Doin it up in G-Mala!

Fate works itself in funny ways. The day Eri flew out of Cancun I replied to an email from Mr B. Walker who walked into my hostel room a few hours later. He had just returned from Cuba with rich and was staying just around the corner in the hotel I checked out of that morning. After realising we had more or less the same plan for the next few weeks and he & Rich had a spare seat in their car we took off the next morning for Central America. We drove south down the Carribean coast and after a night in Chetumal crossed the border into Guatemala.

Not knowing what to expect we were all pleasantly suprised by the awesomeness of the little country. First up we checked out the famuos Tikal ruins early in the morning when the loal wildlife was most active. The howler monkeys were very vocal and a little creepy. Then we made our way to the awesome colonial town of Antigua which has some of the best food Ive had all trip at dirt cheap prices. Needless to say we indulged and frequently used the phrase "do it up" when making decisions. The highlight of our time there was definately climbing the active volcanoe where you can walk to within metres of flowing lava. Naturally it was damn hot.

After a pit stop for one night in lake Atitlan which was a cool spot. We headed on to Xela which is known for its cheap and good Spanish courses. Me & Ben enrolled at a school for five hours a day tuition and homestay with a local family for five days. Unfortunately my teacher was pretty shitty, he was a young dude who had also lived in Japan and just wanted to talk about it, usually in Spanish till I became confused then he would revert to English. He way over estimated my Spanish level and didnt bother teaching me the basics. So I changed teachers for the last two days which was a million times better. Our host family was very nice and the meals were decent but a bit bland. Im not as big a fan of beans as the locals. In our five days we did loads of stuff like salsa, visited hot springs, went to the local fair and on the Friday night we joined in the Independence Day festivities and got pretty loose. All in all Xela was good to us but it was too cold due to its altitude, a far cry from the beaches in Mexico.

Next on the agenda is scuba diving in Honduras via a surfing pit stop in El Salvador.