A trip of 3 months where there were great experiences from 6 countries in Central America.
Erik Iversen and I drove through Central America and visited approx. 30 different 1000 year old cities. Experienced the beautiful Mexico from the high mountains, the deep jungles and the swampy and oil-smelling areas of the "Olmecs"."Their homeland was characterized by marshy lowlands with scattered, hilly ridges and volcanoes. The Olmecs built permanent cities and the Olmecs laid the foundation for the others the development of later cultures in Mesoamerica such as the Maya. The Olmecs were the first to build temple cities. They apparently initiated the development of hieroglyphs in Mesoamerica, which the Mayas continued, and the earliest known Olmec example is dated to 650 BC."}The Olmec territories.
Experienced Guatemala's mountainous regions with volcanoes, and down to the jungle of the Pacific Ocean.
El Salvador's civil war was felt and even earthquakes hit us one night.
Honduran banana plantations and towns were visited, and the trip continued to civil war-torn Nicaragua, where we were surrounded and captured by the "Sandinistas" "The Sandinista National Liberation Front, popularly just called the Sandinistas, is the common term for members of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) of Nicaragua. The FSLN was originally a resistance organization that fought against the Military Dictatorship led by the Somoza family, and later, when the fight against this regime was won, an actual political party. The FSLN held the real power in Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, when they lost the election.”}The Sandanists. (released soon after).
Experienced shootings in Managua. Partyed with the Sandanistas and left the country as unwanted.
Went to Guatemala's deep jungle in the Peten, with dirt roads as the country's only roads, up to Tikal.
Sailed 200 km on the Usmasinta River, and among other things visited the temple city of Yaxchilan.
The horrors of war came close, with corpses floating in the river and our pathfinder's anxiety about the partisans.
