Guatemala- Hikes, Hammocks and Happy Hour

After such an incredible time in Mexico, we were sad to say goodbye, but most definitely ready to leave our atrocious mexican diet!
We took an 11 hour bus from oaxaca to Tapachula under the advice of my brother, as its the easiest way to get to Guate. We rocked up with no clue what to do, and after some very confusing spanglish conversations with a taxi driver,  we took a ride to the border. After crossing, and witnessing guatemalan guys swimming across the river to cross the border rather inconspicuously, we were bombarded by people yelling "xela xela xela xela!!!", and proceeded to take our bags off our backs and shove us onto a bus with no idea what was going on! From here it was a minivan crammed with 21 people, followed by 3 chicken buses to Xela. This was both our first experience with chicken buses. They are basically school buses painted different colours, that they cram with anything from people, to of course chickens. People come on selling all sorts of different things; this time it was a drug to cure about 10 different viruses, bacteria, amoebas and worms!  Seemed legit...
We finally got to xela and met up with Chris, and had a fun couple of days with him.
Next, it was the infamous hike to Lake Atitlan. we woke up at 5am and set off for the mountains at 6. We were given a guide who didn't speak a word of english, lucky for john who didnt learn spanish!! And his little friend, who combined were probably not as tall as john. Even I towered over them! We were told that the first day would involve around 8 hours of walking, the first 3 of which were a hard uphill slog. We had to carry our 60L rucksacks, plus food and water for the trip. Walking up a mountain carrying all this was challenging, to say the least!! I would have let out a few choice words, however, I couldnt mustre anything other than sounds similar to a labrador on a hot day.
We made it up in 1.5 hours, we were chuffed. The scenery was spectacular and worth the hard work. But the day was not over yet... we walked for about 30 minutes on flat surface, before beginning a steep descent. This was 10x worse than the uphill slog. It was so steep, the paths were narrow at times, and the ground was loose stones and dirt that would give way all the time. Our little guides were like mountain goats; being so short was an advantage and they found the downhill much easier! We powered through and reached a fast flowing river, which we had to cross with our bags on a very rickety, unsecured log. Oh joy. The last 30 minutes of the day was virtually a vertical uphill climb, on a path less than a foot wide, with nothing but loose dirt to grab onto. But we made the whole day in 8 hours, and it transpired that we actually walked a day and a half in a day. We were filthy, drenched in sweat and exhausted, but we reached this little indiginous village in the mountains, just at the level of the clouds. We were showed to our abode for the evening; a concrete floor in a barn. The little kids all hid at the bottom of the windows and poked their heads in, giggling.

Beautiful indigenous girl from the village.

Dinner was served- spaghetti with a sachet of tomato sauce. Yum. When it was bed time, we awkwardly walked in on our guide spooning his little mate. We thought it might be a brokeback mountain moment... then they started farting in their sleep. Banter.
The next day was an easy 3 hour walk, so we spent the afternoon drinking cervezas and looking onto our destination; the lake.
The next day we set off at 5.30 to watch the sunrise over the lake, then walked down to San Pedro, one of the villages on the lake. Lake atitlan is a monstrous sight of beauty. Its huge, and scattered with beautiful little towns beneath the volcanoes.

 I don't know who these people are

 Sunrise at Lago Atitlan

San Pedro Volcano

We bought some banana bread, and ended up with a room for the night! The next few days were spent chilling on hammocks enjoying the views, hopping from village to village, resting up our sore feet! The villages were all very hippy-ish, serving up big plates of vegetarian food, yoga and chai tea. Oh and free tequila with every drink bought after 7pm, sooo, that night ended interestingly, with a large round of a drinking game named My Vagina Is. I shall leave the rest up to you.
From here we headed to antigua, and spent 2 days in the mountains in an avocado farm, and stayed in a treehouse. It was out of this world waking up to the sunrise in a tree! But it was underneath an oak tree, and there was a bird dropping acorns on the iron roof all. night. so. annoying.
Then it was onto semuc champey; the famous turquoise limestone pools. But we didnt just swim in the pools. We signed ourselves up for a day trip, which included caving. We were sent into a pitch black cave, with only candles to guide us. Yes, candles. Swimming with candles in freezing water, avoiding jagged rocks was, erm, interesting fun! Seemed less legit when everyone who passed us had helmets! We didnt have this luxury!! We climbed up waterfalls, slid down half metre wide shoots with no clue what was the other side, and jumped off some very unsafe rocks! what a day...! I was traumatised.

 Semuc Champey

 Our treehouse

Morning view from bed.

We have spent the last 3 days in a caribbean town called livingstone, in a crazy hostel called las iguanas. Happy hour=happy justine. There was a big festival there, with a real caribbean vibe, and I was molested by too many young boys who wanted to shake booty with this gringo.
Our next destination is flores to see tikal, and then onto the idyllic belize. I will try not to make you too jealous witj pictures of all the white sandy beaches ;-)

Mexico Part II- A Magical Journey to San Jose Del Pacifico

The second part of our mexican journey was very different to the first. We stepped away from pristine caribbean beaches and saw a different side of the country.

Of course our first stop involved the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. These are incredible temples with a lot of history and amazing architecture. Everyone has heard of the Mayan calendar; in fact the main temple at chichen itza is itself a mayan calendar. It was designed by observations of the sun through the year, highlighting different parts of the temple depending on where the sun rises at different times of the year. It is well worth a visit, very different to the guatemalan ruins at Tikal. By this stage, I had accumulated around 40 mosquito bites on my legs. Delectable! Yet john sat idly with one.

Chichen Itza.

Next we took a very early flight to mexico city to catch day of the dead. Wow, what a sight!  It seemed all 20 million inhabitants flooded the centre, dressing up in everything from the mario brothers to zombie brides. Of course, people dressed up their dogs as devils, too! We also got to see some aztec and toltec ruins, and the third biggest pyramid in the world.

Day of the dead displays.

Ruins at Tula

The mexican subway was an experience in itself!! If you believed the tube is bad, think again. John dwarfed the subway population, sticking out like a sore thumb. Even I am significantly taller than the average mexican! I've never seen more people crammed into a carriage. Think about trying to squash a sleeping bag into its cover.  Thats how it felt! Except other parts of the sleeping bag elbow you in the ribs to get inside. Being tall was a disadvantage! Everyone else practically dove between our legs to get off. 3 days in mexico city was enough!

Me and john made our way down to Oaxaca after a brief trip to vera cruz (where for the second time, I was told that HIV was a man made virus gone wrong, to kill the gays. Seriously you cant get away from this shit!). Oaxaca was stunning. 2 days filled with drinking mezcal (a chimney tasting spirit), trying Mole (a chilli chocolate sauce traditional to the area; John said it looked like a turd on a leaf, charming as ever), exploring markets filled with amazing local foods and artesans. We had heard a lot about a town half way between Oaxaca and the coast, called San Jose Del Pacifico. We jumped on a bus, and made the terrifying winding journey up the mountains. No barriers to stop you going over the edge, and the roads were scarily narrow at some points! We hopped off at this beautiful little town, hidden in the clouds. We walked around looking for a place to stay, and found a little guy offering cabanas. We originally picked the cheapest one, until he tantalised us with a cabin overlooking what seemed the entire mountain range, with its own huge fireplace. We were sold. Money well spent, kind of. Oh, and they had puppies. That also helped buy me. 

Our cabin.

We explored the town and went for a beer in a tiny wooden cafe on stilts, set up in the mountains, overlooking oaxaca. The view was incredible. We wandered around a bit more, until a local guy came up to us and asked what we were looking for, and brought us into his little shop, or "tourist information", of sorts. He told us he was of Mayan descent, and that his grandmother was a famous Shaman in Chichen Itza. He told us about his plot of land set on the mountains, and how he had built his own house and tamascal; a traditional stone sauna that's been used by local people for hundreds of years. We agreed to check it out, and he went off to go warm up the stones and pick some local herbs from the mountains.

We headed back to the cabin, and bumped into a group of awesome guys travelling from the US and Germany, because we all wanted to play with the cute puppy. They too were looking to try some local things, so we invited them along to this guy's ranch. We walked along the winding road for 2km, wondering if this place actually existed! We eventually rocked up to los 4 elementos. His place was amazing, set in the mountains, hand built wooden houses, and two stone tamascals. Nervously, we stripped down to our swimwear, and climbed into the tiny muddy hut. It's one way to break the ice with strangers! The tamascal experience was certainly different! The guy shovelled in red hot stones, and told us to add this herbal tea to it every few seconds to make the steam. He brought in hotter stones around every 10 minutes. These were the only source of light in this pitch black hut, filling with fragrant steam. The stones were scarily close to falling on our feet! The boys started to get pins and needles in their extremities, and when the hour was up, couldn't wait to get out! I, of course, manned up, and stayed in the longest. Wimps. When we got out, there was not a dry patch on our bodies. I'd never sweated so much in my life. We were taken to a freezing cold shower, and then cups of more herbal tea were poured onto us, for whatever reason! 

The ranch.

Next, it was onto the tea drinking. He had a fire with a cauldron bubbling, and poured some tea into our cups, with some interesting looking slimy objects floating around... When the tea turned blue, it was ready to gulp down. "Take it like medicine, it's medicine!" we were told! So down it went, chomping on the slimy bits, which were virtually tasteless, with a few gratuitous flies floating around for good measure. 

The tea. 

We were told the tea would relax us, enabling us to broaden our minds, and reach the inner most parts of our soul, enhancing our visual senses. Nobody said anything for an hour; we watched the magical sunset in silence, only exchanging a few words such as "whoooa", "awesome" and of course, "pretty clouds". The sun lit up the mountains a bright orange colour, with dancing swirls of blue cloud. It was mesmerising. 

The sunset. 

We then started to not be able to feel our toes because of the cold, so we marched back up the road, feeling like the ground was moving away from our feet. We reached our cabin, and john spent 30 minutes trying to light the fire. Eventually, he admitted defeat, and we asked our guy to light it for us! Soon, the fire was roaring, and we watched the flames dance in our cabin, listening to the howling wind shaking the balcony. Time flew by; we soon realised we had been sat staring into space, soaking up the atmosphere, for about an hour and a half! Coming to our senses, we sat on the floor by the fire and exchanged life stories until we were all ready for some food and bed. 

Our new chums.

San Jose was a truly magical experience, one that I would highly recommend to anyone travelling to the area who wants to indulge in some local practices, and immerse themselves into the incredible area that is San Jose.

Mexico Part I- Diving Out Of Reality

Hola from Mexico! We have been here for 2 weeks now and have already travelled s lot of the country; around Quintana Roo and the Yucatan peninsula, and then across to mexico city which was a 2 hour flight. We have done lots of things, but I thought I would dedicate this post to the diving I did, in particular one dive, which has been a total life changer!
Our first stop was Isla Mujeres; a beautiful little island off the coast of cancun with turquoise waters and white sandy beaches (I came off looking like a right lobster!). We didnt dive here but we snorkelled an artificial reef called Manchones reef, where someone had placed a load of stone statues underwater to encourage coral growth.  It was pretty cool! This included about 100 scary looking statues of people, and 2 volkswagen beetles! Very weird!
We next took a few buses and a ferry to Isla Cozumel which was quite substantially bigger. Of course it peed dowm with rain from then on! All the roads, and the floor of our room, were flooded! There is the second largest reef in the world here, so we thought we had better do it. It was mesmerising. The coral formations were out of this world, creating almost cave like structures which we could dive in and out of. Also saw a few cheeky turtles!
Next stop was a beach town called Akumal where dad and chris met us. Its a turtle hub here! We did 2 dives and saw quite a few and got within touching distance. Turtles are just so incredible to watch ( see snap below of one of the cheeky guys I took)! It also continued to pee with rain here, oh joy.

Me and Chris diving innit.

Next stop was a little coastal town called tulum.  We stayed in a hostel that felt like you were in a jungle; they had built a load of wooden huts around palm trees, it was really cool. They gave us bikes and I managed to cycle twice with a flat tyre and didnt realise- whoops!
Here is where the diving becomes really interesting.
Basically, the whole area, millions of years ago, used to be underwater , and used to be a reef. Over time, it became land, and the reef turned into limestone,  a really porous rock. As the acidity from decomposing matter mixed with water, the limestone collapsed and formed these huge underground caves called cenotes. They're now filled with water and are connected by a big underground river, but from the rock formations inside they can tell they used to be dry as they are covered in incredible stalagmites and stalagtites. They're still discovering new cenotes all the time which is awesome.
We did our first 2 cenote dives in the famous Dos Ojos (two eyes). As you jumped in, the water was crystal clear and lit up by huge beams of sunlight; the visibility was around 400 metres! (When diving in the sea, 20 metres is considered good!). We dove around the cavesand saw some incredible formations, and a barbie doll being eaten by a crocodile. Standard.
The next day, me and Chris dove the infamous Pit cenote. It was a deep dive so the others couldnt do it. I will take a while to describe this one, because its the best, and most life changing dive I have ever done.
When we arrived at the pit, you wouldnt look twice; it was a dirty looking green pond no more than 10 metres wide, about a 6 metre drop from the ground; thankfully they built a ladder as before,  you just had to jump! We got our kit on and jumped in . Immediately, you knew this place was out of this world. The pit opened up into an indescribable room of incredible size. The water no longer looked murky green, but crystal clear blue, lit up by perfectly straight beams of blue light from the sun. We started our quick descent through the freshwater until we reached a thermocline; this is where the freshwater meets the saltwater, and mixes in a layer of about 1-2 metres in depth. The layer is like oil, and all youcould really see was a blurry line from peoples torches, it was very bizarre. After descending through this we entered the saltwater, which was 25 degrees; one degree higher than the fresh. This is where the true magnificence of the pit was apparent. We could see the cloud; like someone had dropped tonnes of milk and it sat in a perfect formation. The cloud is a big mass of white sulphur gas sitting at the bottom of the pit, a ghostly structure. We lined up at the back of the cloud ready to traverse through it,but it was soon apparent it was much, much more than just a white cloud. The gas had settled in distinct separate layers of different depths; some around a metre, some a few centimetres. You could dip up and down through them, sticking your head through the gaps, wisping the gas through your fingers and creating ripples with your torch. About half way through, there was a tree jutting through the gas, and the cloud was swirling around it like a vortex. It was truly haunting. A bit further on, there was another huge tree , where the gas created a ghostly thin membrane layer over it. A scene like a graveyard in a 70s horror film.
We then ascended back through the halocline and entered two caves which were hidden about half way up, which again had magnificent rock formations, packed with stalagmites and stalagtites. On our exit, we swam back out imto the middle of the pit, and could bask in its true glory (see below for a picture I took that gives it no justice). The sheer size and beauty, perfectly lit up by rays of sunlight, is imdescribable, and one I will cherish for the rest of my life. The pit is like a brilliant movie; im told you can only appreciate it fully a second or third time. I´m already planning my trip back in years to come.