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