Guatemala

Our first stop in Guatemala was El Remate, a tiny one horse town situated on a lake in the north of the country. The reason for this stop was strategical as it sits right next to Tikal, one of the most famed Mayan archaeological sites in Central America. Eager to have the site all to ourselves we left the hostel at 5am, and it was well worth the effort. The site was covered in a fog that only cleared an hour or two after we arrived, shrouding the temples in mystery. The dawn chorus made it a particularly special experience with every exotic bird imaginable giving it their all in what felt like a feathered version of the x-factor. Tikal is set in thick jungle and for that reason it is our favourite of all the Mayan Ruins we've seen so far. The maya settled here around 700BC and the site was at its most affluent under the rule of King Moon Double Comb in about 700AD. Just imagine how much more interesting the monarchy would be if old Liz was called Sun Triple Brush or such like, parents just aren´t as creative as they used to be. We spent a good 6 hours exploring the site and during the time we encountered parrots, howler monkeys and even a tarantula!

From El Remate we headed straight for Rio Dulce which unfortunately I cannot really comment on as given the limited time we have left we saw little more of than the four walls of our motel and the bank. The next day we headed straight out and got a boat to Livingston which is on the border with Belize on the Caribbean coast. In fact Livingston is much more Belizian in its culture than it is Guatemalan, with the majority of the population being of garifuna descent. Livingston, like Belize grooves to a whole different beat and is the sort of town you find yourself quite content plonking your ass down on the veranda of a little pastel painted wooden cafe and watching the world go by. Whilst there we experienced the delights of a Caribbean style club and had the pleasure of watching people punta dance. Now I'm not entirely sure if this was traditional punta dancing or not but it involved a number of women lining up with their hands pressed against a mirrored wall and then a second line of men positioning themselves behind their female partners rear ends and quite literately dry humping them. This continued for several songs in a row and although it didn't appear to be the most complex of dances I must give these young guys and girls credit as they really did have incredible stamina! My request for a couple of salsa numbers was met with a very blank expression and I had to accept that while I might be able to move my feet to a number of rhythms my bootie simply wasn't genetically engineered to move like my Caribbean counter parts. We followed this up with a trip to a nearby waterfall the following day to clear our hazy heads. During this excursion we were joined by a Guatemalan guy who spoke no English what so ever which was most useful for improving our pigeon Spanish, although quite hard work with a hangover.

From Livingston we moved on to the west of the country to Xela (also known as Quetzaltenango). Where we happened to spend Shrove Tuesday. At home this is one of my favourite days of the year, after all who doesn´t love the excuse to gorge on batter, lemon and sugar? However, in Guatemala they do things a little differently. During the morning Abi and I took a stroll through the local fun fair that had been set up in relation to the celebrations. Most of the stalls were selling hollow egg shells filled with glitter and one little girl even broke one on my head as I walked past, dusting me with sparkles, which I felt was quite charming at the time. In the evening we walked through the fair once more expecting to be greeted with the same curious little tradition as before. Instead we quite literately got 'egged'. As in real eggs, yokes and all. Which was then followed up with flour, which was then followed by more eggs, and then yet more flour. Now as amusing as this may seem, if you happen to be wearing your only hoodie which you happened to have washed that morning, which you only wash once a month at a push and wear every day, these jovial antics are less amusing I can assure you. I'm sure the right way to respond to ´hey look a couple of gringos lets get them' is to laugh and feel honoured that the locals have deemed you worthy of being included in their games but after spending an hour trying to remove pancake mix from my hair I came to the conclusion that I felt more abused than amused by the situation, and that I'd have been quite content with our British tradition of simply eating the mixture as opposed to running from it. While in Xela we did our usual of exploring the local market with possibly the freshest fruit and veg I've ever tasted, which we had the pleasure of cooking that evening in our new friends apartment. Charles is one of many Brits starting his trip in Xela at language school before hitting the road in search of adventure. While this makes Xela a very easy place to travel and there's no doubt that meeting new people is an integral part of back packing, it does also somewhat take the edge off a place to be surrounded by other foreigners doing virtually the same thing as you. In fact this is the very reason why I didn`t seem to take to Guatemala in quite the same way I have the other countries we've visited. Guatemala has had a particularly rocky past both politically and economically which is why there are a huge number of international aid agencies working throughout the country. I recognise that as someone who has a keen interest in development what I'm about to say is highly hypocritical but with all this western intervention I felt as though Guatemala had lost its own identity a little. Having said that I have no doubt that this is due to the fact that we are now travelling at such a rapid rate, we no longer have time to take ourselves off the beaten track as much. It is also unquestionable that this aid work plays an essential role in assisting Guatemala slowly rebuild its infrastructure after spending 36 years in civil war. It is estimated that in 1983 more than 100 political assassinations and 40 abductions occurred every month. Although the civil war ended in 1996 the country is still contending with appalling human rights and deep routed corruption keeping the country in poverty which is evident by simply walking the streets of most cities. Although this is an unfavourable comparison to make, Guatemala is clearly a long way from being any where near as wealthy as its Mexican neighbours.

Often throughout this trip I get absorbed in thoughts about the actual act of travelling itself and what it means to me, after all having such an 'extended holiday' can often be hard to justify to others, and sometimes to myself. One of the things I've come to realise is that having time to reflect on my own life and the lives of those around me is the biggest gift this trip has given me. Taking time out to watch other people live their lives is a luxury I am well aware few are able to afford. In my regular life, more often than not, I feel as though time is something I'm trying to catch like chasing after a hat carried off by a gust of wind. Observing other people may sound a little voyeuristic but it also helps give great perspective on our own worlds that we create for ourselves. As a westerner I find its in my nature to departmentalise and neatly categorise people and places as a means of understanding them. As I walked through a funfair in Xela I saw teenage girls in the most intricate traditional dress and perfect plaits in their hair, a quintessential Central American image you might think, except that they were sat waiting for the Ferris wheel to start, engaging in a game of table football or texting on their mobiles. When I first saw them I giggled to myself because they contrasted so starkly with their setting. Indeed I often catch myself searching for the most 'authentic' looking Guatemalan to capture in a photo or a market stall with the most peculiar looking food laid out upon it. Its easy to be captivated by the exotic features of developing countries but to solely focus on them would be like taking a 'paint by numbers' colouring book and only filling in the red parts. In reality tradition and modernity are so thickly intertwined here, its impossible to separate the two.

Of course you can't spend your entire time travelling pondering the meaning of life or other such profundities so I shall move on and tell you what we got up to for Abi's birthday, which was on the 28th of Feb for all you terrible friends who forgot! You may remember that Abi and I developed a love for climbing high things in China so with that in mind we decided to attempt the highest point in Central America, this being volcano Tajumulco. This required Abi to get up at 5am on the special day which I think truly illustrates her dedication to the cause! We set off in a group of around 10 people, three of which were guides, ensuring that there was no possible way of us spending Abi´s birthday lost and alone in the wilderness. The climb itself was undeniably hard work as its summit sits at 4230 meters, which not only left us gasping for breath but also meant it was bloody freezing! We also had to carry all our camping equipment on our backs which meant that regular breaks were absolutely essential in making it to the top. Still watching the sun set with a sea of clouds bellow it after spending 6 hours putting your body through extreme physical endurance is just about the biggest reward you can be given, that and a feast of pasta for dinner. The following morning we got up at the sociable hour of 4am with the intention of reaching the summit in time for sun rise. Now I´ll admit that after a staple diet of rice and beans for three months I´m not in my peek physical state right now, but I was shocked at how hard I found these last few meters. Whether it was the altitude, the early start or just sheer exhaustion I don´t know but I very nearly didn`t make it. Actually I threw up about 20 minutes into the climb, that and the fact that my torch decided to break 10 minutes in, meant that I was a good 45 minutes behind the rest of our group. Despite this I persevered and boy am I glad I did as I witnessed one of the most stunning sun rises I´ve ever seen in my life. Although this was quite a magical experience for all that bared witness to it, we didn`t stay at the summit for long as within a few minutes of the suns rays hitting us a freezing fog descended upon the volcano which made it quite unbearable to be up there. One guy we were with even had icicles hanging off his bushy eye brows! Still no matter how exhausting the climb was we both agreed that it was one of the most exhilarating experiences we´ve had on this trip so far, and even that night when we returned to the hostel quite drunk with fatigue we began discussing what other climbs we could torture our bodies with.

Our final destination in Guatemala was Lago De Atitlan, in which we based ourselves in the small towns of San Pedro and San Marcos. The journey to this area of the country requires a lot of patience, as to get there it took us two chicken buses, one colectivo, a ride in the back of a pick up truck followed by a tuk tuk before finally arriving. Still it was well worth it as Lago De Atitlan is like a little piece of heaven with its shores lined with mountains stretching off in every direction. Both towns are over flowing with hippies which makes it just about the most chilled out place you could ever dream of. Various different activities are on offer throughout both towns including meditating, lucid dreaming, and even astral travelling. There's even a 40 day full moon course which requires the participants to under go 7 days total silence and fasting at the end of the course, given my tendency to be over come with verbal diarrhoea most mornings when I wake up I was less than taken with this idea. Given Abi´s strong dislike of hippies we opted for a couple of yoga classes and and spent a day avoiding this madness by hiring ourselves a kayak and exploring the lake. Having said this I did have a rather interesting experience on our final night when I met a crystal reader at a party. Now ordinarily I don't trust anyone wearing something rainbow coloured, embroidered with a ying yang or decorated in peace signs, as its a sure sign that someone is barking mad, apologies if this causes offence but I myself originate from a family with strong hippy roots and with cousins named rainbow and willow I feel this is an educated observation. Anyway given this prejudice when I got chatting to the crystal reader you might say I was more than a little sceptical. Mockingly I asked her how it worked, at which point quite unexpectedly she rummaged through her bag, produced a crystal and offered to show me. She waved the crystal above my palm and rather theatrically announced that I must be on my period. I humoured her by saying that I was probably due on, knowing full well that I wasn't due on for another 10 days and my body is as regular as clock work. Which is why I was so shocked when she proceeded to tell me some starkly accurate facts about my life and relationships. I went away from the encounter convincing myself that I must be reading too much into the situation but then the icing on the cake was that 20 minutes later I went to the toilet and found I'd come on my period. Now I appreciate that for the men reading this extract you may not appreciate knowing this information but I simply have to express how strange this situation was. So there you have it, Abi and I are now born again hippies, we have changed our names to Cherry Blossom and Moon beam and we are never coming home!