Central America Archive

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Of Mayan Imaginings

The Mayans are one of those great mystic ancient civilizations, like the Egyptians and the Khmers of Angkor Wat, they suffered a demise so sudden […]

The Mayans are one of those great mystic ancient civilizations, like the Egyptians and the Khmers of Angkor Wat, they suffered a demise so sudden and mysterious that their culture remains an enigma. In the process they left behind a marvelous array of cryptic archaeological legacies across Central America – ruined cities, brutal sacrificial legends, alphabets, calendars and exotic predictions for the future. Half forgotten and shrouded in jungle, today they continue to confound, fire and inspire the imaginations of all manner of historians, travellers and conspiracy theorists.

Doomsday stone - the Mayan Calendar

The single biggest mystery with the Mayans of course was their sudden disappearance. At the very peak of their arts, architecture and civilization known as the classic period, their greatest cities such as Tikal, Palenque & Copan were suddenly abandoned around 900 AD and the entire civilization structure collapsed. While the entire area remains populated by their descendants to this day and mass migrations North fuelled development of later cities, largely they are but pale imitations of their former cultural heights – a deserting diaspora bereft of much of their knowledge and skill. By the time the Spanish rocked up in the 15th century to Yucatan in Mexico, many of the cities themselves had fused culturally with the Toltecs and Aztecs, the dominant Mexican tribes from the North. The cycles of repeated bad luck and tragedy manifested brutally as massive rituals of human sacrifice.

In what is a major echo of our own time perhaps, historians can now attribute the collapse of these great cities to a perfect storm of 3 factors. 1) Massive overpopulation as the cities reached their zenith 2) Complete environmental collapse from over-farming around the area of the cities themselves and 3) a long, extended drought that in effect lasted the better part of a century. In many ways the secrets and lessons of the Mayans lie not with their more famed futuristic astrological predictions, but with the manner in which they disappeared. You don’t have to think too far ahead to see that overpopulation, environmental collapse and severe water shortages are all that await us in the next 50 years.

Temple Cornice at Chichen Itza

Apart from human sacrifice and the disappearing act though, the Mayans are probably best known for their advanced writing, mathematics, incredibly accurate astronomy and time measurement. In an historic context, their calendars, perfected at the height of their classic civilization (250-900 AD), were the most accurate on earth right up until the late Renaissance period in Europe in the 17th century, almost a thousand years later. Famously, the Mayans broke the world’s time into 5126-year periods, the final epoche calendar cycle, or b’ak’tun calculated by the Mayans, ends in December 2012. Many of today’s apocalyptic dooms-dayers credit the end of the world with this key date and given the state of society today its’ easy to play along, but  there are other interpretations more reassuring. These read the importance of 2012 as not an end date in itself, but heralding the start of a new epoch of spiritual transformation and renewal – a new and final B’ak’tun that completes the cycle, one the Mayans never really had a chance to envision properly. We can certainly wish! Honestly speaking though, any civilization that didn’t see their own demise is hard to take too seriously in the prophecy stakes.

A stela from Copan

Back to us though, our Mayan adventures started in Southern Mexico with the people themselves. Then wound through the ruins of the great classic cities in Mexico to the most recent ones of the Northern Yucatan, diving into the great jungle cities and Mayan peoples of Guatemala, before finally finishing South in Honduras. A journey that yielded no magic answers on the question of 2012 and the fate of the world, but did provide for some fantastic locations, experiences and contemplations which I have summarized by location below:

The Modern Mayan Tribes

San Cristobel is a small, colonial town in the state of Chiapas. The cobblestone streets are a warren of lovely shops, café’s, restaurants, hostels and markets. It is a perfect blend of bohemian, colonial lifestyle in the heart of Mayan country and has trapped many a traveller. Not much of a danger for us in the height of winter though – the place is too bloody cold to sit still for long, but it is the villages that surround San Cristabel that enthral.

On a day tour from San Cristobel we visited 2 of them – San Juan Chamula and San Lorenzo Zinacantan, both home to the still fiercely independent Mayan tribes the Tzotzil and Tzeltal. Now to be honest, I didn’t really know that the Mayan people still existed at all. I had naively assumed that they had all died out long ago and were now the stuff of legend, but they still occupy extensive parts of Mexico and Belize and actually make up the majority of the population in Guatemala. Many of the more remote tribes such as those around San Cristobel still hold tightly to many aspects of their culture such as the traditional Mayan calendars and methods of counting and have done so continuously in the face of hundreds of years of ‘civilizing’ forces. Being able to witness this firsthand was an experience that resonated particularly strongly with me. Too often in our travels, we have encountered cultures quickly being over-run and trashed by globalization and that even greater cultural destroyer – Christian missionaries. It’s nice to see some still able to fight.

Mayan women from San Lorenzo

In San Lorenzo, the towns’ spiritual elders stand out the front of the local church with telltale grey and red hats demonstrating their various ranks, the elders wearing a unique kind of sandal. They stand there taking turns to chant, dance and administer the towns’ finances, a process that covers the better part of a 24 hour period every Sunday. The local women in the town all congregate in the square, opposite the church to sell their fruit and vegetables and brightly coloured woollen fabrics at the market. They all wear the same blue/purple woollen shawls with pink floral designs beautifully embroidered. Each Mayan village or tribe wears a different, distinctive colour combination like this to demonstrate where they are from – the same applies in much of Guatemala. There is no individuality here – their identity is all about the community, tribe or group and everything is managed collectively, hence the elders gathered at the church. The town also prohibits outside police, buses or taxi operators so everything is controlled and administered by the community itself – by the people for the people, necessary to protect themselves culturally from outside forces. It could not make a starker contrast with our own western imperative to set ourselves apart.

A special Mayan church

The next town, San Juan was even more striking. Here the locals wore a kind of black haired skirt and jacket, with a white variation to differentiate the spiritual leaders. We spent some time in a spiritual leaders’ house and learnt how they give up a year of their life for the honour of the role, paying for all the ceremonial dues, incense and other daily requirements out of their own personal savings. They spend several years of savings in fulfilling this role, but in doing so ensure their place of honour within the society.

The community concept here also ensures that there is almost no crime. If there is, criminals are publicly shamed and humiliated – we walked passed the cages where this occurs, but they are all empty. Seemingly minor transgressions from the community are dealt with harshly here. If you marry without family blessings, you are expelled from the town and community; with an even more severe excommunication for anyone that converts to Christianity. Changing religion or taking on obligations that prioritize things over the tribe, means you can no longer function in the community and are forced to leave. It is a harsh rule, but a necessary one to survive the constant cultural purges that the missionaries in particular bring. It is a lesson and solution that has been refined constantly over many centuries. San Cristobel itself is home to many generations of former village members thus removed, we are informed appreciatively by our guide, he is himself one.

View from the Sun Temple in Palenque

Perhaps the most striking experience of the community here though was a visit to the local church. This was a former catholic church reprised by the Mayan community after expelling the priests from the town over some major ideological conflict. Now, with no meddling priests in place, it is open 24 hours a day and the villagers are able to visit with their own respective shaman, midwife or spiritual healer in order to conduct their own special rituals as needed. The floor of the church itself is covered in pine needles and statues of catholic saints line the walls in old glass boxes. Throughout the church villagers sit on the floor, burning candles in front of themselves (both the colour and number of the candles is important), but also facing various directions toward the relevant saint that embody the values that they might be looking for some help with. Some of the villages have bottles of coca cola or soft drink next to them – these are used in special rituals to ‘burp out’ evil spirits. (Apparently coke worked a lot better than the corn syrup they used to do this with, so they happily switched over). Elsewhere there is a chicken trussed up on the floor, next to a small family, a husband, wife and child seated together with their local shaman. The chicken will soon have its neck broken as part of another sacrificial ritual, perhaps an offering for another child, perhaps for a harvest, it is hard to tell and impolite to ask.

Waterfall in the Palenque ruins

The hybrid nature of the rituals is uniquely fascinating as they integrate useful bits of the external world that happens to work in nicely with their own ideas. Equally impressive is the apparent indifference the towns’ people show to our presence here. They are confident enough in their own rituals and culture that they can open it up this way. While we are not permitted to photograph anything, we can watch and they are happy for the small contributions we make in return financially to their community. Living under the shadows of an encroaching modern world, they know what we are about fairly intimately and have still chosen their own path – they accept that they have their way and we have ours and leave it at that. They do wonder though why we can’t simply respect them the same way. They constantly have to repel missionaries. The strength of conviction to do this is quite enviable and it really is a delicate balance this cultures survival treads. I wish them all the very best!

Palenque

Jaguar King Stella, Yaxchilan

Our first ruin stop if you will was the great ancient city of Palenque – at its peak one of the greatest Mayan cities of the classic period before being abandoned in 900 AD. It was not rediscovered until the late 1770’s. The great temple of the inscriptions and the Palace here make a commanding sight – it’s hard to conceive of the sight of all these huge buildings around the central square at their height, painted red. The square around the temples of the Cross, Sun and Foliated Cross further atop the hill overlooking the great Palace and surrounded by encroaching jungle, casts a spell over the surrounding countryside and resonates with a sacred energy. It was easy to linger for hours here. Further south as you wander around the surrounding city, waterfalls and streams work their way quite spectacularly through the ruins of old courts and houses. In the museum, the great tomb of the King Pakal is on display, which was found buried beneath the Temple of the Inscriptions. The funerary details and inscriptions on the tombstone are simply amazing and one of the great finds of the Mayan kingdom – effectively its own Tutenkhamen.

Yaxchilan & Bonampak

Sacrificial temple square, Yaxchilan

These Mayan ruins sit on the Guatemalan border some 3 hours or so from Palenque. 10 years ago you could only access these by plane, but now you can travel an hour or so by boat up the river (past crocodiles on the bank) to the jungle site itself with the assistance of a local Mayan guide. The easiest way to get there is to sign up for a day tour from Palenque, but you also have the option of continuing on a multi-day tour to Tikal in Guatemala from here. Renown mostly for the important revelations deduced from the various carvings & inscriptions found here, these sights were magical to me more for their location and isolation. Bonampak is a small site, but there are a series of rooms recently uncovered in the small acropolis that are covered with murals and original paintings in great condition, depicting detailed scenes of war, torture and decapitation unlike those found anywhere else. At Yaxchilan, the spell caste by the sound of Howler monkeys in the trees all around the site is unforgettable. Like the distant throng of a horror movie in full force they enshroud the place in a mystique that is more Jurassic park than archaeological wonder. The ruins themselves though are still impressive with lots of ornate facades still clinging to the various temples and houses; extensive steps grafted into the mountainside leading to fine temple on top and another sacrificial temple located off some distance through the jungle. Sprinkled throughout are standing stellas or sculptures with Mayan inscriptions. With very few other tourists around it’s a special place to explore.

Uxmal

An Uxmal serpent at night

Located a few hours from the thriving city of Merida in the Yucatan, this was another classic era city. Featuring several great pyramids, palaces and other intact structures with many ornate carvings built into the temple walls and squares, this site was quite impressive once too. It is hard to get too though if you want to stay late in the evening (ie there are no buses), so we joined a tour that enabled us to explore the site during the afternoon and then stay for a “sound and light” show set within the grounds after dark. While the music, story and headset translation was pretty amateur and lame. The sight of the lights and lasers pouring over distinct features of the architecture and lighting up embedded forms in the carvings on the temples, such as those of the large serpent God Quetzalcoatl, was particularly memorable and intimate. Dark, shadowy, devoid of people, key buildings pleasantly illuminated – the night experience was a nice take to have on a Mayan site, fertile ground for the imagination.

Chichen Itza

The Great' Castle Pyramid' of Chichen Itza

Rated a modern wonder of the world, this was by far the most touristed of all the sites we visited. Located in the heart of Yucaten it is easy access for a day trip from most beach and resort tourists. The site itself is quite extensive and has many compelling features. The great Castle Pyramid is its signature and a stunning example of Mayan architecture with all the tricks. If you clap in the vicinity of the pyramid, a gap in its design creates an echo that mimics the call of the sacred Quetzal bird, something common to many pyramids we visited but still impressive. On one side though, two serpentine Quetzalcoatl railings are designed in such a way as to catch the light on the Spring or Autumn equinox respectively, these light up square by square so as to appear to be moving. Hard to imagine how crowded it would get here on those days, but the astronomical and archaeological precision of it still leave architects in awe. Amongst the ruins, decapitated sculls and other gruesome carvings abound; there is a sacrificial cenotes (water filled open cave) where bodies where disposed of and also the largest ball-court in MesoAmerica, with many intact sculptures and inscriptions (Ball-courts are common to all Maya, Aztec, Toltec, Olmec and Zapotecan sites). Throughout the site though, there are literally craft and Mayan souvenir stands everywhere you walk and thousands of tourists on guided package tours clamouring for photos. Fantastic as it is, its hard to appreciate when you are part of a seething, surging photo mass. We probably didn’t spend as much time here as we would of otherwise.

Tulum

The main plaza at Tikal

Though it was one of the last remaining occupied Mayan sites, there is nothing exceptional about this ruin at all, except that it is located on a cliff, right above a beautiful sandy beach, next to about a million beach resorts. Strangely this makes it the most popular Mayan ruin of all,. The place is literally covered in both Iguanas (which were actually pretty interesting) and half-naked tourists (definitely not interesting), there to swim at the beautiful beach onsite and all trying to get a ruin shot, nicely contrasted with the beautiful azure, waters and white sand. The ruins are boring though, really not much there at all, but still, its very easy to visit. The ruin shot was simply too hard for us to get though – way too many strange bums in the way.

Tikal

Getting cloud level at Tikal

The most impressive city by far in terms of its scale and location, it is too big to describe in detail and its marvel is the scale of the city and overall design. Located deep in the jungle, Tikal is one of those sites lost until the mid 1800’s and the jungle is constantly fighting reclaim it. The complex is huge, at its height it extended some 30km and housed 100,000 people, less than 1% of which has even been excavated today (there are some 4000 structures in the central city alone). As you walk around on the thin paths through the jungle linking the main excavated plaza’s, you pass many heavily forested little hills that you start to appreciate are really other temple pyramids completely reclaimed by the jungle and waiting one day to be restored. At the main sites you can climb some of the steep sided, towering pyramids, (the highest some 61 metres high) and poke your head above the clouds and forest canopy where you can perceive other distant structures and start to comprehend the amazing scale and alignment of the various temple complexes.

Great stairway of Copan

Tikal was also magic for the wildlife on display here, this is proper jungle and as you wander around you can spot numerous birds including flocks of Tucans and Macaus. We  also saw a giant tarantulas, numerous peacocks and other odd animals, all appeared quite tame and immune to the typical compulsive fear of the hunted. We did the trip in a tour from Flores, a very pleasant former Mayan city built in the middle of a lake and arrived at sunrise to explore Tikal in the misty early morning light and the main structures in the clearer sunlight of mid-morning. However, you can also stay at one of the inns right outside the site itself, which would give you flexibility to  visit later in the evening when you could have the place largely to yourself. The place is so big, it could easily occupy several days of exploration so this would probably be a great option.

Copan

Artists image of the temple /stairway, Copan

Probably my favourite of all the Mayan sights we visited to be honest. Located right outside the town of Copan just over the border from Guatemala in Honduras, it is an easy walk away and simple to explore. At the entrance a squadron of giant pet macaws make for a lot of interactive photo opportunities. But it is the sculptures and artwork on display that dazzle, by far the most intricate and beautiful of all the sites we visited. The engravings on the giant stella’s occupying the main square and the incredible staircase of inscriptions were really the highlights and left you in awe of what the Mayans had achieved and somehow lost all in one go. Every square on a step of the stairway is a beautifully engraved Mayan character all put together to tell some tale or prediction that I confess to having forgotten. Viewed together as the detail of all the characters rises up the hillside to the temple top, you can start to conceive of the awe and reverence that Mayans must have held for this place.   It is quite a compact ruin, although it was a huge city once, it remains largely un-excavated so comfortable to walk around and you can explore with ease the various plaza’s and temples. There are also several underground tours you can do that explore some of the excavations and secret locations beneath the city. None of which were given a positive wrap in our research so we skipped them, but certainly would have offered a different view of things. In all it was an inspiring way to finish.

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Volcanic Communion

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 […]

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…

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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 […]

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?

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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 […]

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!

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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 […]

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!