Caves, Waterfalls, Volcanoes and dancing in the rain

Buenas Tardes folks

I seem to have travelled pretty far in the last few weeks...from mid Belize to southern Guatemala. Because yes here I am in beautiful, friendly, clean, happy, intriguing, picturesque, expensive, secretive, volcano engulfed Antigua! Its insanely similar to San Cristobal in Mexico, and does feel so much more Mexican than Guatemalan. Its just so clean and cool. Theres amazing little cafes and bookshops and local craft shops everywhere. Just walking down the street and you peer into so many really pretty little gardens and brilliant places to sit with a book and 'waste' away the day.

Anyho....oh yeah, so I went from Dangriga in Belize down to Punta Gorda which is the place to get boats into Guatemala. After trecking around for a bit only finding hotels (and encountering a local who came up to me and said he worked for the voluntary police and i should buy him some milk and bread) I found a cool little hotel (no hostels here) where I spent a few days chatting with the owner about British politics- she loved Nick Clegg (or just 'Nick' as she called him). Oh yeah and I cant believe David Cameron is Prime Minister! So weird, although admittidly it doesnt seem to be very relevent to my life at the moment. Also danced some Garifuna dance to brilliant Garifuna drumming with local Garifuna women. Interesting times.


Left the great country of Belize ("where ya guanin white boi?"), with an Australian and Kiwi i met, and entered Livingston, Guatemala. Its a small town with not so much to do but the hostel was real cool; poker fun, pub quizes, movies, family dinners, local racoon. And best of all everthing was put on a tab so you didnt have pay for it until the end! Common phrase: 'No money now?! OK one more beer!'(this was also very dangerous....the day i left wasnt a happy day). The mosquitos and sandflies here were intense though...they seem to have got over the whole fear of deet thing. Me and some folk trekked to the Siete Altares one day, which was just loads of pools and waterfalls engulfed by jungle. I also met some Israli folk who taught me 'Yanniv!' the best card game ever....mainly because me and a German guy who was there just shouted Yanniv lots for no reason.

I then made my way to Lanquin with 2 Canadian girls i met on the bus (larissa & alexandra). A really nice little town in the hills of mid Guat with a really nice hostel (although cockroaches and scorpians also). The reason to go here is for the pools and cave at Semuc Champey. This was truely incredible. I know I often over exaggerate things like this but literally it would be impossible to over exaggerate this.
The pools are very similar to Plitvice lakes in Croatia; rediculously clear located in the middle of a lush jungle valley with impressive mountains surrounding it. Amazing to have a swim after a sweatysweaty treck up to the viewpoint (see pic).

There were also crazy fish which nippèd at your legs sucking off the nutrients (i guess), you couldnt help but giggle out loud (i got some weird looks from guatemalans). We then went to the caves. I pretty sure their called Kan'Ba, and are filled with a freezing river. You cant bring in headlamps because you have to swim alot and your head goes fully under. So we had candles. It was just me, the canadian girls and the cave guide. Unbelievably atmospheric...i did feel like i was exploring the cave for the first time. We had to swim through this freezing water, whilst holding candles in the air, trying the look around to see the amazing stalletites as well. Jumped off the cave wall into the river, squeezed through many holes, slid down many slides. It was really tough but incredibly fun. Definitely one of the best things ive done so far.
As if this wasnt enough, we also swang off a massive rope swing into the river outside (Alexandra landed on her face and her 'bit of skin that connects your lip to the roof of your mouth' fell off. It was hilarious (obviously she didnt think so)! I then jumped off a bridge. We hitched a ride back to Lanquin and had a nap. Incredible day. I also randomly met this girl i keep bumping into (the one who fell of the cliffs in Mazunte...not sure if i mentioned that).
The rest of the time we also went tubing (sit in an inner tube and float down the river) and went to the Lanquin caves where we waited until dark and saw thousands of bats retreat the cave in search of food.
You could feel them brushing past your face. crazyness. On the walk back in rained very heavily, and due to my innate English act of loving rain, me and the canadians danced in the rain with all the locals standing and staring (we tried to get them to dance but they were too embarrased). They literally thought we were insane. Brilliant fun though.
The hostel had an English food buffet night but i decided that i could afford it (Q50- 4pounds or so=expensive here). I spent alot of time with Alexandra and Larissa so it was sad when they left, but were arranging to meet in Honduras.


From there got a bus down here to Antigua. Antigua is great though; its surrounded by 3 volcanoes, one of which is active.
Yesterday we trekked up Volcano Pacaya (may have read this in Helenas blog), which was spewing lava and smoke. Absolutely incredible to see lava up close, and it was properly flowing as well.


We roasted marshmallows, but not for long otherwise youd have no eyebrows (the heat was the most intense ive ever felt). Today me and this really cool Israli and Bristolian (yes Bristolian) hiked up to a stunning view point over the city. You could see the closest volcano looming over Antigua, and with the cross on the hill it made for a simon-tastic photo. I remember reading about this and seeing the photo on Alasdairs blog (my cousin), and thinking 'wow that looks insane i would love to be there', so really cool to be there. Me and the guys and thinking of doing a 2day hike up a different volcano tomorrow (has to be with a local man with a machete because its not safe) but who knows. I want to get to Xela to meet a friend and do a spanish course but as i say 'theres no rush'! (although i only have 3.5 months left).


Im sure all is boring where you are, but hopefully your lack of excitment makes my adventures seem even more exciting...!

And incase you were wondering my health is tiptop. I seem to be the only person ive talked to who hasnt got some sort of stomach craziness/ diarrhoea.

Thinking about what Lucila (from flores jungle treck) said a while ago about how you have to stop every now and again and just think 'i am having the time of my life and i am so happy'. This is definitley the situation.

Habla mas tarde

Love Simòn x

Riiiiice and Beans

Weh di go aan?! (Hows it going in creole)

Creole is the coolest language ever. Its just like they took english and made it more cool. You can understand what their saying mostly because it sounds very similar (e.g. whats the time= weh taim yu gat?)
So yes Caye Caulker where I was before was great. The last two days before i left, we (me and some friends from the hostel) went fishing in a canoe. It was going very badly until I felt a tug and caught my first fish ever! The bad part was the fish i caught you couldnt eat and apparently comes with a $1000 fine. Woops. Im not sure if this is true but...
This local kid saw how amazingly well we were doing (hmmm) and so offered to show us a spot where we would actually do well. We paddled out to his self-made shack and ended up catching 14 fish! (nothing to do with the fact that the kid did most of the fishing...!). All of which we ate for tea. I was the only person to catch a barracuda which was deliciously great.



The next day we went snorkelling. It was absolutely incredible. The water was so clear you could see everything, and everything was amazing: belize has the 2nd biggest coral reef in the world. Beautiful fish everywhere, sharks, sting rays. It was exactly like the sort of thing you see on tv. It felt like a completely different world; massive coral formations, all the different colours you can imagine with schools of fish gliding around you and right next to your face. Incredible. We also drank rum punch and had a generally great time.


I then headed off with a english guy i met (seb) from the islands, back inland and stopped off at Belize zoo which was interesting. Its not like a normal zoo; the animals are pretty much free except for a little wire every now and again. Saw howler & spider monkeys, jaguars, puma, snakes, parrots, macaws, eagles, ocelot....
We ended up in San Ignacio. Nice place on the Macal river with a cool market and lots of stuff to do around. We got talking to a nice woman who owned a restaurant and made the best lemonade ever, and we hired a canoe from her husband and paddled up the river.

Amazing scenery with the jungle hanging over the river. Then the next day I went to Actun Tunichil Muknal- a massive cave in the middle of the rainforest. We had a guide and headlamps etc, and it was really great. To get in you have to jump into the cave river which is ridiculously cold. The whole time your either wading or swimming. Alot of squeezing through gaps and climbing up stuff. The mayans used to live in this cave, and they thought it was the entrance to the underworld and the gods, so left alot of offerings and did alot of sacrifices here. Theres remains of pottery and bits of bone and skeleton everywhere. The bones had bits missing or damaged so it was obvious that they had been sacrificed. Great fun.



Ate some pancakes then left and headed to a little cabin towards the mountain pine ridge reserve called Barton Creek Outpost. Its run by this really nice family and is an hour long drive over rough terrain to get there (they have to come and collect you). During the drive you pass through alot of mennonite farmland. The mennonites are the weirdest thing. Their from Germany and speak a dialect of german but all live in Belize. They dont use any modern stuff and are completely self sustaining; so ride around in horse and cart, wear braces and big hats and have big beards. Its really random to come across them in the middle of Belize.
Anyway this outpost was brilliant; right next to prime rainforest and a river. Spent the days rope swinging into the river, going for walks in the forest (with the kid who knew the way and a machete in case of snakes) and eating great home cooked food.

Met a cool kiwi and english girl who were volunteering and also a tour group of danish girls. The last day we went for a 6 hour hike into the rainforest to reach some amazing waterfalls. This was the best rainforest ive seen so far- so lush and dense. The guy who came with us was a proper, real-life Ray Mears/Bear Grills guy. He was constantly talking about what he would do in various situations ("just cut down those palm leaves, collect those logs, set up under that cliff next to river and termite nest and your sorted for food shelter and water!"). We ate termites (taste like peppermint) and found those ants that are used to close cuts because they bite into you and dont let go, even when you cut their head off (the guy made a bet: if the ant head was still on his arm by the time we got back we had to buy him a drink, if not he had to buy us all a drink. Yeah that was a good night). We had to cross loads of jungle rivers, many of which we had to hold our rucksacks above our heads to get across. The waterfalls were beautiful.

Yesterday I left and arrived here, Dangriga which is cool. Havent seen one other gringo, so its a very meet-the-locals experience, which is really cool- their so friendly, just walking around I talked to many locals. Its cool because some people are like "ayyy man talk to me for one minute", and you kind of expect them to ask for money for something (like mexico and guat etc), but literally all they want is a chat.
Eating alot of chicken, rice and beans. The best dish ever. and cheap.
Its amazing how relaxed and generally happy these people are- evidence see pic below.


So yes. Im thinking today ill head to Placencia which is more touristy but has nice beaches.

Bis Spater
Simon x
(p.s. dont worry ive shaved off my travellers beard now)