New room, bouldering and the thing with Corona... (Day 191 - 193 of the world trip)

13.03. - 15.03.2020

The last two days (and probably today) not much is happening with us, but we wanted to at least "check in" ;-)

Thursday night to Friday morning I felt really bad and I spent the whole Friday lying flat due to stomach flu -.-

Jonas was so sweet and brought me toast bread and we spent the whole day in the room or on the terrace, which was really good for me :p

In the evening we went to the vegan restaurant and Jonas had his bowl and I had a probiotic smoothie, which was really good for me! No more stomach cramps, yay!^^

When we got back to the accommodation, we found out that we had to move, but only to the neighboring room. Our first room had four sleeping places and now we have "only" three - but also a window and a plant <33

Yesterday, Saturday, the first half of the day was all about the Corona virus...

I had always said that we wouldn't notice anything about it and that there are no cases in Central America, and yeah. We happily booked our accommodation for El Tunco, the surf paradise in El Salvador and yeah. Then for some reason I googled something about Corona and Central America again and then things changed :(

In the last few days, quite a lot has happened here. Many countries are closing their borders, not only for travelers coming from Asia or Europe, but also for people with European passports. That means that even though we were not in a risk area, we could not enter these countries either, which was quite unfortunate!

El Salvador has completely closed its borders, so we could cancel the accommodation directly...

After that, we intensified our research and found out that our options for further travel were narrowing down almost hourly...

We are traveling from north to south and as an alternative to El Salvador we could have continued our journey via Honduras. But yesterday evening Finns arrived here who were near the border of Guatemala and Honduras, and people told them that Honduras didn't let them in either.

So we can't travel south by land anymore. The remaining option would be to fly, but that's not so easy either. Central America is closed and the country through which all flights fly to SOUTH America (we could still enter some countries in South America), is Colombia.

Unfortunately, Colombia has also banned entry and transit for all European passport holders. Yeah.

Now the only option left is to go north. USA or Canada sound attractive in themselves, even if they are less interesting in terms of price for our budget, but they are very advanced :)

This morning we woke up (and found news about more closed borders in South America...) and Jonas remembered that our health insurance for the year does not cover the USA and Canada.

As you know, it is very very expensive in the USA to not have insurance and we don't want to take that risk. Canada is at a similar level (and it's winter there :p) and yeah...

So in the north, Mexico remains. Well, we were in Mexico recently but it is a well-developed country with many travel opportunities and often western standards and (as of today) we can still enter as Europeans! :O

Our visa for Guatemala is still valid for 80 days, so we're not in a hurry. However, the quarantine was declared yesterday at 4 p.m. local time. The sights (Mayan ruins, etc.) are closed until further notice (the president estimated about 90 days) and the borders are also closed here, so panic buying is taking place and yeah...

Mexico sounds like a better choice, but we'll have to see how and when we can travel there.

Later we want to go to the city and check if the travel agencies still offer trips to Mexico. In a report I just read, a lot is already quiet in Antigua because unfortunately no more tourists can enter. We have to see that.

Our host family has already suggested that we accept breakfast and dinner here, maybe so that we don't have to leave the house?

It's already an uneasy feeling because Jonas and I are actually quite positive and don't want to let ourselves be infected by such panic.

But the fact is that there are now restrictions and we have to make new plans and it's still unclear how exactly we will continue our journey ;-)

Once that is clear, we will probably make another update, but there is not much we can do right now because the information changes quite quickly.

But luckily we're doing well so far and we're trying to make the best of it and occupy ourselves with other things as well (maybe go hiking later and yesterday Jonas was bouldering as you can see :) ).