Last day in Caye Caulker

Finally, I've got the courage to leave the island. The ten days here has been really idylic in most respects. Early in the morning relatively speaking there's a boat to Belize City and then a bus straight through to Flores. Can't imagine that there'll be too many problems but the Foreign Office guidelines do warn against taking the chicken buses which the locals use probably to ensure the tourists can support the more expensive transport laid on for them.

Haven't read up on Guatemala yet and don't know where I'll be staying in Flores just yet though I hope everything remains as peaceful as things have been already. Mexico was just fine and there were no major disturbances and Belize has been a breeze. Like the atmosphere on the island. I hope everyone gets to come here one day in their lives.

There have been a few minor issues here and I find the lifestyle generally too laid back for me personally but it has made a bold impression on me how harmonious life in the Carribean can be. There certainly are problems here but I guess that I can't really make a contribution to easing them that readily and I assume several charities and the government itself support aid work here. I don't know how much of a contribution the British Government makes to British Honduras as was but I assume that there is some reason for them to continue being part of the Commonwealth.

Belize - Should I stay or should I go?

It has been over a week since I arrived in Caye Caulker. The blue green seas have not left me feeling any reason to leave. I do feel very much like I am staying where I belong to an extent and I do feel some affinity with the local situation here. For years I couldn't understand why my dad's carpentry skills were so poor. As a child there seemed no explanation for why his woodworking was quite so bizarre and now it seems relatively clear. He must have been Caribbean in a past life. The standard of all the hotels, where you can get a rather ramshackle little room for $25.00 Belize a night (about six pounds fifty sterling). It does remind me of the rabbit hutches that my dad made in the 1970s out of whatever 3" x 2" timber he could get his hands on. I kind of wait to be fed and watered like one of the rabbits but that hasn't happened yet.

There seems to be similar left wing politics in Mexico as there has been over the last thirty years in the UK. There is a push from the right to privatise much of what seems to run quite well and there could well be success in doing this. I assume similar politics are prevelant in Belize. Most of the locals here seem to support the socialists who I presume will try to stop this. I don't know how successful they'll be with this type of action. I actually feel so lazy here that I haven't really worked out what is going on to much of a degree.

It is better having been in the same place for over a week in terms of the reaction that I get from the staff in shops and in terms of the general service although I really should have done more than make a couple of snorkelling trips and lie in the sun on more than one occasion. Laziness is probably something that westerners want to explore here in the Caribbean than anywhere else. Loafing is an interest of mine and has been for as long as I can remember. As a Briton, we don't like loafing within our own culture, we tend to want to loaf in a more cosmopolitan manner whether it's through Buddhist mediation or Belize styled Creole culture. We should loaf and be proud, but alas we don't.

It does feel reminiscent of 1970s Birmingham hearing Creole styled accents around Caye Caulker and to an extent, I must admit that I think there is a very nice reminder of the phase of settlement in the West Midlands of the Black population. I used to go to Coventry City Centre to be reminded of 1970's architechture that I knew and liked in Birmingham, maybe if you do that and like it then possibly come to Belize to be reminded of some West Indian culture that is being forced underground.

On the way to Chetumal - border crossing into Belize.

Back in Palenque with just a couple of hours to kill I find myself not really that content to sit in the walkthrough bus station with a fan blasting hot air at me for the remainder of the time I have here. Palenque is a modest and pleasant enough little town which is dependent upon the tourist trade generated by the ruins to survive. It does feel relatively affluent in developing world terms and is to a large extent relatively comfortable as a place to stop off.

My out of date guide book states that Belize, the country I shall be in this time tomorrow, has little in the way of ATMs and suggests getting cash on this side of the border before leaving Chetumal. I´m taking the chance that things have improved significantly since 2004 when the book was published.

It´s unusual thinking about going to a country that you don´t really have very much in the way of knowledge of. I don´t have a set itinerary in mind because only a couple of things recommended by the guide book seem to be of general appeal and I can´t really complain when I´m heading into a tropical paradise which is a former British colony so at least I should be able to communicate in English readily without too much of a problem. Maybe I should work on my Creole.

Aside from snorkelling on the reef which annoyed the hell out of the colonial sailors making landing in Belize very difficult I don´t know if I´ll be able to do much more than lie in a hammock there. Apparently, this is done to olympic standards in most of the nation. Laziness and loafing are too poorly understood in the West and tend to be seen in very negative terms - maybe it´s necessary to try to explore such concepts in a tropical paradise in order to understand them back in the UK.

I remember middle John from Plymouth Poly days spent some time in Belize though I don´t recall exactly what he did. I think I´ve already met about half a dozen people here who have done the night shift of moving about turtle eggs just after they´ve been laid and moving them to a safe location to hatch. It strikes me as the most popular voluntary work activity in the country, maybe I´ve got a slightly jaundiced view on this subject - one third of the population live in substandard conditions, absolute poverty.

Apparently, Guatemala still does not recognise Belize as an independent state and sees it more as their own. The Guatemalan authorities apparently produce maps including much of Southern Belize in Guatemalan territory and occasionally there are invasions from Guatemalan territory. I certainly hope I don´t have the misfortune of getting caught up in the crossfire.

Still, I´ve got a bus to catch, a border to cross and a hammock to lie in....

Palenque, meaning in photographs and Mexican women.

While I´ve dabbled in photography more in a pseudo-documentary style managing to capture only the most cliched of images, it has provided the basis of at least a continuing ´reason to be´ rather than a discipline which has helped my get my act together. I state this having looked at the area of fine art photography which to the novice may appear to be a means of conning some unsuspecting art lover out of a few hundred thousand for one or two images that were created on a PC and then printed to a high standard. This is something that I have not achieved, nor aspired to believe it or not.

The question of where 'art´ comes into a photograph will always be asked, even in the case of individuals like myself who can barely remember what they did from one day to the next and tended to want a record largely to ensure that they had at least the vaguest recollection of what had gone on the previous few days. The images I have of Mexico, which to me vary from ´standard holiday photo´ to ´club amateur who has stepped out just a little´ by for instance, combining images of architecture influenced by some still life photography that he saw at one of the club exhibitions a year or so before. Whether there is the gulf between fine art and club photography tends to be a question that maybe could be addressed over several seasons. To an extent, it´s the gulf between enjoyment and possession, the difference between self and society as well may be.

Shots I took this morning didn't really do the landscape justice. The pine forests that surround San Cristobal on the decending journey down to Palenque tended to frame valleys which were filled with mist. Each ridge of pine forests was getting more and more opaque as you looked into the distance with the mist increasing every few hundred yards. Maybe there could be some form of fine art image from this, but it is too self indulgent. The images I did get together on the way would cause a great deal of frustration for some. I know how some club seniors wince at the thought of a shot taken through the window of a bus.

The shots I took in Palenque tended to be rather straightforward snaps until I started heading towards the exit and the pathways down to the museum were shaded with darts of light dropping through onto the stone pathway. Then things really came alive for me. Can't upload today because my cables are in left-luggage while I wait for the bus tonight to take me to Chetumal before crossing the border tomorrow daytime into Belize.

Palenque as an historic site does require a little preparation before wandering in amongst the ruins of what was probably a very notorious kingdom. The Mayan Indians tend not to be as widely discussed in the west as say the Aztecs, however, there is testament to their ingenuity shown by the aqueducts that remain with water still running through and at the sheer scale of the monuments which have largely been restored and replenished rather than showing the nature of the damage that had been done to them by several centuries of dereliction. I can only imagine that Hollywood could capture the surprise that must have been experienced by the Spanish colonisers when they were informed of this lost kingdom which had become overgrown and dominated by the encroaching jungle. Exploring something that would have been disregared by westerners, if not totally unknown to them for the first time must have been quite remarkable.

Having said that there were some very cute looking Mexican women wandering around the site as well - I don´t know the Spanish phrase for ´marry me you sexy beast´ but suffice to say if I did I would probably have used it a few times by now in the last ten days in Mexico. It is almost as if Hollywood was created to transmit an image of beauty of tanned women with high cheekbones, broad smiles, full figures and exotic eyes that seems to be synonymous with the look of the Mexican woman. I guess I struggle to find the words for shock when an attractive woman appears from behind a street corner and just happens to wander right past. Or maybe the heat is getting to me...

Palenque is well worth a visit if only to marvel at the thought of the first people from the west to explore what was largely lost to the world for several hundred years. That and the senoritas who also happen to inhabit the site these days.

San Cristobal - The museum of Mayan culture.

I don´t think I have been to a museum before that makes you feel like joining the tribe of indians in the rainforest quite so much as the Na Bolom Museum of Mayan culture in San Cristobal. It is an ideal small stop off for an hour or so and does give you the feeling that you´re wandering around in the home of Indiana Jones or in this case Franz Blom (archaeologist) and his wife Gertrude Blom (photographer and environmentalist). I´ll aim at getting some of the shots from there online in the next few days - it really was quite special.

There are some cracking shots of the mayan people on the walls of the museum that I had to assume were taken by Gertrude Blom - it appears that if you want to see them you would probably need to visit the museum as there doesn´t look like there is much in the way of books that cover the work of the Bloms available online. Another issue which struck me as being very unusual was that several of the Mayans had haircuts that appeared very mullett-like, the photographs of these tended to be from the 1950´s. I did wonder if the inspiration behind the McCartney mullet of the 1970´s was actually Mayan or perhaps from elsewhere - who know´s he doesn´t read my blog.

San Cristobal remains cool. It does feel very laid back here and I must get around to doing something other than lying in the hammock in the courtyard of the hostal that I am staying in. If you´re passing this way it´s called Los Palomas and is on Guadalupe Victoria of the Zocalo. At 85 Pesos a night, about 4.50 sterling, it´s not a bad deal though all of the hostals in Mexico have been fine.

San Cristobal - Up in the pine forest mountains

Woke about one pm here and have found it to be a reasonable place to be. San Cristobal is the former state capital and is known like Ouxaca for the colonial architecture though having a far more indigenous population - most local business seems to be run by more indigenous looking Indian people than in say Mexico City where the US or Spanish influence is stronger.

I haven´t done anything yet today. I kept bumping into a guy from Mauritaus who was nice enough but not exhausted to the same degree I have been. It is really a pleasant enough little town with enough of the colonial influence alive to make it feel like a Winchester, Bath or Windsor type of place to be.

Will do all I can to recover and find a way of planning out the next few days this evening.

Puerto Escondido

Have been here for a couple of days and things have gone quite well. The beach is pretty small and though there´s plenty of surf and things to do I´m afraid I´ve tended to sit in cafes all day long and not really do very much. This has been a pretty good place to stay and I´ve felt generally very safe here. It´s very different in terms of it´s atmosphere to Mexico city but it is a very small town.

Off to San Cristobal tonight and I don´t know if there is anything that I can say about the thought of being on a bus for 13 and 1/2 hours over night. Have done it once to many times for this to become a very appealling thing to do. It´s all very much a bit of shock to be here still despite having been away before in similar places. Can´t say that I think this is very different to many places I´ve been to on the coast before. Small town, largely laid out for the purposes of tourism and rightly so to a large degree. The locals have been very friendly and there seems to be a very big scene for Mexican tourists as much as anything.

San Cristobal I assume will be similar to Oaxaca in that it´s a colonial town with a contemporary tourist scene. I await confirmation of this in the morning....

Pyramids - so what were the pre-Inca civilizations thinking of?

Well, second day in Mexico. Still noone has called my 'gringo' which I class to be a good thing. And on only the second day, I have had my first bout of sunburn thanks to forgetting to take any suncream with me. Ho hum.

It was an interesting day, as far as organised tours go. While I assume most people are probably aware of the Inca heritage in south and central america, there are a number of pyramids from the pre-Inca civilisations. Teotihuacan being one of them. Teotihuacan is teh name given to a complex of pyramids which are left as remenants from a virtually forgotten civilisation - there isn't a great deal to indicate much about the culture other than living accomodation and holy sites within what would have been a city which housed around 200 000 people at it's peak. The pyramids which are left in what seems like the middle of the desert reflects an urban design which was founded on the availability of fresh water, as the site was believed to have been surrounded by fresh water springs. Presumably, a very significant and long lasting change in the water table caused the civilisation to fall.

There was an interesting aside to one of the other sites we visited earlier in the day when I was at the Plaza de Las Tres Cultures. It did strike me that having a square which was surrounded by architecture influenced by three major cultures or civilisations was a very strong statement for cultural integration and understanding. I don't think I am the first person either to relate this to home and think about the squares in Birmingham which have developed over the last few years and think that it would be possibly a very positive move to have a stronger influence say around Millennium Point from cultures linked to the immigrant populations that have made their home in the West Midlands. As the climate becomes more mediteranian, perhaps our town planning will also follow suit and there will be support for this type of venture...maybe one day.

Yesterday several of the tourist sites I tried to get into were closed because of the protests relating to the privatisation of petrochemical industries in Mexico with several banners around the streets telling the US to get stuffed. It's nice to have something going on culturally that makes you feel at home. The levels of political involvement seemed very high and there were a very large proportion of women protesting, presumably all the men in the city were in the pubs.

Central America - what´s it really like...?

Landed safely. The Mexico City Hostal is acceptable and it's pretty centrally located in the 'Centro Historico'. Nothing much has happened as I have not ventured outside. The street life is interesting enough just to watch from the balcony of the hostal dormitory that I share with eleven others and I have to wander around today trying to feel cultured and not scared of the rather intimidating surroundings of the massive place that Mexico city is.

The metro journey from the train station to the hostal area was not quite what I cal the most luxurious of journeys however it was only 2 pesos which is about 10p and they did run very frequently and efficiently. I vaguely recall having seen the Mexico City subway on TV in the 1970's and seeing the rubber tyres that the system runs on did bring back a few memories. There was one incident of Mexican machismo on the metro as I watched a small child practicing his boxing by thumping a man, I presume his father, straight in the face with his father glowing with pride at the fact that his son could throw a punch but appart from that,´they´re just the same as us, loike' I think the saying is.

It was a small frustration that I was also asked to smoke outside of the hostal, I come to a developing world country to smoke inside. I guess the health and safety is something that I would ideally like at the same standard all over the world so that workers everywhere aren't subjected to risk in the workplace as hotel and bar staff have been, however, I do want to find I can enjoy low standards from time to time as I'm sure anyone who knows me would vouch for.

Would like to have a clearer itinary in mind and know where I am going to be in a couple of weeks or so, however, I really don't know what is going to seem like a good idea as far as travel goes and I think trying to get a small feel for the local culture is something that I can imagine is going to happen anyway as I check out the major tourist sites on foot today.