The Latest - 7

Recipe for driving through Central America: Add one handy mechanic well soaked in beer. Slowly add cute girls to fill back seat. Shake well.

Watching geckos catch and then fight over moths near an outdoor light provides endless entertainment. How many geckos do you see?

... and animals. From this one I learned a few clever tricks. My favorite, I call "spider vision." At night in the jungle, wear a headlamp, or hold a flashlight at your forehead so long as the beam of light is exactly parallel to the direction your eyes are looking. When you look around the floor of the forest, you will see dozens of little shiny reflective specks. Go up and take a real close look to see that the shiny specks are actually spider eyes! You will never feel alone in the woods again!

The cloud forest along the way up is home to a plethora of unique plants...

A giant lake fills a caldera in Coatepeque, El Salvador viewed from the top of the dormant Cerro Verde.

The beach pictured in the this photo is immediately to the right of the dinner table in the previous photo.

"I am in Zonte, El Salvador for Christmas (which is celebrated on the 24th down here.) My travelling friends and I have found a surf camp on a beautiful, cliff-enclosed, dark-sand beach. We have been invited to join in cooking a communal vegetarian Xmas dinner by a group of Bob Marley listening dreadlocked Salvadoran surfer dudes. I bought myself a pair of swimming trunks for Christmas because it so hot."

Monterrico, Guatemala is reached only by a small, flat car-ferry that negotiates tbe narrow mangrove estuaries along the Pacific Coast. On the way, Elvis prepares for the holidays by adorning Christmas lights powered by the 120 volt AC inverter in my car.

Atop Volcan Pacaya, Guatemala, a reminder of a distant home.

This US Peace Corps volunteer is pleased with her shrewd negotiation of just 30 quetzales (down from 60) for "Elvis" the medium-sized Guatemalan wicker reindeer. Elvis would come to be our mascot, riding proudly on the roof of my Jeep throughout the holiday season.

A crazy Canadian conducts some experiments with classical physics.

We met up with a friendly giant Scotsman doing a similar journey as myself but on a motorcycle. From a motorcycle you sometimes get a more intimate impression of whats happening around you.

A truck in Guatemala is never quite full.

... or perhaps an inspirational poster factory?

San Marcos la Laguna around Lago de Atitl?n is an idyllic place to set up a postcard factory...

The Sunday market at Chichicastenango provides the perfect opportunity for sensory overload.

The market streets of Chichicastenango were so narrow, and so packed with goods and people that I got stuck in jams many times, with tiny old ladies carrying huge baskets on their heads pushing me in eight directions at once.

Posing here for the album cover shot, a German, English, Canadian, and Dutch crew accompanies me to the top of Volcan de Agua, Guatemala.

Cop?n Ruins, Honduras. At night, the six of us hired a guy with seats mounted in the bed of his pickup to drive us up to a hotspring nestled nearby in the mountiains. We bounced along the rough dirt road painted in moonlight and rinsed with cool mountain darkness. When we arrived, we had the hot springs all to ourselves, so we surrounded the pool with candles and watched the starlight shimmer through the banana leaves.

A cemetary in Coban town, Guatemala adds color to the dreary sky.