Guatemala!

So after eating lots of food in Roatan, singing karaoke in Copan, and lots of buses. We arrived in Antigua. A colonial style town an hour from Guatemala city and six from Honduras. Having been to Antigua before I new what to expect. Going on my last experience I would be spending a decent amount of my time lost. Antigua is built mostly on a grid system but then it has a few streets that turn it into a maze. It's hard to get your bearings and all the buildings are of a similar style and colour. Nevertheless, with every plaza you stumble upon; you find a new intricately decorated church, a new part to the endless market, or a new pastry shop. So getting lost wasn't always bad.

Having arrived much later than planned on the Monday we couldn't start our language course til the next day, so we found a cheap hostel, made some food and crashed out. Waking up the next morning and looking at my clock it dawned on me that I should've been at school an hour ago. Oops. Not the best start. But once I eventually turned up, more like 2 hours late (there was a few issues in finding the language school) they were happy to accommodate the fact that I'd have to do lessons later that day and an extra lesson at somepoint during the week. And with that I started spanish school.
Throughtout the lessons they test your understanding and speaking ability, reinforce the verb conugations and take you on walks around antigua and go to the markets and make you talk to the people there. It was extremely helpful for me, it gave me the confidence I needed to speak spanish to people because it showed me that I could both understand and form the verbs needed. Brilliant. In addition to having 4-6 hours of spanish each day you are living with a local family who provides your meals and accomodation for the time that you're studying. I was staying with a ovely family of four who housed 6 students in total. There was me, a polish journalist, a german student, an australian traveller, a 60 year old retired american and a swiss guy. It was a good mix of people and from the first night at dinner I could see I was in for a laugh. And good food. After 4 months of living in a country where salad doesn't exist in any culinary sense. I was served a plate of crunchy, green, fresh salad leaves with peppers, onions, crunchy toast and a nice light dressing. I tried not to let on how much this sad pleased me but I think it was obvious to everyone.
The week spent in antigua was brilliant! I learned a lot of spanish, met some awesome people and celebrated my housemates 30th birthday in style. With cake, pinata, fireworks and in true central american style rum! The market is fantastic. I even managed to get a cheap replacement for my broken rucksack!

Early on a Monday morning we left Antigua for Semuc Champey. This would be a 8 hour bus journey and I wasn't thrilled to be doing it but hey, I'd heard so much about Semuc that I couldn't let a bus journey get in the way... Semuc Champey is a national park that has spectacuar limestone pools and an unforgettable caving experience. We eventually arrived in Semuc 10 hours later, after the bus driver ran a few personal errands, picked up his wife and changed a tyre. So we eventually got settled into the hostel, had some food and chilled. The next day we set out, twenty people crammed into the back of a pick up truck for the bummpiest, most uncomfortable journey of my life. The truck moved at such a slow pace due to the amount of people and the extremely steep constant incline. No airflow whatsoever. Combine that with being pressed against many other people. Things get very hot. We were all extremely relived when we arrived at the entrance to the cave. The guide, a small, nimble guatemalan, told us to take off or shoes and strip down to our swimming costumes. We were then all given a candal and asked if we could swim with one hand. The answer was pretty much yes, and anyone who wasn't sure was given a lifevest. And off we went, feeling somewhat bemused and unsure as to what I was geting myself into.. at the entrance to the cave we lit the candals and proceeded with the guide shouting 'heads!!' And then 'left, left'. As the water gradually got deeper we heard, 'one hand up. Swim' and so on. Climbing ladders, sliding over rocks, jumping off things. All into the complete darkness except for this little flickering candal, our lifeline.
After lots of swimming, jumping and bashing of toes on rocks, we reached the end of the cave. The finale was to clamber up this rock in the complete darkness, and jump into, what can only be described as, the abyss. The guide pointed a candal into the pool and said jump here. I was perched on the side of tis rock, looking into blackness a few flickering candals in the distance, safe to say I was a little scared. And I jumped. I hit the water after what seemed like an age and was plunged into complete darkness as I hit the water. Surfacing again into complete darkness, I was pretty adrenaline filled. I was ready to do it again. But unfortunately we couldn't. There was other jumps to complete.
We headed out of the cave and towards the sunlight. From there we walked to a rope swing. This was one of the most impressive rope swings I've seen. Everyone was in awe of this thing. And so eventually the first person stepped up, and then the next. And every person that jumped ended up landing on their faces, bums., stomachs. I was not reassured but I did it anyway. I jumped on and started flying through the air, at what I thought was the optimum point. Turns out it wasn't. I felt myself falling forward and heading straight for a massive bellyflopp. I decided to tuck and roll. And so I ended up doing a sommersault off this crazy rope swing. I surfaced with a stinging shoulder, and to the sond of cheering. The guide shook my hand and called me 'chica loca'. The funny part is that I didn't even mean it. I was simply savig myself from the king of all bellyflopps. We left the swing with some very red bodied tourists. I think only one person managed to land in the water the way we were supposed to..
From there we headed to a bridge. Apparently we could jump off. It must have been like 10-12 meters high. So I jumped. And it was brilliant. So I jumped again. And again. And once more. God it was good fun. We stopped for lunch and then headed to the actual Semuc Champey park. We hiked up for a few hours and were rewarded with an amazing view of a valley with the limestone pools which were filled with the clearest water. From the viewpoint you cold see the rocks, people swimmig and even some fish. It was amazing. We then headed down and cooled down in these beautiful crystal clear pools.
It was fantastic. The only downside was the cramped, unconfortable truck ride home. But even that didn't spoil my day! What a way to end my time in Guatemala.

Next stop the end of the world.

So sometimes something happens to knock you down.

I've been looking forward to my travels for a long time, it's a chance to see another part of the country, gives you a channce to relax and wind down after a hectic finish to the school term. So off I headed to Roatan, one of the bay islands of the caribbean part of Honduras, for a weeks stay with other volunteers and to help out with a spelling bee. On arrival it was raining, not the best but hey I was on a caribbean island. Things would be good.

Or so I thought. We attended the schools graduation, which was a lovely affair with the girls in beautiful white dresses with red sashs and the boys in suits with red ties. We got free food (always a bonus), music and dancing. We were feeling good and ready to head to a BBQ with the vols and their diving instructor. When we got back to the house I noticed that my things had been messed up, it took me a while to realise the back window had been broken into, the metal bars on the window removed and the screen bent inwards. I went over to my rucksack and searched through it. My small rucksack was gone, along with my months wages, phone,ipod, camera, earphones, sunglasses, flip flops, head tourch, pen knife. Anything of value and more. They even took my toothbrush. And things that were in my rucksack that were of a more sentimental value than  anything thing else. That made me angry, annoyed, frustrated, and helpless.

These guys had done this before, they had methodically gone through all my belongings, opening pockets and rucksacks, going through make up bags, small hidden purses. They knew where to look and what to look for.

We were taken by the school that the vols work for to the police station to file a report. And well, the police are more than useless. They said they couldn't do anything and that if we wanted to file a report we had to go to the other police station an hours drive away. So the bext day we did that and they said a similar thing that there was nothing they could do but gave us the report. And that's really all we needed for the insurance. Thankfully everythings covered under the insurance so there's no point dwelling on it. I was ready to enjoy my holiday.

Roatan is a beautiful place, it's very long, thlin and mountainous. There's lots to do and plenty of brilliant places to eat. So that was our plan. To eat and swim. And that's what we did. We ate lobster in a restaurant that had the most amazing view over the ocean. I ate one of the best burgers of my life (only my dad's could beat it). We had the classic chicken meal that's synonomous with honduras. It consists of a half or quarter chicken with coconut bean rice, tortillas and chimole (which is a pepper, onion, tomato salad with corriander and vineger). Best chicken meal ever. I had a traditional garifuna meal which was mashed plantain with coconut which becomes like a paste and you eat that with a fish soup. Delicious. But extremely rich. I made an attempt but finishing it was beyond me.

The volunteers I was staying with live two minutes from the beach and so swimming was a daily thing. Jumping off the pier into the sparkling, clear, warm Caribbean sea was just wow.  

We had bonfires and star gazed. There is very little light pollution where we were and so the stars were some of the best I've ever seen.
It was a very chilled start to the holiday exactly what I needed really.

I also helped judge a local spelling bee, helping with the organization, decorations and the judging. It was a good laugh and we had three judges; an american, a guatamalan and a scot. Three very different accents. My spelling skills were also put to the test and I was impressed that te kids whose second language is english were spelling words like turquoise and phantoms.

The community we were staying in were wonderful and it has a real Caribbean feel to it. All the girls have their hair braided or combed with beads and threads and there's so .much colour. One of the woman there offered to braid my hair and so I sat for 4 hours the first day and 3 the next. It took ages and I was sitting on the most uncomfortable stool in the world. Once it was done I was pretty happy with the result. I was worried i'd look like an idiot with the braids and red extensions but I'm damn happy with the result. Even if I do look a bit like a hippy with the braids and colorful trousers...

From roatan we traveled to guatemala. This meant a boat journey and two chicken buses and the most unconfortable, stuffy minibus in the word. After over 16 hours of travelling we arrived in Antigua, Guatemala with very sore bums.

So now I'm in antigua, I've been here for a week. I've finished language school, and I'm having a brilliat time. Antigua is vibrant colourful and you meet so many interesting people. It's a meeting point for travellers and it has great markets and treks. Ill save these stories for the next blog.