Guatemala: Fire, Water and Brimestone

It seems like months since I last wrote on the blog as so many things have happened...

First things first, I was robbed of pretty much everything :P
We arrived in Antigua and decided that we were smarter than most. We parked the van outside the hostel and went and somberly acknowledged the warning from the hostel that leaving a car on the road was dangerous.

So off we went, we met up with James and Phil again and went for a few drinks, agreeing that when we returned, if there were no other cars on the street, then we would move the Naughty Hottie to a parking lot.
Well, there were no other cars on the road when we returned but neither was there a window in the side of the van or my large bag with all of my clothes :P
I found out that my passport, camera, mp3, and mobile phone were all safely in my room as well as a couple of socks, undies and tshirts. I also saved my jeans, linen pants and bathstuff.

Not that you really care about that stuff, but the idea not losing the above made me quite happy and I started talling the others how lucky I had been.
Not being Irish optimists they found that someone who had lost all his clothes to be saying "que suerte" was somewhat entertaining and "que suerte tengo" joined my previous catch phase "que guapo" on the book of travvel quotes being kept by our local scribe, Sir. Bristol.

There is not much to tell on our excursions except that they were amazing.

Temple No.2 Tikal, made even more amazing by the morning mist

We went to see the Mayan ruins of Tikal under a mystical and haunting fog and paddled with kayaks across lake Atitlan from San Pedro to Santa Marta. But the most spectacular was surely climing to the top of the Acatenango vulcano and watched the lakes of fire rolling fireballs of rock just a few feet from us, then see the Volcano of Fire explode in a cloud of dust against the setting sun.

Sunset on Acatenango Vulcano, with the Vulcano del Fuego in the background


The crew of the HMS Naughty Hottie in a hot spot (in his absence Roque is replaced by a broom with a hat)

But no words can do this proper justice, nor can photos really, but you'll just have to wait until I have a faster internet connection so that I upload a taste of the beauty we say.

But that was by no means the end of the trip! We travveled down to lake Atitlan and stayed in San Pedro, a cute and cheap little town where we met up with Phil and James again, although unfortunately only briefly and celebrated my 27 years with several bottles of rhum, and some happy ciggies.

Lago Atitlan, go there, see it!

After much departure from the moral road, those whom I claim as my friends decided to wrap my eyes in Teresa's finest pijamas and expose me to the lost-childhood entertainment of the piñada. The fact that they had carried the piñada all the way from Cicicastenano in a huge bag was a pretty good indication that they had bought it, but for some reason, although I saw the bag, my state of relax never quite expanded to curiosity and I never wondered what it might contain or why they would be carrying around a 1 meter bag as if it were made of paper.

In fact I was so clueless (not to mention a little altered by the rhum) that I was reluctant to hit the piñata thinking that perhaps my bag had not been stolen and that they were trying to get me to hit it with a stick :P

Anyway, Teresa, Cris, David, Roque and Natxo thanks so much, it was the best birthday ever!!!

Finally we left the safe haven of the lake and wanted to head to the beach to get those famous surf board wet. But the mountains was a bit much for the Naughty Hottie who started acting Naughtie and became quite a bit of a Hottie when the water pump burst on the road to the beach. Naturally, being blessed by some travelling God (Mercury I believe) we broke down in front of a kiosk in the middkle of nowhere where 3 people were eating and they were of course 3 mechanics, of which the boss was Frankling, allegedly the best mechanic in Santa Lucia.

The friendly Franklin is a 30 year old preacher who speaks perfect english and prides himself on not being a wife beater, we told us that the water pump in the car was fucked and that we needed to go to Guatemala City early the next morning and see if the only shop with VW spare parts actually had a spare part available. This was quite unlikely since they only had one water pump and the weren t sure of which model it might belong to.

In the likely even that the pump was not a match we were to spend a week or more in Santa Lucia waiting for a spare part to arrive from Mexico. You'll probably never go to Santa Lucia and lets just say you re not mising much...

That night was Santa Lucia's patron Saint funnily enough which resulted in Teresa winning 6 glasses in a bingo, and David getting ripped off by a couple of street games which were obviously rigged.

The next day early Roque and David set off to the capital with the non-wife-beater and with trembling hands the opened the only box in the country to find a compatible match!

A very relieved Roque discoveres that yes, the pump is the right one! Non-wife-beater in the background

A quick (hours and a half) drive back to the dusty kip called santa lucia and Frankling with his gand of chubby and less chubby workes set down to turn the Naughty Overhottie back into a road worth vehicle.

Once the repair was complete it turned out that the Naughty was having enough of the trip and her old joints were rattling, specifically either the oil pump or the crank shaft.

Upon much reflection and debate amongst the three owners, it was decided that the aging white lady would be fit for another 10000km if it had already been through 300,000 so we crowded in, turned up the music and set off for the El Salvador border!