"That wasn't gay, that was just a poor attempt"

Still a bit drunk from the night before, I dunno the last time I wrote in my blog whilst I was drunk....maybe Canada.

This is me tryna start an entry without the word "so", and it's hard! Shows how low my vocabulary really is!

Carrying on from where I left off.....ill......ill again! I think I've only actually been ill twice since leaving England, then I came to Central America and I've been ill twice in two weeks. I was completely fine whilst writing my last post and then literally an hour after writing it...Uh Oh.....down hill, and on a travel day! I wouldn't say I was sick, but I would say that I lost a lot of water. A LOT!

I awoke very slowly and we headed for Honduras via Guatemala all I can say about the bus ride is that I was grumpy on the buses and lazy, very lazy and happy off the buses at the border crossings. And Germans don't like to make the ride easy if they know you're ill.

Leaving El Salvador and into Guatemala....

....And into Honduras a few hours later.

I'm no longer drunk now as I'm writing this a few hours later then what's writing above, but I really dunno what happened there, I woke up with a bruised shoulder, and when I was in the shower earlier this evening I noticed I cut/bruised my ass cheek....I dunno! But more on that in a bit further down!

When we arrived in Honduras we headed up to Copán and I was still feeling rough and grumpy, I think the final thing that pushed me over the edge was when they managed to get my toast wrong at the well over priced restaurant.......seriously, who gets toast so wrong, really!!!!! I was tempted to do the Mayan ruins, but as soon as it started raining! Bed for me, I was already grumpy enough at that point. But I did drag myself out that evening so that I could at least do something in Honduras.

The following morning looking down on Copán from the lookout!

Some Mayan language, I should know which one, but like I said, I was ill

Aint travelling fun!

It's kinda hard for me to form any fair opinion on Honduras as I was only there for a night, and ill for most of it, but what I did see of it I can safely say it's pretty and full of helpful people, even if they speak Spanish that was way too fast for me to keep up with.

Later that day we headed onto the Guatemala boarder again.

Bimbos everywhere!

I passed a MASSIVE billboard a bit later that literally just said "FANNY"...I really wish I had my camera ready for that, I have no idea what the actual product was though!

Antigua bound!

I managed to get the energy up for salsa lessons later, no way I was missing that! After that we headed out for what seemed like the 2nd of 3 "goodbye" nights! And that last bar really did smell like piss and puke....what more do you want from a night out!

?

Walking around the town! With a "Stupid Canadian, doesn't have an idea" guiding us around!

Elke, always a happy German, but the worst German teacher ever, "Can we practise some more German on the bus today", "Ooooooh, Nein, you never learn"...to be far she has a very good point!

"Papa don't prick"

It happened, I found religion! Cerro de la Cruz.

Not a bad view of Antigua, my favourite part of the day for sure!

We headed out again that night, for what I'm pretty sure was the last "goodbye" night, Antigua nightclubs, interesting, very early closing times! Gained 5 and lost 10, means more room on the buses. Wasted the next day in Antigua before getting the Chicken buses towards Lake Atitlán

The markets at Chichcastenango. I hate shopping so much!

Lago de Atitlán with Panajachel on the left there!

That's beer in that mug that we gave to him, he didn't drink much but he still got pretty drunk, sneezing then stumbling up the stairs!

Brekkie the following morning!

On the boat over Lago de Atitlán

The first stop, Santiago Atitlán, I think!

Which chicken logo would win a fight, the answer's not as obvious as you might think!

Stop 2, San Pedro, a little hippy town!

Alicia, Gigi, Carlotta and I took a tok-tok tour of the town, looking down on San Pedro

Lunch at ZooLa, a very Amsterdam feel!

And the final stop for the day, San Jaun

Diego, really nice guy, and he was teaching me his form of Mayan, Tzutujil. Here he is talking about coffee!

Then spent the night in another homestay with our awesome hosts Maria, Raul y familia. Awesome local food, and their first language is Tzutujil Maya so I found out my name is A'quell (but you really gotta roll them l's with you tongue, really weird and hard to say, bit like me!). I could follow a lot of the conversation this time, just missing the context in a lot of places, but at least it means my Spanish understanding is starting to get better, the speaking part is slowly getting there.

The view in the morning

After a short boat ride, breakfast!

Back in Panajachel before jumping on the bus back to Antigua.

The start of the climb up Pacaya Volcano

Not something you see every day!

Why do thay put these signs up, this is a really poor traducción, it actually says, "Danger - go have a look" so we did!

After we got down the bottom we chilled with a well deserved beer (like they all are) before we got hassled by a hoard of local kids, loadsa fun teaching them tricks! We then headed back to our hotel, and we finally got to do our BBQ that Gigi and I have been talking about for weeks! playing with fires is always fun, Chris' comment of "so this is what happens when I get a group with mostly guys":

This was in our hotel court yard!

The following day (yesterday) we headed to Guatemala City via Chicken bus, before getting a 6 hour coach ride to Rio Dulce

Really!

Rio Dulce, home of two double burgers for Q20, less than 2pounds (stupid American keyboard)

Leaving on a short boat ride

Arriving at the Jungle Lodge

I did get more pictures of the lodge, but they were crap, so I will try to remember to take some before I leave in the morning.

Another thoughtful birthday pressie

...And I did! I even did a You, a got Kings Cup!

And so explains last night...all if that cost me about Q60, less than 6pounds! I found out today that I drank all of that

Carrying on from where I started this entry! Last night, so messy, I was even coming out with ego boosting lines like "I don't get it mate, the ladies just love me, they all do....and I don't even try, I don't get it" and I remember saying it, and I remember really believing it as I was saying it...I really dunno! I did call myself out on that oone this morning cos I found my own ego boost so random. And I've just walked around this complex sober, I have no idea how I got home OK and dry last night, I really think I can only thank Alicia for that as it's all thin decking above a river/swamp. It has been fun piecing the puzzle together of last night's events with everyone! I managed to break two chairs, I can only remember breaking the first one, playing Shark Attack is just not safe! We apparently even asked the Security Guard if we could hold his shot gun, I don't remember seeing a Security Guard. Although I have just been speaking to him in my awesome broken Spanish, and he did have a big grin on his face when he saw me. Fun fun night, what did I learn, Super Coke has no flavour, and Belgium "Whiskey" or cheap Paint Stripper is fun but deadly! Even though it's been raining here pretty much the whole time since we arrived, I did get up early today though and a few of us got on the public bus (basically a van) to a thermal waterfall, the water at the base was pretty cold, but the actual waterfall is thermal, really random and amazing.

Caving with the locals

Random bat cave

The view from the top

Istian after laying in the thermal water for a while, pretty red. Crazy Norwegians

Guatemala, what can I say, I love it! I think I spent way too much time in Antigua, in fact I know I did, but travelling in cities is very smaie, but apart from that it's pretty chill here, with volcanoes and awesome huge lakes everywhere, and again people are so friendly here, and my Spanish is getting a little bit better but still got a few laughs out of people today for my broken Spanish, but getting there and it's clear they appreciate the effort, and I enjoy looking like a struggling fool!

Tomorrow will be heading to Tikal, so I should be able to see some Mayan ruins this time, also on Saturday finally heading to Belize, I've been wanting to go to Belize since well before I left England, it was almost my first stop off when I left!

Also, Happy Australia Day to all you Aussies down-under for today. Can't believe it's been a whole year since I fell out of a trolley!