The beginning of a new chapter

Well, this will be my last entry for now. The journey from south Nicaragua to Cancun was not something that I had been relishing, but it threw up a couple of pleasant surprises along the way. Nicaragua through Honduras and El Salvador on to Guatemala was relatively straight forward (capital city to capital city). They were some fairly long days on the buses but I am pretty equipped to deal with that. Drink a beer, munch on a valium and sit there watching films in Spanish. Across south and central America they seem to have an obsession with Steven Segal and Adam Sandler. I saw some pretty shifty looking scenes along the way and our hotel in El Salvador had a guy with a shotgun stood outside of the entrance. In fact there seemed to be random people (not just army and police) walking around the streets with guns slung over their shoulders. 

The section of the journey that I was not particularly looking forward to came upon arrival in Guatemala City. I left El Salvador at 5am and arrived in the city at 10.30am not really knowing what I was supposed to be doing from there. It really can be a ball ache not carrying a lonely planet guide, but most of the info you need can usually be gleaned from web forums and other travellers. I had the name of a bus company that went from Guatemala to Belize City, so I got in a taxi and headed to this terminal. Upon arrival it was immediately obvious that this was a very, very rough area of town. The terminal itself was a complete shithole, and I felt pretty nervous about the looks that I was drawing (especially as there was not another westerner in sight.) This is not uncommon, but the place felt menacing.
When I went up to the counter and asked when the next bus to Belize was I was a worried to be told that it was not for another ten hours. In addition to this the guy behind the desk was telling me that the ticket cost $45, which was extortionate considering that I had come from Nicaragua to Guatemala for $55. I was umming and ahhing a bit and there was a steady queue of locals building behind me. I could not help feeling that I was subject to the usual gringo tax, and as someone tapped me on the shoulder I was expecting them to either punch me or tell me to move along. When I looked around a hefty guy was staring at me and I thought he was going to chin me. Instead he calmly explained in good English that the attendant was trying to rip me off. He told me that the bus he was going to put me on only actually went to the border and then I would be stuck there at 4am until the border opened at 8am, after which I would have to take another bus (even though the attendant told me it went all the way to Belize City).

The guy who was trying to help me told me he was actually going to Belize City at 10pm, and if I wanted to, I could go with him and spend the rest of the day around his place in Guatemala City, as it was not safe in the area I was in. Naturally I was sceptical, but he was in a queue for a bus ticket anyway, and the ticket he was buying was $15 instead of the $45 that I had been quoted. Normally I would have been very cautious about accepting the invite back to his place, but looking around I weighed it up and decided that either way I was probably going to get mugged and bummed - so I may as well go ahead and accept his offer. This turned out to be one of the best decisions that I have made in a long time.

After buying the ticket we met up with a pregnant woman that I assumed to be his girlfriend or wife (which put me a little bit more at ease.) We got on the local transit and he explained to me after she had got off that he had met her a few months earlier and drunkenly got her pregnant two weeks after their initial meeting. They were only friends but had decided to keep the baby, which was a fairly gutsy move but they both seemed very calm about it. We were on the bus for about half an hour and eventually got off near a big pepsi factory and walked over to his place. He had warned me that he did not have much furniture, and when we arrived he was not exaggerating, literally a plastic stool and a television. He asked if I wanted a drink, and although it was only 11.30am we began to crack through a bottle of rum. He then started up a BBQ (inside his flat) and cooked us both steaks and rice and we watched the Chelsea Vs Barcelona game on tv and he told me about his life. He is actually from a small border town in Belize, and the reason he was going to Belize was to introduce his pregnant friend to his family for the first time. He told me that he was studying geology at university and wanted to become more involved in tourism. His step father owns about 1000 acres of land in Belize that is covered in Mayan ruins, caves and relics, and he put on a History Channel DVD in which his step father (they were both called William) was showing the presenter around one of the ancient Mayan caves on his land. He began to show me some of the ancient relics that they had found in the caves, including very valuable pottery and arrowheads, and he actually gave me an almost perfectly rounded stone to keep that the Mayans used for a billiards type game. I was really touched by this, as it is between five hundred and a thousand years old and is probably worth a few quid. By the time the footy finished Amanda (preggers) arrived home and we were both pretty drunk. He started telling me that when he was growing up in Belize he got into a lot of trouble and he showed me three scars from where he had been shot and another where he had been attacked with a machete. Pretty fucked up. We left Williams merry at around 8pm and caught the 10.30pm bus, by which time he had already invited me to come and spend the following day and night with his family in Belize, which I gratefully accepted.

We arrived at the border around 8am, and after passing through took a short taxi journey to his sisters house, where we began drinking rum again. The place was basic but had a great view of a Mayan temple on the hill in the background. Later in the morning we drove up a very rough track through the jungle towards his step fathers place, and when we arrived it was absolutely stunning. The first thing that I was met with was a glass of rum and a joint, really nice stuff. William Snr has constructed several buildings high up in his mountain home and is trying to build a business taking tours around the Mayan caves on his land, as well as running a restaurant and guest house. The views from the top building, which will eventually be the restaurant are quite stunning. The place was very basic, there was no electricity or plumbing, but it was absolutely amazing. There was wildlife everywhere, beautiful flowers with humming birds around them. They did not have wealth but they had a sustainable life, growing their own fruit and raising poultry for food and collecting rain water for drink. William Snr and his wife cooked us some traditional tortillas and tacos whilst we went off to harvest some plantains from the land, which are deceptively heavy (they look like slightly larger bananas). 

The boys bringing home dinner

William Snr cooking up a storm

After eating the real drinking began, and we decided that we were going to go and do some night fishing for our tea. I did not expect this would involve traditional fishing methods, but when we drove down in the back of William Snr's pick up I was slightly sceptical about the lack of equipment, which as far as I could tell was two machetes. It was pitch black, and within twenty minutes we were knee deep in a river planting chicken skin around the river bed as bait. William Snr. spoke good English but sounded very much like Marlon Brando in the Godfather, and I think for this reason I kept accidentally calling him Tony. He was smashed by the time we were in the river and he kept going on about survival, which I was not taking as seriously as he would have perhaps liked (I was pretty merry by this point). He told me he used to be a sniper (which I chose to pretend not to hear) and then he began sniping crabs and shrimp straight out of the water. I was smashed by this point too, and when I tried to do it I fell straight in and ruined the only pack of cigarette's that we had left between us. Damn.

We made three passes of the river, each time taking a break to smoke and drink more rum. The second time I turned my headlamp on as I felt something on my hand, and when I looked down there was a fucking tarantula skulking around the ground. Even pissed it really freaked me out, but William being William began to play with it. The first time we had gone in the river he told me that I had to be very careful, as there were a lot of snakes around and they come to the river at night to drink. I did not take this particularly seriously but he had not even warned me about spiders, so after this I was a little more vigilant. The next day we found one of these snakes and it was a particularly poisonous shade of green. 

Bite me

I had not caught anything yet, but I was determined not to leave empty handed. On our final pass of the various bait spots I spotted something moving on the surface and snatched it straight out of the water. To my amazement it was not a slow moving shrimp, it was a ruddy bloody fish. Even the two William's did not believe that I had done this, until I opened my hand to show them, and low and behold there it was. That soon shut them up.By the time we were ready to leave we had a haul of about seven crabs and plenty of shrimp. William told us that we should try eating some of the shrimp raw (live), which me and Jnr. did to both of our disgust. I had shrimp legs stuck in my teeth for about two hours, and I was still getting stomach pains three days later. When we drove back the place was in pitch black, as there is no electricity up there, so we got a fire going and cooked up the rest of the crab and shrimp (I threw my fish back in, I don't think we would have got too much meat off it).

Crab in one hand, machete in the other

I caught a fish thiiiiis big

Tony then decided to light a proper bonfire at the foot of some Mayan ruins on the site, and whilst I did not agree with his methods of fire building he got the job done. I have become somewhat of a pro at building fires, but Tony/William Snr, whatever, basically just poured a tin of kerosene over a log and stood back and admired his handy work. 

Needs more kerosene

I had my sleeping bag with me so after smoking a lot of Tony's weed I decided that I would sleep out in a hammock under the stars, overlooking the incredible mountains and Tony's questionable fire – literally on top of some Mayan ruins. I stumbled up the hill and finally managed to climb into a hammock (they would not let me pay a penny for any of this – food, drink, accommodation etc). I was dreaming about Harvey and when I awoke at about 4am I could still hear his grunts and snuffles. When I turned on my headlamp and shone it around there were two pigs stood staring at me about a meter away. 

My boys

After the pigs and tarantula I was slightly paranoid about what else was out there. At one point I thought I could see something looking at me, but I could not find my headlamp so I took a photo. Nervously I checked the picture and it turned out to be my sunglasses on the sleeping bag cover. When I woke again it was 5am, and swinging in my hammock high up I the hills I watched the sun rise, which was really a treat to behold. The next time I awoke at 6.30am Tony was waving a joint at me in one hand and an alligators skull in the other. Breakfast time. When they took me to the bus station at midday I was so grateful for what I had experienced with these guys (I hate to think what the alternative would have been, probably 10hrs in that horrendous bus station), that I vowed to help them get the business going and told them that I (Powell) would try and get a basic website up and running for them to repay their kindness.

Shiiiiiiit son

Not a bad view to wake up to

Sports casual

The next part of the journey took me from the Belize border into Belize City, which ain't the greatest place and was full of beggars and poverty. I was there for three hours and was glad to see the back of the place. I caught a night bus to Cancun, and incorporating the time difference I arrived at 5am and walked around disorientated looking for a hostel. I found one and as soon as I walked in some guy from Chicago tried to persuade me to go and find hookers with him. How's about noooo, okay scotty. I checked into a ten man dorm and it was one of the least relaxing few hours sleep that I have ever had. At 8am I was on the internet looking for something a bit more relaxing to spend my final two nights. I found a Yacht Club, which for some reason also had four person dorms advertised and only cost five more bucks than my existing hostel. I got a bus over there and when I arrived the place was an absolute charm. Right on the sea front with a nice pool. I was shown to my room and it was certainly like no dorm I had ever seen. Two double beds, air conditioning, cable tv, free bottled water, an outdoor terrace anda large private bathroom with hot water, the bollocks. No one else is staying in the room so I have had a private double for $16 a night in a great location near the beach (all the other hostels are in the down town area, which is party central and not really what I was looking for at this stage of my travels). I have had a very relaxing time here, and whilst I have felt a little under dressed compared to my sports casual counterparts staying here, it has been an absolute result of a find.

One last rum

And that's about it I guess. Tomorrow I fly back home to the cold reality of the UK. As I said in my last post, this is not something that I am dreading in any way. I am looking forward to catching up with everyone and I am really excited about the future. The three sections of these travels, namely South East Asia, California and South/Central America have all been very different experiences in their own way, and I truly believe that this has been a time that has taught me more about life than could ever be learned in any classroom or office building. Central and South America are far less about partying than SE Asia, and it has really been much more of a rewarding challenge. I have learned a new language and I have witnessed extreme beauty and extreme poverty. I feel privileged and fortunate to have seen the world in this way, but it feels as if I have barely scratched the surface of what the world has to offer. I have no doubt that there will be more to follow, but for the time being I want to dedicate myself to writing and starting a career in a subject for which I have a great passion. Recently was the anniversary of my Mum's death, and it was some of her final words to me that has really given me the courage to take a risk and completely change the way that my life was heading. It was my Mum who always heavily discouraged me from travelling, even whilst I discussed it during her illness. She was very vocal in her belief that I should get an education, get a good job, settle down and not waste my time and money on backpacking. Then a few days before her passing she brought me close and told me whatever I do, go away and travel, see the world and find my happiness. Such a reversal in her attitude so close to the end really taught me about what is important in life. I know that she was not lay in her bed in the hospice thinking about how hard she had worked and how much money she had earned, she was reflecting upon the memories and experiences that comforted her in the face of death. I could have stayed on in my job and made a decent career for myself, but my Mum gave me the courage and the inspiration to change my life, and I will never regret what I have done with my time since she passed away. I know the last year and a half will be very prominent in my thoughts when I myself am close to the end of my life, and whether anything comes of the writing or not, I do what I do in her memory. As George Burns said, it is better to be a failure at something you love than a success at something you hate. I did not hate my last job, but my life had become miserable. To see how people of the third world live I feel fairly ashamed of my so called misery, but the people of these places, the William's of this world, they have taught me that money is not going to be the answer to any of my problems. They are happy despite their relative poverty. They have not been polluted by materialism and consumerism. They have their family and their friends and on the whole many are very happy people. I have a new lease of life and that is because I am applying myself and chasing something that makes me feel enthusiastic and excited, and I can tell you this much, I will return to the UK a much happier person for dedicating my time to the things that I will think about when death comes knocking on my door, and I feel infinitely richer for this experience despite what my bank balance might suggest.

The road to success is a bizarre one

So, one week left to go. My plan to gently cruise through central America over the course of a few months has gone to shit and I now have to cross eight countries in seven days. Should be a nice relaxing last week. My journey will take me from the capital of Nicaragua through Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Germany and then the UK. It is by no means going to be pleasant, but for some reason it is not bothering me in the slightest. I guess it is because I am looking forward to coming back to the UK, and the journey ahead just feels like the final effort for the reward of getting back to see everyone that I have missed for so long. This trip has undoubtedly been the best times that I have had in recent memory, but it kind of grinds you down after a while. My health is declining to third world standards and I have been unable to shake off a chest infection for almost two weeks now. People probably expect that I am dreading coming home, but I am not. I can't wait to get back and I am now facing a bit of a race against the clock to make my flight in time. By my calculations I need five days and a half days of constant day travel to make it to Cancun from Managua. The highways are a bit sketchy in some of these countries and a few of the routes are bandito territory, so there are no night buses. This is a bit of a shitter, as I am really going to have to be on my A game to make some of these optimistic connections. They are all long journeys and therefore the last departure time for most of them are early afternoon. This means that I have to catch absurdly early buses 5am tomorrow and then arrive in a capital with around thirty minutes to find the next bus terminal and get myself on the bus. If I miss the connection then it could set me back an entire day. This is of mild concern, as I need to be in Cancun by 23^rd, and tomorrow the 17^th begins my journey. I am not quite sure how I got myself into this mess, but I am pretty sure that repeatedly missing the ferry off Ometepe was largely similar to the Gili Islands last year, where I missed the boat Bali about six days in a row. I was with people who I liked a lot and I did not want to leave.

But the Nicaragua is only half of the story, I felt like I did a genuine tour of duty in a month in Puerto Viejo. The place was like a vortex and is one of the most fucked up places that I have ever been in my life. Predictably the best story that I can tell to sum it up was also the most terrifying experience that I have had whilst travelling. The hostel that I was staying at was sort of a group of cabina's that were within a fenced compound just off the beach, most of the site being outdoors (sort of like a campsite with a few buildings scattered around). It was the same hostel that I had been at for a few weeks by this point, and I had got to know a number of the local guys quite well. I had heard various things about the owner, a guy in a wheel chair who lived almost opposite my cabina. but from what I had seen in my first couple of weeks there he was nothing more to me than a doting father who spent ninety percent of his time with his young daughter sat on his lap. My initial assumptions about him was that he had perhaps had a stroke, as he did not seem to have movement on one side of his face. I got to know him a bit and what I found out later came as a bit of a surprise, but I would be lying if I said it was total shock. As an alleged player in the drug wars in those parts he had shot and killed a rival gang leader some years before. As retribution that shot him seven times, including once in the face, landing him in a wheel chair for the rest of his life. Following his recovery he was then sent to prison for murder. This took me by surprise in the sense that he was such a nice guy, but I was aware that shit was going on, it was hard to ignore. At all times of day and night locals were comin'a'knockin and leaving again suspiciously quickly... Anyway, so a few weeks in and I was sat doing some work in the adjacent restaurant when I decided to pop back to my shack for a cheeky joint. Literally two minutes after leaving the restaurant and ten seconds after lighting the joint I start hearing people running by the outside and then suddenly people were shouting police and someone started hammering on my door. My anus pretty much imploded as I stood there with smoke all around me and an eighth of bud sat neatly right next to the door. I put it out and threw the joint and the rest of the weed into a cigarette box and threw it as far as I could under the bed. My heart felt like it was about to explode out of my chest as I opened the door and was greeted by a man pointing a gun towards me. Ho tidy I say's to meself.

So he ushers me out of my shack and walks me over towards where they have begun rounding everyone up on a bench that everyone eats around at night. I had picked up a bottle of water on my way out to try and give myself any kind of distraction, but I was so weak with fear that I could barely lift it off the ground (in fairness it was a six litre vat of water). So after being sat there for thirty minutes surrounded by around twenty police officers wandering how much of a bumming that I was going to get in prison they begin to pad us all down and send us back out of the campsite towards the restaurant. As I passed my cabina I opted to lock it back up and hope that they had already gone in there and not found anything. It turns out that these guys were the Costa Rican FBI and had been watching the owner for a while. But this information only filtered through after two hours of pure fear sat at the restaurant drinking straight rum hoping that this was not the end for me.

So that was pretty fucked up. They took away our hostel owner and the next day he called the youngish guy on reception who I had been hanging around with a bit. He was told that there was a rat at the hostel who had reported him, and needless to say I was not keen on being involved in the rat hunt, so a few of us decided that it was probably a good time to ship out of that place and move on to Nicaragua (although as always, it took about a week to actually mobilise ourselves). The longer we spent in that town the more fucked up things we began to hear, involving several rape and drugging stories (naïve teenagers mainly) and also a rumour that a tourists head had been found on a beach – although I am not sure if I believe any of this. This place is a walking advert for the impact that tourism has on small coastal communities like this. I have seen this same thing every place I have been, beautiful picturesque settings and entire cultures destroyed by travellers arriving with their money and behaviour that is entirely inappropriate to the customs of the local natives. I recently read an article about vang vieng in Laos, where I went tubing last year. This place has been completely ravaged, and last year in the local hospital alone (many get taken to the capital and aren't included in the stats) twenty seven tourists died on the river as a result of drunken / drug behaviour. The town has turned into ibiza and for a culture that is offended by nudity the indigenous folk have to stand by and watch half naked people wander around town drunk all day and night being sick on the streets and generally fucking up what used to be a stunning place.

The funny thing is that despite everything that was fucked up about it I felt a real affinity towards Puerto Viejo. Several times I felt like I should be moving on, bearing in mind that when I got there I only had about seven weeks to get up through six other countries to Cancun. However, something kept me there. I felt like I should be “travelling” more and seeing new places, but the more I learned about the place the more interesting it became. There are a lot of people who seem to go from place to place, spend a few days in each and then move on. This is fine for short periods, but it wears me down. In Puerto Viejo I learned so much about the people and what went on there that it became intriguing. The receptionist guy told me about an international gigolo who lives there, international drug smugglers who had disappeared off the face of the earth (captain zero, famous apparently), hostel co-operatives beating up local muggers, mysterious geniuses gone insane and pretty much everything in-between. I met a writer there who has three books published in Spanish about the local black magic scene, sounds pretty fucked up. Another day I was sat on a rock writing in my notepad and this black dude walks over with a girl, and really awkwardly they sit really close to me on either side and start reading what I am writing. I recognised the bloke to be the one who had told me that he was a “citizen of the earth” when I asked where he was from (he speaks with an American accent). He started questioning me incessantly about what I was writing and then told me that two days previous he had started a conversation with an American woman in the same way and it turned out that she had a current top ten New York best-sellers title in the charts and had just sold the movie rights for it. Pretty cool. What was not cool, not in any way, was what happened next. He told me that he was a signer songwriter and the previously silent woman urged him to sing me one of his songs. Get the guitar I thought to myself. The next four minutes were hell. He sat about half a foot from my face singing directly at my and I did not have a fucking clue what to do with myself. After he finished I said it was good and encouraged he pulled out his ipod and made me listen to the recorded version. Some people. It turns out that he is actually in the charts in Central America with this song, but I really wish that he did not feel the need to sing his song in my face, it is a bit much.

When it came time to leave I was sad to say goodbye to the place, but it was probably for the best. I had been hanging out with a forest fire fighter from Montana, a couple from Austria (the guy is called Bernhard Berger, genuinely used to crank call a guy called Bernard Burger because of his name) and an eighteen year old English girl who incredibly was travelling on her own in Central America (I say incredibly because personally I would not have had the guts to travel this area as an eighteen year old). We were headed for Ometepe, Nicaguara, an island in a huge lake formed by two active volcanoes. We had timed the travelling to avoid moving during Easter, as the Latin American's shut down everything over this period and basically go nuts for four days. When we arrived we stayed the first night in some shitty hotel where a squirrel took a piss on me, and on this basis we sought somewhere better the next day. We found an awesome hostel where we had three double beds in one room and two doubles in the other, along with a massive private balcony running the length of the two rooms (had our own floor of the hostel) overlooking the volcano.

The following day we decided to rent 200cc motorbikes and explore the island. I have never driven a motorbikes before, although I have driven several semi-automatic mopeds which apart from the power were not that different to operate. The only slight difference was that I had Katie the English girl on the back of mine and I had not really driven that much with a passenger before. We decided that we were going to drive to a waterfall we had heard about, despite being warned about the fact that you have to ride for over an hour on a very difficult dirt track. I was a little apprehensive, and when we arrived I realised that I had every reason to be. Jesus. I fell off within about thirty meters, and Katie opted to ride with an Aussie lad who had come along too and had a little bit more experience. As soon as I had her off the back I turned into a bit of a maniac and actually really enjoyed the buzz of scrambling up and down dirt paths over rocks and boulders, I can see why neiler loves motocross after that. In total I spent about ten days on that island, and I would have moved on sooner to not make this journey so bad but we had such a great group of people that it made it very difficult to leave. Every evening I said was my last from about day four, so we would get pissed and then I'd miss the ferry the next morning. But there was plenty to do and plenty not to do, and I enjoyed both with equal measures. The hostel itself gave plenty of reason to stay. It was a great set-up. As well as being a hostel is was a animal rescue centre, and there were four monkey's living out back. In addition to this there were wild deer roaming around who would go into the monkey pen to get wanked off (no shit). I tried wearing a pair of fake antlers to get involved but they were having none of it....

Easy rider

A few nights before leaving we began to hear a few stories about the people that run it, who are apparently part of some infamous cult on the island. People were suggesting things about pedophilia and also someone reckoned that their belief was that knowledge was spread through semen. A few of the guests left upon hearing this but I did not feel anything was really up with the place, although I did feel a bit smarter every time I had extra mayo on my burger... It seems that when you stick around a place long enough you always get to hear these funny little stories about the people living there, and anyone considering travelling I would definitely advise to spend more time in less places than just go from place to place non-stop, it is a far more rewarding / bizarre experience.

I will finish this entry, very possibly my last of this trip by revisiting the month of March, one that I had previously highlighted as being”important” according to the weird mind reading guy. What was doubly weird was that whilst at the hostel in Puerto Viejo I was telling a lad from California about what happened, and he said he knows someone who this happened to aswell. I was about to share my relief that it was probably a con, but his story was even more bizarre. It happened to this guy in India, same kind of thing, but then when he was in a bar in Jakarta Indonesia some months later, a man approached him and said “I have to speak to you, as I know my brother has been in contact with you”. This guy had seen him in a bar and somehow sensed that someone with similar abilities had spoken to this guy halfway across the continent three or four months previous. Weird. So, what happened in March? In addition to the two job offers from California I filled an entire 180 page notebook with writing for my book, which has taken me from a relatively early part of the story to being close(ish) to completion. In addition to this I came up with an idea for an entirely new book based upon Puerto Viejo, along with establishing several key contacts within the town. I wrote a credible business plan that I intend to peruse with a couple of mates when I get back. And then finally I met a girl who is pretty much exactly the same as a character that I was writing, but was previously struggling to develop, and she has agreed to tell me her story to help me along. This was an incredible stroke of fortune, which does not sound so mind blowing but the circumstances of the meeting were fairly unlikely and the links between her and the character are absolutely undeniable. So was March an important month for me? Yes, I would say so. Now I am ready to come home and start putting all of this into action. I don't know whether this is it for me travelling, I doubt it, but for the foreseeable future I am focused on concentrating on real life issues, like caring for a big brave abandoned bulldog. I actually wrote the first part of this blog yesterday and after a 4am rise I have cleared Nicaragua, Honduras and I am currently sat in some shithouse hotel in El Salvador, where random people on the street seem to be walking around with guns. So provided I make it through the night then I'll see you all soon...

Time for the hobo's return

I hate ants, the movie Antz and Antonio Banderas. You all bite

I have been coming into a bit of luck lately. In fact, I have been experiencing strokes of luck on a fairly consistent basis ever since I left the UK back in October. I went over there to work on a farm (of sorts), which fell through. I remember sitting on a pier in San Francisco around a week into the trip and contemplating what the hell I was going to do. Accommodation was running me $35 a night and I was now about to face the prospect of having to leave the states and head straight into South America, where things were at least a bit cheaper. This pained me as I liked what I had seen of California and I did not feel ready to leave. So instead I took a road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway with some total goon from my dorm and I checked into a hostel on Venice Beach, LA, where I met a Spanish lad Alfonso who could barely speak a word of english. The hostel here was cheaper at $20 s night so I decided to extend my stay for a few nights one Saturday morning. When I went to the desk the receptionist told me it was full and that I would have to leave. Not relishing the prospect of a night on the streets I phoned around a few hostels and everywhere was full. When I returned to the dorm I was faced with a frantic Alfonso, who clearly was suffering the same predicament with the additional problem of not being able to speak the language. It really did scare Alfonso, the language barrier. He was kind of scared to go too far from the hostel, as he could not ask directions etc. I decided that I had to help him, as believe me I have felt like he did a few times over the past year.

So we jumped on the internet and whilst I was logging on I noticed a flyer for a hostel on Pacific Beach, San Diego. It looked pretty sweet and the rates were only $15 a night, so I gave them a call. Again, they were all booked out. So I did a quick search on hostelworld and top of the list came USA Hostels on 5th av, which had previously been voted the top hostel in the whole of the USA, so I went ahead and booked. Alfonso was nervous about this idea, because he needed to be back in LA a few days later and I was not sure if I could come back with him. I reassured him it would be okay and we hopped on a bus down there. When we arrived I was blown away by SD, it is an amazing place. When we checked into the hostel I was greeted by a vivacious young lady named Meg, and upon noticing a sign that they were looking for staff I enquired what the deal was. Meg told me that a group had literally just left, so I was in luck. The prospect of free accommodation meant that I could stay in the US for a while and not have to worry about changing my flights into Peru that were booked for mid December.

As it transpired I had such a great experience in San Diego that I decided to stay on another month. I made some very strong connections with the other members of staff and various travellers who were coming through, and I made some good friends. During my time there I worked with a guy whose best friend works for a publishers reading manuscripts. A contact like this could be the difference between landing a contract or not, and whilst it may come to nothing, is still a large slice of fortune. Next came a text from my Dad, which said that I had been given a rebate of £95 from 2007. Tidy I thought, a few beers. Then he texted again saying that he had mis-spelt, and it was actually £950. I probably don't need to go into detail about how much of a bonus that has been.

It was emotional when I left the hostel, as I had grown close to a number of people. But no sooner had I left that I heard from a good friend Florian, who I met in Indonesia back in May. He was heading to Columbia. So I headed north from Peru and got up there for a month with the Bavarian boys. Then just as my time with the German lads was about to come to a close my good friend Hugo made contact to say he was coming over for a month. In Panama we met a lovely couple who run a farm in California, whom we kept bumping into place after place in the country, and whom we ended up sharing a dorm with for a few nights in Bocas Del Toro recently.

Over the past couple of weeks I have received two short-term job offers in California as a result of the chance connections that I have made since leaving the UK. Add to this the potential publishing contact, the minor cash windfall and the abundance of good friends coming my way and it is clear that I have been experiencing a trail of uncharacteristically good luck. I had not really thought about this until this morning. It is raining hard in Costa Rica today, so I am kind of penned into my room with nothing but a bottle of water and a pipe. I began searching for my speakers to put some music on and as I was rummaging my hand picked up something small, round and rough. At first I thought it might be the missing part of Peter Neil Reed's chin, but when I retrieved it I was surprised to find the little nut type thing that the weird fortune teller / mind reader guy from Malaysia gave me back in March. If you are reading this and don't remember this guy then I suggest you read my post “strange shit is a goin down” from March or April last year, it was fucked up. The guy told me some pretty weird shit, and was convincing enough to make me throw up. Anyway, this guy gave me the little nut thing and told me to keep it on me and it will bring me luck. Ever the sceptic I decided to just leave it at my Dads house, as I don't really want to carry a nut type thing around with my (it kind of looks like a brain, but feels like a nut). So I find the nut and began to think about the strokes of luck that I have been having, which have all been completely down to chance. Then I started thinking about what else the guy said. He told me that March 2012 would be a very important month for me, and by only six days in I had received two potential employment options in California, somewhere that I would love to return for a few months. NB. The guy said “important” as opposed to “lucky”, I am not sure how to translate this difference but I hope it is good. For the rest of March I have been spending long days writing and I really feel as if progress is being made, so it really has felt like an important month for me so far.

Santa Catalina

Anyway, that's the hippy shit out of the way. The last few weeks have been non-stop. Hugo and myself developed a taste for adrenalin sports, sunburn, aloe vera and rum. Following a couple of heavy nights in Panama City we set off for Santa Catilina on the South West Pacific coast. The public transport in Panama is shite. The majority of buses are these shitty little minibuses that have seats barely enough for one person that sit two people. They are predominatly leather and when combined with the heat you find yourself dripping with sweat and forming wet patches in any area in contact with the seat or the person next to you. They pack a dangerous number of people in, so the narrow aisles are packed with locals. It seems to be socially acceptable to sit on people, lean on them or pretty much do whatever you want to them. On one journey I had a girl leaning on my shoulder as an arm rest whilst a child behind played with my hair. On the next journey I had a man placing his arse crack down my arm to keep himself steady. After the journey my arm literally spelt of ass.

I don't know whether it is because I have been spending so much time on public transport lately, but I am seriously considering petitioning for the outlaw of public displays of affection on public transport. On the journey to Santa Catalina I was sat directly behind a couple who over the course of the 2hr journey probably kissed each other one hundred and fifty times. At one point I counted twenty seven kisses in a row. It took every ounce of will not to punch a route right through the middle of their lips. I don't really understand the motivation for this type of carry on, I will assume it is insecurity, but after one session the girl looked round at me and shot me one of the dirtiest looks I have ever received (and not in a good way). She was seriously trying to suggest that I was somehow perving on them. These seats are packed in and I was less than 2ft from their faces and to see out of the window I had to look in their direction. So when she gave me this look I maintained my look, which I hope translated as 'If you want privacy then fornicate in a private place you fucking moron.' Following this stare off she turned back to her boyfriend, who then looked at me and they began to laugh. Is this what the future holds? Getting mocked for having my eyes open on public transport? Probably. I certainly look forward to the day when everyone just closes their eyes on the underground, there is only so many times that someone can read the underground map. This kind of thing is happening with such regularity that I am begninning to automatically seek seats as close to the front as possible, front seat if available. When I came to South America kipper warned me that there are a lot of bus crashes, and that the safest place on the bus is towards the middle and back on the right hand side. I now find myself voluntarily reducing my chances of survival and sitting at the front left just to avoid these sacks of shit.

So after a couple of these delightful bus journeys we arrived in Santa Catalina in time for a pretty impressive sunset over the bay. The next day we decided to take some surf lessons, which were advertised for $15 at our hostel. We began to worry when a small boy, probably eight years or so, started arranging our boards and trying to communicate to us in Spanish. Our fears grew further when another 8yr old non-englis speaking lad turned up and we all got into a van to head to the beach. When we got there we soon became resigned to the fact that we had just burned $15, although they did draw us some surfboards in the sand and teach us in spanish how to lie face down in the dirt. The surf there was perfect for beginners, and there were some pretty reasonable size waves. The main issue was that we did not really know how to surf, and neither of us understood what these kids were trying to say. It began to get awkward so I started trying to paddle away from my guy, whilst Hugo persisted and got a few push offs from his boy. We both managed to get up a few times and once the kids did one we had a good time.

Get me out of that god damn sun

One thing that I forgot to mention is Hugo's ability to lose things. A day does not pass without something disappearing, and on the day we went surfing it was sun cream, puyfect. When we realise we tried to buy some more but the village is tiny, and the “shop” is rather limited in products (they ran out of bread for 3 days, but their tinned sardines were in plentiful supply). So we went surfing for 5hrs without suncream. We had actually bought aftersun for the first time the day before, but luckily it had opened up in my hand luggage and covered almost anything of value that I have. So six hours later our faces began to hurt, quite a lot. When we got up the next day for diving we were in really quite a lot of pain. We both spent the day trying to keep out of the sun as best we could, but the diving tour was not too conducive of this. I wasn't exactly convinced that I could remember how to dive, it has been almost a year. Then Hugo hit me with the news that his had been 8 years, but we were sort of confident we would pick it up again. The place we went was called Coiba, a national marine park that was once adjoining the Galapogas islands, and is famed for it's big fish. The 1.5hr boat journey was encouraging, where I saw several dolphins, a turtle and some manta ray.

Our first dive was something that I did not expect possible. The fish were just unbelievable, thousands upon thousands. And then, as I have been dreaming of for a year, a whale shark came cruising towards me. These things are fucking huge, biggest fish in the ocean, and we were lucky enough to see two of them. Hugo and me had been a bit concerned that we would hold up the rest of the group and use up our oxygen quicker, as all the rest of the group had their own equipment. But they were total jokes. One guy was particularly annoying, he was floating around, going vertical and almost kicking my face off, then sinking and going upside down etc. We had a divemaster but everytime I looked round our group had become smaller, and after half an hour there was only me and Hugo left. The divemaster did not seem bothered so we carried on regardless. By the time we surfaced all of the others were already on the boat and changed out of their gear, very weird.

The second dive was a lot more challenging. When the divemaster began talking about the currents it made me a little nervous, and when we went down 15m we litterally had to hold on to rocks and swim hard into the current to try and stay together. We were told to stick close to the rocks and the bottom of the ocean to avoid the currents, but they were strong everywhere, and when you caught a good one it was like being on a waterslide, proper good fun. We had only booked a two tank dive, so the pro's went off on the third and we went snorkelling. After half an hour I was looking out to sea when the jerk who could clearly not dive breached the surface of the water feet first. I am not quite sure how he did this, as the rules of the floatation device he was wearing renders this practically impossible, but I am confident that he will have died of nitrous poisoning later that night.

One of the most refreshing things about having Hugo with me is not having to make friends. No need for any more shit conversations about where I have been. Sure, they obviously still happen with regularity, but I am no longer forced into instigating them. It allowed me to be more selective when being approached by instigators, which I believe has led to a sustained period of very high grade travelling buddies. We met some good people over the past month, and It was nice to be part of a double act. I have always been a greater ease when mates have come to join me in various places, things instantly become easier and far more leisurely. The pressure to interact is removed and as a result I am able to me myself without worry of being ostrasiced. It is surprising how often I have thought to myself about the value of having someone I know with me on the road, there are definitely a number of benefits. A lot of people travelling alone suggest that it is the only way to meet people, as you are forced to do so. Those who know me know that I don't like to be forced to do anything. I am far more comfortable with not being forced to make friends (see networking events for reference). When you are forced to make friends the conversation is invariably bland for all parties. When you have a back up, ie a mate, you don't really give a shit about peoples impressions and you can be yourself. I imagine this is pretty much applicable in any social situation. Just having someone there who can apologise on a friends behalf and reassure any upset parties that “he is not normally like that”. A fairly pertinent example of this came the night after Hugo left. I fell into the sea and woke up naked in the wrong dorm bed. I am reliably informed by other guys in the dorm that the person whose bed I was in was not very happy about the situation. Four hours later I was crossing the Costa Rican border wearing no shoes. This is what happens when I have no one to explain on my behalf that I am essentially a normal person, but can occassionally go a bit frank the tank when drunk.

Anyway, back to Panama. After a few days in Catalina we decided to go up into the mountains at Boquette. This place was a whole different climate. We had grown accustomed to temperatures in the mid to high thirties, and it was kind of nice to put on jeans and get out of the heat. It is a nice little town that has prospored from tourism, and there was plenty to opt for, so we chose white water rafting and ziplining. When we signed up for the white water rafting we both had images of us flying over waterfalls in terror. When we arrived at the office there was a family with two young kids, a pair of gays and three women over the age of sixty. We both sat silently disappointed but when we got chatting with these people we realised that we were in good company regardless of the ride. It turns out that one of these ladies was seventy seven years old, and the gays had been on a tour with her that had taken her trekking and caving along with rafting – pretty fucking impressive if you ask me. The rafting was good craic, me and Hugo were lead team at the front but we did not take our responsibilites very seriously. We spent most of the time trying to push each other out of the boat and splash one of the other two boats. Hugo, who regularly and openly praise's his own aquatic abilities (he is by his own admission “impossibly aquatic”) was not very comfortable hitting the currents, and instead of manning his side and keeping the balance he would leap onto my side every time he hit a wave. This was annoying and his comuppance finally arrived when we hit a big one and he went straight over the top of me and into the water – becoming the first and only member of the party that had to be rescued by rope.

Humiliation for Hugo as the gays run him over

Old ladies, gays and the boys

That evening me and Hugo went for a meal with the old ladies and the gays, which was surprisingly good fun. Next morning we were due to go ziplinging but we had a few beers and when I woke up at 7.30am I phoned us into the afternoon slot. We both felt a bit nervous as the truck up there started hitting some serious height. By the time we got to the first line Hugo was visibly shaken and my discomfort with heights was not easy to mask. At times there were about fifteen of us stood on these small platforms built 50m up a tree, and once you had begun there was no turning back or stopping. It was a good laugh and zipping through the canopy of a rainforest is different, but if it had cost more than $60 then I would have been pissed (the one in Laos which I did not do was $400).

Our final destination in Panama was Bocas Del Toro, a tropical location made famous for hosting the television series “Survivor”. We had to wait about 2hrs to get this shitty bus to a small town that is the launching point to Bocas. When we arrived Hugo got to experience aparticularly irritating ritual that I have had to go through many many times over the last year or so. Getting off the bus to be greeted by some shifty looking local who is trying to make some commission off disorientated travellers. This prick was on a bike and just would not leave us the fuck alone. We had our backpacks, it was fucking hot and the walk took about twenty minutes whilst this guy tried to make conversation that neither of us were interested in having. All the time there were even shiftier looking guys all on these bikes that I associated with hood movies. I associated anyone over the age of 16 on a bike with crime, and these guys were communicating with each other as we passed and personally I felt like this guy was leading us to be mugged and probably bummed. Fortunately, and as has always been the case there was nothing to fear, but also as always these are tense moments until you actually arrive at the transport or hostel that they are supposedly leading you to.

The boat journey was pleasant and as soon as we arrived in Bocas we began to bump into people that we had met in other places across Panama. On the first night we probably met six or seven different people that we had spoken to along the way, which was pretty nice. The American couple that we met on San Blas were staying in our dorm along with three American lads from Detroit who were on their spring break, and we began hanging out as a group which was really good fun. The young American guys were some of the most interesting and engaging twenty one year olds that I have ever met. Two of them are ghost writers, which as well as sounding cool is a pretty sweet job. They basically just write university papers for rich kids who cannot be bothered to do it themselves, and they make good money ($25 a page). There were several islands to go visit and we saw some dolphins and saw some nice shit. Amongst the highlights was a day trip to another beach, which involved a trek through a disasterously muddy trail.

Post trail

 My flip flops broke after five minutes and I had to ditch them, but on the plus side Hugo fell off a log, so swings and roundabouts. We bought with us a chinese guy we had met in the hostel who was hilarious to watch. When we got to the beach it was like he had never seen the ocean before. He was running in and then running away from the waves, just repeatedly for about half an hour. A couple of the americans had dropped acid and one of them became involved in conversation with the Chinese guy for about 2hrs. I don't know what was discussed but when David, the chinese guy returned he honestly said it had been the best day of his life. It was really quite touching I guess. He actually lives in Panama City and is twenty six, so I am not really sure what he does with his time, it was pretty much a standard day for myself.

Decabots

 At night the rum flowed in Bocas. Myself and Hugo forged ourselves a reputation as a couple of merry drunks, which we attribute to the local rum – best booze going. But alas, all good things must come to an end, and when it became time for Hugo to depart I was left to reflect on how great it would have been to have him on board for the whole trip.

The American lads were flying home from Costa Rica and invited me with them to a party in Puerto Viejo the next evening, so I decided to travel on with them. That night I went out drinking with the Detroit boys and quite what happened I don't know. As I mentioned I woke up naked in the wrong bed at 7am, twenty minutes before we had to catch the boat and move onwards to Costa Rica. I had managed to lose my flip flops and everything seemed to be wet. In the rush I left behind all of my washbag and cosmetics which was a bonus. I then had to cross the border wearing no shoes.

The Ark

The party to which we were headed was for a guy called Jay, who owns a huge hostel in Puerto Viejo called rocking J's. The Detroit guys had been here one week before bocas and met the guy that runs the place - J. It is this huge plot with big Open air structure's filled with tents and hammocks. He has planted grass and there are loads of open air communal areas and it had it's own private beach area. The perfect party hostel. So they met this guy and he began telling them that he genuinely believes the world will end in 2012, and on that basis his last birthday was this year, the day the four of us headed here from bocas. When I got there they showed me the ark that he has built out back, complete with gun turrets and several crates of guns and ammunition. It was his birthday, and on this basis he believes that it will be his last birthday, so in preperation he bought 400 bottles of spirits between about 100 people. I emplore you to do the maths.

Free booze

 It was a pretty messy night, he had fires going on the beach and as soon as your glass was empty someone would be there to fill it. At around 5am I met one of the biggest douchebags that I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. This guy was just the pits, and the worst part was that he was English. He had an air of Jesus about his long hair, thick beard. When he began to speak he sounded exactly like Neil from the young ones. When he started putting on this hippy act I was left no option but to destroy him. He was clearly just some berk who is trying to get laid by sounding spiritual, which is fine, but he was just so terrible at impersonating a hippy that it was just plain disturbing. It was like he had once watched an episode of the young ones and had then decided to try and be a hippy. He was rubbish. He started piping on about negative energy and said that he was the victim of racial hatred. I asked him what the fuck he was going and as it transpires he has basically been getting picked on everywhere he goes. If you met this guy you would totally know why. He walked ankle deep into the sea and started talking about the connection he felt with nature (in Neil from the young ones voice) and I just burst out laughing. When I talked to him one-on-one he sounded like your average Tim nice but dim, but he seems pretty resilient in his hippy rouse and refuses to break character on the public stage. The last thing I remember asking him was if the rumours that he is a hermaphrodite were true, didn't speak to him again after that.

The morning after the Detroit guy's left I checked out and went looking for alternative accommodation, and for the first time in six months I got room to myself. I Feel pretty exposed to the elements here. This is the Closest I have slept to an ocean with serious waves. I slept on loads of huts on the beach in Asia, but the seas were calm over there. The sea is fookin aggressive here, the wave are big and the surf douches are a'plenty. The waves are upto 20ft in this region and the noise of the ocean is very prominent. My cabina is an odd structure. It is a triangle formed by two sheets of corregated iron and the ground. The end facing the ocean only has a dwarf wall with a sparse wooden cross hatch above it. It is totally open air except for a very poorly fitted mosquito mesh. In addition to the racket of the ocean it has been raining hard some days. The noise of these downpours against the correguated tin roof is deafening, and is slowly driving me mad. If the rain is blowing away from the sea towards shore then around half of my bed gets rained on through the mesh. Pretty good fun at 4am when you are also desperately trying to maintain the integrity of mosquito net that has seen better days. There are a lot of Mosquitos here, shit loads of the little fuckers. When I turn the light on I have to watch then all trying to float through the net, in the full knowledge that one of them is bound to sneak through the big hole up towards the roof. Once it is in then it is basically like an all you can eat buffet. When I wake in the morning there are usually 4 or 5 in the net with me. There is something disturbingly satisfying about slapping a mosquito and seeing your own blood explode out of them. Circle of life. It is not such a bad way to go, quick and painless after enjoying a nice hot meal. I on the other hand face liver failure on the bed of some third world hospital due to malaria. We will see who has the last laugh.

Home sweet home

So I have my own hut but I feel like I am being invaded. I have a crab living behind the the lining wall and the corregated tin and every night it is scratching around and searchingmy shit for food. I woke up at 2am the other night and there was a rat dragging my french baguette across the floor. Two hours later I awoke and there was a frog sat on my stomach. I don't know how it got into my mosquito net, but as soon as I flinched it started panicing and bouncing around against the net and back on to me. This is the rainforest and I am pretty sure that there are poisonous frogs about. There are ghekkos crawling all over the wall but at least they eat some of the moths. But the ants are by far the worst. Their bite fucking kills and leaves a mark. Due to the lack of privacy, rain on my bed and swarms of insects I feel like I am constantly being violated. The ants were my fault, sort of. I have enjoyed some 'alone time' recently. One day it was pissing it down so I was sat writing in my room all day. I was consistently feeling these really nasty stinging bites on my feet all and I kept finding these tiny ants. They were sporadic so didn't really make anything of it. By around 9pm the intensity and regularity were increasing, and I looked at the floor and there were an absolute swarm of ants around the boxer shorts that I had lazily used for 'clean up'. I can only assume that the little fucks were harvesting my jizz (circle of life) and then biting me for good measure. When I picked up the pants there were literally hundreds of the horrible little bastards, and they all started crawling up my arms and biting me. I ran out of the room waving a pair of pants in the air right infront of the rasta's smoking at reception outside, and whilst they were laughing at my I was jumping up and down in a puddle and flapping around trying to get these fucks off me. Pretty annoying on the whole as now they are everywhere. I have seen at least 5 crawl into the USB port of my netbook, probably not doing it much good. The power cable only works fifty percent of the time now.

I have been here for a couple of weeks and I hang out with a lot of the locals who work and relax here. During this time I have stumbled upon one of the worst individuals that i have ever met. His name is Hunter and he looks like a mixture of Beppe from eastenders and rivaldo. Deep set eyes, rubbery complexion and thin goatee beard. He is one of the guys that grabs tired and disorientated travellers of buses and drags them to a guesthouse for a commission. This guy is permanently fucked up on coke, his face looks like it is spasaming. Fuck knows where he gets the money for this habit or who is feeding him but judging by his behaviour he is doing a lot. He does this 'raise of the eyebrow' thing whilst saying something that I don't understand, and he just keeps staring at me through one bulging eye raising one eyebrow up and down really quickly. Combined with the constant churning of his gurning mouth and chin it makes him look like something inbetween beppe, popeye and a retard. He is one of the most unnerving individuals I have ever met. He pops up everywhere. As I am writing this he has just sat in the hammock next to me, arriving 5 minutes after i'd left a table to get away from him, which itself came less than 5 minutes after his arrival at said table. I suspect that he is on the brink of a full psychotic episode and I would really rather not be around to see it. I am growing worried that I might actually cause the onset. I am pretty sure he was saying something about me not listening to him but I couldn't understand, then he said something doing the popeye face and I laughed. I laughed too and then he asked me a question that I didn't understand. I spend the whole of these conversations trying to get away from the moron. He interupts any conversation with some jibberish sentence whips out the popeye and completely kills the vibe. Everyone then just sits in silence until the wise make their excuses about where they have to be. I am convinced that he hates me, but he turns up everywhere I go, which I suspect is because I smoke and he is hoping I will offer him one. I would give him one if it would make him fook off, but I think it will just encourage him.

Probably the best photo I have ever taken

Closely followed by this

It is hard to not feel a bit like a hippie here. I am pretty much sleeping in nature and I smell. Clean clothes are an issue, everything feels damp within seconds of removing it from my rucksack. Having been here two weeks i have tried not to wear much. One pair of swimming shorts, no underwear and a vest is the standard and I have not washed these things once. I must fucking stink. Every time I wear something clean it feels dirty in ten minutes so I have stopped wearing anything new. One observation is that if you ever want to make your clothes smell then sit in a communal hammock for ten minutes, man those things wreak. I have spent so much time in a hammock over the past year, time that has given me many of the ideas that will hopefully provide me with a career one day, that I cannot imagine a life without hammocks now. I will definitely be bringing one home, but it could be a while before I find somewhere to put it. A Swiss guy I know has one in his lounge overlooking a lake, that is the kind of set-up I seek. It would be easy to build a small structure to accommodate one, just a small glass or perspex overhang and a couple of uprights to hang the hammock between. Becky that pergola you never use has got hammock written all over it... I would recommend a hammock to anyone, in fact I could probably have one instead of a bed. If this book of mine ever does amount to anything then i will owe a large debt of gratitude to hammocks, they really are the thinking man's best friend

Laters.

Looks better than Weston-Super-Mare on a rainy day

All aboard the Kindle express, first stop - Paradise

So, Hugo has been here a couple of weeks and we are essentially embarking on a tour of paradise. We started out in Cartegena, which was a stunning city that has world heritage status around the old town. We managed to catch up with the German boys for a couple of nights which was some pretty heavy drinking.. For the second time I tried to go to a south American league game and for the second time I managed to fuck it up. I had been told that it kicked off at 5.30pm, I had even bought myself a Real Cartegena shirt in preparation. When we were about to get in the taxi there were a load of people in shirts crowded around a TV watching the match. Apparently it was 3.30 kick off. Tidy. Our first hostel there was pretty mint, it had a swimming pool at the centre, a big bar and a roof terrace to hang out on, and hang out we did.

Hard going

Hugo learned first hand the issues involving having to be a lot more organised over here than in south east Asia. We had been planning to sail over to panama, but due to the fact that it is now Carnival there were no boat available when we wanted to leave, so I spent an entire day trying to plot our exit from Columbia, as I was aware that our next destination definitely would not have internet. After an impossible amount of searching I found flights for $250, booked them and got no fucking confirmation back. The company I booked with were based in San Diego, 3hrs behind us. We were due to leave at 7am the next morning and I could not find out if I had even booked the flight until 11am the next day when their offices were open. Pretty convenient. In the end I had to phone them the next day, speaking to some Indian call centre moron who did not speak English, which tipped me over the edge and I just cancelled them. This meant another 5 hours rescheduling and rebooking every thing. But after visiting Tayrona National Park it quickly became worth it. What had failed to occur to me was the weight of our rucksacks combined with the 2.5hr trek through the jungle to our final destination. A steady flow of travellers were passing us with ease avec their tiny day packs. Needless to say anyone with a brain had left their rucksacks at the hostel. It was pretty hard going. A German lad called Felix had come with us from Cartegena and he did not seem to struggle as much, but for someone who has not exercised for about a year it was tough. We reached the first beach resort about half way there at around 5pm, and took the decision to stay there. The only sleeping option were hammocks, which were strung up in this big hut type thing which looked pretty eerie. I had not slept in a hammock before so I came prepared with rum and valium. I got a bit of a camp-fire going and then we drank the rum and prepared for what lay ahead. These hammocks had mosquito nets which was a nice touch. When I woke in the morning a 5 cm square part of my shoulder had been pressed against the net, and I had a patch of around 20 bites, tidy stuff.

Early the next day we got going again, and on the way I spotted a local guy smoking a massive joint, so I stopped off to make a quick purchase. As soon as I turned around I saw that two of the army guys who man the park had been watching the whole thing from about 20 metres away, so I was preparing myself for another 'fine' (as we entered the park they spotted our rum and 'fined' us $5 to let us take it in. But I was not too sure what the etiquette with this was, so as I went behind some rocks I buried the weed. When I walked past they said nothing, so I went back ten minutes later and dug it back up. I knew I was kind of a marked man after this so I buried that weed in about 20 different places over the course of the next 6 days. When we arrived after another sweaty hike it was like paradise. Breath-taking beaches sitting afoot huge jungle covered mountains. Our accommodation for the first night was considerably worse. Row after row of hammocks so close that when you got in you were touching the person next to you. We had run out of rum and when I felt the heat of proximity I knew that I was in for a bad night. I could hear mosquito approaching, then the noise would stop right as they got to me, but I was so wedged in that I could not even slap them away. There were also several bats flying around in there which did not contribute to our comfort. 

hell

Hugo quickly developed a fear of them and tried his best to irritate them out of there by following them with his torch. Occasionally when he caught it right it looked like the batman signal against the roof. About as cool as it got in those surroundings. It got to about 5am and I knew something had to change. Hugo said when he woke up he looked around and could not see me, then he peered over the edge to see me fast asleep in the dirt floor, surrounded by beer cans with at least 5 flies on my face at any one time. Needless to say we upgraded to the Mirador the next morning, which was this big pergola type construction on top of the rocks. It was very windy up there, very windy indeed. This suited me, I had a sleeping bag, hugo on the other hand, for someone who is not so keen on the cold at the best of times, was not quite so comfortable. He only had a sheet, so he was cocooning himself, and I believe one night he even sealed himself in with masking tape. The views we had when we woke up were incredible, it is probably the best place that I will ever sleep.

The Mirador

There were a few Americans also in the Mirador so the next night I went and dug up the weed and set about building a camp fire on the next beach along (a short passage through the jungle). Just as I was getting her going the military type people appeared out of nowhere and instantly walked in my direction. It was the only time that I had weed on me, and my bumhole began to twitch. For some reason I was wearing thin trousers over my swimming shorts, and in the shorts pocket was weed, two packs of burns (one as a wallet) and a lollipop. He patted me down and felt everything in my pocket, which he asked to see. As I went in for the first pack of smokes I managed to move the weed to the top of the pocket. He felt me up again and this time felt the ball of weed and asked me to take it out. I brought out my auxiliary burns and managed to move the weed out of my pocket and round the back of my trouser leg. This time he felt me again and only felt the lollipop, which he assumed was what he felt before. When he walked away and started searching the rest I tried to act calm, so I put a cigarette in my mouth, lit it and almost spewed when I realised that I had lit it the wrong way round. Smooth. They left empty handed and slightly dejected that they did not pick up a haul. I was pretty god damn relieved to see the back of them. The next day me and Hugo went on a bit of a trek through the jungle to see some old ruins which was pretty cool. The ruins themselves were turd, as is the case with ruins, but the trek there was pretty cool, involved a bit of bouldering etc. It took about an hour and a half to get up there, and when we arrived at the ruins a few of the yanks were up there. I had seen a phone that someone had put next to my camera, and knowing about Hugo's ability to lose things I asked him on the way down if he had left his phone up there, which he had not. I did not bother to ask anyone else. Needless to say when we got out of the jungle someone realised it was theirs and they had to go up and back again to find it. Whoops.

Not sure how this happened

We had originally planned to stay until the friday, then a night in Teganga followed by buses to Baranquilla to fly out to panama early monday morning. Instead we liked it so much there that we opted to stay one more night in Tayrona, although we were both down to the very last of our money. We had dinner and got an early night as we knew the horrendous trek out of there that lay in wait the next day. I woke up at 2am on the verge of spewing and shitting myself. To get to the toilet I had to climb down the rocks in the pitch dark and walk over to the camp. When I got there I was not the only one having similar issues, there were people spewing and crapping everywhere. I felt like I had spewed out my soul and when I got back hugo was awake, fairly smug that it was not happening to him. His arrived about 2 hours later, but I think not so bad as he was not sick. I guess this is down to the fact that he is taking malaria tablets, which are a general antibiotic. I could not sleep after that so we set out early doors. We had just enough money to pay for a horse to take our rucksacks, but the 2.5hr walk back was a horrendous experience. We were so meek, and I was impossibly dehydrated, but every time I tried to drink I would spew it back up. Pretty ideal conditions for a trek. Anyway, we managed it, thoroughly unenjoyable and tough going, but soon enough we were on the bus en route to Baranquilla. The city was a bit of a hole, it felt much more like Columbia. The hostel was okay, it was run by a really nice italian guy who we chatted with for quite a bit. It made me feel even worse about what happened to his towel. My stomach had begun to sort itself out and I took a shower the next morning as we had to leave at 4am. I took a bit of a risk and let one rip, and I realised instantly that a squit of diarrhoea had just sullied his pristine wh ite towel. This almost tipped hugo over the edge, and when he saw it his first question was where the trail ended up. After a brief search he realised that the rest had landed in his flip flop, so every cloud.

Bit of an issue if you don't like your neighbour

When we arrived in Panama City, a very nice place by the way, we made o9ur arrangements to get across to the San Blas islands, a two way 3hr jeep journey that was departing at 5am. After the Tayrona rucksack débâcle I advised Hugo that we should consider just taking stuff in our day packs. Hugo looked slightly disgusted and we decided to take our whole packs. When we got up and walked down to the Jeep we were met with equal disgust, and we had 5 minutes to transfer anything we needed into our day packs. Hugo quickly realised that he had managed to lose his kindle, just 72 hours after he managed to sit on mine and break it. So we are now down two kindles amongst various other things that Hugo has managed to misplace along the way. The jeep ride was an experience. It was a cross between a roller-coaster and a simulator. Good fun, and the scenery was pretty special. We caught a boat down a river which opened out into an ocean full of tiny little islands (365 to be exact). 

It's not 5 star but it is certainly competitive

Some of these islands are inhabited by the indigenous Kuna people, whilst others had some very basic guest huts on them. We chose one and it was picture postcard beautiful. Conditions were very basic, there was some toilet type thing but no shower and we were living in sand floored huts, but it was all part of the experience there. We were living amongst a Kuna tribe, and the ruddy Kuna's seemed to have a meeting outside our hut every bloody morning. It became a tad irritating as I have not felt particularly well slept of late. My mattress was so soft that Hugo could not tell if I was in bed from the outside as I just disappeared into it. Food was included in the accommodation cost, which was three sort of meals a day. Breakfast was some kind of egg type thing and bread, followed by the standard rice and burnt salty fish for lunch and dinner (life is so hard). On our first day we took a trip to snorkel off one of the other islands. This mess of a bloke turned up on our boat, covered from head to toe in bright white sun block. I did not even need to speak to him to know he was english. We went for a snorkel and swam to a nearby island, before coming back to see one of the most ridiculous things I have seen. Mr Bean, as I shall call the sun block guy, was trying to get back to land by climbing over the coral about 30 metres from shore. In between my laughing all I could hear was him screaming and shouting, it was so funny but he was also clearly killing really quite a lot of coral. When he got to shore he was covered in cuts and some yellow shit which no one knew what it was. In the rush to pack my daypack I had forgotten my head torch, which was kind of a problem as there was no electricity or lights in the hut. One night we came in at 11am and there was a massive yelp from the floor and something big ran under the bed. After emptying my pants I realised that one of the local dogs had somehow managed to get in

Bean

We spent that evening with Bean and some nice American guy. I had assumed that Bean was some 50+ year old sex tourist, but it turns out he was only 36 years old and had just quit his job writing questions for the Weakest Link game show, and was about to become a lawyer. It is amazing what you assume about people and what you find out. A few days before Hugo arrived I met an American couple who were travelling on the money that the girl had won appearing on the wheel of fortune game show. The day Hugo arrived I got chatting to an Austrian girl on a park bench and ended up going for a few drinks, and it turned out that she had gone on a game show in Austria and won £50,000. Mother fucker. Maybe everyone I see travelling is some piece of crap that has won big on television, that is certainly the assumption that I will make about most people that I meet.

Impossibly aquatic

We spent a few nights chilling on San Blas and have now returned to Panama City for a few nights of the Carnival, which will probably be a massive disappointment but I have no idea what to expect. We bought a bottle of rum yesterday and started drinking it at midday. We were so drunk that we did not really see much of the festival and we were back at the hostel by 8pm utterly wasted. I looked though my photos this morning and it looks like I spent most of my time carrying around some kid dressed in a ridiculous costume. There are at least 4 separate occasions that I have scooped this kid up and I am carrying him around, poor kid probably did not have a clue what was going on. My last memory is me and hugo getting kicked off one of the floats and then there is a nice photo of me lay in the road pissing down a drain. There is plenty more where that came from. On the plus side my spanish is slowly improving, but there are still plenty of things lost in translation. The other day I asked a guy if he sold ice cream (he was carrying a cool box). He started talking for 30 seconds and then started doing an impression of a chicken. I did not have a clue what he said or led him to the chicken impression, so I laughed along with him and repeated my question. This type of thing is fairly commonplace. Over and out.

Brits on tour

An eclectic gang

Why is this man carrying me?

He has got me again

Okay, this is getting beyond a joke

Get away from me, or I will have you arrested