Huatulco to Lake Atitlan

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Hi everyone (go get yourself a coffee....this is quite a long one!),

So where were we....looks like the last you heard we were in Acapulco.....is that right? Yes....? Ok then we´ll start from there.

It was such a hardship spending a couple of days at the beach that we decided we should...er....go for another couple of days on a fabulous beach. Huatulco in the state of Oaxaca (pronounced Wa-ha-ka) has a few awesome seasides so we picked one and spent a couple of days looking around and being a bit lazy. The highlight was the world´s best spring roll which we located in a lovely little Chinese restaurant, where we had a little balcony for two overlooking the millpond like sea. I´m drooling just thinking about it. Travelling about this area, we have mainly used what´s called a ´collectivo´which is basically a pick up truck that charges about 2p per trip and just squeezes in as many people as possible. On one trip we had a man literally hanging off the back of the fast moving yute with a machete dangling from his belt bigger than a medium sized lama´s neck (that´s pretty big..and yes we´ve had a couple of beers as we type this!). On the same trip I (Chris) spent a good portion of the journey with his head just millimeters away from what was surely the longest armpit hair on a woman to be found in the Northern Hemisphere. Still a good 12 inches from her armpit but man that hair dangled a long way. It was so long she could have had it in a bun.....they´ll eat anything these Guatemalans...ha ha...(sorry).

Anyway, from Huatulco we took a 9 hour overnight bus journey to our next stop, and we are now in love with a city called San Cristobal de las Casas. What a journey, we had the front seats which felt a little bit like being in an IMAX cinema watching their latest film ´Scary Mexican Bus Journey!!!´ ha ha. To be fair it wasn´t so bad but hardly got any sleep. For some reason even the mexican motorways have a speedbump every couple of hundred metres, which makes for alot of head butting as you are nodding off! On top of that we were stopped by the military police 4 times during the night where the driver cheerfully got off the bus and answered any questions they felt fit to ask him.....at 2, 3, 4 and 5 am!!! However, worth the journey is an understatement. San Cristobal turned out to be every bit as special as we hoped it would.

The town is centred around three main squares where locals sell handicrafts, baked goods and bizarely Clorets! Add to this a smidgeon of narrow cobbled streets, a dash of men in cowboy hats and boots, a pinch of ridiculously colourful clothing worn by the local women and you have the perfect recipe for the most beautiful Mexican town. The women also wear these funky black sheeps woollen skirts to match their cowboy dude husbands black sheeps wool vest type cardigan thingys. We don´t mean to pick on individuals in these group email travelblogs but the only person who could pull off such a manly woollen cardy is one Senor Chris (daddy) Williams. The only man we know that sports something similar in England!

We spent 5 nights (for the price of three....bargain) in a lovely little hotel near the centre. We could have stayed longer truth be told but there´s so much for us to see and so little time. After a couple of days meandering through the streets, drinking the local and extremely potent coffee we spent decided to splash out on a day trip to the ancient Mayan City of Palenque. Five grueling hours each way through the non-stop winding mountain roads wasn´t much fun but the place was incredible and we were glad we made the trip. The highlight, however, turned out to be one of the stops a couple of hours into the journey. The Azul Cascades (Waterfalls) have to be the most beautiful in the country, probably in the world that we have seen. We wasted no time jumping into the literally crystal clear water (turquoise from a distance) to cool off after the heat of the minivan. Em was loving splashing about in the water of course and it was a bit of a job to get her out when it was time to go. Seriously, you can´t get more idylic than this. Beautiful waterfalls, gorgeous wife (Chris writing this bit by the way) surrounded by the jungle in the middle of nowhere in deepest darkest Mexico. Actually, we´ve got to mention the other waterfall which was nothing compared to the first lot. A much taller waterfall but not as impressive in the water colour etc...but...this is hilarious, we asked this Mexican lady from the tour to take our photo and prepared ourselves on a rock right in front of the cascading water. She took the photo, gave the camera back and off she went (to find a taco probably!!). When we looked at the photo she´d zoomed in so that it was just of us two and completely ignored the waterfall behind us!!!...what a nutter....we were in stitches.

If returning from that trip at 10pm wasn´t enough we did a morning tour of a Mayan village the next day to try to find out some more about the indiginous people here in Central America. It was lots of listening and some fascinating stuff but as always the best bits for us turned out to be the things we found amusing. They still use the church build by the Spanish a couple of hundred years ago but it´s very different inside from what you´d see in the UK (close your eyes Daniel). In this church they rub eggs over each other, light candles, chant....and wait for it.......sacrifice chickens. We couldn´t belive it when we actually saw a few dead chickens around the place...in a church!!! However, this next bit is priceless. The local people believe that whilst praying, if you burp you will expell evil spirits. To aid the burping the elders used to make some kind of wierd goats cheese and alphalpha sprout mixture (I totally made up those ingredients but you get my drift that it was something odd) and they would drink it to make themselves burp. Any of you guessed it yet....the locals have discovered.......Pepsi and Fanta!!! So now they sit around in church downing Pepsi and Fanta to make themselves belch like troopers and get rid of all the evil within....awesome.....we´re thinking of becoming part of their religion. If we do we may try to convince them that eating marshmallows has an equally impressive effect!

Sadly we had to say goodbye to Mexico but not before sealing our departure with the 80p purchase of the worlds cutest, although a little scary looking handmade giraffe......of course named Cristobal. Ten hours of bus journey later we found ourselves in the wonderfully named Guatemalan town of Quetzeltenango. We spent the night before heading for the highlands and the reason for coming to this region...the natural hot springs. It was an absolutely incredible place ....pure water, steaming hot, just pouring down the rocks into these beautiful bright green pools, surrounded by jungle and actually in the clouds they are so high up. Some of the views we have seen as the clouds came on top of us then disappeared are just beyond belief. At some points we could hardly see our hands in front of our faces it was so dense. The best part was that we decided to stay in one of the ´rustic´ bungalows on the site of the springs. So romantic, with an open fire and access to the hot springs after all the other tourists had gone home. We managed to have them all to ourselves in the morning for about half an hour before literally 50 people turned up just as we´d decided to get out and have some breakfast. Such an amazing experience both using the pools and watching the local Mayan tribal men and woman coming up for their weekly or monthly bath! These timid, little cute people had no shame at all at ignoring the signs requesting bathing suits....to be fair...some pretty horrible sights.....ha ha.

Next headed to the equally brilliantly named Chichicastenango!!! The market here is legendary and we had a great time wandering around for a couple of hours before taking our first ´chicken bus´to Lake Atitlan. A chicken bus is basically an old American school bus that is so knackered that they don´t want them up there anymore so they sell them to the Guatemalans. It turned out to be a pretty good trip and we even had our own seat for a while...just before we arrived in Panajachel we did share our seat (made for 2 people) with 2 other people and the aisles were jam packed. still can´t argue with how cheap they are and man we need things to be cheap.

Lake Atitlan is just stunning, it is about 8 kilometres wide and it surrounded on all sides by 7 volcanoes, some of which you can still see plumes of smoke escaping from the tips of their cones. All the lake side villages are built in the hills up the sides of these volcanoes and have magical views. We had an entire week here in San Pedro La Laguna on the lakeside which was such a treat not being on a bus for a while. Apart from it being one of the most beautiful places we have been so far, the other reason for us staying so long was to study Spanish. We signed up to having 4 hours a day 1/1 Spanish lessons over 4 days, we didnt do it together as we thought we might giggle and not learn as much! It was very intensive, but very worthwhile and hopefully our Spanish will just improve as we practise for the rest of the trip.

Chris again here ... just stole computer back as had to write that the best bit of the classes has been when Em was asked ´Do you know the verb ´to know´´, to which she replied in perfect spanish.....no I don´t KNOW that one... ha ha...the teacher nearly wet herself. Probably our other greatest discovery in San Pedro was the greatest hamburger in the world. Not usually associated with Guatemala I grant you but this beast of a burger has made it´s way to the top of my list. Anyone who knows me well will realise that this is no mean achievement and has beaten off some extremely tough competition!

Anyway, that´s all the good stuff that´s been happening to us over here. We are nearly up to date now will let you now about the rest of Central America soon, as we fly to South America on the 2nd Sept.

Hope you´re all fine and dandy and missing us like crazy. We miss you all and love hearing from you.

Love Em and Chris xx

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