Back to Archive

Home
About Us
Join the SIG
Join In
Newsletter
News & Events
Gallery
Bulletin Board
Links

Copyright ©
2004-2007 British
Mensa. The Mensa logo
is a registered
trademark of Mensa International Limited,
all rights reserved.
Mensa does
not hold any opinion
or have, or express,
any political or
religious views.

I have been travelling extensively since I retired 8 years ago. During my working life I had to travel for my various companies and, much to my surprise, I wanted to keep on going when I retired even though I had to pay for it myself and it became a challenge to go to as many places as cheaply as possible. So far, I have managed to notch up 81 countries for an average cost of £150 per country. One of my techniques is to get myself to one country and see how many of its neighbouring countries I can get to in a specified time. I have a South African friend who buys a round the world ticket and hops from one country to another.

I recently had to go to Costa Rica with a group and, while there, I booked to go round the other countries of central America in the following week. Could it be done? At the first attempt by the travel company, they missed out Guatemala and, using San Salvador as the hub country, got me back to Costa Rica 3 days early. Group Taca, the Central American Airline, is attempting to expand and has set up San Jose in Costa Rica and San Salvador in El Salvador as hubs. They are used to organising all flights like the spokes of a wheel and some smaller planes like the Cessna handle anything different. The trouble is that these planes lose their undercarriage quite often and crash on the runway. This happened just before our flight home from San Jose, making our flight three hours late, so we missed our connection in Miami and we had to have an extra day's stopover in Miami. Was there a problem, strikes etc? On the second attempt I had to take what looked like a private plane from Guatemala to Belize and an extra $500.

My other criteria for the hotels were economy, a swimming pool and a central location. In each capital city visited. The fax machine is used extensively there and I only got one confirmatory reply asking for payment first (?) The others I took as booked, knowing they had received the fax. Each time, as I banged on the hotel door and I waved the fax message at the receptionist, I wondered if it was the right time, the right place and the right hotel.

The only glitch was in El Salvador when the taxi driver took us to a very primitive hotel and we could not understand that it was only $10 for the night. We decided to make the best of it for the night but, when it became obvious that the receptionist was illiterate and we could not make him understand that we wanted a taxi for the next morning, we put ourselves on the street. What went wrong when that hotel advertised that they spoke English?

We carried our entire luggage in a temperature of 95F, found a taxi and asked him to take us to an English speaking hotel. As we were obviously going to have language trouble again, I went into the nearby barbers shop that happened to be there and asked them if they could help with the taxi. When I asked the barber for his help, he said he would walk with me to an English-speaking hotel. To my amazement, he took me back to our first hotel and banged on the next door, which looked like a private house, but turned out to be the hotel I had originally booked. They are so concerned with security in these countries that they barricade themselves in with steel doors and grills so it is difficult to identify them, The original hotel bad given itself the same name, so that they pinch some of the customers from next door.

My only worry was whether I would manage to get to each airport each time as, in most cases, it involved getting to the airport at six o'clock, at least two hours before the flight. In each case, everything went OK as hotels are used to getting rid of their guests as quickly as possible. By arranging the first available flight, we were able to get to our hotel and be in the centre of the city by about 9.30 and have the whole day looking around. Most of the museums were very run down, but often had some wonderful Mayan artefacts. Overall, the only problems were a crashed plane on the runway ahead of us, a strike at one departure and a drunken taxi driver (everyone gets drunk on Friday nights in Belize).

The six countries of Central America used to he part of the Mayan empire, part of Mexico, then a Spanish colony, When they broke away from Spain in 1821, they stayed together for a while as Meso America. They then split up into their various tribe groups; Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Belize.

We were staying with a family in Alahue near San Jose. Their property was a bungalow totally enclosed with iron bars, which you locked behind the car and yourself after going in. At the front was a car porch cum sun patio, which you sat in, surrounded by these bars. Even when you went into a shop or a public bar, you were served through iron bars. Nearly all the roofs were made of metal, and the shower head had a heater incorporated into it, supplied by two electric wires done up in adhesive tape. It was not very effective but, as the temperature was in the 90s, most of the time it did not seem to matter.

Other features were the fashion of having the TV in the bedroom so that everyone sat on the bed to watch. They washed the dishes by dipping one's fingers in a paste and rubbing each dish under running cold water, as there was no hot water supply in the house. Everyone in our group seemed to stay with a teacher who was a Professor. These people would have their name on big letters in the middle of their front door, including their title.

There were 250 volcanoes in Costa, some active; the last eruption was in 1952. We went to the old capital city, which had been devastated so many times by earthquake they had moved the capital to San Jose. Typically, the Spanish kept rebuilding their multi-story church until they had to give up. They are very unhappy that the local volcano does not make any sound. That is when they are most dangerous, as they are then building up pressure.

It was a very stable country, the most prosperous of the group as they do not have a standing army depending on the USA for its defence. Their currency is the colon, named after the discoverer Columbus. Their main exports are coffee, bananas, and sugar. We passed many farms in our tours. The banana workers seemed to get the best deal, working an eight hour shift. They had to carry on their backs 28 huge banana pods to a central collecting point every day. For this they earned $250 a month and were supplied with food, shelter and schooling for their family. Some earned up to $400 with overtime, but they did not last long at this rate. Of 4 million inhabitants, one million were Nicaraguan workers, from their much poorer neighbourhood.

Of all the ten South American countries I have visited, their prosperity seems in direct inverse relationship to the drug culture and corruption. The three worst drug countries Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras were distinguished by the presence of armed guards everywhere. We used to walk up to these, while they were waving these guns around like sticks, to ask directions. Most were very friendly.

We also visited a coffee farm, which served an excellent lunch, advertising their unique way of selling coffee. The coffee came in a wooden frame with a cup installed in the bottom. At the top was suspended a miniature sack into which the waiter poured the hot water at your table. I found all the coffee served in South America to be good.

My most memorable trip was to the jungle where 12 of us at a time boarded a high-speed boat powered by 150 horsepower outboards, and we planed on top of the water through the jungle along its rivers and canals. We travelled for an hour and a half, a considerable distance at speed. We did stop at the various places of interest e.g. to observe a school of howler monkeys. We did another visit to a farm, founded by an Englishman called Lancaster, which was a sanctuary for endangered plants. The biggest collection was of orchids, which are the largest single species, with 3,000 types. Many of them have a relationship with insects; some they eat and many are epiphites i.e. living off another plant or tree.

One cathedral, the Church of My Lady, had a spring, which generated miracles. For every cure, the recipient presented the Church with a silver token. There were thousands in cabinets inside the church. The church was very unusual in that it seemed consist of many churches with windows in all directions, set into the ceiling giving a unique lighting effect.

In Nicaragua, we went to the old palace where the Sandanistas held the whole parliament hostage. The tour guide, after carefully looking around to ensure that none could overhear, stated in no uncertain terms how the Sandanistas had ruined the country, the politics and the economy. Nicaruagua has the largest inland lake in America, containing many sea creatures such as sharks, which have adapted to fresh water. In one room was a collection of pottery, which was laid out to illustrate the cultural progression of the Mayan civilisation. Over a time span of 500 years, how they had progressed from simple food containers to the first appearance of cultural artistry and then the appearance of religion and later god-like images!

It was difficult to find one's way around the City, as the economy did not allow money to be spent on road signs. Round the corner from the Hilton hotel was a shopping complex on American lines containing the usual collection of American food chains, pizza, hamburgers, ice cream, doughnuts etc. As with others in every Central American country, they were packed with locals. Every few yards on the streets would be someone cooking and selling food in the most unhygienic conditions. The money was called the cordol after the Spanish discoverer Cordola.

El Salvador was even more run down than Nicaragua, still not beginning to recover from the last earthquake. The one museum still functioning was a converted palace and the rooms upstairs were interesting in that all the floors and ceilings had matching tiles.

Guatemala City I liked most of all and if I went back to Central America, I would go there. In the centre park was a complex of museums. In the anthropological museum were many Mayan artefacts, including models of two Temple complexes. Unlike the Mexican Aztec culture, which has left over 200 pyramids, built in Egyptian style, the Mayans built huge pyramid towers on the top of which they buiLt temples. These, although they contained their deceased emperors, were built for the living to worship in. The one bright spot was the hotel, which was a converted museum over 140 years old and containing many antiques and artefacts. Everything was in colonial style and it was our best accommodation.

Belize was another great disappointment. I expected something very British, but it was extremely run down, with one very small museum. They have just introduced a social security system which is paying out millions in compensation. Unfortunately no one is paying into it, as there are no workers because under the rule the employers fire their employees every 3 months. Now that does seem very British.

As we collect stamps we went to the post office to buy some stamps and picked up a leaflet on their latest issue. This was on their endangered creatures. These consisted of some very exotic animals: the green iguana, the gibuit (the largest rodent in the world)), the hawksbill turtle, the turtle (all good eating), the black howler monkeys, the tamanda ant bear which eats ants by sucking them up as it has no teeth, the jaguar, the manatee, the crocodile, the tapir (National Animal), the collared peccary and the boa constrictor.

The hotel was another gem, owned and managed by a retired British air force officer. The bedroom had a huge 4-poster bed and a wonderful view over the bay. They did not tell me when I booked that there would be reconstruction work around the pool, reconstruction in the bedroom next door and that Friday night was music night until 3.30am when everyone in Belize City got drunk. Our taxi driver for the next morning phoned to say he would not be coming and then turned his phone off

Originally, nobody except the British wanted Belize because it was all swamp, but now that it has access to the Caribbean everyone is laying claim to it. Guatemala with its 100,000 strong army is threatening to take it and the United Nations is trying to cool things down.

Honduras seemed the most affected by the recent hurricane, with rubble and collapsed buildings lying all around. My heart sank as we drove to the hotel, which once inside was very good and run by a charming old lady who spoke excellent English and who was very well travelled. The museums, although very run down on the outside, were well-organised inside and contained interesting antiques.

First published in VISA issue 37(summer 2000).