A christmas abroad!

Next stop, Anitigua, we had to endure around about a 5 hour journey to Antigua, sat on a bus packed with other Guatemalans can get a bit tedious after a while, so we were glad to get off. We soon headed to Calvin’s house with himself and LIndsey, to dump our bags and have a shower e.t.c. His house was great, somehow it felt really homely and was so nice a decorated by his flatmate Alyson (from the states, a very funny a bubbly 30 year old women). Ally and I soon headed out to see Antigua during the day, and so headed in the direction of the Central Square and wandered around for a while, getting something to eat and checking out yet more markets. We also went to this really cool church near to Calvin’s House, which had these really nice gardens next to it, where you could spend the day for a little charge. The church was massive and the Gardens were really pretty with all of their ruined walls from extension plans gone wrong, ....  I joke, I joke .... they are from bits of the church that have fallen down in the past, y’know ruins! You have all been there, done that, got the rock!

Anyway, later that afternoon we headed back to the house, and talked about what to do for dinner. Alyson said that she was more than happy to cook, and sent Lindsey, Calvin and Ally to the supermarket to buy supplies. She also phoned her brother (who also lives in Guatemala) to see if he wanted to come over for dinner, and had also invited this man whom she met earlier in the day, who had unfortunately been mugged the night before just outside his hostel, so Alyson felt sorry for him and invited him to the self-named ‘Dinner for Strays’.

What followed was one of the most hilarious nights I have ever had, so much fun drinking Ice Tea and Vodka, homemade enchiladas and apple crumble style dessert! Alyson and Calvin are just a comedy duo, and throw in Lindsey as well makes it so my sides were burning for about 70% of the evening. One very hilarious anecdote was when LIndsey was telling us about when she goes to the gym back home in the states, an indian women gives her a ‘foreigners nod’. She gets this nod because she is latin american and she said people often think she is foreign, but she was raised in the states. She went on about this nod for ages and had everyone in stitches as she explained what she thought was the reasoning behind this ‘You know/foreigners Nod’.

Moving on, this night was fantastic and will stick in my memory for ever, but sadly we had a reservation with earth lodge to spend christmas and had already payed the deposit, as much as we wanted to spend christmas with ‘The Strays’, we were soon on the back of a pick up truck headed up the mountain to spend 3 nights in this gorgeous eco-lodge looking over Antigua. This place was amazing, so chilled out, so pretty and met some really cool people. There was a great little sauna, and even a massive collection of DVD’s to watch whilst sitting in front of a fire! We arrived on Christmas Eve, which is the big day in Central America, so that night we had a great meal and quite a few drinks before we stayed up until midnight to watch this huge firework show in the valley below us, tell you one thing ... was very weird looking down on fireworks, really strange for some reason. Anyway, christmas day was great, Me and Ally woke up and both headed up to the communal area. We exchanged gifts, I got this great Guatemalan Cook Book (which I am still translating from spanish!) which has some really great recipes in it, can’t wait to get to uni and show off my skill at making ‘Chile Rellenos’. The rest of the day was spent just chilling around, using the sauna, watching a few DVD’s eating, drinking and marveling at the view! It was a really nice day and I even got to skype my family for a very little while, but yeah was nice, but no-where near as good as a christmas spent at home. I missed my family a great deal and wished I could be with them, but was such a day to remember for those reasons. The next day, boxing day, we headed down into Antigua for the day to spend some more time with Calvin and Lindsey, just chilling around, buying coffee, going back to chill at the really nice park/gardens and just having fun really! That night we headed back up to Earth Lodge to spend our last night in the amazing Lodge and to have some of their amazing food! Literally, this place has its own cook book because its food is complimented so much!

Anyway, the next morning, after we checked out, we jumped back in the pick up truck and headed down into Antigua once more t see if we could get out of the country and back into Honduras to go and meet the rest of the Hondies at Lago de Yajoa for New Years eve. However, when we got down into Antigua, we were just a little too late to get seats on the shuttle bus, so they told us that we had to wait until the 5am shuttle the next morning, so there we were at ‘Café Y tu Piña Tambien’ (meaning Café And your Pineapple too) asking calvin if we could crash at his place once more, to which of course he said yes, because, after all we are such lovely people to be around ... no?? ... oh rude!

That night was a very chilled one, watching movies and me cooking dinner and just generally laughing a lot once more!

All in all, I had an absolutely FANTASTIC time in Guatemala and really want to go back once more before I leave! I think I really fell in love a little bit! That country has so much culture, so much fun, and so many different places you have to go and visit! I really would recommend it to anyone, such a great place!

So till next time ...

Ciao (guatemala)!

Xela who?

After arriving at the bus station in Quetzaltenango (a.k.a Xela ... shorter, straight to the point ... I like it!), we quickly caught a taxi and told him to take us to the black cat hostel which we had heard so much about, and read about in the Lonely Planet book. Off we went and we soon arrived at this very run down looking shop with black cat written on it. The driver assured us that this was the place (even though we had our doubts) so we went in and did some ‘talky talky’ with the women sitting inside. This in fact, turned out to be a different place, where they teach people how to weave and also offer accommodation for their students, however, in true bossy guatemalan mother style, one of the women told her son to take us to the place we wanted to go to. After a 3 minute walk we arrived in this gorgeous hostel and checked in to our dorm room (practically a private room as we were the only ones in there) and went for a wash, and were overjoyed to find very powerful and hot showers for our use! (The little things in life eh?) We soon headed out to explore and spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the main square and finding various coffee shops. We also went to the office of Quetzaltrekkers, an organisation which does various hikes and expeditions to the surrounding volcanoes and mountains. Ally therefore signed up straight away and booked to go to Tahamulco the day after next. We soon headed out for something to eat and found a great (and very busy) bar which did some of the best burgers in the world ... good find!

The next day we went to Las Fuentes Georginas, these hot pools about 45 minutes away from Xela. These hot pools were amazing, we arrived quite early so for a while we were the only ones there. Originally the coolest one was pretty hot in itself, and we were reluctant to try the hotter ones. However after a while dipping our toes in and running away screaming we braved it and went into the medium level heat one, which was too much after a while, and by this point, some more people had begun to turn up and crowd our relaxing break in the pools. The biggest pool, the one we had not managed to get into was insanely hot, I am pretty sure you would be able to boil an egg in that bad boy! LIterally after not even a second dipped in the bool, my foot came out glowing with heat (and slightly burned skin!) This whole place was so relaxing and amazing, we both wished we didn’t have to go (they say traveling can be hard work ... I don’t really know what they are talking about ...), but sadly there were now quite a few people there and it began to feel really over crowded.

On returning to Xela city centre, Ally and I split up as we both needed to do a bit of Christmas Shopping and of course didn’t want to let the other person see what we had bought. So after a couple of hours shopping we headed back to the Black cat, Ally then had to set off as he had a meeting about his hike tomorrow so I settled down and watched a little bit of a film before he returned and we both heading out for a curry and an early night as he had to be up at 5 ish in the morning.

The next few days were a little odd on my part as it was weird just being by myself for a couple of days. I had planned to go to all of these museums and Art Galleries (what Xela is known for) which I was really excited for, however when I turned up, all of the museums where shut due to it being near christmas, so I was quite disappointed, but did still have a good time exploring other parts of the city, getting a massage, visiting a lot of cool coffee shops and even indulging in a McDonalds (sorry ...). The second day (wednesday) I needed to go and find out how we were going to get back to Antigua and so was just looking at a map when Calvin and Lindsey walked in, guy and girl who were actually in San Pedro La Laguna watching Pulp fiction in Buddha Bar (see previous blog ... which you should have done already!), after chatting to them for a while, Calvin said he lived in Antigua and they were both headed back tomorrow as well and were about to go and buy some tickets from a bus company up the road, so I asked if I could tag along and they said yeah! So what ensued was a hilarious afternoon, getting to know Calvin and Lindsey (who are both from America, Calvin lives in Guatemala and Lindsey worked in Xela in the past and was coming back to visit and see Calvin, her BFF). These two are (still) great friends and I feel so lucky to have met them, Calvin even offered to let us crash at his place in Antigua for the night which of course I eagerly accepted and thanked him greatly for! SO we eventually bought our bus tickets and agreed to meet up the next morning.

When Ally finally returned from his hike, I had organised a little early birthday dinner (well booked a table) at this AMAZING tapas restaurant, literally the best food I have ever eaten ... ever!! (sorry mum!) So we sat at the table indulging in far too much food while we told each other about our days apart. Ally had a great time on his hike and is very glad he did it, even though did run into a little bit of trouble of the way back as they had to help pull a truck out of a ditch on the side of the road! Of course he was now very tired and so we headed back to the hostel to crash before heading to the bus stop the next morning to greet Calvin and Lindsey and head to Antigua, the ancient city of Guatemala.

Till next time ...

Ciao!

Lago de frickin' beautiful!

After the 9 hour shuttle bus from Lanquin to Antigua, Ally and I had to go and find a hotel to stay in for the night, we stumbled across this place which also had adverts for shuttles to Lago de Atitlan, where we wanted to be the next morning!

We booked in and recieved our key and soon headed for a nice relaxing meal out and to explore a little of Antigua. We headed out at about 7 ish, after our hotel room key broke and wasn’t working in the lock to our room. I had a major panic attack about wanting our stuff back and asking Ally to break down the doors, however, he being his usual calm self said it might be better to speak to the receptionist and see what he could do. Of course, it was the same incompetent receptionist who we spoke to earlier who actually gave us the key in the first place. So after a little bit of ‘talky talky’ he soon headed out back to go and get one of his mates who promptly came and helped him find the right key to our room and giving me sweet satisfaction of getting my bags back :D  Anywho ... Ally and I had both been craving an indian for the past couple of weeks so we headed to a recommended restaurant from the Lonely Planet guide and enjoyed a very nice meal before heading out to the central square for dessert.

We woke the next morning at about 5am to board the bus to Lago de Atitlan, which took all of about 2.5 - 3 hours, so we arrived at the lake soon after sunrise and managed to see some amazing views just on the way down the mountain into our first stop on the lake, the town of Panajachel. We soon found a hostel and managed to bargain the price down before we headed down to the dock to see if we could grab a ‘tipico’ for breakfast. We were amazed by the view in front of us as we were sitting eating our refired beans, eggs, avocado, plantains and tortillas. Just looking out over this gorgeous lake with 3 volcanoes in the distance, however the view was slightly ruined by quite a large number of children coming up to us and thrusting purses and bracelets into our faces and asking us for a ridiculous amount of money for what we were actually buying, however after some fierce bartering and quite a long time, we did purchase some very nice bracelets as we had planned to get one bracelet for every location that we visited. Pretty much every morning was spent like this and throughout the days we did a variety of different things, like visiting a wildlife reserve near to the town, doing lots of market shopping and buying some of the best things I have ever seen, getting an AMAZING massage (was much needed, don’t blame me!), going to one of the biggest friday markets in my life (really a market for locals where they come and buy all of their fruit, veg and meat for the week at discount prices, some really amazing stuff, I even saw tripe and brains on one stall) and we even managed to fit in a wonderful boat tour of the lake, where we basically approached one guy on the dock and said can we do the boat tour, and he took us round the lake and let us spend about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours at a few different towns on the Lake, including San Marcos La Laguna, San Juan La Laguna (where I managed to make a mortal enemy in the form of an elderly woman who refused to give me the price I wanted for some bags until I pretty much begged her ... She gave me the biggest evils I have ever seen as I was walking out of the shop), San Pedro La Laguna (more about here to come later ...) and finally Santiago de Atitlan, where we stumbled onto the dock to be greeted with the biggest gathering of people I have ever seen in my life, literally it took me and Ally about 20 minutes to walk 100m. Apparently there was a huge church service/festival where thousands of people gather at this town on the lake (even people from as far out as El Salvador come to visit), therefore Ally and I didn’t get to do much apart from find somewhere to have some lunch and a little bit more shopping near the quieter end of the dock. This tour was fantastic as I believed we had just the right amount of time in each little town before either one of us got insanely bored and wanted to go back, plus it was great to see the Lake in so many different ways as we winged it around the outside of the lake.

During out stay in Pana, Ally and I tried some truly amazing food, ranging from traditional Guatemalan cuisine to this amazing vietnamese restaurant, where we both sat cross legged on this raised stage like thing covered in cushions and blankets and the odd table where we managed to share a gorgeous curry and soup, was truly ‘out-of-this-world’ good. I have to say, now looking back on my time spent traveling, I do believe that Panajachel was one of my absolute favourite places and could have spent a lot longer there, just enjoying the lake, the atmosphere and the market stalls (seriously, Ally had to drag me away more than once, I mean physically drag me away ...)

After Panajachel, Ally and I headed across the lake to San Pedro, ‘Gringo’ capitol of Guatemala, seriously this place is run by Americans and Canadians, pretty much every bar or restaurant is run by one of them. Ally and I only planned on spending just the one night here as we wanted to do this hike up a local mountain called Indians Nose (a mountain shaped like a well ... Indians Nose ... pretty self explanatory really). So when we arrived at San Pedro we checked into this hostel called Yo Mama’s (yeah ... really!) and headed out to book this hike for 3am the next morning. Therefore, we had the rest of the day to kill, so we headed to this bar called ‘El Barrio’ and took advantage of their ‘Saturday All-you-can-eat Brunch’ for only 40 Quetzals (about £3.30), I think me and Ally spent about 1.5 hours there, maybe even 2 hours, as we had course after break after course after cup of coffee after course of fruit after cup of tea, enjoying a very relaxing setting and good company. Here we also learnt about this place called Los Thermales, this family jun joint where they offer natural hot tubs within view of the lake for a very cheap flat rate, and you can use them for as long as you want, so we booked in to use these pools later in the day close to sunset and went off to find our next stop of the day. Ally went ahead to this place called La Piscina (a bar located right next to a pool) whilst I rooted out the best and cheapest massages around (of which there were many). After a very relaxing hour and a half I joined Ally at La Piscina and we chilled out there for a while, sitting in the sun with a ‘cuba libre’ in hand. The time soon passed by and our appointment with a hot tub was fast approaching, so we headed back to Yo Mama’s to get changed and headed out for one of the most relaxing experiences I have ever had. These really hot natural pools, right next to the lake, watching the sun set and just being in pure bliss (after nearly 5 months of cold showers, you can imagine how nice it was to finally find some hot water to bathe in!) After we managed to literally drag ourselves out of the pools, we headed to Café La Puerta for something to eat and finally got back to bed to enjoy a nights sleep before heading out on our hike the next morning!

When we awoke at half two, we headed to the agreed meeting place where we were expecting our guide to turn up at three so we settled in and waited ... and waited ... and waited ... and waited until finally at 4 AM (!!), an hour later than agreed, someone turned up, asking whether we had booked a tour, of course we said yes and he showed us the ticket he had, sadly it wasn’t us he was looking for, and soon the guy and gal he was waiting for turned up, so we asked if we could tag along with them as we really wanted to go and see the view from the mountain top. However, this guide said that we had to pay him as well, as he worked for a different company so would not get any of the money we had originally payed. Stupidly we said the actual amount that we did pay, rather than saying a cheaper number so we had to couch up again. However we were soon on a bus up to near the top of the mountain in time for sunrise above the lake. This was amazing, watching the sun poke out from between two of the three volcanoes and bathing the lake in its light was just priceless and one of the views I will never forget. 

Soon after walking back to the whole way to the village we where staying in, we headed to ‘Big Foot’ the agency we had organized to do the trip with to see if we could get out money back, however to our horror it was closed and we wanted to be on our way to Xela today. So we hunted around for another travel company to see if they had the number of anyone who worked at Big Foot to see if they could come and meet us. Sadly they called and called but no-one ever turned up and they also said that as it was sunday, no busses would be traveling anyway, so it looked like me and Ally were here for one more night! The rest of the day was spent chilling out, walking round town, going to La Piscina once more to go to their famous sunday BBQ for lunch (and in fact dinner as the portions where so huge we both couldn’t eat it all and asked to take it with us (which everyone does)) and when night came around, we went to a place called Buddha Bar to chill out watching one of their free films, tonight Pulp Fiction (YES!!) Such a great film and was made even better watching it in such a great location.

The next morning we headed to Big Foot once more and they were so sorry that we had been messed about so much that they were more than happy to give us our money back and couldn’t apologize enough, they said that the reason our guide didn’t turn up was that he had probably been drinking the night before and couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed, and that now he will probably be fired for his stupidity!

Soon after we each had our money back in our hand we headed to the bus stop to catch the 11am bus to Quetzaltenango, just to finish I will say that this was one of the most horrible bus rides I had ever been on, I cannot tell you how many times I flew off my seat as we went over a particularly big bump on the very bumpy road! 

Till next time ...

Ciao!

Semuc Champey! Go there ...

After Guatemala City, Me and Ally joined Cindy and her two friends, Gela and Maria, on their way up to a town called Lanquín where the beautiful national park of Semuc Champey resides just about 10 km away. With the recommendations from Manuel (see previous blog post) we had luckily booked into a place called Zephyr Lodge, this beautiful lodge, where apparently they had bought a hill and placed cabins on the top of it, so it literally does have a 360 degree view of its surroundings. The ride up to Lanquín was long and tiresome and had quite a few changes along the way, however, we soon arrived at about 5 ish and checked in, luckily we had Manuel call this place up for us yesterday and make us a reservation, as we got the last two beds available, which were two mattresses up in the attic above the staff room and the restaurant. Anyway, our first impressions of this place where amazing, literally beautiful, surrounded by luscious forest and run by some of the nicest people we had ever met. The night we got there, they informed us that there was to be a trivia night, so Ally and I eagerly signed up, along with the other 3 girls and later that night, after a beautiful dinner and quite a few drinks during their happy hour, we were divided up into teams along with everyone else there that night and enjoyed a great evening of drinking and getting to know everyone through some healthy competition. Eventually, it came down to a tie break between two teams, of course one of which was mine, and the winners were decided by who could chug down a beer the fastest, and one of the members in my team eagerly stepped up and managed to drink his beer quicker than the other guy ... YEAH!!

Anyway, waking up the next morning, Ally and I signed up to take part in the tour to the national park Semuc Champey and explore their famous pools and caves. After about a 45 minute journey along a very bumpy road, standing up in the back of a truck, we arrived at the park and parked up in front of this great view of a river with a path on the right. We were told to walk down the path and drop our stuff off at the office and walk down a little bit further until we reached a giant rope swing over the river. Our guide told us that we should all try it, but obviously we didn’t have to, however after standing on the edge for a few minutes and watching a few other swing before me, I managed to push myself off of the edge and swing out over the river and luckily let go in time to fall into the deepest part of the river ... few .... safe!

Shortly after the rope swing, we walked up a flight of stairs to this cave system where we were handed a candle and then our guide came around a lit them all, and told us to get into the cave system. He led us through this amazing cave system where stalactites and stalagmites where everywhere and bats were flying over our heads ( ... :O ... ), we had to clamber over different rock formations, climb up rock faces with water pounding down on our head, and even swim through deep ‘lagoon’ type pools all the while trying to keep our candle alight so that we can see. This experience was amazing, trying to clamber through this maze of rock, and all the while marveling at these amazing formations as well as having fun trying to keep the candle above the water so that we could see where we are going!

Soon after exiting the caves and letting our retinas adjust to the normal amount of light, we walked back to the office, picked up our stuff and walked back up to where the jeep dropped us off, turned to the right and walked across this huge bridge where we stopped half way across and our guide told us that we could jump off if we wanted to, this huge 12m drop was just a little too much for the rest of us, however, this one guy, called Matt (from London) managed to jump off and after coming back up, reassured us that it was fun, however we were still all a little bit too scared! Next up we had a 30 minute walk up a massive flight of stairs up to the top of this mountain to a look out point above the amazing Semuc Pools, this wonderful place where a river hit a bed of (i think) limestone and formed these pools, of varying depth, which descend at different levels (kind of like steps) until they reach the river which just appears again at the bottom after it disappeared at the top. The pools were relatively still, so therefore we knew the river didn’t flow over the top so it was even more fascinating to see the river appear again. These pools were just like paradise pools really, a beautiful blue, surrounded by luscious forest and the sun just dappling through the trees. One of the best experiences I have ever had, and utterly relaxing, it was a horror when our guide then said it was time to go home, and we had to board the truck again and prepare for another bumpy journey on our way back to zephyr lodge. That night was just a nice chilled out evening, chatting with Matt and his mate Gregg (both from london) who were flying home in about 4 days and just asking them about their time in central america and where they had travelled previously. We just sat there that night enjoying the view and the sunset as we had to get up relatively early the next morning to be in time for the shuttle bus to Antigua, where we planned an overnight stay before we headed on to our next stop, Lago do Atitlan ...

Getting to Guate (aka Guatemala City!)

So after our 3 days in Copan, we booked a place on a small shuttle bus headed for Guatemala City, so we got on board at 6am and tried to enjoy the 5 hour bumpy journey in a minivan. Traveling by bus really doesn’t bother me that much when I think about it, I just can’t stand it when everyone is cramped on into one great big bus, when I have a little bit of space, I am happy, but to be honest, in these minivans the seat are so close together that no one really has space regardless of where they sit!

Anyway, when we arrived in Guatemala city we were dropped off at this restaurant called ‘Los Antojitos’ where we ended up having breakfast after calling our hostel and arranging for someone to come and pick us up from ‘Quetzalroo’. So shortly afterwards, our lift arrived and it was packed with other travelers as Quetzalroo hostel had just finished their city tour and were on their way back when they came to pick us up. So we soon arrived at the hostel and were greeted by one of the best hostels I have ever stayed in, run by such a nice family and everyone their knows their stuff about where to go and what to do! We asked Manuel (the man who runs this joint, who also looks like a guatemalan Jack Black) what we should do whilst in the city and he gave us this map and pointed out the locations of a few museums and other such places and even a great restaurant that we should go to. So Ally went ahead to all the museums and I went around to explore and do some shopping as I wasn’t really in a museum-y kind of mood, so we agreed to meet at this restaurant later in the evening for a bite to eat. However, with me not being the greatest man to trust for directions, I soon got lost in amongst their ‘calle y avenida’ system, much like New York’s block system, but different due to the fact that not every single avenue or street is signposted, anyway, it transpired that I was actually about half an hour late for when we arranged to meet for dinner. After a very big apology and finding out about each others day we had an early dinner and headed back to the hostel (about an 8 minute walk away), we then decided that we should go out for a drink or something and make the most of Guatemala City’s Zona Viva, however when we were walking down the street, we were very shocked to find out that we couldn’t get a taxi to stop for us, so we were waiting and trying to get one to stop for about 10 - 15 minutes before we went back inside to ask if Manuel could call one for us, however he said that a big group of them were all heading out for something to eat at the restaurant we went to earlier and that we should tag along, which of course we did, and just sat and had a beer or two.

This dinner was great as we got to know everyone staying at the hostel and also got to know some of the staff really well. We met a great australian couple called Mitch and Claire and also an american girl called Cindy. All seem really cool and such great people. One of the best things about traveling is just meeting so many different people and hearing everyone’s different stories, about where they started, where they are going, what was their favourite place e.t.c, and even just bonding over the fact that everyone is doing roughly the same thing as each other. So after dinner we headed out to a bar and had a few beers in a very overly packed bar, where all (i think) 7 of us were squished onto this one table at the very back of the bar, oh well, still very enjoyable ... even more enjoyable when we got up to leave and got a taxi and managed to fit all of us into this one cab which normally held about 4 people, including the driver! Quite a feat I may say!

The next day we organised to go on the ‘Peligroso Tour’, Quetzalroo’s city tour, which takes us through the old section of the city, through some central parks and into the best market I have ever been to. This thing was about 2 floors, and about the size of a football pitch! Massive! We even stopped at one of Manuel’s favourite food stalls where he made everyone try traditional Guatemalan cuisine, starting at level 1. Of course Ally and I are not ones to turn down a challenge, so we went all the way up to level 3 (the highest) and during our time we tried fried pigs stomach, liver and ‘Chile Rellenos’ (a sort of stuffed pepper like thing, with meat, onion and pepper all chopped up into a ball and put into a batter type thing ... actually now one of my favourite things I ate whilst traveling, these things are all over guatemala!

Anyway, we spent the rest of the day just chilling out, watching some much missed TV with the rest of the hostel and even having a roof top party whilst watching some amazing fireworks (for the guatemalan equivalent of KFC’s 50th birthday, this place is called Pollo Campero), and eating some amazing Guatemalan Hot Dogs whilst chilling (and trying to warm up) in my newly purchased PONCHO!! Yeah baby, a proud and happy owner at last! This night was great and I wish I could relive it, hopefully if I get the chance to go back once again. Sadly there isn’t really any pictures of Guatemala City as I really didn’t want to take out my iPhone as we had heard that ‘Guate’  (aka) is very dangerous and don’t even bother taking out anything expensive!

Getting Started and Copan Ruinás!

Well, it was December the 5th and we awoke very early in the morning, very excited so we would be able to reach the ferry port in time for the 7am ferry. Our journey started, having to climb over the school gates with our bags, and being attacked by some dogs on the walk down the road. A bit of a dodgy start, not gonna lie ... but hopefully things could only get better right?? Oh Hells Yeah!!

This whole day was spent on busses, waiting for busses and buying coffee to keep us going. After the ferry we had to get a bus to San Pedro Sula (one of many stops here on our travels!) which took about 5 hours, grabbed some lunch before then taking a bus to Copan Ruinás, another 7ish hours due to the very bumby and windy roads through the mountains, which meant, we didn’t really get to Copan until about 7 o’clock at night, where we managed to bargain down the price of a private room as the man had promised us some dorms beds, but all of the dorm rooms were full! Go us, so our first stop of the holiday was spent in relative luxury for a traveller in one of the most gorgeous towns ever!

Copan Ruinás is a very quaint little town, filled with cobbled streets and little cafes surrounding a beautiful central square. The next few days were amazing, spent time visiting Macaw Mountain, a great little bird sanctuary in a coffee plantation, where they had macaws and parrots and all sorts of other birds, some of which you could even hold, which of course we did (Macaws are actually pretty heavy, and when you had three on you at once, with your arms out, can get a bit tiresome ... i’m not weak! ... I promise!). We also of course visited the famous ruins, and had the pleasure of having a great guide who claimed to have discovered half of the ruins himself, and even claimed to have about 5 different degrees in everything ranging from Anthropology to Mayanology (????), anyway, he was very funny and we had a great tour around the site, which was amazing! Everything was spectacular, these structures were huge and just looked like something built out of Alien Vs. Predator ... kind of got a bit scared when I saw the sacrificial room full of slimy eggs ... just kidding!!

Some of the nights in Copan where definitely enjoyable, always walking around trying to find somewhere to eat for the night, we stumbled across some great places. Places that had back packer specials ($8 for a 3 course dinner), some great ‘tipico’ or ‘asada’ (traditional or typical food, and grilled meat respectively), but one of the best places we came across (well, Ally came across really) was when we were approached by a local women on the street asking us if we had heard about the german restaurant in town, and saying that she could take us there, However, myself and Mageli (a girl we had met and spent the past couple of days with, and who had become a very good friend) needed to head back to the hotel to drop off some shopping or something, so Ally subtly passed me his remaining money and camera, for fear of being accosted by this women and came back from his venture raving about this place, and saying that it had its own brewery and that the man who ran in, Thomas, was pretty much a mad scientist, inventing all of these different flavoured beers every night to sell to his customers. Anywho, we all agreed to head back there later for a meal and we were lucky to have some great traditional german food and were surrounded by some great company, people from all over the world, there was even a BRIT!! A girl from bristol who I became immediate friends with due to the connection of us being from the same country. The evening continued as we had more and more of this mad scientist’s home brewed beer (not actually that bad!) and eventually we were both quite drunk as we stumbled back into our hotel room and crashed!

Copan was just amazing and I really don’t want to bore you with everything we did, will save that for when I return, but I will just say that one of the weirdest moments was while eating breakfast in their central market, an old local man came and sat next to us and started to talk to us about Sophocles’ philosophies (in spanish I might add), of course, we were both quite startled and didn’t really know how to reply, apart from the classic nod of the head whilst saying ‘Sí, Sí’. 

If anyone gets the opportunity to visit this place ... DO!! Some honestly great food, surrounded by fantastic scenery and some very nice shopping to be had, only slight down turn is that there is of course a lot of ‘gringos’ there, due to it being Honduras’ second biggest tourist attraction, which also means it is a little expensive for a travellers budget, but you can really overlook that fact when surrounded by such a beautiful place and such friendly people!

100 days!

Hey guys, just thought I would write a post explaining what happened on our 100th day in Paradise ... I mean Punta Gorda.

Well, it was a Friday, Friday the 18th November and Ally and I decided we would make the walk up to Marble Hill Farms to see if we could go diving and finish our PADI Open Water diver course! We woke early and set off on the half an hour walk to the resort. We headed down to the dock and met our instructor Pol, who took us through what we would be doing that day, last two confined dives and our final open water dive. We did the confined dives first, doing skills such as swimming for 15 metres without a mask on (quite weird, I couldn’t focus on breathing and panicked! woops!) and the hover technique and also removing the scuba unit underwater. Both Ally and I completed these with minimal difficulty and so we got out of the water, had a cup of tea and some cookies while Pol briefed us on the upcoming open water dive.

We soon headed out on the boat and geared up and back rolled in, I will never get used to that first moment when you hit the water and look down and just see this whole new world beneath you! We started to head down in the water, but as I had had a cold the past few days, and my ears are quite sensitive to pressure anyway, it took me quite a while to reach the bottom, but I did get to have a good look around, seeing massive schools of fish and a couple of big jellyfish floating around. When you make your way down in the water, you have to equalize your ears to the pressure, otherwise they feel like they are going to explode! But because mine have been a bit blocked lately, this a long time, well until they eventually popped quite hard and it hurt a fair amount (however, now a day later and one of them is still a little blocked, going to get some decongestants later today - advice from our instructor!) but anyway, the pain soon disappeared and I got to enjoy the dive, seeing some huge groupers and swimming through a small canyon in the coral (feeling like I was swimming in a cave), as always, diving is just great and it was even better knowing that after this one, we would be able to dive anywhere in the world, without having to do any skills or anything, and just enjoying the swim. 

When we surfaced, Pol said those great words ‘Congratulations guys, welcome to PADI’, Ally and I both turned to each other with the biggest smiles we have ever had, after returning to shore, we headed up to the office to sort out some final paper work and get our temporary PADI cards (enabling us to dive anywhere, while our real cards are sent home). After sorting out everything and saying thanks (and getting told that we get two free dives with Marble Hill Farms ... :D   ) we headed to get something to eat at the restaurant called ‘The Crows Nest’ where we ate nachos, philly cheese steaks and angus burgers (philly cheese steaks are the best things ever! haha) after this we sat and admired the view before we began the walk home. When we got home we both just crashed as we were so tired (after getting up quite early) and both went for a late ciesta (at about 5 ish) thinking we would wake up before having to go to Mary Lou’s for dinner at 7, however, I was woken with Ally flicking on my light and saying, it is 8:15 .... WHAT!! bloody hell!! haha

We got dressed and headed down to Mary Lou’s to see if she was still able to give us something to eat ... well we were in luck! haha Apparently, it wasn’t the first time that to volunteers have fallen asleep and missed dinner! haha We enjoyed a nice meal of rice, fried plantains, and sausage before we came back and chilled out with a good film and some music! (obv not at the same time!) 

Anyway, we both agreed that this was a great 100th day and both of us cannot believe how quickly these days have gone, 100 already!! :O   Almost a third, unbelievable! But they have been the absolute best 100 day of my entire life! Cannot wait for the next 258 days! lol (we are flying back a week before the date we arrived!) 

Hope you guys have had just as good a time as I have, well probs not, but anyway, hope you are all good and happy!

Till next time,

Ciao! 

The Many sides to teaching!

Hey again, I know I am becoming a bit lazy with these lately and I do promise to try and blog more often, but the truth of it is, that after a long day, I just want to crash down with a movie, and not have to sit there and write! However, I am going to try really hard from now on.

So here goes ...

This week is coming up to the end of the 4th Parcial (term) and of course everyone needs to do exams, so I look at my mark sheet for every class that I teach and ... “Shit, I have hardly done any tests!” I say to a calm as ever Ally as he is mulling over his mark sheets. I therefore whack out my teachers planner and plan nearly two weeks worth of lessons to see if I can cram in revision sessions and tests into one week. Turns out I could, but only being seriously cruel to some of my kids, like 2 tests in a week and a homework sheet, haha. Glad I didn’t have me as a teacher! But as ever, the weather decided to put a dampener on things and rained off two days worth of these plans, so I had to scrap the revision session and just pop in during one of their other lessons and tell them there was going to be a test, and have an unscheduled class on one other day (the classes here have like no timetable to them, so we can pretty much turn up when we want and give a class!).

So here I was planning like mad, and making up so many draft tests in this little note book I found, about 3 different spelling tests and 4 different exams, luckily there were some worksheet books in the house from past volunteers, so some of the work load was lifted a bit for the younger years with the help of ‘Activity Packs for Young Learners - Pupil’s Pack - Delta Publishers’ (cheers guys, I can always rely on you!). Luckily none of my students complained too much, it is just hard to get them all where you want them at one time, there is quite often a couple of students missing, so I then have to schedule a re-sit test for those that missed it during break, but of course, not all of them turn up, so have to do it again until I get far to frustrated and just say no! 

This is all great, because I don’t actually have to teach and just walk around the class while they are racking their brains on how to translate and spell the word ‘Baloncesto’ (answer at bottom of page) and look over their shoulder at how they are doing, oh and also laugh to myself at the cunning of some of my students and to what lengths some will go to “hide” the fact that they are cheating, like one guy saying he needs a book to lean on, and me turning round to see that he is in-fact opening this book instead of leaning on it, or another having their english book open inside of their bag on their chair, and the pretend to be tired to lean on their arm and have a cheeky look inside, or as Ally describes one of his kids leaning over and very un-subtly pulling a folded up piece of paper out of his top packet and passing it in-front of his face and very noisily putting it back into his pocket, only to repeat the process for the next question!

But as always, with a mountain of exams, comes a mountain of marking. Me and Ally had to sit there for a good 2 - 3 hours, while we ticked and crossed every single paper we had. The next day, we were accosted by our students asking for their marks and papers back, and whether or not they would have to come back into school on the weekend to do ‘recuperación’ (basically where they sit one other exam and if they pass that, they pass the year, hardly fair I know, but still, these kids do have a few screws loose!)

Anyway, I may sound as if am moaning quite a bit, but I do love it all, and it hit me the other day how much of a teacher I have become when I stood at the front of the class and waited there with my arms crossed for silence! haha

Till next time,

Ciao!

P.s - one thing that does scare me is angry parents! Especially when one of them is the deputy head!

Meet with friends, break the law and have a few drinks to celebrate!

Well the first three months have been and gone by, flew by so quickly (cannot believe I am already a quarter of the way through my time here, and only 1 month away from being a 1/3rd of the way through!!), and due to it being 3 months already, this meant our Visa was running out, so we needed to do some traveling to get it renewed so we could live in honduras (legally) for another 3 months.

Previously, we had heard so many different rumours about what we had to do, ranging from you have to travel outside of the ‘Central-4’ (guatemala, el salvador, honduras, nicaragua) for at least 3 nights to you can travel into guatemala for just 2 hours and then head back in. We didn’t really know what to do, so we decided we would prepare for the worst. All we knew about this before heading off, was that we had to at least leave the country, and it was going to cost (previous volunteers have had to spend up to about £200)  but it is something we have to do, so we weren’t to worried about that, also we were getting to meet up with one of the other volunteers that we hadn’t seen before, Sarah who lives in a town near to La Ceiba, called Tela.

We got up quite early on the friday morning to catch the ferry, and got on a bus pretty much straight away to meet Sarah in San Pedro Sula, the transport capital of Honduras. We arrived just after 1, after nearly a 4 hour journey looking at all of the mountains passing my window, and also managing to buy a Milkyway Caramel at the stop station (like my 2nd bit of chocolate here, was SO GOOD!!). When we arrived we sat down in the bus station and had a coffee at our favourite place, Espresso Americano (could be better than starbucks ... no I am not joking!) and waited for Sarah to arrive.

When she did, we quickly got on the bus to a town called Puerto Cortes, where we would then change to another bus to a town called Omoa, where we would be spending the night. This journey was great, catching up with each other about how we were all getting on, and how much we are loving life out here!

The night in Omoa was really nice, found a really nice little restaurant which served some great food, even Sarah’s ‘Chicken Fingers’ (only nuggets) were pretty good (or so she says), we then went and sat in one of the many beach bars and had a couple of drinks and chilled out for a while, before a very early start the next morning and lots more travelling!

We caught a very early bus from Omoa to a place called Frontera (the guatemalan border) where we had to walk into the immigration office and explain what we wanted to find out, and explain that we had to get back as quickly as possible as we had exams to do e.t.c, and as being the best spanish speaker among us (well probably not the best, but the most willing to try and make a fool of myself) the task fell to me to interpret what this man was saying. 

Turns out the government over here is pretty underhand!!

Only had to pay this man $50 each to be allowed into guatemala and then back out again within an hour .... or so we thought!

We walked over the border line and saw a run down duty free shop (gutted it wasn’t open, was looking forward to a giant toblerone) and hopped on the bus to the guatemalan immigration office. Here we were met by a man who said we also had to pay him 200 quetzals (about $35) to be allowed back into honduras this same day! I even asked whether this was a flat rate which the law dictates we can pay to which he replied ‘No, just me. The law doesn’t know!)

WHAT .... Yeah, I am now officially an illegal immigrant people! (where is my grande party ... oh wait ... I am supposed to be lying low ... sorry! .. ssh!)

Well we all decided to pay it anyway, as we needed to get back and it would have been cheaper than paying for 3 nights stay and food and drink, however, something good did come of this, we were told there is an immigration on our island, so we don’t need to go all of the way to guatemala next time, however there is still a little doubt because surely 10 years of past volunteers would have found this out already! 

So we decided to have breakfast in Guatemala and spend the rest of our Quetzals and then head back to Sarah’s town to relax and explore Tela.

Tela was great, but we were all absolutely shattered after such a long day of traveling so much and spending hours on rickety buses crowded with people, however we still managed to find the energy to go out with some of Sarah’s american friends and have a good night of fun in a new city! Living the life of the traveller eh??

Well the next morning, I think we found a new meaning to the word tired and exhausted, especially after we had to cycle into town on 3 old bikes, all with flat tyres and one a lot worse than the others! Anyway, we explored Tela a bit with Sarah and had a look around the Sunday Market (didn’t buy anything, all a tad expensive!) and then Ally and I decided to head back to catch the afternoon ferry back to Roatan, and continue our exams with our students after a nights sleep of 12 hours, however Ally woke up and was very ill so didn’t manage to get much teaching done, so all the other teachers, including me (if I had time during my classes) helped out as much as we could. It also turns out that word spread quickly hear in punta gorda, becuase every single teacher we met was asking how he was and offering us soup or some other kind of medication or health advice, even though we had told just our head teacher!

But, all is well that ends well, Ally is feeling great now, all our exams have been finished and there is only ‘recuperación’ left to do.

So, till next time,

Ciao!

A slice of Home!

Well, well, well, the rainy season has truly begun! My word, when they say it rains, it bloody rains here! haha

To be honest Ally and I had been a little bit disappointed with a so called rainy season here, after we had enjoyed some of the hottest days yet, and even managed to top up our tan (not that we needed it, just that y’know when it starts to get cold, tanning potential takes a serious hit, we need all that we can get before that happens, so that we don’t turn back into ‘white tourists’ (or gringo’s as they are known here)), so come one wednesday morning, we wake up to find the school playground flooded and the roads turned into pretty much a river, we were satisfied with the ‘rainy season’ at last. It was mental how much rain there was, it went on for hours without even a hint of it stopping, we couldn’t even walk down the steps into school with out getting soaked. The playground was just a sea of brown, muddy water (think of the chocolate river from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, and no ... I did not take a sip and get sucked up the giant big tube, my name is not Augustus Gloop!). I had to resort to teaching in my crocs (which I inherited from the previous volunteer, and boy are they a life saver) which wasn’t actually all that weird, because everyone wears them out here (Megs!!) so I don’t look that weird, and it was super comfy, but because of the rain, only about half the class was here so I just played a few games and found out that Honduran kids are rather good at cheating, and that english volunteer teachers are rather bad at stopping it!

Any-who, Ally and I thought this was it for the rain for a couple of weeks, but our hopes were dashed when we say Jami and Ed (two canadians who live in the next village over, and who help the school so much) said that another tropical storm was on its way and would hit on the weekend, great!!

Anyway, to combat the rainy days, we had bought one of those cake mixes that you just add water and eggs to to and bake for the perfect ‘America’s favourite recipe’ cake! So we popped over to see Karen (who had arrived back about a week ago) to see if we could use  her oven (as we seem to lack one) and do some baking (for ourselves this time, each cake we have baked previously, we have given away, we kind of want to try one! haha, gotta love a bit’o cake!). She agreed and let us wreak havoc on her kitchen! When we returned home, the jumble sale at the school (which we had helped organise the day before, pricing up items and things) had got underway, so we decided to take a look, and we managed to get a 1000 piece puzzle to complete for about a pound. This was such a good buy as it brought back many memories of my mum getting so into a puzzle at home that she would sometimes forget to cook for us or even run us to school (this was a joke, but she used to get really into them, well we all did really, never knew why, we aren’t even the brightest of families!) and I could just see myself working on this puzzle night in, night out, and forgetting to get up and go teach! haha

All of these things, the rain, the cake, the puzzle brought back some good memories of home, ones that I will cherish, but what brought back the biggest memory of them all was that, for the first time I have been out here, the temperature dropped below 25 degrees and I had to wear a jumper. It was cold!!!! 

And on that bombshell ...

Till next time,

Ciao!