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Published: January 25th 2008
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The background to the third blog of our trip starts in the picturesque Honduran town of Copan, not far from the Guatemalan border. It was the night of the Hatton Mayweather fight and the four of us were very keen to watch it. Cue the lanky one to walk into a local tavern, straight up to the particularly indigenous looking barmaid and ask - complete with some questionable shadow boxing - whether she had the Hatton fight on here tonight! Unfortunately for Al the other barmaid was English and launched into an angry tirade about his lack of Spanish causing him and David to make a hasty exit from the bar with their tail well and truly between their legs. Needless to say we didn't get to see the boxing that night but Alex suddenly developed a strong desire to learn some Spanish during our stay in Guatemala.
The next day we took the journey into Guatemala and to the ancient city of Antigua. Antigua is renowned throughout Central America for its beauty and surrounding volcanos, but also for its many Spanish schools that give it the reputation as the best place to learn Spanish on the continent. So on
our first day we looked around for a suitable school and more importantly, a suitable price! We eventually found Centro Linguistico Maya and obtained almost a 50% reduction for a 5 day course and 5 nights (including 3 meals a day) with a local Antiguan family. We split into pairs (Dave & Pots, Rhys & Alex) for the families, which lived across the same street from each other in the town. They were both overwhelmingly welcoming and provided us with our cleanest and comfiest accomodation yet! The food varied - Alex & Rhys, who were staying with the Osorios, were very much tested on their appreciation for refried beans. The food was lovely but refried beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner 5 days in a row was enough for anyone! Meanwhile, Dave & Pots, staying with Mrs Gonzalez found themselves staying along with 2 fellow Spanish students. They weren't, however, your standard young backpackers, but Canadian Missionaries on the wrong side of 60! The distinct upside of this however was during the Canadians extended grace before dinner both David and Pots had usually chunked into the majority of the food, leaving mere morcels for their fellow diners!
Our first
morning of lessons began at an ungodly 8am, following our breakfast at home. We were each assigned with our own personal tutor for the week - 4 middle aged Guatemalan women who were full of life which made the week all the more enjoyable. The lessons essentially consisted of the tutors progressively providing us with a collection of new words and all the time encouraging conversation in which to use them. Our conversation and relationships with our tutors improved vastly by the day to the extent that Alex spent much of his final lesson discussing his tutor's personal life - in particular her issues with her alcoholic husband!
With the early morning lessons finished by midday, it still gave us the time to explore the city and in particular its surrounding volcanoes. One afternoon we (not Pots, who for the second time of the trip had a date with the toilet) took the short trip to Volcan Pacaya. After an hour trek up the mountain we crossed the hardened lava and got within touching distance of the slowly descending molten lava. The brilliant sight was made even more impressive after sunset although this meant the trip back to the
bus was in pure darkness! With the aid of our torches we made it back and slept the whole way back home after what was another superb experience.
After almost three weeks since B-Day (the loss of Potter's bag), Pots finally decided he could no longer survive on two t-shirts, one pair of shorts and a single pair of underwear (plus the regular rinsing of both David and Rhys's warddrobe!). The local market proved a fruitful source for his new look with a number of additions including five pair of boxers which some would argue are a little on the small side! Along with his new gap kids jumper (age five to six) his children's summer collection is almost complete.
From Antigua we decided to continue heading south in the direction of our Christmas destination Costa Rica. After flipping a coin we opted for Nicaragua and in particular Isla de Ometepe - an island on Lake Nicaragua. The eighteen hour coach journey meant a 3am departure so we booked our tickets with one of the local agencies. So at 3am we waited in the deserted streets of Antigua for our shuttle bus to Guatemala City. After a slightly
uneasy wait a man in a minibus arrived and whisked us away. Through no fault of our own, we were unaware we neeeded to be at the bus terminal a full 30 minutes before departure. Even so at 3.55am (with the bus due to leave at 4am) we figured there was something up as Drives teared along the roads of the capital and for one heart-stopping moment the whole vehicle went airborne as we hit a bump while trying to overtake! Fortunately we managed to stay on the road and arrived at the bus terminal just in time to see our bus disappearing into the distance. We were not best pleased stranded at 4am in the middle of one of the most dangerous cities in Central America. Thus we waited patiently until we could finally get away on the 6.30am departure.
As it turned out the bus was worth the wait - it's name King Quality did not lie! Fully reclining seats, waitresses, English films and food to take us all the way to Nicaragua was an unexpected bonus (mind you at eighty dollars we had high hopes!). We thought we'd end the day just as we'd started it,
wondering the deserted streets of a highly dangerous city - this time Managua - before finding somewhere to stay for the night. We arrived at Ometepe the next day after crossing Lake Nicaragua on a somewhat 'local' boat which wasn't one for the seasick. It's probably fair to say that our six days on Ometepe were not the most action-packed of our trip so far. We stayed in two different places which whilst were pretty enough, both were quiet and isolated from the one main road! However with cool blue water to swim in (mind the bullsharks) and the twin volcanoes dominating the landscape, Ometepe still had something to offer. We explored the nature reserves, played some cards, read some books and generally relaxed in the very tranquil atmosphere. As it turned out, this time to recharge our batteries after the savage early mornings in Guatemala boded well for our explosive time in Costa Rica...
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