Seeing as I'm nearly at the end of my month in Guatemala I thought I'd share with you some of my thoughts about my time here (don't worry I won't go on for too long!) I'd recommend anyone coming to a country like this to spend some time at a language school, obviously what I've learned has been invaluable - I now have what I like to call 'survival spanish'. I've managed to get by fine this last week or two. Though, as ever when learning a new language I understand a lot more than I can say. But I have [View Full Entry]

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Saturday - Kiyomi leaves at 0500 and I'm on my own for the rest of this week. I get up early and take the shuttle bus to Monterrico, two hours away on the pacific coast and Guatemala's best beach....bear in mind that you don't come to Guatemala for the beaches. I figure though, that spending a couple of days sunbathing is a pretty good way to wile away the weekend. I stay at a hostel called Johnny's Place which is directly on the beach. Monterrico has a volcanic black (and therefore very hot to the touch) sand beach which is pounded [View Full Entry]

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Thursday morning - "awaken" on the overnight bus from Flores to Guatemala City...I use the word loosely as I'm not sure I slept at all. Find we've been delayed a good few hours by a huge landslide (we'd feared as much, after we were told that passengers on the bus to Flores had had to get off the bus and walk for 8 kilometers to another bus past the landslide in order to continue their journey!! Thankfully our bus did at least get through). Landslides happen all the time here in the wet season. They seem to be pretty good at [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday morning - Kiyomi and I head back up the Rio Dulce and take the bus to Flores, the capital of the department of Peten and the place most people use as a base from which to explore the Mayan ruins of Tikal. It's a sedate, small little town, so small that we bump into Eric again as our bus is dropping us off. He's making his way up to Cancun and stopping for a few days in the town. He's even happier to see us when he realises our hotel has air-conditioning and cable TV! We'd decided to splash out [View Full Entry]

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Friday 0400 - Very tired, I leave mi casa in Antigua and get on a bus heading to the Caribbean side of Guatemala. I'm with some of the people I was with the week before - Kiyomi (we're travelling together for the whole of the next week), Eric, Sigrid and Lindia. Plus a few more - Nick (from Australia), Matt (American) and Kata (also from Iceland). The three Icelandic girls speak pretty much only in their own language all weekend (despite being fluent in English and pretty good at Spanish too) much to the annoyance of the rest of the group. [View Full Entry]

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Monday and Tuesday are spoiled somewhat by my bout of food poisoning. It's not as bad as it could be but I mope about feeling quite sorry for myself and in quite a bit of pain. Thankfully by Wednesday morning I'm feeling much better. I'd made it into school on both Monday and Tuesday but it had been a struggle to concentrate. And by Thursday I'm also glad it's my last day at the language school - it's been great, but my brain can't take any more! I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of irregular verbs, tenses, indirect objects, [View Full Entry]

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Wake up early to go to Chichicastenango, a very well known and touristy market town. Kiyomi discovers she's had visitors in the night. She's covered in bites from bed bugs. I feel very sorry for her but lucky that it wasn't me. I don't think I could have coped with altitude sickness and bed bugs! As it is, my woes are far from over, by the time I get back to Antigua it is clear something has severely upset my stomach. I'm getting frequent cramps and need to go to the toilet...a lot! All in all, I'd say the weekend had [View Full Entry]

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0545 - Get up to take a hike up a mountain before breakfast. I'm tired and hungry. One hour later, I'm halfway up and I get what the Rough Guide calls "Acute Mountain Sickness - breathlessness, dizziness and nausea". Juan Carlos our guide is great and manages to gets me to control my breathing till I feel well enough to continue. He refuses to let me stay there. I eventually make it to the top, where it's a great view but not worth the pain. When we make it down for breakfast I come over dizzy and nauseous again and have [View Full Entry]

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0600 - Leave Antigua for the long trip into the north-western highlands of Guatemala, a very remote region and difficult to do in a weekend, so we take a tour. There are 9 in our group, Me, Kiyomi, Eric, Carlos, who works at the school, Ninke his Dutch girlfriend, Sigrid and Lindia, two Icelandic girls, and Melissa who's from the States. We pick up a lady called Patricia on the way. The western highlands contain some of Guatemala's most isolated indigenous communities and Todos Santos where we'll be staying the night is one of the most remote. They only built a [View Full Entry]

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Life continues pretty much as it did last week....school in the morning, potter about or go on excursions in the afternoon, a few drinks in the evening. The only thing of note was the mountain bike ride we took around the towns of Antigua on Wednesday. Notable mainly because I've never been so wet in my whole life. Halfway up a harsh hill the heavens opened and we got soaked. It rains most afternoons here but this storm was particularly bad. The road quickly turned into streams and then torrents of water. I was worried about my camera so wrapped my [View Full Entry]

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