Placencia to Danriga learning about the Garifuna

Another wonderful day with a lovely start... Lucy treated me like family, feeding me porridge and tea in the morning and sending me off on the road with foil wrapped sandwiches, and early enough that it was cool cool weather...I felt like I was knocking out the miles other than when I was pedalling against the occasional headwind (which got me instantly thinking of hurricanes and tropical storms after the recent warnings), again all on the flat and loving the pumped up tires. She had told me that Belize apparently only has about 300,000 inhabitants and I've certainly noticed with the two days on the road here that there are long stretches of nothingness in terms of settlements... the flip side of which is a-lot-ness in terms of greenery, pretty going through banana and citrus plantations over a lot of rivers and past forest and nature reserves. All it means is I've had to think about carrying more water, as having gotten used to the roadsides being lined with small villages in Guatemala I'm used to their always being little tiendas with at least water or juice, even if without electricity for fridges, so it is strange to being going for miles without even seeing one house. One good thing is that tap water here is drinkable for the first time since Nicaragua, bonus!

Started off the day cycling north up the peninsula that Placencia tips, so was passing palm trees and sea views and swarms of large dragonflies, which seem to be a feature of Belize. Yesterday I saw my first frigate bird with its split double tail, and have noticed a fair few humming birds which I might not have identified if it wasn't for noticing all the businesses named after it, and bearing in mind I'm headed towards the Hummingbird Highway tomorrow, which I've heard is gorgeous, 'the cycling highlight of Belize' apparently.

I stopped off a fair few times, and got a chance to practice my arleady rustifying Spanish, as I seemed to meet a lot of immigrants. The couple selling hot-dogs and icy cold drinks at and isolated stand at the junction of the Placencia turnoff from the Southern Highway were a Salvodorena from La Libertad and a Guatemalteco. Just after visiting the Maya centre craft gift shop where I got all excited by the intricate work on the pipes, I met a Guatemalteca selling rice and beans who was from Peten Guatemala and looked too young to have the 5 children she was telling me about. I met a few other Spanish speaking folk along the way, all very friendly and curious to know what I was up to. I find the language situation here fascinating... one older man told me he spoke four languages, Kek'chi, English, Spanish and a second Mayan language.

Interestingly with language ponderings in my brain as I headed into Dangriga I came across the Gulisi Garifuna museum where I was warmly welcomed by the lovely Peter and dodged the heavy rainfall of the next few hours absorbed in learning about the Garifuna language and the Garinagu people. I feel like it was really good timing to come across this concentration of information after passing through Livingston and chatting to a lot of the Garinagu there but getting mixed or unclear histories, and then spending the time in Punta Gorda within the Creole community.

The 'soundbyte' you usually hear about the Garinagu people is that they are descended from shipwrecked African slaves, but like most of history it is more complicated than that. From my understanding after todays visit their history goes all the way back to 200 AD when the Arawak and Carib communities began to interact in the Orinoco Basin of South America. The Arawak began to migrate northwards to the Carribbean islands, followed later and so pushed further north by the Caribs. Trade routes started to pass from Africa to the Carribean before Colombus' 'discovery', and then after it the European traders arrived, stomped their way onto the islands and began to fight amongst themselves and against the local populations over land ownership. During this time some of the African slaves escaped captivity, and others arrived free men after surviving shipwreck. These people began to mix with the local Carib communities and this mix became the Garinagu people.

The struggle between the British and French was particularly fierce, and after Britain gained control of St. Vincent the French fought alongside locals, led at one point by 'Paramount Chief' Chatoyer (and British deserters) in guerrilla warfare against the Limeys, who had separated local populations geographically into Red Caribs and Black Caribs. The fighting of the 1700's led to a final massacre by the Brits and the deportation of 5000 Garinagus from St. Vincent in 1797, of which only 2000 made it to the island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras. From here the Garingu re-settled in communities in Nicaragua, Honduras and what was then called British Honduras, now Belize. They found work as wage laborours, traded, fought as mercenaries and intermixed with the Ladino and Miskito communities. In Belize they had to struggle against the prejudice of the British, who feared them, imposing a 6pm curfew and kept their Black African slaves frightened of them by saying the Garinagu were cannibals and vicious people. However they were needed for eonomic reasons, and after slavery was abolished in 1807, worked alongside the Creoles, living in villages that relied on fishing and wage labour in mahogany camps (men's responsibility) and agriculture (tradirtionally women's responsibility).

The Garifuna language itself, according to ethnographer Nancie Gonzalez' research, is of the South American Arawak family, using many words from South American Carib, borrowing heavily from French, English and Spanish, but with no more than 5 possible but unconfirmed loan words from African languages. Apparently as the Arawaks migrated northwards the following Caribs really liked their women, killing the Arawak me and taking the women for their wives. As the women traditionally taught language to the children, this became the dominant language, so that contemporary Garifuna has gender differences in that some Carib origin phrases can only be used by men. For years the language has continued orally without any written record, but as concerns over the Garifuna culture disappearing efforts have been made from within the community to preserve the language and customs, and a publication the People's Garifuna dictionary was printed in October 1993.

In Livingston I was hearing Garifuna being spoken in the streets and was told that the kids grow up speaking Garifuna at home and only learn Spanish when they go to school. However here in Belize according to Peter the language was close to dying out after years of repression, as he explained the Catholic nuns who taught in the schools would whip children for speaking Garifuna, and in the communities they faced prejudice as the supposedly 'inferior' race, so in oder to assimilate and prevent similar treatment for their children, the Garinagu started speaking Creole and the younger generations grew up without their language. The recent efforts at revival include introducing the language into the curriculum, the school that sits next to this museum teaches the language both orally and written, with textbooks bought with Unesco funds. Part of the process of revival is regaining the pride in the Garifuna culture. These efforts have been helped massively by musicians, such as Andy Palacio who brought Garifuna music to the world stage and Pen Cayetano. Garifuna culture has strong music and dance traditions, with different songs and dances being specific to different events, chores, or the very important Dugu celebration.

The Dugu is a ceremony offering to the ancestors, whose planning can take up to 2 years building a temple and organising the food, dancers and musicians, for a 2 to 3 days celebration involving dance, song and food offerings. The dugu is ordered by the ancestors through the sickness of a living relative and the planning and organisation is led by a buyei, or spiritual leader and healer. As well as the Garifuna language, these celebrations were also supressede by the Catholic missionaries, who saw it as devil worship, so the ceremonies were practices in secret. It is only in recent years that the Catholic church has accepted these rituals as compatible with Christian teaching, and there are Garinagu Catholic priests.

An important character in the growing pride in Garifuna culture in Belize is Thomas Vincent Ramos whose concerns over health care and proper burials led him to found the Caribbean Development and Sick Aid Society (CDS) amongst other foundations to help the Garifuna communities throughout Belize. He was also responsible for the official recogniction of the nationwide Garifuna Settlement Day, celebrated on 19th November.

One of the positive side effects of recognizing the Garifuna communities within Belize has apparently been a growing awareness of heritage amongst other ethnic groups in the country, such as the Mayan. I certainly know for myself that having looked at these issues of language, cultue and roots, and the culmination of months of traveling and bieng asked about where I come from and what language I speak, i feel like the most fake Scottish person ever, and am determined that one of the things I would like to do when I go back home is to look into learning Scotish Gaelic. I feel like it is shameful that I dont even know one work in it. The only Gaelic work I would know is 'slancher' (no idea of the proper spelling) and that's Irish. I do remember pretending as a kid when my English cousins would come to stay that I understood what they were saying on this really over-the-top-acted kids progam that was aired in GAelic, and I have vague memories of seeing signs in Gaelic on the Isle of Skye, and having looked at a teach-yourself-book in the languge department of Waterstones at one point, but now I think I would really be interested in at least learning to understand its roots.

When I get back I also want to upgrade from poy to poy-with-ribbon to fire spinning, learn airbrushing for big mural painting, possibly build myself a pair of stilts, visit Mum's homeland of Wexford Ireland, experiment with my stones and metal jewelry work.. hmm and have a nice cold pint of cider. Ha!

Another reflection that came form the documentary I watched at the museum came when the interviewee was talking about the Garifuna culture being focused in community, as compared to the individualtistic Western culture and that got me to thinking how often we solo travelers are seen as unusual, and are asked many questions about our families, because it must seem like, and perhaps is, the most individualistic, selfish endevour. With that in mind I am definitely ready to go home and see my friends and family. I think that in the UK our custom of moving away from our hometowns and familes to study and work, and the fact that in the many transitory communities of London resulting from shifting migrant and student populations it is common not to know your neighbors, makes it very hard to feel a strong sense of community, and I think to a certain extent cultures like those over here in Central America are so appealing to many travelers because we are drawn to the family feel in the streets amongst family extended family and friends, like that I have seen again and again out here. But however tenuous the web, because of its geographical stretching, I definitely have my community back home and I will be delighted to come back home to it. And I hope that by sharing my experiences and stories my traveling has not been entirely selfish, although of course it has been a hugely relaxing journey of world discovery and self discovery...

..and I do still have a cople of weeks left which really is a long time, there are still many connections to make. Arriving into Dangriga tonight I ended up chatting to a few different locals, who were very friendly... before I'd even reached the Dara's Backpackers hostel (the first of its kind I've come across here in Belize) I'd been taken off on a brief tandem ride by Mike from the bike shop while his mates John and Head looked on. Span poy on the beach front at dusk with the hush-brush of the gentle waves and the hum of cicadas in my ears, then sat and ate some deep fried fishy street food (so far I haven't come across the cassava bread that is the staple food of the Garifuna community but these were a new experience for me) until the sand flies drove me into the hostel.

Big love from Danriga
x

6th border crossing: into Belize, from Coban to the Caribbean coast

So from Tactic I really took it slow along the 200km straight and relatively flat dirt track road to El Castillo on the edge of Lago Izabal where I caught a lancha to the Garifuna town of Livingston and passed a few days in the crazy party hostel there Casa Iguana run by drinking-game-fan Londoner Rusty.


The days it took me to get to the coast and the lancha were calm and solitary in a happy way whislt tiring and hot in terms of cycling even though I was doing short days, and full of small details of pleasure that bearing in mind Jane and my chat about mindfulness I tried to taste each experience individually...

bumping into familiar face of young Mum of David from the Hotel Familiar in Coban with her husband selling chips.. David was in a wooden cot covered in a mosquito net behind the stall, burning up with a fever though they had medicines for him poor thing, but it was lovely to hug his Mum...

camping by the warm waters of Lago Izabal at Finca El Paraisio, spinning poy in the moonlight, bare-feet in the sands, amongst the toads and mosquitoes flocking round their mecca of the night lamp, following the pelicans waddle into the water and swim off, collecting unusual black spiral shells, diving off a water stranded tree


being rowed in a wooden kayak amongst the rocks and reflection of the Boqueron canyon by 12 year old Danielo



scrambling around the rocks and splashing in the hot sulfur smelling waters of the hot springs at El Paraisio (a shame here 50q went missing from my wallet, I didn't notice it til later, but hey I've got to expect stuff to get nicked sometimes). Ate tasty banana bread which were actually pancakes sold by little girls at the exit

swimming off the edge of the land where the old anti pirate fort sits that El Castillo takes its name from and watching a snorkel masked man dive and catch a whole harpoon full of fish

seeing the wooden canoe fishermen paddling along the edges of the Rio Dulce on the lancha ride down to the port at Livingston and the wooden homes on wooden piers edging out nto the water, imagining how it must be to live there so remotely

Stepping off the boat at Livingston I experienced the hustle of competing hostels and was persuaded to head to Casa Iguana along with New Yorker Ezra who I'd met on the trip down and got talking religion and politics with at the hot-spring-and-fish-nibble-your-ankle spot half way down the river. There were two sides to Livingston, the fun side of meeting other tourists, going out dancing and drinking with locals and hearing Garifuna music and language and trying the new foods, and then there was the feeling often that someone wanted something from you and genuine friendships were harder to form. There is very little work opportunity at this time of year, with it being off season, and at times it felt like everyone was trying to make a quick buck off you, from the hostel itself to the young lads working the docks showing tourists to the hostels for a tip. Understandable but at times not as relaxing as you might expect of a Caribbean coastal port. There also seemed to be tensions between the Garifuna community, who are black decedents of African slaves, and the ladino culture. One man Ezra and I met on the beach took us for a walk through the Garifuna part of town and into one of the homes there, very poor housing, ramshakle and huddled together.

Food wise it was great to have some variation and the tapado, seafood soup that Livingston is famous for was delicious, cooked in a coconut based sauce the flavor was delicious and there were so may different seafoods that Ezra and I weren't sure how to get into a few of them... he called it an inconvenient dish. Possible my best experience there was going to local lad Eddie's house to learn how to cook plantain Garifuna stylee, grated down to a mash and mixed with a little salt then fried, so tasty and very similar to hash browns in texture.


One of my concerns when I approached Livingston was that I'd been technically illegal in Guatemala a good few days, my visa had run out and I knew to expect a 10q-per-day fine. I ended up staying a few days longer than I thought, at first just enjoying the company and the drinking, visiting the local waterfalls at Siete Altares (7 altars) whose walk through the beach was beautiful until the sand swapped for layers and layers of rubbish and I felt so sad, and then waiting for the Tropical Storm to pass, although we never really felt the effects of it, then waiting til the next Tuesday lancha, direct to Belize. Surprisingly to me the official at immigration, an office in town where you stamp your passport the day before the boat ride, was completely un-bothered by my illegality. I had a stonking 150q fine, but no reprimand and when you think of the many tax-dodging tourists who are living full time in Guatemala and skirting tax and visa laws (I met a couple of these types of ex-pats, solid folk, especially Londoner Chris who has traveled by horse and cart through the states, wicked) I guess then its no surprise they're not worried about a mere backpacker.

So fine paid and new stamp in passport I caught the lancha to Belize, a border crossing by boat, very exciting- a bumpy ride that makes me think we're riding along on wood, yet I still managed to doze off for the last wee while. Having unloaded from the boat the differences began to spring out. Checking in at customs you are talking English not Spanish, changing money from quetzales to Belizean dollars you see the British Queen's much-younger-than-now head on the notes, stopping off for breakfast in a local cafe there are fried jack (fried puff pastry similarish to yorkshire pudding but oilier for being fried in a pan) rather than tortilla with the egg and beans. Dairy milk in bars in the corner shop, though I haven't succumbed yet and according to Lucy it isn't actually the same as back home unless you buy from the city!

Having felt a bit lost and unsure of my plan getting off the boat I got chatting to an older man in the cafe, Mr Rob, and good connections began to slot into place once again, and have done ever since. Peggy had been feeling a bit worse for wear and my pump was dodgy so I followed up Mr Robs recommendation and headed to Justin's bike shop. We got on immediately, Justin is full of energy and enthusiastic about bikes and cycling, reminding me a bit of the racer from the film 'A flying Scotsman'. He lent me one of the very laid back 'beach cruiser' bikes that most folk get around on in Punta Gorda (PG as the locals call it) to nip about picking up a new tyre and inner tube and headed back to the shop to fix Peggy up, before heading to the pier to swim, meeting up with Alaskan artist Kassi who I met on the lancha over and whose veganism led us to the tastiest meal I'd had in ages. I ended up sticking around in PG a few days, staying at the shop which was also J's home, painting a new sign for the bike shop in exchange for a free place to kip and his delicious cooking, trying Johnny cakes, cinnamon buns and BBQ chicken Belize stylee... Justin gets his culinary skills from his dad who lives just round the corner and mixes and sells seasoning as his second business (after 'yard chopping' - lawn mowing). Hanging out there was a great welcome to Belize being surrounded by Creole which is an unusual language to my ears because so often it sounds like English but at the same time often I had no idea what a conversation would be about... I think I found it easier getting my ears around Spanish. It is a lovely sound though, lilting and laid back... just like the Caribbean coast in general.

Justin, and three of his mates cycled me the first 17miles up the road as I headed off yesterday, a great head-start for me especially as the lads took it in turns riding fully loaded Peggy whilst I tootled along on the beach cruiser. I was really touched at them keeping me company and after refilling water bottles at Dwight's auntie's house and sharing chicken rice and beans at Big Falls they turned back whilst I carried on. The new tyre and more air than they've had in ages, combined with flat-as-an-almost-pancake ashpalt highway I felt like I was flying along at last... to be fair proably averaging 14mph but everything's relative.. apparently a whole load of water came pouring out her frame when J hung Peggy up to work on, so perhaps that had also been weighing me down. I made it to Mango Creek by dusk and in one of those connections-at-the-time-you-need-it scenarios found a place to camp on the porch of an empty house opposite the home of a couple Canadian David and Guatemalan Anna after they'd turned up on a moped selling mini bananas at the spot I was waiting to enquire hotel prices at. I can definitely see why not many backpackers head to Belize, there are not backpacker accommodations, and food is much more expensive than the C4 countries.

In another of those perfect connections, I just caught the Hokey Pokey water taxi (another lancha) across to Placencia, waiting for the internet cafe to open, wrote down Lucy's email and had her number, a phone credit slip and the reciever of a payphone in my hand when a car drove up and out she jumped... fantastic! Lucy is a wicked girl I met on the Macmillan Mexico cycling trip all the way back in March 2009, and was one of the big influences in me even being here. partly became she's already been living and working out here and made me realize what is the point in dreaming and dreaming about traveling and still carrying on sitting back at home waiting for someone to go with you.. better get up and go before it is too late. We'd originally begun dreaming about this trip together after the notorious day 3 of Mexico, when a switch flipped in my head and I realized its possible to travel the world by bike like this. It felt great to see her familiar face and to be able to chat about a lot of the excitement, thoughts, inspirations and challenges that being out in this part of the world brings, and staying in her and Robert's home here in Placenia is a luxury I wasn't expecting, warn shower, good coffee, ice that comes out a fridge, fluffly towels...mmm....but best of all its having the company of a friend that felt fantastic.



And that will be what i most look forward to about coming home, that and good bread and a pint of cider... with thinking about my trip coming to an end I have definitely changed pace and entered a different headset of traveling. I think chatting with Lucy I have stopped being in denial about coming home at the end of this month. I'd been looking at the map on my own and worked out I can make it through to Cancun at a fast pedal push for all the next 16 days, and when we looked at the route together we rekoned I can still stop off in Ignanio Cayo where they also stay and by the time I am there Robert should be back from the island where he is helping develop a resort, and I may even get a chance to fly with him. After all these months of sloth paced traveling it feels so strange to be in a rush, or at least under time pressure, but then I've always been a leave-things-til-the-last-minute kind of person. I know I will make it, I just hope that I still get to see a lot on the way.

big love from Belize,
x

lovely lostness in lanquin

Wow, such a long time since I was last online, have been happily lost in the valley of Lanquin for the last month, painting again yay, and slowing down to a lovely even deeper level of peacefulness, camping under the shade and rain shelter of the trees alongside the river that sweeps through past El Retiro hostel, where the heavy afternoon rains and dodgy electricity make it virtually impossible to get online, great to be free of the web, apart from worrying the couple of folk back home who seemed to think I´d disappeared completely! The toilet door quote from where the wild things live fits perfectly (correct title han lily amelie?).
and second wow, what a lot of things have passed in this last month where to start, maybe with a list again seeing as there's been so many new things I don´t know where to start and yet at the same time how slow lazy and relaxing life has felt...
so hmm, newness, new things...

loads of new people for sure, especially Israelis who made up about 80% of the hotel guests and was fascinating experience for me to learn a bit about their country... for example how they have compulsory national service for men 3 years and women 2 years and they are proud to do it... also that an Israeli stamp in the passport means you cannot travel in Muslim countries so many people choose not to stamp it. Along with the Israelis El Retiro is a really busy hostel in general, each day from about 4pm on confused backpackers spill out from shuttle buses and are bombarded with cries of all the hostel choices, a cattle market Josue the bar manager calls it. Many of them filter into El Retiro, and the majority are gone in a day or two after doing the tours to the famous Semuc Champey pools and caves. But then you get the longer term folk, the artisans and slow travelers like me (! after tumbling into Lanquin (me and panniers came flying off Peggy on the rocky downhill , and with three punctures on the back tire and a bleeding elbow I took a lift for the final 5km into the village, propped up on top of a pile of sacks in the back of the truck with some very amused but also sympathetic local folk!)


so after that dramatic entrance the first person I met was German artisan Verena (who I´d seen in Antigua when I met her ex Larry who was trying to hook me up with painting a mural there) . Verena is an inspiration, shes been traveling in the Mayan world for 5 years, between Mexico and Guatemala, living from her beautiful jewelry. She read me my Mexican Mayan sign, which turns out to be different to the destroying houses one, in this I am Akbal, night, and apparently my guide is also Akbal night, meaning that I lead myself... perhaps why I am ok about coming off on my own on a trip like this, perhaps also why I find it so hard to make decisions and go round in confused circles sometimes?! Along with Verena I met her little trilingual-in-learning 3 year old son Juni, otherwise known as Mowgli for his confidence in nature espenially in the river, he became a good playmate, always up for a swim, him in his mismatched patched orange and blue swimwings, we´d float down the river fropm the mini ´beach´Verena had cleaned up down to the more obvious bay, often to shocked looks from other tourists who´d still be debating as adults whether it was safe enough to enter the river at all.



Then there was Jane, the filmmaker from New York working behind the bar who celebrated her birthday while we there and taught me a satisfyingly new version of rummy, and we chatted about the art of being mindful. Not rushing, taking the time to feel and experience everything you do rather than rushing through every action. A really interesting chat that seemed to have a big impact on me. Lying under the tree branches feeling the breeze, listening to the sounds of the workers hammering away and calling to one another building the new bar, hearing the river, feeling the squelch of the cold mud betweeen your toes, feeling the chill of the water slide over your skin as you enter the river slowly slowly in the sweaty heat of the day. Seems so simple but I think coming from such speedy cities (London, New York) where we try to cram so many things into one day that multitasking is a way of life and by the time it comes to bedtime we are on such full speed from the day it is hard to sleep, to be mindful and do things one by one and take the time to appreciate and really experience them has been something new for both me and Jane in this trip

Milan is another artesan, originally from Montenegro, meeting him I learnt another little piece of European history, since I hadn´t known of the country before. He´s been travelling in Latin America for 10 years, and inspired me with his tale of camping on one of the tiny 3 family San Blas islands off the coast of Panama for a month. According to Johnny Milan speaks like an Argentinian, and a few weeks after Milan had left Argentinain Sebastian turned up on a bike and proved Johnny right, the accent and intonation was the same. Another artesan, who already knew Milan and Verena, Sebastian gave me my first taste of matee, a relaxing Argentinian tea, and got my feet itchy to move again when he left a week before me heading for the coast. I was also re-inspired on the cycling front by a cool couple from LA, bike couriers who had come down to race in Panahacel on bikes they'd built themselves then gave to local kids with talent, they were also amazing graffiti artists back home, I was left gobsmacked by the photos Marcius showed me on his i-phone, and itchy fingered to learn spray can when I get home.

new paintings and language; lots of munkey, fish and frog bubbles, flad insect tubes and water eagles...the reason I ended up staying at El Retiro so long was that I got work (paid plus free camping, wicked) decorating the bathrooms and toilets behind reception. I worked with Johnny after he came from Coban a few days after me. Being around day in and day out we gradually got to know the local workers, who work incredibly long hours maintinag the hostel and its rambling grounds. They are mainly Mayans and speak Quechi between themselves so I took the opportunity to ask Alex to try and teach me a few words, although to me the language is very very hard... based in unfamiliar click sounds. I did manage to learn two phrases, masa ak chol (how are you?) and us bantiosh (fine thanks) which made some of them laugh when I tried using it.

more newness... new games...Verena was up for learning poy and Johnny used to do fire spinnning so got us started with our home-made-from-hakky-sacs-poy and then a few different folk passed through who gave us extra tips, Aussie Nigel showed me how to use the juggling clubs to practise the wrist movements without the whacking yourself in the head part and Julio from the bar was pretty nifty too; in the last week a lovely family turned up and the dad, Daniel, who was also a juggler, strung up a tightrope (interestingly in Spanish the word for this is the opposite, cuerda floca, loose rope) between a couple of trees and we gave it a go... I've got to admit the only way of either me or Verena getting across was by holding the other´s hand for balance

and more playing... vine swinging in the river... once I´d made sure my bikini was tied on tightly enough to resist the strong current (I saw one girl loose hers completely and many others stuggle to keep theirs on) I was able to make it across the rope that spans the river and up into a u-shaped hanging vine to surf the water; tubing, or branch dodging in big rubber rings floating down the river.. I didn´t do so well on the branch dodging part, Benmjamin, worker, guide friend and hostel clown found it very funny.


What else? More parades and costumes, one that I saw and another that I missed for the day of Central American independence on 15th September. Walking up the long steep slow hill to the town centre and Comdor Semuc the evening before for food we saw a lot of kids with flame torches, apparently one flame is carried all the 60km way from Coban to Langquin, and then the 30km further to Cabon in a relay.

Hmm.. and what else? Walked to the famous pools of Semuc Champey within a day or two of arriving, a good couple of hours or more and then up to the mirador to look down at the pools, a hugely sweaty and beautiful for the eyes exertion that made jumping into the water of the natural pools very welcome. In this last week I´ve joined up with the tours to the caves: the exhilarating water filled ones at Semuc that you pass through carrying a simple wax candle, at some points swimming one handed, at others jumping from a rock or crawling round a waterfall;


and the mud and batpoo filled ones in Lanquin itself which Macca took us through, where you get to oogle odd forms in the rocks (like cloud gazing except because there are signs for the oraganised tours and artificial light I reckon it might have been better with only a couple of folk and torch to really let the imagination fly) and then watch hundreds of bats fly out into the night. It seems surprising that they come so close but without touching you at all, though because of echolocation I suppose its not unexpexcted. Back at the hostel I´d noticed it hanging onto the rope over the river at sunset one night cooling off between sauna sessions (had my first proper saunsa experience here, if you dont count the volcano steam in El Salvador, and its fantastic in a glass-bottle-wall hut on the edge of the river, and apparently I like it hot!)



The bats are also popular with one of the two sister cats who live at the hostel, she sits on the riverbank at night hunting them. Between the cats, the dogs and the ants it is difficult to keep any food for long camping. Even hung from a nail high up out of the way of the nasty biting fire ants the dogs will jump up to nick bread! This storing of food was a never-properly-solved issue for the month. (There was a lot more wildlife there that wasn´t involved in the food wars...beautiful butterflies, cockroaches and the occasional scorpion-looking-but-non-venomous alacrans, a snake behind the bathroom and lots of tiny lizards) The other camping related issue was navigating the mud... almost every afternoon the intense heat was followed by torrential rain and despite wooden-plank-paths and a entrance´mat´it was an acrobatic challenge trying to get into the tent at night in a clean way. For the final week or so I ended up sleeping every night in the hammock, strung up in my mini under-the-stairs home beneath some dorms where Peggy was keeping dry along with my stuff, reading by candlelight and from where I had a beautiful view of the changing colours of the sky whenever I´d wake during the night. Last night, my final sleep there, the moon was on its way top being full again, leaving the grounds well lit and the sky tinted velvety navy.

After a lot of debate and info collecting about the rockiness of the different road options to get out of Lanquin I ended up taking a collectivo this morning all the way back to Coban to restart my cycling route from there. I have eased back into the saddle with a very short day, about 30km, arriving in Tactic to a busy market and an unusual statue of a scholar and teacher in the Central square. It started raining as soon as I´d emerged from the hospedaje, so I´ve been sat here catching up on the world of the net ever since, a real contrast to the earthy-watery-grassy world of Lanquin. I am headed towards Rio Dulce and Livingston on the Carribean coast to stamp my passport seeing as my 90 day visa for Guatemala ran out 7 days ago... the 10q (about 1 pound) a day fines are adding up, but the cash I made doing a couple of logos for the hostel in my last days there should cover it as long as there are no back hander dodgy fines on top... fingers crossed. For now I´ll enjoy getting back into a rythym with Peggy... yay!


big love x
(will put more photos up soon)

Cobán - portrait of a town from a park bench

So I didn´t leave Coban like I thought, and once again I´ve been stationary for longer than I thought... I am definitely a slow traveller, but I love this pace... apart from the nagging thought at the back ofg my mind that I´ll ache when I make a move again.



One of the things I love about Central America is the vibrancy of the Central Square ´Parque Central´ that every town is built around. Since being in Coban and passing the time with J making jewellry in the street have had hours to observe the cycles of life in Coban. The variety of street vendors is something I have found fascinating in every country, I suppose its one of the biggest differences between home and here, perhaps because we have such strict rules on liscnecing whereas here anyone with a product can sell. Some vendors are around throughout the day and others, such as the food stalls on the corner nearest the hostel, rotate: my daily mosh (sweet milky porridge drink) friend´s stall is there in the morning selling tamales as well as coffee, atol (corn drink) and rice milk; changing at lunch to another group of women selling tortilla wraps, tamales and chuchitis (another maiz based, meat and sauce filled packet cooked in a leaf) and the range of hot milky drinks, my favorite is ´ponche de leche´ , hot milk punch which is pretty much custard with a sprinkling of cinammon, delicious; and changing again in the evening to a third group of women with tacos and bean spread bread along with the milky drinks and tamales, selling from 9.30 pm onwards in front of the arches where folk waiting for the early morning buses to Gute city sleep covered in blankets.


Some of the other vendors are:
Phone call sellers - mainly women though there is one young lad who sits at the bus stop opposite the hostel too - they have wireless phones (not mobiles, sets that look like house phones) set on their knees and folk pay to make a call.
Tigo, Claro top up sellers - lads who sell mobile phone credit, carrying small placards with the name of the mobile company and any offer, they generally have one spot that they pace
Diario de Hoy and Prensa Libre sellers - the daily newspapers are sold on street corners shaded by an umbrella, or by lads on bikes, or on foot, often witrh a bundle balanced on their head to protect against the sun. They tend to be full of scary or depressing news of deaths and murders - one evening J, Sasha a tourist from the US were a block away from the shop we´d just bought drinks in when we heard gunshots, two days later we saw in the paper that two men had been killed in fron of the same shop... a reminder of Guatemalan´s violent side.
Fruit sellers - ladies and girls sit with their baskets on the street corners as well as in the bustling daily market a block away from the main square where I´ve been enjoying the different types of bannanas, ranging from the tinniest fat finger bunches to chunky pink deliciositites! The streets are lined with ladies and young girls in traditional dress selling tortillas and tayuha or ´Maya Burgers´ - cheap bean filled tortillas, drier than the Salvodorenan papusa, but filling - from baskets draped in colourful woven cloth. Having J´s perspective on prices makes me more aware of the hike in prices for being a gringa, but often speaking in Spanish gets a surprised reaction and a more local price, though relativley it is so cheap anyway.





Bike food sellers - a whole range of foods are sold by young lads on bikes with two wheels and a glass cabinet upfront, shaded by an umbrella or cloth roof. Fruit salad served in preprepared bowls that the lad puours syrup on, oranges sliced down the middle with chilli and salt added, fried chicken (haven´t tried that one), mazapan (? can never remember the word for this deep fried vegetable, but it sounds like marzipan and has a similar texture and taste to chunky chips, but is served in bigger chunks, coated in salt..mmm... healthy!)
Ice-cream sellers - older men or youngish lads who push freezers in front of themselves, dinging a little bell. They sell pre-packaged lollies, and have a bag of pink cones hung from the side of the cart for the soft mix neapolitan they sell for 2q (lass than 10p).
Coffee and milk drink sellers - a pair of women with four large flasks dart around the sqaure in the morning on foot pouring your your drink of choice at your bench. There is also a young man in red who comes around every afternoon and sells milk coffee and cake from his bicycle
Photo seller -Juan Antonio is one of the men who sell photos in the park, either pre-printed Gutemalan highlights or he´ll photograph you and print it up on the spot
shoe shiners - from sunrise to sunset young lads through to old men call ´lustre´from their various spots around the park, some are there all day, others only at peak times. It is the Custom for Guatemalans to dress smartly for work adn for many the shoe shine is a daily or twice daily part of their routine.
Watches, toys, ballon sellers - brightly coloured carts with all sorts of bric a brac dpt the streets, shoes line the wall outside the supermarket,
Traditional artesans - on weekends and the whole of this last week for the feria the arches alongside the park are filled with tables laden witrh Guatemalan weavings and souvenirs
Along with all this bright and colourful life there are also the sadder cases of the beggars, mainly gathered round the entrance to the supermarket on the far corner of the square, and the random drunks asleep strewn on the pavement or grassy banks, oir in one more extreme case this weekend, rolling around in the middle of the road.
Dr. Simi - one of the highlights of park life is the big costumed Dr Simi who emerges from the pharmacy on the corner many an afternoon to dance in the street to music blaring from the shop´s loudspeakers and chase women and kids, trying to entince them into dancing with him! Sasha and I both got caught out the one afternoon and each had a turn with the Doc! He is a hit with the kids who roam the park daily, because their Mum´s are selling there. There are two groups of brothers and sisters who were curious in my drawing one of the first days of me being in Coban and they often pop up from nowhere to chatter for a bit. ONe day they topok turns runnning in and out of the scene I was drawing, never sitting sill long enough for me to capture them on paper lkike they wanted!

Another side to life in Coban are the weekend processions. Since I´ve been here I´ve seen the following processions;
uniformed school children and their mothers dressed in the day to day traditional clothing
85 women dressed in traditional clothes representing the different regions of Guatemala, an intoxiocationg display of colour and design
groups of school children in all sorts of outfits, many with an emphasis on either environmental issues, or on cultural diversity
horses and cowboys displaying dressage, with some of the riders as young as two, strpped into the saddles
There have also been a varity of displays in the park, music, dancing and more costumes, especially in the last week as the feris arrived last Sunday.




























The feria, (fair or festival) had been talked about for a week or so, as everyone with any type of business however small were looking forward to it as a source of fresh custom, with the folk it would attract from out of town. Although as it turns out it hasn´t been as busy for sales as hoped for. It is a busy collection of clothes, jewellry, food, big wheels, table football, bars, and numerous walking vendors, one lovely tall man who looks like a foreigner too gave mne a delicious spot of chocolate fudge to try for free. There are endless games, shooting stalls, darts, knock-out games, and there are even folk selling you your weight, with rows of weiging scales lined up. Fascinating!



J and I have been going along to the feria each day in the late afternoons, and when we´ve not been dodging the sudden downpours have made a few sales...alongside J´s artesanes I´ve been selling henna tattoes (got hold of some decent ink) and I´ve even sold my first two bracelets from the weaving techniques I´ve been learning since being in Coban. A few days I´ve more than made my expenses, not too hard with living costs so low here, especially since I moved across the road into Hospedaje Famailiar, which is slightly dirtier anbd dingier than Casablanca, but I have a private room rather than a dorm bunk, and the life is far more intreresting, reminding me somehow of the apartment block from the film Delicatessen. There are some long term residents, such as mother and daughter Sonia and Alejandra, who´s also been keen to learn some of the braclet making knots. There are also a lot of folk staying at the moment who are working in the fair, and there was a lovely young Mum Ingrid and her son Andy who had the most unusual purr of a cry in the room next to me for a week.



In one of the earlier weeks here I met J´s mate Onan, a Guatemalan artesan and his Japanese wife Mitzi, who cooked a delicious vegetarian meal for us one evening after a day spent on the land they own out of town where they are building a permaculture house. I got my first lesson in machete weilding up there, and at the cost of a couple of potent blisters managed to clear a good wide area of weeeds and grass. Felt a bit like a trampling conqustador when I´d see all the insects fleeing from the blade, felt sorry for the little chuckadees!






So today is the final day of the feria - am have got my eye on a few of the rides there, as well as the ole classic bumper cars that I´ll have to have a go on befre the end of the night - and then i really will have to pack up Peggy and move on, have the pressure of my 90 days expiring on my Guatemalan visa in about a month and a lot more I want to see of the country!




Peace and big love from Coban!