May 07

Watching the bus drive away in a cloud of dust from where I had jumped off at Hopkins, a little Garifuna town on the coast just south of dangrega, I initially thought I must be in the wrong place. There isn't that much beaten track to get off of in Belize, but wandering down to the beach and not seeing a sole is quite a refreshing change from the tourist circuit.
Being the sucker for advertising I am my hostel choice was made primarily on which place had the prettiest signs, and with there only being one to chose from I was welcomed into the Kismet Inn

by the wonderful Tricia and the manically depressed Zar. Kismet is a beautiful wooden shack on the beach created in a very flower power/ woodstock/ summer of love vibe, by a very flower power/ woodstock/ summer of love only white lady in the village.
Taking Zar (who won't leave the house alone now after he watched his brother being killed by crocs)

up to the lagoon you see how the future of this little (200 person) fishing village is shaping up under the hands and shuvvels of foreign developers; rows of identical prefab $1/2mil magnolia timeshare houses driving land prices sky high, making hopkins 3 times its size, creating a casino, golf course and marina out of the lagoon changing the ocean floor which will inevitably move the fish further away from the hungry village. Rahh!! When I were a lad, all this were fields and all that. Might get broadcast rights and start a new series of tropical neighbors from hell or something...

The people here are unbelievably friendly, with locals dropping by to give you a fish all fried up ready from their catch of the day and stopping for a chat in the street as you're sauntering down to the store.


Unfortunately having to leave Tricia's wonderfull mango snapper with papaya chutney for Placencia to get the boat over to Honduras. This place didn't even try to hide its blatant greed for foreign money though, with little mini Dubai-stylee island housing developments being sculpted all the way down the main land spit,

it is really sad to see this beautiful country being changed in to another Floridian executive village.
Although watching the dolphins playing in the bay made up for everything, even though as typical Belizian time applies and the boat isn't actually leaving for another 3 days! Can't belive I'm getting impatient and frustrated for having to spend another few days in tropical paradise with the mini gangsters...

The bus over the border into Belize requires the usual entry formalities of any Latin American country with having to pay the negotiable 'entry fee' to the border guards. And if anyone wants to smuggle copious quantities of chang over the border then put it in guitar shaped bag, they seem to be invisible to border guards! But at least you can haggle a bit better over here, as they do speak some form of English, albeit with Creole words randomly thrown in just to throw you off guard. The whole country only contains 200k people, (less than Clapham) so is quite easy to get around after the monster bus journeys of Guatemala.

Needing to get some hammock time in, it was straight to Belize City (with the strange entry into the 'city' via the municipal graveyard), then on the fast boat out to Caye Caulker. A beautiful white sand and palm-treed island where everything is painted in Dulux Caribbean colour range,

with big old Rasta mummas cooking up jerk chicken at the sides of the paths (there are no roads or even any cars on Caulker), and the inventive naming goes as far as Front Street, Middle Street, Back Street and Very Back Street. ha ha, you got to love the Belizian vibe.
Got all settled in to the wonderful Tina´s backpackers, which has got to be one of the best hostels I´ve ever stayed at with hammocks strewn around the palmed gardens looking out onto the bright blue sea,

the Caulker motto of ´Go Slow´ really applied to this place and the hammocks lived up to all expectations.

The island itself was split in two a few years ago when a hurricane blew on past,

which is also where the beach ended up; making swimming interesting as you dodge the crocodiles/ hammerhead sharks/ power boats and attempt to make it over to the other side of the island.

As with all Caribbean islands, the sunsets and sun rises are typically stunning, probably going to have millions of these pictures in the same way as the fire ones from camping,

but you really can´t get enough of it out here.

So its not all lazing around in hammocks, drinking copious quantities of rum. One of the best activities you can possibly do on this island is hire one of the beach cruise bikes (which really do only have a max speed of just above walking pace) and ride around trying to find all the strange signs that are littered around the island.

Oh and also trying to race a plane on the runway, although they don´t tend to take too kindly to that.

Being the hunter-gatherers that we are, the temptation of sitting around on a dock drinking beer trying to catch dinner proved too much, and for the first time in my life I actually caught a fish!

although when it got round to killing the poor little thing I failed miserably but gave the locals some amusement as I tried to smack its head really gently against the dock. It was just about edible, so cooked it up with some of the Brixton recipe jerk sauce and fed the five thousand.

The reef is so close to the island here and shallow, you don´t have to worry about expensive dive trips, and with captain Miguel taking the Tina´s crew out on sailing/ snorkeling tour on the good ship Ragamuffin, it was always going to get a little messy. We went to the three main snorkel sites just inside the reef and within seconds of jumping in the crystal clear turquoise water

we were surrounded by sharks, rays and supersonic jacks swimming right at your mask going wild for the chump that Miguel threw in right in front of you!

Setting the boat on ´auto pilot´ after the last of the sites, a few bottles of rum emerged

and the 2 hours cruise back to the island turned into quite a hedonistic 18-30s stylee booze cruise.

Can´t quite remember much after that, but I did manage to see the sunrise from where I must of passed out on the dock!

My first dive back in a few years was quite sensibly straight down to 42m at one of the greatest dive sites in the world, the great blue hole.

This is a 200m wide sink hole in the middle of lighthouse reef, 2 hours off the island, which is definitely quite fun to get out to in a small dive boat when the seas are running 10ft swells. But once you´re on the way down into the hole you enter a whole other world.
It really was one of the greatest dives I´ve ever done, you drop straight down one side of the hole to swim through a giant stalagmite cave, then slowly ascend up the wall with the perfect dive photo above of 6m nurse sharks silhouetted circling above you. Coming up to their level is a terrifying prospect as even though they are ´vegetarian´ they really do look like proper sharks should when swimming right towards you. Unfortunately without an underwater camera its still only in my head, but these guys have got some
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/galleries/belize/photo2.html
The other dive sites were just off deserted Half moon caye

, where we lunched with the red footed boobies (ha ha, must resist) and where for their own sake we should of really left the cruise-ship divers in case they even think about diving again without learning how to actually dive properly without running out of air at 20m!

After being stuck on the island for going on for 2 weeks (its very very easy to do) we decided the only way to get off was to have a blowout party for everyone, so 20lbs of bbq´ed shrimp and 30 gallons of rum later we all ended up in Oceanside shaking communal booty with the locals.
Thanks to Amy, her sister and husband for dropping on by, laughing at our pathetic attempts at cooking and taking over the whole thing; creating the greatest feast I have had since I have been out here.

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...

well its been a while since I've updated this thing, for some reason the hammock based distractions always managed to win.

School has taken a bit of a downturn since I last wrote, things seemed to be going so well in the first week, but then as the crew grew and discovered a few more bars there seemed to be more reasons to leave the homework until the morning. Looking back on it now I have learned hell of a lot thanks to Julio, 5 tenses dialed (even learning the English names for some of them was a first!) but now just need a bit more practice as I go along to get all the vocab down, so shouldn't feel too bad really; but its concerning when your teacher laughs at you every time you rock in to school in the morning...

the kids have really been growing on me, despite stealing all our shoes we had a great game of marbles even though it seemed like the rules changed each turn and this little dude preferred eating them rather than playing with them


After much bad Spanish I eventually persuaded Julio to be our guide up the local volcano, with promised spectacular sunrise views over the entire lake. Official permits are never a problem when your brother/ cousin/ grandfather works in the relevant office, so running slightly late and some far more prepared (strangely preferring beer and guitars rather than tents or sleeping bags) for a night on a mountain than others we set off for one of the toughest climbs yet.


getting to the top of the hill and realising that not much firewood grows on the tops of mountains at 3800m Julio had an inspired idea

which was lucky as it managed to keep us warm all night and despite a good helping of local cake we managed to rustle up a pretty decent BBQ whilst team B-rad provided the entertainment.

A night somehow came and went without any of us developing hypothermia or falling off the cliff, and keeping in running with my sunrise luck we were provided with the 'spectacular' view we had trekked all that way for...

oh well. sod the views tho, overrated, the party is where its at. And getting down is far more painful than going up!

The next week was the start of Semana Santa (or Easter as its known elsewhere) so despite Granny's expert tortilla tuition

it was time to leave the 24hr happy-clappy-evangelical world of the family and move into one of the pimpest penthouses in the whole of San Pedro with complete lake views without even having to move from the bed

and with all the partying in full swing I was the time to step outside San Pedro for the first time in three weeks for Maximons (a sort of saint deity worshiped in Guatemala, usually chilling in someones house smoking a cigar and drinking whiskey, yes, they do actually believe he drinks it) procession across Santiago town. The procession is quite a big deal as having Maximon visit your house brings you luck, money, power, dancing girls and pretty much anything else you could want for.

Luckily the tropical storms that have rolled in for the last few evenings held off for one of the most important nights of semana santa; the laying of the alfombra. Over night teams worked until the morning laying coloured sawdust, flowers, fruit and leaves to literally pave the streets in one giant patchwork quilt.

then later on when the procession gets in full swing, giant shoulder carried jesus'/ jesuses/ jessi?, and his accompaniment of rather morbid looking angles, make their very slow wobbling way around them.



The rest of the weekend was spent on a traditional Easter beach outing with my teacher and his family, it was sad to say goodbye to them all as they have been great help (anyone going to San Pedro in a few months time should definately go and check out Julio's new pimp hostel with fully equipped learning centre for 24hr spanish imersion!)

before eventually managing to resist the lure of the lake and moving on down in to bandit country...