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You are here: Home / Archives for transportation

Flashback: Honduras

June 21, 2011 By Jillian

Sometimes it’s about the journey not the destination.  Bumping around in the back of an overloaded Toyota pick up truck on our way into “the heart of darkness” was not my idea of fun. Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I couldn’t get Conrad’s book out of my head.  We were going into the heart of Central America’s largest wilderness and it was certainly a journey.

Trucks to La mosquitia

We had been pretty “vanilla” in our travels up until Honduras.  We hadn’t really gone off the beaten path yet.  As we got our travel legs we became more and more adventurous, staying at places not listed in the guidebook, taking guidebook suggestions with a grain of salt and relying on word of mouth recommendations from other travelers above everything else.  In Honduras we finally hit our travel stride and took a sharp turn off the beaten path.

By sharp turn I mean we decided to go to “La Mosquitia”, which Wikipedia kindly refers to as: an underdeveloped region of tropical rainforest accessible primarily by water and air.   By primarily they mean only by air and water. See, it’s about the journey.

House along the Rio Platano

I’ll admit that I was not thrilled when we decided to launched off into the Mosquito Coast, the coastline is heavily used by drug traffickers and it was starting to be rainy season.  Torrential downpours, underdeveloped jungle, mud and mosquitos? I’d seen this in a movie before, and trust me it wasn’t a pleasant situation.

I quickly realized my opinion would hold very little sway when we met a solo traveler who had just returned from the region.  He enthusiastically gave us all the information we needed and although Danny asked if I was interested in going, I saw that glinting “Indian Jones” spirit in his eyes and decided to quietly squelch my concerns.  In the words of a famous fitness retailer I decided to “Just Do It.”

So there we were, bouncing along in the back of a pick up truck, wedged between bottles of Coca-Cola.  To say it was an adventure getting into the heart of La Mosquitia is an understatement.

Trucks to La Mosquitia

My memories are akin to someone experiencing trauma.  Thinking of that journey is like reliving a painful experience and my mind has successfully blocked out all but part of it.  I have distinct memories of choking on the dust in the back of the truck, of the intense heat and the physical discomfort.  Of riding back to civilization atop the truck’s gear shifter in the cab, of a driver who had been deported a few times from the U.S. telling me how bad the State Police are in Georgia.  Our time in La Mosquitia was an exotic adventure (definitely worth a read, click here for Part 1 and Part 2), but it was really more about the journey than the destination.  Once there we hiked in torrential downpours and experienced the jungle in rainy season, not something I’d recommend.

Our pipante (canoe) driver

Spanish has a phrase vale la pena which loosely translates to be worth it, to be worthwhile.  It’s one of my favorite idioms in Spanish.  La Mosquitia was our first turn off the beaten track and although the journey is what I’ll remember the most, I can’t help but look back on it and ask myself again was it vale la pena?  Even two years later I can say yes.  The journey was vale la pena.

IF YOU GO:    The entire eastern coastline of Central America is tropical jungle and although we went rather remote, you don’t have to go deep into La Mosquitia to experience the jungle.  Winter is the perfect time to go to the jungle so if you’re spending the holidays in Cancun, it may be worth it to take some extra time and overland the coastline.  Traveling through Belize and into Honduras is relatively easy and there’s a lot to do.  We learned how to SCUBA dive on Utila, which was an enjoyable way to spend a week and also went to a couchsurfing meet up.  We arranged our transport into La Mosquitia along the way from La Ceiba and you should be able to get information in La Ceiba on the trip.

Filed Under: Flashback, Headline, Journey Tagged With: adventures, jungle, transportation, trips

Photo: International Terminal

May 9, 2011 By Jillian

When I saw the airport in Rurrenabaque, Bolivia my first thought was to laugh.  A dirt runway and a decrepit building were all that marked the area as an airport.  We checked in for our flight, weighed our luggage and proceeded to wait for the plane to touch down.

We had taken the18 hour bus ride from La Paz to Rurrenabaque but it was a night we’d never forget–and one that we never wanted to do again.  We booked a flight back to La Paz pretty much immediately upon arriving in town, spent a couple of days in Bolivia’s Amazon and raced back to the airport for our flight.  Finally the small jet touched down.  As you can imagine, on a dirt runway, the planes don’t land in wet weather, which as you can also imagine is a frequent occurrence in the jungle.  Thankfully our flight landed.  People unloaded, we loaded on and soon enough we were back in the air.  Just another day at the Rurrenabaque airport.

This picture is the baggage service and airport shuttle.  Don’t laugh, I’m serious.

To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.

Bolivian Jungle Airport- Rurrenabanque

Bolivia’s a great place to go for adventurous cheap holidays.  From the amazon to the highlands and the salt flats (salar de uyuni) there’s a lot to do and it’s rather inexpensive.  Check out our Bolivia Guide for more information.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: airport, transportation

Photo: Car Wash

April 20, 2011 By Jillian

We were hiking with a group of expats and locals to a couchsurfing camping weekend in Honduras when we saw these guys washing their truck in the river.  The first time I saw a river car wash I thought the car had gotten stuck crossing the river, at least until the buckets of water started flying at the windshield.

It’s not exactly an uncommon occurrence in around the world, but we certainly saw it the most in Central America. In Africa, we saw huge 18 wheel trucks lined up along the sandy river banks, in what sometimes appeared to be an official commercial car wash operation.  Sometimes we’d see families settled in the shade with newly washed cars parked on the riverbank and kids splashing in the river. A day out and a car wash.  Cheaper and easier than the neighborhood gas station!  I only wonder how many cars get stuck in the river… can’t remember seeing a single one, but it must happen.

This photo was taken near Comayagua, Honduras.

To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: transportation

Flashback: Baja, Mexico

April 7, 2011 By Danny

It was about noon when we walked across the border into Mexico.  Although we didn’t want a trip itinerary, we had planned ourselves a little bit of a route through Baja to help get us started.  It was literally our first day of a two year journey and once we figured out where we had to go to get our passports processed (most people didn’t actually need to do even that) we began the trip south.  We were filled with anxiety, excitement and fear and  we didn’t know how to do a single thing.

Crossing the Border into Mexico

After heading a few hours south from the border we arrived at the little town of San Quintin and realized two things.  The first was that spending the night was silly because all the buses heading south only ran through the night.  The second thing we learned was that Jill’s rule of ‘never sleeping on a bus’ was to be broken very quickly.  We purchased tickets south, found some excellent Mexican food, ate dinner, and then boarded the 3rd bus that came through.  The ones prior to that would have gotten us to our destination too early, a 5am arrival was as early as we were willing to push it despite the desires of several drivers who wanted to take us onto their bus so they could keep our fare for themselves.

We arrived in Guerrero Negro while it was still dark and hung out with a couple of Mexican tourists who also wanted to visit the whales.  Our only memories from the bus are a vague recollection of policemen walking up and down the aisle at a checkpoint; otherwise we slept the whole time.  As dawn broke, we headed to book what was one of the most amazing activities of our entire trip.

We drifted in our boat for close to 20 minutes before the whales were spotted. Each time a white cap crested in the horizon I gasped thinking it was a whale. Just as I was about to call the trip a bust, a huge burst of water exploded from in front of us. As we drifted closer, the entire boat listed to one side as all eight of us clamored to get a better view of the passing animal. To say these animals are huge is an understatement. To say they are friendly is the understatement of the century.  These whales were like puppies.  They came up to our boat, nudged the boat, rolled onto their backs for a tummy scratch, waved their fins, and even seemed to mug for the camera.  We actually got to touch the whales, several times, as they swam next to our boat. Click here to read more…

Our adventures in Baja didn’t stop there.  After the ride we were approached by a Canadian couple who were heading the same way as us to celebrate their retirement.  They didn’t have space for us in their car but invited us to stay with them once we all arrived in La Paz. We accepted and together we spent several days together.  Some of that time was spent on the beach but we took another boat trip together where we were attacked by pilot whales, clearly not as enjoyable company as the gray whales, but swimming with the sea lions around the island of Espiritu Santu was awesome.

At the northern most tip of the island we stopped to snorkel… at a sea lion rookery…with sea lions. Yes, with sea lions. A surreal sea-world experience, snorkeling with the sea lions was as exhilarating as it was frightening. Click here to read more…

 

IF YOU GO: The Baja peninsula is a marine biologist’s dream.  If traveling the length of the peninsula on public transport, as we did, you should plan to travel via bus at night.  There are also tons of vacation packages available that will cover lodging, transportation and even food. We chose to visit the gray whales in Guerrero Negro rather than San Ignacio simply because San Ignacio is not easily accessible via public transport.  Once in La Paz, Espirtu Santu trips can be booked from in town or the beach where the tours depart from one day in advance.  In La Paz you can also book yourself on the ferry to take you to mainland Mexico.

Filed Under: Flashback, Headline, Journey Tagged With: baja, flashback, transportation

Photo of the Day: Paddling the Bosphorus

March 24, 2011 By Danny

This is the other side of Istanbul. Away from the crowds and the tourists. Far from the hussle and bussle and no where near a train station. Istanbul is served by thousands of ferries, to take people to places like this. Just an island, some people live there and others just visit for the weekend. Nothing more than a suburb at sea…

Special thanks to Flickr user Diego Balinhas for marking this photo as a favorite.

To see a few of our favorite photos from Turkey click here.

Our PHOTO PAGE has links to all of our collections on Flickr. Be sure to mark some of your own favorites so that we can include them on this column. We’ll be highlighting a different photo every day.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: transportation

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