Sorry - story of my life…. the Mañana-feeling! LOL

Back to the efficiency of the third world… Guatemala! No offense to either country of course, but there were a certain number of “reliefs” after leaving Cuba. For example, you can actually talk to people in the street (one of the reasons I love Guate so much is its friendly people) without having to say either of the following:

“No, I don’t want to buy your cigars”

“No, I don’t need a tourguide”

“No, I do not want to sleep with you (woman) / your wife (family offer)”

and “No, I definately don’t want to marry you!”

Anyway, that’s Cuba… and maybe a little bit of personal frustration ;) Let’s move on to the final steps in Central America; flying back to Guatemala was easy, though interesting as quite a bit of commonly called “undefinable smoke” entered the cabin. Well, I don’t panic as long as the crew doesn’t so whatever… and we even got there on time! Another few bumpy rides (I love those chicken buses!) and a little boat trip took us to the biggest miss-out on my Guatemala-list: San Pedro La Laguna! We got into this nice lake-view hostel on a prime location and paid the extortionate amount of $2,50 a night for a room. How dare they!Time for a little more chilling, lazing around, hippie-being and this:

Kayaking - it’s not like I haven’t done this before… but hey, it’s Lake Atitlan so one should just do it. Besides I could use a little exercising after being linear for a while ;)

Lazing around - see above (and about 25 other posts - this site has a search function ya know!? ;))

Volcano climbing - these cone-shaped things are scattered all over the place so it’s a matter of picking one’s poison! Volcan San Pedro is the nearest and (as they say) prettier one, thus a good one to climb in order to say goodbye to volcano-climbing! (for now that is!)

Losing weight - it’s one way to do it… stuff came out quicker than it was supposed to… no details!

Shopping - Come on, I’m a man… but the home-front demands gifts once you return so it’s something you just have to do ;)

So there’s one way to “lose” another 5 days in Central America. Next up is the USA, Arizona and California to be exact. Come back soon for the final travelling article!

-René

[Show as slideshow]

Volcan San Pedro - who can run up fastest? ;)

In France they call this "hors catégorie" ;)

Local weather forecast: a very high Holland-factor!

The downside about being in the same archipelago for 4 straight weeks is the fact that you don’t really get to write about a great variety of topics, other than the stuff you’ve already read below. However, as variety is the spice of life (and website traffic) and I don’t mean to slap you in the face with white-sand beaches, palm trees, blue waters and fun pics time and again I decided to take pictures of a few tours around the archipelago. Just because… and due to the fact that you actually do need a boat and a little jungle-wedging before getting to the nicest places around here.

Besides the stuff you’ve already come across on this website, Spanish classes are going well and I do seem to be getting up to a level where I can actually make myself understood (thanks Karen, Veronica, Aicel, Adrian!), though not good enough to annoy you with any Spanish posts down here :)

Further on life seems to be getting on quite easily - days merely exist of Spanish classes, the beach, day trips through jungles and stuff, sailing, and so forth. Kayaking was particularly fun too, especially when we got flipped over in high waves :) Also getting flushed away by a tidal wave is quite interesting (hey… I was sleeping!) as well as offroad bicycle rides through 3 km of mud puddles in order to get to a more secluded beach! Also had some dancing classes from someone from Costa Rica (muchas gracias Lucia!!) and it seems like my list of addictions is still growing!

Again, I will update this post with pics - yes, got a new camera! - later on as this doesn’t seem to work at present (surprise, surprise…) so be sure to return!

Hasta luego!

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