I left Copán early on a shuttle all the way back to Antigua, the only place the shuttles seem to go, and this is now my third time there. Not that I mind so much because Antigua is a pretty nice place to get “stuck” for a night. The next morning I was on another short shuttle ride to the capitol, Guatemala City. I dropped my trusty backpack off at the hotel and commenced with an epic museum day. The…
Wow, these early mornings are killing me! My bus from Antigua picked me up at 3:30am. WHY?! I don’t know. Needless to say, I slept like the dead for the first few hours. Anyway, my trip took me far northeast to the Honduran border where I crossed into the next country on my list, Honduras. The officials at this border crossing have the routine down to a science, both immigration offices are in the same building. The whole process only…
My flight from Flores was so quick, it felt like it was over before it began. Less than an hour after take off I was on the ground in Guatemala City. After a quick lunch at the airport I was in a car on my way to my next stop, Antigua. Despite Guatemala City being the capitol and the most populous city in Guatemala, Antigua is the epicenter of the country, at least as far as tourism goes. With it’s…
Another bus full of tourists, another border crossing, without the corrupt officials this time though, and it’s welcome to Guatemala. My base for this part of the trip is the tourist saturated Flores, a tiny little island in Lago Petén Itzá connected to Santa Elena on the mainland by a quarter mile long causeway. Flores is a cool place to stroll around, but as far as I can tell its just hotels, restaurants, and souvenir shops. I’m staying in Santa…
My border crossing from Chetumal, Mexico, into the next country on my list, Belize, went pretty smooth, if not a little slowly. I took a bus full of tourists, just like me. First we exited the bus to get stamped out of Mexico. Normally you get charged a Mexican tourism tax with your airline tickets, which I did, but I read that the border guards try to scam tourists into paying it again when leaving. Me and the couple in…
I hope you’re comfortable because this post is gonna be dense. I left Tulum on an early bus going further south to Chetumal and then got right into a taxi to take me to the airport where I rented a car for this next leg of the trip. Because a car equals freedom. But before driving out of Chetumal, I made a quick stop at their Mayan Culture Museum. The museum was fairly small, but sure packed a punch. They…
Another adventure has begun! This has probably been the roughest start to any of my many trips so far, though. So much so that I’m not even in the right country. I was planning on three months in Thailand, but due to lots of miscommunication between Thailand immigration, the airlines, myself, and one stupid typo, I wasn’t allowed on the plane. The saga probably deserves a post of it’s own, but I’ll leave that for another time. Thailand, unfortunately, will…
From Maun I said goodbye to Botswana and made my way to the next country on my list, Namibia. I was supposed to have an hour and a half connection in Johannesburg, but my flight from Maun left thirty minutes late, and my flight from Johannesburg got changed to thirty minutes earlier, so an hour and a half turned into a thirty minute frantic sprint through the Johannesburg airport. I sprinted, cut in line at immigration, sprinted, cut in line…
I intentionally tried to end this trip to Italy with one of it’s bigger and more significant cities and Florence turned out to be perfect for just that. Along with the size and significance came an awful lot of people. This last several days has been a chaotic mix of pedestrian traffic jams, waiting in lines to see sights that a month ago I could just walk right into, and having to buy advance tickets for things wondering if I…
A very quick train from Bologna and I’m now in one if Italy’s, if not the world’s, most famous cities, the beautiful and enchanting Venice. When the Roman towns along the Adriatic coast were overrun by barbarians in the 5th century, the people ended up settling in these wetlands. In the early 8th century the first doge was elected and Venice slowly grew in power and size. Today, Venice is an unbelievably beautiful city, a tourist Mecca, comprised of 118…