there is more to Guatemala than the lake

As Semana Santa was still going on there weren't too many public buses anywhere, so when I nice taxi driver offered to drive us all the 3 hours to the beach we jumped on it. However being told we had to take the boat across to the other side of the lake where he would meet us, to avoid being held up by the banditos the other side of the mountain, reminds you that this places isn't quite as safe as it seems...

Tempted to try out the small bit of beach and the few waves that Guatemala has, we arrived in Sipicate (El Paridon surf camp) via a cute little cruise across the mangrove swamp, in one of the hottest places I have ever been to!

Black sand beaches stretched for miles in each direction, but were inaccessible from 7am-7pm unless you wanted 3rd degree burns on your feet. And when the slight breeze during the day died off at night time it turned the whole place into one giant sauna.
The surf rolling in in the morning and evening sets was pretty monstrous beach break

which if you managed to make it out through the nasty rips provided some pretty exhilarating surfing, but usually a lot more painful wipe outs when the thing closed out on you, much to the amusement of the locals. And I certainly kept them very amused...
The sun sets, (and a good helping of local run) bringing on some sort of Martian glow to the place, made it all worthwhile though

It really is too hot to stay down there for too long so after one too many beatings, it was quite a relief to get back to the more climatic highlands of Antigua; which after 3 weeks chilling in more isolated places was quite a shock to find what was billed as a 'beautiful quite little colonial town' was little more than one giant Covent Garden market. Every other shop was either a travel agent, a super expensive restaurant, or one of the thousands of tourists tat shops selling exactly the same things at whatever price they could con out of you.

ok, it did look actually look quite nice, have some good mountains surrounding it some good churches

and some even better graffiti

and of course like the proverbial magpie to the shiny thing I was eventually lured into getting one of their amazingly colourful blankets for Daver (cos I know he likes rainbows)

and a guitar for me (case, pick etc included) for a whacking GBP20!! woop! gives me another excuse not to study my Spanish and just wait, by the end of the year I might actually be able to play something other than yellow submarine...

The main reason to go to Antigua is to check out the local volcanoes; as, with Guatemalan health and safety standards being what they are, you can actually climb up an active volcano and toast marshmallows on the river of lava flowing down right next to you. (remember to wear trousers as it really is surprisingly hot up there!)

Seems like my sunrise luck also applies to volcanoes too, and all there was that day were winging American tourists complaining that they actually had to climb a volcano and go near lava on a volcano climb to see lava, and one red glowing rock. The scenery was the nicest thing up there with some weird kind of Dartmoor landscape interspersed with rivers of cooled black lava.

A lot better tour was with Outdoor outfitters up the local volcano Agua on bikes.

luckily seeing as I gave up going uphill on bikes a long time ago, we got shuttled up and were guided down the insane single track by some crazy local on a 1950's Garry Fisher!

It was great to get back on a bike again flying downhill, until at one particularly gnarly section I forgot that American brakes are set up opposite to English and grabbed a handful of front by mistake, ending up 15ft down the trail with half the hill embedded in my leg.

luckily at the end of the trail you can get tours round a Macadamia plantation, get to see Herby

and even a facial if you ask nice which made everything better.

It was time to leave tourist town for some proper jungle action in Rio Dulce, staying in the rather pleasant Casa Pelicio jungle lodge for the night just off the main lake

we got a little closer to nature than intended having to remove scorpions and tarantulas from the beds before we could shelter beneath the mosquito nets afraid for our lives.
The main lake itself is pretty much an inland sea, and a proper yachty haven for those seeking shelter with boats ranging from nice cruisers to super gin-palaces waiting for their super-rich owners to fly in for the week.

People don't seem too keen to take on crew here (probably cos every single backpacker is looking for the same ride out of town) so had to take a taxi boat down river. The journey itself down the river is worth all the money, travelling through jungled valleys

checking out the local fishing communities

before arriving in the colourful Garifuna beach town of Livingston for the first Caribbean vibe of the trip.

Rustys Iguana is the hostel to find here, certainly will be when he gets the swimming pool sorted out and that alcoholic barman out of there so people can go to bed before 4am...
The beaches in town still aren't that much to write home about, though a short boat ride up the coast to the 7 alters waterfalls (where Tarzan was filmed)
(see the resemblance?) and playa blanca for some serious chillin, gives a nice alternative to drinking.

Last stop in Guatemala (via a 6 hour chicken bus ride standing up) was up to Flores in the north, to see one of the biggest Mayan ruins in central America - Tikal. Thinking that my sunrise luck must surely of run itself out by now I booked onto the 3am trip into the park; which, despite the guide book saying was impossible cos the guards would shoot you on site, turned out to be a group of 30 people walking straight past them. Of course nothing but the good old greyness was there to welcome us as we waited for a glimpse of the day

but it cleared off later so we were able to get a proper view of the scale of what these guys made thousands of years ago!

The reason they left is still unknown to this day, why put all this effort in to what was a massively advanced civilisation, only to leave to build another one and never return? Incest and mercury paint poisoning is rumourd, but maybe the Mayan game of Ball where you got sacrificed if you won and sacrificed if you lost kind of put most people off?

After one slightly dangerous night using nods, smiles and broken spanish chatting to the locals I nearly got myself a new special friend, so it was time to cruise into the relative safety of Belize where at least an ignorant nod to the wrong question wouldn't be quite so painfull...