The big rush (older brother to the big relax)

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Must be quick, times about to run out on prepaid internet.

LAX is the nightmare is was last time, the unbelivably rude staff almost made me want to kill, including one memeber of the trumped out bouncer squad who stand at the metal detectors being such a Cambridge Universtiy Netball Team player that his co-workers came and found us after the incident to apologise.

Our first flight was cancelled, our second was a few hours late. Not been the best.

But we are here in NYC, and absolutely knackered, will post tomorrow after I’ve had yet another blazing row with HSBC. Woot woot.

Some photos for me mam.

A mayan lady selling trinkets in Chichicastenango

Just a couple of the many masks available to buy at the market.

Lauren contemplates the full meaning of the words Rain Forrest

Tikal

Some bird I saw giving me the eye at Tikal

The next few pics are from Samuc Champey, a beautiful national park. While there I went caving, this involved being submerged up to my neck in water with just a candle, held out disparingly above the water, lighting my path. It was super sweet.

The next pic is of the most amazing chair I have ever seen. Yes. It is the big guy´s lap that Lauren is sitting on.

The next few are from Lago de Atitlan.

So there you go, another lazy post completed!

Spent the last few days up in Flores, a picturesque island that boasts being the capital of the Peten province. It really is lovely and the lake surrounding it is large and clear but it is spoiled slightly by the fact that every third shop is an internet cafe/travel agents, every second shop is a hotel and every first shop is a restaurant, clearly, this is a tourist themed place.

It is also pretty dull, once you get past the beautiful scenery, and it is beautiful, Flores offers very little in the way of things to do. Especially if you are skint, like us.

We went to Tikal, of course, and stood in wonder at huge pyramids rising out of the jungle. Just a couple of the buildings through though and it all began to feel particularly same same, unfortunately, there were none of the intricate little bas-reliefs or odd quirks of say Ankor Wat or the Bayoun but the buildings were impressive in their size and age alone, none the less. There was a pagan group doing some sort of burning ceremony in the center of the Grand Plaza, not local  Mayan or Ladino´s, mind, rather middle class Americans in guady short sleve shirts and socks with sandals.

On then to Lanquin, in the Coban region. We intended to only stay here for a few days before burning out the ast of our time in Antigua, that is before we saw the place. It is perfect. Tiny huts dotted casually surrounded by hills and mountains, a clear river lolling just down the hill. Our room is novel, a loft area above another room in a hut but the shared bathrooms are clean and there is an all you can eat buffet every night for just 55Q (around five pounds fifty,) 45Q if you opt to go veggie.

Here´s the rub though, isolated communes in the hills are all very good, but they´re just that, isolated. So much so that becuase we have decided to stay here for another few days I have to make a FIVE HOUR round trip to the nearest ATM, and that´s just driving time, not including waiting about scratching my bum waiting for a lift. Grrrr….

But, the place is wonderful, much more interesting and easy to spend time than Antigua (not to mention cheaper) and so it seems that tomorrow I´ll be packing a few books and waiting patiently for a shop owner with a pickup truck to drive me to the big smoke.

Much literature has been published from a combination of embassies and travel guides warning about traveling at night. The overwhelming majority (aka all) of which strongly advises against overnught travel even with the luxury ´1st class´busses. Still, what the books dont tell you is that on the whole, these times are much cheaper than traveling through the day. (The travel agencies don´t explain why, but I assume it´s due to the higher chance of robbery.) Still, not all doom and gloom, we made it all the way to Flores in the far north without incident. There was a worrying moment driving through Guatemala City, where there has been a spate of armed robberies of tourist shuttles recently (maybe the US embassy has even put a ´dont travel to Guatemala´warning out to it´s citizens in light of these recent attackts.) We were sitting in our shuttle, maybe 7 or 8 of us not including driver, and all of our backpacks were on the roof, as is the practice out here. Never felt like more of a target, we had to make sure all of the tinted windows were rolled up I think. We heaqrd a pistol shot go off as we passed a group of scoundrels.

Still, we are here, Tikal either tomorrow of Sunday, muchos exitementos.

This is all a joke by the way mum, Guatemala´s actually just like Europe.

Yesterday marked exactly three weeks until we step off the plane in England. I´m not sure how I feel about this just yet, it´s been a long time since I´ve been home after all.

One thing about knowing I´m home soon, is that, largley due to a severe running out of funds, traveling has become more difficult recently. It´s not quite a chore, but it is more of a nuisance than it has been. This is mainly becuase our final few weeks could have gone either way, we could have managed to save a shedload and had a three week party, would obviously would have been amazing, or we could have already had a bunch of partying and are now suffering the eating-plain-rice-with-cheap-veggies-for-dinner-every-day consequences.  I suppose it¨s a bit like working for an idiot boss knowing that in under a month you´ll be changing jobs to a boss who loves you and will be going out of his way to make you comfortable.

Of course, I have no doubt that within a week of being back I´ll be pining for shabby hostel rooms with a blocked sink and reeking drains once more, but that is for another post.

Today we did see a legion of chicks, as in baby chickens, who had for some reason unknown to either Lauren or myself had been spray painted all over with either bright green or bright purple paint. Anyone who is familiar with Chocobo´s will possiby be able to imagine what they looked like. Anyone is unfamilair with the ficitonal animal should be sad that they missed one of the most influencial computer games ever made! And on this rare occasion, I´m not refering to World of Warcraft.

Geek off complete.

Visited Guatemala´s biggest market today, it was alright, a little meh. The main problem with markets of nearly any size is that they do their best to imitate an old cartoon show. That is to say, when Scoobie and the gang run away from the crazy amuzement park monster/swamp beast with glowing eyes/Adolf Hitler, the background scenery goes past their running animation in a remarkably similar way. And, just like this metaphor, Chichitenago market felt a little mundane in it´s repititiveness.

Still, bought a few bits and bobs, gotto really don´t you?

Today also marks 3 weeks exactly until we get on the plane from NY JFK to London Heathrow. Lame.

Totally forgot to mention but on my first night here in San Pedro I survived my first ever earthquake.

Alright, so it was so weak that I thought it might have been the people in the room below us slamming their door. (Subsequently disproved when the people below us did slam their door.)

Alright, so Lauren was in the room with me and claims not to have felt a thing (although when pressed she claims to vaguely remember something like a door slamming.)

And alright, it only lasted for, at most, 2 seconds.

But I survived, damnit!

San Pedro is a pretty swell place. Sort of.

There´s loads of bars here and new age things that I know my mum, a reiki master, would love. The locals all say a friendly ´beunos dias´to you as you pass, but here lies the rub. It is pretty difficult to see a single street not crammed with folks from the U.S. or Europe. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it does distract somewhat from the ´abroad´feel of the place.

This being said, the crowd here are pretty friendly and welcoming. They are all hippies in one incarnation or another, some old, some young. It is reminiscent of the kids back in Thailand, this is the same except rich mummy and daddies have been replaced with veganism, and the 18 year olds dressed head to toe in designer have been replaced with 25-50 year olds with dreadlocks. All in all, I prefer the people here, although undeniably pretentious, they are, as I notice I am repeating myself , friendly and accepting. Suppose you have to be when you purposely smell bad.

Spent yesterday being a bit greedy, ate lots for a fraction of the price of Antigua. Kicking myself a little for not coming here earlier, we´d certainly be much richer by now had we not spent 2 weeks in the country´s second city. Had a few cervasas in the evening with the folks from our hostel in the bar over the road- Go on, guess at the name of the bar in this big tree-hugging place. Go on, indulge me.

Any ideas?

It is, rather unoriginaly, called Buddah Bar. For that you get 2 points, although I will give half a point if you took a stab in the dark at anything involving the words ´hemp,´´chilled,´´vibe,´´funky,´Reggae,´or ´Bob Marley.´

Today we´re going to find some nice lake-side spot to go chill out in. Might even make a decent attempt at regaining my suntan before returning home.

The past 24 hours saw me entertaining thoughts of boiling lake water to use as drinking water, catching fish with my bare hands and having to hollow out a street dog to sleep inside of to fend off the cold of night.

I am talking, of course, about being royally screwed, once more, by H.S.B. bloody C. bank.

We arrive in Panachjel at midday, I didn´t get a chance to take out a fistful of Quetzals in Antigua because the atm wasn´t open prior to our 7 am departure. We arrive in Panachjel, the main drop off port town surrounding Lago de Atitlan and I don´t even have enough dinero on me to pay for the two of us to get the boat crossing to San Pedro. No problem, thinks I, as I shall just nip to the cash point.

One cash point has a suspicious machine bolted to the card insert hole, a second doesn´t take my card, and the third takes my card, goes through the entire process before doing nothing for ten minutes. I stand alone (Lauren is waiting at the dock with our bags) banging my head against the glass of the ATM booth when suddenly a whirring noise eminates from the chunk of metal and it spits my card back into my hand, no cash though. I´ve still no idea if I was charged for that or not.

So I´m begining to get frantic now, I have something like the equivalent of $1 on me, not enough to do anything with. I hear word of another cashpoint which -mercifully- takes my HSBC card. I withdraw enough for a room, taxi boat, and dinner. There is, afterall, more atms in San Pedro.

Possibly it should be mentioned that due to them not fitting in my backpack, I am also wearing cowboy boots and hat, along with jeans (have to with boots, really) and a brown shirt. I am, to all intents and purposes, dressed as a cowboy.

Upon arrival at San Pedro, I am greeted with the same ATM that failed to accept my card in Pana. There is another ATM up the hill which we scarper up that is from the same bank. No problem, we think, we´ll get a room and one of us (naturally me, considering Lauren´s ability to get lost in her own home,) will go back to Pana and use the only atm that will work for us.

Our room is pretty nice, warm water and clean and all that. We check in, pay for the night, leaving us with 60Quetzals, it costs 50 Quetzals for one of us to get to Pana and back. I go.

Arriving at Pana, imagine my dismay to find that the one cash point that works for me is now broken. I retry all of the other cashpoints, but still they decide not to accept the card which the moron who set up our account ensured us ´works everywhere, more places than my visa card will.´

So now, Lauren is back at San Pedro with 10Q, and I´m in Pana with exactly the amount to get back to Lauren with.  I go into a shady looking money-changers along the strip in Pana and the guy laughs at my card. ´Only Visa here, amigo,´ he grins into my increasingly worried face.

So I return to San Pedro, better to be in a pickle with Lauren than by myself. I get back and explain the situation. Then, Bliss! We remember a $20 note that our hotel owner in Antigua wouldn´t accept because of a centemeter long tear in the top. We pray and hope that the people here aren´t as picky and we take it to a money changer. We get an awful exchange rate but we go from having 10Q (roughly enough for 2 bottles of water,) to having a whopping 160Q.

We ration the money as wisely as we can, eating just a tiny amount for dinner and breakfast. Thankfully it is much, much, much cheaper here than in Antigua and we actually manage to get well fed for dinner, even if we do have to keep stealing sips from the water bottle we have with us. We ponder our next move.

Seems the only thing to do is for us both to go back to Pana, convincing our hotel owners that we are definately coming back with money before we do, and try to get money out by taking our cards and passports into a bank. If it hadn´t of been for the $20 I honestly have no idea what we would have done. I can´t even begin to think. It´s something like a 5-10km walk up and down volcanoes (and this is just me guessing, could be more) to get from San Pedro to Pana, and of course, all this with no food or water.

So this morning we get the first boat to Pana, it is crowded and it stops at every port, turning a 15 ride into something closer to an hour. We get to the cashpoint and thankfully, it is working. We´re back on form again.

Still, was a horrible day and night.