Ten minute wonder...

Have you ever, like I did yesterday, seen a woman and thought that you were looking at the most beautiful woman in the world? I can't really say that I was entirely wrong about the waitress who I asked if I could take shots of - she did look entirely wonderful in every respect. The shameful thing about it was that I didn't really think that she was actually that attractive until I'd done just a little work on the shots when I got back to the hostel. She was really quite special and I don't think she'll have a long modelling career but sometimes it's nice to be proved entirely wrong - hope she does.

The location of the restaurant did leave me feeling just a little like I'd been there before or at least seen pictures of it in some place or other. There was something very Salmah-Begum-like about the other waitress - who was really very similar in the manner she moved in. There was the most remote facial similarity as well and I wonder if Ms Begum actually has some form of Italian links in terms of her family heritage. There was something I couldn't place as being Muslim about several of the women who worked at Teleperformance and I don't know if I'd be correct in saying that most of them, if not us, had some form of Italian link or other. It does leave me wondering, after seeing someone who looked like my Grandmother in Il Chianti whether or not I had any significant family link with Italy. There was someone who bore a strong resemblance to her in terms of facial expression in Guatemala, a place a genuinely doubt that I have any family connection to - a simple cultural accident may have taken place. Will I find out the linkages between her olive coloured skin and the European heritage that she may have had....

Anyway, I can't really think about anything else at the moment - it does seem quite nice in principle at least to have some important links with Italy, even if they're of family who may not have been here for a century. Carl Chinn did make a point in one of his Sunday shows on WM that there have been quite extensive Italian communities in Birmingham arriving from Southern Italy - I didn't really give consideration to the possibility that my relatives may have been amongst them. I've noticed a little Italian influence over several people I've known as well and didn't know that they were drawing from Italian styles when they dressed slightly different to the majority in the UK. This was something that I wasn't aware of at the time though I'm sure that the style-awakening that many British people go through when making what generally gets called the class transition, from working to middle class, often includes attempting to be as stylish as an Italian counterpart would be rather than to try as stylish as a very fashion conscious fellow Brit would be.

I have not really had the sense of occasion in my life to really have a substantial awareness of what to wear when and why - this should be one of the main factors in determining what to wear and why and if you lack awareness of the generally and specific conventions in society then there is not much chance that what you'll choose to wear will be entirely suitable. When I photographed the events at Coventry's War memorial for the Earlsdon Echo the only thing that really influenced the way I dressed was the hounding that Thatcher gave Michael Foot over the green duffel coat he wore on Remembrance Sunday in the mid 1980's. Not the most important of events fashion-wise, it was only really done for political mileage, or at least that's what it seemed to achieve. I was slightly embarrassed about the fact that I hadn't got a tie on but that is something that I should perhaps have taken into consideration. Even if you don't wear a tie for work, Remembrance Sunday is perhaps one event in the UK that it's appreciated that men do wear a tie.

I think about it in some respects - one of the mistakes I made in job interviews was to be rather untidy and in no way approach the role of leadership which is one of the key underlying values for project leadership in Health Promotion or Public Health through my clothing. This isn't suitable - Britain isn't a nation of clothes snobs to a ridiculous point but being very smartly dressed on a formal occasion is taken as an indicator that the participant, be they the interviewee, is obeying the same conventions for the same reasons as the other participants, the interviewers - that we've made progress through years of conflict in Britain and this is partly reflected by adherence to dress codes - it's a sign of respect for the interviewer which indicates an understanding of what they've achieved to get into the position that they are in.

Still I have a little time to spend in Florence and perhaps will see another waitress or woman who is as delightfully attractive as the one above who served me lunch yesterday. Then coach to Pisa tonight without having seen the leaning tower or Michaelangeo's David. It's difficult to say what other major attractions I should have seen - but I've largely missed them all. It hasn't made the least difference - Firenze has been a sight to marvel at.

I do wonder if the 24 hours I lost in Dahab in 1990 was spent partly in Florence - I seem to have recalled events which involved a few people from the UK and I do wonder if they were brought to Firenze - was there reference to it at the border crossing as I left Egypt to go back into Israel after the trip to Israel. I don't know what happened during the 24 hours but I guess I find out one day. Who else may have been in Firenze - and do they know I was taken from Dahab without a stamp in my passport. Perhaps there was the usual messing around and I remained there - I can't say. It's been funny seeing the glass ceiling/floor inside Haworth YHA and the long driveway up to Florence YHA both of which I've had dreams about. I think I had the dreams about two years ago, it seems like a rather strong memory. Was I doped to then have dreams about such places? It's not worth raising the issues really.

Free day savers - how many email addresses have you got?

Having seen it on the back of a bus I've decided to add the same link as the guy or woman who writes Birmingham - it's not shit which obviously only does make you feel that it is in some way or other. This is the link to the FREE DAY SAVER that is being offered by Travel West Midlands at present. A day saver is a day long bus ticket that usually can be used on any bus after 9.30am for the whole of that day if you weren't familiar with it.

The blog is not bad and does give links to the sites of Cllr. Martin Mullaney on blogspot and the almost interesting interview with Andy Wickett, a former lead singer of Duran Duran who is at least very honest, lacking in pretentiousness and seems very down to earth which is probably why he had to leave Duran Duran. He dressed like a skin head and listened to dub reggae - maybe he was crossing a few musical boundaries that are just a little taboo in the music industry - you're either a nazi or someone who loves to cross multicultural boundaries, if only life was that simple....
listen to the Mullaney FM 3 - it is quite interesting. Go through to
Community Podcast Radio - The Mullaney Files.

Back in Brum

Well, I've got the things that I left at Morningside - despite having lost one or two of them along the way owning to a few drinks I had in the Rocket before leaving Coventry. It was good to see the place again and how picturesque the rather unappealing sights are. I like the city on the whole. Back in Birmingham now and ready to face what life deals me - I hope I can do a little about the types of problems that I couldn't do a great deal about before I left the UK. I just wish I could get to grips with this type of nonesense and get things closed up that have affected me over the last few years.

Tomorrow, I have all the joys of looking for work and trying to get somewhere to live. I just hope that I can find something reasonable work-wise that doesn't leave me with no reason to live and that I can find somewhere half decent to live within a month or so.... to be continued....

Leaving Madrid...

I feel settled, rested and more focused than I was three months ago, so to a large extent I do feel as if there's been a more than a moderate success in sorting myself out of the last quarter through this long haul backpacking trip. It hasn't been without expense - I would have preferred to have done more throughout the trip and not to have had the two bouts of illness that left me without energy for days at a time. I was particularly lazy in areas that I can go back to that deserved more in the way of investigation, for instance, San Cristobal de las Casas, in Mexico I could have done far more, and Antigua, Guatemala deserved more in the way of investigation. There was also very little in the way of action around Juayua, El Salvador where I could have been doing more exploring and in Esteli, Nicaragua rather than lounging around in cafes etc etc etc. I didn't get to see Isla de Ometepe in Nicaragua at all apart from in passing as I went by on the road to Costa Rica. I guess I've at least made the effort to do something in Madrid having been here for nearly a week. I didn't go out and club in the Madrid like manner but I did find my way through a couple of the main attractions and get to recover from the bulk of the jet lag that I've had over the last few days.

Overall, a successful trip, but I've got the usual grind of trying to get back into work and aiming at getting myself sorted out in the UK - whether I'll be able to get to grips with issues in contemporary living that I haven't over the last few decades remains to be seen. I've not wanted to join what to most people is normal life but to me, thanks to the Specials, was only really known as the Rat Race. I don't know why I have't bothered with civilisation for so long - it's only when I explore a lost civilisation in lost Mayan kingdoms that I start to think about life in the West Midlands. Maybe I should try to get to grips with living with one of the hill tribes around the Midlands, in Dudley for instance, in order to understand the roots of the local culture. Perhaps not.

Back packing should like all other travel experiences open up the way you live at home and help assist with understanding the process of 'being cultured', being open to new experiences without being gullible and in some ways just to broaden living experiences and cross cultural understanding. I guess that has happened though my lasting memories will include most of the women who worked behind bars in Belize looking at me as if I'd just turned up to try and shag as many women on the island as possible. Somehow convincing people that you're on some form of cultural exploration may not be that straightforward. I don't think I did look like I was in Belize just to screw the local women - I think it was their fertile imaginations working overtime. Mind you my senses have been working just a little overtime in Madrid, the style of the women here is generally quite pleasant - bold, attractive and feminine without being dirty, cheap or flirtatious. It is like a lot of the food (overpriced like the tapas, you may be wondering if you've been here? No,) the bare essentials which are necessary aren't over dressed or contorted to a form where they don't resemble what they began as. They retain their genuine attractiveness.

I think my mind may have slipped slightly since I've spent the best part of two days looking at images in art galleries, lunching away and then getting back into the same galleries to try to take more in again in the afternoon. The attractiveness of some of the women here does start to resemble how I sometimes relate to food - there's a women at the breakfast bar who resembles fruit salad - something light and wholesome, she has almost fruit like appeal. As I was thinking about her an English woman came and sat next to me who seemed to resemble roast beef and yorkshire pudding - 'once every two weeks and it'll keep your stamina up', I guess is not a compliment to most women, but there is something a little more substantial about her. As I state - this isn't necessarily good comparison. Women aren't food, though there could be overlaps in terms of how fashion is driven, how men and women are almost forced to appeal to each others who they wish to through high-street-forces, and there could be impacts made by the comments made by television chefs like Robert Carrier, who said something to the effect of a meal is eaten with the eye even before you've tasted a morsel, which may reflect little more than the consumerism-driven culture that we live in. Women don't need to look different to accompany food, nor to look different at various points throughout the day - though there could be a large number of forces acting which we don't always give consideration to.

It leaves me feeling hungry all this talk of food....I've got a flight to catch. Oh, and the picture above is Van Gogh, earless, which didn't make him appeal that much to his lady-friend. He was done up like a kipper if anyone was, probably worse than Hancock was.

Costa Rica - rich coast.

Well, made it here last night. Went out of Nicaragua from Granada to Rivas and then to the border which was not great ordeal. Immediately, as I got into Costa Rica things changed, perhaps only very slightly but there was a noticeable difference that there didn´t really seem to be anywhere else with border crossings elsewhere in Central America.

Costa Rica has a much closer alliance with the USA than anywhere else and has a greater mumber of expats living here than any other Central American country. As a result the impact of the US economy is more prominent, Nicaragua having virtually no desire to link with the US multi-nationals and Costa Rica seeming to welcome them with open arms, for example.

The bus journey from the border to Alajuela where I currently am, was not arduous, the roads here in Costa Rica seem significantly better than in Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. It was five hours of guessing where I was before getting close to the airport where I fly out of tomorrow before leaving the bus to get a taxi and get the Christian couple up who run the hostal that I´m staying in. They had some form of Evangelist service in one of the back rooms here so I don´t think it´s a good place to ask for mujeres, that is ´women´, as I´ve seen a couple of backpackers do in the occasional hostal.

I didn´t explore much beyond the city centre here. It´s a town of 180 000 and has a relatively pleasant atmosphere around the town which is probably why the place is recommended as an area to stay away from the bustle of San Jose 30 km away. At present it´s being repaved in the centre and was a bit of a nightmare to get through and having a McDonalds when there was a children´s party going on was equally as frustrating.

There was a certain vibe about the market that I walked through which was remarkably similar to the Bull Ring Markets of the 1970´s and 1980´s. I don´t know if this type of comparison created the impetus for having the centre of Birmingham redeveloped, perhaps that is just too paranoid. I quite like the reminiscence of visiting somewhere that reminds me of 1970s Birmingham - it was one of the reasons I liked Coventry, it did have a strong feel of the same type of urban design that Birmingham had - I hope they feel proud of it, I think it´s fine as a city. I assume it would create some disquiet for people in the developed world to see shopping facilities in a country like Costa Rica which are very similar to those in the UK - what the hell it´s only the developed world because we colonised/fXXKed over so many countries all those hundreds of years ago. Maybe the Costa Rican´s would be embarrased to find out their market is like the Bull Ring was, who knows. That old Birmingham-Central America links remains in my mind....

Tomorrow, I leave central america having failed to get through to the offices of Iberia airlines to change my flight. They´ve been constantly engaged for about a week or so. Then Monday, to arrive in Madrid to try my damndest to learn just a little more Spanish.....somehow I don´t think it´s going to happen.

Arriving in Copan Ruinas.

The van pulled into Parque Central at about four this afternoon. Copan Ruinas is, as far as it seems so far, quite a nice little town. I feel very much at home as a result of the rather globalised feel of the particular cafe that I'm in, it's been done out in much the same way as many of the Central American themed places in the UK as far as I recall. The style does lack something in terms of the authenticity that one gets if one is willing to dice with diarrhea in a real local bar that tends normally to resemble a transport cafe done Honduras style but there is something infective about the music in a place that can override anything traditional or genuinely local about it. The place feels globalised as a result: the music, the decor and the menu - largely arranged to suit the westerner. There is little in the way of the authentic Honduras about the place though on the one hand the place is an almost sterilely stylised-Honduran bar and other the hand integration of culture is what keeps people together and the world ticking over.

Today was a largely uneventful day. There were a few 'familiar faces' around. In Mexico in a couple of places there were people who resembled J-Lo and today again I saw someone with very similar bone structure to a point where I did consider the woman I saw to be likely to be related to her. I don't know if Emma from OCR has any relatives out here but one of the other women I was close to for a few minutes looked a lot like her. It really wouldn't surprise me if there was something in the way of a big connection between Central America and the Midlands - perhaps the international business community, cum ruling class, cum European Monarchy have ensured that seeds have been spread around the world, I can't say. It's most likely due to my state of mind that there are things going on around me that seem to defy conventional explanations.

I'm in a backpackers that I don't think that I've been to before but I did have a very strange de ja vu when I entered the dormitory. I think it may have figured in images in SBPS and may have been a place that the other guy had been to - it's not that it bugs me it's that I don't actually know when I dreamt about the three bedded room that I'm staying in, whether it was before or after the night at SBPS. The dream sequence I had seemed to finish with a woman - though I don't know how this was facilitated, it does seem very unusual that this took place in the dream. I think I'll be heading back alone tonight. Pulling doesn't seem like a viable option with what has gone on. Annoyance like this aside, Copan Ruinas is a nice place to be.

There's a guy from Israel who seems to look a little like Mike H from Plymouth Poly days and a guy who announced himself as being from Birmingham, though actually in the cold light of day he's from Cannock and I'M THE ONE FROM BIRMINGHAM. It does get on my wick that so many people in the public eye especially seem actually not to be from Birmingham but from Smethwick or Dudley or worse of all from Solihull or Sutton Coldfield. The likes of Tessa Sanderson, Joan Armatrading and Jasper Carrot are more Brummie because they've actually lived in the city good and proper. God, I think I've been drinking a little too much recently but for Christ's sake, who lets them say they're from Birmingham on the so-called reputable BBC.

The issue that was raised a few days ago, on Saturday 8th June, regarding the need for El Salvador to have it's own version of the Goodies may have been overlooked by the BBC but I think Honduras may actually be a better place for this. Why do those BBC prats not do what I want for once? Why don't they think about the input to the Central American economy that could be made by making a few programmes as good as Cod almighty part one, part two and part three? It's amazing thinking about the BBC's reputation when the special effects from the sixties and the seventies are considered. Would the British tolerate a developing world nation producing TV of this nature? I somehow doubt it. Comic relief could consider what they could do in this position.

Another thing I've been doing of recent is adding on models on facebook who have turned up on 'do you know these people' or ‘these people may be your friends’ as you've got mutual friends in common etc. What's been interesting is that I now have made friends with Rhian Sugden and Sophie Howard, not that they're the real things. It's probably some spotty teenager in Kettering who's added on images of his favourite models. I wonder if he's reading this thinking you sarcy sod, why did you add them on in the first place? Facebook a place where I've got loads of friends, most of whom you’ll never meet...

A rave-like crowd have just pulled into the bar and despite the range of western English accents (eg. American, Canadian, English, Scottish) there does seem to be just a little bit of an influenced youth culture that has spread into our twenties and thirties. It's probably the music that's the key factor for me to bind groups of people together who wouldn't normally have a great deal in common. But I don't know if I'll find anything more than music to bring a group together. I don't know if there's going to be anything more substantial - politics should be a greater focal point for the youth of the nation and the population at large but understandably there's great cynicism around it. When it comes down to it there's no doubt some degree of concern over the credibility of politics as a pursuit that should bring you closer to other people but leisure and work seem pretty much firmly divided for the majority in the west and this stops politics being the form of meaningful recreation that it could be.

I did find the poetry group I attended to be a relatively meaningful pursuit, if only for a short while, but there appeared to be a few games going on that I didn't think I should have been subject to. I do wonder when someone is subject to games which amount to little more than harassment within somewhere like a poetry society whether they'll ever be free of games in the least. It does strike me as being rather sad that this happened there but I guess that the annoyances that has bothered me over the last few years, this is relatively miniscule in the grand scheme of things.

Gracias -a night in Sula

Last night I made the first major gaff of backpacking that I've done on this trip missing the stop I wanted to make in Santa Rosa de Copan. I was advised by the English speaking passengers on the bus that my best bet was to get off at Sula and found myself in a small town which had one guest house and one hotel. I don't know if there was much in the way of entertainment there but I found both the guest house and the hotel were full. The woman who was trying to assist me offered to put me up in her house which was at the back of an Evangelical Mission building and I offered what I thought was right in the circumstances - about six quid which is about what I would have paid in the hotel from all accounts.

It was an interesting place to end up though somehow a little familiar. I don't know if there was a major error on my part, I was assuming the bus drivers to continue to announce where the bus was stopping as they had done elsewhere in Central America so far. Normally, the drivers are extremely helpful and will direct you to the next bus required or which direction is necessary to go to get to whatever hotel I've been heading to. It wasn't the worst scenario in the world, most people seemed pretty helpful and I didn't have any problem getting to sleep as soon as I'd got back to the room. I was grateful to the woman, Alexandra, and I was also grateful to the church in the circumstances.

I was up later than I wished and made my way back to Santa Rosa de Copan and pretty much immediately got a bus on to Gracias which is recommended as a stop off by the guide book. I managed to leave the guidebook on the bus from Sula and then upon arrival in Gracias got myself into probably the best hotel I've stayed at in Central America, the Posada de Don Juan. I've got a decent room for about ten pounds a night and the wi-fi works pretty well. I've managed to download the chapters of the lonely planet Central America guidebook that I need for the remainder of the trip and been out to check out the town which seems very nice. I think that the tourism here is under significant development and I don't know to what extent there is planned development here but there is a lot of building work going on in the centre of the town.

The image above is of a woman who I couldn't place - only in terms of who I know, I'm sure I've seen her face before somewhere, or someone who looks a lot like her but with much paler skin. I think there was some similarity between her and someone else I know though I just can't place who it is for the life of me. I don't know if there are more significant links between Birmingham and Central America than there are in other parts of the UK but at one point the journey between Metapan and El Poy, the border crossing into Honduras, was like being at a Swanshurst Sixth Form Reunion. There was a guy collecting fares who looked like Andy Bishop, a passenger who looked a lot like Vicki Peacock, another who looked like the woman who hung out with Sarah Guessy and the one in the photograph whom I presume to have a brummie connection.

El Poy was a pretty uneventful boarder crossing, I had to pay $3.00 exit tax to leave El Salvador, which seemed like a legitimate formal tax very different to the one paid on entrance to Guatemala which was something that the official at the passport control seemed to think was okay to charge anyone who couldn't speak Spanish. He wasn't challenged sigificantly by most of us who came in. Shots of the journey from Metapan to El Poy are on Flickr at the journey from Metapan to El Poy if you should wish to click the link.

The scenery on the way into Honduras, which I've not heard being discussed anywhere was really quite breathtaking. It was like the Yorkshire Dales on a larger scale. After a few attempts to take shots of the mountains and forests I decided to take a nap only to realise I'd missed my stop when I woke up. The people on the bus were helpful enough when this became apparent - more people speak English here than in El Salvador where I think I had a couple of days without speaking English to anyone. As for the Latin temperament, the Hondurans are meant to be a little too laid back and to an extent stereotyped by their neighbours as being a little backward. There doesn't seem to be a great difference culturally so far but I am close to the border still and huge numbers of El Salvadorians are meant to have made the border crossing in the 1980's during the civil war so it's not surprising that there seems to be little in the way of difference so far. There are the minor obvious issues which may reflect more of an Honduran style such as the higher numbers of men who wear stetson type hats and on the whole the women are more flirtatous here - but that counts for bugger all in the grand scheme of things.

So far Honduras has been a bit of a surprise package. I wasn't expecting the breathtaking scenery nor the overall atmosphere of the tropical paradise but it does feel pretty damn good here. I'm yet to make it to a cash point here which seem few and far between, Gracias doesn't have one and I've got to get to Santa Rosa to get some cash tomorrow as I'm almost out of US Dollars. This is only indication that the infrastructure here is not as developed as it is in places like El Salvador and Guatemala and the economy is weaker. I don't know what the average wage is here but I would estimate that it's pretty damn low. Tourism seems to be taking off in this area and I can't say that it's undeserved. The forests as I saw them from the bus, which gives little indication of what's going on inland in the more isolated rural parts, did seem pretty rich and plentiful, however, there is meant to be a greater issue of deforestation in El Salvador than anywhere else in Central America. I do wonder how legitimate the concept of deforestation is, particularly as a western notion, when the west is as deforested as a place could be. What grounds to we have to question the use of land in countries that we're only interested in because we may have problems with oxygen-CO2 cycles as a result of rural development changes?

Tonight, I need to get to grips with Copan and it's ruins so whatever I see there in the next couple of days doesn't go completely over my head. I can't say that I've really understood all there is to know about Mayan ruins in the other places I've been to but this does seem opportunity to do so. I've also got to check out a few things about the area so I've got some idea where to head for hotels, I can't stay in plush places all the time.

Fuentes Georginas & Zunil.

I was half expecting decent scenery in the area of Zunil which is about an hour away from Xela, (Xela pronounced Shay-Lay) and was pleasantly surprised - not only with the quality of the scenery but also the fact that I had seen it before elsewhere at SBPS, almost certainly amongst the work of Peter.

I found the area around the springs I was visiting to be reminiscent of the visits I made to the allotment off Fox Hollies Road in Acocks Green when my dad had an allotment there in the 1970s. There was a very healthy feel to the sodden earth which appeared as far as I could see to be fertilized organically. The crops appeared to be plentiful as I descended the hillside towards the town, Zenil, after taking a dip in the hot springs.

The springs themselves, Fuentes Georginas, were as pleasant as you'd imagine. The water was hot but not as hot as a bath, the pools were of different temperature so you could switch around if you found one pool too hot or too cold. The shots of Fuentes Georginas and Zunil are passable but lacking in originality as far as I'm concerned. The dream scene, a place I stated I had at least one dream about may be worth checking out.

If you're unsure about what the scenery is like up close in Guatemala, I for whatever reason would say that I found it a lot like the Dingles off Cole Valley Road. Maybe we could fake some shots of Guatemala there on my return. Does anyone know any people who look central American?

Day to Panejachel.

The lake surrounded by volcanoes and Mayan villages. The town away from it all. I forgot - rainy season, and it all seems very much like some distant idea. If there's so much cloud cover that virtually everything is impossible to see, it becomes a very different place. I took one of the tourist buses there to Panajachal and the shots I took while I was waiting for the bus tended to be better than those I took in Panejachel or on the way there. I wasn't blessed with good conditions today but I guess a good photographer would always aim at using the conditions to the best advantage. There was a strong and sudden downpour as soon as I got to Panajachel which made working very difficult though I don't know if there was a lot that I could do that I just didn't really attempt to do.

I don't wish to engage in self-beating to the extent that I could do over the lack of success I've had photographically since I've been here but I do feel that the best is yet to come. I haven't managed to capture the essence of the chicken bus, overcrowded, the fare-boy hanging out of the buses' folding door with all manner of individual trying to get through the crowd to get off at their stop. Today was so wet it was quite shocking. It did make me think about Romancing the Stone which I went to see when I was about 15 on an extremely damp day. It was a Sunday, mid-afternoon and I was sat soggy in the Odeon Queensway almost soaked to the skin as I was today watching a film about the escapades of Michael Douglas in a rainy season Guatemala. Some people may get unjustly romantic about tropical storms but I don't think they're that different in Plymouth, Manchester or in Birmingham.

The time I arrived in Panajachel was just after four and although I'd had a brief wander down to the edge of the lake I don't think that I spent longer than about thirty minutes there. The miscalculation that I'd made was that I could get back in the evening without any problems. The journey there was about two hours in a very nippily driven tourist van, which only had one accident on the way there with us knocking into a cyclist who seemed to indicate that the accident was his fault as he pulled at his cycle jammed under the van. Weaving in and out of traffic on half finished roads constantly speeding up and slowing down to overtake as much en route as was possible was just about as much as I could recall from the driving there. There does tend to be some onus on getting tourists off the chicken buses, the american school buses which have been bought up, painted lavishly and then put on the most local of local routes around Guatemala and to me there is not only little reason for this, it actually cuts out much of the more enjoyable aspects of life in Guatemala. While getting tourists off the chicken buses may be a priority (and for whatever reason the home office has elected to inform british subjects that chicken buses may not be safe, the tourist buses are driven by idiots who think that time is the only factor in a journey) getting them back on them should be a priority too. It was vaguely reminiscent of being on a happy bus at about 12.45 at night on the way home from Birmingham city centre to Hall Green in the late 1980's. There would occasionally be a driver who was keen to finish his shift and would burn the rubber of the double decker tyres like there was no tomorrow. Sometimes you would wonder if Nigel Mansell's part time job was to drive drunk people home to suburban Birmingham from the city centre.

Anyway, after a rather threatening journey there which involved scrapes and death defying stunts, I found myself in what felt like the wettest place on earth. It was only coming down at the rate of about an inch an hour or so and I didn't really think too long about staying the night in the town on the off chance of better weather the next day when I was as likely to find the day soggy again. The tour agencies I came into contact with tended to deny that there were any buses back, largely because the wanted to get me on one of the dangerous tourist buses back to Antigua the next morning at twice the cost of the local buses and I managed to get to a chicken but which took me via Solore to Los Chichuanos and then onto Chichatuanita. It was only about a four hour journey on the chicken bus at about half of the cost of the tourist bus.

It didn't take me long to get back to the house and get a few beers on the way. The fridges in the house are full at present largely because of the celebration taking place tomorrow for Lorena's birthday. She's the 'landlady' whose birthday it is tomorrow. Then out to find a place with internet connection and somewhere I can plug in the laptop which has a battery life of about twenty minutes at present. I'm sat in one of Antigua's trendier cafe's with film soundtrack blaring away behind the screen I sit and write on.

Today was as a result a day when I didn't manage to get on youtube and was spent trying to take in as much of the local culture as possible. Generally, I would imagine that Panajachel is somewhere this can happen but I guess that my mind was unfortunately very closed and the cliche of riding the chicken bus was all I was going to achieve today.

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.

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.