Tim and Al

We knew we were going to the Americas. We just didn’t know which bit. North America provided neither the deep cultural interest nor the challenge of a different language. South American is fundamentally large and involves travelling huge distances just to get anywhere so in the end we settled for the little bit of land joining the two, Central America.
Offering several small countries packed into a narrow strip of land, Central America seemed to offer the challenge and possibility for discovery we were looking for. Now that the political instabilities of the last few decades have subsided, the countries here are on the up and developing quickly. So Al and I formulated a rough plan to begin in Mexico and travel south by bus to Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Originally we planned to end up in Panama to see the great canal but an inspection of the distances involved led us to revise our ambition. In the end we never made it to Nicaragua either, choosing instead to fly over it completely to speed up our progress, and only made a fleeting appearance in El Salvador. Nonetheless, our plan stood us in good stead and enabled us to experience most of the diverse attractions that Central America can offer: the beaches and islands of Belize, the deep-routed Mayan culture and ruins in Guatemala and Honduras, the cloud and rain forests of Costa Rica and the jungle and the monumental geography and volcanoes of the whole region. In addition we would experience the rapidly developing Latino urban-culture of the cities in Central America, arising mainly from the ambitions of a race of mixed Mayan and Spanish descent.
So it was that we booked a couple of tickets to Cancun in Mexico and began our journey…

This entry was posted on Friday, December 31st, 2004 at 11:34 am and is filed under Central America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.