Bienvenidos a Guatemala!

Summary  Our first two weeks in Guatemala have mostly been spent in the lovely historic town of Antigua – we would thoroughly recommend a visit if you are ever over this way!

Dom is off learning Spanish, so it falls to me to write the next part of the blog! No, don’t worry I’ll try and keep it brief! We crossed the border into Guatemala from Belize smoothly, and changed up our Belizean dollars into Quetzals. We headed straight to the Parque National Tikal, and managed to snag the last (and obviously most expensive) room at the Jaguar Inn, it was that or camping in a tent!

Tikal is huge site, full of Mayan ruins. At it’s height the population of Tikal was between 50 and 100 thousand and was first occupied around 600 BC. The site was finally abandoned around the 10th century. We spent an afternoon battling mosquitoes and having a wander around the ruins. There were many animals around, including coaties, spider monkeys (which we saw swinging through the trees), howler monkeys (which we only heard roar!)

The following morning I opted to join a sunrise tour of the site, with a 4am start – Dom couldn’t be bothered to get up so early, so opted for the lazy stay in bed tour! It was still dark, and our group was the first to arrive at the top of Temple IV. We sat in total darkness and listened to massive roars of the howler monkeys, which didn’t seem that far away, and then all of a sudden there was a total eerie silence. Coincidence or not, shortly after a noisy group of Germans turned up and started to eat their packed breakfasts…

There wasn’t much of a sunrise unfortunately but the mist and low cloud added an air of mystery. We made our way back down, and our guide pointed out lots of interesting birds along the way, including the very special Toucan!

Once Dom had woken up , we spent the afternoon in the pretty island town of Flores, which meant taking a tuk tuk over the bridge, which was great fun! The afternoon was spent overlooking the lake and drinking coffee and watching the sun go down with a couple of Cuba Libres.

Then the time had come for us to board our Maya Gold class executive special double decker bus for the 8 hour overnight trip to Guatemala City. It was freezing on the bus, luckily we had worn plenty of layers and fleece jackets. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but the seats did almost fully recline and I did manage to get some sleep, unfortunately Dom didn’t, especially with the woman in the seat in front of me snoring the whole way there…

There was a bit of confusion once we arrived at Guatemala City, all the locals got off, but the Gringos hadn’t realised that we’d actually arrived, so we hurriedly got off the bus, and boarded the shuttle for our ultimate destination, Antigua. Getting out of Guatemala City was easy, the traffic going into the City was 4 lanes of solid traffic. We arrived bleary eyed at around 7am, and the pretty colonial town of Antigua was just beginning to wake up.

We set off for the Parque Central, where we spent a couple of hours lounging in the sunshine. I was leafing through our trusty Footprint guide, when a local guy approached and asked to take a look at the guide, slightly nervously I handed it over. Turns out he was a Spanish teacher, and his school was listed in the first edition of the book, and he was checking if he was still in there. Dom had expressed an interest in learning Spanish while we were here, so it seemed a fortuitous meeting! (never mind that Antigua is teeming with Spanish schools).

Dom signed up for 20hrs of Spanish lessons over 5 mornings with Vinicio – who used to play Basketball in his youth, which meant I got to wander round Antigua and enjoy the sunshine and coffee – result! We also got to stay with a local family so Dom could practice his new found language skills, many thanks to Blanca, Neri, Fabia, and Carla for welcoming us into their home, where we were fed handsomely 3 meals a day – of mostly very tasty vegetables.

Vinicio didn’t work over the weekend, so we took the opportunity to visit the black sand seaside town of Monterico, with its beach that stretched from horizon to horizon, and would burn your feet if you stood too long in the midday sun.

The highlight of the weekend was the releasing of 25 newly hatched baby Olive Ridley turtles. At 5.30pm an area of the beach was sectioned off, and we were each handed an ebony black baby turtle, it almost didn’t look real, like it had been carved out of wood. On the count of 3, we released our baby turtles on to the cool black sand beach, and watched them waddle into the sea.

Some of them took longer than the others, and it was like they were waiting to hear the waves crash on the beach so they knew exactly which direction they should be going. Once they were swallowed up by the waves, they had to get out to the Pacific Ocean by themselves, and then no one really knows where they go! I felt very privileged to have witnessed such an extraordinary sight, I hope Rico and Monte live long and happy lives, and will hopefully return to the beach to have babies of their own!

Marlin: Crush, wait. How old are you?
Crush: Hundred and fifty, and still young dude. Rock on.

They release around 42,000 hatchlings a year, they buy the eggs from locals who gather them from the beaches – and would likely have sold them on as food otherwise.

We spent the evening, eating fresh fish by the sea, and drinking 70p Mojitos (it was happy hour). Walking along the sea in the dark we spotted some tiny flashes of light in the water, like fireflies. We knew from diving that this was phosphoresence in the water, tiny critters that light up when agitated. I even managed to scoop one up in my hand and it blinked at me 😉

After not getting sunburnt (yay!) we headed back to the more temperate climate of Antigua, where Dom finished off his Spanish lessons, and I drank more coffee.

One of the best places we found to eat was the Cactus Taco bar. A tiny place but the Fish Tacos and Blackberry Mojito were really great…!

On Saturday we took a tour of one of the local coffee plantations: Finca Filadelfia, which was very interesting. They sell premium grade coffee primarily to Japan, Korea and Europe (we may have bought some of their green beans previously?) and we were shown the entire process from planting and grafting the seedlings right through to drying and sorting the picked beans. And then we had some very nice fresh coffee. Delicious! Muy Rico!

Washed Coffee beans drying on the terrace:

Monday was quiet in town, with many places closed, so we walked up the hill out of town to the Tenedor del Cerra – a restaurant / art / events complex built on the hill overlooking the town. It was quite a hike up but well worth the views at the top. The placed was closed on Mondays but that meant we could wander round the site un-troubled and it was well worth the visit.

There´s even a Helipad:

On Tuesday we booked a scooter tour with a local rental company. Our guide, Freddy, took us on an excursion out of the town to the North, up the valley to Parramos and out into the open, rural landscape. We stopped at a popular recreation park (like Butlins, but hotter) where we flew across the lake twice on a zip-wire.

Go scooter go!!

Freddy also took us to a local shrine, dedicated to “Maximon” – a local folk-hero to whom people go for good luck, blessings, and all the usual things (see Wikipedia). It was not religious as such, but very much a part of local folklore. Outside the small building people would burn offerings of food, light coloured candles, and leave part-smoked cigars for Maximon, as he was fond of a smoke.

Check out those cigars…!

We made such good time (burning along on our 150cc twist-and-go scooters) that Freddy offered to take us to one of the other Tour sites – the very hippy and remote “Earth Lodge”, high on the hillside above Antigua. What a fabulous spot! We had a bit of lunch sat in the sunshine overlooking Antigua, the volcanoes, and with the coffee plantations of Finca Filadelfia nestling below us. Food was great, and the run back down the hill was a lot of fun. Must have made 50kmh…!!

On our last day in Antigua, we went to the fruit and veg market and bought some mangoes, plus some unidentified purple fruit… And then went back to the Cactus Taco bar for one last time!

Fittingly for our last night we had some lovely clear views of the volcanoes:

Here’s a list of places we went to, more for our benefit than yours, dear readers, so that we’ll remember it!

Rainbow cafe
Dona Luisa Xicotecl – banana bread
Cafe Refugio
Fernando’s cafe – great chocolate
Cactus taco bar – fish tacos and burritos, blackberry mojitos
Sunrise Canadian pizza bar
Cafe portal on the square
Cafe No Se
Mono Loco

For more photos, see the set on Flickr, here…

Central America: Part 1, Belize

Summary  We’ve had ten days of beach-life on the islands of Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker: diving, snorkeling and chilling out. Then a week inland at San Ignacio, visiting Mayan ruins, exploring caves and canoeing, as well as just hanging out, drinking beer. The weather has been patchy, often raining but never cold. Next stop: Guatemala

We flew to Mexico on January’s 12, swapping Chelmsford’s -2 degrees C for the blazing 30+ heat of Cancun.

From the airport we took the air-conditioned ADO bus to Playa del Carmen – through flat but green countryside. We’d booked a Private Room at the Green Villa hostel, which turned out to be the other end of town from the bus station, so a lengthy trek down the resort’s main street was tough in the heat! We actually ended up with a dorm of bunk beds to ourselves, which was not great but ok for one night only…

Slept ok then up and out to get the bus to Chetumal, from where we’d planned to take a boat to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye, Belize. Arrived there only to find the boat was full so took the advice of a guide and got a Taxi to the border, and then a Belizean taxi to the nearby airstrip and a Tropic Air flight to San Pedro. This felt like quite a treat, and saved a lengthy boat journey, so well worth the extra cost.

Landed at San Pedro and shared a cab to Pedro’s Inn, the hostel we’d booked for the next few days. Pedro’s is owned by a guy called Peter, originally from Amersham as it happened, so he was familiar with Bovingdon. They have a couple of pools and a bar selling pretty good pizzas, as well as the ubiquitous Belizean beer, Belikin.

The room was pleasant enough, and it was only a short walk to both the seafront and the centre of town. We booked two dives the next day with Ambergris Divers, and had some tasty food at Wild Mango’s cafe.

There’s only one main paved street in Ambergris Caye and the traffic is almost entirely made up of golf carts and bicycles plus the occasional taxi or pickup. It’s small enough to walk everywhere, stopping at cafes and bars as you please. Some bigger, swankier resorts along the beach-front like Ramon’s Village, but it’s mostly shabby-chic at best.

A couple of little highlights were the Reef seafood restaurant, and almost opposite, fabulous ice-cream and sorbets from DandE’s.

The diving was a little disappointing – the weather was very mixed, and they’d had a lot of rain the last few months so that may explain the poor visibility, but also there was very little marine life in evidence. On the first dive it was so bad that I was actually surprised when I saw a fish after about 20 minutes!

The second dive was an improvement – lots of soft ferns and coral and rather more fish, although still lacking in variety, and not much small stuff visible. Saw plenty of Nurse Sharks however.

Prices for the renowned “Blue Hole” were about $300 each so we decided to move on to Caye Caulker for a few days, about 20 mins by water taxi.

Caye Caulker is even more laid back – it’s like one big beach with wooden shacks built on it. The streets are all just white sand, all the shops and stalls are independent local businesses and lots of houses offer food or laundry services. It has a slightly dodgy reputation but I suspect that’s only in evidence if you stay out late drinking into the night. We felt very safe and welcomed wherever we went.

On Saturday we went Snorkeling with a local tour operator – sadly the weather was poor again and we were freezing in the boat as it crashed and banged it’s way to the Hol Chan marine reserve. Snorkeling was tricky in fairly choppy waters but we did see Eagle Rays, lots of Stingrays and Nurse Sharks, a couple of Turtles and some big shoals of fish, Snappers and smaller reef-fish. And a Conger Eel for good measure 🙂

On Sunday it was hot and sunny as we walked south along the beach down to the nature reserve, past the airstrip. Saw a baby stingray in the shallows and an Osprey drying it’s wings perched high in a tree. Just around the corner the female was in the nest atop a telegraph pole. Walked back up the shore stopping for coffee and a rum-ball at ‘Ice-n-beans’, then back to base to chill out.

We had booked a three-dive Blue Hole trip with Frenchies Divers for Tuesday so Monday was a day for lazing about on the various jettys in the sun. We had to be at Frenchies for 4:30 to sort out our dive gear, then headed to the ‘split’ at the North end of the island for a sun-downer and stopped by the coffee shop for a bag of mini-doughnuts 😛 Then got caught in a sudden downpour heading back to the hotel.

That evening we ate at Pasta del Caso – lovely fresh pasta, red wine and great deserts, and then watched the 8:30 showing at the outdoor cinema: Wolf of Wall Street.

Up at 5am for the Blue Hole trip, we boarded the boat as the daylight arrived, speeding out into the open water. The Blue Hole dive took us down to 40m, so that was the first dive if the day. Much anticipated, it was something of a let down in dull conditions and average visibility, with almost no marine life in evidence. Some huge stalactites made an impression but it was otherwise dull… more of a ‘Grey Hole’ quite frankly!!

Thankfully the other two reef dives were much more interesting, with plenty to see: turtles, rays, sharks, a Conger and three Octopi all sharing the same rocky outcrop at the end of the final dive. More like it! In between we had lunch at a small island with a red-footed Booby colony. Also spotted iguanas and plenty of Frigate birds.

Wednesday morning we checked out and took the water-taxi to Belize City, then walked to the Bus terminal and got a bus to San Ignacio, through lush countryside, becoming more hilly as we left the coast. The bus was busy: people constantly getting on and off. We got to San Ignacio early afternoon and found a cheap room (US$25) before wandering around the town a bit. Booked a tour to the ATM Cave for the next day, had some cold beer and an ice-cream and then returned to the room to shower and chill out.

Thursday’s trip to the cave system at Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) (http://www.pacztours.net/actun-tunichil-muknal) turned out to be even more intrepid than I imagined. Started easily enough, with a bumpy minivan-ride to the site, in the Tapir Mountain Nature Reserve, just south of San Ignacio. Wearing only clothes that we were prepared to get wet, we then hiked for 45 minutes to the cave entrance, including three waist-high river crossings.

The entrance itself is the outflow of a stream which runs through some 11kms of limestone caves, and we had to swim into the mouth to start exploring the caves themselves… we had helmets and heads torches but were often waist-deep and sometimes swimming in the clear, cool, fast-flowing water. After much clambering and squeezing through gaps we reached some big caverns complete with Mayan pottery and several sets of skeletal remains – quite eerie as you can imagine!!!

The rock formations and crystalline deposits were stunning but cameras were not allowed so no pictures we have no photos but it was an amazing experience. We returned, muddy and damp but quite exhilarated 🙂

On Saturday we went to the local market in the morning and then headed up the hill to Cahal Pech (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahal_Pech) – a Mayan ruin just outside the town. It was drizzling lightly, but still warm and my boots had almost dried out after the cave tour…! Cahal Pech is one of the oldest Mayan sites in Western Belize, having been occupied in some form since 1200 BC. It was rediscovered relatively recently, with excavation / restoration starting in 1988 and completed in 2000.

Saturday night on Burns Avenue – the local hospital – was a little more busy than usual, with plenty of by now familiar faces outside ‘Flayvas Bar’ and the ‘Wing Stop’ opposite and a nice, friendly atmosphere.

The sunshine returned on Sunday so we sought advice from Bob at Pacz Tours and took a ‘Collectivo’ taxi (runs on fixed routes and will pick up as many passengers as possible) out towards the river crossing from where we walked up to the spectacular Xunantunich Mayan city remains, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xunantunich) near the border with Guatemala.

A large site, prominent from c. 600 AD, the highlight is the 40m high ‘castillo’ from the top of which you can see for miles in all directions: West into Guatemala, and East as far as Belize City on the coast. We spent a good hour at the top, sat in shade on the cool stone looking out over the landscape. Fabulous 🙂

We were back at Flayva’s by 2pm for a cold beer and some lunch. In the evening we shared some very delicious food and cocktails at Bar Fuego – quite a modern place, unlike everywhere else in San Ignacio…!

For our last full day in San Ignacio we went kayaking on the river Mopan, with a freelance river guide called Henry. A taxi took us upstream as far as the Guatemalan border, and dropped us off with the inflatable kayaks. Once in the water we drifted with the current under a blazing hot sun, barely seeing a soul, save for the occasional fisherman or woman washing clothes in the river. We did see all manner of birds: blue and grey Herons, Egrets, Vultures, Buzzards, Kingfishers and Swifts. And a great many Iguanas: mostly big, orange-tinged males, basking in trees or on the river-bank. Sometimes they would throw themselves into the water as we got close, even from ten or twenty feet up, which made a hell of a splash!

Our serene progress downstream was punctuated with frequent stretches of ‘rapids’, which whilst not remotely dangerous, added a certain buzz of excitement, and usually a welcome soaking on a hot day.

After two hours we stopped for lunch – stewed chicken, rice and beans, cooked by Henry’s wife and delivered to the rendezvous spot by our taxi-driver. Two hours later we were on land again, changing into dry clothes at a riverside bar. Cold beers all round – except for the taxi man of course, who had a coke…

It was a great way to spend our last day in Belize – in the big outdoors, relaxing, in complete peace and quiet, with occasional moments of excitement and activity. Thoroughly recommended!

Next stop: Guatemala!!

Ducati Service @ LouigiMoto

I’m planning to do a few trackdays this year on the 999s so wanted to give it a good service and get the Slipper Clutch fitted. Booked it in with the renowned Ducati genius that is Richard Llewellyn, who’s LouigiMoto workshop is based on an industrial estate in Clutton, a tiny village south of Bristol. Fortunately it’s not far from Ursie’s place in Pensford, so I rode the bike down (‘orrible damp, foggy Saturday morning) and Rich, being an absolute gent, dropped me off in Pensford after we’d discussed the schedule for the service.

His workshop is not huge, but it was crammed with fabulous Ducatis of all varieties, including Rich’s own fabulous 749R and a rare Desmosedici D16RR, which was being kitted out in a race paint scheme. Also at the same site is the CJS dyno-room, where Chris the engine-tuner works his magic tuning Ducati engines for race teams and private customers. I might send him the 999s next spring perhaps…

Rich was able to tell just by looking at the static posture of the bike that the balance wasn’t quite right: a bit low at the front he felt, which would push the front tyre a bit hard. Naturally I gave him free reign to adjust the suspension however he saw fit 🙂

I spent the weekend catching up with family and returned the following weekend with the car (towbar newly fitted) to collect the fettled and refreshed Ducati.

Night out

We went into London for a night out and I took this photo.

I can’t remember anything else… Sorry!

Nose Job

I bought a used front fairing for the Ducati – an 03-04 nosecone with the extra air vents either side of the headlights. I like the look of the extra vents and I picked one up on ebay for about £40, and have been trying out various different colour-schemes by applying some red black and white electrical tape. I haven’t quite decided which I prefer yet…

The current 05-06 nose:

The 03-04 nose

Finally settled on this…

Goodbye Golf

Part of the reason for getting on with finding a new car was that Mum’s Agila is barely usable now – the engine is worn and it’s drinking as much oil as petrol…! So, having discussed it, we thought Mum could have the Golf, once we’ve found a suitable replacement. Which we didn’t waste much time over, so this weekend seemed an ideal opportunity to drop the Golf off with Mum in Brecon, as I’d already planned to be in Wales to help Priten move into his new (old?) flat.

That was the plan. Unfortunately there were heavy snowfalls all over Wales and England on Friday, and we weren’t sure if it would actually be possible. In the event, I drove the car to Brecon on Saturday and then got the train from Abergavenny to Cardiff on Sunday morning to help unload Priten’s van and he then dropped me at the station to get a train back. Roads were actually not that bad: mostly clear carriageways and no sign of ice. There was more snow on Sunday and I ended up walking the two miles home from Hemel Station in the dark, but got home 6:30ish at least knowing that all had gone well.

Well that was quick…

And it is quick 😉

We’ve been thinking about replacing the Golf for a while but not actually done much about it. Until Sunday, when we popped over to CarGiant HQ in North London and came away having put a deposit on a lovely mid-grey Mercedes SLK. Smeeta had wanted a convertible, and we’d considered the BMW 1-Series, Audi TT and other soft-tops like the Mazda MX-5. CarGiant is MASSIVE and they had good examples of each but the SLK really stood out, and being a folding hard-top it’s a bit more practical long term than a cloth roof. The price was keen and we both loved it, so we put a deposit down and picked it up the following Thursday…

Fuerza Bruta @ the Camden Roundhouse

We met up with Mr & Mrs Smith (Alien & Charlotte) and Jenny K on Saturday to go and see an amazing piece of performance art at the Camden Roundhouse: Fuerza Bruta!. It’s impossible to describe, you’ll just have to go and see it for yourselves. Well worth the trip certainly. Managed to squeeze in some very good Pizza too beforehand.

Alien’s Speed Dreams

Last summer our good friend Alien and his mates achieved their objective of racing an old Triumph at the Bonneville Salt Flats. That Triumph had belonged to their old friend Mike Page, who sadly died suddenly of a heart attack. He’d planned to restore the bike but had never completed the job so they decided to do it in his honour and take the bike to Bonneville where they would scatter his ashes.

The story was taken up by the BBC who were filming other British Teams taking bikes to the Salt Flats and the resulting two episodes were aired on BBC2 at 10pm on Sunday 6th and 13th Jan.

We watched the first show tonight and it was absolutely brilliant: well constructed, funny, interesting and moving, all in one. It’s always weird seeing friends on TV, but great at the same time, and the Mike Page team were great, as were the other crazy characters.

A New Year – 2013

We spent this new year’s eve with Lee & Julie and Phil & Fleur, which was a lovely way to kick off 2013. Phil & Fleur were over from Aus with the lovely and lively little Grace and were staying with Lee & Julie over New Year so we were very pleased to be able to join them for some food & drink at Chez Pickrell in Teddington.

No photos of the party itself, but it was a lovely evening 🙂