A kind and considered reflection on the nature of the average traveller type.

Another 4am start this morning to catch the shuttle to Copan, Honduras. I was the last to bed and the first to rise in my dorm, which earnt me several hearty sighs and tuts... I tried my very best to be silent as I scrambled around in the dark at 3.30, but it is amazing how every rustle is amplified at that hour. It´s also funny how dorm attitudes vary- sometimes there´ll be someone who insists on going to bed at 8pm and giving everybody else an earful for waking them up or keeping the light on, but other times a dorm will happen to be a collection of similarly spineless people too polite to even turn the light off at 2am, simply because one person isn´t back yet (and yes, that actually happened in one hostel in Antigua).

Once on the shuttle, I was greeted by a familiar voice through the darkness. A couple of weeks ago in that refugee-camp known as the Jungle Party Hostel (which I returned to far too many times as a result of friends wanting to drink there, resulting in flashbacks of chicken broth and waves of nausea), I met an Aussie called Grant.
              "Hey Cheeeeka, my name´s Graaaaayyunt!" he said, in his charming Queensland accent.
              "Nice to meet you Grahhnt", I said in my sensible British one.
              "Nah mate, it´s Graaaaaaayyyunnnt!" he said, everything extra amplified and sweaty like some kind of Foster´s advert mockery.
              "No, I´m sorry I just can´t do that. I´m going to call you ´Grahnt´," and that was the end of that.

GraHnt was on the bus. He was whining on about something far too loudly for such an unearthly hour, until he took a sleeping tablet and began to snore like a horse. He fell asleep on an British girl´s shoulder who gave him and the rest of the bus an earful, which was amusing. Grahnt was thrown against the window and the bus slept.

Breakfast was a stop at a very sad looking road-side hotel. The dining room had disturbingly large (as in, mural-sized) black and white photos of 6 or 7 year old girls all over the walls. I had the worst chicken sandwhich in Guatemala and we set off for the Honduran border towards more heat and humidity.

*

San Pedro was quite fun, but not really what I´d expected it to be. Lake Antitlan is impressive, but the visibilty tends to get very poor in the afternoons. I did get up at 4am to climb up the "Indian Nose"- a part of one of the big hills, to see the sunrise, which was well worth it. A group of five of us and a guide, Juan, scrambled up in the dark from halfway up (hell no was I going to do the full 2 hour hike at 3am). We sat at the top, oohed and aahhed and took photos of the pink sky and awakening villages below and shared a pack of biscuits before agreeing to head back and find a fry-up. Juan looked confused, asking "Don´t you want to see the... sunrise?", which is when we realised that the sun hadn´t actually come up yet. Juan no doubt spent the afternoon laughing to his friends about the idiot Gringos. To get back down to the village, we jumped in the back of a pick up truck which was loaded up with the day´s supply of freshly baked bread, and clung on for dear life as we and the bread swung down the almost vertical hillside road.

There is a certain type of tourist that dwells in San Pedro la Laguna. He goes by the name of Giles, wears head to toe hemp, disregards the needs for shoes because he wants to "feel the earth", and spends the whole time off his face on drugs, inadvertantly insulting friends and saying ridiculously patronising things about the locals in his Eton school accent. This may sound a little harsh. But once you´ve been sat next to a charming but repungently smelly, hairy hippy girl at dinner and put off your food, you´ll think my rantings just. And yes I did meet a boy who was travelling around the world on his daddy´s credit card after failing to get into university. I wonder if daddy knows that Giles is spending his pocket money on MDMA and other concoctions of drugs with vague but edgy sounding initials: the hipsters of the drug brands- if more than ten people have heard of it, it´s just so not cool anymore.

Example conversation:

            "Oh man this AMT is really making me see the indigeonous tribes´ conflicts in a whole new light. It´s just such a shame that they can´t get together and do some TCP and feel the peace."

           "Yeah man, I mean poverty... flip... This combination of PIN and ATM is totally buzzing. The Mayans should really just merge all their languages, like make a new dictionary called... Mayan, I AM."

Put some bloody shoes on and have a wash and pay your tourist card fee and go home and get a job. In a mine or something.

So yes, I did enjoy San Pedro for a couple of days, but no mother I didn´t do any drugs. I was staying in a great hostel called Mr. Mullet´s, which was run by a crazy Dutch guy. He cut himself a mullet originally to annoy his girlfriend, but soon realised that to be serious at the front and chilled at the back was the best way to be. Now he runs his hostel with a dog called Whiskey, and offers a free night´s stay for anyone who will get a mullet. Some of my friends might not like my new look, but they should realise that we´re all just one big happy earth family and it´s wrong to judge people based on their cleanliness and ability to string a logical sentence together. In the words of somebody on FRIENDS once, I will wash when Tibet is free. Peace out.

Amigos, Novios and Sholcos

I left Antigua yeterday after three and a half weeks: the longest time I've spent anywhere since Guadalajara. At first I didn't think there was enough here to keep me interested beyond a week, but the more time I spend in a place, the more I realise there is to see. Antigua is small, but its residential areas sprawl out further and greener than the average tourist realises. There are still countless cafe's I would like to have the time to sit in with my book, and beyond that several nearby pueblas I'd like to have visited on the chicken bus. But is pressing, and I knew that as soon as I was on a bus somewhere new I'd feel excited again. I set off for San Pedro, on Lake Atitlan, partly because I wanted to see just a little bit more of Guatemala before going on to Honduras and the lake is only three hours away, and partly because I had my friend's shoes who was staying there.

 Two weeks of Spanish lessons were enough- of course I could do with more and am nowhere near what I'd call Good, but four hours a day of one-on-one is quite intense, as is the lack of sleep and constantly tuning in to Spanish, translating what people say to me and what I read. My teacher, Julia continued to be fantastic- talking to me about everything from the nutritional properties found in the three most commonly eaten beans in Guatemala, to her daughter's love life... Julia junior was in love with a boy in her class, but it turned out that this boy had got another girl in the class pregnant. Of course the pair have to marry- everybody being so Catholic and ashamed, but they are 17 and have no money. The boy's father is an important local judge who won't give them any, but the girl's father is a big name in the Central American drugs trafficking business. He is pressurising the boy to work for him, which would make them rich of course, but would limit his life span. And the judge can never know... really makes my 17 year old worries seem trivial!

That's another funny thing about Antigua: on the surface it is an idyllic haven from the dangerous outside world. Nothing could possibly be a-skew in such a tourist-friendly, delicate looking town. But spend enough time there and you will realise that all the shoe-shiners in the park with their charming, old-fashioned kit boxes, actually double up as drug dealers; their polish sitting amongst huge bundles of powder and green. I always wondered how the men selling wooden flutes could ever make enogh money from wandering round, playing incessantly annoying tunes in tourists' faces, but then one day I was offered drugs from one of them, too. Looking closer at the locals I passed by on my walk to the Spanish school garden, or from peering through the bus window, I began to notice the huge mount of glue-sniffers around. It's not tht Anigua has a particular problem, it's just Guatemala- the drugs are cheap and available, and the government really doesn't care. Of course the local police and security guards standing in the square know what's going on with the shoe-shiners, but they are happy to turn a blind eye for a small cut of the profits.

I made a really great group of friends in Antigua- in fact pretty much everybody I met was good fun. There was Canadian boy, who I only knew for a day before he had to return home to his job as a tree planter, we went for a beer on his last night, had great conversation and were given free shots of tequila from the barman. Then there was French Girl: annoyingly beautiful, and cool, she is working for the French Alliance in Guatemala City. She'd hitchiked across many a dodgy area, been arrested in Morrocco and Saudi Arabia, but as with many things, announced that she 'didn't give a shit because [she is] french'. Mr. Physics, a Brit who had taught Physics in Shanghai for five years and had the "skill" of telling a story with 10 or more segways. I met German boy on his birthday- our second day at the scool. He presented me with a beer at midday, which I politely declined, before being told that it was an order, not a polite offering. He became the devil on my shoulder from thereon, and I like to blame him for most of my hangovers. Eco Boy, as he shall be named, arrived in my house for the second week. Another Brit who had spent time teaching abroad, he was learning Spanish to prepare for living and working in the jungle in Costa Rica, as part of an eco/home development thing. He was the best housemate I could have asked for, along with the two longer/term student residents: Asha, a Polish girl battling with and conquering far too many languages whilst also working on her PHD; and Ricardo, a 60 something year old guy from the states, whose vigour for learning was admirable.

Frenchie, Physics man, the German and I saw far too much of each other over the last two weeks- encouraging each other's drinking habits from the night of tequila shots and dancing on tables, to our more sophisticated final evening wine and cheese in the boys' kitchen. I know we were close because we could all be quite rude to each other, and I enjoyed everybody's company hugely. This won't be the last we see of each other. If anything, this trip has made me realise how small the world is, and that if I want to meet up with somebody again, it doesn't matter if they live in London, Paris or on the other side of the world/ I know that it's easy enough to make it happen. I also know that I have a free sofa space waiting for me in a number of countries and cities/ although this does also mean that once I am living in London I may be bombarded with homeless travellers ready to take up the offer.

One of my favourite words learnt over the last two weeks: Sholca/ Sholco, A person with no teeth. Very useful to know in Guatemala.

One of my favourite moments (and another reason to leave Antigua): When trying to buy quite expensive contact lense solution, the pharmacist said he would give me a big discount, on the condition that I took his number. Of course I said yes, that I would call him the next day... I have been looking over my shoulder ever since.

Me and Frenchie's new novios, whom we met on a day trip to San Antonio. One of which is not a sholco.

A woman weaving in San Antonio's artesan market. The typical shawls like the one she is wearing take about 6 months to make by hand.

Day trips, rescuing chicks, and my interview is a hit

It's a pretty pleasant day here in Antigua- After sleeping in until eight (luxury), I wandered across the road to the local Pasteleria to buy some strawberry pastries, and sat on the kerb in the morning sun eating my breakfast and drinking a real cup of English Breakfast tea (teabag brought from home).

I moved into a local family's house on Sunday as part of my Spanish school package. The family are great- super relaxed and welcoming. The house also functions as the local Laundrette and a kind of cafe for those who know it's there. This means I am provided with three fantastic (and huge) meals a day, but will sometimes be sitting at the family dinner table next to some local who is paying for the same meal. At least this definitly means the food is good. On Sunday before I arrived, I decided to investigate the street food and find something small and bland for lunch, seeing as I hadn't long been eating solid fod after the Dengue and had been quite sick again the day before. Sitting down to eat what I thought were mushroom tostadas, I felt puzzled as to why they were so chewy... and had such an odd smell. And then I realised they were snails. Gross.

My spanish lessons began on Monday. I have one-on-one grammar and conversation practice from 8am until 12 everyday with Julia, my teacher. Julia is fantastic: so patient and enthusiastic, even when she knew that I was hungover and hadn't done my homework. While many teachers and students in the school discuss the weather and where they went on holiday, Julia plunged straight in on Monday morning with "so describe to me all of your past boyfriends!". That's a weird enough task to do in english, let alone in Spanish. I have my suspicions that Julia actually understands english fairly well, but she claims ignorance and we have conversed completely in Spanish from the beginning, which is great but sometimes frustrating when I'm trying to explain something like an interview.

On Friday, I was beyond tired. Orignially I'd assumed that my week of Spanish would be a quiet one- that I'd have early nights and spend my afternons practising verbs. I assumed wrong. The school is a very sociable place- I've met some really fun people and have been out somewhere every night, but this combined with the early starts (my host family are up and active well before 6) resulted in me completely malfunctioning by Friday morning. I am no Margaret Thatcher: I cannot cope with four hours sleep a night. The previous day I'd had an interview for an MA course in London, which i'd stressed over and had been left completely drained. Julia said good-morning to me and I burst into tears.
"What's wrong?!" she cried, "A man? I'll bet it's a horrible man..."
I tried my best to explain with my barely-existent Spanish that there was no horrible man, I was just tired and pathetic. Julia sugested we put the grammar aside and go on a little field-trip.

And so it came to be that I found myself at a photography exhibition of naked prostitutes with my 4 ft 10, excitable language teacher. It succeeded in waking me up, and provided us with many an interesting conversation topic. No discussions about the weather for Raquel and Julia.

That afternoon, I got an email to say that I'd been accepted onto the MA course. Still exhausted, I may have had to stop myself from crying once again. Julia happened to be walking past my house, and squealed with joy when I ran out to tell her.

That night, a group of us from the school went out to a couple of bars. What started as a fairly sleepy, quiet evening ended with me dancing on the bar with free tequila. I still have a headache.

Asides from tequila and Spanish, I've done a few interesting things this week. On Tuesday, I went with a small group of friends in search of the nearby hot springs. We got on the chicken-bus (which in Antigua are ex-American yellow school-buses, completely pimped out with crazy patterns and colours) and got off in San Antonio, under the convincing instructions of the locals. After wandering around this little suburb village for a while, gathering the attention of most its residents, we found a swimming pool, of sorts. It was not hot, and it was definitly not fresh water from any kind of spring, but it did have slides.

I did as the locals did, and kept a t-shirt on in order to fit in a bit more and not be disrespectful, but once our group decided to test out the slides (hilarious constructions built with zero health and safety precautions in mind), we realised we had quite an audience. Gaggles of local women out at the pool for the day with their children were in fits of laughter at the sight of 6 white tourists crashing down the slides in pain. We were laughed at but applauded, and left the pool safe in the knowledge that we had at least provided some entertainment for everybody.


I will now attempt to attach some photos, although my android tablet gets very confused about these things...

The view of Antigua from the cross on the hill...

This is what we had for dinner the other night: black beans, tomales and a weird turnip-like vegetable. Very tasty.

The cat keeps waking me up at 5am. She drinks my tea and tries to get into my drawers, but she's gorgeous.

On Friday we went on the chicken bus to the old city: what was once the capital before it was destroyed by a volcano eruption. Today it's a bit of a souless place with lots of concrete, but we did find a purple chick running loose in the road. I carried it around to save it from being run over... nobody seemed to want it or know where it came from, but eventually a woman with a young daughter took it home. It was probably made into a soup that night, but I felt that I could sleep easier knowing that I'd at least spared it from a tuc-tuc related death.

And lastly, the only bar in the old town: the "rock" bar. One man's shrine to obscure Latin American death metal, where the choice of drinks were a litre of beer, or a litre of beer.

The truth about Antigua

Antigua. I am so determined to love this stupid place, but it's been a challenge. It's a very pretty, colonial feeling town, home to uncountable coffee shops, Spanish schools and churches- the kind of place people visit and get too comfortable to leave. Before I flew out, Antigua was one th places I'd google-mapped the hell out of, and already had it in my mind that I would stay here a little while and possibly take some Spanish classes. I still fully intend to do that, but my prolonged stay has so far been a matter of necessity rather than anything else...

Here's a secret- I can write about it now that it's definitly over and I am totally fine: I've been quite ill. I mean horribly sick for a full week. When I wrote before about having a bit of a bug in Lanquin, that was a white lie- Lanquin was only the beginning... so I actually missed pretty much all of the Easter parades and general fun to be had, and spent my Easter Sunday feverish and hallucinating in the refuge camp. It was pretty miserable. The hostel was also awful, but I think I only realised the full scale of its awfulness once I had finally mustered up the energy to leave. Much like high school, working in Wetherspoons, and any prolonged visit to Asda. There were no bed bugs at least, but that's probably only because I didn't actually have a proper bed.

Either way,it's over now. I have moved to a lovely hostel on the other side of town, which has real beds, real hot showers and real breakfast. I'm also practically a celebrity here- news travels fast amongst backpackers and at least three people have greeted me with "Oh, you're that girl who had Dengue over in the Jungle Party hostel!" Pretty funny. Yes, it may have been Dengue fever, BUT I am fine. I have some meds, can hold down a meal again and even climbed a volcano today. One day I will go into details about what Dengue was like, for the sake of good, honest travel-blogging, but in the short-term it is best forgotten, for the sake of my sanity and my mother's nerves.

It's not just the irritation at missing out on the Easter celebrations which makes me struggle to enjoy Antigua: I get lost every time I step outside. This is partly because I don't know the place well yet, having spent the first week rotating between my bed,bathroom and a hammock, but it's partly due to the totally ridiculous layout. Like pretty much every town on the continent, Antigua's streets are designed in a grid system, so you'd think it would be easy to navigate between Calle 5 and Calle 6. H-Oh no. It seems that every other road has an alternative Spanish name. And not even the locals know which is which! It took me almost an hour to walk from hostel 1 to hostel 2, partly because the people who I asked for directions sent me in completely the wrong direction. But then again maybe they had heard the rumours of my illness and were trying to banish me from the town.

And another thing: protruding stone window boxes. Stupid bloody idea. They're of varying heights on all buildings in order to catch you out, and combined with the impossibly narrow pavements create a death trap for all drunk, hostel-bound tourists. Last night I went for dinner and a very stressful pub quiz with a bunch of male American stereotypes. It was fun and we did win, despite a bitter argument over Ireland's independence (which apparently I'm supposed to know all about, being English...) I wasn't drinking, and was keen to go to bed after, but was somehow convinced to go and dance in a bar completely sober until 2am. Walking home with a very drunk Alex the New Yorker (who, interestingly is half Jamaican, half Russian), I was just in the middle of warning him not to walk into any windows, when BAM. I saw stars and now have a spectacular black eye. Alex and I both started to explain to people that Alex hit me after I racially insulted him, but soon remembered that not many people in the land of Abroad get that kind of humour and either think I'm a crazy racist or Alex is a heartless woman beater. The night guard at the hostel definitly does not know what to think of me.

To make matters worse, I checked my email at 2am to discover that the volcano trek which I had attempted to change from this morning at 6am to tomorrow afternoon, had not been possible to change. So three and a half hours later, I woke up- head banging from my black eye, to climb a whopping great volcano. Volcan Pacaya is 2552 metres high and a pretty steep hike. I struggled a bit- especially as I am still a little weak from being ill, but the views were worth it. We got quite close to the main vent and sat for a while toasting marshmallows which the guide had brought along. We were the only group around, but most amusingly thre was still a tiny "shop" at the top called "The World Famous Lava Store". There was nothing actually in the hut to buy- just a man sitting with his dog. I suppose being situated at the top of an active volcano it wasn't really worth the risk having any stock.

So other than recovering, I really haven't been up to much. I have enrolled in a Spanish school fornext week and plan to spend the weekend enjoying food once again. I'm willing to give Antigua another chance to win me over, as long as it doesn't give me any more black eyes.

There I am, in a volcano vent.

Flores to Lanquin to Antigua: Jurassic Park, Bed Bugs and the KKK.

Apologies for the delay with my writing- had a pretty busy few days and came down with some kind of sickness bug, which wasn't fun. Probably some kind of bad karma after feigning sea-sickness on the boat in Caye Caulker...

Flores was ridiculously hot, but very sociable. I met a few Brits, bumped into some people from previous stops and we all bonded by lying around in pools of sweat looking similarly dazed and moist. The back-packer world in Guatemala seems to be a fairly small one, or perhaps the route I'm doing is the most logical one and so the same groups of people tend to leap-frog each other along the way. It's quite nice, really. Like we're all part of the same nomadic tribe.

The first full day I was in Flores, a large group from the hostel decided to hire a boat to take us across the lake to the "beach", for a much- needed swim. Our boat-man was awesome, taking us first to the shop for beer and bringing us a bucket from his own house to fill with ice and keep them cold. What's more... his name was Pedro! The first real Pedro I've met. Unfortunately not Mexican, but still a stereotypical Pedro. It was destined to be a good day.

The lake water was so warm it was hardly refreshing, and I most probably picked up something dodgy from it, but the sunset over the lake was impressive. I'm itching to upload photos but it will take an age on any computer I find around here.

Awesome on a completely different scale: at 4am the next morning I got up to go to the Tikal Mayan pyramids. The area is absolutely huge, with settlements dating back to 700BC (!), set in the middle of a very active rainforest. Hiking into the site, we saw Spider Monkeys, Howler Monkeys and various giant guinea-pig looking things. Apparently the site was used to film Jurassic Park, and the Howler monkeys' growls used as dinosaur sounds, which is a pretty funny thought, but the monkeys really are that loud!

Despite the heat, we climbed all the temples and pyramids we came across, including the largest one: temple IV, which is 212 feet high and taller than the low lying clouds. From there we could see the whole reserve, with temples popping out the top of the dense jungle. It certainly made up for Chichen Itza in Mexico, which I found to be horribly touristy and totally devoid of atmosphere (as much as I did enjoy watching a girl in a bikini top pose glamour-model style in front of all the ancient ruins).

I didn't get to see that much of Flores itself unfortunately (as small as it is) because I spent a lot of time stressing over some tasks I was sent towards my MA application. Trying to make sense of old Belizian newspapers in the 40 degree heat nearly drove me insane, but I eventually sent them off with the help of happy hour margeritas and can now forget all about it until my interviews.

My next stop was Lanquin: eight hours south in more jungly mountains. The bus journey actually took ten hours in the end, but I really enjoyed it. I quite like long journeys anyway- as long as they aren't as hot and smelly like the ride from Belize City. I can completely zone out into my own little world.  It had been raining so it was cooler, and the scenery was incredible- Guatemala is such a well-kept secret. Every now and then however, we'd pass a line of houses and there would be piles of rubbish just at the side of the road. Two young local girls on the bus kept throwing all their sweet wrappers out of the window and it made me want to punch them. Maybe the next generation will travel further, realise how lucky Guatemala is and encourage some better conservation mentality.

We passed through dense rainforest, mountain-side coffee plantations, lakes (which involved taking a tiny, hand-powered ferry-boat) and several little towns with people in all the traditional Guatemalan dresses and men with machetes in their belts. We stopped in one town for half an hour or so, and I found a small market where locals were eating some barbequed beef and rice. I sat and joined them, the entire time being intensely stared at while I ate my lunch, but they seemed happy enough with my company.

Lanquin itself is tiny: a little mountain side village with no ATM or Wifi (shock horror). I stayed in a place called the Zephyr lodge, up the mountain a little, which was nice but not so cheap. The main reason why backpackers come to Lanquin is for the natural caves and fresh-water pools at Semuc Champey. Almost everybody had done or were planning to do a candle-lit tour of the caves, which I'm sure was incredible, but I hummed and harrd over whether to go, because I get so chlaustrophobic and hate the idea of being underground in a cave... but then again I didn't want to feel as if I'd missed out. Later I bumped into a British guy who was the first person I'd met who told me with endearing British honesty that squeezing through cold caves in a swimming costume was one of those things which is impressive afterwards, but actually really horrible at the time. I also bumped into some girls who I'd seen in Caye Caulker and Flores who were planning on just going to the freshwater pools and skipping the caves, so I tagged along and felt a lot better about it all.

To get up the mountain, we decided to get a "taxi"- cheaper than going with a tour bus. But the local taxis are actually just whoever happens to have a pick-up truck. Locals hail these trucks from the street corners and cram into the back, standing up all the way up and down the mountain. My mother would have had a fit.

What we didn't realise was that we'd actually end up climbing up the whole bloody mountain anyway. It was (probably) worth it for the view, but locals and park employees laughed at us a lot for struggling, while they probably climb up and down several times a day. It's hard to describe the actual Semuc Champey pools- I'll have to upload the photo asap. Basically there are little waterfalls which have cut into the limestone to create bright green freshwater pools. They're very pretty from above, and we swam in them along with those little fish that eat the dead skin off your feet. I can safely say I will not be paying to have my feet nibbled at when I'm back home- it hurts!

I was planning on staying in Lanquin for three nights, but the rush was on to get to Antigua before Easter weekend, and my friend Herrmann-ze-German from Flores had managed to find us both a hostel dorm from the Thursday night. We also suspected that there were bedbugs in the Zephyr Lodge... so early on Thursday morning I hopped back on the bus to Antigua- eight hours this time and not so comfortable, but sociable enough because most of the same people were heading that way for the Easter parades. Our baggage was tied onto the top of the bus but somehow made it all the way, despite the road being horrendous.

And here I am in Antigua! It's pretty packed and I am sleeping in a hostel's loft which has 30 beds and resembles a refugee camp. I'm a little sad that I'll be missing out on my family's Easter lunch and that I have no Easter eggs (!) but then again I am in a pretty cool town. It's quite medieval looking, nestled inbetween three volcanoes, and there are men in purple robes and KKK-style hats everywhere, getting well excited over Jesus' death. There are also quadruple shots of tequila on offer for about a pound. Perfect.