Hello again from a sunny and beautiful San Cristobal. It makes a pleasant change after all the rain and bad weather over the past four days. Its been pouring down donkeys and iguanas in this part of the world! San Cristobal lies in the Mexican highlands almost 1,100 kilometres south of Mexico City. Its a really beautiful town with avenue after avenue of colourful houses and churches. Arrived in town yesterday after a gruelling nine hour bus ride from Lake Atitlan in Guatemala…more about that later on in this blog. Staying at a really nice guesthouse called MI CASA and its owned and managed by a really friendly Swiss girl. Amazing where people end up in this world. She has such a great opportunity as this place is really awesome.

Its Saturday today and the place is buzzing with people heading to market and enjoying time off work. Today is a day of walking around the town for me along with capturing photos as this place has an abundance of interesting things to capture. Off to the Mayan ruins of Palenque tomorrow and that will then be my share of ancient archeological sites for some time to come. PS: people have been asking where the photos of this trip are….well the easy answer is that they will be on the site in the next two weeks or so. I have not been carrying a laptop with me (as loads of fellow travellers have) so its not been an easy task to edit and upload the photos. Five more days and then I fly out of Mexico City on 6 June back to London. Will then be there for 2 days and fly home to South Africa for ten days to visit family and friends. The original plan involved Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua however I have seen and experienced what I wanted of Central America and its been a once in a lifetime experience….never to be forgotten! The travelling has been good but its now time to head back and start working again….unless I win the lottery!:-)

After my last blog I spent two more days in Antigua helping the kids in the afternoons and doing a mountain bike ride in the surrounding hills. Really good experience even though the altitude gets to the legs. Was great fun and very rewardiung working with kids. On my last day we had a mini leaving ceremony where I was presented with a small plaque that the kids had made for me. Sad to leave but there is only so much one can do and my time has been restricted. Hopefully we can find a way to drum together some support……the people are really poor in these parts.

So back on the road via a bus trip to Lake Atitlan which is three hours from Antigua. The lake has been described as one of the most beautiful in the world and in my travels I have not seen that matches its grandour. Huge expanse of water which has three big villages and volcanoes flanking its shores. Took a boat across to the village of San Marcos and found a comfortable bungalow for the evening. The heavens opened once again and it then continued to rain for the next two days. The village is full of holistic schools and there are plenty of people chilling out from the general rat race. It strikes me as a place that grabs you and can very difficult to escape from. If you own property on this lake you are a very lucky person and it looks like the Americans have started investing down here.

The next day I headed back on the boat to the main town of Panajachel for the evening as I had an early morning bus to catch to San Cristobal. Not much to do with the rain beating down so caught up on some reading and email. Funny how techonology makes it possible to be on the other side of the world and still keep in contact. Who actually buys postcards these days??

Up at the crack of dawn and on the turismo bus to the Mexican border at La Mesilla. Treachourous roads along the way after the rains had dislodges rocks and trees from the mountainside. No matter to our driver…Speedy Gonzales made sure that everybody on the bus was on edge. SG had a habit of crossing his heart/praying every time we passed a church (iglesia) on the way. There are plenty of churches in Guatemala so he was an active boy. However with the amount of praying by the passengers every time we overtook on a blind rise or sharp curve, my feeling is that the final score was Speedy 65- Bus 123!!

The important thing is that we made it to the Mexican border in one piece although we had a near miss with a chicken bus about two kms away from the immigration point. The immigration officials gave me zero problems, stamped the pássport and thanked us for visiting Guatemala. Really enjoyed my time in this country. Transferred buses and then headed along through the province of Chiapas with Speedy Gonzales’ twin brother……he kept on laughing every time we missed a pedestrian. Good marijauna down in this part of Mexico!!! And after all that I find myself in this chilled out town. Will have to check out the local nightlife tonight.

Have an afternoon flight on Monday from the local airport to Mexico City….not prepared to undergo the 14 hour overnight bus. Next update will more than likely be from Mexico City, which should be a fascinating place.

Hope you are all keeping well.

Adios. Hasta manana.