Lake Atitlan to Lima

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Warning Warning !! Some of the content in this blog is pretty gross, thought we´d warn you all in advance.

It was really sad to leave Lake Atitlan in Guatemala as we´d spent quite a long time there and really got to know the place. Still, that´s the nature of our trip and as always there have been plenty of other amazing places to keep us occupied.

Antigua was next and we loved it. We spent a few days wandering around cobblestone streets under the gaze of ancient ruins and centuries old churches. As always, some of our favourite memories involve the food which in Antigua included the liquado. For about 12p, they are basically frozen milkshakes....(no not ice creams), with whole pieces of fruit in them. Just awesome, we became quickly addicted. It´s strange travelling for so long when it comes to food. Only on the very very rare occassion have we even had the option to cook a meal due to the lack of cooking facilities in hotels. However, we had the chance whilst we were here so took advantage. As an added bonus to rediscovering what a sensational cook my Mary Poppins of a wife is (practically perfect in every way), it also meant that we had to go shopping for food. It´s always a truly wonderful thing to experience anything routinely carried out on a day to day basis by the locals and buying food in the market was just brilliant. No haggling required when you´re buying veggies for a couple of pence each, fresh pasta from a woman in her late 90´s and mince from a bloke who looked like he´d killed a cow and wasn´t going home til he´d chopped it all up and sold the lot! Just to add even more excitement, the kitchen was on the roof of the hotel under the star filled sky. Em cooked up a storm by candlelight, it was incredibly romantic.

Next we headed for Rio Dulce (sweet river) in the North East of Guatemala. We ended up staying in a cabin right on the river for the night on a stretch of riverbank only accessible by boat. There´s nothing quite like sleeping under a mozzie net to make Em feel like a princess. First thing the following morning we jumped in a speedboat and spent 2 hours cruising up the river to Livingston. What a journey, we stopped along the way in places where the river has steep cliffs on both sides, at a natural sulphur hot spring as well as slowing down to glide through thousands of water lillies. It was a beautiful ride. Livingston itself is a Garifuna town, which basically means it is predominantly black people, descendents from slaves brought over from Africa. The mix of Guatemalans and Garifuna means it´s pretty different from anywhere else in the country and is more like a Caribbean island. The music, food and whole atmosphere was really cool and we spent a night chilling out just taking it all in. Oh, one unfortunate thing did happen here, Em was sent flying across the room when she was electrocuted just turning the light on. She actually flew, poor little thing. Hurt like hell, but true to form she soon shrugged it off.

So that was the end of Guatemala and we were both pretty sad but hey....we were going to Honduras! We had a massive travel day to get there. At last count we took a bus, 2 taxis, 3 minibuses and a boat to get there......12 hours total. We were shattered when we arrived. The boat was the only really nice bit and that was a distant memory by the time we hit the border as it had been the first leg of the trip at 6.30am. Crossing the border itself was quite interesting, paying unofficial bribes to officials of both countries in return for allowing us through. Once actually on Honduran soil we had to wait for 30 minutes until the next minibus to Copàn Ruinas where we were staying. "It´s ok" said the driver, "just wait over there"....so we looked where he was pointed and spent a very pleasant half an hour in the sunshine sitting on the bonet of one of the 4 burnt our cars on the side of the road!! Welcome to Honduras!!! ha ha

Copan Ruinas is probably one of our favourite towns that we´ve visited so far on this trip. Just like a perfect little town it has the mandatory quaint square at the heart of everything. It´s basically a town built to be close to the Unesco World Heritage Site of the Copan Mayan Ruins. We visited them the second morning and were pretty blown away. They are definitely the best ruins we´ve visited so far. From here we headed into the hills to a town called Gracias...had to go there just for the name really. We managed to find a hotel here with a pool so spent a couple of days relaxing as we knew we had a few pretty heavy travel days coming up.

Crossing the border into El Salvador has to go down as the easiest so far. The bus pulled over next to an office type building, an official from Honduras and one from El Salvador boarded the bus, quickly glanced at our passports and got off again. We were actually a little disappointed as we didn´t get a stamp in our passports. We only had one night in San Salvador and we quite liked it. It actually reminded us of Bombay a little bit. Lots of market stalls lining the streets with vendors shouting to sell their products really adding to the atmosphere. We were only really in the country to fly into South America so it was a bit of a bonus stop really. The hotel we found was in the student area of town so we spent the evening mingling with the locals and had a romantic dinner for two on the street to soak up the atmosphere.

We were both really excited about the flight down to Lima as neither of us had ever been to South America before. As we landed Chris asked the guy sat next to him if he knew the currency conversion from Dollars to Neuvos Soles. ´Carlos´not only knew the answer but this started up a nice little conversation between the three of us. When he asked where we were staying he couldn´t believe it and said that his mum lived 3 blocks away from there. In a city of the size of Lima this is a pretty massive coincedence. Anyway, he asked if we´d like a lift with his mum and brother to our hotel. He also asked if we minded that they stop on the way to sample a local delicacy called anticuchos. He´s originally from Peru but lives in America and said he wanted to make the most of his five days at home. So we stopped at a lovely little restaurant at 10 o´clock at night and ate the most delicious kebab style meal. It was as we finished our last mouthfuls that Carlos asked us if we knew which part of the cow we were eating. We just looked at him with blank expressions having assumed it was normal beef. It turns out we had just polished off two platefuls of cow heart!!!!! AAAAGGGHHH. Neither of us are sure if we´d have been able to eat it had we known in advance what it was but at the same time we both thoroughly enjoyed it at the time. They were such a lovely family, they spent the whole meal helping to plan our trip in Peru and even some of Argentina. It´s amazing how friendly people can be, they wouldn´t let us pay for either the ride or the meal.

Lima was another place we had relatively low expectations for that turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The seafront is beautiful and the city is very modern in places. We found ourselves in the main square just as the´changing of the guards´started. The main square is known as the Plaza de Armas, and each side of it houses the most elaborate and beautiful architecture, something that we had never associated with Lima. The grandeur is reminicent of many of the european capitals. From there we walked through a modern pedestrianised street which linked the Plaza de Armas and Plaza San Martin that Carlos had told us was an absolute must. We absolutely love this bit. There is a statue in the middle of the square of Madre Patria. Commissioned in Spain under instruction to give the good lady a crown of flames, nobody thought to iron out the double meaning of the word ´flame´in Spanish (Llama) and the hapless craftsman duly placed a delightful little llama on her head. Honestly, this is one of the funniest things we´ve ever seen. It´s hard to see from a distance but the zoom on the camera confirms it. Ah, you´ve gotta love the French.

Anyway, hope you´re all still enjoying receiving our updates.

Love Chris and Em

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