Superman, surf & sun

Next stop Santa Elena to find huge Strangler trees and zip wires.  My fear of heights meant there was no way I'd be crossing rope bridges strung 400ms over cloud forest canopies but Chris joined forces with some friends we'd made along the way & super-manned his way through the treetops: 

Chris:

3 of us went on the Canopy, all admitting to perfectly reasonable cowardice in the face of potentially fatal heights should a harness or clip suddenly fail.  Apart from a few admiration-based expletives I managed to keep my fears hidden within a Yorkshire stoic type persona I invented for the occasion.  And this worked great on the zip wires, flying 400m above a cloud forest valley for a whole mile at high speed and through a tunnel of branches was calm, terrifying, beautiful and exhilarating all at the same time.

Once it came to the Tarzan swing, the devil's invention of a tree top experience, things changed a lot.  After walking out on a thin platform, the equivalent of 8 stories above the forest floor, my Spanish lessons came into their own as I constantly repeated 'no feliz' (not happy) at the tour guides who were grinning ominously while they wielded ropes and clips that had to have been tested on people much smaller than me.... 

As it happened the rope caught me after the 3 seconds of free-falling to the full forced bellow of utter terror that shattered the character illusion I'd created completely.  Once I had breath I screamed again - a noise that would have been audible some miles away.  I swung to a halt some seconds later, suddenly aware of 30 other people staring at me.  Cover blown.

Altitude means cooler temperatures of course so after a few days of having it wear a hoody at night we packed up & hit the Pacific Coast in a sleepy little town called Montezuma. 

4 hostels, 6 restaurants, 2 beaches & more whisperingly precious yoga addicts talking about their chakras than you could ever need in one place!  Thankfully the aura-botherers had plenty of floor space to out-worthy each other without crossing paths with the rest of us (& let's face it, sanctimonious as a 'spiritual journey' traveller can be, they're never going to kick off and cause a fight) so the whole place was rather nice. 

We mainly loafed in hammocks reading, walked along beaches, hiked to a few waterfalls and marvelled at huge lizards who'd gather on our roof (tin therefore nice and hot for them to lie on) for fights!  The loser gets chased off the roof and has to scarper into woods until the next day. 

From Montezuma we made the tiny journey to Santa Teresa (just around the coast)- 11 km that takes about 90 mins due it appalling roads & very slow buses.  Similar scenery but replace Yogis with SurfDudes.  This place was so rad it hurt. Dude. 

Other than being so incredibly ripped they make everyone else instantly body dismorphic, surfers are a lovely ecologically minded bunch who lend an air of relaxation to an already horizontal vibe. 4 days later we peeled ourselves out of the hammock, put on real clothes (not swimmies & flipflops) & started the two day journey to the opposite side of the country. 

We'd seen more of the country's animal life along the beaches than we had in the supposedly 'nature rich' parks in the highlands and felt glad we'd resisted paying for a $50 guided tour in La Fortuna.  Lizards (including some huge iguanas), anteaters, turtles, 

pelicans, vultures, parakeets, monkeys and tons of hummingbirds. The only thing still unspotted is a sloth. Despite me pointing and shouting 'Sloth' now at both anteaters and dogs (it was dark) I'm reaching the conclusion we may have to visit the Sloth sanctuary to see some. 

A bus/boat/bus combo and we moved to the capital San Jose. 

Good points.: Sometimes you need to visit a city to recalibrate expectations and remind yourself how incredible all the non-city bits are. 

Bad points:  typical noisy, hectic city with glass/chrome corporate HQs next to tin shack houses.  The vogue for putting rolls of barbed wire along every wall/fence/chicken wire panel is strong. So much it's visually confusing as to who's trying to keep who out of what. 

A charmless but harmless fleeting visit and it's off to Puerto Viejo for a Caribbean Christmas. 

Costa Rica: cloud forest volcanos

The journey from Nicaragua was pretty uneventful although the 1km walk from exiting Nica to entering Costa Rica was a hot, heavy & odd experience (not sure which country the barbed wire walk belongs to but moving it closer to one of the immigration offices would be nice). 

We spent one night in Liberia to break the travelling up (really nothing there despite the guidebooks calling it 'the white city' on account of a handful of buildings painted white. On that basis Redditch should feature in the UK Lonely Planet no?) then got another 3 buses to La Fortuna, the nearest town to the base of Arenal - a lovely big active volcano. 

Being active in a spewy deadly lava way means you can't climb much of Arenal right now but it's smaller sibling Cerro Chatto affords a good view of it from a decent height, and has it's own crater lake to boast of too.  Boots on, off we went. 

Distance wise the walk is nothing - How hard can a 7k round trip be we thought churlishly. 45 minutes later having covered quite a lot of height but no real distance we started to appreciate how hard.  

The height is not enough to make it cool, the humidity was immense & the effort of climbing at a 45* angle made it a relief when we changed from open hillside to cloud forest & got a mist shower. 

Strange thing about cloud forests is they're so lush that you can hear rain but not really feel it much. The ceiling of leaves trap in the heat but stops most the rain falling in. They're dark because of the density of plants & seem to echoe a lot too. All very confusing for the sensory system. 

Another hours climb with the notion of the top in our imaginations the fine mist became a downpour however and cloudforest turned to rainforest.  With it came mud and insects : mostly buzzy flying things but the raindrops highlighted a lot of big webs across our trail. The trick seems to be watch your feet, your hands, the vines above you and the bush around you simultaneously for bitey, crawly or slithery things. In my case be aware but don't think about them too long. If I'd have spotted the manufacturers of said webs I might have died on the spot. 

Having reached the top (soaked through) we then had a 120m descent to the crater lake where we could swim & admire Arenal. In reality this was a 25 minute clamber down a very muddy slippy trail to reach a crater lake in such thick cloud we could see about 5ms ahead. Given we were caked in mud we considered the swim but there was a good chance we'd never find our way back to the right bit of shore so decided against. 

In a very British way we huddled under a dripping tree with 2 others, ate bananas & made stoic comments about how it could be worse & took a scenic picture of us against the limited background of cloud.  Bananas, small talk & loitering until we'd all got cold we admitted defeat & headed back. 

The route was now a mud luge and with Chris's metal knee (great for descents) & my inate mountain goat-like balance we made a slow return trip. 

Midway down Chris displayed his northern routes by bringing the jungle to a standstill with a Brian Potteresque 'whoa whoa whooaaa', hands raised aloft to stop the hoards of people proceeding (in reality just me).  A snake. One of the few dangerous ones in this country and disconcertingly it left our path by disappearing upward into the growth. Last seen about head height just where we needed to pass.  

After that Chris got a bit Bear Grylls (or maybe Chris Packham) and insisted on stopping for every insect we saw. Photos of a caterpillar were taken FFS! 

Part two of the days walking was to a waterfall nearby. The water was cramp inducingly cold but welcome after being so hot for most of the day.  Found out that swimming towards a waterfall is like natures resistance pool as you're constantly pushed away from it. 

Back to the hostel where we'd rented a tent for 2 nights- basic but clean & the cheapest option we could find in this town (Costa Rica is full of Americans on 2 week vacations so prices are aimed at them rather than budget travellers), cold shower, rice and beans for dinner (remarkably similar to our breakfast), a few beers & we collapsed.  Not our most successful yomp in terms of vistas but a challenging, (mostly) fun walk & an introduction to the extreme Eco-system of Costa Rica

Viva la Revolution!

Within 24 hours of being in Leon our true travelling credentials had outed.  Chris signed up for a days volcano boarding (walking up Cerro Negra, donning a Guantanamo-style boiler suit then whizzing down it on a tray) & I went visiting the various revolution themed murals & then onto the Revolution museum. 

Run by ex-Sandinistas (complete with battle scars/bullet holes) they told me loads of very interesting and passionately presented stuff which my basic grasp of Spanish largely failed to understand. The bits I did grasp made it worthwhile though- the brutal fight had been quite unclear to me before hand but given it happened in my lifetime & is still evident in the city it felt important to know more.  I left (somewhat) wiser (topped up by google & an hour in a cafe across the square), a bit somber but better equipped to appreciate Nicaragua and all it has to offer. 

Leon is a fairly attractive small city. Once the capital but then destroyed by Cerro Telica (volcano), it relocated out of lavas way only to become the centre of the 1970s civil war. After this two other cities battled to be the new capital (Managua won) so is now all about their University & the volcanos surrounding (52 of them). 

Cultured up I returned to our hostel to hear whooping gringos cheering on some hapless fools into downing chilli shots at the bar. 

Chief whooper being Chris - already 2 mojitos, 8 shots and 3 beers into celebrating being the fastest man on the slope that day. 

Covered in black volcano dust, smelling less than pretty, the boarders continued their drinks for several more hours. Chris wowed everyone with his ability to drink more chilli shots (the fastest woman of the day was throwing up by this stage) and was gifted 2 vest tops for his efforts. A proud moment for us both. 

The next day Chris pretended not to be ruined as we headed out to climb Cerro Telica. 90 minutes in a 4x4 took us to a village (3 families, few chickens) where we started our climb. We reached the summit before sunset so went to have a peer in. Having never looked into a live volcano we weren't sure what to expect - first thing to strike was the noise. From 100m away it sounded like a river flowing but on top of it like jet engines running at full pelt.  That combined with heat, the smell of sulphur and the sight of pools of lava were incredible.  

Even more so when we went back after sunset & lots of pockets of lava we couldn't previously see appeared. Our cameras will never do it justice I'm afraid but the whole thing was somewhere between awful (the sheer pressure under the ground being exposed 200 ms away is both beautiful to look at and a bit difficult to comprehend) and terrifying. If I believed, I'd probably think this is what staring into hell would look like. 

From Leon we took the chicken bus to Granada - a disappointing town mostly. Like Antigua in the pretty painted buildings & the colonial buildings around the town square but with very little else of appeal.  We walked to Lake Nicaragua (largest lake in the world) and were set upon by hundreds of bugs drawn to the piles of burning rubbish all along the shoreline. Given the current dengue outbreak in Nicaragua we made a hasty retreat back to the town centre- now populated with an unhealthy amount of US & UK expats (could be wrong but I always think a certain type of expat (this type) is on the run from something rather than to something). 

The next morning we got the bus out of town to a volcanic crater, now a lake, thermally heated by the ongoing activity beneath it. Great day of swimming & kayaking in a big warm bath - should really have stayed here (Lago de Poyo) & tripped into Granada for a few hours but hindsight & all that...

Onto Ometepe - big island in the Lake Nicaragua with 2 volcanos on it (one active, one dormant). A one hour crossing is the shortest option to the island, but is preceded by 2 buses for a couple of hours first.  To reach Ometepe from the eastern banks of Nicaragua is a 10hr crossing- it is HUGE and with big waves is called 'the sea' by locals with good reason.  Our trip saw Chris getting soaked by standing Winslet-style at the front while I got greener and greener trying to keep sea sickness under control. On terra firma it was a 2hr journey to our cabina - an Eco lodge on the banks with nothing much to do but kick back, hire bikes & swim in more crater lakes. 

Other travellers had led us to expect abject poverty & harsh conditions in Nicaragua. People are undeniably poor, and the country's politics have left it battered in some areas but overall it's a stunningly beautiful country with friendly happy people (with incredible cheekbones). 

A few days of uneventful lovely nothingness & we've headed out of Nicaragua and into Costa Rica. We've heard they've got some volcanos...

Sting rays, sharks and buses. But mainly buses.

Lying back on a lounger in Caye Caulker I glibly commented that it could be hard to leave here. No truer a word said. 

Two stunning days of Caribbean sunshine (and the one over cast but hot day) & the odd Cuba Libre & we were totally revitalised.  We spent a day snorkelling around coral reef and saw some truly ugly/impressive things.  First destination our toothless Rasta captain Ninja (a six pack sporting sinewy Iggy Pop type with dreads & plaits & earrings - a bit Pirates of the Caribbean really -  who could've been anywhere from 35 to 70) pointed out a giant ray and an eel through the brave, if somewhat foolish method, of diving down and prodding them until they responded. Right back at him. Good to watch from the surface until said eel headed up to our level. See the gringos swim!! 

2nd stop - shark alley. Reluctant to get out the boat until Ninja told me nurse sharks don't have teeth (why would I doubt him), we jumped out & he started hurling bits of fish guts into the water to ensure we got our money's worth. Laughing his weed-filled head off from the safety of the boat, I reevaluated my trust levels in this man. 

Sting Rays are very ugly things! Look constantly pissed off and have no qualms about swimming 15 inches away from people waving their stingy tails around. I spent 20 minutes squealing through my snorkel tube and thinking 'Did Steve Irwin's death teach us nothing?' (Other than no man should wear shorts that short).  It was almost a welcome distraction when someone shouted 'shark' and we all swam towards the sighting.  I say all.  I hovered behind an American man I'd sized up as being sufficiently large/slow to distract a shark long enough for me to get back to the boat. Chris had no such game plan so came face to face with a 8fter. 

Back in the boat and headed to our final spot - coral garden. Just pretty stuff here - big shoals of bright fish, purple plants & lots of conch (conches? Dunno). Other than the giant ray swimming around the boat ladder it was a nice relaxing float. 

Time to pack up & head to Honduras- plan was get the 6am boat back to Belize City, then the once a week ferry to Honduras (5hrs), catch a bus to murder central (San Pedro del Sula - wiki it!) where a fella was meeting us to whisk us away to a safe hostel, and deliver us to the bus station the next morning to get the Ticabus (long distance throughout CA) straight down to Nicaragua.  Not an ideal route but almost impossible to get through Honduras without going through San Pedro & as the bus was a 5am start, an overnight had to be done. 30 hours door to door including the night in a comfy bed. 

Reality was : 

6am boat to the city. All good. 

10.15 the 9am ferry to Honduras called the port to say it couldn't be arsed stopping in Belize & was going straight through to Honduras from Mexico. 

Jumped on a bus back to Flores in Guatemala (6 hours ish), booked ourselves onto the overnight bus back to Guatemala City (10 hours), got there & taxi'd across town to try & find the one bus a day that went to Nicaragua without spending a night in El Salvedor (a close 2nd to San Pedro for crime). Got to the bus office with 25 mins to spare & joined a queue only to find that it was pre-booked & full. We loitered & thankfully someone called Jennifer failed to turn up.  Bundled on board with minutes to go we promptly fell asleep for the first leg of the journey. 

Arriving in El Salvedor 5 hours later, we had to swap buses & check in for the next leg. This involved putting our backpacks on a new bus which then promptly drove away & handing our passports to a woman who then disappeared to a locked office. How the locals laughed at our stressed faces. Chill they said - it's not like it's your world possessions you've just handed over in a country you have no record of being in. 

30 minutes of nervous laughter with 3 Swiss fellas in the same situ, it all reappeared & we set off again. 

Next stop the Honduran border - stayed on the coach while 4 uniformed fellas walked up the aisles assessing our faces for signs of something (nefarious activities/culpability for bribes?), stamped our papers & let us through. 

Only another few hours (3 ish? Time bore no meaning by this point) to the Nicaraguan border where we had to decamp & take our bags to be searched. Search meant lightly prodded by an old fella who'd been up too long too so was over without incident quite quickly. 

All aboard the happy bus (by this time quite smelly bus) to get to the capital Managua. A fairly horrid city with an advice warning of staying in your hotel at night. Arriving at 2.30 am with no hotel booked we slept on chairs in the bus office (behind locked doors, under the watchful eye of a bored security guard) until 5.15 when we got a cab & headed to the market/bus station for the first chicken bus out of there. 

$1 paid, 3 hours of potholes & no suspension later & we got to Leon (west of managua).  We were so tired we both slept on the chicken bus which is remarkable considering they're built for people at least a foot smaller than us, and we had our packs on our knees. Chris woke up to find a small boy perched on the edge of his seat, holding a chicken. Just to prove the namesake is right. 

hostel found, cold shower had, breakfast (rice & beans) eaten & we crashed out in hammocks. 51 hours & 5 countries end to end.

Nicaragua - you better be bloody worth it! 

Antigua, Tikal & our first Caribbean beach

Short bus ride (4hrs ish) to Antigua & checked into a hotel with clean sheets & hot water. Slept for most of the afternoon, did a bit of exploring, ate pasta (so nice to eat something other than beans & spinach) and slept again. 

I've still got germs so walking up one of the 3 volcanos that surround the city (really more of a town - it's tiny) didn't happen. That & low cloud each morning. Took us all of half a day to see the delights of Antigua which is pretty enough but bugger all there. About 17 churches of which we went in 2, appraised that they were indeed churches, very similar to all other churches, and left again.  Also visited an old convent who's claim to notoriety was being old. Nice gardens & interesting to read the explanation of Christianity laid out for Asian visitors but not much to get excited about. 

So with another 3 hot showers & more sleep done we took the night bus to Flores - a small island town serving tourists visiting Tikal.  Good job we'd banked so much sleep as a man two seats behind snored in spectacular fashion from before the bus left Guatamala city the whole 12 hours.  We caught up on Wittertainment podcasts & did get a few hours each. 

The deluxe bus service in Guatemala is not as good as Mexico.  The seats recline, there's individual headphone points for a tv that remained off, there's a loo (for the brave & desperate only) but the compliment of bitey bugs in my seat wasn't appreciated. After 12 hours of attack my waist to knees looked like I'd caught measles & itched like mad.  Chris remained unblemished proving he must taste horrible. 

Getting off the bus was a shock- Our last two destinations had been fairly cool temperatures but Flores was at 28degrees with 60% humidity. We dropped the backpacks off at the hostel & then kicked our (hot & tired) heels for a few hours waiting for check in. 

By 5pm the skies delivered a massive downpour until the early hours which cleared the air a bit. We were up at 4am to get a bus to Tikal & were thankful that although a bit slippy underfoot it was less humid & not as mosquito ridden as we'd been warned it can be. 

Tikal has got to be the most famous of the Mayan sites -partly due to the lush jungle setting it surreally appears from, partly from being used as setting for StarWars (Return of the Jedi- something about ewoks, bla bla blah).  It didn't disappoint anyway. From the moment we started walking & heard the howler monkeys waking up (google their cry: terrifying noise & if you didn't know what one looked like you could be forgiven for bracing yourself for something far more ferocious) to the final climb up Temple 4 (the highest one currently open to public) which gives a view across the jungle canopy it was 6 hot, humid, brilliant hours. 

Our guide told us as much about the flora & fauna as the Mayan stuff which was good - after a few wks in Mexico/CA we're getting a bit Mayaned-out so are no longer impressed by tales of human sacrifice & elongating babies heads, but were very happy to know more about the jaguar, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, anteaters, wild pigs & huge array of birds that live in the sub-tropical jungle. And the many plants from magic mushrooms, mimosa plants (that appear to die when touched only to revive minutes later when whatever was sniffing them has moved on to eat something else), to some strange leaf that tasted like basil but numbs your mouth like a local anaesthetic. 

Bizarrely as we were stood in the central temple a Coke van turned up, put up a banner & a wooden table of fruit & drinks. Minutes later triathletes started appearing from the jungle & crossing the finish line of their 5k run. Unexpected to say the least but as triathlons go - the scenerys pretty spectacular. 

Back to Flores by 2.30 ish, time to peel off the jungle gear (see the hideous but practical beige slacks I'm sporting! DEET infused to make me feel extra special but when I saw the savage attacks on others who'd taken the 'shorts & a vest' approach I was ok with the trade off), shower & head out to eat. 

Another early start the next day - this time out of Guatemala and across the border to Belize. We weren't going to visit Belize but after chatting to other travellers the sound of Caye Caulker was too appealing so off we set.

Our bus arrived 3 minutes too late for the first boat so we wandered around for an hour in Belize City then got the water taxi across to a very thin island full of Caribbean influences.  A friendly Rasta called Gilbert (big smile, few teeth) led us to a cheap hotel & we were in our sea front cabana in no time.  Swimmies on, and relax..... 

La Familia Gonzales

 Wednesday afternoon we started studying at our new school, this was a new prospect as we have a teacher each which means we don't get to relax and daydream while the other students pick up the slack for a while.  So after stammering and grunting through 3 hours of the hardest class of our lives like inarticulate, drunk village idiots (no smart comments please) our minds turned to our home stay accommodation that compliments the course....

We climbed the really steep hill, we walked through the poor district into the really poor district into a 'building'.  In my mind buildings have walls and windows to create a kind of enclosure for people to live in comparative comfort compared to the hardship of eating and sleeping outdoors.  This structure had a different idea.

Downstairs is a wooden gate onto a corridor with 6 rooms, one of which is our bedroom, the rest are for the children that still live there.  There is a 'bathroom' with a very dark (non-flush) toilet, a shower (not that you would understand as a shower) behind a well worn pink sheet and a water trough type system where the laundry gets done.  All really wet and dark.  A foot square gap in the bathroom wall is the only window in all of the downstairs.

Upstairs is half maize storage barn and half kitchen / diner.  There are some supporting walls but no glass in the gaps and it's lovingly topped off by corrugated iron.  The kitchen has another trough, a hearth on which things are heated and a dining table (wall paper paste table really) where the flies rest themselves during the day.

As we were introduced to a mesmerizing array of children/adults belonging to our hosts, Manuel and Anna, we tried to string some of our village idiot Spanish into anything that calmed the screaming we both had at the back of our minds....

We realise now that significant differences aside we were meeting incredibly genuine & generous people who just happen to also be the poorest people we've ever met too.  Not that they would ever think of themselves that way I'm sure...  Anna kissed us hello, so did Manuel (cue the awkward surprised semi head butt), they introduced us to the available children....

- the most inquisitive 9 & 12 year old boys you will ever see complete with the sharpest mischievous eyes on the planet - here's their cat - in a dress

- 3 teenage boys with different proximity to manhood, but with an unmissable sense of unity and deference to the family and it's farming business

- 2 young women who support Anna but are also constantly correcting and rolling their eyes at their oh-so-much slower brothers

- 2 young men who made sure there was always a conversation for the 2 scared and phased gringos in their kitchen

- a quick visit by the respected middle aged oldest brother and family leuitenent (3 months younger than me)

Here's a piccy of most of them from later in the week....

And here's some pictures from Gulliver's travels:

All 11 people who lived there had absolutely no qualms about us becoming a real part of their family for the coming week.  After Gayle had finished explaining to the staunchly catholic family that we are completely godless (while wearing a scarf laden with skulls!), we enjoyed spinach soup (spinach in warm water) with freshly made tortilla & a drink of coffee (5:1 sugar to coffee ratio).  We retired to our Jesus strewn room with a complete sense of disbelief at everything we'd just witnessed - our distress at the conditions and the growing realisation that our new family are quite simply, lovely people.

Over the next day or two our Spanish started to improve a bit (still a long long way to go) - Gayle's teacher just wants to chat and smile, mine has me learning the intricate structure of the language... Straight after the lesson each day Gayle has the best part of a bottle of wine and I have 4 large vodkas to calm our heads from the lesson and embolden us to the next language test at the homestead.

Stuff we now know:

- our family have 14 children but this isn't considered anything to write home about. Manuel has 14 siblings himself & when one of them died he took in their son as his own

- all but 1 of the children live at home or within 3 streets. As do Manuel's parents who are living independently in their 90s. The missing brother married a gringo & moved to the US

- Guatemalans earn on average Q50 a day (our family will be a lot less). In Guatemala City a Big Mac costs Q25.

- the men work 6 days a wk, starting at 5ish - first task, to beat rats out of their crops before they can harvest anything. On Saturdays the youngest boys work in the hills too. M-F they go to school (til the age of 16)

- the women get up 30 mins earlier to make them breakfast & a packed lunch

- the family grow crops to survive, they sell v little because they need it for themselves. Crops are maize, green beans & some coffee bushes. Other things (like chocolate to drink) they swap with neighbours. 

- although the house has electricity they admitted on day 3 they can't afford to use it to heat water so showers are cold (and quick)

- other than a ball, the kids have no bought toys - they make their own kites & animals from paper. Kite fighting is big news here. 

- the downstairs has no windows presumably to save heat, as it doesn't have any form of heating either

- food is v basic but high protein (not necessarily a good thing when sharing one un-touchable loo with 13 others). Beans, eggs & tortilla are staple foods. 

Despite living in conditions we associate with a Comic Relief appeal they are an incredibly tight knit unit who laugh a lot & share everything they have with us.  Massively mixed emotions between wanting to get the hell out & feeling very humbled. 

We have had to engineer a bit of rest time by ourselves over the weekend and we are planning the best way of leaving as early as possible for better conditions without being the most disrespectful and ungrateful gringos ever to struggle with less than ideal living conditions.  When we return at night the young boys are still up waiting for the chance to see what amazing things we have in our room (like contact lenses) and quiz us on our every move, all of which entertains them immensely.

One couple we know are staying in the most luxurious and clean hostel in the entire area (for less than we pay for the home-stay!) and another couple are doing a home stay but in their own brand new suite that isn't shared, even though the family has a frankly measly 4 people... They are all missing out on some serious character building!

Wednesday will bring on another move onto Antigua where I can practice my skills at conjugating reflexive verbs.  I just need to learn what they are now!  ("I wake myself up" - who talks like that!?)

First steps into Central America.. Guatemala

The journey into Guatemala was a bit rubbish. We were meant to be on a 6.30am bus but the company told us at 10pm the night before it'd changed to 8.30. Couple of hours to the border were fine, but then once we'd paid our border bribes & entered Guatemala the next bus failed to turn up.  Sat in the rain for 3 hours until it finally showed & then took another 6 hours to get to Lake Atitlan, by which point the boats had stopped running so we found a bed for the night in Panajchal & headed out for a beer. Strangely exhausting being thrown around a bus for hours at a time. 

The next day we took an early boat across the lake to San Pedro- small town with a few hotels & bars & a lot of language schools. 

We stayed in hotel Fe for 2 nights - great bar & restaurant but rooms like prison cells. Time to crack open the sleeping bag liners we bought to save us from rancid sheets, & the travel towels which are in effect human shammy leathers. 

As it's been a while since we climbed up/down anything, we arranged through a barman to meet a local who could guide us up a mountain in time for sunrise. So at 3.30am we met a machete wielding man & paid him money to take us off into the plantations in the dark.  One local bus later we strapped on our head torches & followed Jorge up a pathway.  Head torches are great for being hands-free however it does make you a magnet for every flying insect in the jungle. And having a guide at a strapping 4ft 10 (tall for these parts) meant we got to walk into every web above his head height. Grateful for it being dark really. 

Steep climb up but stunning views of sunrise across the Lake & the volcanos surrounding it. We've been advised not to bother climbing the volcanos here as the tops are permanently in cloud & you can see bugger all. Not my idea of pay-back for hours of climbing so we'll wait until Antigua where there's a live one to go up. 2 hour descent followed, and was glad of Jorge's machete when a bunch of snarling dogs appeared out the undergrowth to warn us off their turf. 

The walk back was mainly through maize & coffee crops with great views of the lake towns below. Sunrise is accompanied by cockerels who crow & annoy the dogs who then bark at the cockerels who then crow & annoy the dogs who then bark.....  To that soundtrack the towns appear to catch fire but it's the cumulative effect of every household burning wood to get the stoves ready for morning tortillas. 

Back to the prison cell in time for breakfast & a day of snoozing in a hammock. We also signed up for another week of school, this time with a home stay. Eek. A real dilemma as to whether we should- everyone says your language skills advance much better in a locals house than with other gringos but we haven't done shared living for a long long time. Took the plunge anyway & after our first day at school (the Hub- 1 to 1 lessons this time) we were taken to their house. 

Not sure how good our poker faces are but we needed them to be great....

San Cristobal de las Cases

Turns out that the overnight bus was very easy. Once the passengers prone to throwing up had run out of goods to hurl & gave in to sleep that is. A mixture of windy roads and altitude did make it a bit snake-train (1982 Drayton Manor Park reference there. Niche I know) and so am glad neither us suffer from travel sickness and we're able to sleep for several hours.

Arrived at 6.30 am and walked to our hostel where they didn't have a room for us (balls up with a duplicate booking that had then been cancelled incorrectly - instead of 1 room for 2 nights we had 2 rooms for 1 night. And it was the 2nd night!). Tired, hungry, homeless & cold was thankfully met with friendly, patient, helpful and unflappable & we got sorted out.  

Bags put in a locker we went off exploring the town; San Cristobal de las Cases is incredibly pretty (lots of hilly windy roads with brightly coloured houses), few churches and lots of squares surrounded by markets & the craft stalls from the surroundings villages. A few hippyshit westerners who've been here for 20 years and are slowly but surely losing the plot but mostly indigenous people & backpackers- very chilled feel to the place. 

They do have some different ways of presenting Jesus in their churches though:

Creepy Jesus.....

Disco Jesus.....

Altitude (it's at 2200m) makes it bloody cold though - nice when the sun breaks through but the cloud is so low and clingy to the mountains that it doesn't happen often. Instead there's a near constant drizzle- full snowboarding thermals worn by me at night (a strong look but needs must. We met a girl who'd worn her pyjamas to go walking in rain forest today so I don't feel like anyone's judging on the fashion front). 

The hostel is great (Roscos) proper backpacking vibe unlike the ones we've stayed in to date. This place has a firepit lit each night so we were up to the early hours chatting with other travellers, getting tips & learning more about the continent. They also take in stray dogs so there are 5 mutts of various ages & stages of health/confidence staying here too. 

A fireside conversation led us to going on a people-tour today, something I'm normally dubious about incase it's more about exploitation than exploration but no worries on this one- excellent tour (alexraul tour). You have to turn up at the wooden cross in the Zocala (main town square) around 9.30 & when there's enough people (about 5) the guide appears and off you go.

We visited two indigenous reservations & got to understand so much more than we could have done with just the guide book. The towns are fine to go to but respecting the cultures, and understanding the traditions needs navigation.  The first one was a Mayan tribe (76k strong) called Chamalans (after the town - San Juan Chamala). They speak a language called Tzotzil which bears little resemblance to Spanish, are polygamous, can't grow beards (physically can't rather than not allowed to), the woman never cut their hair & they practise a faith called Catholic Traditionalism. 

It's sort of part Mayan with belief in the underworld, multiple gods and the importance of treating the human spirit (like if a child falls over the parent will swing the child over the spot they fell to recover the spirit and put it back in) mixed in with some Catholicism. They have their own calendar (18 months of 20 days p/a with 5 extra days to throw in when you need them), don't recognise the bible or the Vatican, and use shaman to diagnose ailments to the spirit. 

The church was stunning (no photos allowed and as they have their own judicial system it really does mean no photos). It was built by Catholics who they then kicked out and kept the building but inside was full of bright fabrics & fresh pine needles on the floor like a carpet.  No pews but huge amounts of incense and candles on the floor, surrounded by groups of people praying around the candles. 

Shaman offer diagnoses by reading your pulse and prescribe remedies that involve sacrifices of chickens, rolling an egg over your body, gifts (to the saints/gods not to the shaman!) of coloured soda drinks & lighting candles of 5 different colours (representing gender, age, part of the universe you need to pray to). 

It all has the possibility to sound bonkers but to the ears of an atheist no more so than any other faith.  Being polytheist means they don't question anybody else's belief of gods ( it's probably one they include already anyway) so are every open. 

As a community they elect spiritual and civil leaders each year - the latter are done in the town square: if you like the candidate you wave your hat. If you don't, you chuck stuff at them! The windows of the town hall are all cracked as a result of such democracy in action.  They pay taxes most of which are managed locally, schools etc. but non natives aren't allowed on their grounds outside of daylight hours (including bus & taxi drivers). And they run their own judicial system which goes: 

Strike 1 - 2 days in prison which is a cell in the town square where everyone can see you bring shame on your family. Open bars - no food, heating or lights.

Strike 2 - community service wearing a necklace that identifies you as a criminal

Strike 3 - the elders decide your fate. Expulsion is most common but recently 3 men found guilty of rape were given the death penalty (not in place in Mexico generally) & met a very grizzly end at the hands of a lynch mob.

Crime is on the low-side as you can imagine. 

From there to another indigenous town called Zincanton where we visited a spiritual leaders house and saw part of their Sunday ritual - it starts at 2am and involves drinking a hooch called posh (it really isn't posh. Similar to grappa) while they lay flower tributes to the gods. We got there about 1 pm and those who weren't asleep were clearly mullered. Big slopey grins as they tried to keep their kerchiefs from falling off their heads!  My kind of religion-  flowers, bright clothes and all day sessions. 

Back to town then for Tlayuda's (tortillas with stuff on them but then (and thus totally different to burrito, fajitas, enchiladas etc) folded in half) & more clothes as the rain is falling and sky darkening quickly.  The locals are very impressed with Chris' ability to eat uber-spicy food. Had a whole family admiring the enthusiasm with which he doused his food in chillies. 

Up at silly o clock to travel across the border into Guatemala. Lake Atitlan is our first stop to see some volcanos. If we travelled the same duration due south we could be on a Pacific beach but no. It's more thermals for the foreseeable.  Christmas on the Caribbean is looking very appealing right now! 

Yo estudia, tu estudias, el estudia, nosotros estudiamos..... It's your own time you're wasting!

A week in one place has been a bit of a luxury.   Got ourselves a very nice hotel (all things being relative - not talking Kensington boutique but hot water, clean sheets and breakfast that includes fruit), and have really enjoyed going back to school. 

 We are rubbish at Spanish and a week has only gone to show us how much there is to learn still but confidence is growing and pronunciation improving slightly. 

Our class was 5 people of varying degrees of beginner & unlike real school was friendly, relaxed and non-pressured. Something about electing to study that makes you work harder so we did our homework each night and paid real attention for 4 hours a day. Having an English degree you'd think I'd know how to conjugate verbs but I didn't until this week. After each class we were brain dead and could barely string a sentence together in English - thank god for siestas, kindles and Madmen on the ipad. 

After day 1 we went shopping in the market, and from day 2 onwards have been eating lunch there at one of the many food stalls. Turns out the trick to veggie food is to ask for any dish but stress it's without meat. As most dishes here are a combo of tortilla, chilli, beans, tomato & cheese it's no hardship. Chris chooses which meat he wants, I chose what shape tortilla ( open, folded, rolled etc,). Unlike restaurants that seem far more interested in getting you to eat the more expensive dishes, they don't seem to care in the market. Suspect silly gringos are a source of amusement.

The only downside is that white skin is a magnet for hawkers, buskers etc. today a Mariachi band came and sang at us much to the bemusement of the locals sharing the bench. And theres a constant stream of woman with baskets of Chapalinos - crickets fried in various spices, wooden carvings and kids with usherette style boxes round their necks trying to sell sweets and cigarettes.  

Not sure what % of kids get a school education here but the cigarette boys are about 6 yrs old & are out all hours. The other night we were walking through the market as it was clearing up and a group of street kids were putting the discarded cardboard boxes on their arms and legs to make themselves into robots.  There's always entertainment - you've just got to know where to find it!  Mexico is far richer than some of the places we're planning on going to so will have to toughen up to that sort of thing. Otherwise we might be coming home with an extended family looking like a Benetton advert. 

Living without deadlines is proving remarkably easy. Getting up for school has been an effort & we're both glad to turn off the alarm clock again and go back to 'whenever' time.  Trying to get our act together and loosely map out where we need to get to by Christmas hasn't happened yet! Think we might need to skip a few places if we're going to find another language school  and cross continents by the end of the year. 

Tonight we get the night bus to San Cristobal de las cases- about 12 hour of bus which clearly we're very excited about (in a few months time we'll be laughing in the face of such small journeys but not yet). Plan is to see more indigenous peoples villages, have a squizz at some churches ( Catholics do seem a little obsessed with churches we've noticed) then head ito Guatamala. 

Must dash. Got to pack our extensive wardrobes into backpacks and schlep across town like a pack mule to the bus station. Anyone out there doing Friday Fizz?  B*stards! 

Buenos Dias Mexico

3 1/2 hours of flying over Breaking Bad territory (very thankful we didn't try and cover north mexico via land. Boredom would come a close second to the dangers of cartel territory) we arrived in Mexico City. 

After a night in LA, MC felt immediately safe! We stayed on a hostel in the historic centre so on day 1 walked the entire length and breadth of the city. Clearly a lie - 20m people live here, it's huge. But we did cover all the interesting bits to a tourists eye.  MC is a strange place. The new bits that are giving it pride of place in the emerging markets look like any North American City - all skyscrapers and shiny banks. The old bits are shabby, filthy, have masses of grafitti everywhere and are confusing. The city's been built on several times by several civilizations so the accumulation of Teotihuacan and Aztec on Native American and Spanish building and cultures is diverse and a bit hard to get to grips with. 

On top of that the anti-gov protests that happen daily make it feel like it's on the edge of another social revolution. We found their version of Occupy which was the size of a village in the financial district. A huge area of tarpaulin but unlike occupy the state have recognise them, bought it a load of porta-loos and the place had a feeling of carnival about it. 

Police presence in the city is massive - groups of 10+ on every corner, in full riot gear doing absolutely nothing apart from hassling the odd street performer into posing for a free picture. We saw them being unloaded in one square - about 50 of them all coming off open back vehicles like a military operation- assuming it was all about to kick off we stayed to watch, cameras at the ready. When the trucks drove off they all lit up,  chose a corner and set about their day of leaning and glowering.  That and the hundreds of street cleaners in charge of a 10m patch each make us think that 40% of employed people must be on gov payroll. 

The air isn't as noticably polluted as expected (prob much worse in summer) but we had panda eyes of filth when we took our sunglasses off at the end of the day. 

Food is ok - bit boring for me so far but some of that is down to my Spanish. Once I get better and can understand what's in things I'm hoping the choice will grow. In the meantime having jalapeño for breakfast is going down well, as are the massive corn snacks squirted with spicy salsa and sour cream. Bargain at 40p. 

Day 2 we tackled public transport and got 3 tubes & a bus to see some pyramids about 40 miles north of the city. Transport surprisingly easy. Tube made entertaining by the stream of hawkers selling their wares. Favourite was the man selling disco backpacks, complete with flashing lights, demonstrated by an ear splitting rendition of Haddaway's 'what is love'. Who wouldn't one with sales techniques like that

The city is getting ready for the Dia de Muertos festival which unlike Halloween focuses on remembering dead relatives rather than dressing like a slut for the night.  The main square has a big display of skeletons around and prety much everyone joins in with horror make-up. 

I'm not a huge fan of cities and didn't find much appealing about MC - nothing to dislike either, bit apathetic about it really. Chris loves a city but conceded he couldn't find much to stand out as impressive. So, having washed the smog out of our clothes we've moved on to Oaxaca in Southern Mexico (about 5 o'clock from Mexico City Mom!). 

Getting us and backpacks across MC was fun in rush hour, followed by an easy 6 hour journey - feels like we've come to a different country let alone State. 

Oaxaca (pronounced Wahaka. Unless you're Chris in which case it's pronounced Hawaka?!) is great. Lovely old colonial city with space, trees, air, very chilled people & a cafe culture that immediately lends itself to sitting in the shade and catching up on a blog with a limon frappe. 

Dia de Muertos started properly here last night with a parade of dogs in costumes, followed by a few hundred costumed dancers/bands, then the kids in costumes giving out and collecting sweets- like a zombie Mardi Gras. 

Tonight is the adults turn when whole families dress up as ghouls, take a feast to the graveyard and invite their deceased loved ones to join them in a massive piss up. Respectfully of course. 

The plan is now to stay here for a week and do a language course for 5 days then we'll decide where to head next.