Bug Bites Force Hasty Exit From Oaxaca

Usually my on-the-road hotel picks are fine, and I'm fairly well-practiced at finding good accomodations for an excellent value price.

But my second hotel pick in Oaxaca turned out to be a real bite in the neck when I woke one morning with a baseball size swelling on the left side of my face (the violin side).

With another similar bite behind my right ear, I found I wasn't in the mood for much sightseeing.

All I know about the mysterious insect bites is that they were extremely itchy but not mosquito related.  The only insect I could identify in my room was a very small beetle type bug.

With the left side of my face seriously deformed, I found I really wasn't in the mood for any  tourist activities at all, so I beat a hasty exit from Oaxaca on Saturday morning, buying a bus ticket to Mexico City for the seven hour trip back to the capital.

My reasoning was thus:  since I'd already done considerable room shopping in Oaxaca, and having found rooms in general to be a bit overpriced, I decided against searching for yet another dubious 400 peso ($32) room.

Bests and Worsts of Central America 2010

Best Hotels
Guancasco, Gracias (Honduras) $20
King Palace, San Miguel (El Salvador) $28

Best Value Hotels
Villa Florencia, San Salvador Centro (El Salvador) $20
Via Via, Leon (Nicaragua) $17

Best Hotel Restaurants
Barca de Oro, Las Peñitas (Nicaragua)
Perkin Lenca, Perquin (El Salvador)

Best Meals--There were many, but a few stood out:
Perkin Lenca's kitchen had great breakfasts and good value, home-cooked quality dinners
Barca de Oro had the best fish dinner of the trip
Opalaca's (La Esperanza, Honduras) specializes in grilled meat and  I had my best chicken dinner there
Guy with Weber Grill on the street in Juayua, El Salvador served the best carne asada dinner
Turicentro Los Esclavos (Guatemala) had a such a good BLT sandwich I ordered it twice

Best Deli Sandwich 
Epicure, Antigua (Guatemala)


Best Panini Sandwich
Hole in the wall deli in Leon (Nicaragua)


Towns or Cities With Highest Fast Food Chain Saturation
San Miguel (El Salvador)
Antigua and Guatemala City (Guatemala)

Towns or Cities With Few or No Fast Food Chains
Leon and Granada (Nicaragua)

Best Espresso Coffees
La Rosita, Leon (Nicaragua)--owned by an expatriate Louisiana woman
Cafe Condessa, Antigua (Guatemala)

Best Local Brewed Coffees
Guancasco, Gracias (Honduras)
Hotel El Rey, Marcala (Honduras)
Hotel El Mirador, Juayua (El Salvador)

Best Travel Agency
I didn't patronize many of these but I want to plug PlusTravel of Antigua (with offices in Copan Ruinas) for its excellent shuttle bus (minivan) services between Antigua and Copan ($8), Antigua and Chichicastenango ($10 round trip), and many other destination points.  Their drivers are courteous, friendly, and professional while their services are safe and basically on time.

Best Bus Rides
The microbus services in Nicaragua were safe, fast, and nearly hassle free

Worst Bus Rides
The local bus service between Choluteca, Honduras and the El Salvador border at Amatillo is frustratingly crowded and slow

Favorite Medium Size Cities
Leon, Nicaragua
Antigua, Guatemala

Favorite Town
Gracias, Honduras

Favorite Small Towns or Villages
Ataco, El Salvador
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
Perquin, El Salvador

Least Favorite Big Cities
San Salvador, El Salvador
San Miguel, El Salvador

Least Favorite Towns
Ahuachapan, El Salvador

La Esperanza, Honduras

Least Favorite Village
Los Cobanas, El Salvador

Most Affluent Towns or Cities
Antigua, Guatemala
Leon, Nicaragua
Granada, Nicaragua

Most Impoverished Towns or Region
La Ruta de Lenca, from Perquin (El Salvador) all the way to Gracias (Honduras)

Most Outgoing or Friendly People
El Salvador and Nicaragua

Most Reserved People
Guatemala and Honduras

Where I Felt Safest
Leon and Granada, Nicaragua
Antigua, Guatemala

Where I Felt Most Wary About Personal Security
San Salvador and San Miguel, El Salvador

note to readers:  if you are interested in more worsts (or more bests) drop me a comment to that effect

Escape From Las Peñitas

Perhaps I overstayed my welcome in Las Peñitas, but my last day and evening there weren't so fine for my privileged and pampered norteamericano posterior.

I still don't know if the electric company was busy doing repairs, as someone informed me, or if the incident was part of a "routine" rolling blackout, but at around 3.00 p.m. Thursday the power went out in the entire village, just as I was returning to my airconditioned room for a nap and some much needed refuge from a very hot day.

By 6.00 p.m. I started to worry a bit because dusk was fast approaching with its attendant swarms of nasty mosquitos, but my informant assured me that the power would be on "by 7.00."  How did she know this?  "We called them and they said they were doing repairs" but that the power would soon return.

Before the black of night descended completely I took a walk around only to discover that everyone else was suffering from the mosquitos as much as I, but further down the road a couple places had gasoline operated generators.  One of these places was the $50 hotel I mentioned several posts ago, the Suyapa Beach, which had mysteriously doubled its rates from Lonely Planet's last edition of 2-3 years ago.

I was torn about bailing from my $30 room at Barca de Oro and moving to a place that I felt barely justified the cost, so I walked back to my place to wait for 7.00.  And then I waited til 8.00.

By then, the Barca de Oro had provided a few candles but not much else.  Apparently there was only one flashlight in the house for use by the staff who were still doing okay business with their excellent restaurant.  I felt kind of sorry for them because they seemed a little embarrassed, but under the circumstances I was feeling a bit more sorry for myself!  I couldn't even take a shower by then because there was no way to see anything in the bathroom.  (I was their only guest in the hotel side of the business.)

Finally I headed back to the Suyapa Beach to see if they had a room.  It turns out they had one room left, with no TV, but at least it was airconditioned and I'd be able to get a shower.  Why was the hotel full that night?  Because it was hosting a private party, either a wedding or a birthday, complete with loud disco music for everyone's enjoyment!  The music continued, to my relief, only til 12.30 a.m. And by then, though I'm not 100% certain, I believe the electricity finally returned to the rest of the village.

There was a time not too long ago when I would've ridden out such a "crisis" and "gone with the flow" and suffered whatever it took to get through the night.  But there also was a time, not so long ago, when I stayed in dorms when traveling, or crashed on people's couches, or didn't own a car or a bank account or even a credit card.

These days are a little different from the past:  let's just say that I won't stay in dorms anymore because I can afford more comfortable alternatives.  And owning a credit card is definitely convenient whenever such an "emergency" disrupts the best laid plans. . .