenty of opportunity to catch up on the website and post up all those missing photo galleries. I'm very pleased to say that this posting finally brings me totally up to date.

I realise its a bit of a photo marathon but here are the galleries from:

COMPLETE 'USA: BIKE TRIP' PHOTO GALLERY (74 Photos)

COMPLETE 'USA: WEST COAST' PHOTO GALLERY (48 Photos)

COMPLETE 'USA: LAS VEGAS/GRAND CANYON' PHOTO GALLERY (21 Photos)

COMPLETE 'USA: MIDWEST' PHOTO GALLERY (10 Photos)

COMPLETE 'ECUADOR: RAFTING' PHOTO GALLERY (11 Photos)

I've just enabled 'comments' for all my photo galleries, so if you've something to say about any of my photos please send me a comment and i'll publish it.

Just as a quick technical note. You might find that the layout of the photo pages is a bit mis-aligned if you are using Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) which is a bit odd as they work just fine under IE6 and the new beta release of IE8. Basically IE7 seems to do some strange, non standard things. Don´t you just love Microsoft! Better still just use Firefox :-)

White Powder Anyone!

Well we’re still in Ecuador, at least until tomorrow anyway when we’ll head for the Colombian border.

We’ve spent a few relaxing days here in Ibarra and yesterday, being Saturday, we ventured to the nearby town of Otavalo for the indigenous market. This market is considered by many to be one of the most important markets in South America, dating back to pre-Inca times. It certainly is a BIG market and it drew the crowds. We missed the livestock part of the market as that area finished its trading by 8am and it was 10:30 before we even arrived in Otavalo. Great shame really because I quite fancied owning a Llama! I priced one up in Peru and for around $250 - $300 a Llama could be yours (one careful lady owner and low mileage.)

I made just one purchase at the market – a Hammock! Seemed like a great idea at the time, but unfortunately it’s quite heavy and a bit too bulky to carry around with me. That’s were a good pack animal would come in handy! I guess I’ll just have to post it home … the Hammock, not the Llama (don’t worry Mum!)

Anyway, tomorrow we’ll be leaving Ecuador behind and crossing the border into Colombia. In preparation for moving on we were sorting through our bags, a bit of a Spring Clean if you like. Certainly easier to Spring Clean a backpack than my bedroom. Anyway, Chika came up with a couple of items that seemed to be causing her a bit of concern. She likes to travel with food items from home and who am I to complain about the occasional Miso Soup or Curry Udon. The items she’d pulled out this time were a small clear plastic bag filled with pancake mix and another containing loose green tea. Innocent enough I guess until you look them as a large bag of ‘white powder’ and a bag of mysterious green leaves AND THEN try to imagine how you explain these item, in your broken Spanish, to the Colombian Military on the border as they search your bags!

Well, it looks like we’re going to be eating a LOT of pancakes and drinking a LOT of Green Tea today. Still, there’s torrential rain outside and it sounds like a nice way to pass a lazy Sunday.

The Amazon

I’m still in Ecuador and I’ve just come back from the Jungle area around the town of Tena. As with previous jungle trips, I’d like to think that I put up a good fight against the various deadly bugs – but ultimately they won again!

Anyone who saw the aftermath of the Brazil Amazon trip will have seen what a hit I was with the mosquitoes there. This time it wasn’t the mosquitoes but the tiny flies with the ‘big teeth’ that were the problem. They’ve made a right mess of my legs and every bite (plenty to choose from!) is insanely itchy.

Whilst I was in the jungle one of the local guides gave me something called ‘Sangre de Drago’ (Dragons Blood) which is the BLOOD RED sap of a particular Amazonian tree. It is pretty odd to see a tree ‘bleed’ when it’s cut. Anyway, strange as it may be, it’s something of a miracle when it comes to soothing the bite of the ‘Killer Amazonian Big Toothed Death Fly’ (don’t think that’s the official Latin classification but it works for me.)

Ailments aside, the jungle trip was great. Covered a lot of miles wandering through primary Amazonian forest, climbing through canyons and up waterfalls, swimming in Lagoons and floating down rivers in inner tubes. Learned quite a lot about medicinal plants too. Who knows when this gradual buildup of Jungle knowledge will come in handy?

So now, I’m back in Tena and getting ready to go White Water Rafting. Tena is Ecuador’s rafting capital and we’re taking on some Class IV rapids tomorrow. Should prove an exciting day. I’ll let you know.

Anyway, here are few more photos from the Ecuadorian Jungle:

Currently back in Baños and having fun. Hope you all are too.

Having passed a very pleasant two and a half months in and around the USA - covering many sights, many miles and spending far too much cash (more than a healthy bite from the travelling budget!) I find myself (with Chika) back in South America. Quito, Ecuador to be exact. Sitting in the same Hostel that I left behind last November and planning the route ahead. Given that i've already spent quite some time in the areas to the South and East of Ecuador and the country is on the west coast, it looks like we'll be heading North into Colombia.

I'm currently trying to assess the situation at the Ecuador/Colombia border as there have in recent weeks been real serious issues between the two countries – verging on warfare! So, not wanting to take too many chances with that one. Of course, I’ll keep you all posted. Worst case I’ll fly from Quito into Bogotá.

My flight from LA to Quito involved a transfer through Bogotá Airport. The photo in this post is a list of the items that you are NOT allowed to carry on flights from this airport – it was a LONG list. As well as the usual items such as Golf Clubs, Firearms, Knives, Sharp Objects etc. they felt it necessary to explicitly list items such as:

Bow and Arrows
Stun Guns
Harpoons
Hitting Clubs
Daggers
Dynamite
Ninja Stars
Tear Gas
Hand Grenades (or grenades of any kind)
Axes
Flame Throwers
Machetes
Brass Knuckles
Chainsaws
Neutralizer Gas

Certainly a thorough list and I felt fairly certain that I didn’t have any of those items in my hand luggage. Is this the kind of stuff that Colombians typically carry? Do I need to stock up before I venture back into Colombia??

Welcome back to South America.