Public and Private Spaces

Friday 12th December - Friday 19th December

Another tumultuous week, this time more testing emotionally. Not that anything's really been that stressful until now actually. I'm beginning to wonder when I'm going to get down to doing something useful beyond my own horizon expansion and experience gathering. As I sit in a cafe in Antigua Guatemala writing this, it's a good time to reflect on the last week or so.

I feel a bit strange too airing my innermost emotional feelings in the most public way, about stuff that intimately affects my girlfriend and our relationship. I guess that's the more revolutionary aspect to blogging: transcending the boundaries between public and private issues and spaces.

I never was a disciple of the clarity of distinction between public and private spaces, be they discursive or physical. I think at home, in Britain, there is a real distinction between physical public and private spaces, evidenced in a number of ways. First, by the culture of "Public Houses" (pubs) and entertainment licensing that is derived from this. Related to this is public liability, and the [legal, suing] culture, perhaps more acute in the U.S. but certainly prevalent in the UK. Being in Central America, with critical distance from home, I can see how spaces in the UK are hypermanaged and defined as public or private. Going into an eatery here, you walk through someone's home to get to the toilet, shared by the family whose home it is. Or someone invites you to stay with them in their house. Without going into too much more detail right now, I won't overplay the distinction, but I think there is a difference in the way spaces are managed and controlled. Perhaps wealth has something to do with it too, being unable to afford another 'customer' toilet.

Wow, I don't know where that came from. But the point I was about to make was that my girlfriend wanted to break up, on Saturday, soon after arriving in Xela to meet her after 3 weeks going our own ways. I guess independent travel suited her pretty good. Love never being straightforward, the complicated part was what happened after. As I came to terms with these revelations, she did say she wanted to spend Christmas with me. I couldn't answer whether I wanted to as well, but left to think things through. We agreed to meet for dinner. The long and short of it is that we're gonna spend Christmas together. Things are now good, but a bit more complicated. We'll see what goes down.

Between here (Antigua) and there (Xela), we made a couple of stops. The first, shorter stop at the hot springs of Fuentes Georginas, the next at the Lago de Atitlan, a big ol lake in the middle of Guatemala. Tori didn't reckon she could make it to the Bay Islands anymore, her flight being from San Pedro Sula, just inside Northern Honduras, in 2 days time. So the last few days have been more relaxed, spending 3 nights in San Pedro (de la Laguna - on the lake).


The hot springs on Sunday were as lush as they get. Xela had been pretty chilly, one of the coolest places in Central America. So going up a windy mountain road to find a 20ftx50ft hottub, with 3 smaller, less bakingly hot pools below, was blissful. The cabins up there were pretty steep - 90Q (£9) a person. So 2 of got the cabin, and 2 paid for camping, next to the cabin (for 15Q each)! That brought the costs down nicely, we even put the tent up for full blag effect. There was a log fire inside the stone cabin, and a barbeque outside. And a jolly nice evening was had.


On Monday we left by noon and drove the couple of hours to the lake. 10km long and 3 km wide, the lake is surrounded by steep hills dotted with villages and a couple of towns. We avoided Panachel (the busiest), going for San Pedro, a little smaller with less, but still a fair few, tourists. Arriving just before dark, we stayed at Hotel San Francisco, Damian and I paying 5Q (50 pence!) for use of the roof to string our hammocks, with a glorious view of the lake interrupted only by the steel re-inforcement bars (reebars) poking out of the concrete pillars and the chicken wire fence that I don't think would have broken a fall. Damian won at spoof so got the lakeside spot. We ended up contributing 5Q a night to the girls' room's cost for use of their bathroom too.


One the 2 items on my checklist of things I wanted to do on the road (the other being breakfast on a rooftop terrace) was spend a day on a lake in a canoe. That day was Tuesday, hiring canoes and sailing over to the 'beach', 45 minutes away, and generally larking about on the water. The only thing lacking was ganj, I guess you can't win 'em all.


So yesterday we left San Pedro, and drove to Antigua Guatemala, a colonial town a little removed from the capital of Guate, and found the cheapest digs in town. 38Q each, for a fairly uncomfortable bed in a basic hostel in the middle of town. With a rollmat it was very bearable. Last night as I walked to the super to get ice for mojitos, I passed through a street that was cordened at one end and screened off at the other. Inside, things were setting up for a kids Christmas show. Sadly, the melting ice beckoned me away, but I heard lots of firecrackers from inside our hostel courtyard suggesting fun was had. Then Jordan turned up, having bumped into Damian in the street. He'd made his own way from Xela, and is down from our Krimbo plan...

So, next week, Christmas in the Bay Islands. We need to find somewhere in La Ceiba, the Honduran mainland port to access Utila, to park the car for a week. And stock up, as I hear it's expensive out there. I wonder if Amanda and Mega, who we met at Lanquin, or Julia (in Antigua), or Jay will make it. I hope so.

Guatemala - into Central America propa

Saturday 6th December - Friday 12th December 2008
[seems like I'm doing a lot of week-long sections...]

It's lunchtime, I'm hungover from last night's salubrity, and it's time for a quick driving break and time to catch up. We've blitzed through Northern Guatemala, known as the Petén. Until about 15 years ago, this part of Guate was totally undeveloped, with very little infrastructure. Now, thanks to government funding and Guatemala's main tourist attraction, Tikal, paved roads and supermarkets make the traveller's life that little bit more convenient... Funny how that makes it so much less exciting though.


So the border crossing from Belize into Guatemala at San Ignacio was like walking from one world into another. From the friendly officials of Belize to the grumpy moody Guatemaltecans that can't even be bothered to make eye contact when you present yourself. We did manage to convince them that we weren't going to pay the US$10 entrance into the first CA-4 country though (CA-4 is a 2003 border agreement between Guate, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua to allow free migration between States for residents and non-residents of the CA-4).

Just before this, we had a few drops of some colourless liquid sprayed underneath the car, and were advised we would need to pay for this at a window. The chap asked for 18 Belize Dollars (about £6). I, "really?!?", asked to see the receipt, where beside the number 18 was a Q - for quetzal, the currency of Guatemala. 18Q - £2. Joker.

So after paying the police 50Q (£5) to be allowed in that region (!?!?) we hightailed it to Flores, the nearest town to Tikal, to stay the night before heading to the ruins there. The town reminded me of Venice, if a little less hectic, due to it's narrow cobbled streets, quaint architecture and being surrounded by water, with prices to match.


At the hostel there, we met Emma and Jordan, the latter of whom we hooked up with the next day at Tikal and has been with us since, making it down toward Quetzaltenango (a name locals conveniently shorten to Xela). Here I'll meet up again with my girlfriend and possibly study some Spanish, as she has been doing for the last 2 weeks. I hope she's fluent by now.


Jordan seems like a nice chap. Tori doesn't like him much, but then she has quite a strong personality that you either love or hate. He's a 23 year old cowboy from Oregon, spending most of the year is isolation looking after cattle on a horse, the rest as a guide. I like him because he knows lots of stuff I don't.

Tikal was, frankly, a bit of a wet fart. The stakes were high - £20 entrance fee, notorious for being the biggest and best Mayan ruins in Central America. We got the most out of our cash, by going after 3pm, for which they give you a ticket for the next day. The campsite located just outside the entrance was cheap. So we caught sunset, and then the early morning the next day. It started pissing it down just before sunset, while atop Temple IV, and we were thoroughly soaked by the time we got back to our palapa. In the dark, I then found a red antnest with my bare foot, a feeling similar to walking through a field of stinging nettles naked.


So the stones were impressive, and spending 3 hours atop Temple V holding an orange pip spitting contest whilst simultaneously conducting an informal anthopological survey of visitors who had just climbed the innumerable steps was fun, but I really think there are some great other ruins sites that cost a whole load less. Bah humbug.

Monday we made it to Finca Ixobel, described to Damian by a friend of his as an awesome place with great treehouses, and some fat semi-submarine caves explorable for free. The one treehouse only fitted 2 - the others were houses on 8ft stilts. And the cave was an organised tour, costing bucks. Added, there was a general bad vibe around, and then we heard news that a couple had had their cabin robbed of it's entire contents the day previous. We stayed the night, playing cards with a couple of Israeli girls, and cooked up a storm. I cooked the on-the-road adaption of a Heston Blumenthal classic bolognese, minus the meat. After the 3 and half hours cooking on a fire, it disappeared down our gullets within minutes, to wordless silence. I call that a victory.

Leaving Finca Ixobel as rapidly in the morning as the spaghetti disappeared the night before, we plotted our path to Xela. Next stop, Rio Dulce. Specifically, we parked up at Bruno's, underneath the main bridge over the Rio Dulce. Mainly frequented by old American yaghties, the very charming and hospitable patron let us camp on the lawn outside the hotel for £2 for the night. Hammock and mozzie net for shizzle. I couldn't help notice how we spent most of the evening in our camping chairs around the back of the car, in the middle of the dark car park, sipping hot rum chocolate, rather than anywhere in sight of the Rio, the reason for our being there. A timeless twist on that contemporary classic, the Welsh Cultural Fair. (That's a reference to back home a bunch of us sitting out of the back of my friend's truck at a rave, like English OAPs on a summer's day).

The final stop was in Lanquín, after a beautiful and tortuous drive up, down and around dirt roads not oft travelled by white folk. The expressions of locals as their gazes met our gringo faces was kind and gleeful astonishment, the views over the plains behind us and down unspolit valley after valley unforgettable. We arrived at El Retiro, excited by it's description in Lonely Planet as a backpacker's paradise. Our 15Q (£2) nightly fee for stringing up our hammocks in a room under construction certainly helped the wallet. The amount of Americans and Israelis firmly supported by their trust funds kinda ruined the 'paradise' I expected.

I have since decided ever more firmly to completely ignore Lonely Planet on all counts. As soon as something is described as 'paradise', hundreds of boring travellers arrive by the busload and render the place a nice little earner for the locals (or, usually, the ex-pat owners). I already knew this, I just forgot again.

Notwithstanding my disappointment, Damian and I rocked out another laptop Ableton set in the bar on our last night there, Thursday. None of my mixes worked, so I ended up fading most of the them in and out. Damian's tune selection went down a treat, his oldskool hiphop set from Mazunte. The first half of mine built up alright, no-one knew a single tune (slightly disappointing), but the icing on the cake came when during the heavy part of DJ C's Billy Jungle a random punter came up to me with a crazed look on his face and said "uh, could you turn it down or something, it's too loud". That makes me so happy when people tell me that, that I arouse emotion strong enough to make someone come up to the DJ and ask them to turn it down and play something more boring. This was not uncoincidentally also the guy who earlier on asked me to play more Manu Chao. Oh, please. The rest was great fun, until the bar manager unplugged me mid-song at 12.45am, the facist arse couldn't wait until 1.

Earlier that day we took the self-guided tour to the 'bat-cave', where every sunset about 2 million bats fly out into the night. We found it, 30 minutes walk down a paved road, despite the hostel's staff refusing to explain how to get there unless we paid for the tour. And the tour was led by a 12 year old. Pah.