A Passport Issue

Flip back 7 days. To the rip-off lying ''Santa Marta'' coach that actually dropped me off on a busy Barranquilla roadside as if this was what I paid for. 15 minutes into the trip, Cartagena city limits. A police stop. My passport handed over, a nervous couple of minutes, passport return. Breathe.

Wonder what the Colombian stamp looks like. Flick through. Continue to wonder. The passport is not stamped. Flip back a couple of days more.

Saturday morning, just off the boat. Hand my passport to Michel, the ship captain. Arrange a 3pm dock return to pick up the stamped document. Then it's 3pm, we're at the dock, our passports are not. Michel says he'll return direct to our hostels once stamped. I shrug, okay, par for the course, carry on.

It gets dark. Half a bottle of balcony rum into the evening. Evelien hands back my passport that she was handed in reception. A cursory glance at the front cover, throw into the top of my rucksack. Think no more.

Forward again. To Taganga. E-mail Michel, in a ''fuck, what do I do'' type way. He responds quickly. There's a guy in Cartagena who does this for him. David. I need to get back. But first the nightlife, the Lost City trek, the forgetting.

Shuttle back to Cartagena first thing next chance. Taxi to DAS office, immigration, a shambles in organisation. Sit in the waiting lounge, with no ticket and no identifiable queue. On occasion a man enters from a room, picks whoever has been waiting the longest, or his version of this. The Cartagena hostel assured me everyone speaks English here. Nobody speaks English. A French scuba dive instructor explains the system, and so I move chairs and this helps.

Finally into the room. The decision room, or whatever it is. Explain the above as best I can. Hand over the passport. This prompts giggles, laughter, an incredulous attitude towards me. I am returned to the waiting room without passport.

Half an hour passes, then someone who looks official beckons me over and says I have to wait an hour for David to turn up with the stamp. Find street food to kill time, small fried things, I haven't eaten all day. Sit on a step outside to gorge. A gigantic Colombian appears. ''Stephen!''. ''si'' ''David''. Shakes me hand. ''No stamp?''. I agree to this. He flicks through my passport. He confirms there is no stamp. He has not brought the stamp.

We get into his car. It is tiny and thus clown-like. A homeless guy seems to jump in too. I'm pretty sure this is something warned about in the guidebook. I try not to panic. We drive into the Cartagena slums, nearly sideswiping a motorcyclist into onrushing traffic on the way. This causes genuine laughter throughout the car.

Off the main road, onto some deserted backstreet. Wait.

A large and expensive German car swings onto the street from the other direction, pulls up next to us, rolls the window down. ''Passport?'', I hand it over. ''What date?''. ''The 27th''. The driver then wheels out the stamp, whack!, then signs the stamp. It's over. I am legal again.

The next 24 hours:

I get an overnight bus to Medellin. It's a warm night, so I get on only wearing a t-shirt, the rest of my clothes in my backpack stored in the luggage hold. The AC starts up. Frostbite inducing. I end up having to put my hands in my shoulder bag to keep them from falling off. A thin, half-crazed Colombian woman starts singing gospel songs acapella. Somehow I manage to sleep in spite of these distractions.

Smash! Sleep interrupted by the shattering of glass. Startled. 3 back windows out. It's 4 in the morning. The driver gets out, looks at the carnage, as shards of glass hang loosely around the window frames. He decides this is okay and carries on. A baby starts crying. The woman returns to her gospel singing. Every bump brings with it the sound of more falling glass. The broken windows at least curtail the AC chill, but sleep is unlikely.

A service station breakfast. I survey the damage, whilst standing in exhaust fumes for warmth. It looks horrendous, glass everywhere, the toilet exposed, the first window only two rows down from the crying baby. We apparently hit an overhanging tree branch. It gives the morning a surreal quality. I get back on the bus. We continue.

Sail away on a winters day/With fate as malleable as clay/But ships are fallible I say/And the nautical like all things fade

This entry should just be pictures. Pictures that still do not do sailing through 350 (well, 365, one for each day of the year) sparsely populated, ever shifting, sand islands justice. But there are no pictures of dolphins, and so instead there's this.

Repetition: To get a boat from Panama to Colombia is not completely free of difficulty. These are not chartered boats, there is no official advice. One way is to head down Captain Jack's bar in Portobello, talk to some sea captains until you find one who doesn't reek of alcohol or give the impression of being a complete scoundrel and start negotiating a price and date of departure. I have no experience of sailing, I can't tell a scoundrel from a hero, I have visions of sawdust floors, reptile skin and barely concealed weaponry. I have access to the internet. I can cheat.

So, instead I get to my Panama City hostel, the one I picked after hearing rumours of a boat departure schedule. I note the 3 boats going on my departure date. I google. I e-mail the only Colombian hostel that may have knowledge about boats. I wait. I get the information back, they've only heard of 2 of the boats, and recommend them both. I ring up captain 1. I ask a series of questions from my guidebook, without really knowing what the right answers are. The guy sounds good, the price is as expected. The deal is made. 25 minutes and little hassle.

Skip to the boat. (these are old battered notes that make no sense, even to me. They seem to be titled ''things to do on a sailboat between Panama and Colombia'').

Breakfast on eggs, toast, jam and coffee. Good coffee. French captain, figures.
Morning shower is diving from the boat into the Caribbean sea and hoping against sharks. Motor on to island destination #1, after swimming from boat to a beach hut immigration immigration office. Dolphins appear in a moment, swim alongside the boat, then disappear suddenly. Read until sea sickness starts to dizzy the mind and disorientate the body.
Lobster. Beef Bourguignon. Not the same meal. These are strange notes.

Drink obscene amounts of rum post-sunset, whilst Eagle Rays sporadically jump around our craft. I'm told Eagle Rays, I'm thinking Great White Sharks.

Snorkel around sunken ships, through a kaleidoscope of fish, hoping the mask doesn't steam and I don't die from breathing in sea water. Gag slightly but keep everything down. Lounge in shallow water just off beach islands deserted but for the occasional palm tree, only the starfish for company. Starfish that we pick up. Starfish that we should not have picked up.

Paddle a one-man kayak across the waves to see if a catamaran is the boat some friend's are crossing on. It isn't. Nearly smash into some rocks. Write messages of salvation in warm sand. Jump on fallen tree branches until the 6th falling off, the one that twists the ankle and causes me to sit in shade for a while.

Lie in bed listening to 'Mermaid' too often, hoping ceiling staring will stop the boat from rocking. Have a conversation about dream interpretation. Followed by sleep and nonsense dreams.

Attempt to free dive 9m to touch the bottom, panic at 7m, realise equalisation is an issue of mine. Back to the surface and then try again. Survive a squall, swimming in the crashing waves for fun, and then the sun comes out and the skies clear and everything's a postcard. Row a rubber dinghy to shore, to play 1 vs 2 volleyball, and then drink beer and attempt to talk to Kuna about fashion. Lie on the boat rooftop in sun so hot it burns eyeballs through closed eyelids.

Drunken talk conspiracy theories with a couple from Israel, until the rum runs out. Stare at constellations and other stars, in a sky so clear you can make out man-made satellites and space stations.

Watch the sun sink into the horizon, the sun with nothing but open water to obscure. 36 hours from the San Blas to Colombia, 36 hours of lying down to avoid jelly legs and vomiting. Lie on deck in midday heat, forgetting my shorts have been recently replaced by shorter shorts, meaning my upper legs go from dark brown to bright red to pale white, like neapolitan ice-cream. More dolphins.

Sail into Cartagena on a gorgeous late August morning, wondering how the time passed so quickly.

Fragments

Sun hits the pillow, my hair, my eyes. 10AM planned rise fail, reduce my morning to coffee. Face the day as bravely as I can, but it´s hangover on hangover on hangover & so a slight irritability slips into my mood. Wave bye to Esther and then a taxi trip with Chris and Evelien, past the canal and a bus abandoned on a busy city roundabout, my eyelids as closed as I can bear to strain against the midday sun.

And so, of course, on arrival the zoo is lashing rain. Shelter under the entrance gates until a break in the clouds. Wander paths caked in mud and view empty cages, the pigs gone, the deer void, the crocodile pen empty, a clue in the crocodile-shaped hole in the fence. Eventually spot an overweight Jaguar prowling a small cage, it´s supposed diet: Pigs, crocodiles, deer and, ahem, black children.

& then finally more live animals. killer cats, flesh devouring vultures, ice-cream eating monkeys underneath a sign ´´do not feed the monkeys´´. Dry empenadas outside
a fly-ridden toilet for lunch. Then a roadside walk as cars pass ferociously, the air displacement hard against my bare legs, giving us less warning than the room to spare between us and blunt metal death. Walk a jungle path before darkfall, hippie signs describing the forest, and manage to return before darkness elopes and only a tiny spider disaster ruins my afternoon.

Catch a panama city bus, that loops for a while before heading in the direction promised and dine on fried shrimp and chips with mayonnaise. Tonight is no drinking, something like that, so ask dim hostel receptionist for cinema viewing and she says yes, provides a list and we spend 20 minutes settling on a choice and return the list with said choice. The guy says no, we might wake sleeping guests, which considering every other night of the week the hostel runs a loud 3AM bar directly beneath the guests seems a teeny bit rich. And so play cards with a variety of people, including a Belgian girl, Elisabeth, who starts doing ´´dancing little men without laughing´´ and there´s little left to do or say,

And the sleep is good. A sad Christian apologises for waking me up in the night, but I´m pretty sure I came to bed after him so this may be sarcasm on a polite level. Walk the streets with Elisabeth with a boat shopping list, mostly consisting of Rum, and then more Cerviche. Look up boat directions, mild confusion but my childlike copying will have to suffice and then taxi to Albrook, tourist bus to Sabinates (surely not the actual name, but that´s what my childlike writing looks like today), more rum shopping then wait for a Porto Lindo bus with Donna.

And wait. And about 30 busses come and go and none for us, and then an hour passes, an the guys at the supermarket see a bright yellow bus and yell ´´porto lindo, porto lindo!!´´ but the bus driver does not let us on for reasons unclear. And so more wait. Donna suggests taking the security guard´s gun and hijacking a taxi, and what starts a a joke starts to become a serious option, and just as we´re about to do it the bus appears.

Finally. But it´s pouring rain and shopping bags split, my pepsi in the gutter, rainwater threatening to sweep away my mixer. Stumble forward, an almighty pull, and on the bus, my rum all over the floor. The driver stashes it.

The bus is ear drum punctuating music and brakelights create a disco amongst the crowded interior, where the rainwater mingles with sweat to create the stench of damp, against a windowed backdrop of late afternoon gloom. Donna departs in Puerto Bello, I carry on another town and follow my instructions to a dark coastal front, to Michel and my sailing companions. Spicy chicken and chips whilst glugging beer, everything more delicious following the journey pain.

Motorised dingy out to the ship on still water, the sky now charcoal. Brief introductions, less brief on-board instructions, sail into the darkness, fireworks from the shore to set us away. The rocking motion causes sickness and drowsyness, each wave a new assault, and then crash below deck, sleepmas coming early.

Here Chewing Your Tail Is Joy

Awake on-time but without a sober thought in my head. Breakfast of coffee, fruit juice, chorizo and eggs barely scratches the sides. Get a taxi canalwards with jose, talking half-drunkenly whilst the taxi driver turns into a tour guide. As canal's go it's impressive. As canals go.

Our timing is perfect at least, just as the last boats of the morning pass through, watching from the viewing station whilst sipping extortionate coke and an American voice drones facts in the background. The coke doesn't do enough to save my hangover and so head back for failed afternoon nap attempt. Jose departs, Peru bound, and I spend 2 hours attempting to play ping-pong with Esther. My self promoted ping pong skills were greatly exaggerated, she wins 21-5, 21-4, 21-8, 21-9, and the hostel is so hot that a thin water glaze covers my skin and my face reddens, and this is clearly not embarrassment or exertion.

Tea pizza, toasted sandwiches with red wine accompaniment and then hostel return for the promise of live music, but the advertised reggae is some terrible Spanish blink 182-lite and so back into the streets in a search for something more refined. A Havana style salsa bar looks amazing, red curtains and a huge dance floor whilst drinkers surround and the band warms up, but its a $10 cover and indecisiveness pushes us elsewhere.

There´s places which look more like houses than bars that we can apparently drink in but settle for a graffitied yard and litres of Balboa whilst a Colombian guy provides commentary on the world as he sees it, of water, atoms, whales, dolphins and head massage tools and then onwards, still avoiding the lure of front room drinking and finally a packed bar and live music and stumbled over dance moves and caipirinha strong enough to shake my balance.

Finally home once more, the rum now flowing fast but the time faster until near daylight and 6 hours sleep. Hastily assemble uneven pancakes, not quite solving the hangover equation. Attempt to get out the city, away from the noise, cars, people, escape to tranquillity. Taxi with Esther and Evelien to a bus station full of balloons, soundtracked by club tunes, a little too much fun for a hazy Saturday morning. Esther disappears for an international travel ticket purchase mission and we try to find the bus to the hiking trail.

A 40-minute wait so pursue a shopping mall swimshort purchase plan and then 40-minutes becomes 10 and there's a lack of till urgency and then a mall sprint, but a wrong turn and we´re the wrong side of the station. Correct, run through bus station crowds and fast foot restaurants and there's a fumble for turnstile change and we need 5 cents but we don't have that and so back to a kiosk and finally through. One minute late and the bus is on time. Cursing and then a taxi plan, but to the wrong park, where they have lakes the size of ponds and mountains the size of mole hills.

The supposed 3 hours hike takes 45 minutes, but the view over the city is serene and the spot relaxed and so lie in long grass until clouds overtake the sky, then back to fish market cerviche fresh from the boat, a cup cheaper than a cheeseburger. Buy a second portion and call this my evening meal.

Another night in the same bar, the hangover resigns around the 3rd beer and quick switch to rum&coke and back again, and more caipirinha, a now familiar scene. Last to leave the bar for a third night running, a record of sorts, and then deep into Sunday morning and....

Where C.America Ends

So Panama City is skyscrapers, bright lights, terror traffic and slums, winding streets, pretty churches and salsa. It's easy to walk from a modern restaurant area into some foreboding suicide alley. Grab some food with Jose, attempting to reverse last night's financial fiasco with cheap eats. Wander the old town for a while, an inkling of a recommendation somewhere around here.

A couple of guys stop us, repeat ''Danger!'' and there's only 1-direction safe and so we take it and by pure luck find the place we were half aiming for. The food is good, fish in a garlic sauce, and the price within means although there's no alcohol here and hostel happy hour starts to pass us by so finish up with haste and head into the underground cave bar, the smell damp and used.

Jose proposes we drink 10 drinks each, which turns out to be the minimum & so drink rum and soda as if tomorrow is a hypothetical concept. Sometime around drink 9 I absurdly claim that this is still pre-game drinking. Meet an american military type who straddles the line between tedious dullness and mental crazy. I tell him American's can't drink for my own entertainment and he immediately takes this as a challenge, the outcome being
1) He can drink
and
2) He cannot take his drink
So he's on it, talking utter drivel, and shouting this and that, and then he wants to go out and find girls or something but I decide to stay and chat to a Swiss girl with the prettiest smile until 4 in the morning, looking out over the bay to the towering columns of light, but Jose has a better story, bars, fighting talk, strip clubs and waking up near naked in a strange place to a breakfast meeting with a strippers parents.

Half a day in San Jose

Fling myself across the island, from bed to Moyogalpa. A 1 hour ferry wait so finish Marching Powder pre-bording so the ferry trip is boredom. Avoid San Jorge chaos with a $1 taxi & a 3rd Grenada return. Cross shopping list items off during another powercut and celebrate with coffee in a european themed cafe.

Somehow end up in the same hostel from before, a failure of imagination. An english guy who looks and talks like Damon Albarn drunkenly shouts at Brazilian football whilst verbally abusing the hostel staff. Put on my raincoat & to spend my last Nicaraguan notes on expensive steak. Bump into Zephyrites in the restaurant so have company at least. The steak rare with mounds of garlic butter, it just melts and the red wine exquisite.

The night is dark, wet but still too young for restation. Trip to a hostel bar for something to do, expecting a crowd but there's only the barstaff and the rowdy English guy from earlier. No option but to chat. I gleam the following facts: left the Bearded Monkey shortly after myself in disgust at being told to turn off the TV at 8:30, he was supposed to get a plane back 3 months ago, then got arrested twice, mugged three times and is living off pot noodles as a result. Then he offers me Ketamin. I doubt drunk in a hostel bar is the best time to introduce myself to horse tranquilliser so make my excuses and disappear into a sleepless night caused by Ipod alarm failure paranoia.

A 36 hours bus trip, Panama City Via San Jose. Breakfast is ginger bread, cake and coca-cola. Sustenance for the first 23 hours. Tica Bus the usual freezer. Meet Jose, a Mexican guy on a border crossing break and this is a stroke of luck as he speaks fluent Spanish and is super friendly. Get to San Jose and a 6 hour connection wait so stroll the streets with horror stories filling my head. The worst thing that happens is guide book map confusion over the bus station. Watch Barcelona beat Real Madrid on a street corner and wander the streets, a big city vibe, but we're not sure what to see so re-find the bus station and head out for some food.

A taxi driver drops us at a restaurant and I can tell it´s kind of expensive but last nights feast has but me in the mood for fine dining. We order a huge meat based platter and some cerviche, the food amazing, and a pitcher of Sangria to wash it down. 2, maybe 3 hours to waste so follow up with some beers, 4 a-piece and then the bill comes, $60 each, outrageous! 2 days travel budget in one fell swoop. The Sangria turned out to be our downfall. We´re drunk enough to think this amusing.

Back to the bus station and turns out another hour of wasting is required. Run the streets, sketchy as hell, buy more alcohol and drink on the pavement in an abandoned shop front, and then the bus finally arrives and sleep as far as possible til 4 in the morning, when we are dropped at an immigration office and the bus speeds off into the distance and nothing, nothing is open, and then spend 4 fucking hours at the border, 2 waiting in the darkness for border control to get out of bed, 2 more on the Panama side whilst a guy goes through every single travellers bag on the bus with a tooth comb. Jose gets pulled into the interrogation room and disappears for a while. Upon return he says another guy on the bus had $8,000 strapped to the inside of his leg. We don't see him again.

And then finally away again, sleep in a light R.E.M dreamworld, everything verging on clarity but never quite make it tangible, and then a bridge over a huge canal and welcome to Panama City.

Ometepe 2

Wake entirely destroyed by yesterday, delayed reaction and vague recollection of night wakening with severe cramp screams. Breakfast is coffee and eggs scrambled with onion, tomato and chilli, a cure to my drinking ills, if not my physical ones. Chat around the morning, the lakeside views encourage only pacivity.

Turn down offer of a rock walk and instead trek back down the hill into town, to the worlds smallest cyber cafe, a stone building with one laptop, blasting out house music at an irritating volume. Realise there are no busses on Sundays which limits travel options. Lunch in a shack, fried chicken etc. The chicken is good, some kind of spice batter improves matters and the meat succulent. Talk briefly to a German guy biking around the island, briefly stranded by the appearance of rain, takes him 10 minutes to restart the bike. Amusing to me. Then up the hill once more and decide to get a taxi with Will and Stephen, a couple of Americans from yesterday who know of a calming place on the opposite side of things.

A bumpy 90 minute ride to clean cut lawns and more lakeside. Volcano views again, my legs wincing at the memory. Stay at a biological centre which almost has a retirment home feel, luxury living. The weather turns damp and the smell of spring fills the Sunday afternoon. Go for a lonesome walk in search of something, but whatever it is I´m looking for I find nothing but mud and the night closes in and I´ve no flashlight and so walk back, following the fireflies, to a room with AC and a matress that isn´t made of cotton wool.

Breakfast is good. The usual, but the cheese that tastes like it may have once belonged inside a cow. Stephen and Will discuss US healthcare and I listen whilst trying to regain my senses. We walk to a waterfall, 3k, the first 2 mild, the final more stones and wet dirt. Starts bright and descends to drizzle then downpour, my waterproofs left at home.

The waterfall itself impressive, 35 ft of water starting as trickle and turning into a wall of water into a shallow pool below. A childhood adventure movie feel. Stomp around the ice cool pool, attempting to remove the last of Saturday´s mud from my combats and boots, and shower in the water, exhilerating after the hike.

On return I have several options for the day. Merida, or Moyogalpa, or something in between. The fly in the ointment, only two busses leave a day, the first long ago, the second at 3:30 but I have movement urges at 1PM and so pay up and hit the road, hiking Merida way, plan to stop at anything of interest. The track gruelling with my backpack. Get to the end of Merida without even realising it was ever there. Sit for a while under a large tree which interrupts the rain, waiting for a bus that doesn´t arrive and so it gets to 4 and I decide my only option is to hike on to San Domingo by nightfall, wait out the evening and then head ferrywards the next day.

A brief foray into accidental hitchhiking, a man in a minivan offers me a lift. I claim no money, a lie. He takes me anyway, drops me at the point where the islands meet. I still haven´t decided on what to do. Start walking to Balguay, but give up 2 minutes later and decide a bus may still come. Wait in a restaurant where the staff speak no english but attempt communication anyway. The weather now horrendous, wind blowing rain horizontal. 45 minutes behind schedule the last bus arrives. It´s going nowhere near where I want to go, back to Thursday´s entrance port, but I´m drained and it´s darkening so get it anyway. Stay in a new hotel, Short food wanderings and an early night.

Ometepe 1

A crowded ferry top scene, wind blowing ferociously as the skies blacken and waves rock the boat. Waves on a lake. Sailing around smoke-ringed volcano, apocalyptic post- rock battling to be heard over thunder cracks and huge raindrops smacking violently into the awning above. Welcome to Ometepe. Imagine a figure 8 (or infinity sign) with a huge volcano in the middle of each loop.

5 hours earlier was lunch extortion in Grenada sunshine. Manage to remove the beer I didn´t order from the bill, either my Spanish or desperation increasing. The voyage 4hours, enough time to start and finish a Harlan Coben nobel. But now it´s dark and plans to traverse the island by bedtime are dust. Settle for port hostel sold on the boat instead, $5 a night, not so bad. The place is ramshackle, the bar reasonable, the restaurant less so but internet an unexpected bonus. And then BANG! goes the power, and wandering the streets it feels like 4AM summer light at 8PM. Candlelight supper, drinking with fellow ferry passengers, and stay up past midnight reminiscing about Waitrose with English people in a place where time stopped sometime around the 1950s.

The next day is indecision. A travel novel once suggested to me that when indecisive move, and move I do, but where to is the source of my indecision so the guidance useless. The roads here are a disgrace, paths more rock then mud, almost as quick to walk. Pass Little Moes, as a Saturday volcano hiking appeals more than a hangover.

The Island has a pretty, rural charm. Pigs, cows and the occasional horse roam the streets unattended, not doing much for the journey time. I latch myself onto Felix and Marie, a Canadian couple from the night before, as this solves any decision making process. End up in Finca Magdelena. Some kind of farming collective who give me a dorm bed for $2.50, a record, even if the bed is made of matchsticks and barn is a more apt description than dorm room. The view over a bright flowered garden is of the other volcano and the surrounding lake. A strange racoon -like creature prowls the grounds mischeviously, claws sharp, and tiny razorsharp teeth bitey.

Spend the rest of the day doing nothing of anything at all. Late afternoon a group return from their volcano hike, eyes hollow and weary. We announce our volcano hike plans. ´´Do not do it!´´ They exclaim. ´´It is difficult and stupid and no fun and you can´t even see anything from the top´´ say the guys, ´´we cried on the way down´´ say the girls, ´´Today was the word day of our lives´´ says Jacob, one of the group. The rest nod vigorously in agreement. This strangthens our resolve.

The bar shuts at 9 which swifly curtails my Friday night drinking plans and sends me early to bed. The next day awake at 6 after a sleepless night. Marie is ill so it´s just me, Felix, 2 bottles of water, 4 chicken sandwiches, a bottle of coke for volcano top posing, jumpers, raincoats and our guide.

We start. 5 minutes of shallow path before the 5k upward trail begins and I´m out of breath. A tricky beginning. Persevere through the pain threshold, mental preparation the key. Something like that. Thankfully there´s plenty of places on this early section where the guide stops to point out monkeys, various fauna, coffee plantations, butterflies and cocoa fruit. Everything but the monkeys are of limited interest. Nonetheless I attempt to appear intrigued to slow down the pace.

1k of of stepped path gives way to a slippy mudtrail. Grab a Stephen-sized stick for balance. Then it´s jut rocks. Steep, unforgiving rocks, attempting to claim another sacrifice for a mountain. We will not be deterred.

The forest itself is pretty in the cloudmist, something to appreciate through the punishment. Our guide remains 10 steps ahead, clothed in jeans & yet to break sweat whilst we toil in heavy breathing. After an hour we find a tolerable pace, the company is good, the air cool and the surroundings dense jungle.

The top is as expected, a mist covered lake and nothing to view below, but the crater lake is a cool place to hang our and regain our strength. I resit the urge to swim in what looks like a mudbath, but felix does and every so often the mist breaks through and the sunshines bright on the trees around. Munch greedily on lunch, knock back the coke, lie on the grass and then it´s all downhill.

The concentration is mentally tiring, slip down the rocks, and again and again and again. My legs throbbing, more rain against the already treacherous stones, I resist tears. Going back feels quicker, and the last 2k a breeze as the adrenalin kicks in. 8 hours after starting we return, a mixture of elation and all out shaking. Recovery is coke, coffee, beer, all consumed in 15 minutes. Smell of wet Sunday morning football dressing rooms. Another beer, shower whilst clothed to remove the worse of the mud. More refreshment.

There´s talk of a fiesta in ´´town´´. Wander down with a group to a shanty bar where chickens run wild and the lake washes against the shore. There´s only us here. Drink shared bottles of beer for a while, then attend what turns out to be some kind of high school dance on an open air basketball court, flourescent lighting like luminous spider webbing around the perimeter, wrapped around barbed wire. Looming above is the volcano. We don´t stay long, tiredness meets the weirdness of the situation and everyone lazily strolls back up to the farm, past fireflies and croaking frogs, to a long rest in a lonesome dorm.

Mombacho

Clunk rusty limbs back up to the reception for a breakfast of coffee, the beverage doing little for my jackhammer head. Chat garbage to a revolving cast of hostel workers until the energy for the final descent arrives. Manage to lose myself on a one-track path, remedy with yells of Hola and pointing directions at bemused locals. This time the Mombacho receptions is receptive and thus eco truck up the steep volcano hill, stopping briefly at a coffee museum for foul raw coffee bean eating, remove the aftertaste with french vanilla coffee.

Carry on upwards into the clouds (theoretically, this is supposed to be a cloud forest but I pick the one clear day of winter), and the steepness increases with my heart-rate, another danger day on Nicaraguan roads, and then hit the research plant, which has a scout hut feel. A 4 hour guided tour through the forest is pricey but worthwhile, and the clarity at least means I can see Grenada and Ometepe below, along with craters, steam, bright green butterflies, plants of poison. The light filters through the trees and it permanantly feels like late afternoon as we go up and down and up and down and up and down. Mild exhaustion that the paltry 500ml of water and cheeseham sandwich do little to alleviate. Make it back around 4, me and a French couple the only overnight guests and nothing really to do for a while.

Read real unemotional trash horror novels as the atmosphere outside becomes eerie. Cloud blows around the station, transforming it from community project to a wood shack b-movie slaughter hole and night creeps around the edges and a bitter screeching wind creaks against the exterior. We get a free night walk through the deserted landscape, our guide so enthusiastic and excitable I feel strangely emotional.

Immediately see a huge sloth ambling through the branches, slow and clumsy, our flashlights directly in its cute little face and I feel caught on the wrong side of a zoo cage for a shortwhile. We walk on, continuing the x-files vibe with alien bugs and salamanders, the light hitting the cloud to make it mistlike. This goes on for about an hour, ends with a visit to some bright orange green tree frogs, but then I'm too wet/cold/tired and sleep comes swiftly.

Where the well of human hatred is shallow and dry

Here the coffee is free but the water expensive. Drown myself in caffeine, blame the shakes on that and not the alcohol. Cofee's 99% water anyway so indulging in a health kick. A half hour morning market stroll knocks me out, the heat penetrates everything it touches, a city power cut causing fan shortage hell.

Brave the sun for Mombacho trip intention. Tuk-tuk to reception. My instructions clear, get there at 3PM to ensure the last truck is not missed. Arrive at 2:45 to be sure. The last truck left at 2. My best ´´verge of tears´´ face gets me nowhere so plan B and a 1k ride to a treehouse hostel.

The walk up murder, or at least unassisted suicide. A steep rock & mud path for 500m, the searing heat drenches my light green shirt and turns it dark. Finally arrive at the reception which is conveniently placed at the highest point, but the sacrifice in body water worth it for incredible tree top views, the forest stretching for miles below.

Hang out, brave the rope bridge, sip beer and watch the sun set over the forest and fill the air with twisted orange light, the sky stretching to eternity whilst monkeys climb around.

Switch to rum and coke to kill the evening, the bartender having no concept of a reasonable measure. Attempt a new card game I don't fully understand, yuka, think whist with less cards, and so lose badly.

A lightning storm over lake Nicaragua in the distance, continual flashing over the water providing ethereal fireworks for the evening. Meanwhile a Brazilian Wandering Spider slips into view, terror on 8-legs stalking on the treehouse ceiling above. I find myself transfixed in grim fascination, fearful for the people below in case it loses its grip or just decides to pounce. I manage to tear myself free with the promise of more rum, then a slippery downhill scuttle to the dorm below, making it just before the sky bursts, tumbling rain onto the wooden structures, a breathless end.

Grenada

Ways to make a decision: Flip a coin, pick a colour then pick a card, write a spontaneous line of poetry and count the syllables. More rationally I abandon San Ramon plans with my spastic Spanish the deciding factor.

& so instead work southwards to Granada, desperately avoiding Managua and all that entails. A 3 bus journey the second place, tapatipi doesn´t even exist in my guidebook. Thrown out on the roadside, ´´Masaya´´ the only word I cling to, somehow gets to me a different roadside stop and finally a tiny bus with a heaving clientelle.

A thing I notice and like within 2 minutes of arriving in Grenada: It is 2PM on a Sunday afternoon and the locals are downing litre bottles of lager. Sit down in a market bar with a bottle to accompany a passable chicken lunch, mash potato the highlight.

The youth hostel I intend to stay is Marycelestial. 5 minutes of yelling and cage rattling into an empty courtyard gets me nowhere. Still, my handwritten notes for the place simply say ´´bed bugs´´. Wander across to the Bearded Monkey (more handwritten notes: ´´Avoid!´´). I´m tired and it´s cheap. Anyway, the receptionists are acting a little loopy, pretending to be bulls and yelling ´´el torro´´ and I´m not sure what this is supposed to mean. Shed the backpack and wander the afternoon streets, and it´s all a bit manic - people clinging to tree trunks, a festival crowd, men on horseback, plenty of street drinking. The mystery soon solved - the name of today´s game is ´´bull running´´.

Find a city centre spot. There´s a few bulls but they just wander the streets aimlessly. Sometimes people hit them with sticks, sometimes they just take a wrong turn and get lost. The crowd surges, groups breakaway and sprint down limbed corridors, the atmosphere electric, but the bulls are mostly lost elsewhere and there isn´t a whole lot to see, so buy some beer from a cool box and soak the sunset. First real drinking in a week so the heat, the people, the alcohol combine to create a drowsyness within. A food attempt turns into more drinking in a city centre bar, and then finally eat a pesto and mozarella panini, not quite the cuisine I had in mind but perfect for my state.

Revisit the hostel that was closed earlier, purely for drinking purposes. A crazed old man in a cowboy hat lies face down in the centre of the bar, drunk since breakfast. The bar staff apologise for their non-appearance earlier, the bulls the distraction. Then the man awakens and tells garbled gibberish about being a fighter pilot. Horrendous nonsense. Then he´s out again. Slip away to another bar with some hostel contingent, s´okay. A guy plays music on an acoustic guitar but nothing really to quicken the pulse. More beer followed by straight rum whilst the time passes into morning into sleep into actual morning.

Monday was supposed to be nothing and the hangover is testament to my careful planning but a discounted island trip tempts me overly and so hop on a boat which includes a couple I met in Livingstone. Our tour guide called something like Mauricio, the first thing he does in the port is grab himself a beer whilst we looks on aghast. By midday half the group has joined him in this alcoholic descent.

The boat so chilled I could sink into the water without noticing. There´s freshwater sharks in this lake so I don´t dangle my hands over the side too long. Islands tumble over the surface, most owned by the super rich. There´s forts and trees and mansions of every conceivable shape. One island contains 3 spider monkeys and one of these jumps on the boat to pick avocado from our hands. Devour two fish for lunch, slight exhortion but I don´t care at this point and then swim in trousers following a swimshort misplacement issue, which makes staying afloat in freshwater difficult but I don´t drown or anything.

Return home and street scout until BBQ beef eaten off a banana leaf, and then meet up with the boat crew for a beer date, Start in an American style bar drinking cosmopolitans, listening to the Smahing Pumpkins and this isn´t quite what I had in mind. My day tomorrow won´t begin till midday so keep drinking to keep up with a semi-alcoholic Austrian and our tour guide, move on to the main strip and cuba libres and then a taxi to a waterfront death disco, the place oozing sleaze that soaks the walls and ceilings and drips over floor, the crowd a mix of prostitutes and pickpockets. Keep in darkened corners, the 5´´4´ guide our only protection, and he´s talking constantly but it´s not altogether audible above pounding house.

Cut our losses in a petrol station snack shop, eat hot dogs, drink super strong coffee, then doglike head outside the taxi door window to feel the night breeze as otherwise it´s stifling. Arrive home for a short confusion over whether the hostel will actually let guests in at this time (whatever time this time is) but eventually the security guard hears my pleas and the night is over once more.

Town Hopping

Get up specially for early Leon getaway. Remember book swap ambition. Cannot swap books till 9:30. Indulge in hostel pancakes and coffee whilst the last of my washing dries in the morning heat. Not quite the intention. Neither was walking all the way back to the bus station when taxis are plentiful. Half the trip achieved in a daydream, the rest in shoulder digging, leg shaking, sweat dripping agony.

The bus station still a mess, moreso when attempting to travel. Men scream destinations at ear piercing volume, timetables an empty hope. Finally a guy asks where I´m going, ´´Éstoli, Estoli´´ ´´si, estoli´´ and then my rucksack thrown on the roof, more items thrown this way as the bus pulls away, a man on the roof organising our possessions at 20 MPH and myself, I´m stood on a ridiculously crowded bus, cramp gathering in my legs as the torture wagon moves slowly.

The bus stops. A lot. Each time men appear outside the bus and yell things in Spanish, something like ´´Oi, Oi, Oi´´ and the man on the roof throws thing at them and the bus never seems to stop long enough for all the necessary throwing to take place so the street behind us is scattered with packages like trash floating down a fastwater river. At one point the road evaporates, 10 foot drop at least either side, a sand road and the bus sways left, right, left again. Close my eyes. Count to 10, then 10 again, and again and eventually it´s safe to look out the window once more.

The journey actually not so far, 3 hours or so. Bus station drop off, the streets easy to navigate in grid numerical sequence. Was promised cowboys, expecting a wild west fantasy, but really it´s just a mid-size town. Stop halfway to my destination in a comedor for cheap fills and early heart attacks. There´s only one hostel here, head to it and find I can only stay one night, as can everyone else, due to some redecoration scheme. This suits. I attempt to do a cigar tour but I´m told I can´t until Monday, and today is Friday, my timing absymal, so that´s scratched and smoke a cigar whilst reading the packet instead.

There´s a restaurant that promises cold beer with sizzling meats but turns out the only day of the week it closes is Friday, afraid they might make some money or something, so instead eat at a Mexican place which is pretty much sizzling meat and ice cold beer anyway. Friday night entertainment a school hall concert, a rapper sings over the top of famous songs, the drama club provide an anti-drug theatrical, and all this is obscured by a terrible pop-rock act that can´t even keep time. The crowd disperses half a song in and I join them, and hop bars till closing time which is about 11PM.

Eat the usual breakfast - fried eggs, boiled plantain, rice and beans and burnt coffee. Bus at 9 in confusion, the bus station moved during the night, or maybe my memory failure is terminal. Either way, no longer on the map. Asking gets me somewhere and then it´s an empty bus and another bus station that isn´t on the town plan so walk aimlessly through first crowded markets and then deserted streets. Collect my bearings in a church courtyard. Immediately a guy asks me if I´m lost, ´´no, I just look it´´. And this is true.

Change hotel choice 3 times in as many moments, and end up in a place called Bermuda, which has charm and little else. Hilariously no English is spoken here, and from what I´m told there are no rooms. The proprieter than shows me two empty work. I pick the first one and am given the key to the second.

Plans today are the church, wandering, supermarket essentials, lunch, coffee museum. The supermarket confusion, two trips required to purchase razor blades, supposedly there´s local chocolate here but it´s hiding. The coffee museum is shut until Monday & my plans hit the wall, and then I read about a cocoa making factory out of town, but it shuts at 4 and it´s now 2:30 and by the time I decide not to go it´s 3 so eat a huge lunch and climb a taller hill.

The hill is really a stupid idea, a completely deserted trek through rocks and trees. Spiders roam free, the path has a fleeting relationship with tangibility, and about half way up the realisation dawns that this is the exact kind of place I would attack lonesome tourist if I was in a Nicaraguan machete gang. ¡I have pretty much everything of use on my person. Still, hike on and nothing happens except my breathing requires more regular catching than on level ground.

The top is a great view, which I intend to share with the world but the camera battery dies as I aim to take a passable shot, and it´s a sign to go or something so I spend 10 minutes watching the day darken over the city, then remember the lack of light will be of tragic consequence for me so scamper down the rock trail into the town. Get coffee to celebrate my success and some odd American girl attempts to convert me to Christianity but she soon disappears.

Evening is relaxed, I´m a little bored, my own company of limited entertainment value. Hit a bar, eat overcooked steak whilst swigging from litre bottles of Tona, read endlessly and so on, until bed.

Volcano Surf Action

Sole aim for the day: Climb up an active volcano and then board back down to the bottom. About as ridiculous as it sounds. Last eruption 1999. On average it's every 8 years. So basically it's a huge black rock protruding from the green surrounds.

Ride a rickety path to the entrance, then each grab a board and climb up to the summit on a cloudless day. Nearly snap ankle before the ascent even begins, survive, onwards. Exhilarating steep climb over loose rock as the sun just blisters and steam pours whilst sulphuric gas fills nostril cavities.

Put on a green uniform, more a boiler suit, strap on ill fitting goggles, pull gloves over bruised fingers, point the boards down the cliff face. Count 1-2-3 and push towards oblivion. Dust fills the air and my vision, control of the board a fleeting illusion and actually I'm exaggerating and it's kind of less terrifying than it looks, the pace medium, but I still manage to fall half way down, the board overfilled with rocks that tip and my mouth filled with tiny dust particles.

Town for some terrible cream chicken lunch, near tasteless, and it's not so late so walk a mile to a bus and roast for 40 minutes on a baking tin can, waiting for no reason and then away to the pacific. See the beach and stop the bus, run for the waves, barely pausing to remove clothing, and then into the water but a man's yelling and I can't see what for but I go to him anyway, and he's all ''Danger: currents, waves, rocks, drowning'' So that's todays near death experience.

Head to some rocks where it's supposedly safer but swimming impossible here, the giant waves sending me spiraling into the sand in a repetitive motion, only waist deep and at least twice I feel myself drifting out to the ocean only to be saved by a new wave. Fun but tiring and instead lie in the sand, reading James Elroy for kicks and the breeze chills the air making it temperate. Murder the afternoon in such a fashion and then the bus back, street food tea of fried chicken, fried cheese, fried plaintain, perfect for my fried brain. Drink in a hostel bar, $2 a litre a dangerous price. And then stop.

Roar like a Leon

Rise with the sun. Quickly scoop up belongings from the floor of my shoebox hotel room. Book hotel taxi and feel vaguely safe, stable and secure for the first time in days. Leaving the big city behind and hope no Managua return is necessary.

Attempt Spanish lessons on the bus, but nothing really sticks so sleep to Antlers instead. A French girl, Sandrine, strikes up a bus conversation as we approach so have a wandering partner in town. The bus station is massive and crazed, cartoon busses parked at all angles but right, cars snake through the gaps, the horn as essential as the accelerator, whilst people scream in a hectic market atmosphere and throw boxes onto the bus roofs.

Pick a hostel based on following facts: Free coffee, book exchange, free pancakes, name ''lazy turtle''. Underestimate the walk and nearly abandon twice, having dropped Sandrine off at a more sensible destination. The city is pretty but baking, a dry heat where even the shade provides no respite, perspiration on top of perspiration.

Central America's biggest cathedral dominates the square (a fact I have not checked for accuracy). It is big. Somehow forget there's a rooftop tour and trample to a museum of heroes and legends instead. A bizarre waxwork museum of historical figures, folklore legends, horror stories and arts people. All set in a prison that functioned as some sort of torture dungeon in the past, as demonstrated by colourful murals around the outside.

The true terror is the walk around the walled boundary, about 2 foot wide and 20 foot down. It's only a third of the way around the section with no fence that I realise my fear and become paralysed. My footwear suddenly loose, my satchel heavy, legs like the cliche. Short steps and look straight ahead. Ignore the dog barking below. It takes me about 3 minutes to achieve what Sandrine managed in 10 seconds. I've rarely felt so masculine.

Sit down to recover, drinking the free hostel coffee until I start to shake, then switch to beer until I stop again. My only other memory of the day is thinking of a shaving cream purchase and balking at the $10 price tag. A beard is cheaper.

Terror Trail

28 hours. 4 Countries. 3 borders. Go!

Grab a 10am chicken bus to Guatemala City, the vehicle bright coloured but no balloons. The driver a clowner, aren't they all? Ride pleasant enough once the stone street juddering over. Keep my backpack close, my valuables closer. Control breathing as destination approaches but still arrive in a fluster.

Metaphorically robbed by taxi driver between one bus terminal and another. No gun or gang produced so relief on Tica Bus entrance. The station on a busy dual carriageway so chance a walk for American fast food. Find nothing and settle for petrol station sandwiches. These are microwaved until soggy but I have no language to argue.

Bus is 60 minutes late. Spend the time in a stress mind freeze counting down my remaining c. american days. From plan A to B to Y to D. Stop making sense then return to plan A. By bus arrival my mood is as foul as the weather outside. Get on the bus. It then waits another 60 minutes for some locals slowly eating a 3 course meal in the terminal. My idea of a daylight arrival in San Salvador vanishing with the sun.

Bus pulls into San Salvador at 9PM, 4 hours behind schedule. The guy points at what looks nothing like a bus terminal. A sweet American girl from Duluth saves me from a night on the mean streets by pointing out there's another terminal so back on the bus, singing Low's version of 'Blowing' in the Wind'' in my head as a bizarre tribute.

Arrive properly. Hotel connected to the bus terminal, so no street walking required, and they give me a double room for the price of a single, my first none dorm for a month. I stretch on the bed but then the hunger hits and I'm thrown into the streets, ignoring my guidebook advice. 2 minutes of death avoidance later and a restaurant that could well just be a home kitchen passes me chicken, rice, beans and a cold beer through a metal grate door. A man claiming to be a Nicaraguan minister helps me ever so slightly. Devour contents back at the hotel, the simple food delicious to my starved tastebuds. Bed, then awake at 4AM for the connection, which is just the same bus.

Strong bitter coffee and biscuits to jumpstart my senses. Spend the last $20 on border fees. No more food till Managua following debit card dismay in an El Salvador service station. Listen to Hefner b-sides and rarities to pass the time.

Honduras ''done'' in 6 hours. Another map to shade in. solve cash flow issues at Nicaraguan border, persuade a duty free shop to sell me $100. Shop assistant writes ''only for you'' on a piece of paper, so I wait until the wheels are in motion before telling the entire bus of my bordertricks.

The ordeal near over as we creep towards Managua. Original plan to hop straight on the bus to Leon. The daylight again has other ideas and so barge through the bus station touts and head to the first hotel. Booked up. Second one and success. Reception area crowded with warnings: Do not walk alone, always get a taxi to the ATM, do not exit the hotel after dark.

Decide ignorance is the best policy and wander 20 meters to the nearest eaterie, taking only a $20 and a couple of dollar bills. Pile the plate high, having only eaten the 4am biscuits all day. I do not have enough money to pay with the single bills and they won't accept the 20. A local man puts up the the extra money, a heartwarming moment at the end of a long trip. Decide the night dead after a 2 block walk yields nothing bar shaped.

(nb LP ridiculously states Managua is not dangerous to get around. It then says you should always get a taxi from the Tica Bus Terminal to the normal bus station, and that you should not get in a taxi with your valuables, which begs the question how a new arrival attempting to get from one side of the city to another are meant to survive)

Volcano, I´m Still Excited!!

Saturday I get lost, more lost and then lost again in a labarynthine market, humming the similar Clash song whilst searching frantically for an exit, nearly tripping over a baby sleeping in a fruit basket. The smell of BBQd meats mingling with that of rotting vegetables to nearly induce sickness. When I finally locate my bearings and decide which way is east I only get as far as a huge metal fence and have to retrace and try again. Finally freedom.

Go to a museum of museums set in an ornate old house. Macaws surround, there´s modern art, bones, archeological discoveries, graves, silver. All sloshed together. Somehow end up at a school open day by following loud music, kids play a scatterish football game on concrete, a brass band competes with a techno sound system. Skip the maths class and head for a 20Q lunch of salsa chicken with potatoes and salad then a delightful amble through the streets.

Originally had volcano plans for today, but the price quoted ridiculous and without a guide serious risk of machete death so instead book for a 6AM Pacaya trip. Weigh up Monday travel options and end up in a muddle and abandon till tomorrow. Sad faced at a closed book shop, the guy in the bar next door explains no one´s around to run it anymore, but the bars fun in itself. The highlight a list of banned songs starting with ´´smells like teen spirit´´ and running through Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, R.E.M., Metallica, Knocking On Heavens Door etc. A beautiful idea.

Eat chorizo in an Argentinian restaurant, not entirely sure what country I´m in momentarily. Fireworks buzz throughout the main square. Rhyme or reason lost in the moment. Then early bed early rise, 5AM. My Flores alarm clock shoddy to the point of waking me up at 1AM. I click, 4 hours more sleep.

Pacaya is a steep 90 minute walk through forest as horses bound by yelling taxi. Struggle at this time on a Sunday. The summit surrounded in a Silent Hill mist, whilst a merchant yells the Spanish equivalent of ´´´What´re ya buyin?´´, displaying lava ornaments from a wooden hut, a horse hooving the volcanic rock.

The atmosphere otherworldly, alien & it´s freezing as the wind near howls. Find warm sulphur holes for photo ops. Momentarily the mist clears & Antigua below crystallises, the black lava volcano top contrasts with the green below. Downwards meander in a rainwater sprinkling, a simpler affair than the ascent.

Lunch in the backroom of a newsagent, strange chicken soup served with a side of fresh avocado, comfort food. Camera fail in an internet cafe, the owner screaming ´´no´´ at the sight of my USB cable, as if I was in the throws of murder. The internet so slow as to make the exercise pointless anyway. Nap, more exploration, chaindrinking coffee to while away the afternoon. Cheese stuffed tortilla topped with guacamole, sausage, onions and jalapenos whilst my arteries thicken. A rice pudding soup for desert.

End the day in a cinema where the entrance is free but the drinks are not. End of New Moon, two-thirds of some Clint Eastwood snoozeflick. Pretty uninspiring fare that not even beer can liven up. Rain pounds the roof drowning out the sound.

Exit Lanquin Enter Antigua

A resurrection. My Ipod, a week after death by waterfall springs back to life. A miracle. A birthday present to beat them all (all the others being, erm, a solitary lighter).

This optimism is balanced by my outrageous bar tab on checkout, a sneer to decency. My cash reserves sapped in one hammer blow. I have to shuttle to Antigua and have no money to pay the driver. He looks incredibly pissed off and takes my passport for insurance. Anyway, this at least gets me on the minibus. Stop at a service station, stock up on biscuits for the trek no sign of an ATM. Get back in the bus and drive a while in cramped conditions. Stop for lunch at another service station. Bland chicken, decent fries, pickled vegetables. Mediocrity on a plate that my growling stomach demands I finish every bite of.

Return to the bus. The taxi driver asks for the money I ask where the ATM. He practically explodes, his face red with anger, and he almost looks like he might cry. ´´Amigo, amigo´´ he repeats. He does not mean friend. I try my best not to laugh. I understand that the ATM was at the previous service station, not this one. Oh. Still, they´ll be an ATM in Antigua. His attitude baffles me.

And we spiral on through narrow hillside paths and unsuccesful sleep attemps, and enter Guatemala city, fascinating from the safety of our tourist bus window, a terrifying mangle at street level. Pass red busses, of which the guidebook suggests the price of entry is assault and death. My eyes looking through the glass, half expecting a bullet to crack the window and shatter the calm. But this doesn´t happen, and it takes forever to pass the american chain stores, the smoke filled streets, the huge car showrooms but eventually we pass, the rows of fastfood turn into rows of trees.

And Antigua is cobbled streets, churches, greens, reds and other colours struggle against each other for oxygen, and the city ringed by cloud topped volcanos. Think San Cristobel with more Americans. Pull up at Parque central. The taxi driver again asks for money. Erm, ATM? He responds with something I´m glad I don´t understand, ushers us back into the van, and drives another 100 meters around the block.

We get out, ATM in front, me praying agnostically that my card works. And it does. The ride is 130. I give him a 100, two 10s, a 5, five ones. He shakes his head at this, offended at the correct money offer. ´´No bien, no bien´´, utter contempt in his small, rodent eyes. I am at a complete loss. He counts once, twice, a third time, then a fourth. And then he seems a version of satisfied, and I am free.

Wander the town for hostels, one in the guidebook no longer exists, another full of Zephyrites. The Black Cat inn saves us. Amazing indian food, stuffed chicken tikka pitta, huge and satisfying and then drink in an Irish Bar until exhaustion extinguishes the light.

Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream. It is not dying

Birthday breakfast of eggs, beans, tortilla, plaintain and dark bitter coffee to wipe the hangover and save the day. Temporary relief.

A new form of transportation, rubber rings down an ice cold river, drift on top of the water loosely following the current, beer can in hand. I´m useless at this, truly pathetic when it comes to paddling my raft into prime position and watch most of the group disappear round the corner, more interest in drinking the lager before it warms than controlling the craft. Hit the bank, scratched by branches, smack into rocks, hit
rapids hard, circle around a whirlpool, going nowhere slowly.

But it´s relaxing, and the day is lovely, the sun bright, Sega blue skies, cotton wool clouds whilst tree covered mountains slope all around. Tilt back my head, close my eyes to shut, feel the riverwater brush against my limbs and at peace. Then the next set of rapids nearly dumps me into the water and I lose a can as part of this battle.

Back at the hostel and drink lots of water, eat the most amazing chips with tomato sauce and my RDA of salt, so drink even more water and then almost sick from the attempt at internal drowning. Happy hour swings around and with it comes darkness, rain and wind, as if the climate knows it´s my birthday and is bringing the English summer especially. I celebrate this with a cocktail called ´´dark and stormy´´, which is rum and ginger beer. (although, almost all the cocktails here have different ingredients each time they are ordered). And ´´a cocktail´´ is selling the amount of alcohol short.

Play ´´ring of fire´´, a drinking game for mentalists and the proposed death of soberiety, but then it´s hard to kill a thing that´s already dead so I just try really hard. Around half the hostel circus has left town, the clowns sleeping soundly and so it´s slightly more peaceful than the night previous and this pleases me.

Had vague intentions of getting a bus at 7 in the morning, but happy hour provided recklless abandon and thus it´s the next day and I have very little to do. Adventure travel to an internet cafe. When I go to pay the guy has disappeared. Wander next door for tacos and then return and pay him the cash, and he seems relieved, like I might have ran without paying, but the machete he keeps in his office makes me think that unlikely.

Spend the next 10 hours in more or less the same position, watching clouds drag the day across the sky. Play card games half-remembered from sixth form, eat more chips, the day stumbling by at a snails pace. Eat freshly made pizza, Johnny, a slightly odd bartender regales us with music facts that he is not provoked for. 35 people left at dawn and their replacements are of a smaller number and less rowdy demeaner.

Another bartender provides something he calls Gaza Strip, half-half mix of dark and light beer. Not entirely sure what the point of this is, but it´s tasty enough. Night arrives without me even really noticing, and attempt to kick myself when it clicks that I can´t visit the bat cave anymore, but my legs can´t even be bothered moving on command and I have no energy to force them. A day of contented nothingness.

Let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see

Monday is spent on a bus with other tourists. A 9 hour shuttle, cramped and bored. Lose water, lose lighter, lose my wits, lose leg use, lose about 3 kilos in sweat. The final stretch 2 hours down a not even road and lose the will to live too.

Dropped a 15 minute walk from the hostel. Civil war between hostelliers apparantly the cause. The hostel surrounds gorgeous green mountains as a river thrusts through the valley below. The day´s remainder in 3 words: Beer, cocktails, sleep.

And today is now Semul Champay and herded like cattle to the slaughter onto a metal cage trailer, cling the poles and don´t let go, dodge overhanging branches, keep stomach contents down, pray the brakes don´t fail.

Attempt to trapeze into the water. A mini-heart attack later and my nerves shreds and all I can visualise is a slip backwards, a tumble, hard skull shatter against harder rock, and I do not want to die like this on the last day of my 20s and so abstain, and instead delve into cave tunnels.

Candle lit terror trails, freezing water starts as a trickle, then over feet and shins, knees, waist, upper torso, neck vanish into the deep and it´s paddling with one hand, the other keeping light above water. Up ladders that pull against their moorings, rattling in an attempt to break free, the nails screaming against the rock for independence.

Climb through waterfalls, jump from sheer small cliffs and then the candle fails and a pitch black stumble/scramble/slip/fall/graze/bleed back to daylight safety. Eyes struggle to adjust, retinas ready to scar but it´s okay and it´s fine and people jump from a 10m river bridge but my strange mood and death avoidance trip render me incapable. The hangover is not helping with quelling fear sensations.

Lunch is a scandal, the hostel lied and made us take soggy tuna sandwiches and tiny brown bananas. The guide feasts on steak with rice and tortilla and I plan on return to smash the bar, tear down the walls, set the place on fire and throw the ashes into the river bed below. A man with a shotgun hovers nearby, posing a question I can´t answer.

A hike up a hill, something I hadn´t been informed about, torture in flipflops and deathray heat. The steps, steep, muddy and stupid, and quite why I´ve only brough a jumper for body coverage is not a thought I should be thinking and lose it. The view at the top pretty much worth it, torquiouse rock pools gather below, and like a painted fantasy world. Slip down the mountain into the coolclear freshwater, perfect swimming around the lagoons, a water slide for entertainment. Weary wander back around the mountain, but the hill avoided and back on the transport, back to Lanquin.

The hostel tonight is a madhouse. Drinking games turn to kamikaze hard spirit downing. The crowds sway on table tops, swing from rafters, the music turned up to 11, lights flash in and out of the scene, screaming and death rattling. Monkeys for the circus. Sit in a corner with a Laura swapping cynicisms, watching the horror unfold. The clock chimes midnight, 1, 2, 3. My 20´s end with star gazing on a hilltop, bedlam the backdrop.

Tikal, a mocking bird

Apologies for the last two entries. Dreadful, dreary dross, despairing drivel. This will not be any better, but it will be an attempt at sumarising 10 days in one entry. If it gets too long skip to the end and think a bus moving southwards.

wake to Ipod fail disaster. An arguement with a waterfall. Only one winner. Bury in rice in the hope of a miracle. A hostel power cut. Black coffee then slip through a narrow alleyway onto a boat for a Rio Dulce cruise. Jungle reeds, giant lillys, natural warm springs, dank dark caving. Done, dusted. A long slender bridge announces arrival. Rip-off fried chicken. Wait for a bus Flores bound that turns up half full. ´´No´´ shouts an angry man. We wait. And wait. Then the right bus turns up. 100 people on a 52 capacity. Stand the whole way. 4 hours of bendy rought terrain. The locals throw litter from the windows on every turn. A Danish honeymoon pair get robbed, their bag, their camera, their money, their cards.

The sunset entering flores amazing, blood orange leaking into the sky, vicious red and orange grafitti. The hostel is near empty, occupants only spanish speaking. A friday night of nothingness, of emptiness, of cold water and still air.

And the next day, 3 tasks. 1. Buy camera 2. Move Hostel. 3. Book Tikal. Get distracted by guns, and signs about guns, and security guards outside departments stores with huge guns, and guns guns guns. Achieve 1 in St. Elena, 45 minute walk as the heat tears through my clothing, a tuk-tuk back. 2 is a stupid idea. I have to be up at 4 in the morning and thus a self-styled party hostel should have been last night. Move anyway. Boredom will do strange things to logic. 3. is an exercise in indecisiveness. Guide or no guide? Through Hostel or randomers. Coffee break then pick no guide and transport from the hostel.

Ipod disaster = new alarm clock pick up. 4AM would be a terrible time to wake unassisted. Have an idea of lake swimming as the sun goes down, hoping for sunset repetition but distracted by English couple in a bar, down 2 for 1 beers as the night draws in, the cloud shielding everything, alcohol overshadowing disappointment. Talk till the witching hour. 4 hours blank. Alarm works, thankgod. Click, off, gone. Continue sleep on the dawn bus. Tikal by 6, the day already bright.

Everyone else is with guide. He has no list so tempting to hop a free ride, but he´s irritating, something about his eyes and comedy smile, to eager to crack a joke. Plus tarantula terror tales running through my thoughts. Smash into the jungle alone. Wander round monkeys, a white fox blocks the path, fresh bird meat dangling bloodily from the jaws. Camera drives him away. And Tikal is huge, and magical, and fuck I hate words like magical.

The jungle is drenched in morning sounds. Birds squawk, frogs croak, a buzzsaw noise nearby. I did not bring insect repellent. Strange flies attach and suck and leech and bite and stopping is self harm so run through the main plaza and a glimpse of temple iv through the mist makes me ´´woah´´ and onwards and climb the wooden staircase and look over the canopy and temples on the horizon as kestrals swoon and all by myself and awestruck. Then the rest. 5 hours of trails, an LP map my guide. Skip past spider holes, swing through temples and pyramids, hear creatures brush against bushes out of vision and what the hell is that thing following me and concentrate and walk shoulders upright and jaguars don´t attack tourists on Sunday mornings, I saw it on the discovery channel.

Back to the plaza. A middle-aged american woman gives me deet and warns of dengue fever and I´m on the edge of sanity with exhaustion and finally a Nathan Drake clamber through plazas and rope ladders. A rush back for the bus. I´ve been up 8 hours and it´s just midday and already entertaining thoughts of sleep.

And okay, 10 days isn´t going to happen right now. Snap, crackle, pop till the page runs out and Sunday dies.

Waterfalls

Wake with no idea of time. Meaningful breakfast of eggs with tomatoes and onion. Feel a sickness that caffeine doesn't cure. A beach tour exists but I avoid, assuming a glorified estuary to not hit the heights of the caribbean coast. Instead follow the waterfall rumours, 90 minutes walk down a littered beach. Dodge jellyfish, needles, dead fish, garbage. The water here brown, forced to walk through deep streams and quicksand.

I'm with an American guy called Christian, who's just a little LA, a girl from the midwest called Emily, who occasionally makes comments that could be taken as rascist and an Australian girl who works at the hostel. The latter fact appears true of half the people who hang out the the Iguana House. None of these people descriptions are pertinent.

90 minutes feels like 4 hours in the sticky heat, dehydration concerns trouble my brain, my mouth turns dry as the west of my body breathes water. Persist, then a mud path up a hill, slippy and needles still underfoot. Pay an entrance fee of negligible amount and boom!

Swim in shallow rock pools, walk scross mini-waterfalls on slippery moss, swing on vines and clamber over tree trunks. A miniana jones adventure, helped by the place being utterly deserted. The highlight a 20 foot jump from the top of a waterfall into a deep lagoon below. Fear the height, the water, the crocodiles, slipping headcrackdeathdisaster but the rock climb-leap-thrill outweighs the terror. Laze around the pools for a while, feeling reptilian, the jungle corridor providing curtain shade whilst watching the water weave through the stones to the sea below.

Too lazy to walk back. Grab a taxi, but even that's a 40 minute walk to a rickety ropebridge, and then in Livingstone search fruitlessly for street food, offered guns for novelty, eat ice-cream as snack food, view the alligator pit, Christian says he witnessed a shooting here last night. Some new food, an ice drink, hard to place, and a refried bean & Cheese combination on doughy deep fried bread. Good. More jungle juice. Rusty finally puts in an appearance but he's too busy playing strip poker with girls half his age for me to make judgements on anything other than his overt twattishness. A disappointment.

Then a small restaurant in town and amazing fresh shrimp with rice and salad. A prostitute enters the otherwise deserted restaurant and offers to braid my hair. I decline and hotfoot back to the hostel. (My notes at this point say ''more weird drugs''. I do not know what this means), and then back to the drumming club but it's last night's disaster with shade less enthusiasm. A drunk guy gives a drug dealer some money, as long as the dealer promises to come back with the money. He passes the time by paying the aforementioned prostitute to braid his hear. I disappear to bed before the dealer returns. I.e. sometimes between 11PM and never.

Livingstoned

6:30 rise. Didn´t even unpack my stuff the night before so it´s a smooth transition from bed to the bus stop, a 10 meter walk in total. 6k on the bus, then a wait at a cross roads, hailing passing vehicles. PG bound.

One bus. Another. And another. 4th time lucky. Squeeze into seat space. The adults here must be the size of children. Dead leg, cramp, bruised knees. The rocking of the bus against the road strangely sleep inducing.

Arrive. Blunder through customs checks then wander the town. Wrong way round. Down to my last 10 dollars. Water, lunch. Completely out. A perfect budget. Then the boat. Italian/English guy who works for Opta gives me Livingstone advice that amounts to: ´´Go to Casa La Iguana, the owner´s a complete cunt´´. This is repetition of previous advice. Intrigued.

Hit the port. Offered drugs 3 times within a minute in Guatemala. The Spanish for ´´I don´t do drugs, and if I did I wouldn´t be buying them from you´´ is not forthcoming. ´no no no´ suffices. A boy of about 16 guides me to the hostel.

I have often complained about heat and sweat in C. America, like what did I expect? but this is a whole new level. Literal ((c) j. redknapp) buckets.

Shower but all that does is increase humidity. Lie down under a cool fan until the most irritating girls I´ve ever met invade the dorm, singing fuckawful songs, coked to the eyeballs, god knows what else, it´s 3 in the afternoon. Escape into the town. Laundry etc.

6 pm brings happy hour. Jungle Juice for a pound. Dinner of fish, rice and peas, the fish large and fleshy, the JJ going down too well. The wind sweeps through the darkness, lightning flashes, thunder cracks, a storm brewing. Flee shelter, talk of a drumming centre, but on arrival at a multi-coloured building on a deserted street it is clearly empty.

5 minutes of debate and then a man on a push bike pulls up. Do we want music? Erm, yeah. My house. Erm, no. And then he opens the building anyway, pulls chairs and tables into the middle of the street, produces a large drum and some alcohol. 7 of us around. He asks us where we´re from. Gets to me. ´´Inglaterra´´, ´´Inglaterra, Nada´´ comes the response. This is getting weird.

And anyway, the beer is now gone and spirits too expensive, so some of us depart into the night. Halfway back and the flashflood arrives. Drenched to the bone in 5 seconds flat. Swimming back an option. Attempt shelted and somehow it just gets harder and harder, and so we run anyway. More beer. Bedtime. One of the English girls is dancing alone on her bed in a trancelike state to Arcade Fire songs. Too surreal for my half-drunk mind to contemplate. Lock out two thirds of the hellwhores for my own entertainment and thus sleep soundly.

Search for The Funky Dodo

I hear the name Funky Dodo twice. The first time I mention to an Australian girl in my dorm I´m heading to Hopkins. She says I should stay at the Funky Dodo. The girl is nice enough, but she seems to spend all her time in Caye Caulker hanging around with local drug dealers or passed out in her bed at hours unsuitable for sleeping. Still, I note it down.

The second time an Australian guy so drunk I assume him to be a Scandanavian who speaks little English mutters the words ´Funky Dodo´ to me shortly after my Hopkins repetition. The Funky Dodo does not exist according to my guidebook.

(note to reader: this entry will not get any more interesting following this point which is hardly setting pulses racing as it is, so now would be a good time to do something productive)

I awake on my last morning in Caye Caulker uncertain. I kinda want to stay another day, but kinda realise this is a well worn trap and that Guatemala can wait little longer. Decide to head down the coast.

10AM water taxi to Belize City. 2 hours later than hoped, but things run like mangled clockwork here so expected. Belize City is to be ran through. Do not turn East outside the boat terminal, but I get my bearings confused and think I´m heading East anyway, when actually I´m heading west, so my hearts already beating too fast.

´´Do not walk down deserted streets´´, I read in my guidebook halfway down a deserted streets on way to the bus station. No turning back. Quicken pace. The weight of my backpack on my shoulders combining with the near midday sun doing little to prevent the gathering of moisture on my skin.

´´Do your best to blend in, walking around looking lost, guidebook in hand is a good idea only if you want to attract the wrong kind of attention´´. Too late! I can see the bus station in the distance, I am now running and panting and red and wet.

Arrive. No ticket booth. Attempt to speak Spanish to the ´staff´ before remembering this is an English speaking country. They tell me to jump on a bus, that´s an old, decrepid and bright yellow American School bus. In my head ´´´Funky Dodo, Funky Dodo, Funky Dodo´´

The bus stops at every nook on the way to Belopan (probably not the name of the Belizian capital but how it appears in my notepad). I am the only traveller on the bus. The locals speak in singsong, Belizian radio bursts from rusty speakers, an experience in itself. The news being read in a rasta accent is somehow difficult to take seriously. The crimes appear exclusively to be statutory rape.

Fly down the hummingbird hwy. By fly I mean bumble slowly down a concrete wave track, road an inappropriate word here. Wait two hours in Dangria. Attempt to walk into town but the main connecting bridge is out, a bulldozer sits idle in the sun, threatening passive destruction. Back to the bus station, finally hit my connection. 1 hour down a dirt track.

Hopkins upon us. My nose against trembling glass. ´´Funky Dodo Funky Dodo Funky Dodo´´. The bus drives one way, all along the seafront, a snails pace. People exit the bus every 20 meters. Stops, turns, back the other way. For some reason more people exit the bus at places we stopped not 3 minutes ago. And now the other end of town, and I think I pass something Dodo related but I´m not sure so I stick on for around half a mile, before the strip of housing and restaurants disintegrates into fields and sand.

A slow walk back into town in semi-darkness, nod at a european person, kick a football, focus on the lights ahead. And I can see it, ´´Funky Dodo´´ painted in large brown letters on a cream wall. The name 50% accurate, the place dead as. Come to think of it, renaming Hopkins ´´Dodo´´ would not be a terrible idea based on my experiences for the next 3 hours. Go to sleep at 9:30. It´s either a 7:30 AM or 4PM bus out of here, and tomorrow has to end up in Guatemala.

A tall travelling tale

The story told to me in Tulum by a slightly mental Australian guy, described by a fellow Englishman as the strangest person he had met travelling. It was told to me and a girl who´s nationality I can´t remember, maybe Buglarian, This is my recollection, I´m not really sure why it gets swearier as it goes along. But it entertained me at least:

´´So, I´m in this Caye Caulker nightclub, dressed as my alter ego, Joe Sparrow. Jack´s brother, sailing the carribean for treasure. We had an altercation a long time ago. Don´t like to discuss it. Anyway, this local chick starts trying to dance with me, grinding up to me and all that shit, and I´m pretty battered but I´m having none of it, push her away and so on. Goes on for a while and then she gives up. So I´m like, fine, and keep on dancing, waving my sword around. that kind of shit. Then it gets late so I head out the club.

The girl´s oustide with a group of 4 local guys, sees me, tries the same stuff and so I push her away again, tell her I´m not interested and she gets the message and starts walking away with the 4 guys, and I´m relieved. And then I realise my wallets missing, and I´m like fuck, it can only be her right? So I catch up with her and I´m all ´give me my wallet back´ and she´s pretending she doesn´t know what I´m talking about, and then the guy´s get involved and there´s a bit of pushing, nothing serious.

But still, 4 on 1 and the odds aren´t good so I say ´´look, I couldn´t care less about the money, but could I have the cards back´´, and the girls like 2 minutes, and then, hey presto, comes back with the wallet and cards, cash missing, and the wallets almost ripped to shreds and I´m like, yeah, thanks very much and all that.

So, it´s now like 3 in the morning, and I´m pretty drunk but fuck I´m annoyed, so I go to the police station to report it, insurance purposes and the cop at the station asks me to describe them, and he´s like ´´yeah, I know the guys, lets pay them a visit´´ and i´m all ´´yeah, okay´ and so he takes me to their house, it´s on the south side of the island and we plough through swamps and reeds and fucking jungle and shit, and I´m still wearing my pirate costume, and feeling pretty fucking cool now I think about it, and finally we get there, this rough old wood shack in the middle of fucking nowhere.

And so he knocks, and the open up and I´m ´´yes, it´s them´´ and the policeman asks them if they stole my money, and of course they deny it, and this carries on for a short while, and then one of them pipes up ´´I saw that guy buying coke earlier´´. And the cop´s ´´is that true?´´ and I´m all ´´´course it isn´t mate´´ and they tell him to look in my wallet and so I hand it over and there´s a gram of coke in a sealed plastic bag.

(NB At this point we interject ´´So they planted the coke´´, and he says ´´no, on closer inspection of the faces present it became apparant that I did indeed buy a gram of coke from one of the guys earlier´´)

So I´m ´´It´s a setup´´ but the guy has stopped smiling and having none of it, and so we go back to the station the cops like ´´you´re going to have to spend the night in here´´ and then pretty much throws me into this cell. And you´d think it´d have bars or a window, but it´s just this room, 4 stone walls and no light source, like solitary fucking confinement and my eyes can´t even adjust, all I see is blackness.

And then I hear this scratching sound through the darkness, so I know someone else is in there, but I don´t want to find out who, or why. I´m terrified, really fucking frightened, and so I stretch out my hands and reach for the wall and find it and travel in the direction furthest away from the sound, until I another wall, which means a corner, which means somewhere to slouch. There´s wetness on the floor, a puddle of who knows what, and there´s no way I´m fucking sleeping in this room so I just crouch in this wet patch till morning, which I have no fucking idea when it arrives due to the complete absence of a light source.

Finally, the cop opens the door, lets me out, and says the following ´´Here´s what happens next. You stay on the island for 7 days and then next Saturday you will have a hearing in Belize City. Given your evident guilt you will then spend 6-9 months in a Belize City jail´´. And I´m like ´´shit, I´ve got to go home. Is there any, y´know, way of sorting this out?´´ ´´How much money do you have?´´ ´´100 $, US´´, ´´200 $ and we can talk´´. And fuck, $200 vs 6 months in a Belizian Jail cell isn´t even an option, we shake.

He takes me to the cashpoint, I withdraw the alloted amount. Anyway, the real kicker, is he took all my belt and pirate stuff off me before throwing me in jail, presumably to prevent suicide or something. And he hands it back. Strange looks, laughter, everything friendly. Finally he produces the coke, looks at it, and then passes it back. Belizian fucking justice in action´´.

Taking it Belize-y

Monday is for snorkelling where sharks prowl and the sea screams outwards in each direction, land a distant memory. 8 hours on a small sailboat. Child/adulthood open water terrors tremour through the morning, as the boat starts its 90 minute trip to the reef.

Splash into the deep water. Left to fend for myself. Instructions: Do not touch the reef as it will die and you will poison. This would be easier if I could control my breathing, not steam up my mask, not twist my snorkel,not take in copious amounts of sea water, not panic that every splash is a great white thrashing just below the surface. I spend 45 minutes attempting not to sink, kick the coral on at least 2 seperate occasions and scan the horizon constantly for shark fins. An ordeal.

Still, onwards and downwards, the next stop, shark alley (seriously), is where the sharks and rays congrugate in a spiral of dread. This isn´t helped by the feeding frenzy instigated by the guide throwing dead sardines over the side. Still, my snorkelling skills have now improved and can last underwater for whole minutes at a time. Spend the next 40 minutes reaching out for the nurse sharks and dodging rays, and it´s strangely peaceful and not nerve shredding at all, even when some of the sharks look like they could swallow me whole and have room left over.

Finally it´s an underwater pleasure park, where colourful fish swim in patterns across the seabed, giant turtles plough into the depths (resist Mario urge to ride one), giant bloated dead eyed fish meander and barracuda swim close and eye us up as food. Like an aquarium without the glass.

And then sail back at a slow pace in the steady breeze, the boat heavily weighted to one side and my feet brushing the water, rum punch drank steadily and cervice eaten greedily, and a dolphin hits the surface of the water in the distance while the sun sets on the brilliant blue day. Beats Monday afternoon in the audit room.

Mexi-go-go-going-going-gone

So, the 7AM start that was going to result in a relaxing pack-breakfast combo before an 8:15 bus ends with a 7:55 awakening and multiple swearwords. Worldly possessions scattered around a dimly lit dorm floor. Gather, scoop, jam into the pack, punching wildly to make more top-room. Dirty, clean mixed. Organisation for another time.

LP nowhere. Panic to the power 10. Frantically think back to hammock time and just how relaxed was I? And it´s not there but on the breakfast table. Gulp. Run to the bus stop following check-out impatience, a minute to spare, and attempt to sleep away the morning, bump up the 4 hours of the night previous, but a terrible movie is playing in Spanish at a 1000 decibels or more so I just sit with my eyes closed for the duration.

Chechumel a dump, and I´ve 3 hours to kill. Water taxi terminal discovered in 5 minutes (okay, so I cheat and get a taxi), my last pesos spent on taxi fare and boat backage costs and so there´ll be no food till Belize. Read in a quiet square and then stare at the water, think humber estuary brown.

The boat ridiculous, bright pink seats, Fast & Furious 5 on HD tvs that no one can hear because the smack of the hull against the waves is deafening at this speed. Our host repeatedly running on top and around the side of the craft for no particular reason. Then switch at San Pedro to a small sea boat, where we have to sit in certain positions lest the boat topple, and the water now like something in a desert island dream, slowly swallowing the fading sun.

Arrive with no booking. Walk aimlessly round the island as hagglers haggle and hustlers hustel, the usual scene, and Tinas is full so hit Bellas which is also full but offered a sponge mattress on a floor for $5 a night and take it in an instant.

Finally eat. Fresh lobster straight from the grill, with rice and garlic bread, doesn´t get much better, and chat to some middle-age americans who prove more entertaining than the stereotype and convince me of a travel plan change whilst sipping rum.

Head back, a stop for rum and mixer on the way, the ´done thing´ round here, and sit on a wooden stool in porch light whilst the sea breeze clenses the day of heat, and chat without purpose to a revolving cast and get too drunk too quickly, which I only realise by the time I´ve entered a terrible night club and ordered a drink I no longer need.

Talk to an Israli girl who looks like me, but prefers the coke to the rum if you catch my drift, but anyway, she persuades me to go to Jellos which is all kinds of crazy, the only non-local faces, the music mental, a fusion of trance & reggae & dubstep & rap, traditional mixing replaced my 80´s computer game sounds. Seamless. That´s the day.

Wake up the next morning, vague recollections of the girl putting some money for drinks in my shirt pocket. Check. $50. Hmmm. I´ve made money since arrival.

The morning wind is strong but the sun stronger still, and it´s definitely a version of paradise, the local drug dealers given the place an enticing edge. Walk the entire island with Marco, a German guy from the hostel, and discover the grave yard next to the ´Paradise hotel´, not sure what the intention.

A guy with dreadlocks starts following us, muttering ´´Marijuana´´ and we explain we don´t do drugs, and so he takes the logical next step and offers cocaine instead, but we remain unswayed and then he offers us girls which at least is a step in the right direction, but right now I really need a cash machine so I decline further. He promises to catch us later.

Swim at the split, the point where a hurricane broke the island in two and the current so strong it´s hard to swim against it, and a depth that goes from standing height to 2 meters on a ledge. I drift around, not wanting to move my limbs enough to call it a swim.

The midday sun is so intense even the mad dogs retire and so do I and lunch on Jerk chicken, deliciously spicy, eaten in a hurry with lukewarm potatoes, and a few hours in a deck chair chatting lazily with Ami & I could sit in the shade all day like this, but instead I summon the energy to swim and sip beer, whilst kite surfers tumble through the air in the distance, life so very hard.

Watch a mid 40s englishman attempt to entertain the crowds with a tai chi exhibition as sunset approaches and a drunk local immitates, and when sitting on a picnic table in the sea drinking Belkins gets too much I retire for more lobster and rum and the day has smothered me and all that remains is rest.

Tulum under a full moon

7:30 start for early beach action. Hit before the suns harsh heat fills the day. And so it´s basking in soft white sand and in the shade of palm trees, watching wave after wave crash gently to the shore, kicking off sandles and reclining until horizontal.

But inaction can only take me so far and so it´s back to town and bike hire, and a trip to a cran cenote and a botched attempt at snorkelling, as breathing through just my mouth as ice cold water quickens my heart proves beyond me and instead the water´s filling my mask and lungs and I´m coughing uncontrollably, and finding a dark cave to hide my shame. Finally work it out, and look down into the depths and divers go deeper still and this cenote is an entrance into a network of miles and miles of elaborate underground freashwater cave tunnels, which is incredible in its way. But not really too much to see on amateur snorkelling hour, so a bike back into town, swerving through the traffic.

I´m so hungry I stop at the first roadside stop. Flies buzz, the place empty as salad roasts exposed in the direct sunlight. One type of Taco on offer. Saves me having to think. Order a coke and get something claiming to be Sangria but actually fizzy grape juice. The mark on the bottle says Pesico and doesn´t seem hand drawn. Anyway, tastes okay and supercheap and then i´m back and lazing in a hostel garden hammock under tree shade and book a ticket out of this country, or to the border at least.

And then it´s turning to nighttime and it´s Friday so drink ferociously and an Australian tells a story that deserves it´s own subsequent entry (a cliffhanger of sorts), and then some Americans show up, sweet in a college way, and get a taxi to a beach party, 5 of us squeeze in space for 4, a few extra pesos for the driver, and driving on a beachside with the breeze smashing against my face, like something out a coastal American teen drama.

And the moon is full and the party fun, more fun when the bartender apologises for running out of beer by giving me a free mojito, and there´s more fireshows and a Danish girl who supports Liverpool, which cheers me, and 3 in the morning and I am swimming in the caribbean over razor sharp rocks, the moon beaming down onto the shallow sea. It´s probably dangerous to be in the sea this drunk but who cares, this is Mexico. And then hostel, bed, sleep, alarm clock fail, Saturday morning too soon. Uck.

Tulum. To, I think, rhyme with doom, tomb or heirloom. Or maybe just hum instead.

Required: A synonym for hangover. Instead settle with ¨Last night´s expensive red wine sloshes around the synapses of my brain, washing away the cells and replacing them with miniature knitting needles´´.

Pack, tidy, head into the day, the morning heat causing sweat to cascade down my forehead and into my eyes, small relief is pressing a 1.5 litre bottle of water hard against my lips. My travel clothing: jeans, hiking shoes, a jumper. Mountain wear for the carribean coast.

The bus a relief, cooler than the street, the AC sufficient. Yesterdays burn continues to irritate. Arrive in Tulum, a 30 second hostel walk, more sweat. Check in. 2 minutes after arrival i´m informed the last bus to the beach is about to leave. Drop everything. Jump on. Remember my ridiculous outfit, my shoulder bag crammed with pointless books, the only thing I need, my travel towel, left at the hostel.

Too late to turn back. Wander the beach in the jeans and the hiking shoes (thermal socks included). A dismal show in blistering dry heat. I abandon the beach, hit the roadside. Warmer if anything. 15 minute hike and more ruins. On top of cliff face, small but saved by the spectacular location, waves crash below. The lizards here huge, bigger than the jungle and less wary of humans. Luckily the excursion is short, 40 minutes, maybe less.

A taxi, the driver´s english passable at best, but he pumps his fist for England and shouts ´´God save the Queen´´ and this is no time to debate monarchy so I nod faux encouragement and think ´´Christ´´. Devour tacos in a roadside cafe. All of central Tulum is a roadside.

The hostel has a bizarre tab system: electronic tags to a computer screen to a receipt print out to an employee to getting whatever. Order a burger and get the raw ingredients and instructions on how to operate the outdoor grill. It´s not particularly cheap, and the lager so weak it´d take about 333 bottles to touch drunkeness so I don´t bother and chat to other people, all of whom going the opposite way, Cancun, Cuba, the States. Feel I am operating in reverse.

Playa Del Carmen

A hostel rooftop, a bar, a tiny pool, my plans on a thread. Sun cascades over roof tops as a caribbean breeze chills the terrace. Horrific dance music, fresh from late night radio 1, doing all it can to spoil the ambience. The place has a mini Ibiza feel. More English accents overhead in 10 minutes than the previous 18 days. The usual drivel. My 2 night stay feels overlong.

Spent the earlier portion wandering streets of valladoid, a slow burning goodbye. The need for excitement great another to consider and then immediately reject an impulsive Cancun move. The bus journey here a mess of grapes, seeds all over the seat and sweet juice soaking my trousers. Playa Del Carmen greets me with McDonalds. Play ´spot the american chain store´ momentarily. Too easy.

And here I am. Another beer. Talk to a Canadian guy, Martin, and we stroll the muggy streets together. Too hot for any kind of pace. Pay extortionate amounts for weak beer, hit a night club, the one saving grace the beachside location. The clientelle exclusively white, mainly american. More beer anyway. A stupendous fire show. Another beer. Somehow this keeps up till 4am. I´m not sure how. My wallet weigh in provides some clues.

Wake hungover. Stifling heat no shelter. A note on my backpack ´´organise your stuff´´. The origin unclear and I do not comply. Instead I smear liquid soap all over the dorm floor (an accident!). Gorge on grilled chicken and coca cola, then nothingness, basic level pissing around, till morning hits noon. At 1pm I´m finally beached. Stretch towel, apply lotion, soak sun, stare into the endless blue sky, but then it occurs that I can´t even swim without leaving stuff unattended.

And so instead it´s a sea long walk, the warm shallow waves lap against my footsteps, and relax my mood, then finish a novel in the sand. Bump into Martin on a crowded playa street, which is cool as I can finally swim in the calm mellow Carribean waves, but it´s more floating than swimming. Effort beyond me. And then I turn bright red and scream for the shade.

Cheap piles of chinese food, a shower, a shave, more rooftop beer, a routine. And then some hostel trip to another club. Much the same, but the air conditioning pumps freezing air, a relief to my glowing skin. And the shows here are weirder, a girl dances near naked, then a guy does nearly the same but with added trapeze. Head to exit.


Pointless quote for my own entertainment:

¨There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation, there is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolise, there is a failure here that topples all our success´´

Chichen Itza

Early rise for a ruinous theme park jaunt. Bus at 7, then the road to ruin. Entry price triple that of other Mayan sites. As if they´re attempting to ruin me. Enough.

Sparse at the early hour, the Cancun tourist hordes yet to arrive. The main temple suitably dramatic against the cloudless sky. Hawkers everywhere. The ball court off limits, imagined sacrificial games fr another day. Dream of heads rolling down steps instead. Clamber around, hug old columns, observe the observatory. A huge water hole impressive, skeletons drag against the depths, but on the horizon the Americans scream in unison and we run for the hills as the sun bakes our skins.

An hour bus wait, a tree for shade and then away to the town. The most delicious tacos in mexico yet in a sparse small cafe, boiled egg addition wonderous. Then a dessert of fruit so rich and it´s hard to believe no liquour involved. And then another cenote, bat filled and a tree overhangs the surface, through a skylight, and the roots hang down until they touch the water. A few people mill around the bottom so I grab a rubber ring and nearly decapitate half of them. It´s dark, fish nibble my feet, and a child yells something at me repeatedly I don´t understand. Apparantly I look like a famous football player. I do not look anything like the footballer in question.

Hostel boomerang. Alone for the first time in a week. I go to a real restaurant for the first time. Splurge on two courses, mushrooms in a cream chili (inevitably) sauce. The food excellent, but I´m overcharged by 22 pesos. A scandal that immediately rights itself when the offlicense undercharges by at least 30 pesos. Feel karmatic, the world on an even keel once more.

A thunderous storm batters the windows, shutters swing, lights sway, and as suddenly as it starts it stops, so sit outside and talk to various nationalities. My favourites a retired dutch couple with whom I discuss Kurt Vile and Sufjan Stevens as tequila flows into midnight. A high of a sorts and then sleep in a deserted dorm as mosquitos circle my bed with intent.