RAYOSX

I´m in Antigua, former capital of Guatamala, home of colonial ruins and some mighty nice marimba playing, in this instance, by some sort of military band, such nimble trigger fingers. I caught a little yesterday at a presentation celebrating 10 years of peace, in agreement form, I think it was something to do with indigenous rights as there were a number of well spoken young mayan women on stage throughout. It was swiftly followed by perhaps an odd display of disney characters parading about, featuring none other than that baby dinosaur from the show to rival the cosbys, the ins and outs of the every dinosaur. If I could remember the name, or upload the video, then you´d know what I was on about.


For fear of mentioning it again, there is so much ´hotel california´here. It´s incredible. Every time a bus starts, a hospedaje is checked into, a car with a speaker strapped onto it´s roof drives by... i guess it does have a bit of a latin swing to it.

Today, I climbed a volcano. Though, the more impressive feat was getting up at 5:00 for the bus. phew! I was amazed by how many people commented on how hot it was as we stood on its crust. Pacaya. The most active of the three (of 33) volcanos in Guatamala. I actually saw it spitting lava into the air! I thought my bag might catch fire as I put it down to take a photo. This one isn´t actually of Pacaya, but of Volcan Fuego. Antigua rests, somewhat anxiously, below. The road to Antigua is also rather anxiety inducing... volcanos being rather steep and all, coupled with the roads being rather pot-holey and the drivers rather irratic. I counted three emergency ramps as I crossed over from Guatamala City, which I didn´t find to be at all threatening, I say, taking my bribe.



Right, back to Nicaragua, where, if you recall, I was trapped for during the christmas period. Before we went to Estelí, we stayed a night at a farm atop one of its lush surrounding hills. We walked to some incredible look out points, where they tell me I saw Honduras. Perhaps more visually unusual, however, were the stone carvings that followed. A hermit, who has only recently become hospitable to turistas has spent his life carving creatures and, as you can clearly see, helicopters, into the cliff faces that support his forest home.



Finally, I hope this name isn´t taken. I think it´s my new electronic project.

Estalí

Hola! I´m in a near border town, waiting for a bus to Guatamala, we´ve decided to bypass Honduras altogether, at least for the meantime. The bus leaves on the 27th, so i may be here a while...
I just found out that James Brown is now officially dead. I wonder if he´ll be bursting from his coffin with a sweaty towel or perhaps american flag? I´m sure the street vendors here will have something to suit, probably a disney rip off.
The tree falling in the woods type meditation we´ve been on at the moment is the systems upon systems of people involved in such operations. where do the money changers get their bursting wads of cash? what do the kids spend the cordoba on? where are people getting obviously imported fruit from, grapes just don´t grow around here...? I heard about a scam the other day with people posing as the tourist protection agency, and some frightfully misguided fellows bought into it. Dear me. We´ve been charged for having our luggage atop the bus a number of times, but often the baggage people surf the top of the bus from one stop to the next, so a dollar or so isn´t much to pay for such a vivid image. I´m sure sachii would think so.
We headed to midnight mass at the easy on the oldies time of 8pm last night for an hour or so of gorgeous gregorian chants and neural excitation of the four part harmony kind. There was also some great feedback, I´ve got the harmonics of the place sussed. Not only was it all in Spanish, it was also my first non-funeral Catholic service, so don´t quiz me on the specifics , but we were told to go in peace, and something about science and hands. possibly God´s hands.
More Spanish schools to come and many many more questions as we travel north towards the ancient mayan sites of Guatelmala and Mexico, and possibly Honduras, out the bus window.

mightily heightily and other fearless feats.

we went for a two hour walk today, to pick up some tahini from an organic farm. no tahini to be found unfortunately, but some gorgeous chocolate, dried bananas, chilli and garlic infused rum/ron, sort of like lemoncello- but even greater for your health, and this amazing viewing deck.

Incredibly, I had no fear, despite its impressive loom of at least 10m. The theory goes that as i've had to minimise my arachnophobia, the thresholds for other fears have subsequently risen. I'll go to a job interview and get back to you on that one eh?

The only thing not organic about this place is the wood of the buildings, something I sheepishly had not thought of in considering the important organic elements of such fincas, but as our host explained, there are a number of home-hungry insects around these parts, as ably illustrated by our following friend, that met us up the top of the viewing tower. Certainly another to add to my list of anxiety inducing, but strangely non provocative interactions.

Yes, it really was as big as the sky, seating 70 with footrests.

We've just been at the graduation of the highschool girls de la isla, a big party that the whole island comes to. Thankfully we were shown the moves earlier by a troup of raunchy 6 and 10 year olds, that busked some sort of lambada but less bruce forsythe type thing for us. It was all very innocent, but there's something unsavoury about kids shimmying over each other... eh?

I think we're off to Leon tomorrow to meet the mothers of some fallen or possibly disappeared revolutionaries. They seem to run the great museums/ archives/ tributes.

And on other like minded fronts, there's a bit of 'chatter' here regarding fairly imminent plans to create a canal through Nicaragua. They only have to explode passages through a few mountainous ranges, should be highly profitable for munitions. bless.

more

i can still see the frog from my seat right now. or is it a toad, though the only real way to find out is to lick or kiss it right? i'm much too cautious a traveller i think.
i'm in nicaragua now, on a (still active) duo-volcano island in the middle of the biggest lake in central america. the wild/night life has never been so loud (toads, monkeys, fire flies!), nor i so sweaty.



















the TLC protests in San Jose were fantastic, particularly because it was the first opportunity for me to catch some polyrhythms, and a very good american accent in spanish. oh uncle sam!
i'm still on the look out for good venues around and about, so please drop me a line if there's anywhere you've been dying to go, though as the nicaraguan border crossing documentation states, only one musical instrument may be brought into the country, it's probably for the best that it's a local band venue.


More spanish lessons to follow here, with eight hour volcano treks, and kayak trips to monkey island. They bite!

People here seem to have a strange fixation with Nicolas Cage. I have been in the vacinity of four of his films already. On the bus here he played a convict, a terrorist and a good guy of some discription, a cop I think. I also saw him burned at the stake by a little girl. Is he ANYONE's favourite actor?

And to finish. Pretty boat photos on lake Nicaragua. See, we're happy and healthy, except for my strange asymetric tan line there, ouch.

And here's one at Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica, moments after being bitten by an ant farm, ah ah hot hot hot hot.

snaps

here are a range of creatures i have encountered. see if you can spot the monkeys.

WARNING: these images are not to scale, and poorly formated.

un momentico

so, it would seem that there aren´t any photos today. which is a shame, because i´m in a little pueblo on the coast of the Caribbean, which is quite lovely. i´m sure you can use google image search. i´ve just come from spending a week working on an organic farm, mostly with compost and goats, not quite the experience i had anticipated, i know nothing more about medicinal herbs, but can certainly shape a pile of corn husks and shit like i´d never dreamed. we were fed gorgeously, our stomachs have all tripled in size, and met up with some people heavily involved in the anti TLC or latin american free trade agreement, so we´re heading to the protest on Tuesday in the capital. hilariously, working on the farm entailed a 7 o´clock start, some holiday eh?
we had our first of the gut wrenching scams on leaving la finca. rob had his camera, case and all, slashed from the strap as a bunch of people bustled past us on the bus. a code orange indeed.

less sheltered pastures

i'm on my second night couchsurfing with a lovely couple, Sarah Joy and Julio, in a 12 acre coffee plantation just out of San Juan. I've met spiders the size of my fist, leaf cutter ants, some sort of mating cicada like things, a squirrel, a toucan like bird, and many many angry dogs, luckily most were behind locked gates, as everything seems to be around here. we've been eating beautiful food, many blended beans and fried platanos or plantains, yum yum yum. but perhaps i've already mentioned them?
We're heading to a spanish school/ volunteering in an organic garden tomorrow. it would have been good to get some more vocabulary in me before the tutoring begins, but i guess i have a few buses on which to cram before i get there.
on the topic of transport, we FINALLY were promised a refund from the airline that made us buy onward tickets at the gate to get into costa rica. despite assurance from the sales person in LA, we weren't able to 'just go into one of our offices', and ended up having to call the states from beside 'one of their offices'. SO should you ever find yourself in a similar situation and need to refund a TACA ticket bought in the US, save yourself many hours and dial 8774284477. probably as fruitless as my plastic bags mission, but we've all got to do our bit, right?
coolio.

then and now

Here are prue and rob in the coral reef off moorea, moments before the creature and cliff incidents.


and here´s rob taming a coco.



LA was wonderful. we spent the day with ben, an san fransiscian who crashed with prue for the first half or so of this year. he took us to a little club that his friend Annie works in just around the corner from her santa monica apartment. we had to catch a plane, so we couldn´t stick around for the live sunday night jam, but managed to sink a few drinks and catch some sweet k7 style soul with the djs, and took part in a blessing before the live act, which involved realising that yes, we all are love, yes, we are all cosmic entities that rarely step into each others orbits, and yes, it´s not just horrid corporate team building exercises that encourage you to reach out and touch the person next to you. for an uncomfortable amount of time. poor rob didn´t have anyone next to him, so his gaze made out with the stage.

made it to costa rica today,after having to buy an ticket from costa rica to mexico at the airport! eek! hopefully the refund works tomorrow- but a certain trap for new travelers. a ticket out of the continent is not enough, it must be out of the country, which brings a necessitates transportation being a little more organised than planned, or perhaps not planned? we spent tonight at a large pirate themed casino drinking cheap wine and beer with Juan, the friend of the father at our hostel in alajuela, watching seattle and whatever GB green bay? play football in the snow, while a meringue covers band with three vocalists and all manner of splash, crash and no doubt mash,rash and hash cymbals beat about on the mezzanine level above the bar. actually above. much twirling and hip clicking on the dancefloor, with the help of cuarto hombres, a sort of party crew for ´ladies night´, jiggling and thrusting, with shirts unbuttoned, as if they ever even had buttons..., to the navel. tengo calando!

p.s. in progress

this blog is in very slow progress... a left over from a linguistics project earlier on, so bare with me and the modems of central america.

tahiti

we spent the last few days on the beautiful island of moorea, meeting young and overly keen locals who showed us the local scenery and specialties. I've never seen a group of people drink drive so readily. Rob was brushed by some blooming fauna, resulting in a spray of welts up his already stung and coral shreded arm. he would have treated it sooner, but for the new VW ute dangling off the beach wall after a local's jelly like reaction time in the face of urgent braking. This guy sweated his whole face into his tshirt waiting for the tow rope to come, though apparently this scenario was on its third rerun.
The music, a facinating blend of ukelele and cellphone synth, with peter andre and paris hilton para postre.