24-29 Sep - Xela and Lake Atitlan

Xela; Guatemala´s 2nd largest city and a good-looking one at that. We took a chicken-bus to Zunil, a nearby town then a pickup truck for 10 quetzal each (about $1.20) to a hot spring called Fuentes Georginas... the driver then informed us it was 20 quetzal each to get back down... the thermal spring was gorgeous but smelt and tasted pretty heavily of sulphur. We then decided to the walk down-hill (about 8km) and noticed lots of steaming vents in the side of the mountain right by the roadside. Loads of fields of local farmers growing cabbages (repollos), radishes (not sure), onions (cebollas), corn (maíz), flowers (flores) and more.

Lago Atitlan; a huge crater lake at 1560m altitude. Surrounded by 3 volcanoes and numerous villages perched on steep cliff sides it´s an amazing vista. Phil´s going to do an Altitude Diving course sometime during October, since the instructor wasn´t available the few days we were there. We had the fortunate experience of coming face-to-face with a Mayan god - named Maximon, or San Simon, or something... a 3ft wooden statue dressed in traditional clothes with plenty of candles and ´incense´ (if you know what I mean)... Mayans in the area still speak there native language (Spanish a distant second)... the god though... it´s a sad state of affairs when you´re taller than your own deity.

23 Sep - Semuc Champey

We had an interesting, and very scenic 5 hour bus ride from Flores down to Coban, which is pretty much in the centre of Guatemala. Phil spent a recovery day in Coban (still coughing and spluttering from a cold from El Salvador), while I took a package trip to Semuc Champey... beautiful river rock pools, and a cave to explore. The rock pools were vibrantly blue, and interestingly the main river flowed underneath them - through a cavern beneath.

Just down the river, there´s a cave system that you get to climb, wade and swim through with candles providing the only light. I took the waterproof bag (and camera) with me, and used it to float... saving my candle from the soggy deaths several others suffered. It was definitely something that OH&S wouldnt allow at home!

21-22 September - Tikal and Mayan Ruins

We headed back to Antigua where Karen did the Volcan Pacaya climb, enjoyed it also. We seem to be taking it in turns to be sick.

We then caught an overnight bus to see the Mayan ruins of Tikal. Staying in a hostal completely cut from stone in El Remate, overlooking the glorious Lago de Peten Itza.

Yeah, a really impressive place, our guide even explained the Mayan calendar - the solar one with 19 months - and the ritualistic one with only 260 days - and that the mayan End of the World comes about in Dec 2012!




The most impressive part of Tikal wasn`t the temples etc, but that the view from Temple IV was the view used by George Lucas in 5 seconds of footage from the original 1977 Star Wars... the bit where a guard is looking through binoculars across the moon on which the rebels have made a base, and are about to launch their attack on the death star.

I´ll let Karen tell you more about the actual ruins themselves... she`s off going through the cave system near Coban today.

18-19 September - El Impossible

Hey all, Phil here.... we´re back in Guatemala after finishing our week in El Salvador with a walk through the Parque Nacional El Impossible. (I got a cold... still got a blocked nose a week later, ah well).

We´re all finished in El Salvador now, so we´ll be moving back into Guatemala to see what we can before catching the bus up to Oaxaca for volunteer work in October.




El Salvador Round-Up
Our time in El Salvador... a really well-developed place, with lots of modern facilities, western fast food chains and the best roads we´ve come across in Central America. A real gem, but will need to up it´s tourist intake to keep economically competitive with other CA nations.

11-13th Sep - San Salvador and surrounds

San Salvador (city)

San Salvador city has two very distinct sides... the flashy american fast food chains, malls and wide roads... and the inner city gritty, central district with its market area and streetside prostitutes (that took a liking to phil!) We went for a dose of english at the local cinema only to end up watching a russian vampire movie with spanish subtitles and not a hint of english despite being reassured it was in English. (Naomi where are you when we need you!?!) For those that know Phil, you´ll know that he chose the movie, (it´s called Nightwatch back home).

The highlight of the city was Iglesia del Rosario... the lighting was unlike anything we´ve seen to date.

Joya de Ceren
An hour NW out of the city, these are ruins of a Mayan society preserved by the volcanic ash from the eruption of Laguna Caldera Volcano in AD600. Intact are local houses, kitchens, a Mayan sauna. It wasn´t made from the same stone of other Mayan temples, but a variety of building materials available in the local environment.

It provided a really great insight into how local Mayans lived instead of the huge temples around which ceremonial life has been uncovered.

Lago Ilopango
This was a great day. Karen and I went diving in this freshwater active volcanic crater lake. We saw underwater thermal vents, with albino algae growing nearby the white hot rocks... much like the black smokers you´ve seen on documentaries that exist kilometres underwater in the oceanic trenches... quite amazing... plus it was crab season, and hundreds of them all over the bottom. (Karen´s first really low visibility dive - about 2m).

The weird part of the day was the presence of Manuel and Ozvaldo... the star and cameraman of ¨Mas Deportes en 90 Minutes¨... an El Salvador Extreme Sports tv show. It´s on this Sunday, Cable 7 or Local Channel 33, if you get a chance (and happen to be in El Salvador). We were interviewed on camera, and filmed doing backrolls off the boat, and doing tricks and playing with crabs underwater... EXTREEEEMMMEE!!
We´ll try to record it if we can...that is if we´re not on the cutting room floor! I think he tried to sell the two of us as Steve Irwin style aussies doing Extreme Sports around the world.

La Libertad
Flying visit through this Surf Hot Spot, and Fishing Port. There was a great break off the point, but the chocolatey colour water and rocks were a bit off-putting. The pier held a fish-market, with every stage of gutted fish imaginable (you´d have loved it Chuka). There were the odd contraband, including turtle eggs and baby hammerheads. You´ll see the pictures.

10 Sep - Volcan Pacaya

Today, I stared into the face of hell.

(Melodrama aside).... Karen was stuffed today (stomach still a bit dodgy), so I headed to the top of Volcan Pacaya, standing on the edge of magma/lava flows down the side of the volcano, and climbed the volcanic ash slopes to get my lungs burned out by sulphur vents, so I and a couple of english-scottish adventurers could stare straight down to see the fiery pit at the caldera, right at the summit of the beast.

I have video I´ll email around... the flow had moved about 3 meters in the 1.5 hrs I was there... great footage...if you like volcanoes.

7-9 September - Antigua

Well, we're now in Antigua, and the cooking class I mentioned below is where Karen is right now.... I think she's cooking enchiladas, lomalitos, or something.... I'll find out when she brings home lunch!!

Antigua
This is an AWESOME colonial town about an hour from Guatemala city. Very cosmopolitan, full of travellers, but still has successfully blended the best of modern westernism, with the look and feel of something distinctively mayan/guatemalan. , there are also a couple of artesan markets and things, but nothing that's terribly over the top with "kitch".

The view from our window.... the Volcan de Agua.... tomorrow we'll be climbing Volcan Pacaya, an active volcano with a river of "steaming hot magma".


Okay, so Antigua has some corny things... this was the corniest I've seen so far... no it's not a re-enactment... they're advertising a restaurant across the road.


This is the Convento y Iglesia La Merced... the fountain in the centre is a whopping 27m diameter... the largest in Central America (don't ask why, I really can't answer that one)

We visited a convent with a series of concentric cells for nuns to live, pray and work in... see photo below

September - GUATEMALA

Heya....
Just Phil on today, Karen is doing a Guatemalan cooking class...
We've now crossed over into Guatemala. Following Copan we had probably the worlds easiest border crossing before heading to Quirigua... another well-known home of Mayan Ruins. Quirigua is home to the tallest stelae (carved likeness of Mayan rulers) in the Mayan world. Some of these are as tall as 8m above ground (with another 3m below) and weigh about 60 tonnes. The place was hot and humid as hell and has more mosquitoes than Mayans these days.



Livingston
Following Quirigua, we headed to Rio Dulce for a boat ride (which turned out to be in 2 hours of stinging monsoonal rain) on our way to Livingston. We were having deja vu thinking back to Tortuguero in Costa Rica (3hours of Kayak trip in similar conditions). Livingston is another Garifuna dominant town only reachable by boat. We met a Garifuna guy there called Philip also, who introduced us to some local musicians and burnt a CD of local music for Phil. After dinner we had to duck out of the continuing rain, and found ourselves in a Garifuna club, where I got into a heated game of dominoes (for money) with a few of the locals. I came back a few Quetzales short.

Honduras wrap-up

We spent all of August in Honduras...wow. So here´s our thoughts:

Best place - Karen liked the chilled beachtown of Trujillo. Phil only saw the 300m between the pool and the dive boats in Utila.

Best food - Fresh strawberries in La Esperanza or fish and coconut soup in Trujillo. Phil had a hamburger once in Utila.

Worst trip - Close tie between cockroach-infested bus between San Pedro Sula and Trujillo or the ferry out to Utila (Karen was seasick!). Phil was pretty hungover a couple of times walking down to Utila Dive Centre.

People - Out of the big cities people were curious and up for a friendly chat. Big cities felt edgy, especially with the police out in force following some high profile murders, kidnappings and gang drugwars. The numerous she-males in Utila freaked Phil out.

Study - Karen enjoyed learning further Spanish and reading the newspaper and understanding current affairs. Phil, well, you get the picture. Karen loved her Open Water course too!

Copan and Utila were pretty touristy, the rest of the country is pretty much off the main gringo trail.

Overall: Thumbs Up.

02-03 Sep - Copan, Mayan Ruins

Hi all,
Having reunited we made our way down to Copan, on the Honduran/Guatemalan border to see the famed Mayan ruins.

The Town - Copan Ruinas
Small colonial town with a good feel to it and enough tourists passing through to ensure that there is good food, but not too many to ruin the place.
We posted home all Phil`s books, which cost as much as it was to buy them! We are sure we also provided some amusement to the post office staff who were intent on breaking down the boxes we had into about 6 miniature parcels to get them under the limit... honestly, who can fit a backpack into a 10cm by 5cm box? The boxes were that tiny we COVERED them with about 37-40 stamps per parcel.. no franking stamps available.

The Ruins
Impressive. Definitely impressive. A large open plaza filled with stelae - 8 ft intricately stone-carved reliefs showing impressions of the rulers of the time. Multiple stairways, temples, a ballcourt and random statues and carvings in the individual brickwork throughout the site. We took over a hundred photos to give you some idea.... we can see you salivating now, waiting for the slide show when we get back!

Like much of Central America, there was unfortunately a lack of information on the rituals, ceremonies and general daily life... they really rely on you hiring a guide to show you around at exorbitant prices. We heard one English-speaking guide try to relate a hieroglyphic stairway to Led Zeppelins `Stairway to Heaven`. But that said, we did eavesdrop on some interesting information from another guide about the ballgames.

The ballgames the Mayans played was in an I-shaped court with sloping walls in the middle section... the idea was to keep the ball in the air... a little like old-time volleyball. The winners were killed to celebrate the glory. Good motivation to stay in the B-team.

We lastly ventured into the local Museum which houses a lot of the original statues, as many of these are being protected from the elements. Interestingly, archaeologists are fairly definite this site was abandoned because the population outstripped the local resources and agriculture couldn`t sustain them. Evidence of malnutrition was found in skeletons nearby.

31 Aug - I´m now an Instructor!

Hi all,
Sorry for the silence over the last couple of weeks... it´s been pretty busy in the classroom, the pool and out on the dive sites around Utila.

But it´s all been worth it. On Wednesday we finished two days worth of our IE, Instructor Examination, and I´m now a CPR Primary/Secondary Care Instructor and a PADI OPEN WATER SCUBA INSTRUCTOR!

The Instructor Development Course - IDC

I´d like to give a big plug for Utila Dive Centre and the Mango Inn. A comfortable, clean place to stay and a professional outfit to dive with. The Instructors at UDC are fun to work with, and there´s a palpable pride and outward enthusiasm in those working at UDC.

My hat´s off to Andy Phillips and Neil Ross who are the Course Directors. They provided the professionalism you expect, the content and quality you need, and the diving and fun that you want!

They took us through everything from PADI Business to making sure your students have fun at the weekly BBQ - actually the BBQ and PADI Business are not that far apart!

The course itself covered a variety of topics, from teaching the Open Water, Advanced, Rescue and Divemaster courses to Specialties which we can now teach, and also the other legal, quality and risk management aspects of the diving industry. The confined water (pool/dock) and open water sessions were always interesting, always more to learn about giving briefings and making sure student divers concentrate on the positives as well as solving the problems that might crop up.

I also have to say thanks to Andy for the try-dive with a Closed Circuit Rebreather, many thanks, it´s confirmed for me the direction I want my diving to go. I´ll see you back in Utila with a CCR of my own.

The Instructor Examination - IE
Two guys from PADI Americas came down and on Tuesday we did the written exams, covering Standards, Physics, Physiology, Equipment, Environment and Decompression Theory. Then on Wednesday we had a VERY full day.

In the morning
- Out for the Open Water and teach two skills, and
- Conduct a Rescue on an unresponsive diver, providing rescue breaths every 5 seconds while removing tank and equipment then towing them to the boat.

Then in the afternoon
- Teach a confined water skill
- Demonstrate 5 out of the 20 skills needed for Open Water students
- In the classroom and do a presentation on an aspect of one of the dive courses.

That was the whole thing!!! We´d all qualified, and were about to be set loose on the diving industry!

That night Neil and Andy treated us to dinner at a local Italian restaurant, La Piccola, where one of the Staff Instructors, Angel, introduced us to providing teaching-quality demonstrations of how to drink Tequila Slammers by licking the salt from the neck of the girl sitting next to you... (No, Karen, I didn´t!)

The People
I´ve had a brilliant time in Utila. The sole reason is the people I had the good fortune to work with. My IDC Crew included (in no particular order):

Manuel - a funny, smart ex-pat Spaniard, who is a qualified pilot, was an engineer on the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, and is now a Scuba Instructor also! With an open-door policy at his place, you always know you´re welcome to visit, just hang out or do whatever.
Lionel (Jacques Mayol) - A bloody good guy who I´ve been having breath-holding competitions with.... I got up to 3 mins 30 secs, but Lionel reached 3 mins 54 secs. Email me when you break 4 mins! I´ll be training too... the competition continues!
Roberto - ¨El Presidente¨. A Honduran business dynamo. Either he or one of his brothers will be President of Honduras one day. His pride and joy were his new fins, which we managed to steal off him during a dive at about 35m deep the other day!!
Annie - The incredibly motivated one of our team! An intelligent, funny person who´ll be going home to be a lawyer, but I reckon will find some reason to get back to Utila before long.... oh, and don´t let her get anywhere near Piña Coladas!
Damien - The only other Aussie on our team, a piss-funny world traveller from Sydney who has had the luck to get to Antarctica... I´m bloody jealous. He´s staying in Utila to work for a while... stay in touch mate!
Brandy and Morgan - The hilarious Colorado couple who began travelling Central America, landed in Utila, and 3-4 months later had investing everything in becoming Rescue divers, Divemasters, then Assistant Instructors, and now Instructors.
Cyril and Pauline - the Swiss couple, most of us were blinded by being forced to see Cyril walk around in Speedos the whole time!
Maurizio, Felipe, Pablo, Pepe - The bloody funny Spanish Speaking crew who did their IDC with Angel, the Spanish Instructor... they had us all in fits of laughter, if not tears most of the time.

A quick note to everyone above, stay in touch, and if you ever find yourself heading to Australia, you´ll always have a home.