The Daily Grind of San Pedro la Laguna, Lago de Atitlan

Alas! the crushing monotony of a daily routine.... check out ours

6.30 a.m Arise and have warm if not hot shower

7.00a.m. Eat porridge and a huge bowl of melon, watermelon and banana

7.30 a.m.Leave for our classes at Casa Rosario, our spanish school. This is what we see on our way to school:

8.00-10.00 a.m. One to one Spanish tuition with Jose (Lizzie) and Concepcion (Jos) in the garden of the school that looks something like this:

10.00 a.m. Break to eat either watermelon, pineapple or guacamole

10.30 - 12 noon Second half of Spanish lesson. This is Chepe, Lizzie's teacher, at the top of the 'Indio Nariz' mountain that he took us up:

12 noon Return to our temporary home with the Bixchul family for lunch

1p.m. approx Return to Casa Rosario to lounge in hammocks on beach overlooking lake. Gaze dreamily at the 3 volcanoes surrounding the lake, watch reeds wave gently in breeze, gasp at startling blue of water, see lanchas skidding across the water or kayakers slowly paddling, watch shadows change on mountains across the bay as sun moves through sky, doze, read.

2.30p.m. approx Scramble over rocks to best swimming place. Enter cool refreshing water. Swim leisurely.

3.00 p.m. Either, laze on rock to dry off whilst doing Spanish homework
Or, scramble back over rocks, trying to avoid catching the eye of various naked people lounging, swimming or washing in the lake and continue to the school garden to complete homework.

5.00p.m. Walk slowly back home. On the way stop for coffee and cake at small cafe. Maybe read a little more.

6.30 p.m. Eat dinner of tortillas, eggs, beans, various veg, often avocado etc. Sit around with Bixchuls and try out our Spanish on them.

Later Something along the lines of- Head down to one of the bars by the dock, drink two litros de Gallo and play cards, watch bonfires across the bay, discuss rainbows with 11yr old Meyra, say no gracias to many pieces of delicious looking cake because we are too damned stuffed from the 3 octagonal meals already eaten...

10.00 - 10.30 pm Retire to bed

Antigua, Guatemala

Antigua was the old colonial capital of Guatemala, and is a small, beautiful town ringed by volcanos. The restaurants serve terrific international cuisine at reasonable prices, you can get a pint of Guiness (for a price) and it´s one of the most popular choices in Central America to attend a language school and learn Spanish.
So why don´t we like it?
It´s hard to explain. Perhaps it´s the fact that the majority of people you see here are foreigners, and that you hear more English than Spanish on the street and in the bars. Perhaps we´re a little older than most of the backpackers here, and no longer have the same need to forge endless friendships and travel in a pack. Perhaps we just spent 3 days in the jungle with Mayans and are on our way to a language school by a secluded lagoon, and this town is just a mood mistake.
Don´t get me wrong - we are happy to make friends with other travellers and spend the odd evening getting drunk with them. We don´t put ourselves above them. It´s just not why we came here.
Still, we leave tomorrow for the language school (www.casarosario.com), and are both very excited about developing our lingustic skills. Spending time here, having to communicate in the Spanish we can muster has given us a taste and a hunger to learn how to converse properly, outside of a restaurant or hotel setting.
We also had some consolation on a day trip we took earlier today. Another quite gruelling day after our rainforest adventures but worth it as we scrambled to the peak of an active volcano. This was a tough walk - the ash-covered slope for the last 1km or so was like climbing up sanddunes, and coming down was more like skiing than walking. But right at the top, we saw this: Choking on sulphorous fumes, and a little scared, we were only allowed to stay a few minutes at the top amid the whirling smoke. But despite the harsh activity, and the aggravation of our respective old injuries, the sights were soothing enough to make this a beautiful day.

PS The above was written a few days ago, and left unpublished so we could swank about our jungle trek (see below if you haven't already) rather than whinge about tourists. We are now two days into our language course, reeling from the brainwork but stimulated - and living in probably the most beautiful place either of has ever seen. Contentment beckons.

A walk in the woods

Last Sunday Christobal, Andres and Herman set off for work - a little pootle around the rainforest that surrounds their village, Cruce de las dos Aguadas, in the northern Guatemalan province of Peten. They were accompanied by two gringos, Jose and Eliza who were okay, but a bit thick (they can only speak one language properly and squawk at the sight of a scorpion) and slower than the horses when it came to walking! But it wasn't a bad three days work for them and the tourists seemed suitably pleased with the usual bats, monkeys and ants (Jose seemed particularly impressed by the latter), just the average really, a wander round their backyard that just happens to be filled to the gills with Maya temples, 500 year old trees, snakes, spiders, jaguars and howler monkeys...
That may or may not have been what it was like for our guides to trek 60km through the jungle with 2 horses, Chepe (Joseph's Kechi Maya name) and Eliza. This is how it was for us:

Stats:
Distance: 60km
Time: 3 days 2 nights
Hours walking: 14
Participants: 3 Maya, 2 horses, 2 ingles
Venomous animals SEEN: 1 scorpion (in hammock), 1 snake (in the trees overhead)
Blisters: 2
Litres of water drunk: countless
Maya temples sites visited: 3
Maya temples sat on whilst having a break that we almost didn't even notice: 2
Ridiculous stories told by Cristobal:3
Number of times Cristobal or Herman said 'Cuidado' (careful) due to thorns, ants, huge roots, snakes etc: thousands.
Number of times we were more amazed than we'd ever been before in our lives: infinite
Number of trees drunk from: 2
Number of fruits used to make 'tattoos' on our clothes:1
Number of monkey species seen: 2 - howler and spider
Number of bats seen emerging from a cave at dusk: a huge bloomin' cloud
Amount of knowledge about the dyes, water sources, medicines and musical instruments to be found in the forest, held by Cristobal, Herman and Andres: total
Number of Ketchi Maya words learned by Chepe y Eliza: Approx 10 ('learned' being a very loose term)
Amount of time taken for Cristobal and Herman to shed the jungle simply by putting on a clean shirt and untucking their boots: 30 seconds
Amount of time taken by Chepe and Eliza to recover from rainforest trek: TBC
Blessings counted: chairs, water, BATH, fridge, duvet, SHOWER, cat, sofa

Photos and a bit of blurb:

Waiting for the bats to emerge from their cave. They all fly from the caves together within about three minutes of eachother like a huge black cloud dispersing into the night. We loved them, but there was something sinister about their flight as the whole colony took to the skies to gorge on insects and fruit (at the same time eagles were circling above them gorging on the bats). The bats seemed so Other in the deepening darkess, so at home in the night and the jungle whereas we could only stumble around, falling over tree roots, vainly swatting bugs and skidding down tangled slopes.

A spider plus egg sac lurking in the toilet at campsite number two which, like the first, was gloriously basic. No electricity, so we ate by candlelight, no running water so we washed at a brackish pond and pooed into a proud white ceramic throne. Perched atop a cess pit - actually not too bad!

Day two in the jungle. This track was actually huge compared to the one the day after, which we would dispute giving the title of 'path' atall! As a Geography teacher this is what I know about the rainforest: It is made up of four layers - emergents, canopy, shrub layer, undergrowth. Everything fits together nicely and has its niche. Sounds pretty neat huh? What we SAW was a riotous tangle of growth, plants climbing all over eathother in a attempt to reach the limited daylight, a mass of organic matter containing lianasshrubsfernsvinestallskinnytreeshugebutressrootsleaflitter brownleavesyellowleavesgreenleavesfruitflowersofyellowredpurple butterfliescrazyscreechingbirdstoucansmonkeyshugethickfallentrees hanginglimbsantsrottenwoodandmoremoremore. It wasn't neat and sometimes it wasn't even pretty but it was alive. Jungles are sweaty, smelly, anarchic places that seem far from the dominion of humans. Without our fabulous guides we wouldn't have survived for two minutes without being eaten by bugs or jaguars (chance would have been a fine thing, they're very elusive), getting some tropical sickness, or putting a toxic plant on our sunburn. And all that was the appeal of this glorious, wild, beautiful and sometimes uncomfortable place.

Spot the snake - muy peligroso!

'Chepe' looking like a banana in his hamaca

The spider monkey, the creature where spider meets human and Chepe's entry for Wildlife Photograher of the Year (his dream apparantly - the things you find out about your husband in the jungle!)

A howler monkey. They have barnies across the jungle and sound not like sweet furry monkeys but booming lions!

'El padre de la jungla' a 500 year old cedar tree. Geography teachers! Check out the buttresses on that! Finally we reached Tikal, tired, well fed, elated. This ancient Maya city rises out of the jungle (well most of it, some of it's still covered in forest) and simply blows the mind. This photo was taken the next day, of the sunrise over the pyramids. The jungle is unnervingly quiet just before it gets light - I guess that darkest hour is the hour before dawn stuff is right - and then then birds and howler monkeys crank up their voice boxes, the mists begin to clear and this is what you see. One of those moments where you can almost feel the earth turning, bringing you in sight of the sun.

Back in a bed

Hi folks - just a quick note to say we´re still alive after spending three days in the jungle - with scorpions, snakes, bats and spiders. It was an incredible, exhilerating experience - but bver 60km of jungle trails, chilly hammocks and some very early starts have left us exhausted and in need of some pizza and beer right now. We have many pictures and stories to share, and will do so in a couple of days, once we have reached Antigua (Guatemala) and caught a little shuteye. Remind us to tell you the secret of the Jaguar...

Guatemala

We're here, after saying for days we'll be in Guatemala tomorrow, or the next day, we finally made it to Flores yesterday afternoon. It's beautiful here, a very small town on an island in the middle of Lago Peten Itza. We had what was certainly my best single moment yet when we arrived. We found a hotel with a terrace on the lake side, it was still baking hot at 5pm and the water was calling us. So, without further ado we sat and had an icy litro of Gallo beer, I fortified myself with a cigarrette or two and we ploughed into the lake (we were having a drink with a Swiss lifeguard - I know, all those rough seas they have in Switzerland - so don't worry about us swimming under the influence, he was ready to save us at the drop of a swiss army knife). It was the most gorgeous experience of my life so far I think. Okay so maybe I exaggerate, but we were so hot and dusty from the journey and the beer was so cold and the water was so sweet and cool, it was just magic. We're off on a rainforest tour tomorrow - three days of hiking and pootling round ruined maya cities and swatting mosquitoes, the itinerary says something like 'dawn jungle wake-up call' every morning and I don't think they mean that they've got a digital clock with a synthesised rainforest alarm. More when we return, ciao bellos and bellas,

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