Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in igor_vo's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
8:52 pm	San Jose, Costa Rica I could not stand an idea of another 10 hour ride back to San Jose and in this rare moment of weakness, I bought a plane ticket. Now I think it was a best decision of my life. Small 12 passenger prop saves you 9 hours and gives you spectacular aerial view of Corcovado area and pretty much of half of Costa Rica. About my plans for few remaining days on a the trip...I still dont know what do. San Jose is a cosmopolitan city with rather unremarkable architecture but it might be a covinient place for me to experience ´big city´ environment. I feel I´ve had enough of natural wonders in Central America and one or two extra volcanoes or snorkel trip wont add much :). For the same reason I skip Panama all together. On other hand, I have avoided big capitals so far...Will see if San Jose willl fill the void. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006
7:57 pm	Corcovado Park, Costa Rica Corporativo taxi to the park is nothing more than a pickup truck with two wooden benches installed inside the trunk. Metal bars are run along sides and the top to provide firmness to entire structure. Everything is covered by patch of tent to shield from rain. 40km road to the park is unpaved, of course, and with all those familair potholes. To make matter more exciting, I counted 19 creeks that crossed the road. Some of them are 40m wide and about meter deep. 3 of them have bridges. The rest don´t. Banks are wet from yesterday´s rain and sometimes are 25 deg steep. I was hanging to the bars like a monkey to soften up heavy blows to my ass wounded from yesterday´s biking. Very meditative exercize lasting for 2 hours and 16.5 minutes, to be exact. I was shocked to find out that some of my fellow passajeros take this ride every day to work. Boys and girls, from now on, I don´t want to hear anyone complaining how bad their commute is. Actually, the taxy gets you to the small village with strange name... Carate...whatever. From there, a nice 45 min walk along Pacific beach leads you to park. Before I start the walk, I see a pair of whales slowly swimming 50 meters away from the beach. Nice start. The park is enormous and has few trails that go around it for 100 or so kilometers. I wish I could find couple more people to go on multiday hikes. But, infortunately, it´s a low season, and I meet two more guys only in a first couple hours walking there. Hiking alone in the jungle was exciting and a somewhat nervous. Of course, I know it´s extremely unlikely to see a jaguar but actully watching wakes of a big cat running along the beach makes you feel somewhat uneasy. That´s was the point I turned back and after a short while I saw it. ´El gat´ was not a jaguar and was smaller than a mountain lion, may be 60 or 80cm long. Later I found out it was an ocelot. I also saw iconic scarlet maccaw parrots that were flying around mangrove trees making a duck-like qrya sounds, few tarantulas and other spiders. Again, too bad I didn´t find anyone else to join me for this hike. Riding back to Jimenez wasn´t as bad. I still had to hold dear to the bars but somehow managed to sleep for about an hour. Talking about human adaptation... (Comment on this)
Monday, September 4th, 2006
10:48 am	Puerto Jimenez, Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica Yesterday was the most tiring day so far. I woke up at 5:30 am to catch a 6:30am bus from Santa Elena to San Jose. 5 hour ride followed by 30 min break and another 10 hours bus ride to Puerto Jimenez, the closest point to the park. Last 4 hours were grueling. Unpaved dirt road with huge potholes full of rainwater, shaky and squeaky bridges over creeks flowing 10 meters below. F-g nigthmare. But, there is always a but... This time ´the but´ was in a first 6 hours of San Jose - Jimenez leg. Magnificent and magic scenery. Better than that around Moneteverde :). Again, the road crossed mountains, valleys, rivers and forrests. The prosperous agricultural valley around town of San Isidro del General was most impressive. Unlike other central american countries, the quality of live is much higher in Costa Rica. No shacks and semi-destroyed buildings. No garbage on the sides of the road. Happy and humorous people, considerably whiter than everywhere else I´ve been on tgis trip. No wonder it attracts so many Americans. Today I had to stay in town to sort out few things with my bank. Rent a bike for couple hours and rode around town and nearby beaches. Expats live evrywehere. Saw a sign in English ¨Selling home-made ice cream¨ on a side of the big and cute mansion 5 km down the road from Jimenez, went there to buy the cone or two and it was told to stop by again in Novemeber. American family. They have a rainy season break. Rest of the day I spent reading spanish La Nacion and english The Tica Times with small insert called The Nica Times :) To give you an idea what´s english speaking costaricans care about: A. Real Estate. Ads are everywhere. Everything is for sale. Lots, huge 200 hectares parcels, smal, half an acre developments ... everything. The bubble is blooming like there is no tomorrow. B. American expats are interesting kind of people. On one hand, they bubble about their newly acquired ´pura vida´ with conversations like: - What´s time now, Bob? - It´s june, Mike. On other hand, they like to do something since they have all time in the world and they are genuinely good and caring people. Thats why organic farming is a huge topic here. Unfortunately without fertilizers, crops don´t yield. So, we need something to make soil richer, right? How about importing red California worms? We also need another thought of farming. It all sounds good and convincing to me. Great people, I love them. Another article named ¨Howler monkeys get electrocuted¨. Appearently, the problem is monkeys, inlike birds, have two hands, two legs and one really long tail and frequently are stupid enough to touch charged and ground wires at the same time. Then, the wounded creature yells for help and others do come to help it and get burned too. Ouch...I lost my sleep. Poor poor monkeys. Tommorow I going to pay a visit to the park. Bus leaves at 6am ... again. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 2nd, 2006
10:48 am	Santa Elena, Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, Costa Rica To avoid multi hours bus ride I opted for an alternative and more expensive way to get to Monteverde. It was advertized as Jeep-boat-jeep adventure. It kinda was. Fisrt minivan takes you to lake Arenal, then a 30min motorboat ride across the lake and one more 1.5 hours leg in yet another van across the mountain ridge on a dirt road. I think it was one of most scenic rides I ever experienced. Green hills, forrests, small lakes, white horses, picturesque villages, coffee plantations, cheese factories, you name it. That´s how famous Swiss alpine terrain should look like in my mind but I´ve never been to Switzerland. Monterevde reserve area is famous because of its location on the 1-2km ridge exactly in the middle divide between Pacific and Caribean costs. It´s always chilly, humid, cloudy and dirty. One of few remaining places on earth claiming to have a virgin cloud forest. Small town of Santa Elena in a middle of reserve has everything to take care of ¨ecotourists¨ and to make some money. I don´t know if I said it before but September and October are the two most rainiest months in Costa Rica. Indeed it´s raining almost every day for couple hours in afternoon but it´s not that bad. In fact, I never cancelled my plans because of rain or got wet in the middle of doing something. But, the fact is that it´s a rainy season, and tourist don´t like to take chances. Sometimes I feel I´m the only tourist. It gets weird sometimes. You arrive to the place full of restaurants, shops, tour guides and it´s all open and empty. Their only purpose in life and a reason to exist is to serve you and only you. For instance, I stayed in 30 room hotel all by myself. Next morning I went to hike in the famous cloud forrest and our group was made of me and the guide. Kinda cool and somewhat creepy. Fortunately, later that day I met Ben and Carrol, the Brirish couple from lake Arenal. It´s saved my brain from going insane. 2 days is enough for dark, cold and wet cloud forest. It´s time to play a visit to a famous Corcovado Parque. At least, its warm there. (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 31st, 2006
5:51 pm	La Fortuna, Lake Arenal, Costa Rica The 3 hours bus ride from Tilaran to La Fortuna along the shores of impressive lake Arenal went pretty well considering how crappy the road was. Lake´s coastline is dotted with resorts, cafes,restautants,private houses and lots for sale. Clearly Costa Rica is experiencing enormous influx of foreign money. La Fortuna is all about tourist and money. The setting is nice though. The town is built on the foothills of active volcano Arenal that vents out puffs of fumes once in a while. Tropical forests, exotic animals, caves and waterfalls draws tourist from all over the world. One-stop bussinesses are everywhere. You can walk into restaurant,order the food, get massage and book all kind of tours. I took a canopy tour last night and today I spent several hours in hot spring resort followed by thearapetic massage. Pretty stupid, I know. And very boringtoo. The only bright spot was last night dinner and beer drinking with an Australian-Irish couple that I met on the bus. They both lived in London and worked in hitech and finances before quitting their jobs to start a year-long travel across the world. Unlike most people I met on the road,they are pretty informative about world affairs and weren´t shy to express their opnions with a touch of british sarcasm. I liked them, but I got a feeling of itching feet again. Tomorrow morning I leave for Monteverde. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 29th, 2006
6:42 pm	Tilaran, Costa Rica My last cross-border travel. I was too tired from a yesterday´s hike to wake up at 5:30 to catch a first boat to the mainland in order to intercept Managua-San Jose first-class bus. Screw it. I don´t need expensive hassle-free travel at expense of my sleep time. So I woke at 8am, had normal breakfast, said goodbye to Anabel (I still don´t know why this heavy 45ish guy has a female name) and started my travel to Costa Rica. I met an interesting couple from Fresno. They bought 13 acres of land on the island 6 years ago. Now they have an all organic farm there, work 12 hours a day 7 days a week and quite happy about their choice of live...sometimes. I don´t know why but they were very open talking to me about why they made this decision, how they felt about it back then and how they feel now, told me all about their dissapoinments with America, Nicagua, local laws, local community, etc...and why they still like Nicaragua. Cool people. It´s pretty interesting to ride local buses and interact with locals. Always, always there is something to remember, or someone who is interested to talk to a tourist, especially if this tourist asks for help. I like Costa Rica so far. It has a western feel, neat houses, far less garbage on roadsides, real estate banners and plenty of exotic birds on town streets. (Comment on this)
Monday, August 28th, 2006
6:03 pm	Isla Ometepe, Lago Nicaragua, Nicaragua I left San Juan del Sur the following day becuase this little town made me feel too relaxed. I start to feel guilty that I have´t done anything physically challenging for too long. That´s why I took a boat ride yesterday to island Ometepe in the middle of huge lake Nicaragua. This small island has two towering volcanoes and about 35 thousand people living around them. They grow rice, beans, fruits and cater to few tourists. Nowdays I feel very comfortable to get off the bus in the middle of nowhere and find my way, I ended up staing in a small farm that also has nice hostel and a decent restaurant on lake shore. Nobody else in the hostel but me, a young Austrian couple and four girls from Spain. All of us minded our own bussiness and for the rest of the day I swam, ate and read the book. And I have to mention Anabel, a hostel manager who spent 5 years in Astrakhan´ from 85 to 91 learning fishing industry in technikum. Surprisingly, he speaks pretty fluent russian and very fond of russian food, drinks, girls and songs. We had a lot to talk about. Today I woke up at 6am to meet Rudolph, my guide to to hike Volcan La Concepcion. It turned out that were noboby else in group but him and me and nobody to share his service with. So for $15 I got a personal guide and a spanish teacher. Not bad...for $3 an hour. I paid about $5 to Lucia just for talking with me. Unfortunately, my ability to practice spanish with Rudolph was rather exaggerated. I guess I would have the same problem talking english, russian or any other language. The hike was deadly for me. In about 2.5 hours we climbed 1km up over 6km of trail length. First time I was walking over a natural exponent... and it went steeper and steeper and steeper. That was f-g tough. I was going up 30 meters at a time, having 2-3 minutes rest in between. I still don´t havea clue how I made it. Well, looks like I got exactly what I asked for. (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 26th, 2006
5:32 pm	San Juan Del Sur, Pacific Coast, Nicaragua My travelling gods messed up a good chance to guide my route. When I got to Rivas, the 20 or so taxi drives and other shady types were so loud and annoying that I was mentally unprepared to take a chance and ride with most loud motherfucker. I thought it would be insulting to think that gods used this way to send me off the path. That´s why I have to resort to plan B and take a bus to San Juan del Sur. I thought it would be nice to visit Pacific coast for a change to see how it´s different from from ours. It´s turned out that there is no much difference. Water was worm, I have to admit, and plenty of cheap seafood restaurants. The town is a vacation capital for wealthy Nicaraguans and a popular destination for surfers and beach bums. Pretty much like Santa Cruz with mountains covered by tropical forest instead of redwoods. Several bioreserves and national parks are around. I went to one of them, to Refugio de Vida Silvetsra la Flor to watch turtle nesting in action. To get to park, I had to take a hour long trip in a trunk of the truck through jungles around 10pm. There, park guards locate turtles and tell the visitors to wait until the gigantic turtle starts laying eggs. Only then, we could approach and turn few flashlightes on and take pictures. Well, I´ve seen chickens laying eggs before :) (Comment on this)
Friday, August 25th, 2006
6:02 am	Granada, Nicaragua So it´s Friday now, my last day in Granada. My spanish skills improved dramatically thanks to Lucia and to my new spanish speaking buddies from Spain, Holland, Sweeden, France and Canada. It was a week-long fun. I feel relaxed after more than 3 weeks of non-stop travelling. Now it´s time to start moving again. But as far as my destination is concerned, I want to play a little game. Tomorrow morning I take a bus to Rivas to set a general direction towards Costa Rica, then at Rivas I will take a first local bus no matter where it goes to. Hope I end up at a decent place. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 21st, 2006
4:08 pm	Granada, Nicaragua I have a new spanish teacher. Lucia, a busty, slim, dark skinned, long haired Nica :) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 20th, 2006
3:32 pm	Granada, Nicaragua Granada is yet another central american colonial town and a happening place. I'm going to stay here for a week studying spanish and exploring the town and its neigborhoods. Today we went to LaGuna De Apollo, a small crater lake one hour away from Granada. Stayed there for a day in a tiny backpacker oriented, clothing optional resort. It features bar, restaurant and small hostel. Activities are limited to swimming, riding kayaks, eating, reading books and watching topless europeans. Total relaxation. Feels like a paradize. Returning to the town, we found ourselfs in the middle of huge fiesta, a week-long celebration of Granada's saint. Thousand of people on the street, drinking and dancing, parade of dressed up caballeros and caballeras navigating their dancing horses along the central calle. "Hipicos" is the name of all this balagane. Later this night we went to a local club with big group of other hostellers. Mix of locals and tourists. Feels a bit like Cuba . (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 19th, 2006
7:25 pm	Granada, Nicaragua Another long day of travelling form 5am to 5pm. Bus, taxi, abother bus, another taxi and a minivan ride from Managua to Granada. Since I want to take another spanish class, I need to figure out tomorrow if this town is good enough for a one week stay. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 18th, 2006
6:57 pm	Comayagua, Honduras Long day. Woke up at 5am to take a first ferry from Utila to mainland town of La Ceiba. Another 3rd world industrial town but it has a tiny insect and butterfly museum run by retired american teacher. He is very eager to show you his spectacular collection of spiders, huge bugs and other ugly and not so ugly creatures and even lets you pet a 15cm long tarantula. I spent 3 hours there chatting with him. Another guy with sparkly eyes. On my way to Nicaragua I have to make one stop in the middle. Too long of a journey to make it in one day. Local transportation companies don't run overnight crossborder buses...bastards. That's why I planned to spend a night in Honduras capital Tigucigalpa to take a morning bus to Managua. Somehow I ended up in Comayagua and had 6 hours to explore this small town, a former Honduras capital. Very quite place with friendly people, few colonial era catherdrals, churches and fountains and two small museums. I went to one of them, dedicated to pre-Mayan civilazation of Lincos. Interesting town but not more than that. (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 17th, 2006
10:19 am	Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras I don't want to leave this small island. But its too good to stay here for more than few days. The island is best suited for budget divers, has a great mix of lazy locals and laid back divers from all over the world. It sports very favorable gender ratio, great seafood for under $5, few cafes with expresso machines and the Seahorse Jade, the best decorated bar that I've seen so far...what else can you ask for? But...you have to dive or you find yourself not in tune with the crowd. Unfortunately I failed pre-diving physical exam and can do only snorkelling. I was really pissed at first but it didn't last for too long because experience of seeing local doctor was quite unusual, to say at least. His name is Dr. John, an american who works on the island for about 20 years. Everyone here calles him just like that, Dr. John. His community clinique opens up at 9am but when I got there at 7:30 to be first in line, I found 4 other to be divers already waiting. At 9am door opens and the first thing you see is a huge reception table and white t-shirt hanging on the wall behind the desk. The t-shirt sports a what loooks like a face of Che Gevara with big rounded sunglasses. The writing underneath it says "Doctor John, Utila". On receptionist desk you see Dr John's eardrops for divers and huge book with Dr. Johns phrases that you can buy on amazon for $250. Not bad, thought. By now, I really want to see Dr John. So, half past 10 I see a unshaven bum wearing shorts, colored hawaian shirt, big rainbow jamaican hat and very thick glasses slowly walks in from the side door with the small dog on a leash. But it was't untill 3pm that I finally managed to get to see him... after 8 hours of waiting! What a happy doctor, he wasn't drunk or stoned but has a huge smile that made me feel a bit suspicios at first. On other hand, he was very professional and knows a lot about dangers of diving. He was sucessful to persuade me not to dive. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 14th, 2006
8:04 pm	La Ceiba, Northern Honduras I spent all Monday riding various buses from Rio Dulche across Hondurian border to San Perdo Sula, and from there to a port town La Ceiba from which I jump off to Utilla island tomorrow morning. While on bus, I watched Dole and United Fruit bananas plantation for hours in both Guate and Honduras caribbean costs. Bananas, bananas everywhere....Do you love bananas Sherlock? I do, Watson, but not to watch.... (Comment on this)
7:56 pm	Rio Dulche, Guatemala Rio Dulche is a village where Caribbean bound sailors come ashore to feel the ground. There is small and tightly knit community built around a riverfront docks, hostels, and restaurants. A hangout place for American and Canadian sailors. They all know each other for ages. Unfortunately I got stuck in this village for one day. Nothing to do but to sleep, eat and read a book. (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 12th, 2006
6:49 pm	Tikal, El Peten, Guatemala Yeterday morning I entered Guatemala again, this time from Belize. To save some time and effort, I´ve booked a direct shuttle from San Ignacio, Beliz to Tikal for the cool $25...but it was cancelled and I had no choice but to take corporativo taxi to the border, to crosse it by foot and to make two more connections at some remote intersections to get to Tikal. Crossing the border, I´ve met two young british girls that I knew from San Ignacio that were going to Tikal as well. Lucky me. Three of made this little journey together. Now I know much more about student live in Liverpool :). A brief introduction to Tikal. It´s the most famous Mayan site from a classic period, has few thousands excavated buildings and the highest mayan temple which, I believe, is about 80m high. At some period of time, tt housed 100,000 mayas ruled by king The Jaguar Paw :) . The town was abandoned arounf 900 A.D.. and was fully covered by dense jungle vegetation for more about 1000 years. Now it´s a big park in the middle of jungle with few dirt roads cleared to make an access for archeologists and tourists. Me and my new buddies signed up for the 5am tour and had to sleep one night in the hammocks close to the park entrance. Big mistake. Mosqitoe nets worked only that mutch, howler monkeys were roaring all night with jaguar like sounds. Not cool at all. Next morning we woke up and went to the complex with Luis, a local guide with a celebrity status. We climbed the highest temple towering above the threes and watched a sunrise and awakening of the jungle. Later I spent few more hours alone walking in the jungle and watching monkeys, aguatis, wild turkeys, parrots and other creatures that have no name in my vocabulary. Now I got to Rio Dulche, a little village close to Belizean and Hondurian border. More updates later... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 10th, 2006
7:11 pm	San Ignacio, Belize Wednesday morning I took a local bus from Belize city westward going to San Ignacio, a small town near Guatemalian border famous for it's caves and jungle exploration toursand Maya ruins. Well, taking a local bus was a mistake. Me and a couple of Dutch tourists were pretty much surrounded by 10 rastafari brothers who looked quite angry from time to time and didn't have money to pay to conductor who preffered to let them ride free rather than insisting on getting the fare. Nothing happened though. After I got to the town, I quickly signed up for a cave tour and went to see a local iguana hatchery. Despite the fact that I got there 10 min after the cloising, Santiago, the guide, was kind enough to give me a private hour long tour. There is a lot hanging out happening in San Ignacio. I spent couple hours chatting with locals and few british tourists, then got drunk with american archeologists who dig the Mayan ruins. Today I went to see the cave, Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) cave to be exact. Me, couple dutch tourists and the guide. The ATM system of caves is huge, has many chambers up to 80m high and it was used by Mayan kings and shamans to perform their bloody sucrificial rituals. The cave was rediscovered 15 years ago and in a perfect shape. The subterrain river fills most of it. We swam, walked, crawled and climbed for about 3 hours among 1000 years old mayan pottery and skeletons of mayan sacrificial victims. Very misterious place to be. Later that night I went to bar and met two middle-aged british oil diggers who have been exploring oil reserves almost everywhere on this planet. Perfect drinking buddies. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 9th, 2006
12:35 am	San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize Ok, boys and girls...Two most popular islands few miles off Belize City, namely Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye. I spend 2 days on former and one day on latter one. Caye Caulker is a great hangout place with white sand, great food, extremely friendly locals and backpackers. A famous writing on the wall: "Get laizy, get sunburned, get pissed and get laid". I didn't figure out why I should get pissed though :) I stayed with local family run by a smiley guy named Ninja. The introduction looked like extactly like this: - Hello, I'm Igor, I've heard you have rooms for rent. - Howww, Me Ninja. We have rooms. Do you like Bruce Lee? He turned out to be a really nice fellow, who was born and spent 57 years of his live on this island fishing, diving and running snorkeling trips for tourists. I don't know what his wife does beside raising their 5 kids, but they look reasonably happy. The highlight of my stay on Caye Caulker was a 6 hours long snorkelling trip where I watched 4 huge manatees, swam with a couple of 1.5m long nurse sharks and with 50 or so sting rays. It was fun. Other than that, it was mostly hanging out, drinking a lot of beer, eating lobsters and listening to garifuna tunes. The town of San Pedro on Ambergris Caye is a totally different story. Much bigger, more developed and full of real estate agents and retired fat american rednecks killing time in bars. Dozens of dive shops atrract a crowd of underwater adventures but still...this island sucks. (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 6th, 2006
1:53 pm	Caye Caulker, Belize Yesterday was a long day. I spent 6 hours hiking excavated Mayan ruins near Palenque, and then took a night bus to a mexican town Chetumal near Belize border. Now I'm in Caye Caulker island 45 minutes away from Belize City. Nice and relaxing. Internet on the island is ridicously expensive...so more details later. (Comment on this)