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.