Bye bye Guatemala Hello Honduras

So I got a 4am bus to Copan Ruinas just into Honduras past the Guatemalan Border. We arrived about 11am. Everything in Guatemala seemed slow and inefficient. What a change just crossing a border made!!!

So, at the bus breakfast break I met an Australian woman named Christine, who is doing a 3 month trip by herself at the age of 56. Pretty impressive. So we stayed in the same place, had some lunch in Copan Ruinas - a cute town, but not much to do. We were joined by an American girl, called Melissa who Christine had met previously in Guatemala and we decided to go to these thermal spa. We had to hire a mini bus. Melissa was about 10 mins late and the lady at the cafe who had organised the transportation

for us was going slightly mental and asking me why she wasn't there. There was a lot of stress. It was a big deal for the driver to wait for 5 minutes. It was such a cultural change from Guatemala and Mexico. And I'm not sure I liked it!!!

Here are some pics of the thermal baths. If you've ever been to Banos in Ecuador you'll see they were nothing like that!

Antigua de Guatemala

So, this is Antigua. It's pretty cool. Dan and Stephanie (who I met in Lago Atitlan) were both here too so I've been hanging out with them which is really nice. And the guys from Mayapedal made it here for the weekend so we had a proper night out - 8 people - last night which was fun. It felt a little like being in London as Antigua is quite posh by CAM standards!

San Andres Iztapa - Mayapedal

The bici-licuadora - great way to make a smoothie for breakfast.

And a bici-taxi. Carlos's June's assignment. It took him 1 month to make.

This is the view from the rooftop at Mayapedal.

This is the stash of fixed up bikes....although some still had dodgy brakes!

Cass and Jules fixing some bikes up.

I arrived in San Andres Iztapa about 6pm last Sunday just before a storm hit. Chacon (Spanish, and vegan - so obviously unusual), Nina and Iliah (Swiss couple - very nice) and Juliette (English, young, incredibly intelligent and very sweet) and Cass (36, English cycled here from Alaska) were all there volunteering too.

It was a really nice week. Carlos and his son Carlitos who run the place were very kind too. They were working on the bici-taxi above while we fixed up bikes which are sold to cover the costs of making the bici-maquinas which help indigenous people stay in their small towns rather than having to head to the tourist cities to make money.

Above is a picture of the bici-licuadora. It shows our breakfast smoothie before and after.

On Monday Mayapedal held it's monthly meeting. A few woman from far away villages who use the machines made - eg to make aloe vera natural shampoo (I bought a bottle) came and to be honest I didn't really have a clue what was going on but we had a nice meal. We appeared to be eating it in the living room of the family who owned the restaurant as the restaurant was too small. So I was poked with straws by two small children throughout.

Wednesday we were invited to a birthday party of a man who had something to do with bikes, but never really quite got to the bottom of what. Again nice food and interesting to be with a Guatemalan family. They seemed quite wealthy.

The town has 36k inhabitants. It's on a hill - great for testing out the bikes we fixed. Everywhere in Guatemala is hilly. For some silly reason I thought it a good idea to go for a bike ride with Cass on Friday morning at 6am. I really should have known that when a guy who cycled from Alaska told me it was a fairly easy ride, it was going to be relative!

Friday pm I caught a bus to Antigua.

Carlos told us that most buses don't have brakes that work, that a lot of bus drivers don't have licenses and that they go so quickly as they have to pick up enough fares so as not to be in debit to the bus driver owner at the end of the day. Safety is not a concern.

He also told us that Guatemalan's believe that obese Americans are that fat because they eat small children. Discuss....

Todos Santos, a bit of history

This is a Guatemalan sauna.

Todos Santos is at the highest point in Central America. It's absolutely beautiful. They have horrible food. Lots of dogs, and everyone wears the same. See picture below.

They take sauna's in their houses. We took one. It's small! It was really quite surreal. In a town where no alcohol is drunk I think they expected us to strip in front of them on their balcony!

They don't like having their photo taken. We only managed this one as we paid these two guys $40 to take us to the bus stop. Still our journey to where I am writing this from consisted of: the car in the picture Todos Santos to Tres Caminos, microBus down the mountain to road stop, a walk through the road in construction, another microbus to Huehue centre, a local microbus to the

highway near the terminal, a walk through the market, a chicken bus to Cuatro Caminos, a "first class" bus to Los Encuentros, another chicken bus to Sonina (we think) a sort of taxi to Panajachel and a boat to San Pedro. Thankfully it's lovely here despite the rain!

Leaving Huehue for Todos Santos, little did we know

We were told that the bus took 2 hours to do 39km up a mountain. Fine. It didn't. The roads were blocked at many points as they were re-tarmacing them. So about every 45 mins we stopped for 30. At one point our microbus driver decided to jump the queue. In the process ran over a child's foot, and then came face to face with the largest lorry I've ever seen. So it decided to reverse incredibly badly. We were on the edge of the highest mountain in Central America. There was just a big fall. Nothing to prevent us going over. All I could think was "Well if this is the end I've had a nice life". Dan dragged me OFF the bus. It started to POUR with rain. This was not the highlight of Guat, thank god.

In the end the dispute over child's foot was over and the bus did a million point turn and got back into the queue. We got back on. The view from Todos Santos was (sort of) worth the journey! See above.

There was even less to do here than in Huehue but culturally it was more interesting.

Huehue and Zaculeu Ruins

So we arrived in time for some Tacos on the street. Still not ill.... The food in Guat is also considerably poorer than that of Mexico. Maybe I'll lose weight after all. There is nothing to do in Huehue but I found a nice coffee house, a pretty horrible hotel, and a bus to the ruins. The ruins were lovely. I was the only person there. I'm sure I'd be the only person there all week and the only English person all year according to the guest book. It was a very tranquil experience looking over the imposing mountains at the top of a pyramid.

The journey back took ages, waiting for a chicken bus. And I had no idea what lay ahead for the rest of the day!

leaving mexico

So on Tuesday I finally left Mexico really early in the morning. Just a few days later and it feels like forever ago now!

Dan came with me which was nice as it wasn't really a touristy crossing. A few stamps in the passport and only 4 hrs later we crossed the boarder and headed onto Huehuetenango. The lower standard of living was noticable straight away. Not just because of the chicken buses.

Which reminds me...when Hannah and I were in Ecuador there were actually chickens on the chicken buses, here there are just lots of people.