Photo of the Day
Having a huge digger come off the road right in front of us only slowed us slightly. More enterprising people cleared a path on the left and everyone carried on as normal.
Photo of the Day
When its hot and the beach is dangerous, even a budget traveler is well advised to get a place with a pool.
Back to School….s
Day 326
Xela, Guatemala
I’ve been in Xela for 10 days now and not just hanging out watching cable TV! :p My travels have brought me here to improve my Spanish and its going quite well. My teacher Rosario is rather nice and we sitting chatting about all kinds of stuff in between learning a mass of verbs.
I’m paying $150 for a weeks tuition of 4.5 hours a day and that includes staying with a host family and getting 3 meals a day. Its not totally what I want, I’m sharing with another student Chris but we mostly eat our meals together. If I’m not be going to be spending time with the family, what’s the point?
The meals are rather basic and breakfast is something different every day, which sounds good but isn’t really. I would rather just get some nice cereal in the morning and some good fresh coffee. They only have nasty instant stuff, but happily the school provides a big urn so that provides my cerebral energy for the day.
My Spanish is getting to a passable level I think, although I am lacking lots of verbs and words I have a reasonable level of comprehension if the person speaks slowly and clearly. I easily have over a thousand words under my belt and my accent is coming along nicely. Now if I could just meet a nice local girl to help me…. :p
There are also a couple of Salsa schools here so since Wednesday I have being going to Salsa Rosa everyday at 6pm for a $4 group lesson. The classes are small enough for the instructors to keep an eye on you and you also have several ‘helpers’ hanging around who can offer advice too. Instead of concentrating on teaching a set group of moves they encourage you to think about the move and do it confidently when you’re ready. This makes a nice change from the hurried flailing I was used to in my classes in the UK. Well I was never that bad, but when you come to the sixth move of a set it can be hard to remember what it was.
I also got Chris to come along and he seems to be enjoying it, despite his initial reservations. I will probably stay for another 2 weeks and then have to skip back over to Mexico to renew the ‘visa‘ for my minivan. Maybe I will come back for some more punishment, we’ll see!
Tags: stuff, point, cable tv, rosario, Travel, USA, visa, Guatemala, courage, van, mexico, time, host family, rv, cerealMy New Spanish School
Day 322
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
I’m on day 2 of my Spanish language lessons and I’m quite happy with my progress. It seems I haven’t been quite so lazy after all and have been slowly absorbing the language during my time in Mexico. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.
My teacher Rosario is a cute little lawyer in training and she’s been pushing verbs into my brain for the last couple of days. The school isn’t very busy but myself, and few more students, went out on a excursion this afternoon to a local village. My first time on a yellow school bus too!
We wandered through the market before checking out a church from the 15th century and then heading to a local weavers house. Apparently it takes him 6 weeks to make one section of cloth! He happily gave us a go too which was fun but I wouldn’t want to do that for more than a few minutes.
After dinner I chatted to Romero about my job and car. He seemed very interested for some reason. I was just happy to practice my Spanish so when he asked if I wanted to go for a drive I agreed.
He has a taxi which he works in and a very dilapidated pick up truck. It took him 5 minutes to get it started. He then drove around to see a few friends but no one was home. On our way back to the house we just couldn’t get up one of the banks on the way. Car engine trouble I thought…
The road was a busy one and cars and trucks were blasting their horns as they drove past but we couldn’t get over the intersection to the other side. The problem was … no fuel. We wound up rolling backwards to where we could turn around. Then we headed down a steep main street on the wrong side of the road before eventually rolling into a gas station where Romero bought 0.71 liters of fuel.
The pick up was due to be scrapped the next day and we just needed enough to get us home. Its nice to be alive 
The day of the ‘Black Cloud’
Day 316
Coban, Guatemala
In the afternoon it started raining. I tried to ignore it despite the fact that the rain was so heavy it disrupted the satellite signal. It was really coming down. A lot!
The owner started banging on my door and I came outside to find the car park outside my room under 6″ of water, and it was still raining. I changed, grabbed my keys and went to move my car. I opened the gate to find the way blocked by the owners land-rover. He wouldn’t move it either.
He then locked the gate! I was screaming at him to open it and move his car with no joy. Trying not to freak out too much I let him explain that the road outside was lower than the car park. I move everything off the floor of my car and prayed.
Pretty soon my room was flooded :p
I waited and moved my stuff into another room. This one was on the top floor with 6 beds :p After a nervous hour (and more rain) it finally stopped and it all drained away. Maybe it was time to leave.
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Nana nana nana nana nana nana nana nana, Batman!
Day 312
Semuc Champey, Guatemala
I was at “the most beautiful place in Guatemala” but it didn’t quite seem like that. After my exhausting trip there I slept for 14 hours and decided I would go to the waterfalls of Semuc Champey in the afternoon. The weather conspired against me on that front as a black cloud rolled in and rained on us until late evening. The food in Las Marias wasn’t exactly inspiring, but then I had just come from a great vegetarian hostel. I was getting close to the magic 1,000 words learned but I guessed I wouldn’t get to Xela in time for the start of a Monday class.
Next day was lovely and after another disappointing breakfast I made up my mind to see the sights and push on over to Coban, the nearest big town, as soon as I was done. It was fun hiking through the jungle and swimming in the limestone pools. Very pretty, but not quite the totally awe-inspiring place I had been led to expect. Great view from the platform overhead though.
After I was bored with nearly getting lost in the muddy paths and slipping on the rocks and falling into a pool in front of all the other tourists :p I set off for Coban around 2pm. I didn’t get very far. I ended up giving a lift to a couple from Alberta, Canada to the nearby caves of Lanquin. It was another 9km of pain, even worse than the trip down. I ended up with brakes that were literally smoking and had to throw muddy puddle water over them.
In return for their lift, Joe and Jen invited me to explore the caves with them and it gave me another chance to get my post-swim feet filthy again in the sticky cave mud. The caves were pretty good but slightly spoiled by the huge signs they stuck all over the best parts and the unsightly cables strung all over the place. It was much more fun being scared with Vanessa in the Blue Hole cave in Belize. At least I managed to get a few decent photos this time. 3200 ISO and 2.8 aperture rocks.
After 20 minutes of squelching around we stuck around for another 2 hours waiting for the bats to leave on their nightly insect hunt. When they finally started coming out there were thousands of the little fellas flashing past our heads. Since I didn’t even know I would be coming I didn’t have my off camera flash charged but I did manage to get a few good shots. Bear in mind I took five hundred photos and 99% were complete rubbish.
The road to Heaven
Day 310
Semuc Champey, Guatemala
I had to wait to pass a couple of buses filled with curious locals to survey the damage. Somehow the genius of Bills repair had held. No oil was coming out and I could continue. At least until I hit another big rock.
Nothing was going to stop the sun from setting though and I was passing through local villages and ignoring the children shouting ‘Gringo‘ to concentrate on the rocks jutting everywhere. By driving my wheels on the rocks I was managing to avoid them but with every knock I would diligently jump out and check to make sure I hadn‘t knocked my weld off.
Pretty soon I was having to use my torch to do this and I was regretting my desire upon reaching Guatemala to be driving a rutted track through the jungle. I was asking any locals I met whether I was still on the right track whenever I could. There were very few turns since I was now following a track on the side of a mountain and praying I would make it.
The estimate of 1 1/2 hours to my destination was popular. That’s all I heard until I got to some unnamed village and the gas station attendant lowered it to 45 minutes. It seemed I was getting closer!
Finally I made it to the village of Lanquin and chose to push on to a guesthouse by the waterfalls. This meant another 9km of nasty roads but at least then I could relax. It was 9pm when I pulled into the darkened car park of Las Marias and got myself a dorm room on my own for Q30. I would worry about the lack of electricity the next day. For now all I had on my mind was sleep.
Tags: guesthouse, gas station, sleep, gringo, hadn, electricity, side of a mountain, desire, locals, set, wheel, road to heaven, TravelThe road from Hell
Day 310
Semuc Champey, Guatemala
The girl, Kara, I had spent the day sitting in the bank and fixing my brakes on Monday with still hadn‘t come back from Tikal. I was slightly concerned but I really had to leave. I pointed out this information to the good people of Los Amigo hostel and after another spell on the Internet got my stuff together to leave.
Another week gone, another set of doors close and others open. I had finally met some Swedish girls, a pair of cousins from Uppsala who were studying in Lund. They wanted me to come on their 3 day walk to some ruins to reduce the price. I regretfully declined and of course now wonder if that was a mistake. I bet they see a wild Jaguar! :p
It would be $100, not too bad but they were returning via Tikal and I had no major desire to see it a third time. Thinking back these were my forth and fifth Swede I had met in 10 months, one in Puerto Escondido, one in San Cristobal and the girl I freaked out in the phone shop at the very start of my trip in Toronto. At least it would give me more chance to speak Spanish.
I would be needing it for the next leg. After assuming Kara would be coming with me to the waterfalls at Semuc Champey I had neglected to post a notice to see if anyone wanted to come with me. I probably should have gotten my oil pan welded but the road all the way down was the main highway number 5, it would have to be paved right?
The first part of the journey was fine, I got some gas and directions out of town. I took a slightly wrong turn but firing up my laptop and good old Google Earth showed me I would join the road I really wanted soon. My power converter were all broken now so I suspended the laptop and listened to dodgy Guatemalan radio.
The road was good, the best since the US really since Guatemala has mostly avoided the horrible custom of covering their roads with speed bumps. There were a few around, but nothing compared to Mexico. I made good time, the distance wasn’t that great and I made it to the half way mark at Sayaxche after about 2 and a half hours. I took the green goddess over a little ferry too, which was fun. They were moving 3 cars and a gas tanker around with a couple of outboards.
I crossed a rickety bridge at Sebol and the asphalt gave out. So much for the paved highway all the way south. The road was dusty but flat and clear. I would have to be careful about my oil pan though. I tried to turn on my laptop to recheck Google Earth and learned it hadn‘t suspended and was now nearly dead. My first bit of bad luck.
I bumped down the dusty track passing a few cars and trucks and saw a box in the road. I big one that must have just fallen from the truck I had passed. I pulled up and found it was a box of 14 packets of Corn Flakes. The big 600g boxes. I reached down and pulled it onto the front seat. It barely came through the window. Nice find. Shame I didn’t really like cornflakes :p . 100 meters down the road I found a starving dog nosing around another 3 big boxes.
I chucked them all into the van, emptied a box for the starving dog and continued south. What was I going to do with 56 boxes of Cornflakes? It was 33kg of the stuff. If only they had been Branflakes I would have been much happier. I guess I could sell them, give them away to the locals, eat some or make some chocolate cake things. I started following a beer truck and hoping that would start dropping some of its produce too
My musings about what to do with my sudden windfall was interrupted by a small truck zooming past me but then being blocked by the beer truck. There was a kid in the back sitting on a load of boxes of Corn Flakes. He looked at the pile of Corn Flakes on my front seat, shouted to the driver and they pulled over. I did the same.
He jumped out and started yabbering on in rapid Spanish which I could barely understand. I understood the word ‘Career’ or ‘Job‘ though. He didn’t even wait for me to speak but opened my door and started grabbing the boxes. I really wasn’t prepared to argue with the guy, and why would I. My slight good fortune would be nothing compared to the grief this would get him into.
I told him he was lucky (I doubt he would get so much compliance from a hungry local) and shook his hand before driving off on my way. I was now hoping this was going to give me some good karma for the road.
The road was getting worse. Someone else had obviously noticed this and decided to spend a few billion Quetzals to get it fixed. Only a few miles after losing my breakfast, so to speak, I came to a bridge which was closed. I gathered they were repairing the road, or at least making it half decent and no traffic could get through now until 6pm. It was 4.30pm and I had just missed the 2-4 slot to get through.
What could I do? I pulled into the shade, dropped my hot water bottle into the nearby stream and had to wait for an hour and a half. I tidied my car as usual, checked the oil, tried to fix my power adapter, studied a few Spanish words, hoping the local truck drivers who also pulled up to wait wouldn’t decide to rob me.
I would have gone fishing but the milky water was polluted with soap powder. The truck drivers washing directly in the stream weren’t helping either. How can they be so short sighted. The sun sank lower and lower and my window for making it to my destination shrank.
At 6pm the cones were moved and I now had a choice between the safety of driving slowly verses the danger of being forced to drive at night. I also had my oil pan to consider which was basically being protected by some hard chewing gum. After a minutes drive I realised they weren’t sealing or improving the road, they were building a whole new one by blasting half the hillside to widen it.
Ignoring the waving construction workers I picked my way across the rocky road, cursing the day I didn’t buy a 4WD. I suppose I could go back but the guy manning the blockade told me it was only 1 1/2 hours to Semuc Champey. I was 3 hours away from Flores. I decided to continue.
This probably wasn’t the best decision. I soon came to the most recent part of the roads construction, a steep section of blasted road that was mostly flat but not quite. My first ginger attempt at it was unsuccessful and I backed up to consider my options. The middle part had several large rocks jutting up, waiting to bleed my oil out so I went up and chucked them out of the way. I was still going to be in serious danger of losing all my oil again.
With one of the workers cheering me on I got back in the car, put it in low gear and gunned the engine. I would have to make it in one shot, it wasn’t so steep that I couldn’t make it, the danger was stopping or tearing the bottom off my van in the attempt.
I really should have had my camera on video mode :p
I picked up some speed and hit the rocks at a fair pace, I could hear them smashing all over the bottom of the car and I wondered, not for the first time, what the hell I was doing. It was 10 seconds of sheer hell, I just kept my foot down and prayed to the gods of Karma that I wasn’t going to spending the night in the jungle.
Tags: bridge, swedish girls, seat, girls, hadn, nearby, sea, blog, tikal, tea, cars, swede, mistake, tentFixing my car
Day 308
Flores, Guatemala
My car had been making some scrapping noises in Belize when I was driving with Vanessa, seems like the brakes were on the way out. Stupidly I only just thought about getting them fixed since I was always giving lifts to people. I had a very hot day over the bridge with the crazy ex-punk Kara alternating trips to the garage where they had my car jacked up fixing the front brakes and to the local bank with the Western Union office. Kara was in an even worse state than I was over the weekend when I was down to only Q6 (less than a dollar) and only 97p showing in my bank account.
My own fault for not remember to transfer some money before I left Caye Caulker. At least I had some emergency dollars to fall back on, Kara couldn’t even afford water and she had a bad hangover on Sunday. The hostel is now filled with people I don’t know, mostly Dutch and English so I think I will be moving on very soon.
Los Amigos is a great place to hang out and take a few days to process my photos, it might be perfect if it had free wireless Internet but then I wouldn’t get anything done as I would be either surfing or lending my laptop to other people. I had some problems uploading my last few entries to my blog using Live Writer, which is how I write all my posts offline, but upgrading to WordPress 2.6 seems to have fixed it. It also kept the layout of my blog the same which didn’t happen the last time I upgraded. I messed around with the layout so much that getting it to look like it does now would be a major pain.
I spent some time playing with Photoshop too, trying to figure out how to watermark my photographs. You can see the results above which will be the standard from now on. I need to drive some traffic to my site and its no good taking a good shot and then no one knowing where to go to get some more.
Tags: few days, western union office, last time, thumb, Travel, blog, locals, belize, crap, hostelTikal, Guatemala
Got up at 2.50am to make it up to the ruins in Tikal for sunrise. We wandered through the awakening jungle by torch and moonlight past looming stone structures half glimpsed in the faint light.
We climbed up to the wooden platform above the layer of mist that carpeted the jungle and our group was the first to arrive. There would be no visible sun rise today.
Shortly after we got to the top it started pouring down, you could hear and then see the wall of rain advancing towards us. Thankfully we knew about the little platform hidden around the other side where the workers haul up stone to restore the temple so we sheltered there with the guide, while a hundred other people got soaked. It cleared for a great view and then we wandered the ruins stopping occasionally for creepy crawlies the locals would let us play with for tips. I really don’t like big bugs, especially ones that can nearly kill you, but happily Katrijn was fearless and a good model.
The rain came again when we reached the van for the journey back. Perfect!*
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* Perfection was achieved by not dying on the way back. Everyone fell asleep, not including the driver, but he had a go. I sat watching him rubbing his eyes and constantly blinking when I woke up and offered to drive. He bought some Coke and got it together but it was scarier than climbing a 50m temple.
Tags: rain, glimpse, journey, jungle, torch, eve, blog, trousers, thumb, fear, Guatemala, locals, sleep, sunDay off in Flores
Flores, Guatemala
In Flores we wound up staying at Los Amigos, only Q30 in the dorms and they also do vegetarian food. Nice.
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I have a vocabulary of about 700 words now and am looking forward to going to Spanish School. |
Later on that afternoon I drove Katrijn, Felicity and Charlotte up to Tikal to get our tickets for the next day and to watch the sunset. We had to motor up to Temple IV in order to get there in time, not that we ever had a chance to see it, but the guards would kick us out if we didn’t hurry. |
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As soon as we started walking back, the heavens opened and we got drenched. It stopped as soon as we reached the car. Hey ho.
Welcome to Guatemala
Flores, Guatemala
No breakfast for us, Katrijn and I set off early for a very sweaty walk back to the car. Once there we found that Bill had patched up my leak with some JB Weld and we poured in a quart of oil and held our breath. It seemed to hold so in went another gallon and we ran it for 5 minutes. It was already roasting so didn’t take long to get very hot. It seemed we would be able to leave that day.
I took a few photos of Bill and his wife Katherine since they wouldn’t take anything for their trouble. I found out Bill is from Hendersonville in North Carolina, the place I spent my very strange thanksgiving last year. I promised to send them a copy once I got Internet access.
We left their little slice of heaven and drove gingerly along the rutted track, inevitably we snagged a few rocks on the way and each time I hopped out to survey the potential damage. Luckily I was careful enough to make it back to the paved highway, from now on it would be plain sailing.
We gave a lift to a local into San Ignacio which was much closer than I thought and we decided what to do. It was 11.30am by now and San Ignacio didn’t look that exciting. We had some lunch, worked out a few financial sums to make sure we had enough cash and headed towards the border. Hopefully we would be in Flores sipping beer by the lake very soon.
It was only 9 miles to the border and it didn’t cause any major problems. I got myself stamped out of Belize, canceled my car importation, paid my $37.50B and drove over no mans land towards the Guatemalan border. You have to drive through a building that sprays your car which proved completely ineffectual as by the time I had the windows up it had sprayed mostly the air in front of my car and little else.
No visa was required for me, I stood in the line behind a tiny Guatemalan lady and paid Q10 (€1) for my 90 visa. Next I did the paper work for my car which required my title and a copy of my title and passport. It cost Q40 which was payable at the nearby bank and I was given a sticker to place in my window. A border guard checked my paperwork and after paying a further Q50 cross the bridge we were in Guatemala and I was on country 5 of my trip.
The roads were worse than Belize which seemed strange and half of the trip over to Flores was on a rough, but mostly flat dirt track. I was just happy to get through the border in only an hour and relived my oil pan was still holding out.
I still wasn’t driving through the deep jungle I was hoping for, most of the roads look pretty much alike, houses and shops every once in a while and the usual hazards of dogs, horses and motorbikes. Flores was only a couple of hours away and a major tourist stop. It sits in the middle of a lake and we were early enough to check into one of the best and most popular hostels, Los Amigos.
We met Eva in the street and decided to give the tourist stuff a miss and spend the next day chilling out. I had ten million photos to process and lots of blog entries to write. Seemed like this was the place to do it, and when that was too boring I could go and visit the mythical city of Tikal. More ruins…. I think my last for a good while!
walk to car/bill and katherine/Â jb weld/photos/lift to local/lunch/money-atm/hour at border/ok roads/flores/met eva/los amogos/shower/blog
Tags: rocks, passport, chillin, borders, guatemalan border, guatemalan, jb weld, Travel, visa, money, chill, GuatemalaBreaking down in the jungle
DAY 301!
Barton Creek, Belize
I packed up and decided to head west with Katrijn and Eva. I was going to have to go to Guatemala no matter what, there is no vehicle ferry to Honduras. I would have a dilemma soon though since it seemed that is where all my new friends from Caye Caulker would be heading next.
Thankfully my van was still where I left it in Belize City and we drove off without incident. It was so boring Eva fell asleep.
After only a couple of hours we turned off the highway onto a dirt track on the way up to Barton Creek. It is an off the beaten track gem which we were all keen to see. The road was pretty rough though, but nothing too bad I thought. We hit a couple of rocks since I don’t have the best clearance but it seemed to be no worse than the occasional road I had done in Baja California.
Eventually we turned off that road onto one that was even narrower. We were getting close we thought. Then it all went wrong.
Or maybe we were saved.
We saw the sign for the cave pointing right but all thought it pointed left. We went right.
We came to a deep creek which I didn’t want to cross so turned around and came back to the sign.
We realised our mistake and turned around.
This was the worst place to do it and ended up getting stuck on a steep slope and nearly dropping down a cliff.
Fortunately, a local family was passing by shortly after in their 4WD and after pushing and sitting on the hood without much luck told us they would come back with a rope.
When they came back Bill was crawling underneath and saw that I had also knocked a hole in my oil pan.
Bad news!
Bill hitched up his rope and Mikey pulled us out of the drive and we parked up near Bills house and considered our options. The hole wasn’t too bad so we drained the oil and Bill offered to pick us up some more oil in town the next day. Then we would see if some JB Weld would be good enough to get us out of the jungle and back to a welder.
The girls weren’t that impressed, but what could they do? :p
Nick points out the fact that my Hayes manual was upside down.
Bert was a friendly dog. A little too friendly. This shot doesn’t show his red rocket.
With only a slight delay we made it to the outpost where Edwin was there to cater for our every need. There was a Dutch brother and sister also there, Jan and Natalie so they showed us how to swing into the creek.
It was a great place, but with a hole in my oil pan and no oil. How long would I be stuck there?
Tags: 4wd, jb weld, eve, dirt track, steep slope, tent, belize, rope, dilemma, vehicle ferry, sleep, barton creekThe tragedy and the Irony* : Facebook sucks.
Caye Caulker,
My mum doesn’t facebook. She’s one friend I don’t need to add. She can read my blog to find out what I’m up to since I now don’t really do much email. That’s fine, facebook is personal.
Yesterday three girls from England arrive in the afternoon. I told them I was Swedish to appear more interesting and to see if they really believed me. They still haven’t got it,who wants to be British on a island full of Poms. Different is good. We hang out, chat, go for some drinks that night. Great girls.
Caroline and Krishna
Next day we hang out and chat some more. My mate frog and I persuade Caroline to come down to the Karaoke for a beer and we start chatting about the hostel which turns to talk of how some hostels are brothels on occasion, like in Africa…
This isn’t going where you think :p
Well I say to Caroline about how she could never do that but it turns out she did. She was in Ghana and did a 3 months overland trip too. We chat about Ghana and the music and dancing. The usual fun of reminding each other of the great times in a shared experience of a place. I tell her that I saw the Eclipse in ’06 thinking this would impress her even more. Hey, I’m not shallow, it was a great thing to see! :p
She impresses me by telling me that she also saw it and we chat about where she spent her 3 months. I ask if she was a volunteer and when she says ‘yes’ a trail of lightbulbs went off in my head.
On my last day I went to a volunteer party… did you got to a party a few weeks after the eclipse? – Yes
I describe it perfectly for her. The court yard, the beer place, the music, the dancing. We also went off to a club together after the party.
So weird.
It turns out she also went to the same place on St Patricks Day in Accra a couple of weeks before, the Irish pub with the live band. We made a pile of shoes and danced on the concrete until they felt like velvet slippers when we were done. Such an awesome night.
It is a small world but I wouldn’t want to paint it.
So why does facebook suck?
Because now you meet people, you make them your friend and maybe someday you notice they’re in the same country and you can track them down. We’re all becoming ultra connected, how can we manage all those narrow threads of brief connections manageable. GPS and mobiles will making ‘pinging’ your friends a normal thing. Its cool to think you will know who will be in the pub that night without asking them but then so will the police if we continue towards this dangerous path along the shattered road of civil liberties.
The chances of people meeting again, randomly reconnecting across the continents is a spectacular luxury we have in the west, but one that is doomed to die. I met a girl called Rachel in New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia, the second and third time only briefly, but in the middle of nowhere. It was such fun. Maybe a well trodden route and not entirely unexpected but Ghana to Belize after 25 months is so amazing.
So guard your friend requests. Don’t make it a quest to gather up as many as you can. More that a few hundred are not your friends, they’re just names, more than a thousand is a full fledged hobby. How you people make time to make new friends I never know. I guess I should try being an attractive girl to find out.
Defriend a few people right now and see if you miss them… they wont mind, they wont even notice you’re gone. Then maybe you’ll bump into a old friend you stupidly failed to make the first time.
So where is the tragedy? That I had to wait so long to really meet Caroline. She’s great. Rest assured I have not fallen in love with her over a weird coincidence, indeed she was freaked out by the whole thing. Maybe she thought I was stalking her across the world :p We passed and didn’t connect.
The tragedy was that I didn’t make any impression on her the first time. Although she lost her photos she doesn’t appear in any of mine from the two nights in Accra. I hung back a bit, I chatted to some people but I wasn’t really there until I started dancing. As you get older you have less to lose and more to gain from being outrageous. We all want to be remembered, if only temporarily, because one day that’s all we will be.
So I will make it my goal now on to find as many people as I can to charm, encourage, humour, help and impress. I’m trying but I need to try harder. I need to be more aggressive than I am, less watching from the wings when I should be pushing towards the center of the stage. You should try the same. Who wants to be forgettable?
I believe we’re like a half marble bouncing around in a marble bag. You may never meet other half but you never will unless you try to connect with every marble in the bag. Just don’t add them all to facebook, it crashes if you have more than a million friends.
So I guess its really not facebook that sucks but me. I shan’t cancel my account just yet.
You’d impress me right now by subscribing and telling 3 more people to subscribe, my blog is now my sole income. I’m trying to travel overland to every country remember, its not free.
*If you want to add me in facebook I’m Travel Trousers, put something original on my wall. Mum, don’t even try!
Comments are back on.
Tags: mate, drinks, lips, ghana, new friends, USA, st patricks day, great time, england, facebook sucks, krishna, attractive girl, dish, rash, gps, girlsHunting the elusive Manatee
Caye Caulker, Belize
Well, I enjoyed the Sea Hawk snorkeling trip so much I went again, I even got a discount, but then I figured I could have gone diving for a few dollars more… oops!. Maybe this time I would get lucky with the Manatees!
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A week on a Caribbean Island
Caye Caulker, Belize
One week would never be enough but it would have to do. Caye Caulker isn’t the ‘la isla bonita’ Madonna sings about but it was a beautiful spot all the same. The time was right, I arranged to take Katrijn and Eva over to Flores in Guatemala and just about managed to catch the boat where I am writing this post.
What a great week. Rain, storms, lots of sunshine, warm water but mostly my time was filled with hanging out with a great group of people. After a day at a boring hotel I moved into Bella’s and started having lots of fun. I admit the other guys were having even more fun, but then they were drinking all hours of the day and I didn’t want or need to compete with that.
We did lots of relaxing at the split where they have a great spot for relaxing on the broken concrete pier and a rickety dive board for showing off to the girls. Alcohol and dive boards are not a good combination, but highly entertaining.
I wasn’t just hanging out slacking though. I went out on the free kayaks with Jordan to try my luck at some fishing which was fun. Didn’t catch a damn thing but he still managed to sell me his rod and reel for $30 us. I got a good deal 
The snorkeling trip with the boys from the Sea Hawk were highly recommended too, it seemed everyone from the hostel ended up going and how can I argue with figures like that? They sail out to the reef and make three stops. Hopefully sighting some Manatees on the way. We didn’t get that lucky, there were 2 hanging out but the group before us ended up scaring them away. I put my underwater camera to some good use though.
Nikki shooting me shooting her.
You know what they saw about boats and alcohol though, drinking rum punch while hanging off the rope at the back is not such a great idea, but it seemed it at the time.
There were a few hard nights of drinking to get through too. I should stress I mostly managed to resist the pull of cheap rum and didn’t have a single hangover. Lots of the guys there ended up missing most of the night after.
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Heading to the beach
Caye Caulker, Belize
| I filled my backpack and headed down to the pier in time for the noon ferry over to Caye Caulker, a little strip of land that I should probably have gone over to the week before if Vanessa hadn‘t distracted me :p At least the weather seemed more reasonable, the water was even blue instead of the brown I was used to seeing. Maybe I would be diving the Blue Hole in a few days?!? |
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The ferry was 50% tourists so I guessed it was a pretty popular spot, I paid $20 us return and sat listening to American Archaolgogy students chat to a Norwegian couple about their plans to visit Europe. An hour or so later we we at the island and I set off with a vague idea of where I wanted to stay. Daisy’s place smelt of mildew so I settled for Marins. Shared shower, double room for $15 us. I was hoping to meet up with Katarija again who had told me she would be heading over about the same time but a walk around town didn’t make her appear.
I was pulled up short by a local guy, Charles, who made me feel bad by trying to brush him off. “Relax man, meet the locals!” he told me, so I stopped to chat. Two minutes later he was trying to sell me drugs and telling me where the island brothels were. So much for being friendly.
We’re only on a strip of land 700 meters by 100 so its pretty small. Up at the ‘split’ there’s a cool bar with a diving board and a broken up concrete pier where the tourists lie basking like seals all day. Its hot, sunny but with a fresh breeze, the hurricane near Florida was blowing all the way over. Not a bad place to chill for a few days.
Up the creek
Orange Walk, Belize
The night in the restaurant wasn’t too bad after all, and you can’t beat $5 us for a place to stay. We were up early getting prepared for the river trip up to the Lamanai ruins which we had booked with the river lodge. It was $40 us, the same as everywhere else in town, but these guys started further downstream which meant you got another 7 miles of wildlife to spot on the way up. The river was high right now too, check out the breeze block walkway to our hotel.
There wasn’t a huge amount to see really, but then we had just spent the day at the zoo! :p A few iguanas and crocs but not too many birds. Why the tour left at 9am and not earlier didn’t make much sense but then I wasn’t running it. It was going to be a hot day either way.
During lunch I took a swig of my Sprite and was rewarded with something that had crawled or flew into the bottle. This normally wouldn’t be so bad but it then proceeded to sting me inside my throat! The pain was excruciating and I could feel it moving around in my neck. Several cups of water didn’t seem to dislodge it but I was worried about the potential swelling. I blagged a anti-histamine from the Canadian mom in our group and was reassured to see she also had a syringe for when/if I stopped breathing. Luckily I felt fine, if very uncomfortable for the rest of the day.
3 thrills a day
Hopkins, Belize
Visiting a salsa factory isn’t really very thrilling but its interesting to see. Marie Sharp is a Belizean legend and her hot sauce is on over table in the country. Pop into the factory for a tour if you’re passing that way. 
After that we went swimming in the Blue Hole park. Nice and fresh. Vanessa got a thrill when we floated down the river and were nearly sucked into the underwater tunnel. I saved her
Then we went nearly a mile into the cave nearby with only a small LED flashlight. That was fun. Vanessa was kinda scared :p
Then the biggest and best thrill was saved until last but we didn’t take any photographs. We couldn’t and I will explain why.
When we had driven down to Hopkins a few days before we passed some people in a horse drawn buggy who we assumed to be Amish. We soon learned that they were Menonites, and they had a sizeable community out in the jungle. On the way back up we decided to go and have a proper look.
4 miles up a dirt track from the main road we found a set of farms and houses. No electricity poles or cars were about but there were quite a few people. We stopped to chat to a local on the road and asked if there was any where we could get some food nearby. The community didn’t have anything as advanced as a restaurant but he suggested we pull into someone’s drive and eat with them.
This seemed a bit crazy, to just invite yourself to dinner with a random family but when I suggested we choose his house he told us to give him half an hour and let us know where he lived. We carried on up the road to explore some more.
Vanessa and I wanted to photograph the people but knew this would be rather rude and managed to restrain ourselves. We turned around and stopped again to chat to a guy loading up some lumber at the lumber yard. He was also dressed the same as all the men in the area. Straw hat, blue shirt and a long beard.
Abraham, it turned out, was the brother of John, the man who had invited us to dinner and we waited a while talking about their life in the village and what we were doing in the area. At least until we had to move out of the way of horse and cart that wanted to get past. This was the closest to a traffic jam that you can get around here.
We drove back to Johns house and met his wife Margaret and learned they had 11 children running around, ranging from 7 months to 14 years old. The three boys were outnumbered by their sisters slightly but they were all curious as to what we were doing and what we looked like. I have no idea what they thought of my long hair but they all stared when I took off my hat.
John was building onto his new house so we sat in that and talked some more. Some of the children had had some vaccinations that morning so were somewhat afraid of strangers. They also dressed in the traditional way and John explained how they bought cloth and made their own clothes.
He took us on a mini-tour of their farm and showed us their horse drawn washing machine and how they could change the belts around to power the corn grinder and even a drill. Chickens were running everywhere in the yard, jumping over broken farm equipment and being chased by the barefoot children.
In the field nearby they kept horses for transport and cows for dairy produce. The Menonites are all vegetarians but they are not against using animals to make money. They must be quite well off since they came and bought 3,000 acres in the valley. 35 families lived there and they had only been there 12 years but were well established with a church, school and market.
A spring from the hills provides all the families with a gravity fed clean water supply and the land was green and fertile, perfect for farming. The Menonites provide 80% of the countries local produce and with no real costs for gasoline or other resources were in a great position to profit from the worldwide increases in food prices. I only hope they don’t also suffer from this, people can get very jealous from others’ success.
We learned they sometimes even had people coming to rob them with guns and someone was shot through the hand a few years back. Now they don’t keep too much money in the houses.
Dinner was finally ready so we washed our handed and all 15 of us squeezed around the table, the adults at either end. Vanessa my ‘wife’ and I sat together, we both felt it best not to correct them on this point, it was hardly relevant.
We bowed our heads for a silent prayer and passed around the bowls for a simple meal of vegetable stew, rice, cottage cheese and soup. The children were learning English in school but their main language is Low German which they would mutter amongst themselves. They didn’t really speak to us but we knew at least some of the older ones understood what we were talking about.
Vanessa and I were desperate to photograph this beautiful scene of the family sharing a meal by lantern light, the girls in their black bonnets and simple dresses, the boys in blue with perfect, blonde bowl haircuts but we could hardly jump up and retrieve our cameras from the car. We had both talked about doing an article on them for the National Geographic, which was mostly just conjecture, but here we were having dinner with people who are managing to avoid the crazy materialism we are obsessed with in the west. It was such a nice feeling that we were doing something very few people would ever experience, but even nicer to be reminded that there are friendly people all over the world.
After dinner we continued to talk about their lives and what we were doing. John asked where we were staying that night and I replied that I didn’t know, it would probably be a hotel. He offered to let us stay and I should have agreed immediately, sadly Vanessa and I don’t really know each other that well and she didn’t think I wanted to stay, so she said no.
After we said goodbye and set off to the main road in the dark we realised our mistake but it was too late. They would soon be in bed so we could hardly go back. John did say we would always be welcome, so maybe someday I will return, but who knows. We would have to settle for a night in a dingy Chinese Hotel in the capital, Belompan. What a great day.
A menonite buggy
leaving kismet, photo kids, new arrival, palencia?/late/marie sharp factory/blue hole pool/underwater current/drive to next cave/1 light/scared/muddy/menonite turning/4 miles in/chatting to john/up to nersery/chatting to abraham/back to johns/wrong turn/john + margret + 11 kids/14 to 7 months/3 boys/sat and chat in new house section/no photos/trad dress/vaccines/blonde/waching machine/corn grinder/drill/makes shutters/various carriages./horses and cows/bread fruit tree/chickens/dinner/silent prayer/rice/stew/soup/bread+corn syrup/pineapple and mango/kick in the head/well behaved/long hair/vanessa wife/lanterns/no photos/offer to stay/regrets/drive up to capital/cheap chinese hotel/vanessa asleep
Tags: photograph, led flashlight, straw hat, brother, photographs, ears, thumbBelize without a map
I finally got my oil changed on my last day in Mexico. I rotated the tyres, changed the air and oil filter and had a confusing conversation about the fuel filter in Spanish. I didn’t care I didn’t understand any more, it was time for country number four on my world tour. After 4 months in Mexico it was time to leave. I had a final breakfast at a local cafe and dumped about 40 coins for my 52 peso bill before heading off the to the border. After seeing all the Belizean cars queuing for fuel I thought it best that I get in the line as well, just as well, I would later learn that gas is $11 a gallon over the border. Why do the Americans complain?!?
The guard at the border hit me for $10 to leave and had the gall to suggest other tourist pay him $25 for the amazing “service” of pointing out where the car import office was. I don’t think so. I sorted out my paperwork and headed over into the free trade zone between the borders. I got my $5 wheel spray and waved off the guys attempt to sell me insurance. I couldn’t just drive through though as one of the customs ‘helpers’ was keen to point out. He jumped in and we went back to get my wheels sprayed, at least that’s where we were going until I told him, to his amazement, that I had already done it. He also wanted to sell me insurance but I said I had no cash. We turned around and went back to the immigration place. Somehow I got away without giving him any money.
I was given 30 days and the same for my car. My papers all in order I drove my car to the border where it was vaguely inspected by the disinterested guard. He mostly wanted to know how much my bike was worth. $100 if I was lucky, I didn’t mention the laptops, camera gear and guitar. All of this business was conducted in English which was nice, its always nice to be understood. I was soon through and went to the office over the border to pick up some insurance. Since its $29B for a week and only $60B for a month I went for the longer time*. You never know. Sadly I learned that the disease of speed bumps has spread to Belize too but the roads weren’t too bad, the lack of signs sent me off down a dirt track that I learned would have soon brought me to my destination but taking no chances, and possessing no map, I turned back to seek out the highway turning I had missed.
A hour or so later I was in Orange Walk and with some local currency in my hand happy to be able to buy a drink. I am slightly ashamed to say I was glad to see the Queens face on a bank note. Kinda feels like coming home somehow. Now should I stay or should I go. Accommodation options in Orange Walk were limited, and most people only stopped to go on the river trip to the local ruins. I had just come from 3 major Mayan ruins so wasn’t that bothered about staying. Belize city was only an hour and a half away with more options, certainly for accommodation so I picked up some supplies and got back on the highway. I say highway… it was a paved road. Mostly without potholes.
Outside the SEA hostel I met the Canadian guy I had been chatting to the previous night but some strange force made me keep going to my other choice, the Seaside Guest House. It sounded so tranquil, serene and peaceful. What could go wrong?
The gate was opened by some aging American dude who obviously had had a few too many beers. He was followed by an older American woman who was shouting at him. I had them pegged as other guests and hoped they wouldn’t cause a problem. I stood in the common area trying to get some service for 10 minutes but there was no one about. It looked like a cool hostel though, lots of drums everywhere and a great library. I found some staff upstairs and it turned out the drunk couple were the owners. Seems like they had been at this all week.
I met up with the other guests, got checked in and a group of us headed over to find some Chinese food. We managed to pick up a local bum who I had asked directions from, which ended up costing me a bottle of coke to get rid of him. We were also on the street it says specifically in the guidebooks not to walk down during the night. 6 people shouldn’t cause a problem, right? Belize city is pretty grotty, the roads are in terrible shape, people hassle you for change everywhere and there is too much trash. Shame really, they have some nice architecture and the working people are friendly enough.
Back at the hostel we found there were another group of guests checking in so we all moved upstairs with a few beers in an attempt to be social. Mitch, the owner, brought us up a couple of drums and we started talking about buying a batch of local rum. His partner Diana had been drunk and embarrassing downstairs with the new guests and she soon came up to have a chat. She then started ranting about being mugged at gunpoint and how the Belizean Tourist Board were going to close them down if they had any more complains. It seems the tourists have been complaining about the hostel. We all wondered why. The other guys seemed to find it highly amusing that Diana seemed to take a shine to me, but at least she was being nice.
It started raining outside and we all felt sorry for poor Mitch who was out getting our booze. He came back and we started doing some serious drinking. Everything was fine, we had the guitars and bongos going.
I found out Vanessa had the Canon 40D and we chatted about photography. She said she was a photographer but I soon caught her out on that one by finding out she didn’t know how to set the white balance :p Faker!
Then everything seemed to go wrong. Diana was getting increasingly drunk and shouting about tourists ripping her off. Mitch managed to calm her down and send her back to bed but she was soon back up and not only shouting at poor Mitch but also now accusing everyone upstairs of not paying our bills. We had a tab open downstairs so thought this wasn’t a problem. I got my guitar out too and was trying to teach Mitch a song when she came over, grabbed the bucket of ice and threw it all over him. I didn’t get wet but I moved my guitar into the wall. I wasn’t impressed!
The rest of the evening consisted of everyone else talking to both of them trying to calm them down but mostly just trying to get rid of them. Mitch wanted to stay with us and chill, Diana wanted to kill him. She came up and kicked the locked door in, was screaming and shouting. We wound up retreating to one of the dorms and whispering behind the doors. Even that wasn’t enough and we got told off for that too. It was a very weird night.
Mitch and Diana. More drama than Mexican Soap.
* 1 day – $12.50B / 2 weeks – $46B
oil change/breakfast/getting rid of change/queue at gas station/border/$25 guard/spray/belize border/insurance-12-30-46-60/wrong road-no signs/orange walk-atm/belize city/heat sink paste/chinese directions/meet the canadian outside SEA/finding hostel/bad roads/drunk owners/hangin downstairs/check in.park up/invited to dinner/olly.jo.vanessa./ATM-shower/belgian couple.john-laurie/walk to chineese/pick up bum for directions/coke/peotry back to hostel/new arrivals downstairs/few beers/row/uncomfortable/go up stairs/rain on baloncy/dog shit/bongos-mitch.diana/diana talking to me/rows restart/mitch goes for rum/guitar/throwing ice/vanessa photographer/diana accusing us of not paying/getting weird/kicking door in/hiding in dorm room/3.3-am
Tags: wheel, cars, customs, coins, paperwork, oil filter, river trip, laptops, tea, photographer, set, blog, mexico, amazing serviceAll in a days driving
Kalukmul, Mexico
I said farewell to Palenque and headed up the very straight road to some more ruins. I abandoned my plan of skirting the Guatemalan border which is just as well because its pretty dangerous down that way. Would have looked nice on the map though (which is the main thing :p). I was a bit concerned when I had to pay a toll, but it was only 18 pesos, but then they usually charge you a peso a kilometer and it was about 300 to the Belizean border. That was where I decided to go instead of Guatemala first.
First I would stop off at some more ruins, ones that most people miss because its hard to get there without private transport. No suck problems for me though. I stopped at a nearby campground where I pitched my tent for only 50 pesos and had a go at tidying my van up…. again. It never ends :p
In need of a tidy
The place was soon inundated with Mexican ATV drivers who pay a fortune to come and tear up a wildlife reserve. How they get away with I don’t know. Happily a Belgian couple who spoke English also turned up and I ate dinner with them and we arranged to go to the ruins together the next day.
drive to kalukmul/straight/rain/camping for 50p/strange dinner/motorbikers
Tags: eve, guatemalan border, trousers, belize, map, tea, farewell, bordersMore ruins
After breakfast I took advantage of the break in the weather to finally see the nearby ruins of Palenque. It was pretty quiet up there, I just wandered around on my own, happily snapping away.
When I got back I changed accommodation to the Jungle Lodge. There was no difference in price to Rakshitas but at least the rooms were well screened. That evening I met up with Angel again, a English woman I had chatted to briefly in San Cristobal. She was just about to get a bus to Northern Yucatan but I guessed I might meet her again in Belize or further. She left me to entertain a girl called Amy and we had a few beers and watched the drums and fireshow while waiting for the rain to stop. We waited for quite a few beers
breakfast/lift to israeli couple/park up – clean van?/wandering the site/HDRs/change to jungle village/dinner with angel and Amy/salsa?/fire show-drums
Tags: jungle village, belize, jungle, break in the weather, tent, trousers, girls, accommodation, blog, mexico, fire show, drums, nearby ruins, san cristobalRain in the rain forest
Palenque, Mexico
It rained all day. I woke up, it was raining, I went back to sleep. I woke up later and it was still coming down. Hard. I had only my sandals and no coat or umbrella. I watched movies and fasted. Still it rained. On about movie number 4Â the sun went down and still it rained. About 8pm there was a bang. The Electricity went out and I didn’t have a torch. I read the Spiderwick Chronicles until the battery died and went back to sleep.
I was wondering if it was raining in San Cristobal or wherever Leigh was. She was fun.
Tags: palenque, umbrella, sun, sandals, eve, Travel, palenque mexico, ella, sleep, rain forest