"Just squashed a huge mosquito against the window next to me and now I have to watch my own blood drip out of it. Little bastard."The last couple of days have been fun. On Tuesday morning, my Austrian friend and I went on a trek through the valleys on horses. My horse was a babe, called "Moreno"(I think), which basically means "brown". Pretty unoriginal, but there we go. Our guide picked us us from the house dressed as if he was ready to kill some indians. His name was Andrés, he was very serious, but clearly loved his home: pointing out every fruit and tree we passed. He also liked me best, because Wolfgang can't speak any spanish.
"This bus journey is totally bizarre. They're playing 80's music videos like 'Take on Me' on a little TV screen. I don't want to concentrate on it, but it's hypnotic. Maybe they're sending out subliminal messages to tourists through the white noise."
Later: on the roof, sometime in the evening, Trinidad.
"Over the past few months I have:
- Sat on Rossy's roof in Guadalajara learning spanish, chatting to Flacco, watching the cathedral bells and remarked and how the colour of the clock fact exactly matched that of the sky. It's also where I had my very first beer of my trip.
- Sat on the boat roof in Belize, drinking rum with a great group of people, watching some of the best sunsets over the Caribbean.
- Sat on the unfinished roof at Lilia's house in Antigua, with John, discussing love, life and death even through a thunderstorm.
- Sat on a sort of roof terrace in Tegucigalpa by myself, watching a thunderstorm at a safe distance from the dodgy city below.
- Oh- and sat on a bar's roof when the electricity went out and the music system broke, with a lovely Australian in Cancun.
- Sat on the roof in Viñales, breaking mojito glasses and counting the stars with Wolfgang.
- And sat on the roof here in Trinidad, by myself watching the first stars pop out and remembering all the incredible things I've seen.
This could be my last roof terrace.
"I have been called names by men in the street, such as:
- Werita/ Wera (white girl)
- Guapa
- Mango
- Mamey
- Mamasita
- Caliente
- TAXI AMIGA
- Bonita
- Linda
- Chica me gusta
- Novia
- Gringa
- Britney (?!)
- Suave
- Puta (whore)
- Perra (dog)
- and now "white trash".
"I have travelled by:
- Plane
- car
- taxi
- 4x4
- chicken bus
- local mexican bus
- first class mexican bus
- subway train
- shuttle bus
- boat- ferry, fishing boat, canoe, kayak, dive-boat, largo...
- truck- vegetable, construction, pick-up
- foot!
- van
- tuk-tuk
- motorbike
- police van
- horse
- collectivo
- volcano board
"The crazy nights in I have if ever I'm somewhere without dorms/hostels and therefore have my own private room I:
- epilate
- cut my toenails
- usually eat some chocolate in bed
- wander around naked. Bit of stretching.
- binge on lists/ reviewing past lists (* didn't even occur to me that's what I'm doing right now!)
- maybe wash some underwear in the sink
- pee with the door open [*share too much]
Luxury.
"Books read this trip:
- The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene [Left in my room in Mexico]
- Travels with my Aunt, by Graham Greene [Brought from home]
- Better than Fiction, various authors: Lonely Planet [Brought from home and still have it]
- Life of Pi, by Yann Martel [Found in hostel in Antigua]
- Sweet Tooth, by Ian McEwan [Swapped in shop in Utila]
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley [Found with some pages torn out at the Surfing Turtle island hostel, Nicaragua]
- My Horizontal Life, by Chelsea Handler [not proud of this one! Inherited from my Canadian friend]
- The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink [From book swap in Panama City]
- Queer, by William S. Burroughs [Also from Panama City]
- On the Road, by Jack Kerouc [Which I brought home and was an excellent novel to end the trip on].
"Useful Things I have discovered:
- shampoo= body wash= hair wash= clothes wash= bag wash
- The best way to keep the sand flies and even mosquitos at bay is to smother my legs in baby oil or similar (at night)- the little eejits get stuck in it and can't get through to bite me.
- Mexican, Guatemalan and Honduran shoes will not survive hiking or rivers and are generally not built to last."
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