literally tens of thousands of bats flew out of the cave and into the night.

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After the cathedral we headed towards the market for some ´Kaq´ik´, a loal turkey soup speciality. Unfortunately it was too late in the day for it (which I found highly frustrating after much searching) so we atea little beef things with tortillas, rice and salad in a comedor and it was pretty good.

The second church we went to I may have already mentioned, it was Catholic but with pagan traditions and there were alcoves for small sacrifices all the way up the long steps to it. The three wooden crosses inside had been plastered with feathers and stuff.

By the 28th, I had learnt a lot more about Jake. He´d done most drugs in his early teens and followed the Grateful Dead around for four years in the 90s. He was a proper hippy and I never even realised, he doesn´t really talk that much bollocks for a hippy. HE lived in a forest for three months once as well. His slowly emerging stories are interesting anyway and I am glad to be travelling with him at the moment.

By the evening, I was lying on a thin feather mattress on a wooden floor on the upper level of a caja (meaning box in Español). There was no door and an open end with only a railing. Lying on my mattress I could see a huge spider on the roof, follow ants along the bamboo wall next to my head with my torch, listen to the crickets and hear the rain falling all around me on the lush alpine/semi-tropical forest surrounding the hostel lodge.

It was a fantastic ride getting to this place in Shemuc Champey. I(n the microbus I had to sit on a small wooden box that kept rocking from side to side with a Guatemalan standing between my legs. The hills outside were like lines of molars with innumerable cusps jutting upwards until the tall incisors were reached in the distance. There were maize and coffee plantations all along the road. I recognised the coffee from a plantation tour I had taken that morning on the outskirts of Coban . The also produced Cardoman for export to the MIddle East and India and various other things including a banano with pink flesh. After that we went to an orchid farm with an American we had picked up who in his eagerness to use his basic Spanish said ´si, si, si´ after anybody said anything. Few orchids were in bloom but the ones I saw were amazing.

I woke up on top of my caja soon after sunrise and grumpily followed Jake and the other guy in our ´dorm´called George whose shoes had been partially melted climbing a volcano to the pools and falls of Shemuc Champey. Once Iñd got to the first pool I woke up, got rid of my layers and plunged into the cool, clear water. The pools, connected by a natural staircase of waterfalls are fed by a number of streams from the valley. What makes it really special, however, is that the whole thing is a long bridge over a fierce river which passes through a tunnel underneath. Later I inner tubed down the same river in Lanquin but it was considreably less turbulant here.

We decided to set off from the hostel at a random time and started walking to Lanquin up lots of hills with all our stuff. We hitched three rides and got there eventually. The hostel in Lanquin was fantastic. There were no dorm beds free so I slept in a hammock undera shelter. I was suprised how easy they were to sleep in. The taps of the sank ran into large shells which fed onto your hands, there were eco-toilets, it was full of travelllers, played music from the ROlling Stones to the Cat Empire, cooked an anazing fried aubergiene sandwich and served Moza and even another dark beer, Negra something from Mexico. They were advertising jobs and for a while I had another New York moment and thouhgt aabout abandoning my London paper pushing committments but soon decided against it.

The next day I didn´t do much, I read some East of Eden which I am told is based around Genesis and I can see how (although I don´t have much familiarity with the original. The main event of the day was visiting the Lanquin Caves. There were vast chambers with huge towers and stalaktites, stalakmites and stalaknites (the joining bit) in shapes that resembled an elephants head, an eagle, the virgin Mary etc. etc. You could play some of the Stalakdowns like a xylophone with a couple of candles. Our fifteen year old recorded my tune on his phone. He was a little dude and I learnt from him that (in his opinion at least) it was only North Americans that were Gringos. From then on I called Jake Gringo. At the end of the tour we waited until dusk when literally tens of thousands of bats flew out of the cave and into the night. I walked a short distance into the cave and could see and hear them flying all around, it was really quite impressive. We were back in time for dinner. Tasty shit but not as good as the previous nights amazing BBQ buffet. It was only one piece of meat but the accompaniments made it.

Today I woke up at seven having woken up even fewer times than the night before. I had been awoken around 11 or 12 or something with two guys, possible three guys next to me jamming on their guitars. They were quite good and it was quite relaxing so I didn´t really mind. I´d made plenty of noise chatting the night before. I had an eco-dump, ate breakfast and wondered what to do next. I am now in Coban again and am going to take a bus to a place where I may be able to see the Quetzal, the national bird and the name of their currency. From there, on to the famous colonial city of Antigua and from there to Lage de Atitlan where I am due to meet team France in a few days.

In short I am wicked bo, hope you are all as well and happy as me.

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