6 Week Recap Part II

Rainbow Gathering

So Rainbow Gathering, read the link above, but for those too lazy to click, wikipedias definition is...

-- Rainbow Gatherings are temporary intentional communities,^[1] typically held in outdoor settings, and espousing and practicing ideals of peace, love, harmony, freedom and community, as a consciously expressed alternative to mainstreampopular culture, consumerism, capitalism and mass media.

Rainbow Gatherings and the Rainbow Family of Living Light (usually abbreviated to "Rainbow Family") are an expression of a Utopian impulse, combined with bohemianism, hipster and hippie culture, with roots clearly traceable to thecounterculture of the 1960s. Mainstream society is commonly referred to and viewed as "Babylon", connoting the participants' widely held belief that modern lifestyles and systems of government are unhealthy, unsustainable, exploitative and out of harmony with the natural systems of the planet. The original Rainbow Gathering was in 1972, and has been held annually in the United States from July 1 through 7 every year on National Forest land.^[2] Throughout the year, regional and international gatherings are held in the United States and throughout the rest of the world respectively. --

Basically a big hippy gathering.  What they stand for is cool and all that, but I went to disconnect from the world a bit.  Its held in the middle of nowhere and is a place of freedom with NO rules (except: NO meat, NO alcohol, NO electronics, NO hard drugs, NO cutting down the bamboo, NO using soap in the river, you can't camp there, or there... but over there is cool, no not over there, over there.... right.).

When we got there, there being miles from any town in the middle of the Guatemalan rainforest, we were greeted by rain and mud... lots and lots of mud.  The first three days it rained straight, but we had to set up camp anyway.  We had to get tarps because the $20 walmart tents we set up were definitely not waterproof.  Wet, muddy we finally had a camp set up.  Which i ended up moving from a few days later because our area went from the original four people up to a population of 26 people within four days.  Got a little too crazy so I moved camps while others from the original population left all together.

Now the location of this place was absolutely beautiful.  There was a river for swimming, a beautiful meadow (where my camps were located) forest in the hills next to us.  I wish I had pictures but me being the smart one failed to charge my camera... oh that was another rule too, No pictures.

There was this incredible lagoon with a huge waterfall about a twenty minute walk away. The walk there was along this most beautiful forest path along the river, think Lord of the Rings beautiful and the lagoon was, I'm pretty sure what heaven must look like, absolutely insane.  And when it was sunny, people would swim there and not a bathing suit was in sight.  Thats another thing about rainbow gatherings, lots of (mostly) beautiful  naked people.

But alas it wasn't sunny alot.  Lots of rain and as I said mud.  So we spent most of the time underneath the tarp waiting for food, eating 'sandwhiches' basically doing nothing.  We did spend some time building things out of bamboo, that was cool.  We built a bench for our camp, a table and sink for the whole gathering to use for washing dishes, and a table.  

Another thing was the health and water situation.  The water that was going to the gathering was tested for diseases and it was found to have E. Coli in it.  But on days when it was sunny, it would get hot and people would drink it anyway.   Including myself. Why would a man knowingly drink water that has E. Coli in it you may ask yourself? 

...

Thirst.

Some people did end up getting really sick due to the water or the food or whatever the hell else makes you sick in a rainforest but fortunately I did not.

I was supposed to be there for a month, but cut it short after two weeks due to weather and massive boredom.  We got out and hitchhiked back to Guatemala City, a trip which on a bus going the other took 7 hours, but in the back of a pickup truck took 4.

Hung out around Guatemala City for a few days, got clean, took a shower, used a toilet (instead of the forest) for the first time in 2 weeks and then headed to...

Antigua (3rd time)

Ah hell, this place again... exactly what I thought so I stayed only one night and caught the next bus out to...

Semuc Champey

A Natural land bridge, the river goes under the land for 300 yards, and on top is a bunch of pools and stuff.  Absolutely beautiful.  

The tour included going into caves with just candles.  And you didn't walk in these caves much, you swam as they were filled with water.  I dare you to try in swim in a cave while one hand is holding a lit candle above water.  Its fun.  We explored this cave for a few hours, swam, climbed up a waterfull (yes, up, it had a rope) and jumped of some rocks about 10 ft high.  This whole cave thing was really cool, probably one of the cooler things I've done.

We then went tubing down a river for about an hour and as we passed a bridge over the river the guide asked if anyone wanted to jump off it.  I sad %#&$ it, and said yes.  A 30 foot jump off a bridge into a river is quite exhilerating, although I was the only one who would do it.  If your friends jump off a bridge would you? Well apparently I'm the friend jumping of the bridge. 

Why? Other than an obvious lack of concern for my own health and well being, it seemed like fun.  Its also becoming apparent to me that I am developing a healthy addiction to adrenaline.

Oh and gentelman, if you ever decide to follow in these footsteps and jump into water from this height, hers a tip.  Make sure you close your legs when you hit the water.  Landing family jewels first from that height doesn't exactly feel like a massage. Trust me. Ow.

  

After we saw the land bridge and went swimming in the pools above it.  Check out the pictures in the link, absolutely beautiful.

Part 3 is tomorrow.

6 Week Recap Part I

Alright, time for a recap of the highlights of the past six weeks. Figured it might be time for a post.  I won't be doing too much description of places, but I will link to more information.

Antigua (1st time)

I flew into Guatemala City, immediatly caught a shuttle to Antigua, about an hour away .  An old Spanish Colonial city.  Here I stayed for a few days and hiked an active volcano.  Cool half of a day, roasted marshmallows on some heat vents.  Rumors had it there was actually lava you could see on this volcano which got me quite excited but alas, there was none and hadn't been for years. Slightly dissappointing, but still cool.

From Antigua I hopped a shuttle bus to Lago Atitlan.

Lago Atitlan

Lago Atitlan is a big lake about 3 hours north of Antigua.  Probably one of the most picturesque places I have ever come across.  The common way of getting around this large lake is by boat.  These boats (lanchas) are common and hold about 15 people each safely (this will be important later).  It took about a 45 minute lancha ride to get across the lake to the place where I would park myself for about the next week, San Pedro La Laguna, a small village on the base of a volcano, populated by backpackers.

This village was a party, and that was about it.  There wasn't much else to do other than a few possible hikes and exploring the other villages along the lake.  Luckily enough I happened to be here during the full moon, and what do backpackers do during a full moon? Why throw a Full Moon Party of course.

This full moon party was a few villages down the lake and boats were going there all night.  The party itself was held on this small piece of land and had a DJ and bar and all the perks.  It was alright, and in the end was broken up by the police at about 3am.  We were all told to leave immediatly, but there was a problem, we all had arrived by boat... and there were no boats there to take us home.  The police couldn't understand why we weren't leaving and were getting quite angry.  Angering police in foreign countries is always fun.

Anyway, there were about 50 of us waiting for a boat, one boat comes, takes 20 of us away, and using basic math, that leaves 30 of us left waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting. Around 5am another boat finally shows up.  Now remember, these boats are meant to hold 15 people.  All 30 of us pack onto this boat, doubling its safe capacity.  The boat was so overloaded that you placed your hand on top of the edge of the boat pointing down, your hand was in the water.  Only about 6 inches between the top of the boat and the water, WAY overloaded with 30 drunk people.  We could scarcely move lest the boat capsize.

So the boat starts moving towards the village where we all came from and about a 100 yards into the water the engine dies.  So there we are, 30 gringos, 5 in the morning sitting in an overloaded boat that is dead in the water.  Needless to say with only 4 life jackets on the entire boat, people weren't feeling too safe.  Luckily one of these jackets was right above me and if something happened, it was mine, because screw everyone else, I ain't going to drown.

So we sat there, floating in the middle of the lake for a good 45 minutes having a Bob Marley sing-a-long ("every little thing is going to be alright") until the motor got going.  And all was good until they stopped the boat in the middle of the lake because two drunk assholes decided they didn't want to pay the price of the ride and started arguing about it.  They were arguing over a 30 cent difference.  Another 20 minutes went by with the driver arguing with these two while we were still periously close to capsizing.  Fools.  Anyway, that ended up getting settled with other people (read: me) paying for the assholes just so we could get moving, and you know, spend as little time as possible on this death trap of a boat.

Safely home at about 630, bed called.

Stayed in this village for a few more days and then headed back to... Antigua... no wait... before that a kite festival in Sumpongo.  I ended up staying in an Animal Shelter, in a metal shack surrounded by about a 100 dogs who were fed at 5am.  Needless to say, it wasn't exactly quiet.  How did we end up there? A friend of one of the people I was traveling with was volunteering there.

From the kite festival we headed back to...

Antigua (2nd time)

On the bus ride back to Antigua, tragedy struck.  My phone, my lovely, lovely Droid RAZR was stolen/lost. Devastating.

Oddly enough losing my phone hasn't been the worst thing in the world, in fact quite the opposite. I now have nothing expensive with me, so I don't need to worry about anything, quite liberating.  Also it gets me off the internet all the time, and experiencing everything around me.  Plus it was insured and data was backed up (except the pictures... DAMN), so I get a new one when I get back, no worries.

But yes, Antigua... second time...

Quite boring as I hate retracing steps, but we were preparing for the next part of the adventure, which would entail camping.  So tents, sleeping bags and machetes were purchased.

Camping was about 7 hours away on a bus near a place called Coban.  We were to camping with a bunch of other people in the middle of a rainforest for a (hippie) gathering called a Rainbow Gathering.

...Continued in Part 2... 

The Night Before...

The night before heading out on an adventure is always the hardest, at least for me.

Sleep is ever elusive, brain is running, did i remember everything, am I bringing to much, what if this happens, what if that goes wrong, am i doing the right thing, this is going to be so cool, I have to go here and go there...

Restlessness I believe its called. Or butterflies.

But I know everything is prepared, and tomorrow I'll be writing you from Guatemala with a smile.

If only I could sleep...

Frequently Asked Questions

So with the trip to America less than two weeks away, i figured i would answer some of the frequent questions i have been receiving.

What are you doing down there?

I am backpacking around, exploring the area, possibly looking for a job in the tourism industry. Starting in Antigua, Guatemala on Oct 24th. I also plan on visiting Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

How long are you going for?

I have no definite plans to return as this is a one way ticket. That being said, I could be there for as little as a month or two, or a couple years, who knows. It all depends on what happens on the road and how I feel.

Who are you going with?

Just myself. Solo traveling. Will I be alone the whole time? No. I have friends and some family along the way. It is also fairly easy to make new friends and travel partners while on the road.

Where are you going to stay?

Hostels and hotels at first. You can get beds for as little as $3 a night in Central America. I also plan on doing a bit of couch surfing. If you don't know what that is check it out at www.couchsurfing.org.

Isn't it dangerous down there?

While it is true Central America does have its fair share of crime, much of the violent crime is gang related and tends to avoid tourists. Tens of thousands of backpackers go there every year and return with no unpleasantness. 

Obviously precautions are to be taken, but no more really than any where else. Rule of thumb is just be smart, don't flash valuables, don't walk alone at night, etc.

What are you bringing with you?

Whatever fits into my backpack. Clothes, a book or two, first aid kit, other traveling accessories.

I will have my phone for internet access and camera. All in all, not much. Traveling light is key.

Not North, Not South. Central.

My sister has been back home for the past few weeks from Nicaragua,where she has been living for the past year.  As we were talking she was explaining to me how cool and beautiful Central America is.  So I hopped on the internet, to look at pictures and do a little research and I was intrigued.

At this time I was open to all and any ideas for a next adventure, and this sounded like it could be one.  So I hopped on my go-to site for airline tickets, SkyScanner, and looked at prices.  The first country to check was Guatemala as that is in the north of Central America and a great starting point for back packing travels. The first ticket to come up was $170 Detroit to Guatemala City.

Good enough.  Slept on it. Went to the bank. Deposited money.  Came home.  Bought the ticket.  Easy.

One of the hardest parts of traveling is getting over the fear and doubt and actually buying the ticket.  Once the ticket is bought, you're good to go.

-

The Trip

So the general outline of this trip is to arrive in Guatemala, explore there, head to Honduras/El Salvador.  In Honduras I will go to Utila, one of the Bay Islands to get certified in Scuba diving.  This is the cheapest place in the world to get certified.  I'm not sure about Belize, I might head there, but I will figure that out as the trip comes closer or commences. From there, down to Nicaruaga to visit my sister in Managua.  Then down through Costa Rica and into Panama.  

From there it is up in the air.  It will all depend on the money situation, it is possible I may continue on to South America. Columbia, Peru, Chili, Argentina and Brazil are all possibilities.  Or I may find somewhere in Central America to stay.  We will just have to wait and see.  The idea right now is for this trip to last one or two months, but you can never be sure with these open ended things.

The slightly more detailed 'plan' is to arrive in Guatemala City on October 24th and immediately leave for other parts of the country as this city is notoriously unsafe and there isn't much to do there according to all   research so far. 

Arrive and head to a place called Antigua just a bit outside the capital.  A beautiful colonial city.  There is where I will stay for a couple of days to explore the city but mostly to get the head around the new surroundings.

After this I will be heading to Lake Atitlan.

Lake Atitlan

More specifically San Pedro La Laguna right on this lake and at the foot of one of the volcanoes.  A famous backpackers haunt where I will stay for a week or two to learn Spanish.

This is where the plan gets hazy because at this point any plan I shall make will most likely be thrown to wind anyway. This is where the fun of backpacking is, not making too many plans, being open and seeing what happens.    

Playing Catch Up

I am not very good at this blogging thing.  Not at all.  Almost 11 months since the last post.  Let's play some catch up.

I left off where? Just arriving in Barcelona...

Dammit.

Alright, to quickly summarize what happened in Barcelona:

I arrived in Barcelona, and within three hours had a job as a tour guide.  A massive case of right place, right time.  Within a week I was told I would be a manager of the Barcelona section of the company (at the time called Tours Non Stop).  The company also ran tours in Madrid and Valencia.

When I started the company gave tours for people staying at hostels (7 hostels throughout the city of Barcelona).  These tours consisted of two 2.5-3 hour walking tours of Barcelona (History tour and an Architecture Tour), a Tapas & Flamenco show tour on certain nights and, of course, our lynch pin, our Pub Crawls (Or "Party Tours" as Pub Crawls are  illegal in Barcelona).

By the time I left Barcelona 9 months later, our company had changed names (Tour Me Out), and we had added a few other activities.  We added a Beach Party, Wii Night, Trivia Night and partnered with another company to offer Street Art Tours.  We had expanded quite a bit.

So basically we would lead people around, talk about the amazing city that Barcelona is for a few hours.  Then take customers to the beach/play wii/MC trivia and hang out with them.  On certain nights we would take them out to a Tapas dinner (tour guides got free dinner), then a flamenco show (tour guides got in free).  And every night we would take them out and party in Barcelona on our Pub Crawl (tour guides drank... yep... free).  Three bars and one club.  Every night.

We got paid to do all of this.  Paid to give information, lay on the beach, play video games, eat and drink with travelers.

There was also the other stuff, the business stuff (accounting, marketing, hiring, training, etc.) but that is rather dull, so we won't get into that.  Just know it wasn't ALL fun and games (just mostly).

...And I left this?

Oh well.

Barcelona, for me, was interesting.  I met some absolutely amazing people, lived in some crazy places, culminating in living with 3 other tour guides in an apartment where one can only understatedly describe the living conditions as debaucherous.

I do miss Barcelona and all the people in it.  All the people I worked with: The receptionists at the hostels (Be Mar, Be Sound, Be Ramblas, Equity Gothic/Seapoint/Centric and Center Ramblas), the bartenders at our bars (Cosmo's, Ryan's, Can Eusabio, The Queen Vic, The Quiet Man), the bouncers at the clubs (Apolo, BLVD, Jamboree) and most of  all, all the staff of Tours Non Stop/Tour Me Out:

Cian, Conan, Kieran, Julia, Sue, Natty, Calum, Dave, Scott, Ruby, Matheus, Adam, and our glorious CEO Adrian.

Some of the craziest nights we shall never remember.  Love you all.


--

I left for home on May 19th after exactly one year in Europe.  I left to prepare for a new adventure.  And up until a few days ago I didn't know what this new adventure would be.  

Until I lived up to this blogs name and bought a one way ticket to Central America.  I am leaving in three months.  October 24th is the date.

So here is what I am going to try and do with this blog (we shall see).  I am going to try and blog my preparations for a trip for the next three months.

The goal of this is to show people how easy it is to actually travel.

I have noticed that people make traveling out to be more difficult, complicated and more expensive than it needs to be.  So I am going to show how it can be done.

Border Crossings

Alright... ummm so the last few weeks have been a bit crazy.  So I'll start at the beginning.  Leaving the chateau. After almost three months living and working at the castle I decided it was time to move on, you know, got that itch to move (not that kind of itch you sick bastards).  I found a HelpX host down in the southwest of France near the French and Spanish border.

After my first hitchhiking experience I figured I would do it again, just on a much larger scale.  If I was driving myself, with no stops, my route would take 8 hours driving.  So, I decided to play it safe and give myself a few days to get down there.  Holy crap did I underestimate the speed of hitchhiking.  I made it in 12 hours.  Well... actually I could have made it, I stopped for the night in some hills to camp, but I was only about 20 minutes from my destination, Perpignan.  Only thing was, I was two days early.  I have no phone or anything call, I just have to wait till Friday.  So Thursday I walked around in Perpignan, and took a bus to where I was going to be picked up, Arles sur Tech.  Found a campsite, played some french bingo, didn't win, but am now really strong on my french numbers (I didn't always pay too much attention to this in school) and got picked up by my hosts the next morning.

It was a beautiful house in the middle of nowhere in the mountains.

This is their house, the one on top

This is the waterfall on their property.  Great sound to fall asleep too every night.

Unfortunately I seem to not have any pictures of their house.  Shame on me. But it's okay, I wasn't there too long.  My first weekend I decided to head to Barcelona.  I had never been there and always heard it was amazing, but I never really had had the urge to go but since I was two hours away, I said, why not and headed down on a bus.  Sounds easy enough yeah? Nope.

As we are crossing the border, the french police come on board and check everyone's passports and what not.  Well... my passport has a slight problem, I have no entry stamp for the European Union.  It's not my fault, in Paris, when I arrived, customs just glanced at my passport, handed it back and I was in France.  Took all of two seconds.  Well this no stamp thing really mad the police not happy.  They pulled the whole bus over into the a police station, and hauled me off.  The whole trip, for everyone on the bus, was delayed for me.  In the police station they keep telling me I don't have a stamp, I keep saying, yes I know, you didn't give me one.  Then one lady came over and started yelling at me "You have no stamp, You are guilty!"(in english) over and over, she scared me.  They threatened to deport me, and all I did was drop my french level down to very basic and kept saying was I am a tourist, I know nothing, I am sorry, I am leaving Europe soon blah blah blah, basic dumb American tourist (of course if they would have looked closer at my passport and seen all my previous visas, this may not have worked so well, but they didn't and it did). In the end, the supervisor came over and said to all of them sometimes when people come in through Paris, customs doesn't stamp.  It's a fairly common thing, look it up.  Anyway, after a few more minutes playing dumb tourist, they let me go saying it was a 'gift' and 'next time' they would get me.  After about a 15 minute delay, I was back on the bus, gave everyone the thumbs up and we were off to Barcelona with more than a little grumbling about the French Police.

Got to Barcelona, checked into the hostel, walked around.... and the rest is to be continued, for I have a meeting now.