australia

Howdy
I'm in Fitzroy, wrapped in a flannel-lined 70s sleeping bag, coopers beer in hand, numb hands. Back in Australia.

I arrived on Monday, and have spent this week wandering around, half still on holidays, and just passing time for school to begin next week. My list of things to do is pretty huge- all house/friends/uni/clothes/exchange/centrelink-ish stuff but I still feel a bit removed from obligations, responsibilities, etc. What I do know is that come Monday when school starts it's all going to pick up again very quickly and slap me in the face.

Last Thursday I left La Ceiba at 5am and drove the long trip back to Antigua. It was smooth this time. I read a lot, wrote, and was not inclined to vomit. Win! Friday passed super quickly.  I found a book fair, bought some English language books which I'd promised to send to our guide in Flores, so that he could commence his English education. I mailed my 'central america america on a shoe-string' guide book back to Judith, my housemate from NY who had traversed the terrain last year. It felt bizarre parting ways - like I was giving up the sacred book I'd be doomed without. I wandered around the town, buying a few things, and trying to ignore the growing distance I felt with everything around me. My shuttle to the airport never came, so luckily a nice tour agent called Hektor got his girlfriend to take me out to Guatemala City. I transferred my monies, lempiras and quetzales back into US dollars, got felt up by security, and prepared to part ways.

I got back into LA at around 1am. I'd booked myself into a shmancy hotel at the airport full of fluffy white towells, soft white linen, hot water, a huge cable tv, squishy carpets, no bed bugs. It's beautiful to come back the small things! I watched MTV until about 3am, then crashed.
Saturday I'd chatted with a few couch surfing people to meet up, but none of it worked as I didn't have a phone. I went ahead doing my own thing- eating at an amazing indian restaurant along venice blvd which had been recommended to me, as well as attending the Museum of Jurassic Technology. This was a bizarre experience, but ultimately pleasing.

And crazy enough one of my couch surfing chums was there and casually told me that he had a FREE TICKET TO MOBY that night and it had my name on it. So we found his friend, jammed in the truck, drove around Beverley Hills smashing out Spanish.

Moby played outside, as part of a series of summer shows. His band was brilliant, and singing was shared entirely throughout the performers. The sun set amongst the buildings with the Hollywood Hills in the background, with acoustic We Are All Made of Stars, Bobby McGhee and Porcelain weaving into my final few hours. As I left to get my cab out to the airport, the band were singing Helpless by Neil Young. I had a few tears, like the other 4000 people there.

Goodbye America!

So that was my trip. Thanks for reading, hope you've enjoyed.
Love love G

welcome to my world

5pm. Wednesday, 11^th July.

I’m lying on a bed in a room in a totally deserted hotel (me being the only one here) in the weird town of La Ceiba. Look, La Ceiba really is weird. After my gruelling 16-hour bus ride from Antigua to here (whilst a mean fever/stomachache/ throbbing head/blurry vision/ digestion problem was brewing) I arrived here, in a hotel with weak blue fluroscent lights, eeirily quiet,and the hotel attendant skipping through facebook photos of him pointing guns at the camera. Um ok hi. I treated myself to a private room with PRIVATE BATHROOM, and did not leave that room until 36 hours later, when I felt mildly capable to make the trip to Utila. Mind you, the only way to arrive on the island of Utila is to catch the Utila Princess IV (known as the ‘Vomit Comet’) so I gingerly stepped aboard the boat.  On board there was a picture of a tropical beach on the wall with a lop-sided horizon. Almost to appreciate the tossing and rocking that was about to occur.

The boat ride was rough, but I survived. Upon arrival we were treated to an abundance of scuba options, with pamphlets being thrust in our faces. I followed the advice of a German guy who was at the same hotel in La Ceiba and went to check out Captain Morgan’s. If I did the Open Dive Scuba Course, I would be cutting it short cause usually it goes for 4.5 days and I had 3. But they could do it and after eating some rice for lunch, checked into a hotel room and got cracking with the theory. That night a bunch of people went out on the town, though it was pretty quiet as it was a Sundi night, and all. However there was a bar called Rehab, which had writing strewn all over the walls, ala ‘get me the fuck out of this place’ and that was quite a lol. The bar was on a deck over the ocean so it was quite nice to dangle our tootsies in the water whilst enjoying a Monkey La La cocktail. We managed to stay up til 2am, then swiftly went to bed so we could wake up at 6am and catch the ferry off Utila to some smaller islands called the Jewell Cayes, where the course would take place.

We started diving that morning. Our instructor, Isaac, was from Spain and ran our whole course in English and Spanish, given that there was me, another Australian girl, and an Argentine guy. As soon as we had ran over the basics, we put on our regulators, breathed in, and before submerging, he said; ‘Welcome to my world’.

Wow wow wow wow wow. My first impression was how clear everything was. Visibility was awesome, and the water aquamarine. Even just in the shallow water, everything popped out to the eyes. The hair on my arms, the water bubbles being blown by the others in the group, skin, finger prints. And then we got deeper, amongst electric blue little fishes, brain corals, coral that looks like trees, and fans. Burnt orange, electric purple, electric blue everywhere. We continued with skills for a while- taking off the mask and putting it back on, then blowing out the air bubbles- getting used to being able to breathe even when you can’t see.

And how you can move your body just by breathing. People looked like unborn babies, floating peacefully around. One of our guides had taken up a yogic seated position and just watched us, totally suspended, about a metre off the sea bed. Unreal. So that was all very exciting. It felt kind of like a drug- everything was so peaceful, quiet, beautiful that nothing else seemed to matter.

That night at our hotel we had a barbecue, with about 15 people. Good times with Salva Vida beer, lime, roast potatoes, veggies.

Yesterday we did two more dives, this time deeper at about 12 metres, with a huge cliff that you could just float right off the top off. It’s too beautiful to be scary. We saw an Eagle Ray, as well as many kinds of fish, anemones, weird worm things, and little see-through jellies. Today we dived again, and saw more huge Eagle Rays (one came STRAIGHT at us, though it’s better just to stop and let it pass. That was scary, had a bit of a Steve Irwin what-if moment). And we also saw 5 SEAHORSES. Our guide was cacking his dacks. They were amazing. The big one was old and was covered in bits of sea plants, the young ones were black and tiny. Each one was somewhere different, their tails wrapped around a bit of wood. So beautiful.

After getting off the boat we had to finish up our theory, and then I had to catch the boat back to Utila (whilst completing my final exam) so that I could catch the 2pm boat. It all worked smoothly, and I passed the course, so I now await my card in the mail. It’s so exciting and I can’t wait to do some diving back home (though it will be crazy expensive, I know). I’m so thankful that I got well quick enough to be able to do it.

Just caught the Vomet Comet back here to La Ceiba, checked into this weird place (the owners just had a domestic, euugghh) and found myself some pasta IN A TOTALLY EMPTY RESTAURANT. I wish my bus could just leave right now for Antigua but instead I have to wait till 5.15am tomorrow morning. Overnight buses just don’t happen here- mostly for safety- and it’s such a pain cause it wastes whole days.  But whatever. It will be good just to sit and listen to music and write and read and think.

And then I arrive in Antigua tomorrow night, then maybe do something exciting on Friday (like climb an active volcano?!?!) and then LEAVE on Friday night! This is crazy. So soooon.

Well, I think that’s all for now. Love love, hasta pronto.

Xox G

guatemalteco

July 5^th.

Ah yes. My belly is full of delicious steamed vegetables and red wine, I just wrote a song, and now Beck’s ‘Guero’ is playing. Yes please k thanks. It’s Thursday evening and I’m in Antigua, Guatemala’s old national capital before some hecckas as earthquakes destroyed it. It’s a colonial tourist town, about an hour out of Guatemala City, and it’s been a good base for the last week or so.

SO! UPDATES! After Tikal I met a French lassie Aviva and we headed to Semuc Champey, a national park area full of crazy huge mountains and limestone rocks and crystalline pools along the river. The bus ride was crazy- I mean they all are, here. But he preferred the left to the right side of the road (not a positive in these parts), sped, braked heavily, all the time, and then wouldn’t stop when people started feeling ill due to his shitty mountain driving. The mini-van was packed out, and he refused to put on the AC. And it’s frickin humid. But anyways we arrived, all good, in a town called Lanquin, about 40 mins from Semuc Champey. The hostel there was great. It sat on top of a valley, overlooking steep corn fields and houses speckled amongst the forest. The showers were open and spanned out across the valleys so that everyone could see your titties. Well worth it but.

The next day we took a tour to explore Semuc Champey. This involved a crazy steep hike first thing in the morning, then another walk to the pools, where our guide made us take limestone slides down precarious cliffs. Clessic. But it was beautiful. We also explored some caves behind a waterfall, which was pretty bonkers. After that we had some lunch and then explored some water caves, where they give you a candle. I guess it’s novel to have wax dripping on your hands and for the light to constantly go out when you’re swimming through water. But yeah, another hair-raising experience where we had to climb up a waterfall in the dark. Pretty much a self-induced water boarding situation, though most of us complied. The height was maybe 4 metres, and you could have slipped all too easily. Thanks to my risk-conscious father, all these thoughts ran through my mind. But we made it ok, and at the end, one guy from the tour told us that his friends were in doing the same tour a few weeks ago and it was raining really heavily outside and the water trapped them in the cave for four hours, constantly rising. And when we got to the mouth of the cave it was pissing down rain and we all felt very lucky to see sunlight.

Then after we jumped off a 12 metre bridge into a river and finally tubed down the river. It was a full-on day, and I felt like a child again, where fear was just a part of everyday life and easily surpassed.

The next day we caught yet another bus here to Antigua, and took it easy for the afternoon. Then we went to San Pedro, a little pueblito on the shores of Lake Atitlan (google that shi, or watch for upcoming facebook photos cause it is totally brilliant). In San Pedro we stayed at a hostel called Zoola, which was full of handsome Israelis, great food, and noice hangout places and a horizon pool looking over the lake. 

Our main day in San Pedro was yesterday, when we woke up at 3.30am to do a crazy hike up to the top of Nariz del Indio, a mountain which looks like an indian’s face, the nose the highest peak. It was tough work and we were with an Israeli princess who gave us strife when she refused to walk any further and sat down on the ground and called for her boyfriend. We tried to help her but to no avail. And we tried to hurry her along (the sun don’t wait for SHI, btw), but to no avail. So we carried on. And we watched the sun rise over the Guatemalan highlands over this brilliant huge lake. And in the distance a volcano was smoking. And then we had coffee and bread and nutella, in the early morning cold, and soaked it up.

Next on our list of activities was ziplining. That was fun, nerve-testing and ultimately rewarding when the ground dropped from beneath you to reveal early morning fog rolling off the lake. 

And THEN we went back and chilled and had lunch, and then, HORSEBACK RIDING!

This was a lot of fun. The guide’s horse looked like beyonce (weird/true) and my one was called Lola, a big brown beast of a lassie. We rode through town feeling like conquistadors through the cobblestoned colonial village. We rode around the base of the San Pedro volcano, and then took a walk down to the beach. ‘Beach’  is a loose term- the lake has been rising for the last 10 years or so, swallowing houses and farmland. I chatted with our guide Pedro on the shore about the area. In 2002 there was a landslide and 1000 people were killed, more homeless, and it was up to local volunteers to find the bodies. It happened at 4am, so many bodies were lying in their beds with their babies and loved ones. Our other guide, Salvador, was pretty scarred from the experience. ‘I can never remove these pictures from my mind’, he said.

Today we woke up super early (again, damnit!) to head to the Chichi (???) markets, a 2-hour bus ride away. Along the way the road was blocked due to student demonstations and we were told it would be closed for 3 hours, and our driver was prepared to patiently wait. Luckly, thank the heavens, the road re-opened pretty quickly and we were on our way. The markets were crazy busy- and the sellers very persistent with whities. One woman followed me around for 20 minutes showing me a wall hanging which began priced at 300 quetzales and then she slowly brought it down to 80 quetzales, doing all the bargaining work herself. If you just walk away then the price reduces dramatically. I just didn’t want it though, so I couldn’t help her. I bought some beautiful things, though now I question how they will fit into my backpack. It will happen, somehow. It always does.

Once we left the markets it was another 2 hours back to Antigua. I tried to sleep but with no luck. So now, it’s 8.20pm, and I’m totally spent. I’m catching a bus at 3.30am tomorrow morning to commence my 15-hour bus ride to Utila, the island where I’m doing my open water dive certificate. I went to the markets this afternoon, and loaded up with bags of strawberries, apples, juice and biscuits, ready for the long day ahead. I long for a day when I don’t have to set my alarm to DO anything, it’s just been a full-on week. But I only have one week left and I’m feeling slightly pinched to get it all done.  I will rest when I’m home. Or when I’m on a tropical island. Either/or.

Love to all. See you soon.

Ps here is my homecoming schedule: Utila > Antigua > Guatemala City > LA (24 hours) > Fiji > Sydney > Melbourne. H.O.L..Y. MO.SES.

xoox