Jesus Christo es el Senor

.....after 1 boat, two chicken buses, a shuttle and a taxi the last thing I needed was a preaching session from an evangelist, but thats what I got. He clamboured abourd a bus bound for Tela in Honduras, all orange tank top and bible gripped in the whites of his hands. His stern voice demanded the chase music be knocked off and then he started. His eyes bulged, veins popped and spit sprang from his mouth as he passionately got his point across. I thought he might faint or at least burst into flames, nothing. He quietened, bowing his head and recited a prayer. Long and meaningful. Then the bus gave thanks by giving him money. In Honduras the Evangelists are the bad people, they bribe people into their religion with gifts and promise of food. Is that Gods work? I guess so......
......Tela, ramshackle and alive. The central park bustles with locals living. Selling, buying, laughing and crying. This town has a pulse that has not been diluted. Bad tourism planning and Hurricane Mitch tried it and failed. A lazy dirty Carribean beach hems the town in. Old hotels and restaurants pepper the coast, hinting at a bygone splendour. I was one of only 20 tourists there. I really stood out. Yet all the people were helpful. I visited a Garifuna town, all red dirt and African style dwellings. These descendants from slaves have kept true to their culture in a foreign land through language, dance and song.......
.....Utila, Ibiza in Honduras. Its pretty, but does not have a soul, there are some authentic things, locals who descend from pirates who talk in a crazed English dialect and more Garifunas and blow ins from the mainland. Then there is us, and cheap beer. enough said.

Un poco de Espanol
esponge-Guatemalan nick name for the Irish.
How many Beards since being away
3 and working on a fourth.

Be in Utila till Sunday,
After

The Buddha of Swiss Banking

Rio Dulce : A ramshackle boat swept me across the Rio Dulce and up an inlet of water deep into mosquito infested jungle. There are other bugs here, the size of wasps who find Irish blood to their liking. The jungle squeezed the river and spurted out at Casa Perico. I was tired after a long days travel from Flores and the humid heat took its toll. I was greeted by an ample man called Rudy. He was a Swiss banker of some belly girth. He grabbed my bag and led me to my room for recuperation. Later that evening I met him at the bar, drinking some fine red wine. He spoke and I listened, he did not like interruptions. He told me of his mystical 3 months in the Alps finding himself. I asked if he did. His belly swelled in laughter and he announced, Rudys a big man and he still has lots to discover. He topped up my Cuba Libre and we got drunk to Ave Maria.
Livingston : The thing about journeys here is this, they always stop to refuel ten minutes after departure. So the boat pulled up alongside an Esso garage on the river and I was off to Livingston, a home to the Garifuna culture, only accessable by boat. It is hot as hell here, and this is where I organised a makeshift Paddys Day celebration in Casa de Iguana. All green balloons and green Cuba Libres. With the help of Christy and Alison at the hostel we got food colouring which turned our mouths green and made the sick festive. There is not much to do, except lay on your hole drinking and ranting about everything. I´ve been called a professor by crazed locals because of my beard and an ësponge (the Guatemalan term for Irish people). Use your imagination.
Its so hot the hot springs are a bit pointless, no refreshing swim. I bid adios now and head to Honduras tomorrow with nice guy Dave.
Up Ireland, cricket? The fuck?

Tikal Sunrise

.....a steep temple was climbed in contemplation. An ocean of grey lay below a slender moon and solitary star. Dawn yawned. The night sounds of crickets and insects cajoled the jungle to wake.the first rays of the sun began burning at a thick mist. Shapes began forming, trees mostly but spectre like towers flitted in and out of view.A distant noise howled off branches. A red line outlined nightclouds in preparation for the sun. Shapes began to get colour, different shades of green speckled with blooming flowers and the now fully awakened toucans. The howls came closer and came from all directions. Ghostly temples began to form strongly, as the sun peaked out to disapate the mist. More trees grew from the foggy sea. The howls grew stronger as howler monkeys marked their territory and pumas roared in the rising sun. The light squinted my eyes as the mist left southwards, liberating the jungle briefly. Many huge temples appearred praised by the animals . The sun grew stronger and swallowed the mist in an orange glow burying the temples once again.

It was worth getting up at 3am in the morning for that alone.
check out littlecesarstours@yahoo.com
Great guide. I´m off to Rio Dulce tomorrow.

Once Upon A time

....the square box bus moved past pimple backed hills spreading as far as the eye could see. It wound round bendy corners, climbed up and down paved roads and ones made of dirt. On the way we waved at happy fairy Mary hostels, hunched over locals plying their trade and acres of corn until it came to a yellow bridge. It looked weak. But the brave square box bus carried us on and into a gravelled carpark. then we got out. An arched over man brought up deep into the forest, nothing could be heard except for water. Everywhere. We climbed a great mountain and gazed in awe as we saw what lay down below. Five natural pools. Better than the Olympics, but they hid a secret beneath, a roaring river lay 300 metres below carving out rocks with its teeth. A double decker river, stunning..........
anyway, Coban is a nondescript town close to the above, and its where I´m at. I was greeted by a Klu Klux Klan meeting on arrival. Two gruff youths with pointed scarfs ran over , shaking a money box manically. Their scarfs were different colours and behind them I could see the whole clan. Chanting. Español. Bush. Ahh the protest songs against Bush. They needed their faces hid in this country, 100 people were arrested on suspicion of disliking GWB last week.(He is visiting after all, and you don´t want to protest here) The Banana Repaublic is alive and well.
........stayed with the guatemalan equivolent of the Deliverance locals last night. If it wasn´t for the fact the turkeys and chickens got loose I´m sure I´d be dead.
Good bye

SanPedro De Laguna cursed by Dreads

...the bus swerved down a rollercoaster road into San Pedro de Laguna, dodging chicken buses and stray dogs, stopping outside Shanti Shanti. We had no idea where we were. A narrow street wound its way between ramshackle houses and there were no street signs. Two rough looking locals approached us, offerring to show us where all the good hotels were. In apprehension, myself, Amir and Rob followed nervously. We turned quickly off the only paved street in town, into a labyrinth of pathways that constitute streets here. We fell further behind our guides fearing we were being done, we saw dungeons that serenaded as rooms and passed out hippies at every turn. In one hostel a guy lay naked outside a door, with a dreadlocked girl and guy singing songs, the age of aquarius had returned. We settled on the next sane looking place, with a view of beauty. The lake surrounded by volcanic peaks and washer women. Stunning.
.....want to come to a party?
......sure.
...jumping into the back of a pickup truck when full of beer maybe is not the sainist thing to do. When it begins to drive up a 70 degree incline and back down the other side is madness. But good craic. After this ride I got off at a party hidden deep in the woods on the shore of the lake. Crazed 90´s dance music bellowed out and all I could see were dreads. Thousands of them looking irritatingly at me and the lads. Almost aggresively they offered LSD and seemed pissed that it wasn´t taken. It wasn´t a good atmosphere, there were some arguments and howls at the moon. These so called free love shits are extremely irritating. I dont mind if they don´t wash for religious reasons but most of these kids are middle class Yanks and Eurothrash. To them everything is free because their daddies pay for it. It hurts this town, andhas turned a beautiful place into a dropout zone.
Please see footnote :

For some peoples of African descent, locks are a statement of racial or ethnic pride. Some see them as a repudiation of Eurocentric values represented by straightened hair. For some, the rejection of ideas and values deemed alien to African peoples (which dreadlocks embody) sometimes can assume a spiritual dimension. Similarly, others wear dreads as a manifestation of their black nationalist or pan-Africanist political beliefs and view locks as symbols of black unity and power, and a rejection of oppression, racism and imperialism. While most Rastafari sects welcome all ethnicities and the history of dreadlocks attributes the hairstyle to almost all racial and ethnic groups, some blacks who attach strong racial meaning to dreads disapprove of the wearing of dreads by nonblacks, viewing such practice as a form of cultural appropriation.

Thats my rant, all is good and I´m moving on again tomorrow.
Adios

PS . Picked up a copy of 44 by Peter Sheridan in Antigua, it was a unproof read promotional copy. Very strange.

Hasta luego Antigua

it´s time to go, to move on and get out of this town. The first five weeks of my travelling have merely been ground work, gentle stretching before setting out to travel properly. 3 weeks of doing a Spanish course and now I know how to say someone committed suicide, hopefully never useful. Today I move on to San Pedro De Laguna, the first of many stops along the way. So I must say goodbye to this amiable little town. Goodbye to the 18 year old students you made the night life messy and sickly, so long to the dropout hippies who have been running from reality since the sixties, after to the broken down muses who drooled over poor Amir while ranting about how many orgasms they achieved in one day with a guy called Juan, adios to the bus loads of gringos who poked cameras at everything that looked ethnic, slan libh to Cafe No Se, Y Tu Piña Tambien and Reillys, the last Irish pub for months, these places provided much calm and fun and good people, goodbye to the muse, her following is large and interesting. And finally to the beauty and charm of this place, natural and in the tolerance of her people.
I´ve met good souls, but now I move on..................
Up Man U, the title is coming.

Maximon

.....my body ached after an hour of a bus journey over cobbled streets. We arrived in a small town in the mountains around Antigua. The town is worn out, faded by sun and cracked by tremors. I turned right up a steep incline, dotted by half hearted peddlars of tourist ware and strange little statues of a suited figure. About 100 metres up the incline I turned into a typical courtyard. A group of people sat hunched, carefully arranging an elaborate floral design, consisting of petals, fruit, cigarettes and other selected offerrings for the MAN. Three women dragged my eyes away. Two of them had eight cigars each, carefully bundled into one. All were burning and they took deep drags of smoke and clicked fingers and spat in respect. A large burst of flame errupted from the small group. Their elaborate design had gone up in smoke and they paced around mumbling utterances of hope. A large blue building hemmed in the south side of the courtyard. It seemed to be a church and on entering I was greeted by 6 large tabes, heavy with wax. Large candles glowed from them. Different colours for different wishes, black is for death. There were several black candles. Beside them lay upturned cigarettes slowly burning with bent ash. Plaques adorned the walls giving thanks to Maximon. I gazed into the belly of the building and the great man sat there. An old man bowed before him placing gifts of liqour and food while flaggelating himself with coarse whippet branches. I waited until he had finished before approaching. I climbed three steps and found Maximon. He wore a dapper suit with a sharp wide brimmed hat. A Texas style moustache hung beneath his nose. In his hand he held what seemed to be a cane. The people worshipped this pale faced saint, he resembled a boss from the old United Fruit company think man from Del Monte in a black suit. ..........
........These people do religion. I am a lapsed Catholic, yes a person who has been worn down by scandals and ignorance of the church in Ireland. I cant place the relevance of it in my daily life. Or maybe it is all in the presentation at home. Here all religious festivals are accompanied by joy. There is reverance but its hidden amongst smiling faces. At home its a sombre thing. This week has seen countless colourful parades, giant symbolic floats with depictions of Jesus carrying the cross. Numerous weddings to signify Ash Wednesday, where the brides wore bright brash colours and crowds gathered outside just to applaude them. Locals seem comfortable with the church and its place in their lives, not as a dictator but as a guideline and not a rule book.
This contrasted interestingly with a group of Evangelical missionaries who gathered outside the cathedral. They huddled in a massive group with one mans voice ringing out in an American twang. I overheard his pleas for God to save these people. Then I moved on.........

Thank you all for listening. One more week in Antigua and I´m gone mofo. To the lake, the most beautiful lake in the world.