Latin America

The last week of Xela had ups and downs as I came to the end of my spanish learnings and had to say goodbye to friends I´d made. It felt really homely by the end. We´d be going to see films, chilling out in town, how glad am I that I came here! It was hard saying goodbye to my family, Aldina and Rodolfo had been a big reason I felt so comfortable to stay all this time, and there´s no doubt they have a lot to do with the level of spanish I´m at now. It´s hard to imagine how little I could talk to them on those first few days!
The immediate Friday was the graduation of the Washington State crew, which made for a lively night on the town. It started with TORRENTIAL rain whilst I was at school, with seriously loud thunder and spectacular lightening. The peak of which had to be when I was sitting outside undercover, looking up at the terrace, and a bolt of lightening hit it... About 5 metres from where I was sitting. The entire sky went blindingly white and the noise made me think that in that moment, that all the powerpoints in the school had exploded. It scared the LIVING HELL out of everyone! I didn´t venture out from undercover the whole rest of the night.

I succumbed to my friends in the last week, who were going on a trip to Utila, the diving island of Honduras, before they went home. The last weekend went off like clockwork, Rebecca, the kind English stranger, arrived with my new credit card moments before we had to leave to catch the bus to Honduras, so I went from not having a clue how it was going to pan out to sitting on the bus with a group of friends in about 5 minutes.
When we got to La Ceiba, the jumping off point to Utila, luck went our way again and we ran into British Dan on the street, so the next day we all headed over to Utila, and then also managed to run into Fred, and so had the whole group to chill out with. All but me and Dan Scott enroled in the open water course, while I did nothing much apart from laze around the pool (that´s right, we had a lush pool and were paying like 2 pounds a night, you gotta pick the dive centre with the perks!). The week was great, I did about 8 dives in all, including a night dive which was quality, seeing octupus, phosperesence, and getting completely disorientated. Being in a big group, there wasn´t a dull moment, the food was great, and by the weekend they had their qualification and I could join them on a couple of dives. The highlight though was going out on the hunt for Whale Sharks.
We were really lucky, a) because it was only me, Dan Scott, and two divemasters on the boat, and b) because the Whale Sharks were out! The chase and the anticipation added an exciting element. We would all have our eyes peeled as we zoomed along, and then, "There!!" someone would spot the swell of the tuna flailing out of the water, also after the Whale Shark food. We´d quicky throw on our mask and fins and sit off the back of the boat, legs raised above the water rushing under them. Dive Master Aussie was on the roof, looking out, and as the captain manouvered the boat to the best position, she would hold her hand up to signal us "wait.. waaait.. GO!GO!GO!" And without the boat stopping, we´d drop off the edge in an explosion of bubbles. For a few seconds you couldn´t see anything, but suddenly all you could see was the deep blue of the ocean, and clear as day a few metres away, the biggest fish in the world. We´d be alongside it for mabe ten seconds, before it would dive down with a few barely a movement, and fade into the blue.
We were lucky to find three Whale Sharks that afternoon, and our captain was amazing, if there were already a couple of dive boats there, he´d wait, they´d all dive in, the shark would move off and we´d be ready to catch it alone. What was funniest was seeing these other divers demount from their boat. With more than ten people in some, at the jumppoint they´d file of the back like lemmings, when we´d already got in and out again. To see them jump in when we knew the shark had already left was pretty funny. "Everyone off! ..Quick! Everyone back on!" haha. See you later!
Most of the guys left that following Sunday, but Dan and Vida were staying on. Dan went on to do his advanced, I guesss he´s really getting into it!
Me and Vida were going to travel up back to Guatemala, where she´d go home and I´d continue onto Tikal. But first, we had to put an extension on her Visa...

Finding out this involved returning to the coastal town of La Ceiba for a stamp, he got the ferry over the night before her visa expired to make sure we were there bright and early. However on arrival, we were told that a visa extension could only be done in TEGUCIGALPA, the capital of Honduras, and the other side of the country. Lame. We decided that that might not be so bad, as we could work up through El Salvador instead. And perhaps we could do some stuff in Tegus. Tegus, was a hole. We decided to just get the visa and get the hell out of there, but we hit one more snag, after the whole hassle we had getting to and being at immigration, after we´d queud up, filled in the appropriate forms, queued up, paid the bank, taken our forms around the corner to get photocopied for them, queued up, we finally had it done, at which point they said okay, come back in ten days to collect your passports... Um. WHAT?

Soooo we went all the way back to the coast and took a load off, chilling in the carribean sun and sand for ten days. So I guess it wasn´t all bad.
We spent the last couple of days before her flight at the ruins of Copan, which turned out to be a really nice little town too, and Vida had her first passable vegetarian meal in like, a month.
She bussed out to Guatemala, and I headed back to La Ceiba, I had some unfinished business..

La Ceiba, is the adventure capital of Honduras. White water rafting, kayaking, but mainly, tours to La Moskitia, the huge area of untamed primary rainforest to the East. I went about organising a week long trip in it´s heart. It wasn´t to be though. Turns out this is the kind of thing that´s worth organising in advance, there was no one booked on tours at any of the agents, and you needed at least two people. The last one I tried DID have someone, and it all looked to be coming together until he pulled out just before we were due to go. So I said screw this, and got the first bus the next morning to Tikal, Guatemala. Time to get the hell out this country!

Well. I tried to.. I made it the 3 hour bus ride to San Pedro Sula to get a connection up into Guatemala, only to discover the only bus there runs first thing in the morning. So I guess I have to endure one more night here. I´m not really one for big cities, but I managed to keep myself occupied this evening with emails and chat though, and catching up on 3 months of entry to my blog!

But tomorrow... Tikal!

But, I did.

I have now been in Xela for almost 7 weeks... I just can´t leave this place. My Spanish has come on leaps and bounds and I have now covered pretty much all the grammar, which will mean I have everything I need to practise on the road and get it sharp. The Washington State group is still here as well, so it´s been a case of work-hard play-hard the whole time. My host-mum says I have "Patas de chuchos", or "hooves of a dog", because I´m ´always in the street´- going out in the evenings.
I have decided on one more week after this, partly because I have to wait for my bank card, which another student has agreed to bring over from England for me. Nationwide has tried so hard to mess up my plans. They randomly decided to cancel all the current cards and issue new ones to increase security, with no sympathy for anyone out of the country. Hopefully it´s sorted out now though. I probably would have stayed another week anyway though!

I am well entrenched into my host family as well. After 7 weeks I have seen three other students come and go in the house, and it has been amazing to see our conversations become easier and more complicated, I can pretty much say anything I need to now. Unfortunately whilst my spanish has been improving, the gap between what I know and what I can actually use has also been growing, so it´s hard to get a perspective on your ability. I have to remind myself I had NO idea what anyone was saying when I got here though, so I guess that´s a decent jump in skill.

The activities at the school have been pretty good. One day we went to visit the first church built in Latin America by the Spanish in a town called Salcahar, kinda weird, it had bananas and other fruit carved around the outside. The same town was famous for its fruit wine which was amazingly sweet and had to be about 25% I´m sure!
We´ve also been to Zunil, a town with fields down the steepest slopes I´ve ever seen. It looks like you´d need crampons just to walk up or down it. There was a Saint there called San Simon, a mostly indigineous Mayan saint who they have models of that you can pay your respects too. He´s not your average saint, the offerings to him are mainly alcohol (he actually has a stomach to hold it) and cigars, and he has more sets of clothes than I do that they change him into, including suits. When we saw him he was wearing a cowboy hat and aviators.
The mayans really believe in him though and you can light a candle and give offerings and ask for a favour, money, love, even something bad to happen to someone!

One weekend we did a two-day trek to the highest point in Central America - Volcan Tajumulco - 4,225m. It almost killed me. I´d like to think I was of at least average fitness, I´ve never done a jungle trek that has really put me to the test, but this trek really showed me quite how unfit I am! I´ve never felt the effect of altitude before so it was a real shock to the system. After only a few minutes my heart was racing and I could barely catch a breath. I kept a decent middle position though, but the gradient was pretty unyielding as well and my legs were close to buckling by the time we reached camp. I was SO exhausted I didn´t even have the energy to go into my backpack for food or anything. I had to take a half hour sleep just to be able to prepare dinner that night.
The following morning we got up at 4am in order to hike the last bit up to the summit, minus our backpacks. Although it turned out this made little difference, after just a couple of minutes my legs remembered they were lead, and worse, the crippling effect of the altitude was back on force. In the pitch black with just our headtorches, we scrabbled up the rocky hills, and - not wanting to lose the path of the others - it took all my will power to force myself to keep up with the front group. When we would stop, it was worse. It would catch up with me and I´d feel lightheaded and unstable on my feet.
The gradient only increased, until the last section which was basically rock climbing. My hands were numb by this point, but it felt like the least of my problems. Upon finally reaching the summit, all I could do was sit on the closest rock and use all my remaining energy to hold myself conscious.
As the light came over the distant mountains, my attempts to catch the event on camera didn´t work. My hands were so numb I couldn´t feel my fingers touching the camera, and so trying to operate the buttons was an exercise in futility. I think I managed two or three! It was a pretty incredible view though. There was a mist settled on the low lying towns which swam around the peaks, and the perfectly triangular shadow of the volcano behind us on the mist went right into the distance and up to the horizon.
It was an incredible experience, but I can´t remember ever feeling so absolutely physically exhausted in my entire life. I can´t believe my will-power held out for so long. Whilst I´m glad I did it, I think I´ve decided mountain trekking isn´t for me, it´s jungles all the way! Nice, low-lying, warm, flat jungles!

A few days after the trek, it turned out that Tajumulco had conquered me a bit too. With a dry, painful throat that got worse and worse, (that I originally put down to the dryness of the high altitude air) at the point where I couldn´t talk in lessons without pain, Mildred went with me to the doctors (aw). It was pretty funny really, he did all these tests; checking my blood pressure, listening to my chest, but seemed none the wiser. Finally he asked me to open and say ´arrr´, and with one glance he recoiled, "Ay!" At that point he shook his head and laid a heavy hand on my shoulder "Ay... es un grand infeccion!" he informed me. Not feeling otherwise sick, and I guess giving that same impression, it seemed like all at once he thought he knew of a pain I was keeping hidden within me. I felt like such a trooper. Anyways, he wrote me out some prescriptions and I suffered a weeks worth of strep throat and alcohol-free nights.
It also allowed me to palm off some of my utter exhaustion at the hands of Tajumulco to the fact that I climbed it in the grips of a grand infeccion! (Whether that was the case or not!)
The only problem now is that - according to a med student at the school - penicillain would have done the trick on my throat, but the doc prescribed me antibiotics that they use to kill anthrax. Which basically means I have killed all my good bacteria as well, prior to 10 months travelling in most countries in Central and South America.. not an amazing strategy!

Luckily there´s been some pretty relaxing activities as well. We went to some steam rooms up in the hills near Xela c called Los Vahos, the steam filtered through eucalyptus and was hot as hell which was great. We also went to Fuentes Georginas, which was basically an outdoor swimming pool as hot as a HOT bath, as it is fed by natural springs through the mountain.
We went to San Francisco de Alto, the largest outdoor market in Guatemala (CA?) which was an experience. Every animal you can think as well as everything else you can think of, from sombrero stalls to chilis to weaving.

The school has conferences by various people in the know, which have been pretty enlightening. It´s really weird being here and knowing about the grizzly recent history, as it just doesn´t feel like it compared to when I was in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, where the recent history seemed so lucid. You have to talk to people and really dig behind the surface here to get an idea of what went on.
It took me a while to realise why this was but I´ve come to the conclusion that in South-East Asia, you have all these places where such and such happened, the killing fields, the detention centre of S-21, where you can go and find out about it. They have these places because those chapters of history are over. Here, I am living the history. It´s not over, more or less the same government is pulling the strings and sweeping the atrocities under the carpet, organisations that are investigating the fate of the thousands of ´kidnapped and disappeared´ during the war, are having their members kidnapped and disappeared now, because [i]they are trying to look into these things.
These conferences have served to show me a bit about behind the scenes though, it gets pretty real when one of your teachers - the happiest smiliest person you´ve ever met - talks about how her father and brother were disappeared and how they were a guerilla in the war. I hope I get to understand more about all the countries I go to on this trip.

Mangos. I don´t think I ever tasted how a mango should have tasted before I got here. Holy crap. It´s something else. As well as being in season, they were picked YESTERDAY, and you´re eating them. Although same goes for all the veg and everything. It´s so damn fresh! The mangos though...

I woke up one morning, to an EARTHQUAKE! It was like someone put 50p in my bed, like a bed rodeo. It was pretty fun as it wasn´t dangerously strong, plus I was still kind of half asleep. 4.6 though apparently. That´s a new one on me!

So one more week left. It´ll fly by unfortunately. It´s going to be weird getting back on the road again!

The minibus arrived in Xela and after finding a dorm at the Black Cat I tried to figure out what I was going to do about finding a spanish school to start the next day. Not the best planning ever. After some research it turned out the one I had been set on was in Zone 5 or something, not even on my map and not a walkable distance. So I tried to phone. 3 coins later I had been answered once, but zero comprehension at either end had cut that conversation pretty short. Hanging up, I was close to booking a bus straight back to San Pedro, but I decided I´d have to cut my losses and try one of the closest schools. The Danish girls had actually been dropped off at their school - Proyecto Linguistico, and apparently it had had strong personal reccomendations, so lacking any other real clue about which schools were good, I decided to try that one first.

They turned out to have a space and could put me up with a family if I studied in the afternoon, so I settled on that, but decided to stay put in the dorm for tonight.
I got up early and had the most amazing hot powerful shower I´d had in ages, then headed down for my first day at school. It started with an induction for the new students, taken by Carry, an American who was the english speaking correspondant for the school, who told us everything we needed to know about living and studing in Xela, and then gave a very good summary of the modern history of Guatemala. Turns out this school is very socially and politically minded, they pay the best to their teaches and so maintain a high standard of teaching, and offer lots of activities based around educating students on the problems and reality of life in Guatemala. It turns out that pretty much every other school is empty at the moment as well which would be lame, so I seemed to have stumbled on the right one!

I met my family that afternoon, the house-owner, Aldina, and her Guatemalan lodger Rodolfo - 20, who had lived with her for three years through school and was now looking for a job. It turned out to be pretty good having quite a small family unit, it meant I wasn´t embarrassing myself in front of many people as I stumbled over the language. The first couple of days were pretty tough though, and we hit a good few brick walls. I had Aldina in stitches on the first dinner though when she asked me if I cook, I responded with my only fully comprehendable spanish phrase I´d muttered all evening- "only in order to live".
It occurred to me though that it might have been worth getting a bit more spanish under my belt before I immersed myself in a language I couldn´t speak or comprehend. Hey ho. However, by the Friday the ease of communication was considerably improved and I felt right at home.

My teacher, Mildred, is a friendly, easy-going woman and we got on great, whilst a lot of other students spanish conversation practise would start with the teacher saying "What do you want to talk about", we would always end up just talking and asking questions because we were curious and interested rather than being forced, sometimes for an hour or so. So I got to learn quite a lot about normal Guatemalan life that way too. I´ve had her in tears of laughter a few times as well. It makes learning spanish much more fun!

There are plenty of students here including a group of 6 Americans are here from Washington D.C. for about 8 weeks as part of their schooling (thats a pretty wicked school trip) who are good fun and entertaining with their American ways. There´s also another two pairs of Danish girls who are good fun.

I´m getting on well with the typical Guatemalan food, a lot of rice, beans, tortillas and the odd bit of meat. Although, beans, beans.. good for the heart, the only problem is, when you have five hours of spanish lessons afterwards.

Xela has a beautiful central park that although, small, has much more character than any in London. There´s lots of places to sit and you´re always looking at some exotic looking bit of greenery of sculpture, so it´s a great place to sit and study for a while, and even better for people watching.

After talking to Mildred about Semana Santa, it sounds like the traditional aspect with the processions etc is going to be just as good here as Antigua (almost), and so given that I can study in that week and stay with my family I have decided to stay here a full month, that way I can see the processions whilst still having class in the morning, and I don´t have to faff about trying to find a place in Antigua and have other stuff to do other than just see a full week of processions.

I managed to book a place at the school for a second week, but they only had afternoon lessons again, but at least I have managed to continue studying the Mildred. Friday was graduation day and as part of it they do an International Dinner, where the students all have to bring food - preferably a national dish from their homeland. I chose... tuna sandwiches. I ran around the supermarket and other markets in search of cucumber - pretty much a necessity for a good English tuna sandwich - being directed by many a stranger. I ended up with bell peppers and celery on recommendation of Aldina, partly because my description of a long green vegetable meant she gave me the spanish name of celery not cucumber. But I finally found the cucumber, despite the shop-keepers defiance that cucumber went with tuna. Pah.
Back at the house Aldina helped me prepare the sandwiches - with a Guatemalan twist. She fried the chopped peppers and celery... a little weird I thought, but it ended being damn good. She´d also never put cucumber and tuna in the same meal and went on about it for the whole of the next week. So, in the end the Guatemalan/English fusion created THE perfect tuna sandwich. Can´t wait to get home and make them for myself!

Now that I was settled, it was nice knowing I had another three weeks here, I already felt very comfortable with the routine and life. It´s tempting to stay longer... I can´t though.. I can´t!

Good times in Xela!

The Pullman bus to San Pedro turned out to be a full-size tourist bus, for two pounds! I sat next to an American guy called Che on the bus who was travelling solo, 18 years old, complete with tent, sleeping bag etc and planned to do things like El Mirador guide-less. I wish I had the bottle to do places like that, but apparently that´s what they do in Eugene, Oregan(?). He also spoke incredible spanish, (the bastard!).

We were dropped off at Panajachel, on lake Atilan, and got a boat the 30 minute trip across to San Pedro (its a big lake). San Pedro is a lively place. On a hill, it is small, with basically one road/path connecting the 2 docks at the bottom, lined with places for the gringos to live, eat and party. The actual town and the Guatemalans live up the hill, and so you can chill out by the lake and dip into rural Guatemala when you get bored of the gringo scene. Although I never did! It seems like the Vang Vieng of Guatemala.

Me and Che shared a room for economy and I was finally able to take took my first shower in Central America. Just as I was ready, Andy rocked up to the same place! So that was cool. We subsequently met a couple of other yanks surfing their way down the coast, (who used "dude" so excessively that it felt like aversion therapy) and all went to grab some lunch and went out for some beers in the evening, although the jet lag caught up with me and so I was in bed by ten.

The next day I decided that I needed to get the proper San Pedro experience and so went out in search of a room overlooking the lake, however after and hour and trying 5 places without any spaces, let alone with a view, I was frantically just trying to find any room for the night, but ended up getting the last room in Casa Rolando, which only had 4 rooms in total anyway. Complete with lake view and hammocks. YES! Having lunch at a place right over the lake was just so chilled out and epitomised "This is the life" to the point that me and Andy said it about three or four times.

I ran into Stefan, Lindsay and Cameron in the British pub and organised to meet up for some drinks at 8.30. However I decided to take a siesta and woke up at 10.30pm... luckily they were still in there and we headed out to the Reggae bar where the owner was good enough to whip me up a plate of rice, beans, nachos and guacamole, and after a few cuba libras we chilled back on my lakeside balcony. This IS the life.

The next day was Stefans last so we saw him over to Panajachel and after he left we went on to the nature reserve there, a nice walk around some hills and through woodland, where they have a resident troup of spider monkeys that just look like that enjoy being monkeys way too much, as well as seeing some racoon type things, and a few humming birds. Even better was that we didnt see another person the whole time!

The next day I put my spanish to the test in town trying to ascertain where the hell the bus left from for the next day, given that bus "stops" don´t actually exist. You just sort of have to be on the route and wave it down!

I had some new neighbours back at the hostel - an aussie guy - Gareth, and a couple of Danish girls (pair #1). The girls are going to Xela on sunday to do spanish lessons as well. That night was the full-moon party, San Pedro style. I met back up with Andy and the surfers to hit Freedom, the big club there, which was running people to another place the other side of San Pedro for the full-moon after-party, which I finally left at about 6am. A decent night!
Obviously I didn´t end up getting the bus the next day, but chilled out with Gareth for lunch and then got a couple of kayaks out on the lake. Gareth has been travelling from the bottom of South America and working up so we had quite a bit to talk about, he emphasised that I CANNOT miss Columbia, and you can get a sail boat of about 6 backpackers who act as crew for the six day trip between Panama and Columbia which rates as a highlight. Something to keep in mind!
Lindsay and Cameron came knocking a bit later and we all went out for some dinner and beers at Buddha Bar, before I said my good-byes to the whole crew. Hopefully I´ll run into Cameron and Lindsay a bit further down the road.

On the bus the next day, I said goodbye to San Pedro on the clearest day all week, and was teased by fleeting views where I could see across the whole lake and the mountains beyond for the first time since I´d been there. DOH. I suddenly felt like I was making a huge mistake... Why didn´t I do a week of spanish in San Pedro with Cameron and Lindsay before moving on?? Why am I leaving this place now!!? By the time I asked these questions...it was too late.