Today I had a great experience, but in hindsight it was one of the stupidest things I've ever done......if things had worked out differently I would have hoped that I would have got a Darwin Award nomination. I've had a passion for hiking and climbing anything that looks like a mountain for a while now. Since Hawaii I've also had a fascination with lava, so when the opportunity presented itself to climb an active volcano and see lava I jumped at the chan...

Today I met a God. It wasn't in Olympus, Heaven or Asgaard but in a small village, named Santiago, on the shores of Lake Atitlan in the Guatemalan highlands. His name was Maximo and lived in the converted living room of one of the village elders of the town(he moves to a new residence every year). In appearance he looked like a armless wooden dummy covered in shawls and scarves, wearing a hat propped up against a table, however if you stayed and watched a while ...

I know that the 'journey' is an integal part of a travelers experience but in reflection it's quiet scary how many of my blogs have related incidents on transport, here's another..... The Guatemalan bus system is run by a bloody accountant! We left the hotel in Flores at around 8am this morning in a cab to cross the causeway to San Elena where we were to get a local bus to Rio Dulce, a four hour trip to the Caribbean coast of Guatemala The bus tickets said...

Crossed into Guatemala yesterday. We're staying in a colonial style town, Flores, located on an island (joined by causeway) in the second largest lake in Guatemala. The amazing thing about the island was that it was man made by the Mayan people a few centuries before the Conquistadors came. They flattened all the Mayan buildings and set up a garrison town there. On Sunday we visited Tikal, one of the most famous of all the Mayan ruins. It...

Left Mexico yesterday and entered Belize (yah mon!) after eight hours on a couple of busses and 45minutes on a very high powered passenger boat arrived at Caye Caulker, an island where we will be based for the next couple of days. When the boat docked at the island a local dude waiting on the dock to sell accomidation/food/taxi rides yelled out to the 50 or so people on the boat, "Welcolme to paradise..........My name is Jesus". It set the tone of the...