Guitar lessons

As part of my transformation from office worker to official travelling bloke I have started Guitar lessons.

I´ve gone halves with a girl from school who´s a guitar teacher back in the states, she gets to have fun playing the guitar and I get to learn a few tunes.

So far she has tried to get me to play Knocking on Heavens Door, a riff from Daytripper by the Beatles and I´ve also had a go at the start of Smoke on The Water - I´m surprisingly good! There´s been no complaints from the neighbours yet...

Spanish is also progressing. Actually managed a conversation with my teacher that lasted more than five minutes. We are now studying the two past tenses. Very confusing. Have also discovered that there are 15 tenses in Spanish. Don´t think I´m going to need them all...

Sunday 3rd Dec - Chichi and Back Home

Here´s me looking pretty cool at Chichicastenanga. Not a great deal to report on last time. But I now have a rather fetching bag for my school books. I have also received my first friendship bracelet of the trip! I´m expecting to collect a lot more along the way.

Coming back to Antigua on the bus we pulled over for a quick break as there was an EARTHQUAKE!!! That´s right folks. Whilst we were away Antigua was hit by a 5.4 earthquake.

No damage done and the locals all refuse to call it an earthquake, preferring to say that it was a tremor....

Back home in the central plaza, the Christmas lights are all switched on and despite the fact that we are probably all doomed to be cooked by lava or shaken to bits everyone is having a jolly time.

Items gained in this quest:

• +1 armband of friendship

Saturday 2nd December

Small hangover this morning... Got up pretty early and scouted out some breakfast and spent some time watching the day to day life in Santiago Atilán.

After a bit of recuperation time we made tracks and jumped on a boat tour round a few of the local villages on the lake. First stop San Pedro La Laguna. The local kids do quite a hard sell here for the local attractions which include another Maximón shrine. Nowhere near as grand as the one we saw on Friday, but interesting nevertheless.

Apart from the local kids who spotted the weaker one of our group and managed to separate her from the herd the day was pretty relaxed. We returned to Panajachel for sunset and checked into the cheapest place we could find.
We all felt quite jealous of this little fellow. It´s been a long couple of days. Though of course, we´re on holiday, so it would be rude not to go out. Things got quite a bit lively. I hope it wasn´t really our behaviour that emptied the restaurant. Personally I think it was the dodgy band.
Into bed pretty early ready for our early start to visit Chicicastenanga (I know, again!).

Friday 1st December PM - Largo De Atitlán

Bit of an unexpected trip. Decided at the last minute to spend the weekend at Lake Atilan with a couple of friends from school.
5 minutes to run home, explain that I wouldn't be around for the weekend in espanol, pack a bag, and run back to catch the bus. Very exciting....
Above is a picture of the lake. It's big. And very pretty.

We decided not to stay in Panajachel ("Gringotenango" - Place of the Foreigners) and took a boat over to San Pedro. This is where an awful lot of travellers end up getting stuck. The number of times we spoke to people who had just come for a couple of days and ended up staying a couple of years was quite frightening.

On my next trip here I will make sure I have an onward ticket.
Here's our hotel. 5 dollars each per night!
With a hammock thrown in. This is me about to fall out of the hammock.
Gringo food. This place is still quite touristy.


It is however a very nice place. Here's us having dinner.


Leslie and Aaron were pretty wiped out after a long week of school, so it was left to myself and Jeremy to explore town. Almost immediately we bumped into someone I'd met on the bus a few days before so went with her and her incredibly stoned friend to the Buddha bar. There we were joined by a couple more girls and spent a pleasant couple of hours discussing meditation retreats in the Mexican jungles and how hard it was to get a shaman at full moon.

Couple of drinks later and it was time to catch the end of the film in another bar and down another couple of Cuba Libres. After the film we stopped off at the freedom bar to catch the fire dancers.



Very amusing. Especially the guy who had just started - he kept dropping his flaming balls and then running away like a girl.

By this point it was pretty much time to head home and catch some zzs. But fate intervened and we bumped into an ex project manager from Barclay bank who insisted that we came and visited his bar. A few more Cuba Libres and we finally made it home to sleep! What a day.

Friday 1st December AM - Maximón

Those of you in Actix can ask Jim for an explanation of what's going on here. I'll add some more information for everyone else when I have the guidebook with me.

Friday morning we had a school outing to visit the church of local deity! I think the guys above are saying something along the lines of "We've got the bbq going, but forgot the sausages..."

Here's a very blurred picture of the man himself. People feed him rum and cigarettes. It's all a bit complicated.

The local church debunks the whole thing with an FAQ on why he is not a god.
Here's some more pictures of people sacrificing things.
And here's a picture of the local market.
Marvellous. A splendid time was had by all.