Guatemala

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Next morning, off we headed again, next stop Antigua in Guatemala. Another boat trip landed us Porto Barrios, a kippy town on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala. From there we bussed it for 7 hours to Antigua. The country side was so beautiful & lush. First impressions of this old city were really good, cobbled lanes & colonial buildings. Our hostel was in a great location, beside nice restaurants and a bar. Met all the foreign owners, mostly English, of bars in Antigua. They gave us some great tips on where to go & what to see. Next morning was an early start, into the pub at 10am to watch man utd match with our new English buddies. After doing a tour of an old church, we got caught in the rain & were fairly soaked when we got home. As there’s 3 volcanoes around Antigua, 2 of them still active, we decided to climbed one of them, Volcan Papaya, the most recent one to have erupted, just last year. Always adds more of a buzz. We picked, what was like wild rhubarb, along the way, to help us incase we got vertigo. We climbed into sink hole along the way & toasted marshmallows. That night we had nice dinner in the back of a shop ran but an 80year old couple. The house was full of holy pictures, Jonathan felt like home.

Following day, we bussed it to Lake Atitlan, beautiful lake set in the mountains. A lot of the towns & villages on the lake edges are Mayan villages. We went to Santiago, the most famous village. There we were greeted by kids who brought us on tuc-tucs to see Mosh-i-moon, a god of the Mayan people. Up through little alley ways we found ourselves at the back door of someone’s house, & then realised we were alone as the kids had done a legger. Inside the house, we first saw a large glass coffin with a statue of Jesus in it, that had Christmas lights all over it. Then we saw Mosh-i-moon. A 4 foot wooden statue, draped in silk ties & scarfs, a large cowboy hat, an ashtray in one hand & a cigar in the other. Imagine our embarrassment when we realised we didn’t bring any of his favourite gifts for him, fine Cuban cigars or Jamaican rum. Don’t think he’ll be doing any favours for us so. In the room with him, we 6 men, all drunk & smoking, & trying to play the guitar and sing. When we paid for our visit & the privilege of taking his photo, they would put the money into a little purse underneath all his silk ware. Apparently it is forbidden to turn your back on the god, so as Jonathan was walking out, backwards, he missed the last step of the path & landed on his arse in front of everyone.

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