an easy way for friends and family to keep up with life on the dark continent or wherever we end up...
Back up and running...
Apologies to everyone it's been over A YEAR since I updated this thing and there's been plenty happening in the mean time...
so a belated MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR, HAPPY BIRTHDAY etc to everyone!!!!!!!!
I've literally just put a whole YEAR's stuff up but I think only the latest blogs show on the screen to start with, so if you go over <== there on the left side, there's an archive where you can find all the old ones. There's a few at the start of 08 in Nigeria, Zanzibar in May 08, then our move the US, Canada in Sept 08, Cuba in Jan 09 and Guatemala and Mexico in Easter 09, enjoy...
J&G 2 Jun '09
After a rather nice relax at the sleepy little airport in Flores - I almost felt sorry for waking up the customs and immigration people to allow the six (including us) to get on the plane and leave sunny Guatemala - we had a bumpy ride through the tropical clouds to Cancun. It reminded me a little too much of flying through the wet season in Africa - everyone was praying as we landed...
Anyway, we picked up a car and hit the road to chichen itza to start our whirl wind road trip around the Yucatan peninsula to check out mayan ruins and eat Tacos!! It was good to get on the toll road as there were absolutely no cars a we knocked the drive down in no time... The only hitch was that the local farmers had taken to clearing the adjacent jungle by fire, which seemed to be everywhere without any visible regulation - driving whilst finger-crossing and praying - not so much fun
Enough of all that, we were on a mission to check out some Mayan stuff on the advice of my sister, George and I had no idea about any of it before we went, so here's an explanation for those who care. This nation geographic article is also really good. -full of great pics and maps etc
Anyway, without going into all the detail - the town was great fun and the ruins absolutely awesome - we had to get there first thing in the morning to avoid getting sun stroke / dehydration again as it was freekin hot, but also empty (tourists seem to be lazy and only get there at lunchtime...) So of all the 400 billion photos we took (seriously..) here's a few snaps
CHICHEN ITZA (27 photos)
The ceynote at Chichen Itza... (where they used to both get their drinking water and sacrifice people - maybe that's why they died out...)

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After sucessfully avoiding the great herds of tourists that sweep across these parts of Mexico, we had to finally bite the bullet as we hit the so called "mayan riviera" - the carribean coast of Quintaroo famous for the likes of Cancun and Playa Del Carmen...
Back on the road again, we spent the best part of a day driving from Merida back towards the coast and to Tulum. Had a great lunch in a small place we stumbled in to in Valladolid - almost died from eating the wrong chilli... long story
TULUM (11 photos)
I know that this blog thingy puts all this stuff up in reverse date order or whatever, so I've put these up backwards so you can scroll down and it looks kinda right...(maybe)
Anyway while we were back in Oz earlier in the year for my dad's funeral, we created a cunning plan with my sister Sarah to explore Guatemala and Mexico looking for Mayan ruins and whathaveyou... George and I had no idea about any of it and had never been so organised for a trip ever (thank you Sarah...)
Sarah had a few weeks off so she flew over to Houston, then we all went down to Guatemala for Easter, then up to Mexico for a week, before chillin in H-town for further week...
As holy week (semana santa) seems to be the busiest time of the year, we used the old colonial capital of Antigua Guatemala as a base and took a bunch of trips around the place...
Antigua Town (21 photos)
Before the festivities of Holy Week kicked off in earnest, we decided to take the hour bus ride over to Pacaya volcano - one of the apparently many live volcanoes in central america...
It all seemed like a good idea at the time - "let's climb a volcano" - it was only after half an hour of trudging up the side of this thing in the afternoon heat (Sarah was smart enough to hire a horse...) that I was rethinking the whole thing. Whilst the hike almost killed us - it was heaps of fun (though the freshly set lava was actually almost glass-like and really sharp so you couldn't lean on it without cutting yourself, and our shoes melted a bit from standing too long near the hot stuff). It was also a great chance to use the word "magma" a lot
Sitting on the lava field at sunset - absolutely beautiful

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PACAYA VOLCANO (29 photos)
Here's a bunch of photos (too many to choose from) - you'll see at the end, that as we were about to start to climb back down, a nearby volcano - the aptly named "fuego" - erupted!! I shit you not, a huge plume of smoke shot miles into the air - it looked pretty cool (glad we were miles away from it though...)
So this was the reason that we were in this part of the world - Semana Santa!! In fact that's why every hotel in town was bursting to the seams with both foreign tourists and locals...
One of the legacies the Spanish conquistadors left (apart from small pox, coffee and rum) was Catholicism - and not just the go to mass once a week Catholicism, this stuff's old school with the whole hellfire and damnation and "let's re-enact the Crucifixion"...
Each church in the district has it's own set of "floats" which set off around town at all hours, filling the town with huge processions. The celebration begins on Ash Wednesday and reaches its climax on Good Friday. The processions consist of big floats, or 'andas', bearing statues of Christ with a cross, that are carried by hundreds of purple-robed men. A float with the Virgin Mary Follows by women dressed in black clothing. The processions move slowly through. Antigua cobblestone streets, the feet of the bearers cushioned in the sawdust carpets, which are destroyed as the procession passes over.
As a show of devotion, wealth and just good community spirit, families and groups of people slave throughout the night to make Alfombras or "carpets" out of flowers or fruits or intricate coloured saw-dust designs. These were absolutely AMAZING and it was such a pity that they were destroyed. But no sooner had the procession passed and the cleanup crew scoped them up with a back-hoe, the families were out again re-building another one for the next procession...
ALFOMBRAS (67 photos)
Every week up in the mountains around Guatemala, provincial centres host market days where traders, farmers and artisans from the surrounding villages come to sell their produce and resupply for their families.
We took a bus up to probably the most famous of the lot - Chichicastenango. Whilst some dispute that it has become too touristy here, with Holy Week in full swing and plenty of amazing textiles on display it was hard to agree...
Granted, the prices quoted were absolutely ludicrous (though plenty of people were paying them) But a bit of old school Nigerian haggling would wear any one down after ten minutes so we walked away with some amazing hand woven rugs for $25 a piece. We actually ended up having to pop down to the markets in Antigua a buy two extra suitcases so we could get all this stuff home!! Props to George and Sarah for propping up the Guatemalan economy...
CHICHI MARKETS (19 photos)
Gail, the kiwi expat that owned the hotel where we were staying had been helping a women's weaving co-operative in a nearby village and had organised a couple of utes to take us out to have a look and learn about the local Mayan culture and see the weavers in action.
It was really quite amazing that this group of women had got their act together and were making real money selling their crafts and textiles in town and by allowing groups to come and visit. The were terribly cute, as everyone in Guatemala is about 4ft tall (seriously ALL midgets) and they showed us how to weave, make baskets and grind maize etc.
Interestingly they were also interested in how we do things (in particular how to get into the US) - but I couldn't help thinking about all the illegals around Texas where we live and how many of them are exploited and that whilst poor, their life in rural Guatemala may be a better choice..
WEAVING CO-OP (23 Photos)
After a hectic few days of what seemed like no stop parade viewing, we got up way too early to catch a little plane up into the jungle at Tikal - one of the largest Mayan sites discovered.
National Geographic have a cool website about the Mayans here, and there's info about Tikal here.
It's really hard to describe places like this, you literally walk for miles thought the jungle and there's these MASSIVE structures appearing from nowhere - it's like you're in an Indiana Jones movie - absolutely amazing.
Unfortunately it was so hot I got a little sun stroky and had to collapse in the shower, but this place was definitely worth it - you could spend days here exploring all the nooks a crannies. Though tonnes of people visit, it's so bloody big you barely even notice.
For those of you who are super keen-eyed little nerdy werdys you may recognise this place as the location of the rebel base in star wars (minus the space ships etc) - and no I didn't know that until our guide Carlos told me (he and George Lucas go waaay back apparently)
TIKAL (24 photos)
The main plaza at Tikal (Temples 1 and 2)

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The folk at CyArk have awesome 360 panoramas
here definitely worth a look