Really cosmic Guatemala

Lake Atitlan has been on the gringo trails for many moons and is also now part owned by North Americans who have created some spectacular holiday homes on its banks. Panajachel was our first sight of the lake. It had a sports bar (Holland wasn´t it?) and good shopping and a relaxed vibe. We got the launch to San Marcos, famous for being a hippy hang out. One of the smallest and arguably most charming villages on the lake, San Marcos is unique because the bottom half of the village is filled with posadas (hostels) that are linked by tight leafy alleyways. It is like a fairytale, especially at dusk (or ´tusk´ as Anna called once, which I won´t let her forget:)) when the wailing of several local women starts. It is spooky, accompanied by some bells, and definately adds to the cosmic vibe. There is a yoga resort made out of pyramids, and our place, La Paz, had a yoga hall, Mayan sauna and good food. The Mayan sauna was brick, low, fired by wood outside, and you put water on the metal of the oven inside. It was only warm but very sweaty, which was good. The manager of the hostel we named Kinky Bill, after his T-shirt, which was suitably prophetic as it transpired he was known for walking around naked and walking in on sauna-ing visitors. There was a little security problem in the surrounding hills, which one long term gringo dealt with by always carrying a cricket bat - not unlike Ian {mandolin strings in Austin) Faith.

We swam in the lake, we met Germans, we met the Belgians again, Anna went to Yoga, I spanked axe. It was very cool. And we met Lauren and Laura, the multi-lingual Swiss-English couple, famous for giving us the Kiterunner (ace book), who we should have given Middlesex (similarly ace book) but hadn´t finished it yet.

Just when L&L thought they had lost us, we ended up on the bus out of Pana with them, and while they went onwards, we went local, via Antigua, the duff town of Chichimula (Chikki) for the Honduran border. At Copan, we didn´t bother seeing the ruins or the butterfly sanctuary but, within 5 minutes of arriving we saw the Grangers and Ficeland again, and when we went to buy bus tickets, Laurent´s de}readlocked permagrin was there to meet us. Around this time Central America started to feel very cosy. And we were in Honduras and I had a plan...

Always the search for...
The view across Lake Atitlan
Anna takes a dip late in the day

Slightly more cosmic Guatemala

At Earth Lodge we met the lovely, though Northern, Granger family. Mother Emily and toddler Toby sayed at the lodge torturing the residents while daughter Ishabel (13) and father Bananaman accompanied us on the tour of the Pacaya volcano.

Oh how Adi and (Emily´s cousin and Earth Lodge manageress) Lucy must have been creasing when they handed over the bag of rainwear to Bob. It wasnt until we arrived in the van at the foot of Pacaya that he realised he was about to climb a volcano in a bright custard yellow, all-in-one, light plastic jump suit, that was about 3 sizes too small for his lanky frame (I think I am qualified to use the term ´lanky´ by the way).

Did we offer to wait and reupholster him, or have a whip round, or canvas for alternatives - No. I promptly christened him Bananaman and sang the Banana Splits theme tune and mouthed other assorted witicisms, which needn´t lower the tone of this blog, all the way to the top.

And my god it was the most dangerous thing we have ever done. In some reference literature it does mention people have been hurt and died doing this but you don´t really realise that until you are standing in an active lava field, you feet are warming, you can see red hot rock in between the cracks and fissures of fragile, twisted lava rock beneath your feet, and you can see an actual moving lava flow about 150 meters away. Oh and there is smoke bollowing out behind, intermittent hissing, the guide can only manage to keep the group of 10 within 100 yards of each other (useless!) and there are other tour groups of panicing americans taking flight at random trajectories across the flow as they realise how totally ridiculous this is. Of course, the ones in shorts and flip flops are getting melting plastic soles, warm legs, singed leg hair, and the occaisional nasty cut from rock as the scramble as the brittle lava rock beneath them gives way, breaks away, or causes slips.

Anyway, it was wikked and there was still plenty of time to get a few super hero poses out of Bananaman.
Never in a month of sundaes!

Cosmic Guatemala

Arriving in Antigua, Guatemala was a bit odd. On the surface it is one of the most charming large towns in central america. Wide cobbled streets, safe, easily walkable, every restaurant with a lovely courtyard, interesting museums, good shopping, sensible prices, loads of excursion options, and those amazing volcanos that you can see rising from the end of every street, that help you orientate.

Unfortunately, Antigua is also gringo city. There is fast food (bad), a good guitar shop (good), long queues with tourists for the ATMs (bad), good food (good), loud obnoxious hostels (bad), language schools (good) - but why would anyone try to learn immersive spanish in a town where everyone is from Maine, Malmo or Manchester?

So we stayed a night and then shipped out to Earth Lodge. Perched on a hillside 20 minutes outside of Antigua, in a village accessed by 2 daily buses, requiring a final 2km walk along the hillside where vehicles can no longer pass in the rainy season; Earth Lodge is a US owned avocado farm with accom for 15 in stilted apex rooved cabins. Oh and every cabin has a view across the valley beside Antigua of three towering volcanos. We saw ´Fuego´ erupt two night running - it was awesome. We did nothing but eat resident Israeli chef Adi´s wonderful veggie food, help ourselves to the open bar, and start a backgammon school. I did also have to day trip to Antigua to fix my nut*

But it was 2 weeks before avocado harvest. Like the dolphins that are waiting for us somewhere, we will still have to wait for those fresh avos that we adorned; the prime reason anna wanted to go there! There were also four great cats; the ginger fell off the tin roof with delight as we tickled him and Baby purred. Anna had acupuncture. I spent 3 hours filing my new nut and fitting it and it works - hoorah - a first for me. I was helped by a lift into town from a comedy German withe most messed up VW camper I have ever been in. We discussed music (his touring with Captain Sensible), religion, politics and the vintage VW yard on the edge of town. He had been mugged walking there once so I didn´t go. He took frequent calls from his ex-language students as he had just been sacked. We drank coffee in the sun and talked nuts. And just as was about to start wandering around aimlessly I bumped into fellow San Blas Social Club members, Greg and Elise, for the first time since San Blas. They insisted we start afternoon drinking. We laughed a lot. They showed my photos, including Greg accidentally showing me one of his ´art´ pics that featured an unknowing Elise. We laughed a lot more. It was a good day.

Just part of the awesome view from Earth Lodge
The Earth Lodge cabins

The wilds of Belize and Guatemala

Quick recap
Belize; the ATM cave; named after all the cash you have to get out to see it; Altun Maa probably; waist deep water; swimming in the entrance; precarious mini climbs; only possibly by standing on the guide; only possible for Anna because of borrowing Ficeland´s Crocs (at last a use for them); the big Germans were there and we love them; we walked through ancient Mayan pottery fused into the living rock; at the end there was a skeleton; cool and scary; we felt very adventurous and got very wet.

Guatemala; El Remate we met the Belgians and Per and Marie; we swam in the lake; pigs played on the basketball court; the hotel owner persuaded us to do the dawn tour.

Tikal; expecting a small party we joined 70 tired individuals on the dawn tour; and some of them yapped far too much; we climbed temple four; we sat and waited for the clouds to break; monkeys called; tempes appeared in the mist; eventually the party shut up for 5 minutes; we climbed other temples; met the nice New Zealanders.

The view from the mirador of Semuc Champey´s pools was well worth the climb
This is an awful picture from Tikal´s temple 5. It was high up

Blog day afternoon

There were lots of reasons not to blog - but now we are back.

Don´t try to read it all at once.

And you should know that we had to abandon the BG for money plan when I lost all my matches on the second practice day.

I had written a load of guff here but a gremlin has swiped it. Suffice to say we are rocking now - the following posts were written in two monster sessions over 12 hours in Merida, Venezuela.

Cheers, MC Deli and Miss Deli

To blog or not to blog...

Again time has spent in the Internet cafe here in Masaya, the artisan capital of Nicaragua. I could have been telling you about the most amazing place we have been (Little Corn Island), about the worst week of weather imaginable (Little Corn Island), about the best snorkel since Oz (Big Corn), or about the rather nice quesillos that Anna had last night.

But no, I have been burning back up photo DVDs, updating the all-important stats, writing that guidebook forum posting I think about every night (at last life can go on)... and anyway, before I do write again, I have to warn you that from now on the blog is likely to go astray. I will use the first person at times, as sometimes Anna won´t be looking over my shoulder and the content might not be our collective opinion, and I also may wander into off topic areas. You have been warned.

I should just note that we miss everyone terribly. We are very sad to have missed and be missing new arrivals, weddings, summer, comings and goings, and friends and family generally. We are so lucky to have met some really lovely people on the road but we also wish it was some of you, dear readers, that we could bump into next time we board the chicken bus, shop for a hammock or sit for another breakfast of huevos revoltos and gallo pinto.

Backgammon

I was going to spend a few hours today and tomorrow updating the blog.

But...

We were just having a light lunchtime snack and a drink in Via Via in Leon, Nicaragua, and we had a series of backgammon. You should know that we have completed our first series of series of series and we are now on to our second. A series is first to 5. Double games, gammons and backgammons count as extra games.

Anyway, coincidentally we are also a bit behind on the budget, though our time in Honduras was just about on the money.

Now, as regular readers will know, Miss Deli is the brains in this operation, and over lunch, and after a good BG thrashing (t must be said) she proposed that yours truly get online and take a look at playing for money.

So, I just tried a warm up on the biggest site, Party Poker´s BG thing, not playing for real cash. In nearly three hours I won a few series to 7 (all 7-0) and a few individual games. I only lost the first due to a few errors with the interface (to which Miss Deli will gladly bear witness). After lengthy training with JC since age 6 and plenty of practice with Nick Clyne and Jes (they deserve mentions for their valuable schooling), and now over 200 games between the clan Deli in the last few months, MC Deli could not be better prepared. I even read a book on it once:)

Tomorrow we were planning a blog day. But it wll now be BG Day. And the Delicatessen is going to see how some of the real cash players like it. You will be kept informed. Fingers crossed. Love to all.

MC Delicatessen