The latest and greatest (and only) catch up post

So, as many of you know that read this blog, there has been NOTHING to read for the past three months. What happened, you ask? You used to document and satire the shit out of goings on on the last trip, not only as a journal relief to yourself but also the people who care about you but don't know where you are half the time. It's an update, it's a outlet, it's a story, it's EASY. So why so many blank pages?

The real answer is, I sat down one day in mexico and read through some of the posts from long ago, some honest, some naive, some overly sanctimonious...and I really didn't feel like the same guy who wrote those. Wether it's hitting some sort of imaginary age frontier or working in a job that boasts cruel reality instead of frivolous freedom, the stuff I read from twenty three year old josh greatly differed from the stuff I wanted to write from his senior. However, just because the old posts were wordy and full of attempts to be clever, it's no excuse to bail out on a blog that may one day remind me of how naive twenty five year old josh is. So, with enough self absorbed excuses masking laziness, let's start the blog again!

It's been too long of a trip with too many stops to strum up any sort of detail, so i figured a recollect of the highlights would suffice.

MEXICO

Every day with Edgar! 

First and foremost, this Papa polar bear was my host, teacher, connection and cook for about two months, never saying boo about moving on or being a couch surfing nuisance. Without this guy my spanish would be 1/4 of what it is, I would be in the financial tubes for accommodation, I would have never got to know the real mexico or tasted some of the best food I've ever had. I mentioned Edgar in a post from Australia almost a year ago, saying how he lived in a van, made his was by odd jobs and didn't even have a visa to be there. The Edgar I met in Mexico still had the same business attitude and aptitude, but with the actual means to turn it into something amazing. The ability this guy has to connect, interact and make people function has no equal. He will honestly turn nothing into a 'fantastico' contract just by whipping out his iPad and smooth talking (in Spanish of course, which is pretty smooth to begin with).  I owe this guy a lot, and I hope I can repay the favour when he comes up to the snowy motherland.

4 Wheeling trip in San Louis Potosi & Tolantonga

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume these two places were in the same state, although you can take that with a whole shaker of salt. For the 4 wheeling trip, with the little spanish I could grasp, I realized we were going on a some sort of trip, although totally lacking the details (where, when, how, what, who etc) *As a side note, before i picked up a bit of spanish, this was pretty much everyday in mexico.*

As it turns out, about 20 dirt bikes, 4 wheelers and  Polaris' rallied in a gas station parking lot with the only the yours truly gringo walking around saying 'hola' and 'que paso' to the majority of these strangers. The plan was to take a two day trip into the jungle/desert/ravine, smashing through rivers, rocks, culverts, trees and anything else that stood in the path. The drive down, sitting shotgun in the Polaris, was more than thrilling but we were also the ones carrying most of the supplies, we were responsible for stopping for any breakdowns and as tough as they thought their mexican muchacho machines were, happened often. Left up to me in 35 degree heat with no water or cigarettes, I would have left the stalled bike in the bushes and walked away, but after 2 hours of deliberation and mexican elbow grease we had it running again. The last leg of the journey flew by in a flurry of jungle leaves and splashing water, which took us at these A-frame cabanas. The site alone was incredible and I have nothing but good things to say about, but the course of the night left a pretty bitter taste in my mouth (and it wasn't just the gallon of tequila). Over estimating my savvy with said tequila, I over indulged and ran though a thorn field into the shallow but raging river. Of course, this was all recollected to me the next day, as I had no memory of such

Beer, goggles, dune buggy. Listo.

foolishness and wept over my shredded legs. As we packed up to leave that morning, I realized that everything that was in my pockets for my impromptu swim had washed away, including a bank card and about 25$ in pesos. That really put a damper on my day, so I took the highway back, which turned out to be about half as safe as the jungle. At the end of the day though, minus some cash, wits, and debit card, I had seen a piece of Mexico that no tourist would ever get to go on, as well feeling like the baddest ass mofo in the state cruising around a river valley in a buggy with a pack of crazy Mexicanos.

Tolantongo

This one I couldn't spell then, or now, but happily agreed to hop on board. It was about a 6 hour drive from Irapuato, in the dead of night...which had us turning up early morning, sun shining, hot pools sparkling and incrediblyt tired. Of course nothing kicks off a sleepy day like a refreshing Michelada, which is basically a litre of beer with a splash of tomato juice and hot sauce, little salt on the rim, love and a squeeze of lime. Most of the first day was spent floating in these amazing turquoise pools falling asleep and waking up only long enough to have a swig of your Michelada, although there a good 2 hours of warding off the advances of a mid-30s woman who kept inexplicably floating towards me. When a pack of wild mexican children came running up to the pool with dirty diapers and runny noses shouting 'Mama, mama' she looks at me and says 'Those aren't my kids'. Well played mexican predator.
The rest of the trip was filled with making some great friends, jungle hikes, incredible mexican barbecue and, of course, significant amounts of cheap tequila and late night pool swims (which eventually led the Mexican version of Walker the Texas ranger to kick our gringo asses out). Big shout out to English Paul for the invite and Pitt Harper for setting it up!

Waterfall trip in San Cristobal

J-Team!

This little trip was a great one, mainly due to the new amigos I had made back in Oaxaca. Julija, Jessie and Josh (me, duh)...or J-team as we became known to ourselves and few others, rolled up to San Cristobal with that touristy twinkle in our eye. The city itself was a wonder, cheap, easily walkable and had some fantastic restaurants and little dive bars. We had a few options for packaged tours, ranging from canyons, jungles, lakes or waterfalls. We headed out for the waterfall option, which included the ride there and back, entrance to the falls and a few really pleasant lakes. The lakes were beautiful, but the real kicker was this water fall.

I'm writing this four months later so unfortunately I can't recall the name, but there was loads of water and it was falling, so we weren't disappointed. We agreed with our driver and tour group that we had two hours at the falls, at which time J-team broke off to go talk about whatever white people talk about. We hit the main viewing point after a forty minute ascend where we cooled down, drank a beer and considered wether a zipline over the falls was worth thirty bucks (it wasn't). On the way back down, one of the guys running the rest area said you can go even higher then the lookout if you veer left and climb a 90 degree footpath. How could we pass that up? So we doubled back and hit the VERY top another forty-five minutes later, where we got some excellent photo opportunities and had the whole place to ourselves. Now, if you're keeping up with the math, forty minutes up, plus another forty-five minutes higher, plus another forty minutes down goes a bit beyond the two hour mark. So, after a sweaty descend we fount out that our driver, allegedly in a bit of a huff, had left without us. In the jungle, in mexico, alone... score one J-team. Fortunately another tour group had just enough room to pile our tardy butts in, and we met up with our slightly displeased original group for lunch later on in the day. No harm, no foul, just another great day in Mexico!

GUATEMALA & HONDURAS

Five minutes into the volcano hike

Guatemala was an amazing country that I just didn't give enough time to! It's cheap, it's easy to get around and as dangerous as everyone says it is, everyone I talked to was more than pleased to help you out. The majority of my time was spent in San Pedro on Lago Atitlan, which is easily one of the most beautiful vistas I've ever had the pleasure to look on. The hostel room I was in led out to a deck lined with hammocks overlooking this incredible lake that was backdropped by mountains and volcanoes. Yes, it was as amazing as it sounds. The funny part of it was, straddled along side all this natural beauty is a thriving piss pot town full of drunk backpackers and cheap drugs. Win win right! Anyways, one of the aforementioned volcanos had the pleasure of kicking my ass as I climbed up it, but underneath the wheezing and sweat it was a definite highlight!

Hiking San Pedro Volcano

Hiking a volcano, somewhere and at sometime, had been on my trip-list before I even left. I didn't know what country, but I knew if I found myself in the volcano area, which is almost any of them down here, I had to strap on my hiking shoes and make it my bitch. Of course given cheap packs of cigarettes and barely an iota  of exercise in the past...year...two? the volcano did most of the bitch making. I met a very adventurous spirit named Anja on the boat ride to San Pedro town, so having a mutual interest in self torture both signed up for the hike. Now by most standards it wasn't an overly challenging climb, and the volcano was dormant so the risk of getting covered in lava was pretty minimal, but with full backpacks and the lungs of a 90 year old woman, it was still a mighty chore. After about 3 hours, inclusive of many winded breaks, we made it to the little graffiti covered cabana near the top. Covered in dust, lewd pictures and insects and spiders of all sizes...this would be our camp for the night. We ditched the bags and went the further twenty minutes to the summit for a breathtaking, awe-inspiring...wait for it!!..sky full of clouds. Not only could we not see the crater, nor lake,  nor surrounding town and or pretty much anything more than ten feet away was shrouded in a heavy cloud cover. Certainly not the triumphant finish we were expecting, but like any tough physical exertion, being done was sweet enough. We set up shop in the creepy little cabin, just as the sky opened up in a crack of thunder and lightning.

It pissed down rain all night and the uncomfortable and chilly sleep was pretty much constantly interrupted by fruit falling on the roof, massive booms of thunder and things scurrying around your head. There was leftover pizza for breakfast, but unfortunately whatever creatures we were sharing the abode with got to it first. We went to the summit again right before we started down, hoping for a better view than the day before, and weren't disappointed. The nights storm and clouds had settled off into a perfectly clear morning with a spectacular view of beautiful Lago Atitlan, the neighbouring volcanos and the tiny little ant-hill of a town we had come from. In a word, magnifico. The rest of the morning was a very thirsty and hungry descent back to town, where I checked into the lap of luxury, which was a rat free bed and running water. It's been about a month and a half since that hike, so i can confidently say I'm well rested for the next volcano trek, at which point I will have reached my strenuous activity quota for the year.

Tikal

Right off the bat, let me say I'm not much of a ruin person. I mean, at times I'm a wreck, but as for centuries old dust blocks in the middle of jungles, I'll take the beach and a margarita any day. However, there are certain sites in the world that you would be a complete fool to be near, and not have a visit. Angkor Wat was one of these back in cambodia, and if it had a rival in the Americas, Tikal would be it. Being one of the largest Mayan ruins known, it was politically and economically one of the most important sites out of all the Meso-American cities. It's situated right in the centre of other large and strategically placed Mayan cities, being sort of a 'economical hub' in the Mayan society. It approximately dates back to 200AD and had a steep population decline by 1000AD, probably because some badder ass mofos' conquered it, but no one's really sure. History lesson aside, it was a phenomenal hike through one of the most popular and culturally rich places going, a big part of the experience owed to our tour guide Rueben. He had all the answers, as well as adding a few perks that you wouldn't find on your own, including tarantulas, Mayan astronomy and the truth behind '2012, the end of the world'. (For the record, it's just the beginning of a new calendar according to the original Mayan estimates, kind of like tearing off the December page of your 2011 muscle car edition hanging on the fridge, so don't go selling all your shit or building a bomb shelter.)

I climbed the main temple with a Swiss guy who was biking through central America visiting all the ruins on his way. He informed me that some people just like coming to the most popular ruins and don't actually care about the history as long as they can snap a good photo. I feigned shock at this, of course being the exact human being he was describing. The whole hike took about three hours, but was luckily interspersed with tiny canteens where you could a get a wonderfully refreshing beer and stare at fat tourists fighting off heart attacks after climbing the stairs. Something like eighty percent of Tikal is yet to be excavated, so the rest of the tour was spent gazing at these small mounds that we're hiding hundreds of buried temples. Pretty cool. Reuben and I went to the 'Tikal Bar' outside the park to smash some very cold beers and talk about anything else but ruins, which we were both pretty tired of by then. Big thanks to Reuben and all the dead Mayans for a great day!


Utila

Although getting to this little Caribbean island was an absolute pain in the ass (roughly 35 hours from Guatemala on buses and boats) it was the ultimate-caribbean-laid-back-drug-induced-scuba factory that everyone had told me about. Getting off the ferry you're immediately accosted by dozens of island dwellers donning their 'Such and Such Diving Co.' singlets, touting the various benefits and bonuses of their shop. I ended up following one of these people to Parrots Diving, a fairly new but extremely popular outfit with a smattering of trans-national dive masters and bright eyed newbies. I hadn't dived in over a year, the last time being a quick fun dive in Australia

and the only opportunity before that had been my actual diving courses two years prior. Picking up on a customer with a dusty dive certificate, as well as a less than adequate memory of hand signals and equipment usage, I was sold on a 35$ 'tune-up course'. Major thumbs down on this one as it was a 30 minute lesson on basic skills that you could remember over breakfast by watching a 30 second youtube. It did however put me right back into diving mode, and the next day we went out for a few fun dives off some of the more popular reefs, although the north side of the island was apparently 'too cloudy' so we missed the always promised but rarely seen whale sharks. On these dives we did get to meet a nurse shark, turtle, seahorses, some kind of eel and an assortment of other tropical aquatic critters. Overall it was a fantastic couple days on the water, but if I'm ever again presented with the 'cheapest' and 'best' diving in x island or y coast, I will be passing. For upwards of a hundred dollars, once you've seen a reef and the various colourful fishies it's depths have to offer, they all start to look the same. If the whale sharks or manta rays were guaranteed, I'd be the first one on the boat, but diving has become too expensive and the sightings of such creatures too sporadic to be worth it for me. Next time I hope it won't be the 'best diving on the island', but 'the best diving on the continent'.

That being said the island itself had an incredible bundle of bars and restaurants on offer, giving way to more variety I had seen thus far. My first hour had me sitting in front of a massive plate of nachos and a mojito followed by a walk down the only main street on the island planning the inevitable pub crawl. It was a fantastic couple days of being submerged in the ocean and Salvador beers, meeting lots of different and interesting people and getting a great preview to the caribbean lifestyle that was coming up. Gracias Paradise Diver's and Mama's Restaurant for a delicious, fun and fiesta full week!