Antigua and the rest of Guatemala

Argh. I haven't updated in so long that I don't know where to begin. Keeping a blog when you're traveling is proving much harder than I thought it would be.

So I arrived into Antigua in the middle of May and started Spanish school straight away. I did 14 days in all, studding Monday to Saturday. To begin with I was staying in a student house which was fine but a bit like being in a hotel apart from the fact that we got 3 meals a day. Towards to end of my stay I moved in with a local family which was much better. The experience was more personable and obviously because you are living under the same roof with the family you speak a whole lot more Spanish. And that was one of the main problems with Antigua. Although it was a lovely town and a really great place to spend a couple of weeks there were way too many tourists. Every night would be spent speaking English. Saying that my Spanish is at a stage where I can say a few things but once I try to build on it I fall apart. I can explain to people where I'm coming from and where I'm going but when they ask how I'm in such a position it's difficult to answer. Practice makes perfect though and I had such a great time before that I want to do at least a few more weeks of Spanish, so I plan on making a few more stops possibly in Nicaragua, Panama and Bolivia.

In between doing my classes learning Spanish and speaking English to everyone else I visited a number of different places nearby. I spent a week over on the shores of Lake Atitlán which was described by Aldous Huxley (yeah!!) as being way better than Lake Como. I stayed in a town called San Pedro which was fine but so laid back that by the time I actually bothered to check how long I'd been there it had already been 5 days and needed to get back soon.

From Lake Atitlán I went over to Chichicastengo which is a town in the Guatemala highlands. It's a place where indigenous customs still take centre stage and for two days of the week is engulfed by the market. Thursdays and Sundays are the days to go. I went on a Thursday so maybe that effected things but I wasn't overly impressed. Basically they were selling the same old things which gets sold at every other market in Guatemala, but on a larger scale. The market folk were also a lot more aggressive than in other parts of the country, maybe they know the tourists are a soft touch. But so much so that I was forced into buying a tea cosy from a lady who should definitely try out for the Guatemalan version of the Apprentice.

In fact now that I think of it Guatemalans really do make fantastic sales pitches. On every bus you get on there will be a least someone selling something completely unrelated to sitting on a hot dusty bus. Like razor blades, or batteries. I got on a bus the other day and a man came down the isle and handed everyone a standard blue biro pen. He then stood at the front of the bus whilst it was bumping along the road and proceeded to make a 5 minute sales pitch on why this particular blue biro was so much better than every other freaking blue biro out there and that you'd be a fool to miss out on this fantastic opportunity. He sold a few, but I didn't buy, he just didn't put the heat on like the tea cosy woman.

Also spent a bit of time down on the black sand beaches of the Pacific coast. The town was called Montericco but it was way too hot (sand especially) and there were so many insects hanging around just waiting for the chance to rip my leg up that I couldn't really enjoy it. Luckily we only spent one night there... me on a bedbug infested mattress. This particular post is starting to become very negative, I can feel it. I am tired and it's hard to remember in detail things I did over a month ago, but that's no excuse, I will be better.

Next stop El Salvador home to a brutal civil war and glorious surfing, or so I think (that's in regards to the surfing rather than the war).