Sitting above the clouds atop the Volcano Santa Maria, we watched 3 or 4 different volcano’s erupt into the atmosphere over the course of a couple of hours. This one was several hundreds of kilometres away, but still proved more photogenic than the one right below us.
There is something simply breath-taking about volcanos. Perhaps it is the beautiful, distinctive, tell-tale pyramidic shape that betrays their identity – perfect geometric symmetry in motion. Or rather the constant veiled reminder and “threat to life” they cast over the surrounding countryside and its inhabitants, humanoid or not. Either way, I have seen a few in my day and climbed many. I have seen flowing lava, a moving road of flame and witnessed pressure geysers that burst with precise repetition up onto the landscape. I have literally bathed and soaked up its causal forces in the onsens of Japan, hotsprings of Nepal and many other places. But seeing them erupt in all their glory is something else.
After several weeks, immersed in Spanish study, we took the chance to climb a dormant volcano outside the city of Xela in Guatemala. The 3 hour trek to the summit (3,800m) of Santa Maria was physically demanding, but not overtly so. It was a trip we had done without any planning or foreknowledge, so on reaching the summit we were pleasantly surprised to discover that the view commanded sweeping panoramas of the entire highland region of Guatemala, across to Mexico and Honduras in the distance. Distinct volcanic shapes pierced the seas of clouds in every direction including the highest mountain in Central America, Tajumulco (4,220m).
above the cloud layer
A fantastic view, but not nearly the peak of the experience. As we sat down to catch our breath and take it all in, a white / grey atomic shaped plume erupted from a distant volcanic peak. Wow – wasn’t expecting that! Over the next hour or so though, we witnessed 4 or 5 other significant plumes break through the cloud layer and then a second from the distant peak. Right below us (well more like 1 km below anyway), was also Santa Ana another active volcano. A pillar of brown, shattered rocks and crevices, a twisted step-child from the 1902 eruption of the very volcano we were gazing from. As we watched and waited, small pillars of smoke waded their way from the various craters into the atmosphere. Other travellers had also gathered at the top for the spectacle plus an odd group of Mayan evangelical Christians. These guys were dressed in traditional Mayan costume, but kneeling in a circle and prostrating themselves toward the centre, while a minister held sway in melodic, accented Spanish. We had already passed a similar group half way up, completely consumed in their own small service, swaying away in the Holy Spirit.
eruption...!
After about an hour or so of watching the distant eruptions and just as we were contemplating heading back down, the sound of a jet engine flying close overhead consumed us and the volcano below suddenly spewed forth a huge geyser of ash, dust and lava into the air. Within seconds the mushroom cloud was way above our heads, the entire eruption lasting several minutes, a continuous raw rush of energy and power that penetrated every living fibre within a close vicinity, giving vibrational meaning to the term a true ‘force of nature’. Everyone remained spellbound throughout, each of us lost in silent worship in all our different ways, united in awe of Mother Nature. It is a humbling experience, yet another reminder of our tenuous custodianship and the fallibility of our delusional pretenses at mastery.
Heading down the mountain, the former steep icy paths had been transformed into dangerous, mud slides by the late morning sun and ash was floating everywhere in the air like the finest flakes of snow. Everything seemed much sharper, focused, intensity and awareness honed by the spectacle above. We pass another convoy of Mayan women in traditional costume. A vibrant montage of bright, rainbow coloured dresses and white tops surging energetically upwards towards their own ceremony. In the middle, one lively old lady carried a burning bowl of incense on her head, regaling us all with laughter. The melodious cackle continued to float like a concerto far above our heads until long after she had passed. It’s a fitting final image…
![Now I am not a cunning linguist by any stretch, rather I have a single mother tongue that I tend to use extremely well and […]](http://meltingplots.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Top.jpg "On Learning Spanish")
Now I am not a cunning linguist by any stretch, rather I have a single mother tongue that I tend to use extremely well and often. When it comes to wrapping it around other dialects though, I am in all sorts of trouble. I did study French for 2 years at school when I was 13 or so and have since forgotten everything except how to ‘find the train station’ for some obscure reason that I can only attribute to disciplinary action. I briefly flirted with mandarin, but promptly found myself in Japan. And in my 8 years there I have picked up some Nihongo, but never really stuck with the lessons or seriously applied myself. In truth, I simply gravitated toward the Japanese comfort zone where I could handle myself well in a taxi or a bar, follow the gist of most conversations, intuit the rest and respond with the requisite affirmations or support somewhat effectively. Of course, Japanese is not exactly easy to pick up anyway, particularly the written forms which have a brute memorization component to it that is the stuff of nightmares. Still it does stand as one of my great shames and regrets in life, my lack of continued application and progress – particularly as I seem to be marrying into it 😉
Spanish & bagels for breakfast
And so to Spanish! Arriving in Latin America was the first time we have really confronted a language barrier in our travels I suppose. Generalizing of course, but in most countries, with the notable exceptions of France and Iran (and the Middle East where you need to know how to count in Arabic), you can get by in basic English with a little help from the requisite “hellos”, “please” and “thankyou’s” in the local lingo. Often we try and pick up more as we go along, but most of the time you are in another country before you know it, starting the process all over again. Here of course, it is Spanish all the way and for the next 6 months or so there was no avoiding it. A survival imperative beckoned – learn some quickly and get on top of it from the outset.
Thankfully though, Spanish is not Japanese and more a second cousin of English. This when combined with the fact that many Spanish words through films and books had found their way onto my radar already created a lot of encouragement for the linguistically challenged such as myself. Megumi by the way, who has studied a little Spanish previously living in the US, is a little further ahead, though still having difficulty trying to untangle it from her Italian. I had planned ahead for this challenge a little bit. Before leaving Japan, I had taken the time to download quite a few different language courses in MP3 format, something you could just throw on the IPOD and get amongst. I had ignored all the other lessons I had squirreled away up to this point – Laotian, Hindi, Arabic and Farsi, but the 2 different in depth courses on Spanish were particularly good. Over numerous bus trips as we worked our way down through Mexico to Central America, I found myself sitting in the corner, headphones on, mumbling crazily over and over to myself, like many of the street freaks we left behind in LA, San Francisco and the States in an attempt to get ahead.
The school at Maximo Nivel
Of course this combined with our initial travel through Mexico and Guatemala really helped just to get the basics going and the ears attuned. For real lessons we had decided we needed some serious study and that Guatemala was our best bet. Cheap lessons, pleasant environments and Spanish schools of esteemed repute, it had the right kind of ring and being at the start of the trip, offered an ideal timeline for onward travel. Our original plan had called for a month of study, possibly as part of a home-stay with a local family. But as our schedule had fallen behind and the potential to have to cram South America into a shorter period became more of a reality, something had to be sacrificed and we decided 2 weeks would have to do. Rather than simplify things and do 2 weeks back to back at a single destination, we decided to break this into 2, one week sessions split between Guatemala’s most famous Spanish teaching townships, Antigua and Quetzaltenango, more commonly referred to as Xela.
Antigua is a beautiful, colonial town, surrounded by volcanos on all sides, but a tourist mecca of sorts and very international. The cobblestone streets are full of pleasant cafés, international restaurants, churches and craft shops – all a welcome reprieve from the tortilla and bean diet simply unavoidable of late. Arriving on a Sunday, we found a comfortable place to stay and shopped around for a school. They are everywhere here and rather than investigate them all, we very quickly decided settled on a larger school, Maximo Nivel with a good reputation, customized textbook and opportunities for further study in Costa Rica or Peru. We booked in for a combined lesson starting the following afternoon.
Evelyn - our Antiguan teach
Set around a pretty garden, we had 4 hours of lessons a day in a small room and quickly fell into a routine. We spent the morning working on memorizing vocabularies in one of the towns’ pleasant breakfast cafés, then the afternoon ensconced in lessons with our local teacher. In the evenings, there was a bit of homework and some more word memorization as follow-up. A full schedule, but the theory goes, it we were actually investing in study we may as well make the absolute most of it. It also helped learning with Megumi – Japanese do have the art of study, work ethic and application thing down. Suffice to say, she, happily aligned with my guilty conscience, proved to be a very positive influence.
Within a few days I was starting to build up a basic vocabulary and getting my head around the grammatical essentials. It is a big step in Spanish to be able to move beyond the basics of Hola (hello), Gracias (thankyou) and Soy de Australia (I’m from Australia) to start understanding the overall structure and mechanics of a conversation. In Spanish the two big initial hurdles for me were: 1) Comprehending the gender rules for everything and how that affects a word (ie a restaurant is male ‘el restaurante’, whereas a city is female ‘la ciudad’) and 2) that verbs are conjugated based on the personal context – I, you, we or they plus tenses. For example “to go (ir) somewhere” becomes Voy (I go); Vas (you go); Va (he/she goes); Vamos (we go); Van (they go). Believe me, it’s a big revelation understanding that you don’t just have to memorize 5 different words here and that they are all related. By the end of the week, this had all been mapped out and while my head hurt it was starting to make sense. I at least had a basic vocabulary in place to start prying things apart and getting under the bonnet.
Casa Renaissance in Xela
Finishing our lessons in Antigua, we promptly made the transition to Xela on the Saturday and went about the same process – finding a comfortable hostel and a school. Xela offered quite a different approach, while schools here were everywhere, Xela is focused on more serious study, necessitating a much longer term, integrated and immersive study approach. Lessons here tended to be one on one only and packaged typically to include both food and accommodation, as part of an immersive home-stay with a local family. The town and environment itself is also much less touristy and feels more like an authentic Central American experience (complete with gunshots going off late at night). After talking to a few schools and hostals etc, we found a couple of standout school options – Celas Maya and another school, ‘Proyecto Linguistico Quetzalteco de Espanol’, a non profit run by the community with a program that was quite political, activist orientated and interesting. We decided on Celas Maya and nixed the idea of a homestay in favour of a cheap, homey hostel, Casa Renaissance, with kitchen (Essential for vegetarian cooking) plus the luxury of wi-fi. We were ready to start school Monday morning.
Lessons at Celas Maya were immediately of a lot higher intensity. No English is spoken at any point and there was nowhere to hide from the personal attention. One on one private lessons for 5 hours a day (plus an hour or so of breaks) gets you focused pretty quickly. I was very grateful we had done the 1 week study in Antigua beforehand – jumping straight in here would have been almost too much from scratch without some English interpretation. I found myself slotting into the same ritual though – working on memorizing the rapidly expanding vocabulary in the evenings and early mornings, lessons from morning til early afternoon and then joining one of the schools activities in the afternoon. Each day the school did a different excursion or activity for students to join (in Spanish of course) – we visited the oldest church in Central America (lame), went to natural sauna (curious) and learnt some traditional cooking (Nothing to show off).
Volcano views of downtown Xela
Lessons were structured in a way to provide a clear daily progression, but the majority of the time was spent practically applying everything with in depth conversation. Now in my world, 25 hours of conversation with anyone usually entails a lasting friendship or some kind of intimacy. My Guatemalan teacher, with 15 years of experience at prompting conversation somehow got me sounding off in Spanish on subjects like Buddhism and the destructive cultural impacts of Christianity. Mostly however, she had this curious, almost spooky preoccupation with Japanese and never missed an opportunity to direct my new conversational talents toward explanations of the quirkiness that is the Japanese people and culture and the habits of my betrothed. She never asked me once about Australia though?
By the time a week was up though I was starting to drown and getting sick of talking about Japan. I guess I had crossed a threshold, able to communicate a large range of subjects in my own curious way, but at the same time I felt I was rapidly falling behind. Too many new words and rules were leading to lots of silly, repetitive grammatical errors creeping into the basics of my conversation. It became frustrating, as simple things got lost in the over extension. Perhaps this is just a natural phase of learning and part of the hard work that is the next stage of making this all come naturally. Personally,, I was relieved to finish.
Mayan graffiti outside school
In hindsight, another week or two of this would probably have been ideal in terms of getting me over the line with Spanish. I could see a finish line and a point where I could become quite comfortable quickly. As it was with a bit of thought, I can construct questions and answers to most of the basic things I need to do and follow the gist of most conversations. I had come a long way in a couple of weeks. Over the next few weeks as we hit the road again and started to put this to the test, I surprised myself with how much I did perceive, I was still a bit slow to process things and sometimes come over as a little retarded as I lag a few seconds behind a conversation trying to think it all through, but nothing too far out of reach. I still keep at the mp3 tapes, which have now started to make a lot more sense and really help with their practical memory reinforcement and application.
Megumi is still significantly ahead of me of course, but we were now able to immerse ourselves in a Spanish conversation and largely survive. Even to the point of spending several days with Spanish only speaking local guides which, while not perfect, was pretty encouraging. There was still a long way to go and perhaps another week of intensive lessons at some point might be still on the cards but in all it has been a very positive experience and easy to measure progress. Motivation enough for me to think of seriously again of applying myself to learning Japanese properly when I get home perhaps – I wonder how long I will last this time?
A few of the fascinating creatures that rule the jungle’s around the Mayan ruins of Tikal in Guatemala. Macau’s, Pheasants, Long nosed bears, Spider & Howler Monkeys, Squirrels and Tarantula’s all calmly get about doing their thing pretty much oblivious to the human intrusion – its a veritable zoo. Oh and the ruins were fantastic too!
![Our little foray into the Caribbean suffered a few false starts. Arriving at the Belizean border around 3pm, we were politely informed with a friendly […]](http://meltingplots.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CayeCaulker.jpg "A Taste of the Caribbean")
Our little foray into the Caribbean suffered a few false starts. Arriving at the Belizean border around 3pm, we were politely informed with a friendly Caribbean smile and shrug that they could no longer accept payment for Megumi’s visa as the next day was a holiday and they had closed the books for the day. It was only 3pm! Definitely a lot more relaxed work vibe around here – like a lot of travelling you either just relax and go with it or go crazy I guess. Somewhat chastened, we returned to Chetumal, the border city in Mexico just as it started to pour with rain, found ourselves a cheap hotel and started out again via the local embassy, Mexico side, the next morning. Since it was a holiday they wouldn’t be accepting payments at the border that day either.
Once in Belize we tried to catch a boat out to the Cayes, our ultimate destination. But with the threat of pouring rain the boats had been cancelled and we were sent back to the local bus station. The local buses in Belize (and Central America) are somewhat affectionately known as ‘Chicken buses’, old second hand US school buses – you know the yellow & black jobbies you see in Disney movies. Not too uncomfortable, but cheap, slow, crowded and steady. As we bumped our way along the road to Belize City the differences from Mexico was compelling. Outside the window, flat mangroves and farms rolled by to a slower, more third worldly vibe, people of mixed race predominate here – Creoles, descendents of African slaves and English pirates; Chinese; Mestizo (mixed Spanish & cental American) and stopping in the towns, we glanced a few Mennonites, distant pilgrims of German ancestry standing back-rod straight awaiting a ride, clad in blue overalls and white cowboy hats (even the kids), straight out of a movie. These Christian conservatives own large tracks of land in Belize and through their communities have a pseudo monopoly on agriculture apparently.
There are only 2 types of beer in Belize
The day we had chosen to arrive was a national holiday – Garifuna Day, a celebration of the freedom of the free South American / African settlers who stood up against their conquerors. The day is spent drumming and singing for a full 24 hours, quite the party. As if on queue, midway into our bus ride a bunch of drunk, Caribbean blacks jumped on the bus loaded with drums, dreadlocks and the party vibe. Talking loudly, banging drums and singing traditional songs with a pleasant Caribbean lilt, they were quite a handful until the pleasant rocking vibe of the bus lulled them all into a sleeping stupor. Arriving in Belize City, an hour or 2 late, the place was swimming, a squall in full force, no chance of catching a boat out to the Cayes, we found a friendly hostel and settled into the dry.
The next morning, we took the 1 hour boatride out to Caye Caulker. Caye Caulker (and its upscale neighbour Caye Ambergis / San Pedro) run along a 200 km barrier reef that is famous for its fish, coral, diving and snorkelling. The “Blue Hole”, a collapsed coral reef the forms a perfect circle is its most famous feature and renown worldwide as a diving destination. We had chosen to base ourselves at Caye Caulker, the cheaper island with more of a backpacker and Caribbean Rasta vibe. The Caye itself was barely 3 streets wide (called front, middle and back respectively) a 300m thin strip of sand, edged by Mangroves in sight of surf breaking on the reefs offshore. With a population of less than a 1,000 people, everyone knows everyone here and it’s incredibly friendly. The difference from Mexico couldn’t have been more compelling or the return to the English language more welcome. As you walk around the island, you are greeted everywhere with pleasant Caribbean accented, often dread-locked calls to ‘slow down mon’ and ‘take your boots off man! Barefoot, full of hammocks, sand and fresh seafood it’s a pretty tough place to base yourself. We found a cheap room and settled in.
Nurse Sharks and Sting Rays
To check out the marine life, we signed up for a full day of snorkeling on the reef across 3 of the main sites – Ho Chan National Park, Shark and Ray feeding and Coral gardens on the reef itself. This is probably the best snorkelling I have ever experienced its as simple as that. Immediately we pulled up to the boat at Ho Chan, a huge 2m+ Grouper parked under us with a school of other large silver fish, these were friendly enough that you could tickle them on the chin. Within a short snorkel we encountered large turtles; huge spotted rays and their smaller regular cousins; nurse sharks; huge green manta eels and a myriad of other large and colourful fish. Later the boat pulled up and the crew threw some feed over the side as a plethora of nurse and other smaller sharks plus sting rays scrambled for a taste, over the side and into the water amongst them we went, we could literally touch and play with the rays and sharks as they milled around. In the coral gardens, I came face to face with a spotted ray that must have been 3-4m wide with the body of a dolphin. Megumi from the boat, soaking up the sun, told me it had completely leapt out of the water earlier. Got to buy myself an underwater camera when I return to civilization!
Mesmerising stuff and easily some of the best value money we have spent on the water. We were pumped for more and keen to do some diving. But it was not to be – a bit of dodgy weather out to sea mean’t no dives were heading out for the next couple of days, so we simply relaxed into the Island lifestyle instead. A bit of beach bumming, snorkelling of the docks and simply soaking up the local flavours. The seafood was fantastic – cheap lobsters, conche and other tasty morsels all cooked Creole style at impromptu restaurants all along the shore. We had come hear for the diving, but the snorkelling and the lifestyle was so agreeable here that we didn’t feel like we were missed out at all.
Replete, we headed back to Belize City to catch a connecting bus that would take us across to Tikal in Guatemala. It was just the smallest taste of the Caribbean, 5 days or so but it left nothing but good impressions and inspirations to savour it more in full. One day I’ll be back to sample Jamaica, Barbados and the other islands – perhaps to accompany some cricket!
The great Mayan / Aztecan Pyramid of Chichin Itza, voted one of the 7 modern wonders of the world. This photo is remarkable simply because we pulled off a shot without any other tourists in the picture. That aside, it is still impressive and a lot of fun trying to visual all those sacrificial heads rolling down the staircase. During the equinox the sun keeps one side of the pyramid staircase in perfect shade, yet reveals sunlit triangles in perfect symmetry down that same side in the shape of a Serpent, (using a different serpent for each equinox) – incredible design. We settled for a shot with one side in shade and without people – equally clever in my opinion!
A sculptured profile of the great Jaguar King, found on a limestone stella in the middle of the ancient Mayan city of Yaxchilan in Southern Mexico. Covered in jungle, eerily surrounded by the screaming calls of the howler monkeys, while cayman crocodiles patrol the river banks – this fantastic mayan city was previously only accessible by airplane. As it was it took a 2 hour bus ride to the Guatemalan border and an hour boat ride up the river. A lot less tourists though, stunning atmosphere, sculptures & well worth the adventure!
“El Dia de Muertos” (the Day of the Dead), is where the living remember the dead in Mexico and a huge deal. Skulls and skeletons in all manifestations and art forms cover the town and everyone dresses up in ghostly costumes as graveyard festivals consume the populous. This segment of skeleton art we found decorating the street outside a church in Oaxaca.
![It’s been a long time since I have really updated anything. My excuse is that since we left the Middle-East we have entered almost familiar […]](http://meltingplots.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Cactus.jpg "Mexican Roll-call")
It’s been a long time since I have really updated anything. My excuse is that since we left the Middle-East we have entered almost familiar territory in Europe, Canada and the US embarking on a different style of travel. It has been a sort of re-engagement of sorts, catching up with long distant friends and family then driving ourselves down through the states. The days have been full of parties, conversations, open road and national parks and we have found that we suddenly didn’t have the same downtime anymore to write and postulate.
I’m certainly not much of a blogger though – no future career path for me here, but then this trip was never about the website, I left Japan to get away from that stuff. We are chasing the experience itself first and foremost and stopping to write about it, like taking pictures sometimes, means you miss stuff. I guess the site has really just become a travelogue of sorts, more independent of time than a diary. I do have lots of updates half written, almost complete to fill the backlog of the past few months. They are coming soon I feel, time and opportunity has uncorked itself yet again. But in the interim I thought it easier to just provide a simple update – a ‘this is where we are and what we’re planning’ sort of thing, which is really what a blog post is supposed to be ironically. Makes a change anyway 😉
Now that we are free of North America, time has started to flow more slowly. We are free of plane tickets, schedules and agenda’s now – our haunts of the past 6 months. There are no more close distant friends further South, we are entering the unfamiliar. The people and cultures are getting more fascinating, we haven’t seen a Wall-Mart in days and things are getting cheaper by the hour. It’s looming as a perfect independent travel storm – insecure, foreign, cheap, liberating and invigorating all at the same time. You can almost feel a travel pulse quicken. So far (and we really only just entered the zone), Central America looms a lot more like travelling in India and SE Asia, exotic combinations of wild nature; ancient, foreign but still strong cultures and perfect weather – our favourite proven recipe.
The bar at 'Hostel Rincon'
At the moment, we are in Xihuatenejo, Southern Mexico on the Pacific Coast, a small, beach town where Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman met up at the end of the movie “Shawshank Redemption”. I don’t think they really shot it here, but its still nice. We found a great, cheap hostel, (Hostel Rincon del Viajero) run by a Mexican female artist, Mali. The rooms are covered in a unique blend of Mayan and graffiti fantasy art and over look a verdant, tranquil tropical garden. The village, just a few hundred metres away over a small bridge where all the fisherman dock and prepare their catch of the day, is busy preparing for tourist season a few months ahead – lots of maintenance projects afoot. The place is quiet, but beers are cheaper than water, the food is great and while we are still dodging activity, sombrero & tequila salesmen, Mexican late night rhythms are starting to help me sleep at night.
For the first time in our travels really we are also confronting a language barrier. With the exceptions of France and Iran, the rest of the world has been largely English friendly, provided you take the time to get your local hello’s, thank you’s and basic niceties down. Latin America is all Spanish though and we are slowly picking up speed on the language adoption. Over several epic bus trips down the coast, I have been sitting in the corner, headphones on, language tapes running and mumbling crazily over and over to myself, like many of the street freaks we left behind in LA, San Francisco and the States. Megumi who has studied a little Spanish previously is a little further ahead, though still trying to untangle it from her Italian. Necessity finds a way though.
Anticipating 'Day of the dead'
From here we head further South to Puerto Escondita, home of the Mexican Pipeline of surfing fame, then inland to the mountain highlands of Oaxaca to experience the ‘day of the dead celebrations en route to a Zapotec village to see a shaman about some mushrooms. After that we hit the Mayan trail, San Cristabel, Palenque and North to the Yukatan peninsula and the Carribean sea where we will cruise into Belize to do some diving at the legendary “Blue Hole”. Then, working our way down Guatemala and more Mayan trails to the volcano & hot spring city of Quezaltenango. We plan on experiencing local homestays and some volunteering while we study Spanish for the better part of a month there if all goes well. After that its El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama – part of our ambitious plan to see if we can get all the way from Canada to Argentina without the use of a plane! South America may be too much of course, but that’s probably thinking too far ahead. For the moment, apart from sand fly and mosquito bites we are happy, healthy and excited by the paths ahead. More than 15 months in and it almost feels like we are starting again!
The Baja Californian peninsula is adorned with stunning beaches, killer surf, whales, dolphins, turtles and little pockets of paradise. Unfortunately its also rife with American tourists and spring break binges!