In which I track creatures from the deep, go with dead bodies over sheep and power-walk the island

My time in Barbados has been brilliantly odd right from the start. After dragging my recently acclimatised body to Gatwick airport I found my flight had been canceled as the plane was stuck in Barbados having hit a bird! So on top of feeling guilty about carbon emissions now I have bird murder on my conscience! This does not bode well for my hippy credentials. Luckily they got us on the next flight and soon I was touching down to the balmy heat of Barbados.

 I am staying with a friend of a friend, a woman called Lorna who is very well known and respected in the island due to her work with the Coastal Protection Agency (Barbados is mainly coast and Lorna is a real high flyer in the global discussions on marine conservation). Now having a coastal expert as a landland has some interesting consequences. Lorna and her sister Claudia met me at the airport and quickly informed me that, before going home, we would quickly pop to a beach to see a weird, unidentified, white, gelatinous creature that had washed up on the shore and been freaking people out. Worried that the white, jelly-like creature appearing on the shores somehow related to my arrival and crossed messages we headed off for my first peak of a Bajan beach, and a creature from the deep.

 The news of the sea creature was top of the agenda when I arrived into the newspaper office where I am interning (it turned out to be whale blubber and not some pale, British girl)  so we moved on to other stories. Barbados Today is a national, online newspapers and with its relatively small team is a great place for me to get some hands on journalism experience. My first day was suitably random, at first I was asked to contact the sheep farming organisation to ask if a new calypso song about “taking my sheep to town” was good for the industry or if it was in fact sheep exploitation. Yup you couldn't get much more Craggy island! But that was interrupted by a colleague asking me if I wanted to come and investigate a dead body in a car. “Wanted” was maybe not the work I would have used but off I went and got my first taste of reporting on deaths. A bit unsettling but oddly not as creepy as I thought it would have been.

Since then I have met the Minister for Education (who was super relaxed and chatty) and have written up a few articles. I may have also have discovered an new tourist mode: the tourist reporter. There is no better way to get to know the island better than racing around investigating the news. Of course not being able to tell the Minister of Education from Adam makes things about bit harder but I am doing my best to catch up.

When I am not interning, coming up with stories, finishing my MA thesis, starting my Journalism Diploma or applying for jobs I have managed to see a bit of the island. My weekend was actually uncharacteristically athletic. I spent Saturday morning on a 2 hour swimming session on a beautiful white sand, turquoise sea beach. Unfortunately, even going early in the morning didn't mean I escaped coming out of the sea as red as a lobster (beats white, gelatinous blob I guess). Breaking news: The sun in Barbados is hot!

Sunday brought more fun. I went to a big Sunday, family lunch with Lorna and her family. With twelve of us squashed round her sister's big dining table we scoffed down delicious food: cornbread, sweet potato, rice and peas, chayote and other goodies. It was all soooo good and was really lovely to be part of this big, typical Bajan lunch. (It is strange, every now and then the Bajan accent sounds a little Northern Irish, (other times West Country) and in a big group of sisters talking to their mum I feel like I am back visiting the grandparents in Ireland. Comforting in many ways!)

However the gluttony was soon to end as I headed off on a National Trust Sunday hike. Now this was advertised as the easiest of the walks, and if it was then I dread to see a hard one! We started out by one of the two remaining sugar factories and set off (virtually at a run) through the intense afternoon heat (we're averaging mid-30s here!). The walk/jog took 3 hours and we traveled about 8 miles, through forested gullys, hacking our way through dense undergrowth and clambering over hurricane-felled trees. Scrambling through the forest and up steep hills I was reminded of my childhood days of playing “freedom-fighters in the forest”, that classic children's game. A great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Sweat drenched but happy I finally arrived home having had a fascinating tour of the low flat, green fields of sugar cane, the damp, cool forests and the wide-sky sunsets that this beautiful country has to offer.

The main thing that has struck me about Barbados, other than the stunning postcard scenery, is just how lovely people are. And I don’t just mean smiley, I mean go-out-of-their-way-for-others lovely. The first example I found was Lorna and her sister Claudia who have been so sweet showing me round and making me feel at home. Lorna is a real gym buff and Claudia is a professional baker.... you can imagine whose skills I have been drawing on. Claudia and I had a huge baking session where she taught me to make pound cake- a delicious, dense sponge with raisins and essence in. We now have a fridge full of cake so instead of taking advantage of Lorna’s home gym I am just sat stuffing myself with delicious treats!

 Another example of kindness is when, coming back from Bridgetown, I managed to get on the wrong bus. As we got to the end of the line and I realised I hadn't found my stop I looked bewilderedly at the bus driver who calmly asked where I had been trying to go. When he didn’t know the directions to point me in he instead drove his big, empty bus around for 10 minutes until we found my house! Now that is service!


So yeah, if things keep going this well this is going to be a brilliant month! I am going to try making more cakes, go surfing a few times and check out the start of the huge festival called “Crop Over”. So stay tuned.

This is Maeve McClenaghan reporting for The Year of Jam Times, Paradise.


Lessons learnt:


Number one: Barbados is paradise. Seriously. I always thought it was a bit of a cliched holiday destination but wow is it beautiful!

I am one of the fastest walkers I know and have endangered many friendships because of it. I have nothing on Bajan hikers!

Pound cake involves a pound of sugar, a pound of eggs and a pound of sugar. And I have two of them in my fridge. Calling to me. Constantly calling to me. As a result I will plan to stay away from beaches when reporters or easily spooked fishermen are around.

In which I nip home, worship beans and remember there is just no hiding from the “London weird night out”

It was with a blurry head and bloodshot eyes that I arrived into London having made the now all too familiar flight back from Costa Rica. With a year´s worth of luggage to drag onto the tube and into a taxi I didn't have much energy for mopping over leaving though. I managed to haul my Tica life possessions all the way to Kings Cross on the tube then gave up the fight and dragged them to a taxi. Driving through the drizzly, graffiti covered streets of East London, retracing the cab ride that had taken me from my London life on the way out, I was so excited to be back home! New bars and galleries called to me from the fogged up windows while the streets were full of the most interestingly dressed people I had ever seen! It was a feast for my sleepy eyes.

I arrived at Ciara´s and filled her room with my junk (habit of a life time) before dragging her off for a good old English breakfast! Ahhh hashbrowns and beans! (Fran had come to visit a few weeks before which was awesome, and really warrants a blog which I may try and slot in somewhere. He had brought me 7 cans of beans as well as an awesome Will and Kate tea towel, so the taste sensation wasn't all new but it was good to be back in a greasy spoon.) Crashed out sleeping for 3 hours before dragging my tired butt out to meet Sho and Ella at The Reliance (my and Sho´s regular). First real pint in ages went down well as did catching up with these amazing ladies. I popped off to get a briefing on Barbados from Terry and his wife which was really exciting and certainly helped pump up the adrenalin. Just as well because I nipped back to see Ella and Sho again and ended up in The Macbeth, with my face painted like a cat dancing to Shaggy's My Boombastic. I don't know why I was surprised.

The next day I met up with Conor, Ciara and Dad and had a great chippy lunch and a walk round St James Park. I´d forgotten just how brilliantly odd my family can be, especially Conor who named the squirrels after dead comedians and confectionery... for a reason I can´t remember). Later Ciara and I re-enacted our infamous nights out on Brick Lane which start with “well just a glass of wine to accompany the curry” and end up with us stalking boys and dancing raucously in Cafe 1001 or 93ft East. Nothing has changed.

On Sunday I met up with a great range of friends for a Sunday lunch in Angel. So lovely to see all these amazing people from different walks of my life around one table sharing stories. Plus I love Sunday lunch. So win win! Next met up with Mum and Con and walked along the South Bank (uber London) then went to see Stewart Lee's curated comedy show at the Royal Festival Hall. A mixed affair but awesome to see a fair portion of The Young Ones casts and John Cooper Clarke.

That was all there was time for before I was repacking my faithful bags for the next chapter of the Year of Jam: Barbados!

Lessons learnt:

Four days is not long enough to see London/ catch up with friends/ recover from jet-lag.

Mushy peas are a taste sensation and should be added to more meals!

Squirrels do not eat Twix bars Conor. Not even a half.

In which I pack it up pack it in, realise it is time to say goodbye, and rip off other song lyrics to try and mop up the sop

It is strange to think that just under a year ago I opened up my computer to write a blog which word for word could describe my feelings now. Those feelings, stripped of their poetic elegance, go something like this: Noooooooooooooooooo I don't want to go!!!!

The last few days of my time in Costa Rica passed in a blur of numb packing and emotionally charged goodbyes. I dragged all my books and readers up to campus and lugged my heavy heart back home with me. Don´t get me wrong, I was seriously excited about heading back (briefly!) to see friends and family and for all my adventures ahead but over the months my Costa Rica life had become, well, my life. This was my town, my routine, my favourite foods and my new extended family, and it seemed totally incomprehensible that I should be leaving it all behind. Again.

As you may have gathered over the past few blogs this has been an incredible year. I haven´t mentioned my classes that much, and heaven knows I´m not sure I feel like an MA student, but it has been absolutely fascinating to study again and International Law and Human Rights was the perfect course for me. But my head is filled with more than just facts, I also have a cranium full of memories which I am truly grateful for. Like tea and cake on Marion's porch, the looks of locals faces as I did my lonely Santa fun run, sitting out on my porch playing guitar and singing to the evening sky with Ben, wild dance moves and eternal bus rides with Isabelle, hang-over market breakfasts with Rafa and green food-dye with Patrick and a hundred other people and places that made this a special time.

The only thing that really got me through it was thinking back to the very first blog I wrote, where I was sure I was making the biggest mistake of my life walking away from the people and place I love. I read those words again trying to make this girl recognise herself in that girl and reassuring myself that the future will bring more good times.

So I have decided to keep this blog going a while longer. It is meant to be lessons from Central America, but there are lessons to learn elsewhere too. I have made it to eight countries and 3 continents in the past 9 months... and the plan is not to slow down just yet.

So I´ll close this soppy chapter with a poem my Mum gave to me on my very first, fresh faced adventure (I went inter-railing at 17 and caught the travel bug... and miraculously not bed bugs!) I am trying to hold on to the words of this poem and keep my achy breaky leaving heart together for a while longer.

Away and See- Carol Ann Duffy

Away and see an ocean suck at a boiled sun
and say to someone things I’d blush even to dream.
Slip off your dress in a high room over the harbour.
Write to me soon.
New fruits sing on the flipside of night in a market
of language, light, a tune from the chapel nearby
stopping you dead, the peach in your palm respiring.
Taste it for me.
Away and see the things that wordsgive a name to, the flight
of syllables, wingspan stretching a noun. Test words
wherever they live; listen and touch, smell, believe.
Spell them with love.
Skedaddle. Somebody chaps at the door at a year’s end, hopeful.
Away and see who it is. Let in the new, the vivid,
horror and pity, passion, the stranger holding the future.
Ask him his name.
Nothing’s the same as anything else. Away and see
for yourself. Walk. Take a boat till land reappears,
altered forever, ringing its bells, alive. Go on. G’on. Gon.
Away and see.

Lessons learnt:

Costa Rica is paradise. UPEACE is a weird and very special place. The students there are the most fascinating and brilliant student body around!

Rice and beans doesn´t get old!

I am an unattractive crier (but I knew that already)

In which I refute Aldous Huxley, play the Virgin Mary and walk on flowers

A fair few weeks have passed since I rolled into Antigua, Guatemala one dark, misty night, but it has taken me that long to process all that went on there. After another epic 10 hour bus journey we squeezed our way into the busy, dark, wide streets of Antigua. As our big rucksacks were bustled by the throngs of people crowding the streets we realised just how silly we had been to pop to a legendary festival town on the busiest weekend of the year without hostel reservations. For a while it was beginning to look just like a biblical story, no room at the inn anywhere.... and just to add to the confusion as we went to cross a street in search of a manger our path was blocked by the eery apparition of a huge Jesus Statue being carried along in a procession of trumpets and swinging incense clouds.

Perhaps I better explain about Antigua. You see the small town is renowned in Central America for its Easter Celebrations. Every year the town fills with people, statues and processions fill the streets and the roads are adorned with beautiful carpets of dried flowers and coloured sawdust, destined to be trampled under pious feet. 

So within 10 minutes of arriving in the town all our expectations had been confirmed! Miraculously we managed to find a place to stay (one step up from a donkey’s pen) and we went out for a better look around.

The whole town had a feel of a Dan Brown novel (but better written). Everyone taking part in the procession wore long, purple robes and carried cross-topped staffs. Clouds of incense hung in the air long after the floating effigies had passed. Each Statue base was the size of a small car and involved lines of people either side lugging the weigh on their shoulders like coffin bearers.

We spent the next couple of days taking in the dramatic displays. On Good Friday things stepped up a notch and we were disconcerted to have just bought lunch at a busy little food market only to look up and see an effigy of Judas hanging from the trees. After 3pm, the time Jesus was crucified, everyone changed to black robes, making things even more eerie and giving the place a sense of mourning.

It was particularly interesting to watch the almost masochistic precision with which people took to making the carpets of flowers which lined the routes and were trodden to dust under the procession’s feet. Something interestingly cyclical and re-birth-like about that. But, for the short time they existed they painted the streets with glorious colours and patterns, offset nicely by the moving, constant sea of purple robes.

Easter Saturday Ben I am decided to head to Lake Atitilan, which Aldous Huxley described as the most beautiful lake in the world. Now Huxley was pretty smart and all but he clearly hadn’t been to the lake on Easter weekend. Instead of the pristine, natural beauty we were expecting we were welcomed with hoards and hoards of Guatemalan party makers. It was actually great to be away from the tourist crowds and we had a great time exploring. It turns out Lake Atitilan, on Easter weekend at least, is Central America’s answer to Blackpool! We made chip butties, took a bumpy boat ride out onto the rainy lake (my scenic seat meant I got very very wet and caused the other passengers no end of delight), watched the ring toss, fairground games and Ben got his wallet robbed. It was the whole deal! A very bizarre day out, not at all what Huxley had promised us but a strange new world at least!

On Easter Day itself I accompanied Ben to the cathedral for 5 minutes of mass before my atheism got in the way and I headed to the artisan chocolate shop and the comic book store for some decadence.

The next day we were up at 4.30am for a flight back to Costa Rica, and we got back just in time to catch the bus up to uni! Many coffees later and I was home at last after a fantastic Easter holiday!

Lessons learnt:

Whether in Guatemala or Mexico- always always always try the spicy sauce before slathering your food in it.

Dyed sawdust may not be a smart business career path but for one weekend in Guatemala you could make a fortune!

No matter how much you know it is not the point, big, pointy white hoods can’t help but scare the pants of me with reminders of the KKK!

In which I play the revolutionary cowboy, try not to steal souls and improve on a carrot

There are a few cities in the world that I feel I could settle in (these itchy feet don’t stop just anywhere!) San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas is one of those (others being London, Granada, Amsterdam and Cuzco in case you are interested/ fancy meeting me there). After just a few hours wandering San Cristobal that was it, I had fallen for the city.

San Cristobal is a beautiful, old-colonial city full of handsome building and cultural happenings. This was the focal point of the Zapatistas’ uprising in 1994, when Sub-Comandante Marcos announced to the bewildered tourists now surrounded by balaclava-clan Zapatista protesters that “We are sorry for the inconvenience, but this is a revolution.” Revolution and ironic good-manners. Oh yes you can see why the history seeping out of this place appealed to me!

Our merry band of travellers had temporarily dived, simply due to the fact that taking two taxis to what turns out to be a ghost hostel, and without mobile phones it is sometimes necessary to give up searching and find a place to sleep before regrouping. All those hours spent watching Ray Mears are beginning to pay off you see: survival techniques of mobile phone-less worlds. So anyway, without eating animal dung or whittling any canoes Diego, Lindsay and I found a hostel and settled in for the night.

I spent my time in San Cristobal trying to suck up as much information about the Zapatistas and as much cultural fun as possible. I also managed to find a load of hang-outs that would have been my locals in the alternative universe where I lived in this city. One key find was a great tea-shop with a documentary film festival on. I spent my first night in the city sat in a tent on the building’s roof, sat in a camp-chair and, trying not to be distracted by the twinkling lights of the city and the random fireworks, to focus on the small projector screen. The film was called Maria Sabina and quietly and slowly told the story of an old woman in the Chiapas hills who was a spiritual healer, using magic mushrooms as her medicine. She would feed her patient mushrooms as well as herself, they would then hallucinate (and come out with some beautiful poetry) until one of them vomited, expelling the illness (or, call me a cynic, the mushrooms). It’s here if you are interested... http://wn.com/maria_sabina  It was a nicely made film and gave me an idea for a story which I will try and find time to write at some point.

Another night I crammed into a three-sofa screen room to watch another documentary on the Zapatista’s structural changes. So yes, I ended up watching some TV on holiday but it was educational, honest!

It wasn’t all TV though. There was food and drink too. On the great tip of my friend Kayla (you might remember her from such blogs as New Year in Panama), I dragged the others to a cool cafe called Cafe Revolution. Covered in politicial stencils and posters it was something of a tourist trap but made great Micheladas (beer with lime, spices, some tomato juice and salt and pepper- savoury-er beer!  The spice makes downing it too quickly hard at least).

The rest of the time in the city is a blur of bookshops, markets, horchata, mole, hot chocolate and plenty of tequila. We managed to find ourselves in a Blues bar one night, being sung to in English, which was pretty disorientating. We also hung out in a great Zapatista cafe complete with propaganda posters and book shop.

I also found my alternative-universe-regular-bar, a mescal bar. (Mezcal is a liquor made from cactus. I am not quite sure how it is different from tequila but after one or two you don’t seem to care.) This tiny bar was full of local hipsters with some of the best moustaches I have ever seen. The walls were dotted with shrines to lucha-libre-wrestler-saints, there was a toilet instead of a barstool, beer only came served in plastic yard-of-ale glasses and as well as peanuts you got deep-fried bugs as bar snacks. Sigh. Eighteen years of vegetarianism gone for a crispy cricket. But at least now I have a better answer to the “what’s the weirdest thing you have ever eaten” question other than a funny shaped carrot. (Yes our UPEACE exam questions really are tricky).

On our last day Lindsay and I jumped into the back of a Toyota truck and trundled our way up to the hills above the city to horse-ride up to local town Chamula. It was lovely riding up through the green forest,  past a Zapatista university and past families working on their farms. The waves and smiles from the local children just about distracted me from the wooden saddle slowly numbing my butt.

Barely able to walk we dismounted at Chamula and explored the bustling market square and its rows of piled fruits, beans and (moving piles of) hermit crabs. Our explorations were rhythmically punctuated with the sounds of explosions. They were setting off fireworks for San Pedro’s Saint’s Day but given it was mid-day we only heard the noises, and having secretly pretended I was a cowboy for the past hour it was hard not to run from cover from the gunshots! Anyway, it spooked me, if not the horses.

After making our way through the market we headed to the beautiful green and blue church. Inside it was the most amazing church I’ve been to. The floor was scattered with pine needles and leaning against the wall were fully grown pine trees. The walls were lined with shrines to saints, each illuminated by jars of candles crowded in front. On the floor there were lines and lines of thin, taper candles melted upright like penitent worshippers. People knelt on the needle-strewn floor, in their black, furry ponchos chanting and praying aloud. The whole effect was remarkable, if not a little on the fire-hazard side.

Back in the city we were treated to another spectacle when we went to a dance show- a bit like the West End Lion King but about a battle between Mayan tribes.  Beautiful costumes and gymnastics but as it was in an anchient dialect the only thing I could get was that they said Palenque a lot. But who doesn’t.

Ok my brain has run out of superlatives so I’ll stop going on about San Cristobal for now but I’d advise you to come and visit me there in the alternative universe (p.s. you might want to find someone else to stay with though cos Gael Garcia Bernal lives with me in that universe and it could get a bit crowded.)

Lessons learnt:

In Chamula you can’t take pictures of people as they believe it steals their soul (same as the Innuit, interesting that despite distance and separation the same beliefs crop up!) So I resisted, despite the philosophical conundrum: if they don’t see me take the photo is that still disrespectful to their beliefs? My head hurt too much from the fireworks so I never puzzled it out.

Four hour horse-rides on wooden saddles aren’t great preparation for another epic bus journey. Probably should have been able to work that out.

Mexican street food is amazing! Corn on the cob covered in lime and hot sauce and empanadas make sore stomachs worth it!

In which I almost sneak into Mexico, give up the fight and decide to stick on the human side of Bruce Wayne

After the physical exertions of the Mayan ruins we were ready to pass out on the journey to Mexico. Not that it was without some exertions of its own. Our eight hour journey was made up of a bumpy bus ride to the Guatemalan border where we got our exit stamps. Loaded up with our bags we were shepherded on a rickety long boat for a 45 minute journey down the Usumacinta River. The peaceful journey down the wide, green river, lined with local families bathing and washing their clothes on the banks, was only punctuated by the nagging suspicion that, having not reached the Mexican border post, we were, in fact, sneaking illegally into the country. Good things don’t seem to happen to illegal immigrants in Mexico. Gulp. Fortunately a short walk after the boat brought us to the post and the necessary stamp. Finally I had made it (legally) to Mexico!

Not five minutes after negotiating our way through the border control our bus was stopped to collect a voluntary donation for up-keeps on the local village. Now all those months of reading about Mexican officials’ corruption had got me on guard and seemed to be playing out. We asked if this was an official tax or if it was voluntary. We were told it was not mandatory so being the cheapskate students we were decided not to pay... only to be told they weren’t going to let the bus move until we did. Five minutes in Mexico and I was in a hold-up situation, perfect. Bravely (or grouchily) we stood our ground for 10 minutes before getting bored and handing over a couple of dollars so we could just move on!

Several hours of buses later we arrived in a steamy, hot town called Palenque. We had a trek finding a hostel and headed out to refresh with quesadillas, horchata and a steady stream of amazingly colourful mariachi music videos on the cafe’s TV. No one makes a low budget, horrifyingly cringeworthy music video like Mexican mariachis. Fact.

Now this was one of my standard travels so there was no time for common things like relaxing or sitting still. We pushed on for an action packed day taking in all of Palenque’s treats. We started at the Palenque ruins- smaller and slightly newer than the Tikal ones but very impressive all the same. Surrounded by steamy forests and blossoming trees they had a strange Oriental feel, added to by the pagodaish roofs on some of the buildings. (Pagodaish is a word.)

Having build up a sweat dragging ourselves up more temple steps we were happy to move on the beautiful, tall Misol Ha waterfall. We chilled out under the fall for a while before Ben and I ventured our way into a pitch black cave. Led by a guide with a flashlight we carefully traversed our way through the shin-high water and thin rock passages until the cave opened up into a dark, little cavern. A scan with our guide’s torch revealed the low-ceilinged cave was full of water with a small waterfall at the back. Looming quietly in the blackness the dark pool was irresistible and seconds later I found myself slipping into the freezing, black water, my only guidance coming from the  strobbing flash of people taking photos. It was pretty darn scary in there and it was all I could do to banish possible horror-movie scenarios from my mind.

Having made it out of the cave without being eaten by zombie-cave-sharks we gathered the group and made our way on to a series of impossibly aquamarine rapids and waterfalls called (unoriginally) Agua Azul. There we bathed again and ate guacamole, empanadas and BBQ.

Bathed and full we got back on the bus for yet another epic bus-ride on to the colonial town of San Cristobal where we would lose each other and all fall in love with the city.

Lessons learnt:

Despite my love of Batman, it turns out dark caves are not my favourite hang out.

Screaming one’s head off in a dark, echoey cave does little to suppress your fears.... or indeed those of the people around you.

Fighting corruption is important. But $2 fines after hours on a bus can make one sell out principles for movement!

In which I break in to Mayan temples, climb a stairway to heaven and am proud to be a loser

Since working on Mexican rights at Amnesty Chile I´ve had a longing to explore Mexico. A questionnable dream given that I had done nothing but campaign on corruption, oppression and femicide. Despite that trauma those months in Chile grew an attraction and loyalty in me that the intervening years haven´t shaken. So with my time in Central America running out I took advantage of the last break we had (Semana Santa/ Holy Week) to race up and see what I could see. We managed to get a bargain flight to Guatemala City (about 90 quid return!) and put together a merry band of travellers before heading off for one last hurrah!

The first couple of days have been a blur of sights and buses, and the sickening sight of buses. As soon as we arrived in Guatemala we hopped on a mammoth 8 hour bus to Flores, a lake-side island town in the north of the country. Having spent an entire day (4.30am-11-45pm) travelling we rested up before regrouping the team the next morning (people had arrived on different flights and buses.) We spent our first real day of the holiday wandering round the sunny heat of the little island town, traversing its higgledy piggledy maze of winding streets and brightly coloured houses.

Later in the afternoon we hopped onto a tiny boat and paid the boat man 50p each to take up across the lake to another little island. There a 20 minute walk (in 36oC heat) turned into a 1.5 hr hike in search of the beach. Finally reaching our watery destination (with all my faded years of orientation melting behind me), we soon cooled off in the cold, blue waters of the lake. With shade a rarity I took advantage of the picnic table palm leaf umbrellas and stretched myself out on the table top for a quick cat-nap.

That evening chilled out and tired we hung out, drank Guatemalan beer and ate 20p tostadas (big, round corn chips laden with guacamole and other goodies), from a near-by street seller.

The next day we were up at 5.30am to go exploring the near-by Mayan ruins of Tikal, (supposedly the best in Guatemala, and perhaps anywhere!) As we drove along, with the sun rising, a thick mist settled over the road giving the whole thing a real adventurous feel. Through the fog the road was flanked by yellow signs warning of pumas, snakes, anteaters.... and turkies. Warning: turkies crossing. Bizarre.

Our Del-boy style taxi driver hooked us up with Constantino, a little, sun-weathered man with 25 years experience guiding people around the ruins. Fortunately for us Constantino seemed to have seen his fair share of penniless students and so assured us he could get us in the park for 2/3 the actual price. What he failed to mention, but slowly became apparent, was that this involved skipping the ticket booth and sneaking in through the rolling jungle around the ruins. As if the constant threat of turkies wasn´t enough to make me feel like a brave adventurer now this!

Despite breaking and entering us into priceless, historical ruins Constantino turned out to be a great guide. Our first breath-taking moment was coming across one of the huge, stepped, pyramids- a Mayan temple. Looming out of the lush jungle this towering structure was an incredible sight. Things got even more spectacular when, having summed up all my courage, I, with trembling legs, scaled the rickety, ladder-like steps up the side of the 50m tall temple. Edging my way onto the narrow stone ledge at the precipice of the man-made beast my breath was taken- with fear, altitude (ok more fear) but mainly the stunning view of a sea of green tree-tops broken sporadically by the soaring tops of other temples. I lasted about 10 minutes before the majesty of the sight before me was overcome by the terror of the drop below me and I shakily climbed down, truly exhilarated.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the ruins. Tikal means "city of voices" and the temples were built in such a way that acoustics meant preists could preach from the top of them and the people down below would hear every word. This wonderous feat of architecture is an added bonus for the modern day eaves dropper. It does however mean dozens of people may have been treated to some rather vulgar, terror-inspired language from yours truly.

We explored Mundo Perdido (Lost World), the last sight to be found, full of residential stone palaces, and climbed another 2 huge temples. My fear of heights having subsided, by then my legs were just shaking with pure fatigue!

We learnt about the Mayan ball game in which the winners, the winners mind, had the honour of having their heads cut off (men) or beating heart ripped out (women)! The girls we are travelling with are on their way to play in a football tournament in Hondauras, and this, frankly, was not the pepp talk they needed.

Visiting the Mayan temples of Tikal was a really magical experience. The Mayan´s knowledge of astrology is spookily accurate and the grandness and druability of their temples an awe-inspiring accomplishment, (and one I got to see before the Mayan-predicted end of the world in 2012!) The next few days would bring plenty more sights and advenures but the magic of Tikal will stay with me for a while!

Lessons learnt:

Forget step aerobics, temple climbing is the best workout around!

A tiny budget meant all I ate for several meals was cheese sandwiches. Cheese butties don´t quite live up to the spendour of a lost civilization, but they do make you feel like you´re on a school trip.

I am truly proud to be bad bad bad at ball games!