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My next trip will be to Central America. I will start Jan 7 2004 from Cancun, Mexico; proceed through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and return from Panama in April 2004. I found again, that tour books are not very useful for the understanding of what really to expect there. The tour-books impose on themselves so much censorship... They do not want to harm any minority or indigenous people; they want to be politically correct and environmentally friendly. With all these limitations lots of useful information gets watered down. From all the sources of information I studied, I found that the most useful one is the Internet site of Russian hitchhikers: http://www.avp.travel.ru/ Their chronicles are written by international bums for international bums, without any concern for political correctness and stuff like that. Some stories are amazingly adventurous and pretty well written. I would recommend you to read the story of a hitchhiking trip across Africa, by Gregory Lapshin http://www.africa.travel.ru/Gril.htm and stories written by Vladimir Dinets. http://dinets.travel.ru/ Most of them are in Russian, however.

Central America (part I)

Alex Mumzhiu
2006-03-22 18:29:06

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Back to my trip, I will skip Cancun with all its all-inclusive super hotels. I plan to investigate the Atlantic coast south of Tulum in Mexico. It's waterfront cabanas are world famous among backpackers. Then I will cross the border from Mexico to Belize by boat from Xcalak to Ambergis Caye and visit the largest atoll in the Northern hemisphere located nearby.

The rest of my trip is not clear yet. In Guatemala I will visit Tikal and Lago de Atitlan, in Honduras - Copan and the Bay Islands, in Costa Rica - national parks and in Panama - the Panama canal. Another possibility is to fly to Panama first and start from there. Anybody who has any suggestions or recommendations please let me know.

Also, I never paid too much attention to immunization and health issues. But it looks like in Central America I have to. Books recommend half a dozen different immunizations and do not indicate which are really needed, and which are not. Also, about malaria, do I have to take malaria drugs? and what kind? Does anybody know anything about it?

My main means of transportation will be as usual the folding bicycle, which I fixed by welding broken frame and handle bar stem.

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Hello my dear readers,

Happy New Year!

I would like to thank you for many letters of advice on Central America. Most of advice were on medical matter and crime situation in Central America.

Let me tell you what conclusions I came up with.

I decided to not make any immunizations and do not take anti-malarial drugs in advance. If you are careful of what you eat and what you drink, the chances of getting infections are slim. As for malaria, it is better to buy antimalarial drug locally, in Costa Rica for example. Malaria has many different forms and locally they cell drags for that particular brand of malaria which is most fashionable there.

I know some people like to say: "I do not want to take ...