Antigua is utterly out of place in Guatemala. The city looks like a pretty European town that has Bern picked up and airlifted to Central America. The dirty, cracked streets I'd grown accustomed to were replaced with cobblestones and the dodgy fly-infested cafes were replaced with swanky bagel joints. The best thing about Antigua though was the fact that it was surrounded by 3 very impressive volcanoes which were visible from anywhere in the city. After the n...

The journey from Flores to Semuc Champey looks pretty straight forward on a map but 4 chicken buses, 1 boat and a trip on the back of a pickup truck later we realized that wasn't the case. Chicken buses are American school buses, given to Guatemala as aid, each one painted and decorated with unique motifs involving mermaids, skulls, spears and anything else the driver considers fit and appropriate for public transport.  It is hard to explain just how exhausting...

The border crossing into Guatemala was painless, something that certainly cannot be said about the Guatemalan buses which threw you up in the air every 100 yards or so. It wasn't too long at least before we pitched up in Flores, though it took a good few hours to get full feeling back in my ass. We found a decent looking hotel looking over the lake so wandered in only to find Blake and Wei-Lein from Playa and Caye Caulker making their dinner. By this time I'm ...

After the constant struggle with Spanish in Mexico, English-speaking Belize was a breath of fresh air, not that you could understand the locals when they spoke to one another, with their extremely thick Caribbean accents. The best thing was being able to read and signs, though one of the first places I saw after the border was, "Average Fastfoods," which begged the question, what were the names of some of the poorer food stalls I´d eaten at in Mexico ...

On the short drive between PLaya Del Carmen and Tulum, I took a short break in order to visit a cenote for some snorkelling. Basically, it´s a half flooded cave with amazing underwater stalegtites and stalegmites. Snorkelling at the cenotes must be about as close as you can come to being on some distant, and probably alien infested, other world. Since some of the caves have no natural light, my guide gave me a torch and it was while he was explaining the impor...