I sat in the waiting room of the Centro de Salud, the local health centre, in Livingston. From the open door, I could see the sea. A bunch of Garifunas had gathered around a nearby bench and started drumming. Continue Reading →
Tag: Guatemala
Semuc Champey, Guatemala: thanks to a murder in the village, we had this paradise to ourselves
We bump up and down in the back of a pick-up truck, shuffling and shaking over a road so potholed it would make the cobblestones in Paris-Roubaix look like a newly paved highway. Six travellers from Ecuador hold onto their big boxes of takeaway pizza and their ice coolers. Their stomachs turn as the next rock on the road sends them jumping up as if they are on a bouncy castle. They wonder if the prize at the end of the road will be worth the ordeal, if Semuc Champey will be really as pretty as the guidebooks and the pictures promise. Continue Reading →
Chicken buses in Guatemala: our most unforgettable rides so far
“At least a couple of times a month, a chicken bus plunges from a cliff.” A sentence from Lonely Planet drummed in my head louder than ever. Holding on to the seat in front of me, I stole a glance out of the window. The bus slowly ascended a dusty mountain road, its wheels no more than half a meter from the edge of the road. The view from the window resembled the ones from an aeroplane. Continue Reading →
Boat sitting on Lake Izabal: Notes from the Water
“The captain is out to lunch and the sailors have taken over the ship.” (Charles Bukowski)
Day 1 of boat sitting: Tom
It sounded too good to be true. In the mornings, we’d be scrubbing decks for two hours and in the afternoons, we’d sail and explore the area. Hiking trails, caves, waterfalls, the possibilities were limitless. Oo, the wonders of WorkAway, the website we’ve been using to find accommodation in exchange for a couple of hours of honest work. And so we embarked on not one, but two boats, both belonging to Daeli, a French adventurer with a beard so scruffy and long it was probably eagerly eyed by birds with nest-making ambitions far and wide. Continue Reading →
Livingston, Guatemala: 48 hours without electricity
Life in the tropics is more extreme than life back home in every way. The heat is probably the same as in Estonia right now, but the humidity level is a different story altogether. Tom, for example, sleeps with a towel next to him- to wipe the sweat off multiple times during the night.