But first, let’s talk about how fantastic Colombia is: the country has 50 million inhabitants and covers almost 1 million square kilometres – almost three times the size of Germany. A very large part of the land area consists of the forests of the Amazon region and a large part of the population lives in the valleys between the Andes mountain ranges. In the capital Bogotá alone, almost 8 million people live at an altitude of almost 2600 metres!
As in most countries crossed by the Andes, the longest mountain range in the world separates a strip of Pacific coast from the Amazon jungle. But Colombia is so big that there are many other landscapes in the country, some of which I was able to visit: the fascinating Tatacoa Desert, for example, or the highest coastal mountain range in the world: the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. And Colombia is the only country in South America that has (significant) coastlines on both the Pacific and the Caribbean (Atlantic). That alone makes Colombia a country worth travelling to and spending months in. For me, it is clear that the two and a half months I was able to spend there were definitely not enough!

The fact that I spent so much time in this country was partly due to the fact that I had previously travelled quite quickly in Central America and visited many countries in a short space of time, but also because I was fascinated by the people and culture, especially in the big cities. I spent 3 weeks in Medellin alone, 1 week in Bogotá and 6 days in Cali.
In Bogotá, I became particularly familiar with the artist Fernando Botero, who died on the very weekend I was in Bogotá. He was just as world-famous and unique as the Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.
And Colombia has nothing to hide when it comes to music, with world stars such as Shakira and Carlos Vives. And the band Morat, which comes from Bogotá, is currently one of the best-known artists in the whole of Latin America, regularly breaking records.

There is also a lot of traditional music in Colombia! This has to do with the different regions and indigenous cultures (there was not one overpowering one, but many different ones) and also with the many different foreign influences. For example, the accordion came to Colombia from Germany in the 20th century, which had a huge influence on the “Vallenato” musical style! Vallenato also consists mainly of African rhythms and Spanish melodies – super exciting! A Vallenato band played live at my friend Mafe’s stepfather’s 50th birthday party and the atmosphere was brilliant!

Incidentally, I know Mafe from my semester abroad in Mexico. I visited her and Dani in Bucaramanga. Overall, my time in Colombia was mainly characterised by the many great people I met again and got to know for the first time. I travelled for a fortnight in the north with my sister Jette and met Jakob and Sarina again in Medellin, who were not the only boat hitchhikers I met in Colombia. Mahats invited me to the El Juego community, where I was able to spend a week doing a lot of self-care and learning a lot!

In Colombia, I also started couchsurfing really intensively for the first time and was able to meet so many great people and also used couchsurfing in the countries to come. I spent more nights in South America staying with private individuals than in hostels. However, I also had great encounters in some hostels, including with Colombians, such as in the Fatima Hostel with the bartenders Mario, Alex and Carlos, where I was able to play several small concerts!
And sometimes couchsurfing happens without the app: Sarina was in the mountains of Cocuy with a family on their coffee farm and had such a good time there that she connected me with Noury and Wilder and I visited the coffee farm for two days and helped out too!

The only thing that didn’t blow me away in Colombia was the food, which for my taste is much tastier in the much smaller Ecuador. In Colombia, I was a little disappointed by the arepas, which I had imagined would be much tastier and more varied – like the pupusas in El Salvador, but perhaps they had raised my expectations too high.
On the other hand, I got to know many great projects in Colombia, of which the social project “Comuna Project” in particular left its mark on me. I would like to introduce this project in more detail here:

Comuna Project – by, for and with the people from Comuna 13

Comuna 13 in particular, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Medellin, has suffered greatly from the violent conflicts in Colombia in recent decades, which I outline below. The guerrillas in particular took control of large parts of Comuna 13, hiding hostages here and forcing many young people to join them. Time and again, they clashed with the military and later with the paramilitaries, with the population suffering the most. During the Orion military operation in 2002, many people were murdered without it being clear whether they even belonged to the guerrillas. A friend of mine, who had never had anything to do with the guerrillas, only narrowly escaped death when his mother stood in front of him and guaranteed that he had nothing to do with the guerrillas.

These many episodes of violence in Comuna 13 have only served to exacerbate poverty. In recent years, a small part of Comuna 13 has been upgraded with graffiti and turned into a tourist destination that is probably visited by every tourist in Medellin. However, as almost 200,000 people live in Comuna 13 and only a small proportion of them benefit from tourism, many problems remain.

The “Comuna Project” association has set itself the task of combating inequality and enabling a transformation from within the community. To this end, they have set up various projects, such as English lessons, psychological counselling, support with building and renovating homes and a food bank where disadvantaged children and senior citizens receive a free lunch from Monday to Friday.
The idea is communitarian, i.e. many of those involved come from Comuna 13 themselves and generate income for the projects, e.g. through tours or a restaurant. Time and again, they also manage to organise institutional sponsorships and support.

I was only able to get a taste of this project during my three weeks in Medellin, but what I saw inspired me! The dedication with which David, Leidy and Angel (my main contacts) and the many other volunteers drive the project forward is impressive. They never lose sight of the big picture and are trying to build something with the “Comuna Project” that could be repeated in other neighbourhoods or cities.
You can find more information about the Comuna Project here.
If you would like to support the project, I would be delighted. If you have any specific questions, please contact me

Armed conflict and drug war in Colombia

As in the other countries I travelled to, I spent a lot of time in Colombia dealing with politics and history, and because I was in Colombia for so long, I also learned a lot there. I was particularly interested in the armed conflict and drug war, which is still very present in Colombia. There was a free walking tour in Bogota that summarised a lot of this and I would like to summarise the content for you here. I’m deliberately keeping this short to give you an overview. If you would like to read more about the topic, I can recommend literature or we can talk about it in person.
When people write about the conflict, it often starts with the founding of the FARC guerrillas, but to understand what the conflict is all about and who the key players are, you have to look back at least as far as Colombia’s independence.
For the sake of completeness, I’ll start at the beginning. The first people arrived in what is now Colombia around 20,000 years ago, initially as hunters and gatherers, but they began farming from around 5000 BC.

Unlike in large parts of Latin America, however, there was no great empire here like that of the Incas further south or the Mayas and Aztecs in Central America. Instead, there were many small tribes in Colombia (e.g. the San Agustin, Chipcha, Capuli and Arawak) that lived quite independently of each other, so that traditions in different parts of Colombia still differ greatly today. This episode is described as pre-Columbian (before Columbus), which is not to be confused with pre-Columbian, which describes the phase before the founding of Greater Colombia.
And then came the Spaniards: as in other parts of Latin America, they killed the indigenous people, brought in diseases and destroyed buildings and culture without regard for what they had achieved. As a result, the indigenous population in Colombia was quickly reduced and the Spaniards brought slaves from Africa to provide new labour.

In Colombia, the Spaniards hoped in particular for enormous gold deposits after they found a lot of gold among the indigenous people. According to legend, there was one place where they would find all the gold: El Dorado!
The legend probably originated from a ceremony held by the indigenous people in Lake Guatavita near Bogotá. For centuries, the new rulers threw priceless gold figurines into the depths of the lake to make sacrifices to the gods. When the Spaniards arrived, this tradition no longer existed, but the myth of the legendary Eldorado, which was one of the main reasons for the complete conquest and exploitation of Latin America by the Spaniards, developed through stories.

In terms of administration, the poly-kingdom of New Granada developed, which included present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama.
After repeated minor uprisings during the colonial period and a period of independence from 1810 to 1816, New Granada finally gained independence in 1819. The head of independence was the Venezuelan Simón Bolivar, who also played a decisive role in the wars of independence in Peru and Bolivia. In the various countries that he liberated and which he wanted to develop into a single state of Greater Colombia, Bolivar had several generals who supported him. In Colombia this was Francisco de Paula Santander.
The conflict between conservatives and liberals that characterised so many Latin American countries after independence began to develop right at the beginning of the Republic of New Granada and whose characteristics I examine in more detail in my article on history in Central America. Bolivar prevailed over Santander with his conservative ideas and increasingly developed into a dictator. This was probably one of the reasons why Venezuela and Ecuador split from New Granada after his death. From 1886, today’s Colombia and Panama were called the “Republic of Colombia” with a new constitution, which was the second democracy in America after the USA.

Conservatives and liberals had long argued about the organisation of the state; while the liberals demanded a federal system, the conservatives favoured a centralised state. However, the compromise of 1886 did not put an end to the conflict. On the contrary, from 1899 to 1902, Colombia experienced one of the bloodiest wars between conservatives and liberals, the so-called “1000-day war”, in which over 100,000 people lost their lives.
The USA took advantage of the instability in Colombia at this time and invaded Panama in 1903, helping the country to gain independence. What followed for Panama was an enormous dependence on the USA, which secured the rights to use the Panama Canal until the end of the 20th century. More on this in my blog post about Panama.
While the governments in Colombia changed, but mostly the conservatives were in power, power always remained in the hands of the elite – liberal or conservative. In this respect, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, who set out to become president in 1948, was special in two ways: firstly, he came from the people and not from the elite and, secondly, his ideas were socialist in nature, a direction that had not yet become established among the liberals. Gaitán had previously made a name for himself as a lawyer who drew attention to the massacres of the labour movement in Colombia. He was very close to the people, unlike the elite, he used the suburban railway and was hugely popular with Colombians, who hoped that his rule would bring many reforms and combat poverty. Gaitán was equally feared and hated by the conservatives and the USA.

On 9 April 1948, shortly before the elections, Gaitán was shot dead on the street in the centre of Bogota. In the days that followed, thousands of people took to the streets, demonstrating and setting fire to large parts of Bogota’s city centre. The police and military had no control over the situation – the riots went down in history as the Bogotazo.
Around 15 minutes after the murder of Gaitán, the suspected murderer was discovered in the immediate vicinity of the assassination site and killed on the spot by the mob – the man had been released from a psychiatric institution on the same day. In retrospect, however, there are enormous doubts about this version, as it is unusual that the murderer remained in the neighbourhood for 15 minutes. There are also parallels with other historical murders in which a “mentally ill person” was also portrayed as the perpetrator a short time later and killed on the spot so that he could not be interrogated.

The most common theories see the conservatives or the CIA as the mastermind behind the murder. I can well imagine that it might even have been both. In any case, both sides got what they wanted: the USA avoided another socialist government and the Conservatives won an election they thought they had lost because no other liberal wanted to stand for election after Gaitan’s death.
In addition, the conservatives used the Bogotazo as an excuse to use the military to crack down on liberals with enormous vigour. The armed conflict between liberals and conservatives had broken out again a few years earlier and was called “La Violencia” during this phase. “La Violencia” entered a new phase. The conservatives took more and more land from the liberals through violence or controversial laws and “La Violencia” cost the lives of over 200,000 civilians between 1946 and 1963.
As the conservatives were in power and used the military to crack down on liberals, they retreated further and further into the countryside and mountains. But even there, the conservatives kept tracking them down. Both sides killed many civilians, and various liberal self-defence groups (repúblicas independientes) were formed to defend themselves.

After a conservative military dictatorship (there have been comparatively few in Colombia’s history), liberals and conservatives agreed on the so-called “Frente Nacional”, an agreement that stipulated that power would alternate between liberals and conservatives every four years and that ministries would also be divided up. However, the “Frente Nacional” thus ensured an even stronger consolidation of political exclusivism and left-wing actors in particular saw themselves challenged to use violence to ensure a different political system. Various left-wing guerrilla groups emerged from the former “Repúblicas Independientes”, some of which are still active today.
The aim of the guerrillas was to establish a new political order, their ideas were primarily communist/Marxist and their means of choice was above all violence. The state’s response was generally even more violent and showed similarly little consideration for civilians.

The former self-defence groups became armed, violent groups that fought the state, its representatives and the military. Their income has changed considerably over time, but mainly consists of kidnapping, extortion, gold mining and the production and smuggling of illegal drugs such as marijuana and cocaine.
The best-known guerrilla group, the FARC, was founded in 1964 after the bombing of the República Independiente “Marquetalia”. Among the best known were the ELN and the M-19, which seized the Palace of Justice in Bogotá on 6 November 1985 and killed all 11 supreme court judges during the hostage-taking – the 35 terrorists were also killed. Pablo Escobar was definitely involved in the planning of the attack, which brings us to another important player in the conflict: the drug cartels.
From the mid-1970s, the cultivation and export of cocaine in particular developed extremely rapidly, leading to the emergence of several very rich and influential cartels. The two largest were the Medellin cartel led by Pablo Escobar and the Cali cartel led by the Orejuela brothers. As is typical in drug wars, the fights between the cartels were usually about power/supremacy and money, but of course the cartels also came into conflict with the state, which was fighting the illegal drug trade, particularly under pressure from the USA. In some cases, the guerrillas allied themselves with the cartels, in other cases they clashed with them and, particularly since the death of Pablo Escobar and the arrests of the Orejuela brothers in the 1990s, the guerrillas have increasingly taken over parts of the drug market.
While Pablo Escobar and his Medellin cartel became more famous, the Cali cartel was the more successful one most of the time, with larger revenues. At its peak, the Cali cartel controlled around 80% of the drug market in Colombia. This was probably mainly due to the fact that the Orejuela brothers behaved more quietly and went about their business in the background, while Pablo Escobar was very open in his dealings with the state and even harboured political ambitions himself.

His aim was to end the war against the cartels at a political level and to protect his business empire politically.
In 1982, he actually made it into the Colombian parliament for a short time, as he was held in high esteem by parts of the population, especially in his hometown of Medellin, where he had a lot of infrastructure, hospitals and schools built. However, after public accusations and protests from many members of parliament, he had to resign his mandate after just a few weeks and decided to use terrorism to achieve his goals. In particular, he wanted to prevent a law that would allow the extradition of drug smugglers to the United States. To this end, he detonated car bombs at random locations in the centre of Bogotá, murdered countless police officers and once even exploded an entire plane with 107 passengers in order to eliminate opponents inside. The main objective of eliminating the presidential candidate César Gaviria was even missed because he was not on board. With this unscrupulous assassination, Escobar lost the support of the population and antagonised the USA even more, as two Americans were on board.
In the 1990s, the influence and violence of the cartels declined, especially after Escobar’s death. But the military’s war against the guerrillas continued.

As national and international criticism of the military’s actions was high, the Colombian state founded a number of paramilitary groups in the 1990s, which they brought together under the umbrella of the “Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia” in 1997 and whose sole declared aim was to fight the guerrillas. The idea was that an independent group would be freer in its actions, but it was precisely this that fell foul of the state a short time later, as the paramilitaries became independent, radicalised and increasingly violent, including against the civilian population. It was not until 2006 that they were recaptured by a controversial law, but some of them still exist today and have a strong influence in politics. The law included amnesty for former ex-paramilitaries. 3700 paramilitaries who turned themselves in between 2003 and 2006 confessed to a total of over 25,000 murders for which they were not punished. As a result of the law, many drug lords posed as former paramilitaries in order to avoid punishment.
It is assumed that the paramilitaries are responsible for more civilian casualties overall than the guerrillas.
A peace agreement was reached with the FARC in 2016. The first version was narrowly rejected in a controversial referendum. After negotiations, a second version emerged, which was approved by parliament; the people were not consulted again for fear of another rejection. A large part of the FARC was disarmed, there was transitional justice with partial amnesia and the FARC was guaranteed some seats in parliament.

Together with other developments, the agreement has led to a sharp decline in violence in Colombia. However, violence remains high in some rural areas in particular, some of the FARC have rearmed and other guerrillas are still active. Today, however, the guerrillas are more focussed on drug trafficking than on fighting the state. The current president is in fact a former member of the guerrilla group M-19, which disbanded in 1990.
President Gustavo Petro is currently in peace talks with the ELN guerrilla group.
The effects of the decades-long conflict can still be strongly felt today, with Colombia being the country with the most internally displaced persons worldwide in 2018.
It will also be interesting to see what happens when the FARC’s ten guaranteed seats expire and the party may no longer be elected to parliament. Potential for conflict remains in many places…

The impressive expanses of the Amazon and the danger of the tipping point

When my friend Joann from France sent me pictures a few months ago of how he had travelled across the Amazon on a boat, I knew I wanted to do the same!
Joann’s photos showed a wide boat on the Amazon with various goods and even a cow on board. And seeing the Amazon and travelling for days on the river sounded like an exotic dream to me! After all, the Amazon is the most water-rich river in the world and has more water at its mouth than the next six smallest rivers put together! The Amazon region is also home to an incredible number of animals and a large number of indigenous tribes, probably the most important green lung in the world and an absolute factor in the international climate crisis.
If we succeed in better protecting the Amazon rainforest, we will be a big step closer to climate protection. Because, as we are constantly reading, a lot of rainforest is currently being cut down: for palm oil, for soya cultivation (which is then fed to animals in Europe and elsewhere), for livestock farming, for mining (especially aluminium) and in Ecuador also for the extraction of crude oil. Just two months ago, the Ecuadorian people voted in a referendum in favour of a permanent halt to oil extraction in the Yasuni Park, one of the most biodiverse areas on earth. Former President Rafael Correa had launched a campaign in 2007 promising not to touch the oil in the Yasuni Park if international donors paid Ecuador half of the expected profits. However, the approx. 6 billion US dollars did not materialise and so he released the extraction in 2013. After long battles, environmentalists were able to push through a referendum and the government and oil companies now have a year to withdraw from the area. The decision was highly controversial due to the enormous economic importance of the oil for Ecuador.
And there has also been more and more good news from Brazil since the change of government to Inácio Lula da Silva. His predecessor Jair Bolsonaro had strongly fuelled the (illegal) overexploitation of the rainforest. Under his government, deforestation increased abruptly by 70%, corporations were supported in their deforestation and forest fires were only half-heartedly combated. For the first time, the Amazon rainforest emitted more CO2 than it absorbed.
Lula da Silva has now successfully curbed this again, so that the German government is also releasing the funds frozen in recent years. These international funds have been channelled into Lula’s plan to stop deforestation by 2030. Studies on the plan certify that it is possible to reduce deforestation by 89%. Lula in his first term of office and his successor Dilma Rousseff had already succeeded in reducing deforestation by 80% by 2019. Rapid success is now hugely important because the Amazon rainforest is at a tipping point: Around 18% of the area is currently deforested. Scientists assume that the tipping point would be reached at 20 – 25%, at which point the water cycle of the rainforest would collapse and the Amazon region would gradually develop into a savannah. The consequences for the global climate: unforeseeable, but certainly devastating!
Under another Bolsonaro presidency, this point would undoubtedly have been reached; with Lula, there is now hope. However, there is a conservative majority in parliament and the influence of the agricultural lobby is strong. So it remains exciting, just like everywhere else in the world when it comes to climate protection.

From Ecuador to Peru – Day 1

The Amazon region is also extremely exciting in political terms, so my plan had been finalised months ago. I only found out later that a large part of the journey from Ecuador to Peru doesn’t actually cross the Amazon itself, but rather the Napo tributary, but I didn’t really care:

What I have now learnt is that the Amazon River does not have its source in a mountain range, but originates in Peru from the two rivers Marañon and Ucayali. The entire area of rainforest around the numerous tributaries of the Amazon is usually referred to as the Amazon region and covers an area of over 6 million square kilometres in a total of 9 countries, about 18 times the size of Germany. With all the figures on the Amazon, it should be mentioned that there are sometimes different figures. Many things, such as the area currently being cleared, can only be estimated.
Back to my trip through the Amazon: even though many Peruvians and Ecuadorians are travelling the route and I particularly liked the fact that a few friends of mine decided to make this trip at the same time. This meant we could embark on the adventure together and it was also cheaper.
Together with Chris and Manon from Marseille and Natalie and Nicolas from Germany, we set off early on Thursday morning. The night before, we had stayed with Alex and Samantha near Coca. Friends of Joann’s who were incredibly kind and took all five of us in. I was there a day earlier and celebrated her birthday with Alex and Samantha.
We travelled from Coca at 8am on the speedboat across the Rio Napo to Nueva Rocafuerte, the last village on the border between Ecuador and Peru. The journey on the speedboat wasn’t that exciting as it was simply too fast to concentrate on the landscape in peace, but this meant that we arrived at the border much earlier to stamp out and cross over into Peru. This was recommended to us beforehand and wasn’t a bad idea because Nico was held up for over an hour: when he travelled from Colombia to Ecuador, someone had probably accidentally registered his Colombian citizenship and the officials at the border wanted to have this changed first. As the reception in the middle of the rainforest is poor, it took some time, but then we were able to take the next boat to the first village on the Peruvian side in about 30 minutes: Pantoja. Arriving in Peru was cool. Pantoja is a small village with a few hundred inhabitants. Electricity here is only generated by generators and so there is only electricity from 6pm to 11pm. So we had to wait until 6pm for the migration. We used the time to have a beer with the locals and play some music. Then we went for a swim and a walk around the village and I played a game of football with a few local kids.

A few relaxing days in the hammock – in the middle of the river

After we got our stamp, we organised our onward journey for the next day. The boat that we had heard travelled on Fridays and Tuesdays turned out to be another speedboat, which would have taken us to Iquitos in a day and a half, but we would have had to sit in it the whole time. Fortunately, we found another commercial boat, which also set off for Iquitos the next day. The Harrison travels irregularly through the Amazon region, so it was lucky that it happened to be there. Travelling on the Harrison was not only cheaper (just under 25 instead of 70 euros!), but also much more comfortable and slower: just what we were looking for to enjoy the trip across the Amazon and take in the scenery in peace. And as if that wasn’t enough, we were also able to hang our hammocks in the ship and chill out in them during the day and sleep at night – our absolute backpacker’s dream!
The next morning at 5 a.m. we were standing in front of the Harrison as ordered, but it was still a while before we set off – Peru is also in Latin America 😀
We spent a total of three days on board the Harrison, whose already slow progress was further affected by the water level. In a dry season, which was even drier than it already was thanks to climate change, there were a number of sandbanks that we had to avoid. During the day, this only cost us time, but at night it also put the crew’s nerves on edge and we actually got stuck on a sandbank once – but fortunately only briefly and we were able to free ourselves again. On the way to Pantoja, Edgar, the captain, told me, they were once stuck from 9pm until 4am. In January and February, however, during the rainy season, the river rises by several metres and the boats can simply sail through without having to worry too much. But I thought the rivers were already so full of water and impressive!

We spent most of our time on the boat together on deck, chatting, making music and playing games. I enjoyed socialising with the many Peruvians and Ecuadorians and it brought me a lot closer to the next new country on my trip.
I also used the time to sort out photos, write my blog and catch up on sleep. I found it extremely beneficial to have no mobile phone reception the whole time!
On the way, we passed many small settlements along the riverbank. The people there generally speak Spanish and an indigenous language and most of them live from farming. So it happened a few times that we were offered goods from the riverbank or from a canoe. Once the crew stopped to get a few pieces of meat for dinner. However, the farmer didn’t want to trade for goods from our boat, but only accepted cash, which seemed to surprise our crew.
On the second day in the morning, we were able to disembark for half an hour in a small village, but it wasn’t easy to buy anything as we only had dollars and hardly anyone wanted to exchange them for sol (the Peruvian currency, 1 euro equals approx. 4 soles). Nevertheless, it was nice to walk around on land and explore the village a little before continuing on. Another shore leave in the evening, which was actually only intended for dinner, was extended by a few hours so that we had time to go to a small bar with loud music and dance a little with the locals, although most of the time it was just us dancing.

Anaconda, river otter and co

After a total of four days from Ecuador and three days on the Harrison, we arrived at our destination – Iquitos – and the days on board together were very bonding. I am still in contact with some of them and I travelled on for a few more days with a couple from Malta, Christine and Sean.
And the next few days were also super special: I got a great contact for a jungle tour via a couchsurfer, which only cost a quarter of what I was offered in Ecuador. For three days and two nights, Christine, Sean and I travelled into the jungle with two guides. We paddled through the rainforest in a small canoe along a tributary of the Amazon and saw an incredible number of amazing animals and plants. The highlights were definitely river dolphins, river otters, small caimans and a 4 metre (!) long anaconda, which had apparently eaten a caiman a few days earlier. And so my fantastic time in the Amazon region was wonderfully rounded off.

Detailed instructions for the boat adventure

Here’s everything you need to know if you want to travel by boat across the Napo and Amazon rivers yourself.
Firstly, a few basic things:

It can get pretty hot in the Amazon and there are lots of mosquitoes! So sun cream is a must and you should buy it in Coca at the latest. I also think mosquito spray is very important. I had a mosquito net with me and can also recommend it. However, depending on how fast your boat is travelling and where you are staying, you may not need one.

Depending on how you want to travel across the rivers, you need to allow some time. There are two times a week where you can cover the distance in 2.5 days, but then you’ll be travelling on speedboats and won’t be able to enjoy the scenery as much. If you want to travel on a commercial boat like we did, you’ll have to be lucky or wait a few days.

In general, the “bottleneck” is the stretch between Pantoja and Mazán. There are connections from Coca to Pantoja and from Mazán to Iquitos every day. More details below.

It is also possible to hitchhike on this route, but this can take quite a long time, as most of the boats that travel here do so for commercial reasons and therefore charge money. However, the almost 100 soles on the commercial boat from Pantoja to Iquitos was really not too much.

There are no ATMs in the small towns along the Amazon and poor exchange rates for dollars/euros. If you can, it’s best to exchange money in Coca so that you have soles with you to Iquitos.

From Iquitos you can find other boats to continue down the Amazon to Colombia and then Brazil. Or if you want to continue travelling in Peru, you can take another boat from Iquitos to Yurimaguas. There is a speedboat from Iquitos to Yurimaguas that takes around 18 hours (depending on the water level) and costs 160 soles (40 euros). Alternatively, there is also a slow boat that takes two days, but I don’t know the price.

If you want to do a tour into the rainforest in Peru, I recommend that you don’t do it from Iquitos, but from Lagunas. You’re sure to get a good price from the Acatupel travel agency if you mention my name. Marita was super nice and has become a friend. I get nothing for the recommendation, except maybe a lovely note from Marita.

All this information is from October 2023, no guarantee that the departure times or opening hours of the Migration Offices may not change. So if it’s 2025 by the time you read this, it’s best to ask again.

From Coca to Nueva Rocafuerte

As already mentioned, there are boats on this route every day. They usually start between 7 and 8 in the morning and have fixed timetables, which you can find out in Coca. To be on the safe side, you should buy your ticket the day before.
There is a speedboat that takes 4-5 hours to Nova Rocafuerte and cost us 38 dollars per person. There is also a slower boat that allows you to enjoy the scenery better and only costs 21 dollars. However, this boat takes quite a long time (approx. 7 – 8 hours), especially when the water level is low. As a rule, you should make it in time for the migration in Nova Rocafuerte, which closes at 5 pm, but there is a small risk if you want to travel to Pantoja on the same day. Because you absolutely have to check out of Ecuador in Nueva Rocafuerte and get a stamp!

From Nueva Rocafuerte to Pantoja

It’s only about 30 minutes by boat from Nova Rocafuerte to Pantoja on the Peruvian side. The boats do not have fixed departure times, but can simply be booked on site. You will probably be offered one as soon as you arrive in Nueva Rocafuerte. If you get in touch with me, I can also send you a contact.
The drivers charge around 50 dollars, regardless of how many people are travelling on the boat.
If you want to spend the night in Nueva Rocafuerte, there is cheap accommodation here or you can pitch your tent. However, if you don’t want to go to the Yasuni National Park (which is quite expensive), I recommend travelling on to Pantoja.

From Pantoja to Iquitos

In Pantoja you have to check in before travelling on to Peru and get a stamp in your passport. However, the migration office usually only opens in the evening from 6 pm, as there is only electricity by generator in the village from 6 pm to 11 pm. (as of 2023)
There is a hostel in Pantoja where we were able to stay for 4 dollars per person. Of course you can also camp here. It’s best to check which boat you take first, you may be able to sleep on the boat.
There is also a fast boat from Pantoja. This has a timetable and departs early in the morning on Fridays and Tuesdays (as of October 2023). You can buy the ticket the day before. On the first day, this boat takes you to Santa Clotilde, where you spend the night ashore. The next morning at 4 a.m. you continue to Mazán, from where you take a moto-taxi to Indiana and then another boat to Iquitos. This fast boat will take you to Iquitos at noon on the second day (third day from Coca). However, the price is quite high at 270 soles (approx. 70 dollars) and the relaxation factor is low, as you have a fixed seat on the boat.
For the alternative, you need a bit of time or luck. For us, it went really well, as a merchant ship (the Harrison, as described above) left on the same day as the speedboat. It took us three days from Pantoja to Iquitos on the Harrison. However, we only paid 100 soles (approx. 25 dollars), were able to move freely on the slow-moving boat, enjoy the view and sleep in our hammocks on the boat.

From Iquitos to Yurimaguas

There is no road from Iquitos to the rest of Peru. If, like me, you want to protect the environment and don’t want to fly, you can continue travelling from Iquitos to Yurimaguas. The best way to do this is to take a bus or a collectivo to Nauta and from there boats leave for Yurimaguas every day. Again, there are fast and slow boats. The fast boats leave in the afternoon at around 4pm and arrive in Yurimaguas at midday the next day. I paid 160 soles (40 dollars) for this boat. The slow boat takes two days and is much cheaper, but I don’t know the exact price.

Iquitos to Coca

If you want to do the route the other way round, it doesn’t really change much. You can look for a boat directly from Iquitos to Pantoja. There you can punch out, then take the same boats as described above to Nueva Rocafuerte, punch in and then there is a boat to Coca. Unfortunately, I don’t know the departure times of the boats around here. If I find out, I’ll add them here. You have to consider that this way round the whole trip will take you longer because its against the current most of the time.

Supplement: My friend Nicolas travelled from Iquitos to Coca and has compiled the following information for you:

Iquitos – Pantoja:
You can find the fast boat at Transporte Vichu in calle Maynas 360. According to Nico, they leave on Tuesdays and Saturdays and cost 270 soles.
There is no office and no fixed times for the slow boats. Nico found some in Puerto Ranza that take 4 days and cost 130 soles. But there are certainly others. If you want to do this trip, please contact me a few days in advance and then I can ask a friend in Iquitos if he is travelling the route in the near future.

Pantoja – Nueva Rocafuerte:
There are no fixed times in this direction either, but locally there are several boats that go on request. Nico paid 15 dollars together with another person who also paid 15 dollars. It is important to bear in mind that it takes longer against the current.

Nueva Rocafuerte – Coca:
The slow boat for 21 dollars departs from Nova Rocafuerte at 6am. The fast boat leaves at 12 noon and costs 39 dollars. As far as I know, there are boats on this route every day.

If you decide to do this, you’ll have a really great time and enjoy fantastic views. Have fun!

General tips

The idea of this article is, of course, not to reduce emissions in order to travel more, but to reduce emissions in order to affect the environment as little as possible with a trip.
In general, we should ask ourselves if there is anything we can do without: Is this flight necessary or can’t I find a nice destination within train distance? Do I really need a rental car for the whole trip or can I manage without it? Do I have to see 3 countries in 4 weeks or can’t I stay longer in one place? Less can be more on holiday or when travelling, so you can enjoy your time much more.
It is not about travelling emission-free and being perfect in all aspects. Instead, it is about being or becoming aware of the impacts of travel and taking these into account in decisions to significantly reduce one’s carbon footprint.
I am also aware that it is an absolute privilege to have the time, the money and the possibilities to make this trip this way, but if I had been travelling for, say, a month, I would certainly not have flown to Latin America, but would have done, say, Inter-Rail in Eastern Europe or something.
Basically, the same applies when travelling as at home: we should be careful with all resources. This means paying attention to water consumption, only turning on air conditioners and fans when we need them, etc.
Another point to consider even before the trip begins: the luggage. If your suitcase or backpack is lighter, it not only protects your back, but also ensures less energy consumption in the means of transport. I’m not so exemplary in this respect, especially because of my guitar, but I wanted to share this tip I read with you anyway. Anyway, this is probably not the tip that will save huge amounts of CO2, but one that few people probably think about.
More important is the next tip, which many people, including me, don’t think about when it comes to sustainability: Travel anti-cyclically and avoid crowded places. Mass tourism in particular leads to infrastructures being overloaded and irreversible damage to ecosystems. If ten people a day walk through a small forest, the forest and its inhabitants probably don’t care. It’s a different story if there are thousands. You can prevent this if you don’t contribute to overcrowding by travelling in the low season or by avoiding these places. Of course, I am aware that there are professions where it is difficult to travel acyclically.
Last but not least, travellers should try to use local and small shops as much as possible instead of big shops and chains. This applies to accommodation, grocery shops, souvenirs, etc. On the one hand, this supports the local people and not a huge company, and on the other hand, the products, labour, etc. are more likely to come from nearby and thus also protect the environment. And in Latin America, for example, it is often even cheaper in the small shops than in the supermarket.

Transport

Let’s move on to the No. 1 climate killer in transport: flying. A long-haul flight from Frankfurt to Rio and back emits about 3.1 tonnes of CO2 equivalents, to New Zealand even 6.6 tonnes. But according to science, a person should emit an average of no more than 2 tonnes of CO2 per year if we want to keep to the climate targets and leave the environment in a good condition for future generations. However, due to the lack of climate protection and the resulting environmental destruction, the amount is becoming smaller and smaller and is already tending towards 1 tonne.
The greatest potential for saving CO2 emissions is in flying. It would be best for the climate if we no longer flew at all, but that is probably unrealistic and, as I said, I also see the need for exchange and international understanding, and air travel cannot always be avoided. But air travel could be greatly reduced if we saw flying for what it is: an absolute privilege, because the majority of people cannot afford it. Unfortunately, this also makes flying extremely unfair: a fact that few want to hear, but a fact: a minority emits much more CO2 and equivalents when flying than they are actually entitled to if we want to be in harmony with our planet and its resources. The fact that the climate has not already completely collapsed is mainly due to the fact that there are many people around the world who cannot afford our standard of living by a long shot, and especially cannot fly, and therefore emit much less CO2. Thus flying is a strong expression of global injustice and part of an imperial/post-colonial way of life as described by the author Ulrich Brand in the book “Imperiale Lebensweise – zur Ausbeutung von Mensch & Natur im globalen Kapitalismus”. The only logical thing to do then is to do without aeroplanes in the future for holiday trips. This is also how the German Federal Environment Agency describes it in its concept for “Air Transport of the Future”.
Briefly on equivalents, what is meant by this? Flying not only blows CO2 into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming, but there are also non-CO2 effects, which even account for almost 2/3 of flying. The most climate-damaging effects of flying are contrails.
My friend Gero writes about how the effects of contrails could be greatly reduced in this article for Deutsche Welle.
But Gero also comes to the clear conclusion that it will take a long time before flying becomes climate-friendly and that it is therefore necessary to drastically reduce air travel.
Flying should therefore be understood as a privilege and considered an exception. But what are the alternatives to flying: On land it is quite easy, a fully occupied car is more climate-friendly than a flight, but really economical is travelling by bus and train. All sources agree on this, too.

The difficulty for CO2 studies

A short digression: It is sometimes quite exhausting that the CO2 balances of means of transport diverge depending on the source. But this is because, for example, the underlying electricity mix can make a big difference in the calculation. In addition, many sources only calculate the transport costs that a journey from A to B costs. But of course you also have to factor in how much CO2 is emitted in the production of the vehicle and the route. Regardless of this, flying is by far the most harmful means of transport in all statistics, and bus and train the best.
Of course, bus and train can take longer than flying, but for many routes the time gained by flying is often much less than the flight time would suggest. If you take into account the journey, check-in, waiting time, baggage claim, etc., a flight is not that fast after all. Moreover, if you travel by bus or train, you can easily make a stopover and visit another place on the way. Travelling overnight is also a good option, which I have often used on buses in Latin America, because you can (hopefully) sleep on the bus, arrive in the morning and save yourself an overnight stay.
Another way to avoid flying is to adjust your destination. For a two-week holiday, for example, I don’t think the benefits are commensurate with the climate costs, especially for long-haul flights. And there are enough nice destinations nearby, or at least on the same continent, where you can also meet many people from all over the world and other cultures. By the way, something that also works very well in your own country and city. You don’t necessarily have to travel to Latin America to meet Latin Americans. In everyday life, these opportunities are easily lost, but you can also consciously take time to travel in your own country and get to know other cultures in your own country. In Germany there are large communities of people from different countries with whom you can come into contact and get to know their culture. If friendships then develop, it is also much easier to meet again.
On a long trip to another continent, you can also consider spending more time in one place instead of seeing lots of places briefly. On my world trip of about 14 months, for example, I deliberately chose one continent instead of doing Asia and Africa after South America, for example. This gave me time to immerse myself much more intensively in the culture of the countries, to stay longer in great places, to get to know the people better, and so on. And quite honestly, even that was too little time for such a large continent! So instead of rushing from A to B, which automatically increases the CO2 footprint, you can stay in one place for a long time and still have a wonderful time, and you’ll never be able to see everything anyway. In my experience, you miss out on a lot of great experiences if you leave after just two days in one place. I don’t mean that you can’t visit a place for a short time, but maybe you’ll stay longer in the next one. Here, too, it is important to be aware of the effects of a journey and to take this into consideration. Especially since the more you travel, the more time you spend on the bus or other means of transport, which is always time you don’t spend in the place.

(Boat) Hitchhiking

On this trip, I also tried another alternative for crossing oceans: sailboats. From Spain, I hitchhiked on several sailboats across the Canary Islands and Cape Verde to the Caribbean. Even though sailboats hardly consume any fuel during the journey, they naturally have not inconsiderable production costs. But if you travel on boats that are going on a trip across the Atlantic anyway (or on any other route), you produce almost no extra CO2 emissions. If you want to read more about my route across the Atlantic, you will find several posts on the blog. Here is the diary of the Atlantic crossing.
So if you have more time to travel (which you need for sailing, unfortunately), this is a good, climate-friendly alternative and I promise you will see wonderful places, especially on islands you would never have come to otherwise!

Hitchhiking, by the way, is of course also very climate-friendly on land. Far too many cars drive around with one or a few people, so there is still a lot of potential for optimisation. I hitchhiked most of the time, especially from Germany, but also in Latin America (mostly shorter distances) and have collected some tips for you in this article.
Hitchhiking is not only climate-friendly, but also a great way to travel, as you get to know very different people and come into much more contact with locals.
On the other hand, if you hire a car, you can of course also take people with you. Of course, with a rental car there’s always the question of whether it’s necessary or whether you can get there by train, bus or hitchhiking. Personally, I like to use the same means of transport as the locals and to talk to them. And if you don’t want to do without a rental car, you can consider using it only for part of the trip. Without a rental car is in most cases like in real life without a car: much cheaper!
The same applies to taxis or Uber, but here too the question is in which situations it is necessary to be driven around. Taxis are usually faster, buses cheaper, and especially in the cities they are usually well developed. It should be noted that taxis are often not recommended in Latin America, as they are often used for robberies. Uber and other apps are a good alternative because the drivers are safely registered. But if the taxi is official (and you are sure about that), a taxi is of course also possible. Of course, it also depends on where you are. I have used unofficial taxis or motorbikes from time to time, especially in the countryside, and never felt unsafe. And when you use a taxi, not part of the money goes to the Uber company.

Food & Drinks

When it comes to food and drinks, it’s especially good to reduce transport costs and plastic waste.
I admit to appreciating a European product like pesto or Italian pasta from time to time. But mostly I try to consume local products and that works very well in Latin America, for example, because there is a lot of fresh, regional fruit and vegetables that are super tasty. And just as it’s not necessary to buy avocados all the time in Germany, I don’t need German produce every week when I travel.
Another big environmental burden, especially with food and drinks, is plastic – both in production and disposal. But here in particular there are some simple things that can greatly reduce plastic consumption:
Having a drinking bottle with you is an absolute must, also to stay hydrated when you can’t buy anything anywhere. It’s also a good way to refill the bottle with fresh water instead of buying a new bottle every time. Of course, it is important to ask beforehand whether the tap water is drinkable. Otherwise, however, many households have a filter or a large water container from which you can get water for a small amount of money (usually for free). Another practical gadget is a small water filter of your own, so you can fill up with water anywhere. It’s also good to get juices on the street filled into your own bottle.
For eating, three items are indispensable for me: a lunch box, a spoon and a pocket knife. With these, you can prepare a lot of things yourself and eat them without plastic: for example, bread with avocado. You can also have street food put in your lunch box and eat it with your own spoon, so you avoid all the plastic that is quickly produced there. The lunch box is also practical if you can’t open everything in the restaurant and then take the leftovers.
Also very practical, but not so much for environmental reasons, are your own spices, which are unfortunately not available in every hostel.
Of course, it’s always practical to have your own backpack for shopping, so you don’t have to take plastic bags. Small bags for fruit and vegetables are just as practical when travelling as they are at home. And just as you shouldn’t give up on broken things at home, but repair them yourself or take them to a shop to be repaired, the same applies when travelling. And in Latin America, this culture is even more widespread. In every major city, there are heaps of mobile phone repair shops, cobblers, seamstresses, etc. It’s a good idea to have a small sewing kit with you. Having a small sewing kit with you is also very practical.

Here’s a little (Not So Fun) fact on the side: It’s easy to get the impression that Latin American countries and people are particularly wasteful when it comes to plastic, because it’s more visible due to all the street food. But in fact, Western countries, for example, produce much more plastic waste per capita. With us, the plastic is just not as visible, but often, for example, clothes are specially wrapped in plastic, and even with food in Europe, almost everything is wrapped in plastic.

Accommodation

Accommodation is one of the main CO2 emitters when travelling, because a hotel or hostel is built especially for travellers and often also has an enormous electricity consumption. There are many ways to reduce emissions here. Basically, the less space needed per person, the better. A dormitory with bunk beds is obviously more space-saving than a private room. But a small room is also much better than a huge suite.
And there are still two almost climate-neutral options that I tried a lot on this trip: Camping and Couchsurfing.
When camping with your own tent or, as in my case, with your own hammock, you don’t need an elaborately constructed building, at most sanitary facilities at a campsite. But most of the time, especially during the boat hitchhiking, we wild camped with some friends and then there is no infrastructure built especially for us and other travellers. Another advantage of camping is that you are close to nature. I found it fantastic to be woken up by the sound of the sea on the beach or the sound of crickets and birds in the middle of the jungle.
One thing that should go without saying is that you should clean up after camping and take your rubbish back with you. Maybe you can even extend this and collect other rubbish, according to the motto: “Leave the place cleaner than you found it.

Couchsurfing

But I liked Couchsurfing even more. The idea of Couchsurfing is quite simple and detached from the app: instead of staying in a hotel, you stay in someone’s private house, but not for money like with AirBnB, but for a non-material exchange. AirBnB can of course also be sustainable in some cases, but in most cases these are flats that are specially built, bought or rented and that could otherwise be permanently occupied by someone else.
With Couchsurfing, it doesn’t matter whether you know the person or not, the principle is “surfing”, i.e. spending the night, on a couch in a private home. In many cases, the couch is also a bed or an air mattress.
Especially in Mexico, but also in many other countries, I have visited friends and stayed overnight with them – probably the best form of couchsurfing: you already know the hosts, you have a great reunion, no accommodation costs, local guides and it is more sustainable than in a hostel.
But of course we don’t all have acquaintances in every place we can visit. And that’s why there’s the app Couchsurfing and, by the way, many very similar apps.
The idea is simple: if you want, you can make your home available to strangers on Couchsurfing. They can then contact you and request a stay. Through references, you can see what experiences others have had with this person. If everything fits, the request is accepted. The guest has a free night, gets to know a local and gets great tips for the place. The host gets to know a person from another city or another country, is maybe invited for a beer or cooked for and can couchsurf himself on the next trip. For me, it’s a win-win situation and I’ve only had good experiences with over 30 couchsurfers I’ve met so far! In fact, I’m already really looking forward to hosting people in my room in Cologne.
By the way, I didn’t stay at all the places I met. There is also the option in the Couchsurfing app to connect with travellers just like that or to post events.
There is one small disadvantage with Couchsurfing: since recently, an annual fee of about 14 dollars has been charged. But financially, it’s worth it after two nights at the latest, and all the great experiences I’ve had through Couchsurfing are priceless anyway. But if you can’t afford that, you can fall back on some alternatives: https://thenomadfamily.org/7-best-couchsurfing-alternative/

In summary, I would like to use this article to encourage people to think about the impact of travel on the climate and to put these thoughts into practice. It is not a matter of doing without what we enjoy, but rather of ensuring, within the scope of our own possibilities, that travel becomes more sustainable and that as many future generations as possible can discover a wonderful planet.
The biggest lever is undoubtedly flying, which can be avoided or reduced by using alternative means of transport (train, bus, car, hitchhiking) or by adapting the travel route. But you can also reduce a lot of CO2 emissions by foregoing rental cars and taxis in favour of buses and trains.
When it comes to food, the key is to buy and consume as much locally as possible and to always have a lunch box, spoon, knife and water bottle with you to avoid plastic. Also a small backpack and fruit bag for shopping and a sewing kit for repairs.
When it comes to accommodation, it’s a good idea to save space and go to small accommodation instead of a big hotel complex. If you want to socialise with locals, couchsurfing is an even more economical option, and if you like being in nature, consider camping.
Again, you don’t have to camp or stay with Couchsurfers all the time, you can alternate that with hostels for example.
I’m looking forward to your feedback and I’m happy about comments under the post or personal feedback.

(Colonial) history

When you go to history museums in Central America, you often get the impression that the history of Central America begins with colonisation, because that is exactly the first thing that is often (there are exceptions) mentioned in the museums. The many millennia before that are just as concealed as the atrocities committed by the Spaniards and the many sufferings that the indigenous people and slaves brought in from Africa had to endure. Obviously, the history of people, civilisations and cities in Central America begins much earlier and today we know that much of what the Spanish told about the Indians was not true. For example, indigenous peoples were portrayed as much more barbaric and less civilised than they actually were in order to justify oppression and exploitation.
A good example of the highly civilised peoples of Central America are undoubtedly the Maya, of whom about 6 million still live in southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. They built impressive temples, developed their own complex language and an extremely accurate calendar. They were as gifted in mathematics as they were in arts and crafts and agriculture. Without the Maya, who knows if we would have corn cultivation or chocolate today? And who knows how far we would be in science today if much of the Maya’s impressive knowledge had not been lost? By the way, the Spanish did have a share in this, but the great advanced civilisations and cities of the Maya had already perished before the Spanish claimed every stone and every labour force in America for themselves.
It remains a mystery, not yet completely deciphered, why the Maya empires perished, but one assumption is becoming more and more solidified: the overexploitation of nature was the Maya’s undoing. They needed many raw materials for their ever-growing cities. Severe droughts and other environmental events then led to famine crises and the fall of the Maya rulers. However, because they had not shared their knowledge with the people in order to preserve their position as omniscient deities, much of it was lost.
However, there were and are many other indigenous peoples before, beside and after the Maya, which would certainly go beyond the scope of enumerating and examining them in more detail, for example the Olmecs, Toltecs, Aztecs, Nahua and Caribs. In addition, some mixed peoples developed over the millennia, of which perhaps the best known today are the Garifuna, who evolved from the Caribs and West African slaves and today mainly inhabit the Caribbean coast of Central America. The first settlers reached Central America at least 10,000 years ago. It is assumed that they migrated via North America.
And even though some of the Central American peoples were at war with each other again and again, this is out of all proportion to the suffering brought by the Spanish, which affected all these peoples, albeit to varying degrees.
When the Spanish arrived, some of them were organised into large civilisations and others, such as Nicaragua, were characterised by many independent tribes (with a cacique as head). What they all had in common was that they did not appreciate the arrival of the Spaniards and the resulting consequences. Some were directly hostile to the newcomers, others befriended them, only to be betrayed and oppressed later.
As already explained in the articles on the Dom Rep and Cuba, the peoples were largely murdered, enslaved or exploited. Many fell victim to introduced diseases and Spain tried mercilessly to squeeze as much raw material, gold, etc. out of the colonies as possible.
In a few decades, the Spanish conquered Central America both from Panama in the south and from Mexico in the north. The Viceroyalty of New Spain was founded and, with the exception of Panama, the territories of all today’s Central American states belonged to New Spain, while Panama belonged to the Viceroyalty of Peru (and later, for a long time, to Colombia), which is why we exclude Panama somewhat here.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain was divided into 4 administrative districts (Real Audiencias): Santo Domingo (from 1511), Mexico (1527), Guatemala (1543) and New Galicia (1548, also called Guadalajara). While Santo Domingo was initially responsible for all conquered territories, this changed with the founding of the other Real Audiencias, so that Santo Domingo was finally responsible for the Caribbean. The administrative region of Mexico corresponds to today’s Central Mexico, Northern Mexico and several of today’s US states were under New Galicia. The administrative district of Guatemala included present-day Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, as well as the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
The administrative districts are important because it was precisely from them that the new states were first created:
Haiti was the first country in Latin America to gain independence in 1804. A decisive influence on the wars of independence was the French Revolution of 1789. When, from 1808 to 1814, Spain was de facto cut off from its colonies due to the Napoleonic Wars, because all forces were needed in Europe, the independence movements got the decisive push.
In Central America, it was the Real-Audiencia Mexico and New Galicia that were the first to proclaim their independence as the common state of Mexico. When the Spanish administration discovered the independence movement around Miguel Hidalgo in September 1810, he felt compelled to proclaim Mexico’s independence in the night of 15 to 16 September 1810 in the small village of Dolores in the mountains. To this day, Mexicans celebrate the beginning of their independence on 15 and 16 September with the grito (shout). However, many years passed before they gained their independence. Hidalgo’s grito marked the beginning of a bloody war of independence that claimed the lives of Hidalgo’s leaders Ignacio Allende and Juan Aldama as well as thousands of insurgents. The war of independence did not end until August 1821.
However, Mexico’s hard-won and expensive (in terms of money and, above all, human lives) independence was not only fought for Mexico. For driven by Mexico’s success, the Real-Audiencia Guatemala also sought its independence in 1821, which this time the Spanish agreed to without bloodshed. On 15 September 1821 (good to remember, because of the gritos in Mexico), the Central American Federation proclaimed its independence. So this is the Independence Day of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Belize alone remained a colony of England until 1981! It was a colony of England, which had only finally driven out the Spanish in a battle in 1798 and claimed the country for itself. Belize also became independent in September, but only in 1981.
After independence from Spain, the Central American Federation joined Agustin Iturbide’s newly founded state of Mexico. But they soon realised that the disadvantages of this union outweighed the benefits, and in 1823, after the fall of Iturbide, they separated from Mexico again (again without bloodshed). Only Chiapas remained with Mexico as a new federal state.
Two camps quickly emerged in the Central American Federation, as they did in many other Latin American countries: Liberals and Conservatives. While the conservatives naturally wanted little to change the political system, the liberals sought immediate reforms such as the separation of church and state and the separation of powers.
In the following years, internal power struggles and civil wars developed in the very federally structured state, so that the Central American Federation disintegrated between 1838 and 1841 and the present-day states of Nicaragua (1838), Honduras (1838), Costa Rica (1838), Guatemala (1839) and El Salvador (1841) were founded. To this day, they share Independence Day and the colours blue & white in their flags. Only Costa Rica added red to its flag, making it difficult to distinguish the flags of Central America. Today, by the way, they organise themselves together again as the Central American Integration System (SICA), although of course as independent states.

Politics after independence

The camps that had already emerged in the Central American Federation, namely liberals and conservatives, also shaped post-independence politics. Different parties developed in the various countries, but their ideas were oriented towards the conservative or liberal ideas, and in many countries this duality shaped the political system until deep into the 20th century, as in Honduras or Nicaragua. The vast majority of political conflicts in Central America after 1821 can be traced back to the clinch between conservatives and liberals.
But what exactly was the clinch? In the final analysis, it was about the political reality of the newly founded states, and the opinions of the two camps could hardly be further apart: The conservatives on the one side favoured leaving power in the hands of a few (the elite) and granting this elite, centralised as far as possible, access to all powers. The privileges of the church, the military and landowners were to remain untouched and no other religion besides Catholicism was to be permitted.
The liberals, on the other hand, advocated a clear separation of powers and the separation of church and state. Freedom of religion was as much a part of their programme as freedom of expression, civil marriage and free state education. They also wanted to promote federalisation.
Interestingly, many liberal ideas became established in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, while conservatives ruled much more. But why is that?
In my eyes, this shows on the one hand that many liberal ideas were supported by the population and that conservative governments had to bow to them in order to stay in power. But why then were liberals not elected from whom these ideas came? The background to this goes much further and has mainly to do with the Conservatives’ proximity to the powerful elite. Thus, the Conservatives benefited from the influence of the elite in order to stay in power. Financed election campaigns, vote buying and even fake elections were common practice in almost all countries of Central America. And if that was not enough, violence or dictatorship could be the last resort. Politically motivated murders mostly took place against liberal politicians.
And often the USA interfered, too, as they quickly feared that liberal governments would “slip” into socialism. For example, in Guatemala in 1954, after 10 years of democratic and liberal reforms, they helped overthrow President Arbenz and installed dictator Carlos Castillo Armas.
While the conservatives mainly cultivated relations with the commercial elite, landowners and other rich people, the liberals were closer to the idea of “ordinary” citizens. But this should not hide the fact that the liberals were also part of the elite and often used their power to increase their wealth. Corruption was already one of the central problems in politics back then and it still is today.

Manifestation of inequality

The existing property relations from the colonial period were thus generally defended by the political elite.
For example, in El Salvador around 1900, 90 % of the country’s goods were in the hands of 0.01 % of the population. The majority of the peasants were landless and lived in extreme poverty. In Nicaragua, the Sogamozo family in particular used several disasters during their long family dictatorship to increase their holdings – a common pattern in Central America. For example, they organised the reconstruction after an earthquake in 1931 and a major fire in Managua in 1936 in such a way that they were able to increase their land holdings considerably. After another major earthquake in 1972, they sacked much of the relief money and even sold donated relief goods to increase their fortune. Even today, parts of the city centre and the cathedral have not been rebuilt, for which part of the relief money was intended.
In addition, there have been numerous attempts to prevent measures that would reduce inequality. In El Salvador, when Article 105 limited land ownership to 245 ha in 1983, sections of the big landowners tried to prevent the reform by death squads. The most prominent victim was Archbishop Óscar Romero.
It took a long time for “normal” citizens to have a politically successful career. And what could happen if they tried is shown by the example of Jorge Gaitan in Colombia, but more on that soon in the context of Colombia’s history and politics.
Even today, rich people in Central American countries have much better chances of occupying high office.
In fact, it took until long after independence for the first democratic elections to be held in Central America: in Guatemala, for example, in 1944.
The 19th and 20th centuries were characterised by oligarchies (rule by the few), dictatorships and military coups. Changes of government were commonplace. Honduras clearly takes the cake: from 1821 to 1876, 85 governments alternated, and in the first 150 years of the state of Honduras there were 125 military coups. To this day, Honduras in particular has the image of being a “banana republic”, although most of the neighbouring countries did not fare much better, except that the changes of government were not quite as frequent.

Dictators (often conservative but also liberal)

Dictatorships, along with oligarchies, were the most common form of government in the unstable countries of Latin America. At this point, it should be mentioned that the instability was by no means an expression of the Central Americans’ incompetence. Rather, it can be directly traced back to the long rule of Spain, which left a devastation on the continent, especially in political terms. For centuries, the people of Central America were oppressed – without any possibility of self-determination. And the people who finally fought for independence were usually not indigenous people who had owned the land before the Spanish arrived, but descendants of the Spanish or had mixed ancestors. This situation made it particularly difficult to develop a common national identity, and to this day many political struggles revolve around precisely this issue.
The large number of dictators makes it impossible or even boring to list them all here, but a few are briefly mentioned.
The conservative José Rafael Carrera y Turcios, for example, became popular in Guatemala shortly after it seceded from the Central American Federation because he successfully fought against confederates. In 1944, at the age of 30, he became president of Guatemala and used his popularity and close contacts with the military to expand his power. In 1954, he declared himself president for life in Guatemala and thus significantly shaped the understanding of conservative rulers in Central America. In general, it can be said that the elites of the Central American countries remained in contact even after the split and that the various political processes strongly influenced each other. Most of the political conflicts of the last two centuries in Central America were within the states and hardly between them.
In 1865, Carrera handed over the presidency to Vicente Cerna, followed 6 years later by a military coup by liberals and Justo Rufino Barrios came to power. He pushed ahead with many reforms such as freedom of the press and religion and the nationalisation of church property. Guatemala also got a constitution. But the liberals also had many dictatorial features. Barrios dreamed of the reunification of the Central American Federation and after negotiations failed to progress, he declared the federation restored and himself commander-in-chief. Less later, he died in armed conflict with El Salvador, which did not recognise the self-declared federation.
With Jorge Ubico, Guatemala had another liberal dictator. Ubico came to power in 1931 through presumably rigged elections and quickly became a dictator who persecuted intellectuals, journalists and writers who criticised his government.
In El Salvador, special mention should be made of the dictator Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez, who, as defence minister, used a military coup in 1930 to come to power. This again shows the enormous power that the military and its allies had, especially in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Costa Rica, which is overall rather a positive example of a stable democracy in Central America, also had some violent periods. From 1917 to 1919 there was a military dictatorship under Federico Alberto Tinoco Granados, which was not recognised by the USA but was supported by the powerful United Fruit Company. The enormous power of the United Fruit Company and other companies like Chiquita and their enormous influence on politics are worth a separate blog article when the time comes.
Other “notable” dictators were: Anastasio Somoza Debayle and the current dictator Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Tiburcio Carías Andino and Juan Manuel Gálvez in Honduras, who acted as stooges for the United Fruit Company. Manuel Noriega, who ruled Panama with the help of the military after the mysterious death of Omar Torrijo in 1981.

Civil wars

There have been many civil wars in Central America over the last two centuries, most of them arising from the conflict between liberals and conservatives, which has been the subject here several times now. The differences have been so great since the beginning of independence that the losing party often saw no other means than to take up arms, and conversely the governments often took up arms and involved the military to keep the opposing side and the population under control. I will also refrain from giving a complete overview of the civil wars and will only give a few examples that give a good representation of the motives and behaviour of the various parties.
In Nicaragua, a first civil war began as early as 1856, in which the liberals called the American adventurer William Walker to their aid, who intervened with a small private army and gave the liberals an advantage, but at a high price: Walker sought power not only in Nicaragua but in all of Central America. Only the combined forces of the Central American states could stop Walker, who later made two more attempts at conquest and was executed in Honduras in 1860.
In Costa Rica, after violent elections and electoral fraud, there was a six-week civil war in 1948 with about 2000 deaths. In 1949 there was a peace treaty and a short time later Costa Rica abolished its military.
In Guatemala, a bloody civil war began in 1960 and lasted until 1996. After the liberal president Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was violently overthrown by conservative forces in 1954, one conservative military dictatorship after another followed, reversing all liberal reforms (such as the partial expropriation of the United Fruit Company). In 1960, the oppressed liberals saw no other option than to go into armed resistance, which emanated especially from the indigenous regions of the country. The military reacted harshly, bombing its own people a few times. Paramilitary groups were formed and, especially under General Efraín Ríos Montt, the fight against the insurgents developed into genocide against indigenous people in particular. The war cost at least 200,000 Guatemalans their lives and made over 1 million refugees. According to the Commission for Historical Clarification, government troops and allied paramilitaries were responsible for 93% of the deaths, while 3% were attributed to guerrilla movements.
In El Salvador, too, severe repression by a conservative military dictatorship led to a civil war in 1980 that lasted until 1991. The armed guerrilla troops united under the name FMLN and fought against the government and paramilitaries. 1 – 2 million left El Salvador, many of them for the USA.
Of the at least 75,000 deaths, 85% are attributed to the military and pro-government death squads and only 5% can be attributed to the FMLN guerrillas. The civil war ended in 1992 with the peace treaty of Chapultepec and the FMLN was formed into a party that won the presidential elections in El Salvador twice in 2009 and 2014.

Gangs and drug mafia as a continuation of violence

In recent years, the violence of the ideological clashes has found its continuation in the proliferation of the gangs (called maras in some countries) and drug mafias. As in Mexico, where drug crime has become the main problem in the last 50 years, many hostile gangs developed in Central America, fighting violently for power in the drug market, but also against governments for power.
This situation escalated in El Salvador in particular, so I would like to use El Salvador as an example in this case.
After the civil war and peace agreement of 1992, many of the former guerrillas and paramilitaries were unemployed and quickly found the drug business as a niche where their “skills” and ways of doing things were useful. At that time, there were at least 1 million weapons in circulation in El Salvador. In addition, there were many repatriated Salvadorans who had “failed” in the USA and thus no longer found a home in their country of origin. It was precisely this home that the maras gave them, so that the cruelly acting gangs quickly found an influx. From some local reports I heard that initiation rituals into the maras often consisted of the new member standing in a circle and being beaten up by those present. In other gangs, you had to murder at least one person to belong to the gang.
Thus, violence in El Salvador escalated until it reached its (statistical) peak in 2015, when the murder rate in El Salvador rose to over 100 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Although it decreased somewhat in the following years, the situation remained out of control. Some Salvadorans told me about that time: Millions of them had to pay protection money to the respective mara (there were different gangs controlling different parts of the country). Here, protection money meant not so much that the maras protected you from others, but rather that they did not kill you. For example, one taxi driver told me that he had to pay 10 dollars a week, which is a lot of money for him. Others told me that being found in another town could be enough for the gang to kill you on the spot because you were not from there.
In 2019, Nayib Bukele was elected president in El Salvador. During the election campaign, he had announced a rigorous fight against gang crime. However, he had concealed from the population that he already had agreements with the maras that he would leave them alone if they behaved more inconspicuously and less murderously. Such agreements had been tried by other presidents before him and Buke’s attempt only reduced the violence for a while. After a very bloody weekend with over 80 deaths in March 2022, Bukele did a 180° turn and declared war on the maras. He had parliament declare a state of emergency, which he will only end when all the maras’ members are in prison. He tightened the conditions in the prisons and imprisoned thousands of people who were even associated with the maras. For example, I was told that it was enough to have a fake tattoo, the identifying mark of a gang, to be put in prison without trial. Human rights organisations criticise Bukule’s actions and estimate that at least 3000 innocent people are in prison. And the conditions are degrading. Bukele promised several times that the gang members would “never see the daylight again” in their lives and the pictures he posted from the prisons on social media went around the world. Relatively speaking, no other country has as many people in prison as El Salvador: 1086 per 100,000 inhabitants.
But the murder rate and crime in El Salvador fell drastically last year! The protection money from the gangs has disappeared, millions of people feel safe again and see that tourism is also making its way back into their country. Internationally, Bukele’s actions are the subject of much debate, and inevitably the difficult question arises as to whether the end justifies the means. I don’t want to allow myself a personal opinion here, but the population answers the question quite clearly: over 90% are in favour of the measures and support Bukele. His popularity is so enormous that he is increasingly becoming an authoritarian ruler. Like so many Central American presidents before him, he has a taste for power and will try to overturn the law that prevents his re-election next year: In Central America, the re-election of presidents is traditionally forbidden by law, a fact that many rulers have refused to acknowledge. It remains exciting to see how El Salvador will develop in the next few years and what the international reactions will be. The USA in particular has many interests in El Salvador and has historically often interfered in Central America when a development did not please them. However, they should like the developments of the last year, as the economy in El Salvador is flourishing (there are many US companies in El Salvador) and a safer El Salvador may enable them to deport more Salvadorans.

US interference

Not only in El Salvador is the influence of the USA enormous, but actually everywhere in Central America there are many US-American companies, such as mining companies, which have become so widespread in the last two centuries since independence that in Honduras, for example, there has been some talk of a colony-like dependency. Often, the North American companies were lured by generous concessions and the US government ensured that the respective rulers profited from the profits of the US corporations or otherwise received US support.
Thus, the USA interfered everywhere it could and decisively shaped the course of history in Central America in its favour.
In doing so, they did not miss any opportunity to intervene militarily in the countries if this could be justified internationally to some extent.
In Nicaragua, for example, the US Marines saved the conservative government of Diaz from the rebellious liberals in 1912. Only a year earlier, Diaz had borrowed millions from US banks and given the US direct control over Nicaragua’s customs revenues as collateral. The Marines remained in the country until 1933, supporting the conservative governments against liberal rebels until a peace treaty was signed in 1933 between the government and liberal leader Augusto Cesar Sandino, who had dealt the Marines some stinging defeats in the years before. Sandino and his men laid down their arms and the US left Nicaragua (not without first training the National Guard). Sandino and his generals were assassinated shortly afterwards and the Somoza family (close associates) were able to establish their family dictatorship.
It was not until 1979 that Somoza’s rule came to an end and the liberal movement “Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional” (FSLN) came to power, creating a new constitution and whose socialist programme was initially well received by the population. But it did not take long for the USA to intervene. Ever since the Truman Doctrine in the Cold War, the USA had been trying to overthrow any government that even appeared to be socialist in order to limit Russia’s influence. With illegal arms sales to Iran, the USA made money that it gave to the so-called Contras in Nicaragua, who were fighting against the socialist government – the so-called Iran-Contras affair, which older readers here may still remember. And the plan worked, the instability created (also due to a US embargo) caused the FSLN to lose the 1990 presidential elections. Incidentally, in the aftermath of the Iran-Contras affair, the US was fined $2.4 billion by the International Court of Justice, which the US has still not paid.

Another prominent example of US interference is the PBSUCCESS mission in Guatemala. The overthrow of the above-mentioned Guatemalan president Arbenz, whose liberal reforms were detrimental to US companies among others, was largely engineered by the USA. To this end, they stationed soldiers in both Honduras and Nicaragua, who willingly made their territory available and from there supported the military coup of the later dictator Carlos Castillo Armas. Several unidentified aircraft that bombed Guatemala City in 1954 were subsequently identified beyond doubt as US planes. The United Fruit Company may also have had a hand in the war against liberal reforms, since they were restricted by them, but CIA documents published after the fact make the UFC’s influence seem rather slight. But more on this in a blog article about the UFC, Chiquita and Co. in due course.
A last of many other examples of US military interventions in Central America and the resulting economic interests is the Panama Canal. When the USA wanted to continue the construction of the canal, which had been left fallow by France, at the beginning of the 20th century, Colombia, to which Panama belonged at the time, did not agree. Without further ado, the USA sent its military to Panama and supported Panama in its independence. In the process, they secured all the rights and profits to the canal, which they did not relinquish until the year 2000! You can read more about this in my article on Panama.

A short side fact for German readers: In 1878, there was a German military intervention in Nicaragua after an attack on the German consul in León, the so-called Eisenstuck Affair. However, this was not about economic interests or long-term influence in Central America, but about a family feud.

Conflicts between the countries and union against Walker

Most of the (warlike) conflicts since the peaceful disintegration of the Central American Federation have been within the respective states, but there are also individual examples of wars between states – mostly over the interpretation of borders and interests in the border area.
In 1863, Guatemala joined forces with Costa Rica in a border conflict after suffering a severe defeat in the war with El Salvador. El Salvador sought support from Nicaragua and Honduras, but was unable to prevent Guatemalan troops from entering the capital San Salvador. Guatemala strengthened its then supremacy in Central America, but San Salvador lasted only for a short time.
In February 1921, a dispute between Costa Rica and Panama escalated, with Costa Rican troops capturing the town of Coto from Panama, whose allegiance had not been clarified since independence. Since Panama did not have an army at the time, policemen were used to push back the invaders. After some minor fighting with casualties, the USA ended the war, called “Guerra de Coto”, with the arrival of the battleship USS Pennsylvania. This so-called gunboat policy was especially popular in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century: by the appearance of one or more gunboats and the accompanying threats, superior states such as the USA demonstrated their power and, as a rule, conflicts were ended in this way before the gunboats were actually used. Incidentally, this is also how Germany ended the “Eisenstruck affair” mentioned above. Costa Rica reported 31 dead soldiers and one civilian casualty in the short Coto war, Panama reported only casualties.
In 1969, there was the “100-hour war” between El Salvador and Honduras, this time not a border conflict, but about 300,000 small farmers who had emigrated from El Salvador to Honduras and were increasingly a thorn in the side of the Honduran government. In 1969, Honduras gave the migrants 30 days to leave the country. El Salvador protested, mainly because the small country is much more densely populated than Honduras. On the Honduran side, the paramilitary terrorist group “Mancha Brava” formed, which increasingly hunted Salvadorans. After a World Cup qualifying match between the two countries in Mexico City, there were riots with several fatalities, as a result of which war broke out, also called the “football war”. The Salvadoran troops quickly advanced far into Honduras. But the looming defeat of Honduras was prevented by the Organisation of American States (OAS), which intervened in the war and singled out El Salvador as the aggressor. The Salvadoran military was forced to retreat without their most important demand, the cessation of persecution of Salvadorans, being met. In the following years, tens of thousands of Salvadorans returned to their homeland.

Repression and killing of indigenous people

Not only did the indigenous people in Central America have a hard time, as they were almost exterminated by the Spanish during the colonial period and their identity (cities, temples, cultural sites) was partially destroyed, but also after independence from Spain, the indigenous people, who were clearly outnumbered, were repeatedly oppressed and fought against as such a minority. The process was often similar, although of course not identical: the rural population and especially indigenous people were hardly taken into account in politics (even today, politics in Central America is extremely city-focused). When conditions became unbearable, the indigenous people revolted and their uprisings were put down. The uprising was then subsequently instrumentalised by the government and military to justify further persecution and murder of indigenous people.
In 1881, for example, in Nicaragua, an agrarian reform for privatisation forced many indigenous people into forced labour, so they fought back with an uprising from Matagalpa, which was brutally put down by the conservative government.
Under the conservative dictator Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez mentioned above, there was a bloody suppression of the indigenous Pibil uprising in 1932, which marked the end of indigenous cultures in El Salvador! The Pibil were wiped out by the military and it was reported that people were killed solely because of language or dress.
In Honduras, the fight against indigenous people was not so open, but Battalion 316 in particular was accused of serious human rights violations, torture and murder against hundreds of Hondurans during the conservative dictatorship. The battalion was trained by the CIA, among others.
But it was not only conservative forces that oppressed the indigenous people. The Sandinistas, who came to power through the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, established torture, disappearances and mass executions of Miskito indigenous people. A general forced labour system was also put in place for the indigenous population.

Today’s situation

Finally, I would like to give a brief overview of the current political situation in Central America.
Not only El Salvador under Nayib Bukele is drifting further and further towards autocracy/dictatorship, but also in Guatemala such a development towards right-wing authoritarianism can be observed in the last election periods. It will be exciting to see how Guatemala develops under the new, left-wing president Bernardo Arévalo. Arévalo surprisingly won the run-off election in August. He is the son of the well-known ex-president Juan José Arévalo, who was Guatemala’s first democratically elected and liberal president in 1945. At the same time, the judiciary recently suspended his party “Semilla”. If this remains the case until he takes office in January, Arévalo will have no faction behind him. The current ruling conservative political elite, known as the “Pact of Corruption”, which has infiltrated much of the judiciary, is suspected to be behind the suspension.
At the same time, Guatemala strongly reflects the trend in Central America that the original two-party system with conservatives and liberals is passé. Guatemala currently has 18 parties in parliament.
As of 2023, Honduras is so strongly characterised by gangs and their violence that the extent is sometimes described as war-like. This is one of the main reasons why Honduras is one of the main countries of origin for migrants in the USA, as many want to prevent their sons from being recruited or their daughters from being sexually abused. According to the United Nations, 400,000 of the approximately 9.7 million inhabitants live as internally displaced persons in their own country.
Nicaragua has been under a dictatorship for several years by Daniel Ortega, who was already president for the FSLN revolutionary party from 1985 to 1990. He was re-elected president in 2006 and in recent years has developed the country into exactly the form of government he had fought against during the revolution. In 2011, he should not have been re-elected according to the constitution, but a controversial court decision allowed him to run again. In 2014, he then had the ban on re-election removed and the following elections were almost certainly rigged. Press freedom and freedom of expression are severely restricted in Nicaragua and in 2018, nationwide protests were put down with live ammunition. As Ortega’s health has deteriorated in recent years, his wife and vice-president Rosario Murillo has increasingly taken over the reins of government.

But there is also a positive example of stability in Central America: Costa Rica. After individual violent episodes, the country developed into a success story in the second half of the 20th century. President José Figueres Ferrer had the army abolished by constitution in 1949. Since then, border protection tasks have been taken over by the police, and the USA and other American states gave military security guarantees through the Inter-American Treaty on Mutual Assistance (TIAR Pact).
In 1983, Costa Rica then proclaimed the country’s permanent, active and unarmed neutrality. This is why Costa Rica is also called the Switzerland of Latin America. The money that has been saved for the military since 1949 has been invested in education and health care, which is why the country has developed a high standard in these areas in particular. Due to political stability, Costa Rica has also become a highly visited country and, through tourism, has achieved a level of prosperity that the other countries of Central America dream of.

If you want to know more about the Darién-gap and why it is dangerous for refugees, you can read here in my blog: About the Darién-gap

General Advices

1. It is possible and it’s not dangerous, you just need time and might get quite wet, so raincover is a must I would say.

2. The trip should definitely cost less than 200 $, you can even get it for less than 100 with a bit of luck or time. I’ll explain the costs below.

3. Speaking Spanish helps (like everywhere in Latinamerica), but you will also solve it without.

4. The route is from Panama City to Carti (San Blas Port), then with one or several boats to Puerto Obaldia where you check out of Panamá. Next boat to Capurgana in Colombia to get your passport stamped again and then you take a ferry to Necocli or Turbo from where you can take buses or hitchhike.

5. This whole trip can take 2 days if everything works very well, but I would at least calculate 3-4 days. Especially if you try to save money.

6. Of course you can also hitchhike on this route but I don’t know how long this will take because normally all the boats along the coast take money (except for the police). For hitchhiking you should frequent sailing boat marinas which are located in other places.

Now let’s come to the route:

Panama City to Carti

There are Jeeps which cost 30 $ from Panama City to Carti.
But you can also take a bus from the bus station Albrook to El Llano for 2,5 $ and from there you take a Taxi Collectivo or you hitchhike which worked perfectly fine for me.

Carti to Puerto Obaldia

This is the longest part which is also most expensive and complicated, because there are many options:
There are two different boats which drive every 5 – 10 days from Carti to Puerto Obaldia.  If you contact them with anticipation, this is the easiest way! It should cost 100 $. Contact me, if you want their contact. (kai-echelmeyer (at) web.de)
If not with them, you have to work your way along the coast. If you find a boat to Armila, Caledonia or Coetupo, that’s perfect because from these places it’s not far to Puerto Obaldia. But not every day a boat leaves to these destinations. As Carti is only the port and people live on the islands, staying there over night is quite expensive.
But from Carti it is easy to go to Narganá, which is already 1,5 hours in the right direction. In Narganá people were super friendly to me and sleeping there is cheaper than at Carti. (Hostal Noris 15$)
Normally the boats from Carti along the coast stop in Narganá and there’s also boats starting from Narganá. Just ask your way through.
It can happen that a boat from Carti does not stop at Narganá. So happened to me. But then I got an even better option.
Two cheaper options:
1. There are merchant boats which travel from village to village. This is cheaper, maybe you can even hitchhike it. But they take several days or even longer than a week. If you have time, I think this must be amazing because you get to know the little villages along the coast.
2. The border police sometimes travels from Narganá to Puerto Obaldia and then they also take guests – for free!!! I went with them and so I saved around 80 $ 😍 For this option ask your way through to the border police station in Narganá.

Puerto Obaldia to Capurganá

Important that you first get your stamp to leave Panamá! You need a copy of your passport at the migration but there’s a copy shop in front.
Boats to Capurgana take around 20 min and leave quite often. You pay 20 – 25 per person if you go with others. And ~40 if its only you.

Capurgana – Necocli or Turbo

The last boat you have to take!
There are several ferries, quick and cost 85.000 COP.
Important again that you first get your stamp to enter Colombia. Often the electricity fails, so you might have to wait at migration office a bit.
If you have to stay in Capurgana, Marlin Azul is a quite cheap hostel.

Enjoy the trip, it’s an amazing experience and I met super nice people 😊

If you’re searching for an instruction in detail, how to get from Panama to Colombia or the other way around, check this out.

The Darién Gap and the dangers of the jungle for refugees

And the jungle is not entirely penetrable after all, and those who see no other option still cross it: fugitives, people who are denied legal routes to Panama, in recent years mainly from Venezuela, followed by Haiti, Ecuador and Colombia, but there are also larger numbers of people from Asia, e.g. India, Bangladesh & Afghanistan, or Africa, e.g. Senegal, Cameroon or Somalia. Especially with Haiti, I had a question mark during the research, the country is much closer to the USA than the Darién Gap. But many people from Haiti had fled to South America after the severe earthquake in 2010, but are facing more and more problems here and are therefore looking for the way to the USA. In 2021, around 60% of Haitians crossed the Darién Gap.
Tens of thousands of the refugees try to cross the Darién Gap overland in order to travel on from Panama towards the USA (at least most of them). Apart from the fact that they still have a long journey through Central America ahead of them and that many are picked up and mistreated at the border to the USA, the Darién Gap is probably the most dangerous part of this journey. For on the more than 100km long odyssey through the jungle there are not only many dangerous animals such as snakes, lack of food/drinking water and diseases such as yellow fever, but also various criminal gangs such as paramilitaries (e.g. Gulf Clan), guerrillas (e.g. FARC) and drug gangs, who make money by smuggling people and unscrupulously deal with the fugitives, steal from them, rape them, etc. The Darién Gap is a very dangerous place.
Although there are certainly other routes, the main route is via the Colombian town of Necoclí, where I also arrived by boat. There, the fugitives often have to wait for weeks to be taken by boat to Acandí, where they begin the trek through the jungle that leads them to Bajo Chiquito, where they are cared for by aid organisations like MSF or UNICEF if they make it there.
One mother reported that she paid 4000 US dollars to be guided through the jungle with her children and mother-in-law, but that the guide left her alone after two days and turned around with the money.
According to the government of Panama, about 248,000 people crossed the Darién Gap in 2022, including more than 40,000 children. Ten years ago, the number was just a few hundred. And in 2023, the previous year’s figure was already surpassed by the end of July, according to the deputy director of the Panamanian Migration Authority. According to her, about 20% were minors.
According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), at least 36 people died in 2022 trying to cross the Darién Gap, but the dark figure will be far higher, as most people lost in the jungle do not reappear. With the reported missing, the number rises to 137. And even the IOM itself states that these are only the registered ones and that the dark figure is likely to be many times higher.
There are many articles and also videos on the subject that I have read and I would like to recommend the following to you if you want to read further:
https://www.cfr.org/article/crossing-darien-gap-migrants-risk-death-journey-us

By boat from Panama to Colombia!

The goal of this trip is clearly to travel sustainably, which is why I hitchhiked across the Atlantic in boats, why I didn’t buy a van, but travel by hitchhiking or in a coach, and why it was clear to me that I didn’t want to fly from Panama to Colombia.
The Darién Gap doesn’t make that easy and on top of that there was a certain time pressure to meet my sister in Colombia. Looking for a boat to hitchhike with was therefore out of the question, because you always need time for that and the route from Panama to Colombia is not that busy with private sailboats (a lot of tourist sailboats that cost 500 euros or more).
Luckily, through our large Hitchhiker community, I knew several who had already made this trip with speedboats along the coast, because there is no ferry (anymore). Really crazy and fatal for the climate.
But there are some small coastal towns along the coast of Panama that can only be reached by boat because of the Darién Gap (some of them possibly by plane). This means that the people from there travel by boat and that the supply of food also mainly works by boat. And if there are boats that travel along the coast, then there is also the possibility to travel there.
To travel along the coast, you first have to go from Panama City to the port of Cartí, which you can reach by jeep. I took the bus as far as I could and then hitchhiked the rest of the way to Cartí.
I had previously received two contacts of boats that go directly from Cartí to the border. However, they don’t run very regularly and I would have had to wait over a week, which I didn’t have. So I set off on the unknown journey in the hope of finding boats along the coast.
On the first day it went very well, I not only made it from Panama City to Cartí, but also from there to Nargana. I was able to get on a boat full of petrol cans, a boat full of food could have taken me otherwise.
Nargana is a small town on two islands connected by a bridge. I spent a very nice evening there with the locals, who were super sweet. By asking around, I found out that a boat would have to come by the next day and that it would leave an hour before the border. The rest would have been a piece of cake, but unfortunately, contrary to what all the locals said, the boat did not stop in Naraganá and passed by. My only chance was gone and I was a bit depressed. I would have to stay in Narganá for another day and if I kept moving so slowly, I would miss my sister’s birthday in Colombia….
But then a man gave me a crucial tip: the border police have a base in Narganá and sometimes drive to the border. So I went there and sure enough, the next day a boat went to the border that could take me. Not only was I back in the running to get to Colombia on time, but I also saved myself 80 dollars that I would otherwise have paid for the boat.
In the afternoon I was invited to a birthday party and two public parties in Narganá and I will keep the village in very good memory. The teacher David invited me to his house, where I stayed overnight, and the next day I took two police boats to Puerto Obaldia at the border. The trip was really something. Not only were we shaken by waves, but we also got caught in a thunderstorm, were completely soaked for over 30 minutes and the driver didn’t know where he was going. But in the end I arrived safely, albeit soaking wet, in Puerto Obaldia, was able to pick up my stamp and take another boat across the border to Capurganá, the first town in Colombia. There I got my entry stamp for Colombia and the next day I took a ferry to Necocli and from there a bus to Barranquilla, where I arrived at the bar an hour before my sister’s birthday so that we could celebrate it together.

If you’re searching for an instruction in detail, how to get from Panama to Colombia or the other way around, check this out.

If you are interested in the Darién-gap, how to cross it in boats and why it is dangerous for refugees, then checkout this blog entry.

Two Paradise Places in Panama

Before I get to the Panama Canal, first a report on two beautiful places I visited in Panama.
I crossed the border into Panama from Costa Rica in the northwest. So a visit to the islands of Bocas del Toro was a good idea.
Bocas del Toro is the name of a region of Panama and its capital on the island of Colón. But travellers usually use the name synonymously for the islands of the region.
A short digression: one island translates as Columbus, another as Christopher. I find it frightening and disconcerting that there are many places in Central America that are still named after Columbus, after the suffering that he and the Spanish brought. This is a clear sign that history is far from having been dealt with. For example, the currency of Costa Rica is also called Colón and there is a bus line from Guatemala called Cristobál Colón.
Fortunately, there are many other islands in the corner and the most beautiful ones had other names.
I arrived on a Thursday in the town of Bocas del Toro, which is known for its nightlife, and had to decide right away if I wanted to join the legendary Filthy Friday: every Friday, there is a very popular party on three different islands, which is celebrated as the best party in Central America (among tourists) with the Sunday Funday in Nicaragua. The party starts at 11 am and you are driven to different locations. In the end, the price of 45 dollars (drinks not included, only shots) kept me away. I would have found it exciting, but I probably would have raised the age average 😀
At the same time, I met a group of four super cool Spaniards with whom I went on a boat tour and then partied in the evening. The boat trip was super cool and we got along very well. The highlight was the breathtakingly beautiful island “Zapatillos”, where only the 12 people from our boat were! I played the guitar on the boat trips and we also went snorkelling. Since the food was super expensive and I had no preparation time, Ines, Monika, Azier and Pablo shared their lunch with me. The 4 of them were really super sweet and we spent some time together the next day too!

On the second full day, I explored Colón Island and did a beautiful hike to Starfish Beach. All the beaches along the way were empty and paradise-like. Only the starfish beach itself was full of tourists who are brought here in boats. But I could see really big starfish 🙂
In the evening, I met Alessandro from Switzerland, whom I had met in Costa Rica, and after a second long evening in Bocas del Toro, I drove on to the Lost & Found Hostel the next day. The hostel was started a few years ago by two Canadians and is located in the middle of the rainforest at an altitude of 1250 metres. Since I had heard a lot of good things about the hostel and I like remote hostels because of the family atmosphere, I stopped by for two nights and had a very good time. Located in the middle of the jungle, but at the same time in the mountains, the hostel offers really fantastic views and great hiking opportunities. In the evening, all the guests have dinner together.
The first day I chilled in the hostel and did a short hike in the rainforest and the second day I went on a trip with 4 other travellers: first to a beautiful 40m high waterfall and then to a small natural canyon to cool down. At the waterfall we were the only ones and at the canyon there were about 10 other people, so we really enjoyed these two wonderful places!

From Lost & Found, I hitchhiked in the evening to the city of David, where I met Alessandro one last time and then took the night bus to Panama City.

The Panama Canal and its difficult history

Shortly after the Spanish arrived in Costa Rica and Panama, the officer Vasco Nunez de Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean, which he then called the “Southern Ocean”. That’s what many texts say, but of course it’s bullshit. Thousands of indigenous people had already seen the Pacific before him, but they were not white Europeans. In fact, Balboa was only able to travel to the Pacific through the descriptions of indigenous people.
Be that as it may, it was only a short time later that the idea of a canal through Central America first arose. At that time, however, a breakthrough in Nicaragua was actually favoured, as it would be possible to reach Lake Cocibolca via the Rio San Juan, and then only about 20 km would have to be bridged to the Pacific.
However, it was to take almost 400 years before the idea of a canal through Central America became a reality in Panama. The fact that it did not happen in Nicaragua was mainly due to border conflicts with Costa Rica at the time, as the San Juan River separates the two countries. And of course, the interests of the USA played a major role, which helped Panama gain independence at the beginning of the twentieth century and was able to assert its influence there more clearly.
In 1881, a French delegation began construction of a canal with the consent of Colombia, to which Panama still belonged at the time. After the economic success of the Suez Canal, opened in 1869, many in France assumed that it would be similarly possible to build a lock-free canal in Panama. But after many discussions in parliament and several investment extensions, they had to realise that it was not possible without locks. Together with Gustave Eiffel, locks were then to be built. But in 1889, the French finally stopped the construction work after planning deficiencies, wrong geological investigations, bad planning, bribery and numerous mishaps. Last but not least, a mass death contributed to this. At least 22,000 people died of malaria or yellow fever during construction between 1881 and 1889, diseases that were not yet known or researched at the time. French doctors recommended that workers’ bedposts be placed in buckets of water, but these buckets became breeding grounds for the malaria mosquitoes, which only made the spread more rapid.
For 3 apples and 1 egg, the US bought the previous advances from the French canal company in the late 19th century. When Colombia objected and refused to allow the USA to build the canal, the USA marched unceremoniously into what is now Panama and declared its independence (of course, this is a somewhat abbreviated version, but that is roughly what happened). In the so-called Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, the USA secured unrestricted control of the entire canal area of approx. 84,000 hectares, which it only ceded in full to Panama in 1999. In return, they guaranteed Panama’s independence.
In 1914, the USA finished construction work on the canal and the first ship to cross the canal was a small freighter named “Cristobal” (as usual). On the same day (3 August), the First World War broke out, so the celebrations were postponed.

The canal quickly became very busy and has become one of the most important waterways in the world, indispensable for world trade. The lack of alternatives to the canal is also noticeable in the exorbitant prices to cross it (about 2000 dollars for a sailboat alone), from which mainly the USA profited for decades. Today, the canal is by far the most important source of income for Panama and ensures that the capital, with its many bank towers, does not look like a classic Central American capital.

Off through the canal

To cross the canal, you have to go through 3 locks up into Gatun Lake, then travel 82km and then 3 locks down again. To allow ships to sail in both directions at the same time, there are a pair of locks in each direction. In addition, newer locks were completed a few years ago, so that there are 18 locks in total, but as mentioned, you only pass through 6 of them.
Depending on the time of day you cross the canal (you have to register days in advance), you anchor and spend the night in Gatun Lake and the pilot comes back on board the next morning. It’s a bit different for container ships, which usually also sail through at night, but then pay more for the pilot who works at night. This is because container ships are much faster than sailing boats through the Channel, and the aim is to arrive at a destination as quickly as possible in order to deliver goods worth enormous sums of money.
A pilot is compulsory, by the way, and one of the reasons why it is so expensive to cross the Channel. In shipping, a pilot is a person who comes on board a ship to give advice on how the ship should manoeuvre for a difficult passage. This can be the entrance to a large harbour or even a canal.
All quite exciting, I thought, when I came to Panama and I knew I wanted to try to go through the canal in a boat. I didn’t have much time, but I was very lucky 🙂
When I arrived in Panama City, I just put my things down and went to Shelter Bay Marina, which, unlike Panama City, is on the Caribbean side of the canal. The marina is quite remote and was inconvenient to get to and could only be reached by hitchhiking (taxis were out of the question for me, both because of the price and for environmental reasons).
When I arrived at the port at 1pm, it took me only an hour to find a boat that was going into the canal the same day. I got on well with the captain, Henrik from South Africa, but he then told me that he had already signed up 5 people for the canal. But when I talked to his crew for a while on the jetty and had a good chat with them, he fortunately changed his mind and it was no problem afterwards that there was one more person on board. Half an hour later at 3pm we were off! Together with Steven, also from South Africa, Louise from England, Laura from France and Max from Germany, we made our way through the Channel. Max and Laura also hitchhiked across the Atlantic in sailboats and we have some mutual friends. So we got along great and had a good time.
The trip through the canal took longer than I thought, because the pure travel time is about 8 hours. We had to wait for the pilot at the locks for about 2 hours, so it was already dark when we went through the locks. The locks are definitely the most exciting part of the canal. We went through the locks together with a large container ship, a motor yacht and a sailing boat. The container ship in front of us, so it couldn’t be pushed on us from behind. We went through with the other sailing boat in a pack, which means that we tied ourselves to each other. So, as the right-hand of the two boats, we only had to take two lines from starboard and the other boat only from port. The lines are attached to our boat and to the edge of the lock so that we are not pressed against the walls in the strong current created by the inflowing water. On the container ships, these lines are not handled by people but by large machines that run alongside on rails.

When we had passed the three locks and were about 30m higher, we sailed to a buoy where we moored for the night and the pilot disembarked. The next morning we were supposed to be ready at 6:30am and got up early, but we had to wait until 9am for the pilot to come and then we still had to sail the 82km through the canal. So we didn’t arrive at the locks until around afternoon, which then took us down into the Pacific. Here we were watched by many tourists from a grandstand and as the currents are different when going down the locks, this time there was a big container ship behind us instead of in front of us. Our view over the locks was phenomenal.
All in all, the trip through the canal was an absolutely thrilling experience and a real highlight for me as a sailor! It’s impressive what engineers were already able to build at the b

The Categories

We considered the following categories and then awarded the prizes:
Best Food, Greatest Beaches, Most Impressive Fauna, Biggest Surprise, All-Around Highlight, Most Beautiful Flora, Most Fantastic Underwater World, Friendliest People, Greatest Waterfalls, Most Spectacular Volcano, Most Beautiful Accommodation, Most Wonderful Sunsets, Best Atmosphere, Most Beautiful Island, Best Transport, Most Impressive Archaeological Site, Most Beautiful City.
One more note: Of course, these are all our personal impressions and we haven’t seen every corner of all these countries. If you go there, you might get different impressions, but that’s normal when travelling anyway. Let’s start with the award ceremony:

Best Food: Mexico

The best food is without a doubt in Mexico – and by far! There is street food on every corner and good vegetarian dishes were also easy to find. So far, nothing in Latin America comes close to tacos, quesadillas and the like, and even in a global comparison, Mexico’s diverse cuisine doesn’t have to hide.Our favourite on the Yucatán peninsula, which is also known within Mexico for its spectacular food, was panuchos.For this, a fresh tortilla is filled with bean paste, deep-fried and then topped with bean paste, meat and salad. Instead of the meat, we usually ordered cheese and we really couldn’t get enough of it!
Another culinary highlight were the pupusas in El Salvador – a slightly thicker corn dough that is filled with everything and then fried like a tortilla. My favourites were with bean puree and cheese or with jalapenos. In the other Central American countries, it was sometimes more difficult to find a vegetarian dish besides rice with beans and we cooked even more ourselves.

Most amazing Beaches: Mexico & Costa Rica

A split prize, because we couldn’t decide between Costa Rica and Mexico. In Mexico, we were most enthusiastic about the beaches on the island of Holbox, but Tulum, for example, also has beautiful beaches. The only thing that prevents Mexico from winning is the amount of seaweed that washes up on the shore. Costa Rica doesn’t have this problem, especially not on the Pacific coast (Mexico doesn’t have seaweed on the Pacific either and I personally find the beaches of Oaxaca even more beautiful, but we weren’t there this time).We especially liked the beaches at Uvita and Esterillos Oeste in Costa Rica!Costa Rica is definitely worth a visit, but keep in mind that Costa Rica is very expensive.

Most impressive Fauna: Costa Rica

If we had to pick just one place, it would be the national park around the Mayan ruin of Tikal in Guatemala. There we saw different species of monkeys, raccoons & various birds and you can also spot crocodiles there.
But as a country, Costa Rica clearly wins this category. Our discoveries were: 4 monkey species, 2 sloth species, crocodiles, snakes, a tarantula, aguti (rodents), frogs, stick insects, hummingbirds and some other birds.Even though the national parks are particularly good for observing animals, we found most of them outside because we looked for them through tips, e.g. there is a hummingbird café near Monteverde National Park where you can observe tens of hummingbirds while drinking coffee.

Biggest Surprise: El Salvador

El Salvador was not on our list from the beginning, rather we wanted to see if there was time for it or not. But after some reports from other travellers, it was clear that we wanted to make at least one stopover there. And the country really convinced us! The nature was absolutely impressive.Especially the Santa Ana volcano and the seven waterfalls of Jacua are spectacular. I have already written about the super delicious pupusas. But above all, the people were incredibly nice! More on this below.
The politics of the current president, Nayib Bukele, can be criticised with absolute justification (I will in the next entry), as he rules in a very authoritarian way and has imprisoned tens of thousands of suspected gang members without trial. But he has the population on his side, because they feel safe again after years of terror by the gangs and no longer have to pay protection money. They are also happy about more and more visitors. In the near future, it will probably be a good time to visit El Salvador, since the country is not yet touristised and overcrowded.

Friendliest People: El Salvador

All in all, we had almost exclusively beautiful encounters with the people in Latin America and met many hospitable, warm and wonderful people.
But as we have already mentioned, the people in El Salvador seemed particularly attentive, courteous and friendly. A big factor here is certainly the country’s dark recent past, which in 2015 still had the highest murder rate in the world. You can literally see the people’s relief that the murder rate has dropped and that they want to do everything they can to ensure that visitors take away a good impression and talk well about the country. No matter who we asked for help, the people were absolutely willing to help and often offered help without being asked. Not only that no bus driver charged a higher price for our backpacks than for locals. When I once misunderstood the price and gave him four times the amount, he pointed it out to me instead of pocketing the 2 dollars. I think I’ve developed a pretty good radar for when someone is ripping me off, lying to me, etc. (I don’t have a problem with paying more than locals, but rather with dishonesty), but in El Salvador the radar didn’t go off at all. Absolutely recommended if you come to Central America!

Allround-Highlight: Guatemala

Both of us were looking forward to the volcanoes and landscapes of Guatemala before the trip and we were absolutely not disappointed, quite the opposite: the home of the quetzal (paradisiacal bird and the currency of the same name) was definitely the highlight in Central America! Guatemala simply offers everything: spectacular volcanoes, some of which are even still active, natural pools and waterfalls for jumping, an absolutely impressive canyon, fantastic lakes, surf beaches and indigenous Mayan culture that reaches far into everyday life. Especially the hike up the volcano Acatenango, from where we could see the volcano Fuego erupting, was probably the highlight of the trip. In Guatemala, we also had the coolest accommodation with Mexio (including a sailing boat from friends). I also really liked the pools, waterfalls and caves at Semuc Champey and Lake Atitlán! The town of Flores on a small island in Lake Petén Itza was probably one of the most beautiful towns of the trip.
As you can see, Guatemala is absolutely not to be missed!

Schönste Flora: Santa Elena, Costa Rica

This award undoubtedly goes to the cloud forest near Santa Elena and Monteverde in Costa Rica. Cloud forest means that the forest at an altitude of 1500 – 1800 metres is almost continuously shrouded in clouds. The plants here are therefore more attuned to humidity than precipitation and there are an incredible number of plants growing on other plants/trees: secondary growth. As a result, everything is really green. Besides many, many other colours in flowers and leaves. An absolutely fascinating and recommendable experience! And even though during the day the animals are well hidden and hard to find, I was able to go on a night hike in the cloud forest and observe several snakes, a tarantula and various exciting insects.

Most Fascinating Under Water World: Caye Caulker, Belize

What Costa Rica was to the animals on land, Belize was underwater! We went snorkelling in a few places, especially in Belize and Mexico. But the most fantastic was definitely on the Caribbean island of Caye Caulker, which is part of Belize. Marieke and I went snorkelling here together and saw colourful corals of all kinds, countless fish, seahorses, rays, Atlantic tarpon and nurse sharks (and dozens of them!). But while some of the animals were fed during the snorkelling tour, it was different on my two dives. Here I encountered the animals by chance. Sure, I didn’t see as many sharks, but it was much more special and a small shark followed us for over 20 minutes, probably out of curiosity. But the most special shark encounter I had was in Cozumel, Mexico. Sharks are hard to find there and when I spotted one and showed it to my instructor, even he was thrilled and for all the other divers it was the highlight of their dives.

Most amazing Waterfalls: Juayúa, El Salvador

Near the town of Santa Ana, we went on a tour with other travellers to 7 different waterfalls, following the stream that the water forms and even climbing several waterfalls ourselves. Finally, I jumped off a 5-metre waterfall and we bathed in a pool at the base of the waterfall. Even though the Naucaya waterfall in Costa Rica was more impressive as a single one, the many waterfalls in Jacua with the hike were the more amazing experience!

Most spectaculous Volcano: Acatenango/Fuego, Guatemala

An absolute highlight of the whole trip and certainly the most spectacular volcano was the Fuego in Guatemala. In a very strenuous hike, we climbed with a group of 28 people and 4 guides to the base camp of the Acatenango at 3750m. Arriving there in the afternoon, we enjoyed a fantastic view of the Fuego and saw it erupt over 10 times!
At the basecamp we had dinner and sang together around the campfire (it was super nice even without a guitar). After a short night, we climbed to the top of Acatenango at 3976m to a beautiful sunrise and enjoyed the view of the Fuego again before starting the descent.
Even though the hike was exhausting, it didn’t push me to my limits as much as I thought. Also because an extra hike at night had to be cancelled because of the weather.
But the experience was unique and the strenuous hike welded our group together so that we are still in contact with some of them.

Most Beautiful Accomodation: Hotelito Perdido, Rio Dulce, Guatemala

On Marieke’s birthday, we went by boat through the Rio Dulce and an impressive canyon to the Caribbean village of Livingston. In the afternoon, we drove back into the Rio Dulce and stayed at the Hotelito Perdido – the lost hotel, which is located directly on the river in the middle of the jungle. We chilled in hammocks by the river, went swimming and enjoyed the peace and seclusion. For dinner, which all guests eat together, we had a super tasty vegetarian lasagne and then we relaxed with a book at the end of the day. We would have loved to stay longer.

Most beautiful Sunsets: Popoyo, Nicaragua

In Popoyo on the Pacific Ocean in Nicaragua we spent three days and I went surfing there – one fateful time with my mobile phone, but that’s another story….
On the three evenings in Popoyo we saw three wonderful sunsets. Once from the beach, once from a bar on a cliff and once from the spectacular rock “Magnific Rock”. Each evening the colours were different and special! From yellow to orange to red and purple, everything was there. I think the only colour missing was green 😀

Best Atmosphere: Pepos Xul-Ha, Mexico

We had many great moments and met many wonderful people, both locals and many other travellers! The best atmosphere, we quickly agreed (as with all categories), was at the Pepos Xul-Ha accommodation in Mexico. To the south of the lagoon of the 7 shades of blue – Bacalar – is the lagoon Xul-Ha. We spent a weekend in the village of the same name and had wonderful hosts. The accommodation is right on the lagoon, but it is much quieter than in Bacalar. Even idyllic would be an understatement. In this place, even I can find inner peace.
We stayed in a small thatched hut and had a direct view of the lagoon when we got up in the morning. As it was the weekend, the hosts Sefa and Israel had family visiting. We sat down in the evening and I played the guitar. We laughed a lot and made some new Mexican friends straight away. When they came back on Sunday to spend the day at the lagoon, we stayed much longer than expected at the accommodation and they offered us a free night. The hospitality really knew no bounds and we had not been normal guests for a long time. At least, that’s not how we felt any more.
When we declined because we had already booked accommodation in Chetumal and wanted to go on to Belize the next day, they took us to our accommodation and showed us around.

Best Island: Holbox, Mexico

All my friends who have been to Holbox rave about this island, so I really wanted to go there too! And they weren’t exaggerating. Holbox is beautiful and has a great vibe. The island is located north of the Yucatán Peninsula and the inhabited part is relatively small, so you can easily reach everything by bike! There are no cars on the island, but there are lots of golf carts.
The beaches are beautiful and there are also some where there is not much going on. We found Punta Cocos particularly beautiful, where no seaweed washes up like on many others. Nearby, there is a special natural spectacle: bioluminescent little animals that glow in the water. You can only see them at night and without moonlight, so we got up at 4 am and were rewarded with a fascinating sight. We could even swim in the glowing water and had little glowing dots all over our bodies. Really a special experience.
You can also see porpoises and crocodiles on Holbox, but we didn’t want to do any of the overpriced tours. Also because we liked Holbox so much already.

Best Transport: El Salvador

The most common means of public transport in Central America is the bus, so we mainly used it to get around. Only in Guatemala did we often travel in small shuttle buses with other travellers, as the places were sometimes quite isolated. But we both didn’t like that very much, we prefer to travel cheaply and with the locals.
Mexico certainly has the most comfortable buses and they are also extremely well equipped. Often there is even WiFi. However, they are also relatively expensive.
That’s why El Salvador wins this ranking. The bus system there was very extensive, so you can really get everywhere by bus. Also, the buses are very reliable and actually left at the times we were told (approximately). And also the prices were the lowest we had. A bus ride of up to 2 hours cost between 50 and 80 cents and the drivers never asked us for more. When I once misunderstood the price and wanted to give more, the bus driver refused and did not just pocket the money.
The last argument for the buses in El Salvador is the experience. As in many other Central American countries, many chicken buses, former school buses from the USA and real old-timers drive here. Compared to Guatemala, however, the drivers were much more relaxed and not as breakneck.

Most impressive Ruins: Tikal, Guatemala

Tikal was not only the most impressive archaeological site during this trip, but for me the best I have ever visited. This is despite the fact that I have visited many archaeological sites, including the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, the Acropolis in Athens and the Modern World Wonder Chichén Itza.
Tikal was a huge Mayan city that was home to up to 50,000 people – crazy for the time! On the guided tour, which was 5 hours long, we learned a lot about the Maya and it was again impressive how advanced they were in mathematics, astronomy and co, how accurately they could predict astronomical events, for example. We would certainly be much further ahead in science today! But the Mayan ruling elite kept their knowledge to themselves in order to maintain their god status, and so with the collapse of the great Mayan empires (even before the arrival of the Spanish), much of their knowledge was lost. And so the more than 6 million Maya who still live in Guatemala, Mexico and the like today have only a fraction of the knowledge, but the customs are still very much present.
What also makes Tikal special is that it lies in the middle of the jungle. Only a small part of the city has been excavated at all, so you walk past some “hills” that are actually overgrown temples. It is also because of the nature you walk through that Tikal is so beautiful. In fact, this is why the place is not only a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but also a World Heritage Site. There’s only 38 more places in the world.

Nicest City: Valladolid, Mexico

There is a lot to criticise about the Spanish and colonisation, but the Spanish architecture was really beautiful, so for me the colonial cities are usually the most beautiful cities in Central American countries. Unfortunately, they used stones from indigenous cities for many buildings, especially churches, which they tore down. What I also don’t like is that the cities are usually completely square, which takes away the spontaneity and surprise.
But the cityscape is usually beautiful and, above all, clean! Something that unfortunately cannot be said about many other places in Central America, as many people have no sense of pollution whatsoever and literally drop their plastic waste where they no longer need it….
The houses, at least in the centre of the colonial cities, are well kept and often painted in a variety of rich colours. In some cities, there are even colour catalogues that prescribe the colours in which a house can be painted. Certain architectural styles are also prescribed.
For me, these beautiful cities include Granada & Leon in Nicaragua and Antigua & Flores in Guatemala. But what Marieke and I liked best was the city of Valladolid in Mexico. I had been there before and was a fan of the city, which is colourful and beautiful and combines many of Mexico’s special features: including the karst caves Cenotes, indigenous culture and good food!

If you’ve read this far, or even if you’ve just scrolled over the pictures, I’m glad you’ve now got a small impression of our time in Central America. It’s really only a fraction of the pictures, stories, experiences and I am infinitely grateful that I was able to see, feel and taste it all.
I can recommend any country without reservation. Please get in touch if you want tips 🙂

Mexican hospitality: 4 weeks without hunger

In Mexico, I don’t have to get used to a new currency. In Mexico, I know what I can buy where and how much it costs. I know the routes, the people, the history and politics. So on the one hand, Mexico was relaxing: I could unpack my backpack in Cardonal and not have to pack it for a fortnight.
Cardonal is a small mountain village in the state of Hidalgo. I did my voluntary service there 9 years ago and even though I know people in many other places in Mexico and have lived in some of them, Cardonal is my home in Mexico. And by the way, it is a beautiful place!
Cardonal is located at an altitude of 2000 metres in the mountains. You won’t find any forests here, but you will find all kinds of cacti and fantastic views! The people are modest and hospitable, it is not as touristy as in other parts of Mexico, but rather original. There are even still some people who don’t speak Spanish, but the indigenous language Hñahñu.

There is one tourist place, however, and what a place it is: Tolantongo and La Gloria lie on either side of a river. But the water in this river is not ice cold like that of a normal mountain river. It is warm like in a bathtub and comes out of the earth here. The fact that an approx. 6m wide river of warm water forms is actually spectacular enough, but there are several spectacular caves to discover, beautiful natural pools and, at La Gloria, a fantastic natural bath in a rock crevice! Staying here in tents by the river or natural pool is indescribable.
But, as I have been there many times before and wanted to visit as many people as possible in the 4 weeks until Marieke joined us, I didn’t go to Tolantongo or La Gloria this time. And that brings us to the beautiful and exhausting part of Mexico: the visits.
The last time I was in Mexico was four and a half years ago, before that it was a maximum of one and a half years between my visits. And so the 4 weeks were packed with countless visits to sooo many people who mean a lot to me. It was wonderful and heart-filling! But it was also exhausting.
Little sleep was matched by excessive eating, because visits to Mexico always involve food. Either they cooked for me or invited me to some restaurant. So there were days when I had two breakfasts, two lunches and of course two dinners – 6 meals is quite a challenge.
But it’s not the first time I’ve been to Mexico 😉 So I was prepared and always ate so much that it wasn’t impolite and that I quenched my appetite for this unbelievably delicious food, but never so much that I couldn’t eat any more. Nevertheless, I didn’t get hungry during the 4 weeks 😀 An expression of Mexican hospitality and also of their culture: a no is only accepted reluctantly, because people think they have done something wrong if you don’t eat. And I don’t want them to feel bad 🙂

Of village festivals, fruit wine and my first tattoo

I don’t want to and won’t bug you here with a list of the names of the 19 families or over 80 friends I visited. I’ll draw a bit of my route and the stops I made, and tell you about a few special experiences.
If I find the time, I’ll also write about 2 or 3 other projects here. The first one I’ll present below – a migrant house that feeds people travelling through Mexico to the US. This is impressive work that I would like to share with you and that you can support if you want to!
But first about my visits: when I came to Mexico from Cuba, I first visited my friend Eduardo in Cuernavaca, about 2 hours away from Mexico. I know Eduardo from my semester abroad in Mexico and was on holiday with him on the coast at that time. Like me, Eduardo studied mathematics, but even then he was a bit more alternative than his fellow students, most of whom now work for Google, Oracle and the like. Eduardo is passionate about juggling and parcour and two years ago he discovered a new passion with which he wants to build up his own business: he ferments different fruit wines and they are really mega delicious!
After 3 days with Eduardo and his mother, I stayed for 2 weeks over Easter in Cardonal, my favourite place in the Mexican mountains. In addition to countless visits, I also took part in the Stations of the Cross at Easter, which are sometimes very elaborately acted out in Mexico. I was able to play a concert with some well-known friends, visit several village festivals and celebrate my birthday. The fact that over 40 friends came together at the celebration means the world to me. It was simply unbelievably beautiful!
I spent the night with my Mexican family: Obdulia and Martin are like parents to me, and Stephanie, Nicole and Christian are like siblings. But I spent at least as much time with my best friend Ivan and his family, I guess I have two Mexican families (if not many more) 🙂

How my friend Goyo, besides the solar boilers and the agave syrup he has been making for years, now also distils the finest schnapps is worth a blog post of its own, which I will write when the opportunity arises.
From Cardonal, after a few tears of farewell, we continued on to Queretaro. With Cristobal, whom I met during his voluntary service in Germany (for the last 7 years there have finally been reverse volunteers coming from Mexico to Germany), I visited Peña de Bernal, where we marvelled at the third highest monolith in the world!
The next day I went on to Guanajuato, where I started my semester abroad 5 years ago and made many friends. Even though many of my friends have moved away from the university, I still know some of them and had some great evenings in the bars. For me, Guanajuato is the most beautiful city in Mexico. It’s colourful, chaotic and has countless roof terraces with wonderful views. This is also where many of the bars are to be found, although I unfortunately noticed that about half of the good bars have fallen victim to Covid. (I’ll spare myself a joke about the Mexican beer brand here).

The most emotional reunion in Guanajuato was with my friend Reyna, who came all the way from Mexico City for the weekend. I was very close to Reyna during my semester abroad and our reunion was so nice that we spontaneously decided to get a tattoo together. If you’re curious about what it is, you’ll have to wait until we see each other live 😉

The biggest fair in Mexico and my Mexican granny

On the way from Guanajuato to Guadalajara, the second largest Mexican city, I made a stopover in Aguascalientes. My friend Daniel took me to a concert by the band Enjambre and to the biggest feria in Mexico. A feria is a fair held to celebrate the saints of towns and villages. In most places in Mexico, it is the biggest celebration of the year, perhaps together with the bank holidays on 15 September. And the one in Aguascalientes is the biggest in the country and was really impressive! There are hundreds of food stalls, carousels, arts and crafts, games and several stages throughout the city.
In Guadalajara, where I went the very next day in my visiting frenzy, I mainly visited fellow students from Guanajuato. Those who now work at Oracle or Walmart or others. Every reunion was really nice, but the one with my friends from Guanajuato was especially special because I saw them again for the first time!
In Guadalajara, I also met another ex-volunteer and a nun I lived with when I was volunteering in Cardonal. At that time, I lived with two priests and four nuns. Three of the nuns were relatively young and the fourth in the group, Madre Esther, was already old then. Now she is even more so. But she has not lost her big heart and her admirable missionary spirit (in her case absolutely positive and not so imposing as with the original missionaries). For example, she has complained to me several times that at the age of over 80 she is not allowed to leave the nuns’ home alone, where she is now staying. For me, Madre Esther is like a grandmother and she was just as happy as my grandmother was when I visited her <3

After the second largest city, the final stop of the visit was of course Mexico City, where I stayed with Reyna for 3 nights and met several friends every day. So, extremely exhausted but super happy, I sat down on the 28-hour bus to Cancun to meet Marieke. But the tourist part in the south of Mexico is part of the next blog entry, which I would like to combine with our short visit to Belize 🙂

The migranthouse “El Samaritano” close to Tula

Mexico has long been a transit country for people on their way to the US, because it is impossible not to travel through Mexico by land. And while the number of asylum applications from Mexicans in the US has fallen sharply in recent years – according to the Segob report, it was only 3.5 percent in 2022 – those from Central and South America have risen sharply. 22.7 per cent of applications came from Central America, 18.7 per cent from Venezuela and almost all of these people travel through Mexico.
There are also shuttles that take asylum seekers from Guatemala to the US-Mexico border, but hardly anyone can afford the $1,000 or so it costs. In Guatemala, I spoke to someone who made these shuttle trips through Mexico for years. Those who can afford them are quite safe, because the $1000 includes protection money to various Mexican cartels like the Zetas.
But since most cannot afford this, they have to find other ways to cover the minimum 2000km through Mexico. Many use the goods trains that pass through Mexico. Among Mexicans and asylum seekers, the train is only called “La Bestia” because it is so dangerous to jump on it and then jump off again somewhere else. Only recently, a man from Venezuela fell off the train near Tula and had to have both legs amputated – a terrible fate that is only one of many.
In addition, asylum seekers in Mexico are often treated like scum both by gangs and sometimes by the police. All this after they have already spent weeks or months on the road before Mexico. Many people from Venezuela also cross the extremely dangerous jungle of the Darién Gap between Panama and Colombia, where gangs also frequently ambush them.
To support the people in Mexico, there are many so-called migrant houses, which are mainly located along the La Bestia train route. One of these extremely important houses is the migrant house “El Samaritano” near Tula.
We have been supporting “El Samaritano” for many years with the association animo e. V. and without having visited it, the project was a matter close to my heart, as flight & migration have been my political focus for years.
Animo e. V. is an association of former Mexico volunteers who work for intercultural exchange between Mexico and Germany.

When, during my visit to Mexico, I finally drove by the house in person, where several volunteers and friends of mine have helped in recent years, I was even more impressed than I was by the reports.
Near Tula, there is a place where the train regularly stops or slows down, so it is possible to hop on and off. There, “El Samaritano” opens its doors Tuesday to Sunday to serve the people. I was able to join the process for one day and also help out a bit.
On that day, about 15 asylum seekers arrived, most of them from Honduras or Venezuela. First, the people, who are usually very hungry, are offered breakfast. After breakfast, they can take a shower and get clothes from a clothing collection in case they need new clothes. Most of them had small backpacks with everything they had or still had. Of course, there is also a pharmacy so that people can get medical care if necessary.
Those who want to can rest afterwards. There is an extra rest area for women and children. When everyone had had breakfast and washed up, there was time for me to talk to the people and also to make some music with and for them. The fates and stories I overheard often reminded me of refugees I met during rescue missions in the Mediterranean. There were young men who left their families and sometimes even their wives and children behind in the hope of being able to provide for them better from the USA, as well as entire families who travelled together.
And unfortunately, the way asylum seekers are dealt with in the US is similar to the way they are dealt with in Europe. In the last three years, the US deported about 2.7 million people, 2.3 million of them to Mexico.
After the talks, we had lunch together before the people continued on their way. It was a depressing feeling to watch them leave.
For me, the work that Sister Luisa and so many other volunteers do is incredibly important and I am glad that I was able to get a better impression.
If, like me, you would like to support the project, I would be very happy to do so and you can transfer money to the animo e. V. account. 100% of the donations will go to “El Samaritano”. Animo is an honorary association that bears the extremely low administrative costs through membership fees.

animo e. V.
IBAN: DE98 4006 0265 0018 4487 00
BIC: GENODEM1DKM

Alternatively, you can send me money via PayPal to kai-echelmeyer@web.de, which I will then transfer 100% to animo.

Thank you very much for your support!

First, I describe how the people are currently doing, what I have seen and experienced, and then later I try to show a little bit of what has led to the current situation in Cuba through an insight into history.
I got a first idea of the situation in Cuba before I arrived in Santiago de Cuba in the south-east of the country. I had written to some hosts on Couchsurfing beforehand and got more answers than usual. But most of them wrote that they were not allowed to host travellers. In Cuba, only those who officially register a hostel are allowed to do so. So I was only left with a hostel run by a Couchsurfer (really not the idea of Couchsurfing). Shortly before leaving the Dom Rep, I got a message offering accommodation in Santiago. But I had already booked the hostel and didn’t want to get the family into trouble. Margarita (name changed) had replied to me on Couchsurfing and immediately made it clear that she saw me as part of her Cuban family – the family was as hospitable as that sounds and I felt very much at home there, even though I wasn’t staying in their house. Nevertheless, I spent a lot of time with and at their place.
Even before I arrived, Margarita asked me to bring her some things that she doesn’t get in Cuba. These were mainly spices like curry, vegetable broth and bay leaves, but also medical products. I was happy to give her this pleasure and I also took some pencils and balloons for the children in Cuba, as I had read that they were very happy about them and this was indeed the case. Often children arrived and asked for money or sweets, and they were very happy to receive a balloon.
So I travelled to Cuba with about 3 kilos of presents in my luggage and wondered whether I might have problems at the airport. But when I saw the baggage carousel in Cuba, my worries disappeared, because apart from me, there were only Cubans on the plane, each with 3 – 5 huge suitcases. They probably travel to the Dom Rep to bring back things for their families and to sell another part. A way to make money in the crisis.

Cuba and the crisises

But what exactly is the current crisis? I’ll go into the background a bit more below, but in a nutshell, an embargo by the US and other Western countries and dependence on the Soviet Union as a communist partner contributed to Cuba’s severe economic crisis after the collapse of the USSR in the 1990s and its increasing dependence on tourism. Tourism came to a standstill for a long time during the pandemic. As a result, a large part of the income was lost and the next severe economic crisis followed in the last few years.
That it’s not only Margarita who feels this way, that some things are inaccessible to her and her family (they are still relatively well off compared to other Cubans), was something I quickly realised in conversation with the people – especially through my street music. Santiago is the home of the Cuban Son (similar to Salsa) and the melancholic guitar music Trova, so music played a big role there. I was all the more pleased that I got a lot of positive feedback when I went through the streets with my guitar. From hardly any other people is that a greater compliment.
Since Santiago de Cuba is less touristy than other places in the country and I walked more through the side streets than played in the main squares, I got to talk to many Cubans. Many told me the same phrase that stuck with me: “In Cuba we don’t live, we survive”. It is worth mentioning that the region around Santiago in the south-east of the country, far from the capital, is probably the poorest region in Cuba. Hennoch, I observed similar problems in the other places I went to.
Just getting food in Cuba is not that easy, not to mention other everyday things. Since the revolution and the official introduction of communism, Cuba has had the so-called Libretta. By the way, whether Cuba is really (still) a communist country is a subject of much discussion and debate. I would rather describe Cuba as a socialist country, but I don’t claim to be right in any case.
In any case, the Libretta is a small booklet that every family has and with which they can pick up food several times a month at a very cheap price from government distribution points. A pound of rice, for example, currently costs about 7 Cuban pesos – about 4 cents. But you only get a rationed amount of this, which is not enough to get you through the month. The same goes for other food.
To get more food, there are currently the following possibilities: you go shopping at the market or in private shops (these have recently been allowed, before there were only shops run by the state). Then you can pay with Cuban pesos, but often some things are missing and/or you have to queue for hours. If you don’t have the time because you are working or something similar, you can buy the rest of the things in government shops, but there you can only pay with a card. This card contains Convertibles Cubanos (CUC), a new currency created by the government at the beginning of the pandemic. One CUC can be bought with one euro or one dollar, but not with Cuban pesos. Incidentally, it is therefore advisable to take dollars with you to Cuba instead of euros, as they are treated as equivalent.
Since you cannot buy the CUC with Cuban pesos, Cubans have to exchange money with tourists or others. This has created a black market in money: When I withdraw money with my credit card from a Cuban bank, I get about 120 Cuban pesos for one euro. But on the street it’s 170 – 180 Cuban pesos – that’s 50% more.
By the way, there are no credit cards in Cuba, so when Cubans travel (which very few can do), they have to travel with cash.
A really difficult situation and unfortunately partly caused by the government, even though I don’t want to take the USA out of the responsibility at any time.
In Santiago, I ended up spending a day longer than originally thought because I felt so comfortable with Margarita and her family and wanted to watch the semi-finals of the baseball world championship with friends. Unfortunately, Cuba lost badly to the USA, but the semi-final was a surprise. Baseball is the number one national sport in Cuba, as it is in the Dom Rep and Puerto Rico.
Apart from the people and the music, which I liked very much in Santiago, I was especially enthusiastic about the exciting rum museum and a trip with my friend Rauber to the fortress “Castillo del Morro”. I had also met Rauber via Couchsurfing and only found out afterwards that we have a mutual friend in Cologne.

On the way to Havana in the west of the country, I made a stopover in the cities of Sancti Spiritus and Trinidad. In Trinidad, I stayed with a Cuban family again, but this time in their hostel. Trinidad is a classic former colonial town, with beautiful buildings in the centre and a wonderful beach off the coast, which I visited for snorkelling. In the evening, I went to a disco in a cave before continuing on to Havana the next day.

Havanna and Cuban elections

In Havana, I stayed in a hostel for the first time with many other travellers and met cool people with whom I also went on some excursions. In Havana itself, the highlights were again the Havana Rum Museum, the many good cocktails, the huge fortress with a wonderful sunset and the Fabrica de Artes: a large, old factory building that houses several exciting art exhibitions and at the same time opens a disco with several floors and live music in the evening.

But contact with locals was not neglected in Havana either. Once again, Couchsurfing and my guitar gave me the opportunity to talk to many Cubans. The highlight was when a group of about 20 children listened to me. Of course, they were also very happy about the balloons I had brought with me from the Dom Rep and gave them afterwards.
Before the short time of 10 days in Cuba was already drawing to a close, there was one more absolute highlight:
With the travellers Kaelah, Arsenna and Mario, I visited the valley of Vinales, which on the one hand offers wonderful views of a unique mountain landscape with high but flat mountains and on the other hand is the home of Cuban tobacco, so we were able to visit a tobacco farm.

There we learned how and where Cuban cigars are made and learned that the tobacco farmers have to sell 90% of their harvest to the government at ridiculous prices. With the remaining 10%, they still earn more than they get from the government for the other 90. The dissatisfaction with the government is noticeable in every part of the country, as is the resignation: I only found out two days earlier from a friend from St. Maarten that parliamentary elections were taking place in Cuba.
When I asked my Cuban friends about it, they said that they don’t vote anyway because nothing changes. I then did some research and indeed there were exactly 470 candidates for the 470 seats in parliament. The candidates have to get more than 50% yes votes, but otherwise they are elected from the communist party, there is only one party in Cuba anyway. But I also found something positive during my research: Cuba has quotas for parliament and therefore more women than men and a large number of people of colour.
But how has this country developed? I would like to give a brief overview here. It is important for me to emphasise that while I write such history or politics digressions to the best of my knowledge and belief, I do not want this to be understood as a scholarly essay. I’m just trying to summarise what I learn from locals, tours and my own research so that you have a bit more background. However, if you want a more detailed history summary, there are many alternatives, one of which is the Netflix series “Secret Cuba”, which I am currently watching and highly recommend.

Excursion to Cuban history

But let’s get to Cuban history: the largest island in the Caribbean was discovered and conquered by the Spanish at a similar speed as the Dominican Republic, and due to its geographical location with the Dom Rep, it became the focal point for further conquests and slave trade during Spanish colonial rule in Latin America. And this despite the fact that the clear instruction of the Spanish crown had initially been that slave trade was forbidden. Columbus and Co disregarded this instruction from the beginning and oppressed the indigenous population that remained. Within a few years, 90% of the Cuban population had been wiped out – by the Spanish weapons and, above all, the diseases they had brought in. You may be familiar with this part from other countries and maybe even from other blog posts of mine. As on many other Caribbean islands, the Spanish needed labour to grow sugar cane and other goods and found it in African slaves. Over the next few centuries, slaves sometimes made up over 90% of the population. After the revolutionary slave uprising in Haiti in 1791, many slave drivers fled to Cuba and expanded sugar cane and coffee cultivation on the island, so that the island became richer and richer, especially in the 19th century. A wealth from which only a few obviously profited.
The discontent among the population was understandably enormous and there were many slave revolts, but all of them were unsuccessful.
Cuba was one of the last countries to become independent from Spain. And the revolution then actually started from a slave owner who felt disadvantaged in the east of the country. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes kicked off the revolution in 1868 with the “Grito de Yara”, but it was to last for 30 years. A story that particularly stuck in my mind from a guided tour in Havana tells that shortly after Céspedes proclaimed independence, the Spanish captured his only son and threatened to kill him if the revolution did not stop immediately. Céspedes is said to have replied that he saw himself not only as the father of his son but of all Cubans and that the revolution had to continue at all costs. The Spaniards then executed his son. It is also because of this story that Cubans call Cespedes the father of the homeland.
In 1878, Spain made some concessions to the Cubans, and the revolution came to a halt for the time being. After another unsuccessful attempt at independence under Antonio Maceo in 1879 – 1880, it took until 1895, under the leadership of the poet and journalist José Martí, for another attempt to achieve complete independence for Cuba. In 1898, when Spain was already talking publicly about withdrawing from Cuba, the USA interfered in the conflict, provoked the American-Spanish War and took control in Cuba. Now Cuba was independent from Spain, but the USA ruled instead.
Before allowing sham governments, the US secured the right to intervene militarily in Cuba at any time, which it did several times in the following years. They also secured the bays of Bahia Honda and Guantanamo, the second of which is still used militarily by the US today.
In the first decades of the 20th century, Cuba had a wide variety of governments that were influenced to varying degrees by the USA, but until the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the influence of the USA remained enormous. In particular, the two dictators Gerardo Machado and Fulgenio Batista were strongly supported by the USA in their election campaigns and when they took power, and in return granted them great influence in Cuba.
A young lawyer named Fidel Castro indicted Batista for his military coup in the Supreme Court of Cuba. After the case was dismissed, Castro declared that the right of resistance enshrined in the constitution, having exhausted all legal means, was now taking effect and prepared the revolution. On 26 July 1953, he and a guerrilla force carried out an attack on the Moncada barracks near Santiago de Cuba, which failed. After Castro had been imprisoned for two years, Batista had him pardoned because he feared the reactions of the population. Castro fled into exile in Mexico where he met Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
In December 1956, he returned to Cuba with Che Guevara and 82 guerrilla fighters and started the revolution from the east, which led to Batista’s overthrow in early 1959. Castro took power and ruled until 2008.
There are many theories as to why Fidel Castro and his people turned Cuba into a communist country. What is certain is that Castro was not originally a communist. I found a plausible theory from a guide that by breaking with the USA, which the revolutionaries wanted to do, he wanted to get closer to the other world power at the time – the Soviet Union – because he saw this as a way to stay in power for a long time. Whether or not this was the reason for communism in Cuba, it worked: Fidel Castro built a dictatorship in Cuba that also outlasted the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Since the Soviet Union saw Cuba as an important base in the immediate vicinity of the enemy, they supplied the country with everything it needed, which unfortunately also led to Cuba cutting back its production capacities for many products enormously – dependence on the Soviet Union was born and its collapse plunged Cuba into the first severe economic crisis I write about above. The second followed with Covid and the previously created dependence on communism. But that Cuba is only partly communist and socialist can also be seen from the fact that Castro and the country’s elites enriched themselves greatly from the wealth of the Soviet Union. Today, Castro’s sons and daughters are the richest people in the country.
It also fits into the image of the dictatorship that Fidel Castro was succeeded as president of Cuba by his brother Raúl in 2008. Miguel Diaz-Canel has been in power since 2018.
While the public image of Fidel Castro is that of a dictator, Che Guevara is still revered today and seen as a symbol of left-wing groups and revolution. His likeness can be found on countless T-shirts and in many other places. And there is no denying that his ideas were revolutionary. He wanted to bring about a revolution similar to the one in Cuba in Bolivia, but with less success.
But if you take a closer look at the person of Che Guevara and talk to Cubans, a different picture quickly emerges: that of a brutal murderer who mercilessly kills not only enemies but also friends who do not behave according to his ideas and who walks over dead bodies on both sides to get his way. A friend told me that his grandfather, who knew Che personally, always spoke highly of Che when he was sober and praised the revolution to the skies. But when he was given alcohol, he spoke the truth about what happened during the guerrilla period and talked about Che as a cruel person. The same friend, by the way, was tortured by the Cuban army a few years ago because he wanted to get out of the military service after 10 years.
After all I have heard and read about Che Guevara, I have become very sceptical about the public image of this person and doubt whether Che Guevara should be portrayed as a hero. However, I do not doubt that his likeness has served and can still serve as an important symbol for many a revolution.
And my impression is also that another revolution in Cuba – of whatever kind – is urgently needed. After all the conversations with the people, I think that they actually wish for it, but nobody dares. Probably also because many still have in mind what the last revolution led to in the end.