Jul 2008

To get from Monterrico in Guatemala to San Diego in El Salvador we had a very long day of travelling. This consisted of a boat along the canal, 2 chicken buses (a direct and literal reference to some of the passengers!), microbus to the border, a walk through no-man's land between the 2 countries, 2 more chicken buses (one with a clown on board for entertainment!) and finally a pick up truck that to took us to our hostel.

The hostel we stayed in was a friendly place run by a guy from Ipswich. It was surrounded by lots of green vegetation, had plenty of hammocks, a good swimming pool and lots of games.

The night we arrived it was one of the guests, Ben's, birthday so there was a Piñata. We took it in turns to be blindfolded, spun round and then hit the piñata until the sweets fell out.

We stayed 3 nights at the hostel and spent time relaxing in the pool and on the beach. Each evening there was some entertainment arranged such as table tennis tournaments, killer darts and poker nights.

After San Diego we spent a couple of nights in the capital, San Salvador, which has an underservably bad reputation. The western suburbs where we stayed are new and modern and have lots of fast food chains, shopping centres (including the biggest in Central America) and cinemas. It was definitely the most westernised place we have been to so far.

We then spent one night in Suchitoto, a small colonial town north of San Salvador which overlooks a huge lake - Lake Suchitlán.

It was another long day of travelling leaving El Salvador: 2 chicken buses, a cycle tuk tuk pedalled by an old man across the border with Honduras, a taxi to the nearest Honduran town, a coach to San Pedro Sula (Honduras' second largest city), a taxi speeding across the city so we could get the next bus (no need as we arrived in plenty of time!), another bus to La Ceiba on the North coast (again with entertainment from a clown!) and finally a taxi to a hotel.

After Antigua we went to Panajachel to stay with a local Guatemalan family and study Spanish for a week. Pana is situated on Lake Atitlám which is a large lake surrounded by 3 volcanoes and steep hills.

We arrived at the school early evening and were introduced to the family. We didn't really know what to expect but it turned out that the house and the food we got (3 meals a day) was really good. Although saying that both of us were ill by the end of the week! Our Spanish lessons were from 1pm - 6pm with a guy called José. It was just the 2 of us and we had the lessons outside in the garden at the school. There are quite a lot of street dogs in Pana, some of which roam around the garden at the school. The teachers have nicknamed one 'El perro Terrorista!'

During the week we also went on a couple of school trips. The first was to a natural park just outside Pana - this involved a walk around the forest over swing bridges and small tracks and stepping stones (not easy in flip flops!)

The second trip was to San Antonio, a small village on another side of Lake Atitlán. We went there on the back of a truck with various locals (they like to fit as many people on the back of a truck as possible so had to stand most of the way!). Once there, Ellie was taken by some locals and dressed up (didn't have a choice) in the traditional outfit for the village, a ploy to force you into buying something! The women all wear the same in this village and some men also wear sarong style skirts.

After we finished our course we went across the lake to San Pedro and met Katie who we have seen in lots of different places on our trip. San Pedro is slightly less touristy than Panajachel and has a more bohemian feel about it with lots of bars and cafes to chill out in and watch movies. Unfortunately we could only stay there for one night as we had to start making our way to Monterrico on the Pacific coast where we had another five days of Spanish lessons booked.
Monterrico is a sleepy little place with one main road and a few smaller dusty streets that run off it. Dogs, chickens and pigs are regularly seen wandering around at their will. Despite its size, there are two football pitches in Monterrico, one sand and one grass. Mike played in a couple of games and the locals gave him the nickname 'el gringo mejor´. The main attraction is the beach, that goes on for miles, and looks a little strange because of the black volcanic sand.

The Spanish lessons were quite similar to Pana, again taking place in the garden at the school. However, the situation with the family in Monterrico was more or less the opposite as it had been in Pana. Their house was pretty basic, and didn´t even have proper walls. The rooms were separated by random bits of plywood that were used as partitions. The food was really bland (lots of rice, beans and tortillas) and the portions were tiny. One night we were given Pot Noodles for dinner. And you don´t want to know about the toilet and the shower!
We went on a couple of trips with the school to the local nature reserve which is a vast area of mangrove swamps which contains some beautiful lagoons that are connected by a series of canals. It is a really peaceful and interesting place to visit - especially as we got to see a community that live on a number of small islands far into the canals. We visited their school and a place where they make salt that they sell to people in the surrounding area. We also went fishing with very primitive equipment. Ellie did well by catching the biggest fish of the day!

We arrived in Flores, Guatemala in the early evening after a day of travelling from Caye Caulker. We arranged to go on a sunrise tour to the Maya ruins at Tikal early the next morning (3:30am start so more like the middle of the night) so didn't do much that evening. Although it was called the Sunrise Tour, it was actually light when we arrived which is probably just as well otherwise we would have had to walk for 45 mins through the jungle in the dark. The benefit of being there so early is that you get to sit at the highest temple where you watch/hear the animals and birds in the rainforest waking up. We then walked around the other ruins (some of which we climbed up), got shown a tarantula and saw lots of monkey's swinging in the trees.

The next day we spent in Flores and went on a boat trip around the lake before getting a night bus to Antigua. Flores is a small island in the middle of a lake connected to the mainland by a causeway. They seem to get powercuts every couple of hours!

We had a few days in Antigua, a picturesque colonial town that is overlooked by a massive volcano. We went to the plaza, the market (where we stumbled across a game of football!) and spent time on the roof terrace at our hostel when the sun was out.
It turned out that one of Ellie's mates, Gareth, happened to be in Antigua at the same time as us so we met up with him, went out for dinner and had a few drinks.

From Tulum we took a bus into Belize and spent a night in Belize City (not a very nice place, not really worth writing about). The next morning we got a boat to an island called Caye Caulker just in time for the annual Lobsterfest which marks the start of the Lobster season. There were shows, games and music as well as stalls and restaurants serving every form of Lobster imaginable. Over the weekend we had: Lobster pizza, grilled whole Lobster, Lobster kebab, Lobster burger, Lobster omlette, Lobster stew, Lobster nacho's, Lobster salad, Lobster cerviche and Lobster tails!

The island is very small, with dusty roads and golf carts instead of cars! Down one end of the island is a bar, swimming area and diving board.

The people are very friendly and as it is so small we bump into the same folk quite a few times a day. One local we have been speaking to quite a lot is an old man called Glen who wear jewels around his head and always makes up funny lies (such as he has 5 sons around the world that have all played in the World cup and that Winston Churchill slept with the Queen.)

We got to watch the final of Euro 2008 in a sports bar by the beach which was good, particularly as Mike put money on Spain before we left meaning we won almost £80 from the tournament.