So, last few days in Mexico, and last blog entry from Central America! (sob.) We have achieved lots of hugely fun very touristy travellery things over the past two weeks, which has been a nice break from the emotional experience of San Salvador!

After Lake Atitlan, we went to Antigua for a few days. It´s a lovely colonial town which was the capital until the 1700s when an earthquake ruined most of the city, which means it is littered with rather beautiful but utterly delapitated buildings, as well as a town square surrounded by colonades. Unfortunately, we didn´t get to experience much of Antigua because after the first day we all started vomiting in unison, (s*** times, but at least I´m a proper traveller now) which wasn´t the most fun in a teeny little hostel with two loos. Great hostel though, I´m just sad I wasn´t well enough to take advantage of the utterly relaxed approach to life which incoroporated lots of Bob Marley and some genuine passing of the Dutchie to the left hand side...

After Antigua we went to Semuc-Champey in Guatemala. So incredibly isolated, the mountainous paths we traversed to get there could not really be described as roads (and the bus we were on blew two tyres in the process) but after an incredibly bumpy squished journey (this bus driver was one of the "another person there. Yes, on that seat. I know it´s made for two, but we can fit five." types..) we arrived in a hostel where electricity ends at 9pm when the village generator stops, or 8pm if you´re lucky. The next morning we had a great bargain of an adventure which involved swimming through pitch black caves whilst holding a candle aloft with one hand, climbing up a waterfall inside the caves and generally getting to see some pretty amazing stuff that is not seen very often, due to the inaccessibility! However, when our guide put out the candles for a joke then discovered he´d lost the torch, that was less amazing. In the afternoon we went to the National Park area, where you can swim in crystal clean water that collects in beautiful enormous limestone rock pools and becomes an amazing turquoise colour whilst tumbling over mini water falls underneath overhanging cliff canopy of vines, and spider monkeys... possibly the most beautiful place I´ve ever seen. The next day we went to Tikal, which is an incredible preservation of Mayan ruins, over 16 square kilometres of temples and plazas, littered with sacrificial stones and alters which incredible was only discovered around 100 years ago because it was completely overgrown by the forest. Only the royals lived in the Tikal city, and the Mayan people that built these incredible buildings by hand, lived around it in the forest, periodically being forced to give up their children as sacrifical gifts. Bit harsh? We saw some great spider monkeys and howler monkeys and nasty nasty huge tarantulas too - always a good thing!

After Tikal was Belize! A very very strong contender for my favourite place in Central America. You wouldn´t believe it unless you saw it... We stayed on Caye Caulker, an island, the motto for which is painted on the arrival jetty: "Go Slow". It´s an amazing island, where the people are Creole (a mix of British and Caribbean descent) and just soo many genuine rastas, so many lovely friendly people! The men there were as vocal as the rest of central America but in a much much nicer way! Everyone you walked past: "Welcome to Belize girls", "You have a good day girls", "Welcome bombshells", "You girls want some help? You just let me know, you ask for Harry" and so on! Absolutely love it :) When walking at a fairly leisurely pace to buy some water I got told to "chillll, girl, why you going so fast? You don´t need to run here, this is Belize". I want to live here. Aside from lying on the beach and chatting to some fantastic people we went snorkelling, on a great day trip run by a guy called steve, who assured us his trip included delicious food and rum punch like you ´haven´t never had´. Snorkelling was brilliant, we saw sting rays, I held a nurse shark (they´re really rough!!) and amazingly, we saw 3 enormous manatees! So so docile,. they just swim right underneath you and aren´t fazed by the pointing, and flippers and bubbles! Only problem was I kept smiling so every now and then my mask would fill with water. Belize was generally filled with gorgeous weather, gorgeous people, sooo much rum, sooo much weed... Lobster fishing was also the main industry before tourism increased and as a result, I sampled my first lobster, as a two course meal, with free rum punch and desert, and a whole lobster, for 10 dollars!! I can see why people love the Caribbean, I´d move there in an instant.

Lassst stop was Mexico, San Christobal. The temperature was quite a shock after our few days in gorgeous Belize, and it´s totally not what I expected, but I´m beginning to love it. The city is kind of what Antigua tries to be only without being touristy. It´s almost European feeling, with pedestrianised streets, a huge cafe culture and again, a generally relaxed and beautiful place. There´s a big Mayan influence here also so Mexican´s are not quite what I imagined them to be - same goes for the food although we have recently discovered delicious street seller food which can form a meal for less than a dollar! They have amazing clothes here, great woolen hand knitted stuff because it gets quite cold, and these amazing skirt and tunic things that all the men wear - I can only imagine they´re made out of goat skin or something similar, they´re these amazing jet black hairy hairy pieces of clothing, a little bit like I´d imagine ostrich to look! Quite a site seeing 5 old men walking along sporting these with machetes at their belts and stetsons on their heads. Unfortunately they believe that taking photos steals spirits here, so I haven´t been able to document but I will remember! Along the spirits and religion line, here is quite unlike anywhere I have seen so far. We rode up on horses (genuine cowboy style, rope for a bridle and no bit :) ) up to a mountain village. The church there is supposedly Catholic... I would LOVE to bring the pope here. It was a plain square room, no decoration, absolutely filled to bursting with flowers and incense. Every available surface was covered with candles, literally thousands, and the floor was covered with pine. The smell was incredible, and there were people in little groups sticking candles in figures of eights to the floor. And they had chickens (they bring them into church, kill them periodically, and pass live chickens over women in labour, along with with an axe to speed up the labour by symbolic cesarian...) BUT. Most bizarre of all: They drink fizzy drink in church. They believe it cleanses the soul. Every little group of people praying had their incense, their candles, their crosses....and their coke, sprite, fanta, or other unnamed pop lined up in front of them. Now I would LOVE to know where that comes from. Some extreme marketing by coca cola?? Some massive invasion of traditional culture by "educating" the locals about the benefits of expensive fizzy drinks? Amazing bit of culture anyway, it´s really common throughout churches in this region. Apparently they also think the belching it causes releases bad spirits. Funny that it´s technically Catholic, but kind of logical in a way.

We also went to the Mayan medicine museum (various techniques include using black tarantula teeth for testicular swelling and a possum´s tail for rheumatism) and a Canyon tour today to see Crocodilians! Leaving tomorrow to start the mad dash back down though Guatemala and to San Salvador. It´s pretty sad leaving... I quite want to stay here. For a very long time. I´ve met lots of people taking a year out from well paid jobs that they hate, but enable them to travel like this... I´m starting to rethink the job satisfaction versus having the means´ dilemma.

Very long blog, apologies. I find scanning is a great skill to develop - practice it here. I´ll see you all soon, and no doubt bore you by repeating exactly what I´ve written here :-D Can´t wait.

Lots and lots of love,
From Central America,

Over and Out.xxxxxxxxx