Guatemalan Weather Report
Guatemala appears at first glance to be a tropical country, fairly close to the equator. This is, however, merely a ruse for its true nature as a fairly large portion of southern britain, only with more palm trees. Cold? In Guatemala? In dry season? Oh yes, sir.
Am I becoming more English the longer I go without seeing it? It seems I'm becoming weather obsessed, at the very least.
Antigua: - Warm by day, cold by night
Antigua is where I learn Spanish. Or some Spanish. In the present tense. Involving fruit. So I talk like a fruit obsessed Spanish pirate with a severe methodone habit. But, let's be honest, that's better than I ever managed in French, and I "studied" (GCSE - sat in a room with people who were reading exercise books while I designed killer robots = study at GCSE) that language for 5 years.
Intensive study is way different to school style. I think I could be competant in about 3 more weeks, and fluent in another 10. Homework is somewhat different also to the concept I remember - there is a bar here called Cafe Sky. It's got a roof bar where I sat in the sun, drinking margaritas and working on my Spanish homework, stopping every now and then when volcano Fuego errupted to watch the lava burst.
We climbed an active volcano, but the weather was just too damned bad to see very much. After fighting the gale-force winds, which pelted us with small volcanic pebles and tore the breath from our bodies, we reached near the summit where everything disappeared in the cloud. Still, it was something of an achievement just to make the top, and the nice people we met who went up the next week were kind enough to show us the video footage of what erupting lava actually looks like. Bastards.
We got into all sorts of laziness, with a local family providing us with food and lodging, and beer always a few steps away.
Cobàn: - Just plain cold
Next stop was Cobàn, where we are now. This place is cold. I mean really cold. and it's wet, rainy and misty. Highs of around 10 degrees during the day. I discovered yesterday that Coban means "Place that always rains" in Mayan, or something similar. This is te tropics, it should not be like England in late February.
Yesterday we left the permanent cloud that surrounds Cobàn and swam with the fishes. It was pretty cool, so I don´t know why Italians use the phrase as a threat. There were a series of freshwater pools separated by short (2-6 foot) waterfalls, all with tropical fish swimming around in them. So, we got in at the top, then swam down to the bottom, diving from each pool into the next. Aside for some unexplained insect bites, this was pretty cool.
We then got shown through some caves that are supposed to be pretty significant to the indigenous Mayan population, but as my 2 weeks of Spanish classes only really gave me the ability to discuss fruit very slowly ("Pineapple likes me" and other greats), metaphysical interpretations of God went some way over my head. Aparently Mayan religion doesn't involve much fruit.
Cobàn is about as grimy as a developing country town can get, but we're staying here a few days as the hotel is about 5 quid a night, and we're spending another 10 between us on food & drink so it's a good place to get stuff sorted out. This is Frances' way of punishing me for spending too much money in the US of A. Beer here is served in the bag - drinking from a plastic bag is a skill that should be practiced by anyone who wants to visit.
I´m freezing my fingers on this keyboard, so more later. Next chickenbus will be to Tikal, which I may not enter into the diary - the world probably has enough accounts of Tikal by now.
Am I becoming more English the longer I go without seeing it? It seems I'm becoming weather obsessed, at the very least.
Antigua: - Warm by day, cold by night
Antigua is where I learn Spanish. Or some Spanish. In the present tense. Involving fruit. So I talk like a fruit obsessed Spanish pirate with a severe methodone habit. But, let's be honest, that's better than I ever managed in French, and I "studied" (GCSE - sat in a room with people who were reading exercise books while I designed killer robots = study at GCSE) that language for 5 years.
Intensive study is way different to school style. I think I could be competant in about 3 more weeks, and fluent in another 10. Homework is somewhat different also to the concept I remember - there is a bar here called Cafe Sky. It's got a roof bar where I sat in the sun, drinking margaritas and working on my Spanish homework, stopping every now and then when volcano Fuego errupted to watch the lava burst.
We climbed an active volcano, but the weather was just too damned bad to see very much. After fighting the gale-force winds, which pelted us with small volcanic pebles and tore the breath from our bodies, we reached near the summit where everything disappeared in the cloud. Still, it was something of an achievement just to make the top, and the nice people we met who went up the next week were kind enough to show us the video footage of what erupting lava actually looks like. Bastards.
We got into all sorts of laziness, with a local family providing us with food and lodging, and beer always a few steps away.
Cobàn: - Just plain cold
Next stop was Cobàn, where we are now. This place is cold. I mean really cold. and it's wet, rainy and misty. Highs of around 10 degrees during the day. I discovered yesterday that Coban means "Place that always rains" in Mayan, or something similar. This is te tropics, it should not be like England in late February.
Yesterday we left the permanent cloud that surrounds Cobàn and swam with the fishes. It was pretty cool, so I don´t know why Italians use the phrase as a threat. There were a series of freshwater pools separated by short (2-6 foot) waterfalls, all with tropical fish swimming around in them. So, we got in at the top, then swam down to the bottom, diving from each pool into the next. Aside for some unexplained insect bites, this was pretty cool.
We then got shown through some caves that are supposed to be pretty significant to the indigenous Mayan population, but as my 2 weeks of Spanish classes only really gave me the ability to discuss fruit very slowly ("Pineapple likes me" and other greats), metaphysical interpretations of God went some way over my head. Aparently Mayan religion doesn't involve much fruit.
Cobàn is about as grimy as a developing country town can get, but we're staying here a few days as the hotel is about 5 quid a night, and we're spending another 10 between us on food & drink so it's a good place to get stuff sorted out. This is Frances' way of punishing me for spending too much money in the US of A. Beer here is served in the bag - drinking from a plastic bag is a skill that should be practiced by anyone who wants to visit.
I´m freezing my fingers on this keyboard, so more later. Next chickenbus will be to Tikal, which I may not enter into the diary - the world probably has enough accounts of Tikal by now.