Well well well, what a crazy month or more I have been having since I left Arcas, the common phrase that's being thrown around is that, this isn't real life! There is so much I want to write about but the problem is that a lot of it is not a good idea to write in a blog that is open on the internet, so these stories will just have to be passed in other ways when I see you all again at some point.

So the last bit I wrote about was when I was in Semuc Champey, so as tradition has it, we got wasted before our bus journey. Myself, Tal, Steph and Shacha were all in a room together at El Retiro, an awesome lodge and they had a party there that involved musical chairs, limbo, dancing and copious amounts of alcohol, we ended up in bed at 3 in the morning and up at 6 to catch a bus to Antigua and parting ways with Tal and Shacha for a bit. Steph and I had the best bus journey so far as we were so tired and hangover we slept the whole 8 hours to Antigua!

So we just turned up and found a hostel and as Steph and I have realised, we have impeccable timing, as we were coming round the corner we bumped into Anna, the volunteer coordinator from ARCAS. We had planned to meet the next day on the way to Panajachel but low and behold, we found her early. Antigua is a tourist hub, lovely city in Guatemala with so much more going on, cobbled stone roads, lots of restaurants and bars, markets and more. So again we went out for drinks and food and found a bar with a ladies night going on, were we got 3 free drinks and a massage. That's when the madness started really, there was all sorts of drinks and dancing going on then as well. We dropped off Anna and then was going to meet a couple of other guys we had met in Flores and Semuc and as we were walking down the road, when myself and Steph got approached by 2 guys, they proceeded to grab us and hold us at knife point. So you have to understand that this all happened in a matter of seconds and there had been a lot of alcohol involved, so the next move by myself may not have been the wisest, but it worked. So the guy had hold of me by my t-shirt with a knife to my belly, so I slapped him as hard as I could around the face and started screaming bloody murder, it worked, the guy was so shocked he let go! As I started screaming it triggered Steph and then she started bellowing as well and the guy holding her by her hair ran off also, but not before grabbing her purse and phone.

So in total at this point we have had 2 purses stolen and a broken phone, not too bad as we survived a mugging by knife point. It was a bloody shock, adrenaline gets you so far and then suddenly you feel drained, I found myself sitting in the road with a beer being passed to me! Unfortunately in Steph's purse was our hostel key and the last key that I had for the lock on our safe (the other one had been stolen when in my purse). So with no money and no keys we decided to just drink a bit longer to calm the nerves. Again, impeccable timing as we bumped into our room mate who had a spare key and as we were approaching the hostel a couple of police were cruising by, which we flagged down and told them what happened, they drove back to the station and got some bolt cutters and cut my lock off. This was now 3 in the morning and we were catching our next bus at 7 in the morning, again we were going to be journeying with one hell of a hangover!

So we decided that we wouldn't tell Anna about the mugging until we had safely got to Panajachel as she is a bit of a nervous traveller. So the way to get around Guatemala is to either book on the tourist buses which are more money (compared to the prices in England, they are mega cheap, but we are working with a budget here) and the other way to travel is on the local buses, also known as Chicken buses. These buses are old American school buses that have been given to countries in Central America for their public transport, they are painted and decorated and fit loads of people on them and they are mega cheap. So this was my first ride in a chicken bus (I've now actually lost count on how many I've actually been on now) and it was a great ride, despite being hung over, the journey to Lago de Atitlan was beautiful. So people in central America are totally different from back home, as I've mentioned in my last blog, they are friendly, seem to have little possessions but so much happier. They are smaller in statue but bigger in build and can carry ridiculous loads on their heads and backs and move with crazy agility. They also have no idea about personal space, it's obviously a made up thing in the way they are, so on a bus back home, if there is empty seats you would not dream of sitting next to someone if you can have a seat to yourself, but here, that's not the case, they will sit next to you even if the bus was empty (which again is never the case as public transport here is much used and very efficient) so on this trip to the lake I had many different people sitting next to me and even a guy fall asleep on my shoulder!

Also with the buses, there are no bus stops, none! So you just stand on the road and flag down buses and hope it's the one you need, it's not always clear it's your bus. Sometimes they have where they are going written on the windscreen, sometimes the bus attendant will just shout out of the window along the way and a lot of the time it's just complete guess work. I have not had to wait more than 10 minutes for a bus and they always cost less than a few quid to travel over 2 hours. They have an attendant and a bus driver, the attendant jumps out as the bus is still moving, grabs your bag and you and pretty much hauls you into the bus and then they are off again, everyone on the bus passes your bag down to the end of the bus or tucks it somewhere for you and everyone shuffles to get you in. Sometimes you are pretty much sitting on someone's lap, or hanging on for dear life as they will cram these mini vans and chicken buses so that there is no space to even breath. Also the respect and trust they have for each other is incredible, I saw a lady with a baby in the middle of the bus, pass her baby along the passages to the attendant, then her bags and then she squeezed herself through and her baby and bags were waiting with the attendant outside. At home, no one would think of passing their baby to a load of strangers or let the poor woman squeeze past to be honest, it's such a refreshing change and makes me really question the way we have been brought up to interact with other people. I have been constantly warned out how dangerous Guatemala and Honduras are, the violence etc. (which happens everywhere around the world) and I have witnessed more compassion and trust in the 3 months of being here than I have than my whole life in the UK.

So we arrived in Panajachel is on Lago de Atitlan, absolutely beautiful place, little towns surround the lake with the volcanos in the background. So the first thing we did when we got off the bus was to tell Anna about our adventures of the night before, at first she didn't believe us but then afterwards was grateful that we had waited to tell her the story, she said she had been suspicious that something had gone on as we were so quiet on the bus journey!!

So we made our way to our different hostels, me and Steph were Staying in hotel sol which is a Japanese hotel, were we met up with Joe from Arcas, lovely clean place with awesome beds, simple things while travelling go a long way. The past 2 nights of crazy behaviour had finally caught up with us and we ended up all crashing on the sofas till about 2 in the afternoon. So the 3 of us grabbed Anna from her hostel and then went shopping in the local market for food as we had been invited to a BBQ with an ex volunteer that Joe and Anna knew. Her name is Unni and she lived with a couple of ex CIA guys who were crazy and hilarious, we had an awesome BBQ, sat in the garden of their gated house/complex and just chatted while eating great food and drinking wine and beer. The next day Joe was leaving us to head to Japan, but again he is another person who I will see again along the way, there have been many people I have met in my travels so far and there are a few of them who I know I will find again along the way as they are worth the effort of finding.

Steph and I decided we were going to explore the other towns of the lake, so we got a boat to the next town which was San Marco, my word, now that is hippy central. There was so much body hair and unwashed bodies, it was unbelievable! As we have been travelling along the use of footwear has become less and less and I have found myself walking around barefoot more and more, as I'm writing this blog, I wore trainers for the first time a couple of days ago, in almost a month a half, it was such a strange feeling. Can even be strange to just put my flip flops on!! In San Marco it was made up of little cafes and restaurants and yoga retreats, had a really laid back attitude and was really quaint. We then got the boat over to San Pedro, again this was full of travellers, a bit livelier but with a great atmosphere and beautiful views of the lake. So we decided that the next night we were going to stay here and meet up with Tal and Shacha again. So that night we had a final meal with Anna in Panajachel and said good bye to an awesome person, I wish her all the best at ARCAS and I will be back there in the future.

So the next day we spent in San Pedro, we got a great hostel right on the water that had hot tubs and a chilled atmosphere away from all the other places, you had to get to it through winding alleys covered in flowers and trees, it was all very peaceful! So the 4 of us had a lazy day of food and drinks, also another thing about Central America is the smoothies and fruit drinks you can get, the fruit here is incredible and they make the best drinks ever, huge and so tasty, I was having several of these a day at some points, definitely getting my 5 a day with these drinks! We were staying in a room with Andy and Christi from California and we all ended up going out for drinks and playing cards and swapping stupid stories, in the few days away from Tal, I had missed her so much as we had been together about a month at ARCAS and then some more with travelling, so this was our last day together before we parted ways, again, sad times but we already have plans to find each other again!

So as I mentioned before in my previous blog, I was trying to change my flights from Guatemala to Honduras to a later date, this didn't prove to be successful as they were too expensive to rebook or they wouldn't cancel them without cancelling my flight back to the states so I was about to do a crazy trip on my own. So the next day I left San Pedro and went to Antigua and changed buses and headed to Guatemala City and straight to a hostel I had booked close to the airport. I didn't leave for the night and got a lift to the airport and 4:30 in the morning. My flight to San Pedro in Honduras was only just over an hour long so I arrived at just after 7 in the morning. I then jumped into a taxi to the main bus station in San Pedro, where instantly I jumped on a local bus to Puerto Cortes. You need to understand at this point that I had no idea where I was really heading, except that I wanted to make my way back into Guatemala where I was going back to meet Steph in a few days, my Spanish is still basic but enough to get me places, but I have no idea when I get to towns or what buses to get, so this is the true sense of winging it. Luckily as mentioned before people on the buses are awesome and tell me when I should be getting off and where I need to head next, so I got to Puerto Cortes, and a guy was standing outside the bus and I told him I was heading for the border so he picked up my bag and helped me cross this mega crazy road to get the next bus to Corinto where the border is for Guatemala. So again I was on a chicken bus being squeezed in with a million other people in the boiling heat, but the passengers passed my bag along and squeezed me in and we were off. A couple of hours later they all tell me to get off and point down the road to where the border is, a Honduran guy even walks me up the road till I can see where I am going and I make the walk to the border. There I get my exit stamp for Honduras and now need to find a shuttle to get me to Puerto Barrios and low and behold there is a guy doing a shuttle service from there to the border and is ready for me. However his previous passengers who were trying to get into Honduras were having trouble with their passports and for some reason I suddenly became translator!!! So with my s***ty Spanish and these guys broken English (they were from Slovenia) I managed to deter that they had not got stamps from other countries when crossing the borders so officially they were not in any country. So the border crossing places here can be quite corrupt if you are not careful and luckily I have got through with few problems, but these guys were not going to be allowed in the country unless they paid $70 each for the stamp, so we had to head back into Guatemala for these guys to get cash to pay off the officials so they would stamp their passports. Meanwhile I just sat in the bus and went for the ride for the hell of it, I also made sure I got my stamp for the Guatemalan border, so in that day I had an exit stamp for Guatemala, an entry and exit stamp for Honduras and another entry stamp for Guatemala, all for the 10th Feb!!! Finally those guys were sorted and me and the bus driver headed to Puerto Barrios, once there I then had to get a boat to Livingston and a short walk up a hill to Casa de la Iguana (which my bus driver had called ahead and booked for me!). Phew! Now that was a journey and a half, but I got there about 4 in the afternoon and decided I was not going anywhere for a few days at least!

So Livingston is a strange little place on the coast, it's in Guatemala but its main inhabitants are Garfuni, they are descendants from Africans brought over for slavery and left here, Belize and Roatan in the Caribbean. So they speak in a very Caribbean way but also speak Spanish. Livingston is only accessible by boat and the sea food dishes here are incredible, finally found a place to just chill in the sun, go swimming in the warm sea, visit the waterfalls and eat copious amounts of fish., I stayed in a place that was a party hostel, so obviously I partied, there was crazy jenga and a roulette wheel of dares, that involved cake races, beer races etc. and hung out with a load of French Canadians, they are everywhere! So after my stay here I decided to go and retrieve Steph from Lanquin as I liked it there so much, so the next day I took a boat on the river to Rio Dulce, the boat was a great ride and we visited hot springs and went through parts of the river covered in lily pads.

Not much to report back about Lanquin as I had already been there and just had a lazy day and was happy to see Steph's smiling little face again.

So the next day we headed back to Rio Dulce, only stayed 1 night as there was not much to do and we were staying in the worst hostel we have done so far. The beds were so hard and no sheets provided, which was fine as it was cheap but when I got my sleeping bag out, it smelt so bad as I hadn't washed it in so long that I nearly chocked myself with the smell!!! The next day we were heading back to Livingston and we met Tom before heading on the boat and we later met up with him again in Livingston, so another recruit to the travelling duo, now became a trio!! So this time in Livingston the storms had come so we spent a lazy couple of days in Livingston, with more sea food and drunken behaviour! So we decided to head to Utila, Tom went via the tourist shuttle as he had enough of changing buses and me and Steph took the local buses to La Ceiba for a 3rd of the price. A long journey and some hassle of finding a place in La Ceiba for the night but other than that, uneventful as I had already done most of that journey before when I had been coming the other way.

So in the morning we got the boat to Utila and met Andy, a guy from England who was travelling for 6 weeks and had just had a motorbike accident and was in bad shape. So another traveller to add to the mix, the boat journey over was interesting as the boat was so rocky that sea sickness started kicking in with a few people, I was so happy to land in Utila.

So we stayed at Alton's dive shop, Andy and Tom joined us a few days later as they were staying elsewhere originally and the little family grew. So Uitla is a mental island, people come for a short visit and never leave, each of the dive shops forms its own family and you become so close as you spend every day together, diving, drinking, chatting and just hanging out in the hammocks. It was an awesome place to put my bag down for a couple of weeks. I took my open water qualification and went diving for the first time and absolutely loved it. At first I have never been so aware of my breathing but once you get down and start seeing all the fish in the reef you are taken over by trying to spot everything down there, the longest dive I did was 61 minutes and it only felt like I was down there 10 minutes as you get so caught up in everything. Absolutely loved it and the instructors there were awesome and they really made my time there incredible. In the evenings we would go and listen to Brandon playing his guitar in the local bars, or go to an all-night beach party, stay up to watch the sun rise and then just carried on drinking again the next day, that's where my current cover photo on Facebook comes from. Again this was not like real life, no one wore shoes, drugs were openly sold and smoked everywhere, when you ran out of clean clothes you would head to the local bars and take part in drinking challenges for clean t-shirts. It was so hot in Utila that we spent the time out of the water lazing in hammocks in the shade. We ate so much great food there and the most amazing smoothies, if I didn't have a flight so soon I could of easily of got lost on that island for months as well, so it's sometimes good to go there with an agenda or you could be there a year later like some people I met.

So I had been with Tom for a few weeks now, and again had to say goodbye to someone who I didn't really want to, but I will find him again in Melbourne if he ever gets off Utila, I will confess to crying like an absolute baby when I left him, even made him cry a bit.

So I had intended to leave Wednesday morning on the morning boat but unfortunately it's the night after tequila Tuesday, where I fully indulged and ended up crashing at a friend's house. So Steph in the morning couldn't find me and headed off, knowing fully well I would find her the next day. So after a delayed departure I caught the ferry the next day and headed to Lago Yojoa in Honduras. I again nearly ended back in Utila (that island didn't want me to leave) as I fell asleep on the ferry and didn't wake up when I got to La Ceiba but luckily a guy woke me up as the last few people were getting off. Caught a couple of buses and headed into the think of Honduras, lush country sides, mountains and better roads! It's a beautiful country here as well, the buildings are different from Guatemala and seems to be a little bit more money here but no so much, many similarities and slight differences. You can see the heritage of the people are slightly different with more European influence in their features but they still stare at the foreigner waiting by the road for the bus!

So the lake was beautiful, met some other crazy travellers there from England, America and Finland and spent the next couple of days hiking in the cloud forests, jumping in freezing cold waterfalls, going on an extreme tour of caves which involved us clambering barefooted through stalagmites and stalactites with a torch and a helmet, jumping along rocks and looking down holes with no end in sight. This would again be never allowed at home, which made it all the more exciting and dangerous, laughed so much and emerged covered in mud and in need of a good scrub!

So the next day was the final parting with Steph my travel buddy of the last 6 weeks, again I cried as I waved her off on James's motorbike heading further into Honduras while I make my way back to San Pedro Sula to get my flight tomorrow back to Florida for the next part of my journeys. I can't believe it's been 3 months since I flew to Central America, but I have visiting Guatemala, Belize, Mexico and Honduras, made some awesome friends who I plan to see again, some soon, some later on my travels and I want to come back here before I have even left. I want to thank all my new friends for the awesome time I had with them here, wish them all the best in their travels and I will see you again my friends x x