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I guess it´s time for the latest installment of one of my verbose epistles about my goings on in Guatemala. It has been a bit of an up and down week for me, I feel, as I´m almost a month in I should give you a full over view on my health situation as, well, it´s been patchy to say the least. So for those of you who are unaware of the various ailments I have been suffering from, here´s a quick capsule review.
1. Flu (3-4 days) Felt like I was going to die on the 1st day. Decided to mix my medication with red wine on the second day and on the way home almost fell on a dog.
2. Travellers diarrhea (3 days) Fuck Weight Watchers, with Travellers diarrhea you can lose half a stone in 3 days by shitting half your body mass down the toilet. I now weigh ten and half a stone, I have lost a stone since I´ve been here!
3. Cold (3 days) It wasn´t that bad, just the sniffles.
4. Violent Vomiting (1 morning)- This happened this morning and I think it´s because my Guatemalan Mum´s porridge didn´t agree with me.
So I chundered on the bathroom floor to show my appreciation.
So, that´s me so far. I am sure I will add to this list as I am off to Tikal which has many mosquitos so I am sure within three days I will be spewing green liquid out of my mouth whilst my head rotates and some priest tries to pour holy water over me. But that is tomorrow and this is today and today I will give you a quick recap on my goings on. Went to watch football on Wednesday to see Xela play some other team that I forget the name of. Xela won 4-1 which was nice. Major differences to football in England is tickets to Guatemalan premiership match cost 4 quid each and everytime the opponents goalie kicks a goal kick the crowd shout out "Way-co" very loudly, which means gay in Spanish.
On Thursday, Quetzeltrekkers had an amazing party with the theme being Monsters vs Nerds and naturally, with my extremely competitive nature, I had to make sure that I had some sort of outfit. Unfortunately, there isn´t an equivalent of Camden in Xela where I could buy myself a nice
little outfit so I thought the best thing for me to do was be a mummy as all I required was a few bandages and lots of toilet paper. It´s quite a tricky outfit to put on by yourself as the toilet paper keeps breaking and I also slightly ballsed up by the fact my toilet paper was covered in little puppies and was scented (think Grandma´s perfume) but I think I looked the part and went off to the party, which was just brilliant. It was hard to bust some moves as I was strapped in tight however, it did help when doing the robot. By the end of the night my costume had all but distingrated and all that was left of it was trails of toilet paper all around the house. A sad end to a great party.
On Saturday, I finally got my chance to scale Volcan Tajamulco, the highest peak in Central America - 13,000ft above sea level. Our guides decided to play a prank on us (which latest about 3 minutes but still brilliant) where they told us to look out for "drop bears" which were little mountain bears, about the size of
koala bears which drop out of trees onto hikers and maul them. So after this was established as a joke, we were Team Drop Bear! It was a tough hike but incredibly rewarding, the view from the top is amazing (my photos don´t do it justice) and the lack of oxygen makes everything anyone says utterly hilarious. Had a bit of a rough night´s sleep as we had 9 people in a 6 man tent and someone decided to sleep in the S foetal position so I was pushed up right against the tent wall doing my best body-in-a-coffin impression. But I scaled it, it was fantastic and I feel that I have well and truly caught the trekking bug so bring on the next one! After we got back to Xela, Team Drop Bear went out for an Indian (which was so good, one of the best I have ever had, no exagerration) and then went off to bar called Pool and Beer to erm....you know...drink some beer and shoot some pool.
And here we are at today. I was supposed to be going to Tikal today but I was violently sick (see medical checklist for explanation) and
thought maybe a 14 hour bus journing may not be the right thing after such an incident. But I am feeling a lot better now and ready to checkout the ruins of Tikal on Wednesday but travel up to Flores tomorrow, 14 hours on a bus, what fun!
More soon!
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Maxine Carlier
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toilet paper with dogs on
Um.... Hilarious