Guatemala roundup
Among a few other places, I also had some time in la capital, Guatemala City. I always find it interesting to see how the top 5% live, and in Guate they are so far removed from the average local that it really is a spectacle. I was lucky enough to stay with a very hospitable couchsurfer so she was able to show me the cool parts of town, which in a massive city like la capital, can be very hard to find. So yeah, not too much to say, there was all the usual big city stuff like multiple McDonalds, malls, men in suits and woman with fake boobs.
Sadly as I have said in another post my camera battery was dead and I was charger adapter-less for most of my stay in Guate. Damn. So the few pics I have are in the Guatemala Set on my flickr profile.
More to come soonishly...
Pics!
I´ve just uploaded some pictures on my Flickr site. Check the Mexico and the Guatemala sets. I have been tending to deliberately under expose some of the photos in order to more easily fix them up later, and as this particular screen is rubbish, I can´t tell what state they´re in.
I´m really guttered that my camera battery was dead for some of the best scenery in Guatemala! There was about 4 days there where I couldn´t find another adapter or suitable wall socket. I will get some pictures later though from a friend I was with, so that´s all good.
Quick Update
Hey all...just getting in with a quick update on my haps. I´ll do some more proper posts and images in a few days...just been in remote areas recently and haven´t found much time to do things like this.
So Guatemala is fairly awesome - good food generally, friendly people, amazing landscapes with endless rolling hills, mountains and volancoes and lots of beautiful natural wonders to feast the eyes on. I´m in Guatemala City (la capital) at the moment - seeing how the middle and upper classes live. It´s the only place I´ve been in so far where there are made-up people - e.g. skinny girls trying to look like Paris. It´s quite a different Guate here than the rest of the country.
My journey south down the country has been fairly action packed. Lots of cool things seen and done, and I´ll write some proper blog posts in a few days about these along with photos.
Given I only have 10 days to reach Costa Rica, I´m having to cut short my Guate experiences - out of precaution really - missing the flight to Peru would be a real pain. I´ve spent longer in Guate than I thought due to travelling with some people (one in particular) and finding some amazing places, so it´s all good.
Eh…gringo!
Sometime on Monday I got into Cancun and after being witness to the 'los americanos turismo trap' I pretty much went straight to the bus station from the airport. I just managed to get a bus to this place called Valladolid, although there was a significant price to pay! Basically, I got scamed paying US dollars instead of Mexican pesos...so silly, but understandable in the circumstances...that's twice now on travels when I've done silly stuff with money on the first day - in Italy I'm just going to give a beggar some US currency!
Valladolid is awesome though! A quaint Spanish-styled town with plazas and cool streets. Lots of good family-run food places, and the most amazing chicken, pickel and chili rolls from this stall in the main plaza for breakfast - non-standard breakfasts for the win. The place I stayed at also had a magic light! A mere touch on its base cycled it through off, dim and bright...what will those Mexicans think of next...
The next place, Merida where I am at this moment, is a big step up from Valladolid in terms of people and size. The kid's wear the latest fashions (for Mexico), and skateboard and hang in the plazas smoking etc. It's a boat load more hip. There are cafes bording the main plaza which if you looked quickly could be in France, Spain or Italy (based on my virtual visual memory at least). There are some amazing buildings too - massive churches, a very cool looking Universidad etc. Apparantly the Spainards used stones from Mayan ruins in the building of some of the churches.
I've spent the day today ruin looking - doing the puuc area. Seeing these relatively massive stone structures emerging from the middle of jungle is very impressive. And thinking about their age (some BC) and how intact a lot of them are with minimal reconstruction over the years (if any) really blows the mind. Especially where the roads are still quite intact, it isn't difficult to imagine the cities bustling several millenia ago.
Pics coming soon...
Los Angeles
LA, and specifically LAX, gets its own post as it has come to be a larger part of my trip than intended!
So after some "fuel value issues" the Quantas/American Airlines flight to LA (my first on the way to Mexico) was delayed an hour. An hour which didn't go any faster with the pilot's jokes, repeated jokes, about how "it's such a long way, we need all the fuel we can get!" This delay caused me to miss my connecting flight through to Mexico City. Well, it probably wouldn't have caused this in airports in countries other than the US where there is no transit/transfer - you've got to go through the visa waiver, customs and baggage claim procedures just as if you were actually staying in the States.
I have to say though, that after some of the horror stories I've read about transfering through LAX, it was actually very well handled. Lots of personal attention with people asking what my specific situation was etc. And it was painless getting re-booked on another flight the next day and having Quantas pay for a hotel, transport and meals.
So I'm having a night in LA in a decent hotel! Well, it's a lot less glamerous than that sounds - I'm in the LAX zone which is basically like that part of Auckland around the auckland airport (you know, MCDs, supermarket, a few random shops) but about 20x bigger...it just goes on and on and on (like LA itself it seems from the plane-window view). I tried to stretch it's limits on foot but turned back after 15mins of walking in one direction and still seeing service stations and fast food joints. Oh, and the homeless started getting more scary.
I was hoping to at least get a bus or something to downtown LA which is approx. 30mins drive away, but after having a massive burger and beer at 2pm at this surprisingly cool sports bar in the hotel, I pretty much fell asleep in my room until 7pm. I was dead tired. Then one of the hotel staff said going this late would be dangerous and being a Sunday night it would be fairly dead unless I knew where to go. Oh well, there'll be a next time.
It's actually worked out great for me as now I don't have to stay in stupid Cancun and can just get a bus straight away tomorrow to one of the towns around Chichen Itza. Woop.
Right, I'm going to go back to aforementioned sports bar and try their wings, which as the semi-drunk old guy in a tie sitting next to me at the bar while yelling at the NFL game said were "the best in this sorry State."