Blogs from Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 347

3rd Jan 06 Lazy day on the Caribbean island of Roatan! Did a bit of snorkeling and watched a movie. Ate lots of food! 4th Jan 06 Long travel day from Roatan to Copan Ruinas, the town very near to the Copan Ruins. Copan is a very charming town with colonial buildings and cobblestone streets and little ¨tuc tucs¨ for transportation - small 3 wheeled vehicles with no doors. The journey was beautiful and full of amazing scenery. I still haven´t gotten used to it yet, this is a very beautiful part of the world. The town has a great vibe, like St. Kilda on a boiling hot night, and we ate dinner out on the balcony of a local restaurant. The locals were everywhere, out visiting or just standing on their porches, watching. 5th Jan ... read more

After a day and a half of frustrating travel, due to many reasons, I arrived in San Pedro La Laguna via a overnight stop in Guatemala City. Within about ten minutes of arrival a guy had lead me to a hotel and language school and I had parted with money to both. Language schools are amazingly cheap here, with 20hrs lessons 1-1, accomodation and food setting you back only about US$90. The general consesus among travellers is that the standard of teaching is not hot, but for what I wanted (a lot of conservational practice) this is not too important and still provides excellent value for money. Of course the flip side of the coin tells you that by the time the language school has pocketed it's bit the teacher is unlikely to earning much over ... read more

On arrival in Livingstone, on first sight there seemed few of the Garifunas about which were meant to populate the town. In one of those typical tourist type ways, development gives you some of the services you want but by doing so removes what you came to see. There´s is no real reason why this has to be the case but through rampant Capitalism and lack of sustainable development this is often the case. It´s the eternal search of many a backpacker to find the place of great interest, largelly unspoit which isn´t virtually impossible to reach or overly expensive. More on this later. The history and the politics of the town is very interesting and surprisingly their is a real lack of information posted in the town about it. As a result I came across ... read more

After a day of travel and another spent chilling, I spent the next one a little more actively. First off I visited the Castillo de San Felipe, built and rebuilt numerous times, it´s main purpose being the area´s main defense against pirates. It also served as a prison at one point, it is interesting as Guatemala isn´t the first place you think of when you think of castles. But in many ways the history is more interesting the actual site. After another bumpy, crowded bus ride on a typically nackered ex-US school bus I arrived in El Estor, promised a beautiful setting and good atmosphere I was disappointed in both regards. A un-interesting, spread out town. On trying to make my way back I was starting the feel I hadn´t done much of interest in the ... read more

Mijn laatste week Spaans is aangebroken. Vanmorgen een lange les gehad, omdat mijn lerares donderdag naar de dokter moet (gelukkig heb ik het weekend lekker kunnen relaxen en was ik goed wakker). Het kerst weekend was super. Zaterdag gerelaxd, cadeautje gekocht, Spaans gedaan en zaterdag avond bleken we kerstdiner te hebben met Talmanes ( weet niet zeker hoe je dit schrijft, maar is typisch guatemalteeks kerstgerecht). Ik moest echter om 8 uur weg, omdat ik met Enrico had afgesproken een film te gaan kijken (bona vista social club) en we hier geen mobieltjes hebben. (tegen de tijd dat ik weer terug in Nederland ben, ben ik overigens waarschijnlijk heel goed op de hoogte van de sociale en politieke situatie en geschiedenis van Latijns Amerika dankzij de cultfilms (La hija del puma (guatemala 20 jaar geleden), the ... read more