Guatemala City

When I was first dropped off in Guate (Guatemala City) I followed advice to leave straight away and went to the Old City where it is safe and tourists are expected. Since then I've heard from many different sources that Guatemala City is very dangerous and it's not safe to walk the streets. Interesting, to be somewhere where that's the case. Is there a culture of fear causing everyone to take taxis? Are the police so far behind the bandits that every foreigner gets jumped? Will I get stabbed or shot if I just walk two blocks down the road? They say it's not just about tourists, everyone has to take the same precautions (taxis everywhere) How is anyone living here if that's the case?

So, I'm taking a plane from the airport tomorrow and wanted to spend today in the Central Market. Hence, I've paid for two nights in a cheap hotel and have been looking into these questions - running some experiments.

At first, every local I spoke to, hostel staff in Antigua, my brother, guide books and the lady on the bus I took to get here all said the same, Take a taxi even if you're only going a few blocks.

With my backpack on, the sun having gone down and nothing else to go on I did as I was told and didn't place a single step on the pavement outside the bus station until I was following a taxidriver to his car. Last night I ventured to the edge of the hotel entrance and looked up and down the street wondering who was looking back at me with evil intent. But it's ridiculous, it can't be that bad and I don't feel good standing scarred.

This morning I shared out my modest wealth between my different pockets and left some in my room (was my room secure?) - I'm talking not more than $50, a debit card, my passport and my phone but the fear is that that won't matter. I went for a little walk around the block. Nothing happened, no mugging, no difficult questions in Spanish slang, no shifty looks, no sudden knife wounds, just a few concerned faces clearly worried that I was out of my depth. Maybe I was but what I found is I'd prefer to walk around cautiously than hide away from imagined tragedy.

Later a taxi that I'd arranged the previous day took me to the market. When I was done at the market I called him to go back but traffic was heavy or something and he didn't show up. I got some directions from a trader I'd come to trust and took a 12 block walk with my bags of gifts. He said to stick to the main road for a far as possible and once again, nothing happened. There's just this fear in the air from all the warnings. The fact that so many people carry guns, the police dress like paramilitaries and a third of the cars have blacked out windows does make for an interesting street experience.

Antigua to PG

The trip from Antigua to my brother's in Belize was pretty good.

We took a little van out of town to Guatemala City and drank cokes and ate cheeseburgers in the bus-station while we waited for a full size bus towards the Caribbean coast.

Zipping along the two lane, winding motorway the volcano scattered terrain leveled out a little, grow hotter, wetter and more junglous. As night fell, rain started coming down heavy and the bus driver and his compadres cranked up the high paced, Central American music radio and put the peddle even further to the metal. With only the oncoming lane in which to overtake and a several tonnes of long vehicles  winding along every mile of road, we seemed to spend almost half the journey with oncoming headlights in our eyes and the driver using his horn to clear a spot to duck back into before getting ploughed off the road by sixteen wheelers.

We got dropped off before the bridge over Rio Dulce and found beds in the waterfront Backpackers Hostel where reggaeton and bassy cumbia played loudly to itself in the empty jungle night. The dorms floated like a jettie over the river and after food and a cool shower I had a quite night's sleep on a simple wooden bunk. At day break I took a pleasant dive into the clear, sweet water to counter the sticky sweaty feeling of the tropical heat.

By 8:30 I'd been over the bridge and arranged a trip down river to the coast. The boat came up to the hostel jettie and we stopped of at a thermal spring before heading through a green, canyon banked gorge covered in cormarents, herons and pelicans.

In Livingston we split into different lodgings, me choosing to spend the nights in a hammock, for next to no cost, and Rich and Kim landing a cute little cabin in a rightfully well acclaimed place with its own Caribbean waterfront restaurant and private pier. We spent a couple of days enjoying the comfortable set up, took a speedboat ride to a sandy beach out of town and eventually paid our tax and got our out-stamp from Guatemala to then be ferried (once again) by speedboat across the bay and to Belize.

We took a taxi from the dock to my brother's work and have been chilling in Punta Gorda ever since. With just a short trip on one of the old school buses out to the Rangers Field Station to walk in the forest and learn about some of the conservation work that James has been involved in over here, we've mainly been just covering ourselves in suncream for the walk into town, seeking shade when the heat gets too much, eating burritos, playing pool, drinking beer and rum.

It's not a hard life here :) At least not for tourist or judging by the broad smiles that seem to cover most faces. A couple more days relaxing here and then I'll go up the coast to meet Sarah and bring her to see PG.

Free Roaming Worker Travellers

Am I coming home? Does being here feel like coming home? It does in at least one way

As many of you know I spent over a year traveling between Rio and New Orleans, making my way hitch-hiking, taking buses and boats and working on route to pay my way and being shrewd when spending money. I made and sold necklaces, bracelets, braided hair and later sold original drawings, prints, painted murals, designed menus, produced websites and logos and sculptured wooden signs at friendly guest houses and restaurants, in the street, on the river and the beach. It was an awesome experience and returning, now, to tourist towns in Latin America, it's not rare to meet others with similar stories.

Chaz and Chazni are two such bright eyed, broadly grinning Californians with infectious laughter and long hair, travelling about spending as little as possible on food and hosting whilst visiting beautiful tourist destinations on their vague journey North or South. Money doesn't worry them because they know survival in these places is easy and when their pockets are completely empty they'll find a hostel to employ them or a painting job or whatever.

Then there is Asherlen, a beautiful Argentinan with a backpack full of things she uses for her work on the road. She left at 4am the other morning to find herself a route to Nicaragua where she plans to be A Willing Worker On An Organic farm (it's called WOOFing). She teaches yoga and tango and hand stitches ecological sanitary towels that she sells to local pharmacies or curious tourists. She also has a list of hotels and guest houses she's worked at all across South and Central America. She's laid back and hard working at the same time, teaching herself to sing and play guitar.

All four of us became friends fast and have already gone our different ways. Although it's comfortable that we could meet again just as easily some time in the future I already feel what the Brazilians call, Saudade - a healthy and pleasant mix of sadness and happiness as you remember someone who's not with you.

I could hit the road again, indefinitely, pursuing the destinations that I've been told are amazing by people whose judgement I trust but self imposed limits on the time and money I spend change the travelling game and ensure that I can pop back home in another few weeks as if I was hardly ever gone - at least as far as bills, rent, jobs and routine goes.

It's a crazy old world we live in and a trip to the new world gets me thinking like this.

Wow.

Wet Antigua Photos

Getting to know Antigua

You'd love it here in Antigua. Everything is built so beautifully, from the heavy wooden doors with old wought iron bolts and reinforcements to the cobblestone streets and colonial period courtyards filled with lush green hanging plants. The weather must go from hot and dry to intense rain with puddles staying over night as all the stonework is worn and rough with tiny holes and the streets are bumpy with shallow holes. The decorations of several hundred years ago look like they were built for this climate, bold, clear geometric patterns and iconographic representations of faces and animals and leaves adorn all the architecture and give the whole place a simple magisty.

Right now the weather is hot and the air thick but moving, it's fresh, at least in the shade which there is lots of and the morning clouds have disapated to reveal a deep blue sky. I woke up with the calls of the roosters - they must live somewhere in the mysterious terraces that surround the countless courtyards of this Old City. Going out to find some food and get my bearings I walked around the streets surrounding the central Park - an ornamental garden of wide stone pathes, benches and a grand number of great trees filled with calling birds. The locals passing by wishing me and one another 'Buenas dias' in their musical latino voices were an eclectic mix of workers, traders and old folk. In one of the street off the square, peolple of - at least - a Mayan aspect were setting up stalls (I don't  know how to clasify someone as Mayan or not but they looked Mayan to me, short, smooth chocolaty skin with  straight black hair, gently laying out coloured woven cloths or arranging street level exhibitions of small wooden carvings, babies tied to mothers waists and small children giggling as they got involved in the daily work.

By 7:30 I'd walked half the streets of the central area and was easily encouraged into a cafe resteraunt for some breakfast. Orange, yellow, yokey eggs scrambled with green  chillies and chorizo. Delicious, refried,  black beans, sour cream, a hunk of white, salty crumbley cheese and a small bowl of sweet syrupy plateno. Oh plus a bowl of three different soft breads and delicious black coffee fresh from the plantations. The kinda breakfast which reequires you to take a little break part way through, and without the coffee would send you straight to sleep. With one meal like a day, I thought, no other meal would be needed.

Since then I've been to the bank to withdraw money, armed guards and metal detectors mixed with good manners, slow moving queues in a sun drentched courtyard and one of those visa machines where they slide the plastic slider across the card to print an impression of it onto carbon-copy paper.

Then I rolled a five and a six and that's when things got really interesting ;)

Expect some more meso-american drawings from Dog soon.

Wishing that you all go well.

London to Guatemala

I've just laid down on a very comfy bed in Antigua, Guatemala after a long, tiring yet beauty-rich journey from Mitcham this morning. The plane out of Heathrow flew over the coast of Greenland on it's way to Houston, treating me to a view of snow covered ice sheets in the crisp brilliance of the midday sun. It seemed to be midday or thereabouts for most of the flight and going up and down out of the clouds was magnificent with the sun and the speed really accentuating the feeling of moving through a vast and totally 3 dimensional "skyscape" of giants.  Leaving Houston and flying to Guatemala was a different experience in a far smaller plane. The full moon rose over a misty, expanse of dark indiscriminate matter stretching to the horizon in all directions, a yellow moon track diffused on the wavy surface underneath the silver disc. There wasn't much more to see until we dropped down through the smooth, fluffy surface of the highest reaches of cloud. At that point we found ourselves plunged into an intensely beautifully moonlite environment like some kind of gianormous aquerium for grey, black, silver and white billowing clouds. We were zipping along at over 500mph with micro droplets of water streaming over the windows. Everytime we entered a cloudmass the planes extenal lights lite it up bright and every window of the plane flashes blank  before flashing back to the surreal scenery. Then as we came out the bottom of the space I was treated to the throbbing orange glow of light coming from one of Guatemala's active volcanos. Truely hard to believe it was real.

On the ground it was wet but warm. A girl from the plane had a van booked and waiting outside the airport to drive her to a hotel in the Antigua (Old) City. She offered me a place to split the cost and after such an exhausting length of time travelling ,there was little chance of me  turning it down. So I thanked her and splashed out on a taxi and a room to myself in a hotel more luxurious than I would normally have treated myself to. I'm glad I did, I took the easy option that chimed with James's advice of getting out of new Guatemala City and into Antigua (the old city) as quickly as possible. It is a beautiful hotel (Casa Rustica), all bright colours and rustic (unsupprisingly) style everything. The nice guy whose here manning the place overnight let me in and found me a room before telling where I can find a place tomorrow for a tenth of the price.He speaks musical and politely wishing me a good rest and agreeing that it's better to wait until tomorrow to find food. Buenas noches.