Ancient Civilization 1, Peruvian Government 0

This is one of the two bridges leading from Huancacaya to the Rosaspata ruins. It's Inca design, stone support pillars holding up a structure of heavy wooden beams and wooden cross struts. It's been outside the community for hundreds of years.

The photo is taken from a big concrete bridge, built in the last 10 years, painted in the blue and white colours that feature on all municipally funded projects. No-one uses the big, expensive concrete bridge. The spanning section is made of sheet metal, supported by thin, springy metal rods,that make it bounce when you walk over it. This means that mule trains, which constitute the majority of passing traffic and form the purpose for such a bridge, can't use it. They use the Inca one next to it.

Vilcabamba, Peru
19th December 2009

Political Mudslides and Wilderness Walks

On a weekend break from the 'rigours' of working on the business plan, Lou and I headed off to Santa Teresa, the commonly acknowledged 'back door to Machu Picchu', by which punters can walk sections of the Inca Trail and avoid the unpleasent stinging sensation of paying for a train ticket to Aguas Calientes from Cusco. It became clear after hammering around a couple of hairpin bends in a combi why the average mild-mannered tourist would prefer a train ride instead of a front seat view over sheer drops; you'd think after repeated road trips over the Southern highlands Iwould have become accustomed; sadly, no.

Having made it safely to Santa Teresa, we hada quick poke around the town, which apparently was completely destroyed by a huge mudslide in the late 90's, and subsequently rebuilt further up the hill. Overlooking the old site in the base of the valley, we got chatting to a local chap, who filled us in with the details; mercifully only two people died when the whole town was wiped out, but a more serious consequence of the slide was the destruction of the railwayline, which previously had run all the way to Quillabamba. The final stop of significance for the train was now Aguas Calientes, and the various commercial interests held there were preventing the line from being reconstructed to its original destination, thus pooling the vast majority of tourists in Aguas Calientes and leaving the rest of the communities only servicable by road of the kind on which I had just braved my life. Most of these roads are impassable in the wet season (lasting about 3 or 4 months), which can make life in Santa Teresa difficult at times. This is, it turns out, the tip of the iceberg in terms of conflicting political and commercial interests with the needs of the isolated populations of the region...

Political grumbling aside, Lou and I turned our interests to walking to Santa Maria, about 4 hours away and the wrong way down the Inca Trail in terms of reaching Machu Picchu. This suited us just fine for a day trip, and meant that the only people that we had to share the trail with (about 10 people spread over 3 groups) were all headed the other way, leaving us to stomp the base of impressive canyons, swinging brigdes, teetering drops and tiny pathways through picturesque villages without even getting a taste of josting in the crowds that are reputed to flood the trail in peak season.

Santa Teresa, Peru
12th december 2009

Sick and Alone

If there is one thing the independent traveller should beware when in a state of ill health, it is the unscrupulous hotelier.

Swaying down the road a half hour of so before dusk in the one horse town of El Cuco with the intention of surfing the local wave for the weekend, head spinning and knees trembling from an unknown ailment that was enthusiastically assaulting my immune system, I encountered a squat creature that, on closer inspection, turned out to be human swinging in a hammock next to a sign proclaiming rooms for rent.

Mustering what little was left of my Spanish as my vision cart wheeled, I asked to see a single room. The results were disappointing. A bare, windowless concrete block cell was demonstrated, containing only a hammock and a bed frame with an uncovered paper thin mattress. No fan to ward off the awaiting armies of mosquitos or dispel the blistering heat or, after questioning, sheets or a pillow. For this luxury, $7 a night.

I turned on my heel and, striking out once again with a sinking feeling, tottered quarter of a mile down the road to the nearest accommodation. It cost $30 a night, and I, in a fit of preparedness, had brought $20. There were no cash machines in El Cuco; I was going to have to sleep in the cell. Back down the road with my tail between my legs I explained that, yes, I would like the room, just managing to catch the grunted comment from the Creature with Rooms for Rent that it always happened like this, they went away and came back again. Paying in advance for the two nights that I intended to stay for, I crashed through the door, and depositing my bags in the corner of the room, propped myself up against the doorframe as the Creature dispatched one of his offspring to bring the change for my $20 note.

I lay where I fell on my mattress, sweating and turning over the options in my head for the terrible state of health that had suddenly struck me down. What was it? Heat stroke? Malaria? I drifted in and out of sleep as dogs went berserk outside the ‘room’, children cried and the drone of mosquitos sounded overhead like a Second World War bomber squadron approaching London.

Morning duly arrived with no improvement in my condition and I decided after brief deliberation that it was best to retreat to the city, within range of medical attention, and find out exactly what was wrong with me. Tracking down the Creature, I smiled as weakly as I possibly could and explained that I was not well and neeed to visit a hospital, thus requiring a refund of the money for the following evening.

“That is not possible.” he almost inevitably replied.

“May I ask why?” I proffered through clenched teeth.

“You have paid for one night, and one day.” he explained.

“You’re telling me that your price of $7 was for the night, but I have to pay the same thing again for the day, just to leave my stuff in the room?” I questioned, disbelief edging into my voice.

“Yes.” he replied, as if he was humouring a process of me explaining circumstances to myself.

“I have never heard of this arrangement in my entire life.” I said, my voice starting to lose its level calmness.

He said nothing, staring at me. Undeterred and unwilling to lose an essentially ridiculous argument, I held his stare. Silence endured for about 30 seconds.

“Look,” I said eventually, glancing at my watch, “It’s only 10 am in the morning anyway; I shouldn’t even have to pay for a day yet.”

His eyes briefly flickered; I had just played checkmate. There was no way he could withhold money from me for something that had not yet occurred. All that was left for him was the last gasp effort of taking advantage of my weakened state and bloody minded unreasonableness.

“I’ll give you $5 back.” he responded, within a heartbeat.

The staring match began anew. After another 30 seconds had passed, he slowly reached for his pocket without taking his eyes off me like a driving offender reaching for the car glove box and retrived a selection of crumpled notes. They totalled $7.

“Muchas gracias” I said in a sickly sweet voice that I hope was successful in conveying my burning desire to see his whole operation and family washed into the Pacific by a tidal wave. Shouldering my bags and shuffling as haughtily as I could manage towards the bus stop, I began the long, hot journey that would inevitably result in an injection in one of my buttocks in a medical treatment centre somewhere in San Salvador.

El Cuco, El Salvador
28th September 2009

A Holiday From The Beach

The swell fled the pacific coastline, and with it left the surfing population of El Tunco, scattering to Honduras, Nicaragua and Guaremala. Far from keen to sit in the heat and insect clouds to savour the delights of a flat spell, I decided that a break from beach living was in order. A couple of sweaty bus connections inland from la libertad, the small town of Sushitoto resides beside lake X, a quaint colonial bubble seemingly unscarred by the groping claws of tourism. Languid mornings at breakfast in the central town square give no indication of foreign traffic, circumstances mirrored by wanderings around the town.

I arrived in the company of Sandra and Nico, Swiss and Argentinian and we checked into the tiny hostel Vista de Lago, that justified its name with stunning views over the lake from the comfort of hammocks, where I proceeded to spend long hours dangling and lazily shifting my gaze between my book and the landscape, occasionally distracted by the friendly hostel dog, El Oso, as he requested affection. Days were spent pottering to various waterfalls and streams to swim and cool off, the most impressive being El Cubo, a secluded range of falls and pools tucked inside sheer cliffs with a resident population of bats thankfully keeping the local mosquito population down. Everywhere we followed water, the streams, rivers and lakes bore thepresensce of litter, a sobering reminder of the price of progress (ie consuming more non decomposing products) without the stability of infrastructure to prevent fly tipping all over the incredible natural landscape around us.

Electricity in the evenings disappeared for hours at a time during fierce storms that rattled the town, the locals cheerfully going about business as usual in complete darkness with water pooling underfoot. Regular evenings at the local pupuseria (purveyor of the national staple food, pupusas) were conducted frequently by torch and candlelight as we shovelled red hot steaming pupusas into our hungry mouths. On each of these suppertime trips we were accompanied and guarded without prompting by El Oso, who sat faithfully outside during mealtimes and charged snarling towards any locals who he deemed a threat to us, namely everyone.

Sushitoto, El Salvador
1st September 2009

Beach Living

Life settles into a rhythm fairly rapidly when one is based in a surf spot with few other occupations. Days normally start at around 5.30 with an early morning stumble out to a wave to try and beat the crowds and the wind, enjoying a solitary hour or so before the hordes descend. Breakfast and coffee follow, normally reading or writing for a while before picking up the board and returning to the ocean for more time in the water.

Of late this has involved hopping on a crowded public bus and spluttering along the coastal road with nothing more than board, the clothes that will be surfed in and enough change in pocket for a return bus trip; normally about 70 pence. Discharged on the side of the road, a walk commences through small settlements to beach access and the surfing session and then a drip dry walk back to the road to await the bus or, with luck, a successful hitch hike afterwards. A late lunch follows before cowering in the shade from the blistering heat of the day reading, playing cribbage or watching one of the countless pirated DVDs floating around the hostel. As the day cools, Surf Number 3 commences with a return to the hostel in time to cook supper before the hordes of hungry insects arrive to devour every inch of uncovered flesh. One large beer and a game of cribbage later and self mummification in bedsheets to protect against mosquito death squads ensues shortly followed by sleep at around 10pm to prepare for the same thing the following day.

El Tunco, El Salvador
26th August 2009

Living In The Shade

My current base of operations from which I point myself towards various beaches can best be defined as the "cheap and cheerful" end of the spectrum. Run by a pair of very amiable San Salvadorian brothers, Jose and Mauricio, La Sombra tends to attract the slightly more laid back crowd, leaving the partying to the other end of the collection of hostels that is spread along the beachfront from the main road up to the rivermouth. Home to a trillion mosquitos, funky odours from the septic tank, sporadic and untimely noise from the construction site of a more upmarket hostel in progress and the most damp smelling couches in the history of mankind sheltered under a leaking palapa in the tv area, the place is still held in fond regard by its owners, guests and various passers through, myself included.

El Tunco, El Salvador
25th August 2009

Morning Time In El Tunco

My alarm cheerfully sounds its irritating reminder at 5:30 in the morning; rising groggily from my slumber I haphazardly rub a fresh layer of wax on my board and slip out of the front gate of my hostel, La Sombra, sleepwalking down to the beachfront and tread heavily along the black sand, heading for the local point, Sunzal. The water is warm as I wade in and climb onto my board for the paddle out, creaking shoulders grumbling at the injustice of it all. As I get further out, the dark walls of water rising out of the distance change shade, glassy and orange as I pull myself through the smooth, liquid surface.

I reach the takeoff, where the waves rear up and begin their final rumbling phase of their long journey and pull myself up to sitting on my board, my shoulders aching. Looking out to sea, dark clouds frame the horizon, forked lightning jumping down to strike the distant liquid line at the edge of the world, thunder rumbling across the miles. I turn and look towards the shore to see the sunrise seeping around the clouds, a thick golden blend of colour that sarurates everything it touches, bathing the landscape, the water and the two solitary surfers who have dragged themselves up at an equally unsociable hour in an incredible light. I turn back to sea and wait, watching as a bulge in the water thickens and rears up in front of me as I turn and coax a few more paddling strokes out of my shoulders, feeling the wave take me as I rise to my feet and drop smoothly down its glassy face, heading back the way I came, into the sunrise.

El Tunco, El Salvador
19th August 2009

Paddling Out

"I guess we to in here?" one of my Australian companions suggests, lacking the certainty that I'd hope for. Thirty feet of rounded boulders covered in scratchy marine plantlife stand between us and the thundering point break of Punta Roca just outside the main beach of La Libertad, which periodically disappear from view as the whitewater from the waves powerfully surges over the rocks. With boards underarm, we skip from rock to rock and brace ourselves every time a wave comes crashing across our path, like a game of statues but with serious consequences as the black specks of surfers already in the line up observe us with interest. I survive 3 waves until my feet are swept out from under me and I am dragged across ten feet of cheese grating stone, almost totalling one of my fellow rock hoppers, frantically cradling my board against possible injury while sections of my skin are removed. Gently bleeding into the water, I brace myself against rocks and heave back into a standing position, preparing to attempt the same distance for the second time.

"There's someone getting in over there" someone says, and suddenly everyone freezes, 3 pairs of eyes swivelling to follow the progress of a lone figure hopping across a section further down the same unrelenting rocky point. As we watch, he totters to shin depth and waits, crouching, asa wave breaks and the white water hammers towards him. As it arrives within feet, he leaps over the jumbled heap of foam and paddles furiously out to sea, sucked sideways by the after tow until, finally released, he slogs his way out of the churned up inside section and duck dives through the advancing waves that follow. Within minutes we are, with varying degrees of success, following his example, bouncing between rocks and off the shallow bottom in a frantic flap out to sea, which eventually rewards us with the welcome experience of waves that don't break on our heads as we sit in the lineup.

"We weren't supposed to get in at that spot, were we?", one of my group asks another surfer as we sit waiting for one of the grinding sets of waves to come through. "Nah man," comes the reply, "but we thought you must be Brazilians." After a brief pause, he adds, almost by way of explanation, "They alway end up getting into macho shit like that."

El Tunco, El Salvador
17th August 2009

Surfing and Nowt Else

My bus snakes along the coastal road of the pacific, shrouded by jungle and dipping through tunnels carved into the hills when the calculations of the road engineers had presumably decreed that it was not worth going around. The almost incessent and, for the most part, incomprehensible chat of my driver, with whom I had "bonded" while having money extorted from me is occasionally distracted as the jungle surrounding the road opened up to reveal rumbling waves; point breaks, beach breaks, all clean and perfect, all completely empty of surfers.

El Tunco is a tiny collection of hostels and restaurants sitting just off the coastal highway, a 10 minute ride from the bright lights and conveniences of the two blocks of La Libertad, and with at least 10 other world class breaks within half an hours bus ride, three of which are right outside my hostel. Apart for two months of the year, there are always waves here, at around an average height of five feet; chances are that the local forecast update shown below will agree. In a nutshell, this is everything I could want for the next few weeks in which I plan to exercise a complete defecit of responsibility.

El Tunco
16th August 2006

Jolly Nice Corruption

Another day, another country. Tearing myself away from the comforts of Xela to head for the long lusted after surfing breaks of El Salvador, I found myself being dragged from my bed at the ungodly hour of 4:45 in the morning to make a direct shuttle transfer bus to my starting point of choice for my wave hunt, El Tunco.

My head bounced up and down on the thick book that I was trying to use as a pillow as I slumped across three seats, trying to make up for lost sleep. Eventually giving up, I raised my head to see that my bus (of whom I was the only passenger) had reached the border. Groggily I dismounted and wandered towards the window indicated by the driver, passing my passport through the tiny window to the official with a scraggy moustache on the other side. He recieved it with the wearyness of seasoned officialdom and tapped at a couple of keys on his keyboard, frowning at his screen.

"There are problems with your passport," he explained in Spanish, "And I can clean them up for you for 25 dollars. Otherwise," he helpfully added, "I will not let you into El Salvador."

"I have 96 Quetzales," I flatly replied, almost expecting this kind of outcome, "Will that be sufficient?". "There is a cash machine one kilometre back up the road." came the merciless reply.

"Make sure that you tuck the money over the counter when you give it to him; they don't like it to be obvious" explained my driver, who had been smiling cheerfully next to me for the duration, as we returned armed with the full exit stamp ransom to the window. "You know," he continued as we drove across the border having completed the suitably subtle transaction, "You were very lucky. We came from Guatemala where the people charge you less than the other direction, and at one of the nicest checkpoints. One of my passengers last week, an American girl, had to pay 140 dollars to get a problem fixed."

So it was that I complied with a corruption payment larger than my disasterous Mexican border crossing with good grace, in the knowledge that I had recieved a discount.

El Tunco, El Salvador
12th August 2009

Slides and Freewheeling

Some 1500 vertical metres below Xela lies the wonderous water park of Xocomil (sounds like "chocomilk"), a theme park on a Mayan theme, resplendent with bright concrete "temples" that contain fast food restaurants and effurgies of glowering natives about to throw spears into the defenceless waterslide riders.

Through the local knowledge of one of the people that I had come to know I ended up freewheeling the vast majority of the route to the park on a rented bicycle over the course of an incredible hour and a half of high speed, steep corners on a road that dove through tunnels, of foliage through green rainforest and stone through mountains as stunning vistas shot past of towering cloud forests, deep ravines cut by fast flowing rivers and the impressive mountainous terrain of Guatemala.

I would be pompously self rightous about the rough riding of commercial opportunism for a Mayan theme park over cultural heritage if or weren't for the fact that the park is so much fun that anyone who spends longer than 10 minutes in it is reduced to a squealing childlike state. Personal favourites include the Speed Slide (shown below) and El Regresón, which spits the screaming flume rider some 30 feet up a large quarter pipe before gravity has a chance to do its thing.

Xela, Guatemala
9th August 2009

The Joy of Xela

Akin to the island of the Lotus Eaters in Homer's Oddessy, Xela is a place that all too easily allows a person to pass time without realizing it. Through the connection of my friend, I found my way to Yoga House, a communal rental spot whose subtle front door sandwiched between buildings gave no indication of its labarinthine interior. Standing on the doorstep with my various belongings hanging from me, the door was flung open by someone of whom I had absolutely no recollection. "Hablas ingles?", I ventured, as I watched her face crack into a wide smile. "Big Jon!", she exclaimed, and ushered me inside. It turned out after short discussion that we had met on my previous trip to Lago Atitlan (in conjunction with my university friend, Little Jon), and proved to be an excellent welcoming step to what was to be a welcome respite from the pressures of relentless movement and uncertainty.

Xela sits in a bowl formed by mountainous terrain, a quirk of it's location being that it is some 2500 metres above sea level, thus providing a welcome break from the blistering heat of Belize. Unlike its neighbour, Antigua, it seems to have retained some of its spirit outside of the ultimate purpose of being a tourist serving town, despite the prevolence of language schools that have given it something of an international reputation as one of the best places to learn Spanish.

Aside from the aimiability of the people and the general atmosphere of the place, I was also really taken with Yoga House; the connections to people that it offered and the abundence of excercise and physical activity that became instantly accessible, making me realise both how much I had missed it and the company and influence of people for whom it was an important part of life. Within a few hours of arriving I was wheezing around a frisbee pitch, feeling so glad that for the first time in weeks, I felt absolutely awful.
With 3 yoga classes a day and 3 boxing classes a week included in the criminally cheap cost of taking a room in the house, I would have quite happily run myself into the ground if it wasn't for the fact that, shortly after some of the boys took me for a run up a very large hill outside town (shown above on the right) I succumbed to a killer cold and my head filled up with mucus, preventing normal breathing and hence further exhertion. I can only assume that weeks on the go coupled with various traumas finally caught up with me, but at least had the decency to do their worst in a place where I could quite happily extend my stay from a couple of days to a week and a half without a second thought.

Xela, Guatemala
2nd August 2009

Tour...and Relax

So began a week of tourism at a blistering pace, covering a large proportion of Belize from the sheltered environment of the tinted windows of a rented 4WD, exiting occasionally to engage in activities and to eat and sleep. Boat rides to offshore tiny islands, rope swinging over rivers, swimming through caves by the light of headtorches, watching thunderstorms across the bay from the shelter of a top floor bar and general abuse of our vehicle on the long and winding dirt roads ensued.

By the time that Tim (whose photos I have stolen and am displaying above; thanks very much for that) flew from belize city airport to return to the world of work in the UK (a world that now felt more or less completely alien), I was feeling decidedly anti-social and in need of some alone time; it is mildly surprising to me that I have steadly become more averse to constant contact with others over the period of weeks, and certainly accentuates the point that I would find it very difficult to travel for any great length of time with the same group of people, finding great value in personal space and solitary time.

Thus I found myself crossing the border between Belize and Guatemala feeling strangely welcomed by the prevolence of Spanish, which had been steadily rotting in the back of my mind, and the general chaos and dirtyness of what seemed to be a slightly more genuine slice of Latin America. Parting company with the Whitaker sisters after a fairly gruelling overnight bus ride to Guatemala City, I bumped the hours away on a chicken bus to Quetzaltenango (fortunately also known as Xela) with no particular plan other than to drop a book off with a fellow ex-teacher before heading on to the Promised Land of El Salvador.

After a ride from a very amiable but completely inept taxi driver to the seeming unknown location of ex-teacher Abi (despite assuring me that he knew the spot right up to the point where we drove away from the curb) and meeting a very friendly and welcoming bunch upon arrival at said mystery location, it became abundantly clear to me that for the first time in a while, I really wanted to put my feet up and stew in one place for a while, and hence became the latest victim in the spider web that is Xela, where people come to stay for a couple of
days and wake up one day to find that months have passed.

Xela
29th July 2009

An Executive Means of Travel

As we got further from the Mexican border, the tension in my shoulders started to ease, even though it would turn out to be some days before I would let my guard down and start trusting locals again. Via a blissfully simple entry into Belize we rattled along a baked tarmac road to the dusty bus station of Corozal. Realising simultaneously that everyone spoke English and that we had an extra hour to hand due to the time difference, everything suddenly became very possible and we realised that we could be on the tiny island of Caye Caulker to meet our friends within a day.

Quickly compromising economy, we decided to fly the fifty miles or so to the island instead of waiting for the water taxi the next day, and were shuttled in a battered car that had pretensions as a taxi to the local airstrip, where a light aircraft stood waiting by the hut that constituted a waiting lounge. "Looks like yeh plane is reddeh" the taxi driver said, as we dumped our bags by the side of the plane and paid the price or our urgency. Within minutes we were crammed behind the pilot, the only passengers on board and feeling like royalty to have our own aircraft laid on for us. These feelings quicly evaporated, however, as the aircraft bumped along the runway and shook itself into the sky causing one of the other passenger seats to worryingly crashed sideways onto the floor.


The aircraft quickly rose, and the ground dropped away behind us to reveal electric blue water thinly covering the black outline of coral reef, dark patches of cloud sliding across the surface of the water. As we watched tiny boats below us draw white trails out behind them and small islands come and go hundreds of metres below, Mexico already seemed like a long way away. We landed in nearby San Pedro after a fairly ridiculous twenty minutes to change planes, joining a mixed group of Belizians, ex-pats and tourists and, after handing in our seemingly pointless giant red laminated cards bearing only the information "BOARDING CARD", rapidly took off and passed the last leg of the journey which ended on a bumpy landing on the Caye Caulker airstrip. The only two to get off the plane, we shuffled down the sand track to the "arrivals lounge", basically standing outside a shack, until our luggage was untangled from the aircraft and trolleyed to us. It was, all in all, the closest impression of a commercial airline infrastructure that I have ever seen.

Exiting the airport by way of a white sand path, we soon encountered a huge Belizian lady proudly driving a golf cart, the local laternative to standard vehicles and taxis. Thus we found ourselves, some four hours out of Mexico, facing backwards down a sandy Carribean road bordered by brightly painted wooden stilted buildings and clinging to our possesions while our driver cheerfully swung the golf cart around the twists and turns of the island, taking us closer to what I could already feel would be a very refreshing change in direction from the last two weeks.


Caye Caulker, Belize
17th July 2009

A Fond Farewell To Mexico

After a stirling turnaround by the British Embassy, the passport found its way back to our eager hands within a couple of days of arrival. So excited to finally be leaving Mexico, and even more so Chetumal, we rushed back to our dingy hotel to collect our belongings and get out of town before doing damage, either to ourselves or others.

Bowling along to the border in a taxi, spirits were high with the immanence of escape until, regrettably, we reached the border. Exiting the taxi at the Mexican exit stamp booth, I asked the taxi driver to wait a second with our belongings while we got stamped and transferred to a bus. Straight away we were descended upon by a smooth talking Belizian who dressed close enough to be a priest, in black with a white collar and the obligatory crucifix dangling from his neck, who proceeded to try and rush us through the process so that he could accompany us in a taxi to the other side of the border, a journey that turned out to be some 15 minutes long and would have, under his reccommendation, cost us 350 pesos compared to the somewhat more economic 20 peso fare for the bus.

Making it clear that we didn't need his assistance, language or religion, we arrived at the window to the booth, where an obese sour faced Mexican official bulging from within a sweat stained uniform checked our passports and decreed within seconds that my paperwork was not in order and as Lou had no entry stamp in her brand new passport we would have to return to Chetumal to pay the necessary charges. When I explained in my most restrained way that it was simply not an option to go back, he pounced with the inevitable proposition that he could "forgoe the hassle" with a simple payment of 400 pesos. Our pseudo-Christian friend stuck his head into the fray at this point to helpfully suggest under his breath that he was an undercover cop, and that we should play along so that he could gather evidence.

We were completely at the mercy of the Fat Official; under no circumstances would we return to Chetumal, and he knew it. With steam spiralling from my ears, I held out two 200 peso notes which he insultingly ignored for a while, busying himself with papers on the other side of the cubicle while muttering to himself about the outrage of being asked for a reciept for the costs incurred. The tiny exit stamp was placed in the passports, lacking the aplomb that I would have hope 400 pesos would have paid for, and I stormed away from the window to confront our taxi driver who, insensitive to our recent travails, had decided to charge us double the agreed fare for a 10 minute wait. My Spanish was suddenly released from its bonds of English decency and I let fly in a tumbling cascade of obscenity at the injustice of it all, sparing a little something for the Belizian "undercover cop" who was sidling around us trying to carry our bags and asking for some money "for the effort".

Lou sheparded me onto the bus as I scowled at anybody who I could make eye contact with and as we rolled across the border, finally, into Belize I reflected with a degree of sorrow that the last taste in my mouth of the place that I called home for 6 months was made bitter by corruption, greed and self indulgent opportunism.

Corozal, Belize
17th July 2009

Killing Time

So, after an excruciating day of trailing around Palenque town performing administative duties required to eventually get a new passport from the British Embassy in Cancun, Lou and I wearily put ourselves on the next bus to the captial of Quintana Roo, Chetumal. This dusty and soul-less town sits on the border with Belize, and would form our base for time unspecified as the dynamic forces of the Embassy processed Lou's passport application. After a single night, we realised that we would probably end up killing and eating someone if forced to spend a full week waiting in the same place, thus hiring a car and driving with enthusiasm towards the Carribean coast.

Our point of escape, with no particular form of planning, turned out to be Mahahual. Arriving on a blustery and overcast day, we were greeted to the sight of a deserted town bordered by acres of dead mangroves on one side and a classic carribean sea on the other. Two days was about all we could handle in our slightly fragile state, frustrated by our forced improsonment in Mexico by circumstances; the strangeness of the town was, in our particular state of mind, a bit too much.

Mahahual grew fast from a small fishing village into an overflow point for the more famous beaches to the north of Playa Del Carmen and Tulum, also developing a healthy passing trade in backpacking tourists. Things were going nicely until Hurricane Dean hit in 2007, flattening the entire town and tearing the life out of the mangrove forest that consequently delivered a crushing blow to localised marinelife and ecosystems. Since then life slowly recovered and Mahauhual regained some form of income as a cruise ship stopover, with up to 5000 people simultaneously flooding the tiny town at sporadic moments to come ashore, engage in drunken debauchary along the seafront and return back to their cabins after some hours. This, no doubt, was instrumental in breeding a very predeatory feeling to the place; one could not escape the sense that the locals watched you like hawks as you passed; not through curiosity, but sizing you up to see how they could get what they needed from you before you left.

Speaking with Evan, a young Texan expat with verbal diahorrea who was the proud proprietor of a new local bar/restaurant/cabaña setup, another sobering revalation came to pass. At the point of our initial arrival we drove up the coast in a bursting desire for exploration, and noticed a fine skin of rubbish littering the ungroomed aspects of the shoreline outside the main seafront in town.

"I've picked up some of the rubbish to check the labels when I've been wandering around the beach sometimes," explained Evan, "And it always says that it was made in a different country; China, Cuba, Europe, the United States. It never says 'Made in Mexico'".

It was saddening to realise the global impact of negligence in such wide scope, and got me thinking about the footprint of human activity at a time that was already more gloomy. Turning the car around and heading back inland, we once again began the search for a place to put our feet up for a few days, recuperate from our traumas and wait.

Chetumal
11th July 2009

Guns, Knives and Short People

On the next brief stop-off from the high speed journey from San Cristobal to Belize, Lou and I booked onto a tour to pay a lightning visit to Agua Azul, a collection of Very Blue Waterfalls that had been reccommended by numerous people. Shooting past campesinos heavily laden with wood who trudged along the side of the paved roads in our air conditioned tour bus with tinted windows I felt the vestiges of a sinking feeling. The feeling grew to a nagging discomfort as we arrived at Agua Azul to find a series of well paved walkways between different "viewing galleries", crowded with tourists merrily elbowing each other out of the way to get their perfect photographs.

Persevering despite growing negativity, we continued up the hill alongside the sections of the falls with the hope that the vast majority of photo-goons would not see the value in trying to break crowd mentality. Hope became smugness as the paths became empty the further away from the carpark we got and we soon found ourselves trotting along beside electric blue water bordered by jungle and lush green banks.

Within five minutes our blissful wanderings brought us to a chap lounging by the side of the path wearing a "rural tourist police" t-shirt with a radio strapped to his belt, in the process of informing a Dutch couple that they couldn't go any further up the track. Fortunately for all concerned, my 6 months of spanish practise allowed me to talk with him and ascertain that it would be fine to go up the track, provided that he remained with us as an escort. With smiles all round and the smugness building, we continued to the end of the track where a large, foreboding sign proclamed that we we premitted to go no further, UNDER ANY CIRUMSTANCES. Merrily casting aside all possesions on the tiny fine sand riverside beach to be warily watched by our police friend, we tumbled into the water and spent the next half hour splashing around, basking on the large stones that sustained the small section of waterfall and throwing ourselves into the rapids to be spat out spluttering in the calmer waters.

Eventually following the example of the Dutch couple we retreated to the beach to towel off when, in a rather surreal moment, I looked up to see four figures heading out of the jungle in a running crouch; from the fact that they were all wearing either balaclavas or hankerchiefs over their faces and carrying rifles and machetes, I quickly ascertained that it was unlikely that we'd just recieved participants for a picnic. In a moment of uncharacteristic lucidity I threw Lou's waterproof camera behind me into the shallows with the knowledge that we were, at the very least, about to lose all our possesions. Meanwhile one of the group had taken up position next to our guard (whose radio proved to be a somewhat ineffective measure against a firearm) and had the barrel of a rife tucked against his skull. Our attentions were immediately directed elsewhere, however, as a remarkably short assailant with a knife that would have made even Crocodile Dundee think twice arrived within chopping distance and informed us in as many words that we would do very well to give him a lot of money.

With visably trembling fingers the Dutch couple handed over 1500 pesos and were relieved of their camera, pleading for the memory card and trying to enlist my help to get our diminutive new best friend to take the time to locate the card slot, perform the complicated operation of extraction (which would require self-disarmament to facilitate the use of both hands) and allow them the gift of the 300 photos that were stored. My Spanish capabilites, already somewhat under stress from the situation, ground to a halt as I briefly considered and then discarded my capacity as bi-lingual negotiator. Aside from dynamics of practicality with their issue, I was also distracted by the worsening problems of Lou and I; having run our financial resources slowly down in anticipation of leaving the country and transferring currency we only had 120 pesos, not deemed a sufficient enough haul for the risk undergone through armed robbery. Drawing himself up to his full height of almost my nose level, our masked aquantence took Lou's day bag from the ground, rifling though it and growing incresingly frustrated as he encountering items of value such as personal journals, mobile phone chargers and ladies personal effects. With a noise of frustration somewhere between a grunt and a squeak, he scuttled off cradling Lou's bag, the camera and money to retreat to the safety of distance where the rest of his companions were waiting, presumably with the mentality that somewhere in the bag, eventually, he would encounter untold riches and ignoring my jumbled requests to return something of little value but great importance, during which I'm pretty sure I accidently referred to him as a "señora".

Sadly for us, the bag contained Lou's passport. Without the benefit of time to reorganize her stuff, this cruicial jigsaw piece of our Belizian picture was disappearing into the undergrowth in the hands of a group who almost certainly had absolutely no use for it. And disappear it did, leaving our slightly shell shocked group standing on the small crescent of sand criss crossed with the footprints of the past couple of minutes. Our wide eyed guard leapt from the log on which he'd been sitting and let fly with a tumbling stream of terrified language, disavowing all responsibility, blaming our actions, cursing all and sundry for the ill luck and the looming possiblity of their imminent return.

With eyes cast fearfully towards the opening in the foliage we collected the scattered remenants of our belongings; mercifully our wallets had been left, containing our identification and bank cards to finance the impending lengthly administrative process of insurance claims and obtaining a new passport that sat like a black cloud in the back of our minds; the Dutch couple through a blessed twist of fate had managed to retain their bag which contained both their passports and wallets; I retrieved the camera from the shallows of the river, a minor triumph that would prove to be short lived when it would, at some point, slip from the bundle that I was carrying and fall to the trail never to be found again; and began the walk back down the hill past groups running the other way driven by radio alerts that had come too late, to a new and painful phase to our freshly begun travels.

Palenque

9th July 2009

Ruined

Reflecting on the swift dash from the oven temperature depths of Chiapas to the Belizian redezvous with friends, it seemed somewhat daft to ignore the archelogical heavyweight of Palenque that I would be bussing straight past. Thus after a late night drop off in the tourist friendly spot of El Panchan, tucked neatly into the edge of the jungle in the amaiably run "Jungle Palace" collection of cabañas, I found myself lulled to sleep by the noisy chorus eminating from the foliage, hinting fears of the army of mosquitos that were no doubt poised to breach the cube of mosquito netting in which I was installed and drain me dry.

Fortunately the night passed without failure of my defense measures, and Lou and I found ourselves shuttled rapidly over the well greased path to the ruins by colectivo that hundreds of thousands of tourists had worn down over the years. Despite fears that we would be two heads in a vast seething crowd of tours, the site was really quiet. The ease of access and slick measures at the ticket booths for entry hinting at a much higher expected level of traffic and, coherent with experience elsewhere, showed the fairly devastating effect that negative public relations of swine flu and drug wars has exacted upon national tourism.

I wasn't complaining; wandering without aim around the site having given the brush off to countless offers of paid guidance was an impressive experience. They estimate that only 5% of the already vast site has been discovered and excavated to some degree, and that much was evident from the range of buildings on display. From the groomed and towering edifice of the palace, covered with workers chiselling stone, brushing dust and trimming grass, bringing it to as close a state as they dared to demonstrate it's former glory to the tucked away and overgrown residential housing blocks partially swallowed by jungle, the site (intentionally or not) gave a sense of discovery as you moved betwen buildings. The majority of the tourists going no further than the impressive entrance buildings in the main plaza left a sense of isolation, leaving us to duck in and out of the jungle that formed some of the most impressive views of the site as the sprawling ruins of a once powerful civilization did battle with the vegitation that was reclaiming them.

After dispiriting examples of a country's effort to showcase its natural drawcards, Palenque was a site in which I sensed a respect for the area in the way the tourist infrastructure was developed and the place was groomed and maintained. It is encouraging to see that despite some unfortunate reported behaviour of visitors (building guards describing examples of tourists taking stones from structures as keepsakes and using inner chambers as toilets), the keepers of the site have had the capacity to act with a perspective of sustainability, taste and intelligence.

Palenque

8th July 2009

Bad News for Democracy

I've just indulged in my first surfing excursion for two months, escaping in the twilight weeks of the teaching semester to the coastal town of Puerto Arista. Now, you would think that the experience of thrashing around in the turbulent, hurricane fueled waters of the pacific under steely grey skies would be a fine subject for discourse. One would assume that conveying the experience of swimming in warm ocean water whilst the seasonal rains pound the coastline and strong storm winds bend the palm trees would be a priority, and under any other circumstances I would happily oblige this focus, but for the unfortunate incidents of Saturday afternoon.

Having climbed out of the sea with a powerful hunger, I advanced with the two teachers with whom I was traveling, Willow and Lewis, to the nearest restaurant in sight. Within seconds of arriving we were purchased beers by a stringy grey haired chap in a standard issue Mexican vest sitting amongst a group of men. Despite the amiability of the gesture, alarm bells were ringing in Teacher Willow's head, warning of impending sleaze. This, unfortunately, turned out to be a perception of painful accuracy.

Swaggering over, our new (and fairly sozzled) acquaintance introduced himself as a figure of Great Importance in Local Government, sat down with us and proceeded to pester Willow with comments about how beautiful she looked, requests for her phone number and eventually (in sotto voce so neither Lewis nor I could hear on the other side of the table) complimenting her on the size of various parts of her anatomy. Willow, at this point shell shocked and disgusted, told The Towering Pillar of Sleaze with incredible restraint that his company was no longer required, sentiments that I echoed to him as soon as I realized that some fundamental boundaries had been crossed. The Excuse For a Human Being unapologetically apologized and wandered back to his group, leaving a trail of slime in his wake.

The whole incident passed time no greater than 5 minutes, but it cast an unpleasant air over the rest of the weekend trip. Up until that point all of us had been treated for the most part with respect by the people that we had encountered and such a disrespectful violation of said respect (by a figure of authority in government, no less) left us all raw and distrusting of how others might treat us for the remainder of our trip. It is unfortunate that the kindness which is received and trust which is bestowed following the actions of so many others can be shaken by the inconsiderate ramblings of a single pendejo drunk on alcohol and their own position of power.

In advance of the national elections on the 5th July, not a vote swinger for the resident political party methinks...

Puerto Arista
22nd Julio 2009

Friends, But Not Where You Expect Them

It is a strange occurence indeed when, after tearing oneself from the homeland and travelling vast distances to the other side of the world, you bump into familiar faces.  A couple of times. Within five minutes.

I was granted the gift of a seven day weekend by the recent inconvenient national (and, in all credit to the global media, international) panic of swine influenza.  Rather than sit quarantined in my cuarto shaking with fear at the remote possibility of death, I decided along with my joyfully impulsive friend Willow that the best course of action was to travel on a multitude of chicken buses surrounded by potentially lethal locals towards the distant but beckoning location of Lago Atitlan, Guatemala.  

As it turned out, the apocalypse predicted at every step of the journey was dissapointingly inevident.  We reached and crossed the border without incident and the worst thing that happened to us was a diversion off the section of Pan American Highway currently under construction into the winding muddy single lane mountain switchback that was groaning under the capacity of two-directional traffic.  After 2 hours of squeezing our bus past other grimly patient motorists in the gathering darkness and sporadic heavy rain of the wet season, we reached the grim town of Huehuetenango, designed specifically to be left as soon as possible.  

Once clear of Huehue, we crawled overland to the pretty colonial (i.e. strangely simular to San Cristobal, near my hometown) town of Antigua and spent a very pleasent couple of days with a friend of Willow looking at picturesque ruins and vistas, drinking picturesque coffees and watching the hundreds of picturesque tourists and language students crawling all over the town hunting for picturesque experiences.  If it wasn't for the bloody great volcanoes towering over the streets I'd think I was forty minutes down the road from CDC.  

After this that I parted company and headed for Lago Atitlan with the intention of meeting ex-teacher Abi in a setting that she had told me in previous emails that I would be a fool to miss.  True to her word, the lake was incredible; surrounded by the lush green slopes of volcanoes rising up through the early morning mist of the glassy lake and the jungle that enshrined the scattered communities clinging to the slopes.  The afternoons yielded fierce downpours, forcing me to find shelter and enjoy a cup of something warm in a nice hippy run eco-restaurant and wait for one of the arching rainbows that curved over the landscape and plunging into the lake.

It was in this dreamlike setting that I met my ex-university housemate of two years, a Mr. Jon Buick, on a weekend break from furthering himself professionally in nearby Xela, and bumped into Abi some minutes later in the same spot.  It really serves to illustrate that no matter how far we go, we're much closer together than we think.  We do, after all, live on a sphere; sooner or later everything leads to everything (or everyone) else.

Lago Atitlan

3rd May 2009