TravelStream™ news feed for member svmallipudi on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/svmallipudi en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:59:44 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189891980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189891980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189891980/tpod.html Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:59:44 -0400 A break from the real world. Join me as I travel through Guatemala and Honduras and learn about the history of this region and more about myself.

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La Ceiba, Honduras

Last night, me and Christopher started our jounrney home. Our first leg of the trip home consisted of a smelly boat from Utila to La Ceiba. Today we fly from La Ceiba to San Pedro Sula to Guatemala City and then finally to Los Angeles! I am looking forward to going home and getting back to work. My trip to Central America has been wonderful and I have meet so many people that I hope to stay in touch with. As one finally parting gift, Central America decided to give me food poising last night. I was up all night displaying fine projectial vomiting and the like. I had been really good about not getting sick while traveling. I had a little cold, nothing too serious, and the traditional gastro intestial issues that you get with traveling to Central America. Alas, I had to get sick the night before traveling for 18 hours. All pictureshttp://picasaweb.google.com/svmallipudi
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189978680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189978680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189978680/tpod.html Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:59:09 -0400 A break from the real world. Join me as I travel through Guatemala and Honduras and learn about the history of this region and more about myself.

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Los Angeles, United States

Home!A hot shower was just the perfect way to end a lovely trip!I am spending today unpacking, doing the wash and trying to get my head back into 'reality mode.'All pictureshttp://picasaweb.google.com/svmallipudi
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189726920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189726920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189726920/tpod.html Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:31:12 -0400 A break from the real world. Join me as I travel through Guatemala and Honduras and learn about the history of this region and more about myself.

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Utila, Honduras

We did two dives with a place called Utila Dive Center. And it was like a bunch of cattle being stuck on a boat. It was not the best experience with a dive center, but the experience under the water was beautiful. I was a little annoyed with one of the dive masters because he kept asking if i wanted to dive to a depth that was deeper than my certification level. I said no the first time, but he kept on asking. I was ready to knock him in the nose!I am starting to feel a lot more comfortable under the water with moving around. Even though i really enjoy diving, I am actually pretty scared of the ocean. Under the water it is a lot more calmer than on the surface, so it makes me feel a little bit. During our surface interval we had a snack at one of the numerous cays the surround the island. It was a pleasant mid morning break before our second dive. The afternoon after the dive was filled with a nap, plenty of reading at the hotel, and wondering around the town as the evening started to cool off. Bugs. I thought I would take this time to describe Christopher and my encounter with the cockroaches. Good olde roaches. We are staying at a very nice little hotel called Mango Inn and have our own little bungalow nestled among large trees and gardens. After dinner, we came back to the room only to find a cockroach acting like it owned the place. I, of course, screamed bloody murder and started yelling for Christopher to kill it. He took a magazine that I had recently acquired and started whacking at the little sucker. Cockroaches are fast! The little guy was running all over the room. We finally got the roach and laid him to rest in the garbage. A few minutes later, we saw another one. And the whole episode of me yelling and trying to keep an eye on it while Christopher tried to kill happened again. We though we were done for the night with our bug problems. Apparently, the roaches had a different plan. I was getting ready to get my toothbrush out of its holder and a roach jumped up on top of the toothbrush holder. Oh hell no! Aghhh. I screamed, yelled and made an all out fit. Here i was paying for the most expensive room of my trip and i am having cockroach issues. We laid the roach to rest and attempted to sleep. I was up half the night. Wondering if there were any other cockroaches that wanted to come out and play. Three cockroaches in one night. That is more than I have seen in my entire trip! Needless to day it was sort of fun trying to catch the little guys as I yelled and Christopher swatted.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189364880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189364880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189364880/tpod.html Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:41:04 -0400 A break from the real world. Join me as I travel through Guatemala and Honduras and learn about the history of this region and more about myself.

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Utila, Honduras

Christopher flew in last night for my last week of travels! And this morning we traveled to the island of Utila, one of the Bay Islands, for a week of reading, a little diving, and some good food. Aftern a filling breakfast in La Ceiba, we caught a morning boat to the island and a few hours later were in Utila. A steamy and muggy laid back island. We spent the rest of the day reading by the poolside and munching on local food. That evening we had some of the best pizza ever! Who would have though good pizza could be found in Honduras...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189130880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189130880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1189130880/tpod.html Fri, 07 Sep 2007 13:21:11 -0400 A break from the real world. Join me as I travel through Guatemala and Honduras and learn about the history of this region and more about myself.

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La Ciba, Honduras

I have spent the past two days exploring more of the city. Wondering the streets and tasting different goodies has been an added bonus. I have also learned the ´Laws of the Taxis´.I have learned that when you get into the taxi, it is important to negotiate a fare BEFORE you start to drive. Otherwise, they will charge you an outrageously expensive amount. This happened to me once and I learned my lesson. I have now been asking the hotel for ballpark figures regarding how much a taxi should cost me to get to point B. Today I decided to explore the mall, or something that had a lot of stores under one roof. The hotel told me it would be between 15-20 L (Lempira). I got in the taxi and he told me it would be 40 L. I nearly threw a fit. I told him I was not paying any more than 20 L and started to get out of the car. Then hit said 30 L, then 25 L and finally he went with my original offer of 20 L. I feel like I am in an auction house every time i get into a taxi.Also, you don´t find a taxi, the taxi will find you. The taxi drivers use the horns all thime. It is ready to drive me over the edge. If you are walking down the street, you can hear them beeping away a block behind you. If you get out of a store, a taxi will honk. They honk when they cross the road (even if nobody is there). They honk when they are happily driving along and there is no obstacle in their way. It is really a bizarre phenomenon that I haven´t witness in any other place I have ever visited.Besides the whole taxi craziness, I have had a good time exploring the city. It feels more like a huge town and it is hard to image that over a million people live in La Ceiba. I was originally going to go up the coast to Tela, but the hurricane threw a wrench into that plan and I ended up staying in La Ceiba for a week. I have another day here and then I head to the Bay Islands!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188834360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188834360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188834360/tpod.html Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:34:15 -0400 A break from the real world. Join me as I travel through Guatemala and Honduras and learn about the history of this region and more about myself.

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La Ceiba, Honduras

I am staying at Quinta Real, a hotel located directly on the beach in La Ceiba. The hotel is my splurge for the trip. I figure if I am going to hang out in La Ceiba, it mights as well be on the beach. It is also the only hotel that is on the beach in the entire city, everything else is in the city. When I had originally checked into the hotel there wasn´t a hurricane coming towards the town. However, things changed and I found myself scared and wanting to go inland a little more. My options were (A) Stay in a hotel that was not on the beach, but was in a building that was fairly old and predominately made out  of wood or (B) Stay in a hotel that opened in 2005 that was more structurally sound and made out of concrete. I went with option B. It was by far the more expensive option. But at this stage of the trip, a few added comforts during a time when I was starting to get scared would make all the difference. Last night the hotel was getting boarded up and tape was being applied to the windows. The hotel staff was very nice and made me feel a little bit more at ease. Throughout the entire evening lounge chairs were brought off the beach, tables were stacked in a protected corner and the hotel staff was busy with preparations for the hurricane. The hurricane was still a Class 5 and La Ceiba was still directly in its path. I have to admit that for the first time during the trip I cried in the comfort of my room. I was alone, nobody to pass the time with. I ended up making a $2 per minute phone call to Christopher help calm my nerves. It helped...sort of. I was still alone and directly in the path of a Class 5 hurricane in a country that didn´t have the infrastructure to handle huge catastrophes. What frightened me the most was that the country didn't have the emergency staff and equipment to handle a full blown disaster.Also earlier in the evening, before the rain had started, a building 4 blocks from the hotel caught on fire! The building went up in flames within minutes because it was one giant wooden box. The smoke enveloped the hotel and sitting outside it became a little difficult to breathe. And this is before the scary hurricane! I meet a mother and son who were traveling from New York together at the bar and ended up talking with them for a few hours. It was nice to speak English and get some reassuring words from the 70 year old woman. She had lived in La Ceiba 47 years earlier and had returned for the first time since she left. She promised me that every bone in her body was good and thus, that obviously indicated that we would be fine :) After two heaping glasses of wine, I said goodnight and went up to my room where I quickly fell asleep. This morning I awoke paranoid and restless. Between the hours of 3 AM and  6 AM I had startled every time the windows rattled in the wind. At breakfast, the hotel looked like a giant fort. Plywood was nailed across windows and tape was applied to every exposed windows. CNN and other news stations had filed into the hotel the night before and were setting up shop in the hotel lobby or in the bar. Every now and then you would see them venture near the ocean for a live report. The hurricane made landfall on the Nicaragua- Honduras boarder and a few hours later it became a Class 4 hurricane. I was happy with the news that it was no longer a Class 5. With a little bit of luck it would become a Class 3 or less when it finally hit us. The rain started at 11 AM this morning. The clouds got darker and things were eerily quite before the rain poured down. La Ceiba became flooded within an hour.By lunch time, news reports indicated that the hurricane had changed course ever so slightly and was going to be further south than previously indicated. That was good for La Ceiba, because it meant the city was no longer in the middle of the hurricanes path. We would avoid the heavy winds, but would still get plenty of rain.It rained on and off throughout the afternoon and I watch as the pool in the hotel slowly filled. It was almost overflowing by dinner. The rain became much heavier as the day progressed, but the city was not feeling the giant red swirl that you see on television. Thank goodness! The hurricane stayed over Nicaragua longer than people had originally thought and the Honduras mountains dissipated the force of the hurricane significantly. Dinner time was the only time when winds started to pick up significantly. The tress outside hotel were being whipped around and some leaves where being torn off.  People are breathing a huge sigh of relief in the city of La Ceiba...other parts of the country are not as lucky. 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188862980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188862980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188862980/tpod.html Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:31:43 -0400 A break from the real world. Join me as I travel through Guatemala and Honduras and learn about the history of this region and more about myself.

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La Ceiba, Honduras

Colleen left for home this morning and I was going to hang out in La Ceiba for several more days enjoying the warm sunshine and good food. But as I was checking email online, I noticed that there was a giant hurricane heading straight for where I am. The Bay Islands have been evacuated, but the mainland remains occupied. I spent the entire morning trying to decide if I should stay or go. Eventually, I figured better safe than sorry and headed for a bus station. I tried to catch a bus out earlier this afternoon for San Pedro Sula, but it was full. The next bus wasn't until evening and I don't like traveling at night and arriving, especially San Pedro Sula, at night. So I am hanging tight in the hotel. Please keep your fingers crossed. I think this is the first time on my trip where I am very scared and really wish I was traveling with somebody else right now. I keep telling myself that it should be over by tomorrow evening.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188743100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188743100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188743100/tpod.html Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:27:57 -0400 A break from the real world. Join me as I travel through Guatemala and Honduras and learn about the history of this region and more about myself.

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La Ceiba, Honduras

Colleen and I spend the past two days sitting on the beach or by the poolside. It has been very hot, but thankfully a welcoming pool or ocean is only a few feet away! We explored the city and have feasted on cheap, tasty food. And I think I am addicted to fried plantains and bananas. They make them so good down here!The central park has a lovely cathedral on one corner and a Pizza Hut on another. There are a slew of restaurants near the park central serving local favorites and some interesting fish concoctions. Another park located a few blocks away is called Parque Swinford is beautifully manicured. It is one of the prettiest city parks i have seen in Honduras so far. Granted, I have only seen about 5 parks in Honduras. Large palm trees tower over the hundreds of small green plants and flower beds that line the walkways. One of the main reasons to come to La Ceiba is to enjoy the many outdoor activities that surround the city. However, we wanted to sit, talk and relax on the beach. While we were lying on the beach earlier today waiting for the sun to slowly sit, we had a very interested experience that has left an image my head that I would love to forget. A young man in his mid 20s started walking to us and kept starring at us as he ever so slowly walked past us. We didn't think anything of it. However, on his return trip past us....HE TOOK OUT IS EQUIPMENT AND WAGGLED IT AT US!! Asking if we would like to partake, this is of course in Spanish. We were so stunned at what we had just seen, that all we could do was yell at him to leave in Spanish. Colleen immediately went to the hotel security on the beach to report this, I stayed on the beach watching our items. Her complaint went like this, 'Excuse me, but that man who is walking over there showed us his, [hand gesture of wiggling her hand at her crotch|. Oh my gosh, we were so shocked! We had just been flashed and propositioned on a beach in Honduras!On another note, I am still being eaten alive. But the bugs are being more sneaky. They don't hurt when they bite...they start to itch a few hours later. I am super paranoid and making sure to take my malaria medication because there are 5 different strains of malaria along the coast and in the Bay Islands.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188602100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188602100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188602100/tpod.html Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:16:13 -0400 A break from the real world. Join me as I travel through Guatemala and Honduras and learn about the history of this region and more about myself.

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San Pedro Sula, Honduras

Bananas. We eat tons of them, but do we know where they come from? I spent the morning on a Banana Cooperative outside the city of San Pedro Sula. My guide for the morning was Rafael, a proud native of San Pedro Sula. We left the city at 9 AM and drove approximately 30 minutes outside of the city to a small town surrounded by flat land and rolling hills acting as a backdrop.  At the end of a long, bumpy and dusty road we came across the plantation's security booth. The booth was  a metal roofed hut with 'Castro' as the enforcer. The enforcer approached the van in full militia attire, complete with 4 guns holstered to his side and a giant rifle in his arms. He raised the gate and we entered the plantation by slowly driving over wooded flanks acting as a road across a little river.  The banana cooperative was once owned by Dole Corporation during the early 90's, but the company left it after Hurricane Mitch devastated the region. The plantation is now locally owned. However, it now sells their bananas to Dole in the states, primarily to southern and southwest parts of the states. We drove from about 7 Km until we reached a processing plant were a giant Dole truck was parked.  A worker took us into the fields to show us the lifecycle of a banana plant and the quality control processes that were involved. The bunches of bananas are all covered with a numbered bag. The bag helps protect the bananas from insects, determines which bunch gets cut, but also keeps the fruit hot. Bananas like it hot, and the bag keeps the temperature raised. I also got to watch as they determined with bananas got to be cut down and which were not. In order for Dole to buy the bananas, a certain percent of the bananas on the bunch must be a given diameter. And, yes, they measure this with a nifty little device that looks like an angular 'C'. The large bananas are exported and the small bananas stay within the country. This is why you can not find a large banana in all of Central America. The bananas are always very tiny. There are also certain QC standards that Dole requires their suppliers to have. One of these includes each and every layer in a bunch of bananas to be separated with a piece of plastic to reduce blemishes to the skin.  Since a Dole truck was being loaded that day, I got to watch the workers at work and talk with them a little. The workers wanted to practice their English, and I wanted to practice my Spanish! Each box that we receive in the states is exactly 42 lbs and is the best of the bananas. The truck that was being loaded was bound for the closest boat dock 2 hours away and was then going on a ship to Mississippi. During the entire process, the bananas would stay at a cold temperature, until reaching our stores in the states. As a parting gift the workers gave me a case of bananas. What was I going to do with 42 lbs of bananas? I took a bunch of green bananas and ended up giving the rest to my guide for the morning.  I learned that if I had access to a kitchen I could have had fried green bananas...which is actually really good and is the equivalent of french fries at home.  Colleen, a friend of college, flew in later that night for the weekend. She first visited a friend in Mexico and then came on down to see me for the weekend. I am so excited! We are going to head to the third largest city of Honduras, La Ceiba- The city that plays. I am looking forward to catching up with Colleen over some tasty beverages on the beach.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188509640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188509640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/svmallipudi/aug_2007/1188509640/tpod.html Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:04:04 -0400 A break from the real world. Join me as I travel through Guatemala and Honduras and learn about the history of this region and more about myself.

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San Pedro Sula, Honduras

I caught a 7 AM bus out of Copan and heading towards the big industrical city of San Pedro Sula. San Pedro Sula is a huge economic force for the country and houses central american headquarters to several large companies. The city is nothing very special and is actually very dangerous. I took a taxi from the bus station to a fairly comfortable hotel. I am spending a little more than normal on a hotel since I have been scared out of my mind by stories about this city. The city is in a contant gang battle and streets are unsafe when the sun starts to set, and even during part of the day. I am spending today as a reading, writing and planning day.A little about San Pedro Sula. It is the second largest city in Honduras and the countries booming export industry is based here. Additionally, the majority of agricultural  products pass through the city and it has almost every fast food chain in America. Unfortunetly, San Pedro Sula bears the distinction of being the AIDS capital of Central America with 32% of all AIDS cases coming from the city.
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