Feliz Navidad

It is christmas there are guatemalans in santa masks throwing assorted sweets at passerbyers, and an old man with a giant iron shoulder cannon (that appears to be made with recycled car parts) firing mortars into the air. Guatemalans love explosives, cherry bombs going off at every corner and cheap little fireworks it is quite the scene.

I am now in Lanquin, it is a lovely town 10km away from semuc champey. It is strange how difficult it is to cover distance in Guatemala, as I left Coban I saw a sign that said Lanquin 50km and it took 2 hours to reach there.

In any case all my friends from the pink house have left, Andy is in El Salvador, Devon, Cristina and Leela went back to colorado and I am here in Lanquin.

Happy psychadelic pagan christmas.

december 22nd

Christmas is up and coming fast and here I am in +20C weather,pretty wicked, me and my friends, Devin, Andy, Christina and Lila are here at hans' now. Hans i a really calm chill German man with a giant beard, he owns a very cheap hostel, and offers a kitchen and free internet.

I have been hanging out swimming and chatting with friends and cristina and Lila have bought their land, I took a look at some land, but the guy selling it was charging way too much so I won't be following that path.

This place is a little piece of paradise, tomorrow we will all be going to Antigua though and from there all going separate ways. I will be heading to semuc champey. Should be wicked, I will finally be on the road once more. It is strange to think of leaving after a month and a half I know everyone. And everyone knows me. If I could get a good deal on some land here I totally would buy some. But the journey must go on , so on I go.

Happy christmas everyone.

December 13th

Wow it has been a long time, sorry for not keeping in touch. I am still around the lake, I lived in David's house for a little while but then he met up with his friend Lee and Lee decided he would sponsor David to travel with him for thirteen days. The Iguana got some new girls working there that I became close friends with, Malika, Marta and Julia all very cool girls, Julia from BC Marta from Bend USA and Malika from Seatle I think.

I hung out with those girls alot, but today they left to their travels. I managed to meet some other cool girls though whom are buying land here in Jabilito, Their names are Christina and Lila. They were renting a wicked pink house that I have moved into with them and through them I meet many cool people, Andy the Irish fiddle player, Devin who is very chill and reflective, Selso who stayed with us for a few days.

I also learned some Kali from a man named Greg, and we had the christmas party in Santa cruz for the children whom I volunteer with. Right now Diana, Ryan and Tuna are working at the Iguana. But I am enjoying being a local picking tons of fruit and cooking every day. Living cheap is good.

With friends and love. I will write in greater detail later.

nov 25th

sory for the negtligence on posting, time flies so fast here it is insane. I have been hanging out alot with my taoist musician friend David from LA. he has been living in Central south america for two years now, so some of his songs are in spanish. He is one talented musician. His house is pretty wicked, it is just a small one room hut in Jabilito and he lets everyone paint the walls of his house so there is some pretty sweet painting everywhere.

I went over to Dave´s house and ended up painting a bunch and all the village children came and started painting the outside of the house, then Frank from texas whom is one of the funniest looking characters i have ever known (with his massive beard thick texas accent and straw hat). He is a wonderful artist he painted himself and helped the children paint, they loved it. he teaches the children to paint in Santa cruz.

I have been swimming and running lots and just hanging out a ton. There are some crazy american boys staying with us right now so we have ben hanging out dancing in our boxers.

nov-18

Today I decided to run to solala about a 3.5 hour walk from here, on a long windy road, no small feat. I had planned to grab some locks unfortunately all the lock stores don´t open until two, and being the stupid ass I am when I am tired and hungry, I thought the man at the sandwhich stall said tres qetzales when he in fact said trece and being ever so unthinking i ordered 3 gross sandwhiches from the guy, ugh. Then I had a hell of a time finding my way back here, never again will I go to Solala.

nov 12-16

All of my old friends have now gone, a new cycle has begun and I hope the next group of good friends will be as good as the last, I will miss John and his funny story about the lap dancer with the hope diamond in her ass, and Andrew with his machine gun zippo, and amit with his rhinocerus feet, and Ryan from sheep land, and Benjamin who happens to be an amazing athlete, I hope one day I can swim as well as him, and Kimberly for being the strong-headed, vulgar, humorous bitch that she is. Good times.

Just yesterday I had to help "escort" a crazy ass mofo named antonio off the premises and onto a boat. He was seriously fu$$ed it seems he had been crushing up some sort of pills and snorting them, and was standing naked in the hallway trying to get people to come into his room. Luckily he was so fu$$ed he didn´t even know what planet he was on, big buggy eyes and pointing aimlessly a things liquid streaming down his nose and mouth, absolutely out of his mind, had to force him into the boat.

Luckily a cool israeli guy name joel is working with us for another 2 weeks so that should be fun.

I´ve just been running and swimming picking fruit and meeting peops as per norm. Eating well growing strong, having fun.

Nov 11-13

I arrived in Santa cruz, and introduced myself to a nice looking blonde girl from Canada, her name was Erin and she assumed I was from the US from my accent, so I told her I was from Alberta and she told me she was from Saskatchewan; Erin is a bit of a pretty hippy girl with post-secondary kinesiology, but who found out later in life that the career she wants now is to be a yoga instructor, and that she went through all that schooling and debt in order to make her parents happy.

I asked about working here and was told to talk to Deedle so I did, and Deedle told me that I could start on the 12th working with Erin; Deedle is an english lady married to a man named Dave whom I haven´t met. Deedle and Dave bought the Iguana from an english chap named Sarito, who is a genuine hipster architect a very cool cat, who now lives here at what I guess is a retirement of sorts, he spent the majority of his life in India, a very fascinating man.

[I was enthralled by the amount of wild edibles that grow in this beautiful country, Guave avocado, lemon, lime, papaya, corn, mint, coffee and countless other things, it´s wicked. I have ran and swam every day, and free food entails that I am still healthy and stronger than ever. I will probably stay for two weeks or so.

I have met numerous great life long quality friends here, and my humour, has grown on them like a mad flesh-eating bacteria.]

I then met a man from new zealand named Ryan; Ryan is the striking image of new zealand sounds and looks akin to the guys from flight of the concords. Ryan is a chill down to earth guy. I also met another co-worker, Benjamin from Holland; Ben is like me only more of an athlete, and less of a philosophizer, and although he shares my interest in health and training I feel that I am slightly more knowledgeable in those fields, only due to my background.

I also met 4 others whom have become really good friends, all of them strangely from ohio. John is a data analyst looks a bit like a monkey, and like the other three has an amazing sense of humor. Amit is a big Indian guy born in the states though, he has feet like a rhinocerus, it is really quite amazing. Andrew is a very laid back down to earth guy with an amazing sense of humor. And las but not least, there is Kimberly whom lives here and has for at least a couple of months, strangely though she lives less than three blocks from John and never met John before he came to Santa Cruz, strange.

After meeting these fellows I met a man named David, David is a follower of the Tao and always carries the tao de ching, being familiar with taoist philosophy me and Dave talk for hours about philosophy India and life in general. Dave has a clothes company he started here called IamMaian and offers 3X the normal wage to all his workers, he plans to go to India on a family trip, only he will stay there after they leave.

On my first shift I had 4 belligerent guatemalians order drinks here and were misbehaving, spitting and blowing snot, eventually I had to kick them out, what a shitty first day lol. In any case will not happen again, I will make sure of that.

Nov 9-10 9:50 AM

Hey guys, yesterday was a day well spent, found a nice running loop that I plan to hit again today, mostly uphill it is great to go running in the hot weather then cool down in a nice cold shower.

Met a bunch of irish and english chaps here, apparently irish people come to central south america very often. Had some hilarious conversations, and got a bit ripped in the market as usual, lady charged me an extra 3 Q for my meal, I just bit my lip though, I am going to have to stop taking bullshit soon lol.

In any case I met a super cool british lady, named Jenna she shares my fervor for excercise, but she has gone off to study spanish for the next week, meanwhile I bought a ticket to Panajachel, and the guy there ripped me too, said it was 60Q then charged me 70Q but I think he felt kinda bad because he spent ten minutes afterwards telling me about the area and trying to help me out a bit. In any case next time I write it will be most likely in santa cruz lago Atitlan.

nov-6-8

I made it out of Antigua and into the tiny village of El Hato, passing the market in Guatemala on my way. It is a nice market. There was this old crazy toothless Guatemalian man, who kept talking to me, and I did my best to converse, but every second thing I said was "no entiendo". It was Hilarious.

In any case upon my arrival in El Hato I was amazed how small the village was, there could not have been more than 250 people there. It was a very beautiful place, located on the side of a mountain. With corn and avacodo growing everywhere.

I found the earth lodge in no time and met the owners Brianna and Drew right away, they had started to build there five years ago and it was a beautiful place, with tree houses and a flat for camping. I then met 4 really great people who I became friends with immediately, Patrick and his brother Shaun and patrick´s wife Angela and Shaun´s girlfriend Anna. Shaun, Patrick and Angela are all originally from America and Pat and angela had just stopped working for red cross, and Shaun works as an adventure guide, and Anna works for a NPO (non profit organization and comes from Holland. We played frizbee, scrabble, bocce watched Bladerunner and hung out. unfortunately they had commitments so they left the next day.

I camped there in my jungle hammock, it was a sweet little setup. The only downside is that the isolation meant that there was only, one cornerstore, with overpriced veggies and that the earth lodge was the only place to eat, and was not exactly budget, so I rationed myself on carrots and granola bars, and just pigged out at the communal dinner, which was great. After my friends left I stayed another night and then decided I would go back to Antigua. Which led to my first bit of bad luck.

Early in the morning I said my goodbyes and left for Antigua where I went straight to the market for some food. I ate some delicious meat, and then spent the next hour or two looking for the Jungle Party where I planned to stay. Needless to say after what seemed like an eternity wandering Antigua witha stupid smile on my face, with very little clue of where I was I found the Hostel. It is a nice dorm only 45 Q a night, so as I was unpacking I went to reach for my back pocket and found that my pocket was slashed wide open and my wallet gone.

luckily all I had in it was cash 200Q and $70 Canadian which I had not been able to exchange in any bank. Sorry Angel and Lorna your gift got slashed, but I will be more careful in the future.- In fact as I was going to the bank to get small change, I found a Machete store, and purchased a fine machete for 125Q.

In any case I will try and upload some pics soon, its been a little difficult to do so so far but I will get around to it. Bieno Adios.

Days 1-2

My Journey started out in true Matt fashion, the airport bus that I had booked to get to Calgary airport had crapped out, thankfully Chris F. and I wasted no time in finding the public transport method from which I could get to the airport, best part, it only cost me $2.50 and on my way I met a mechanic who came to Calgary from Ontario in search of work, his name was Chris and he was a very cool guy.

In any case I arrived at the airport no problem; I am always amazed by the view from an airplane window. At the airport I met a lady named adelila who came from guatemala and I was able to practice me castenol (unsure of spelling), it was going good... Until I arrived at Guatemala airport, realizing I can not change my canadian currency and that I can't stay at the airport over night. I have to admit my bro Mike did warn me that the airport had nothing, but I never expected to find just a desolate concrete slab, and no way of staying without being kicked out.

After telling of my plight a kind american tourist gave me 50 ketsalas, and I spent another ten minutes wandering and wondering over my quandary, when a girl named Ceri from the UK hailed me over and asked if I wanted to split a shuttle to Antigua for $15 each, I told her my plight and she told me she trusted me to pay her back tomorrow when I could get some money out of the bank.

I told her we could stop at an ATM and I would pay today. Unfortunately the ATM wouldn't accept my cards and the driver said we had to leave now before attracting unwanted attention. Me being the fool I am forgot which car was ours and attempted to get in three cars before finding mine, talk about drawing unwanted attention.

On the way to Antigua Ceri told me that she worked for an adventure travel company and that she had a six month contract in central america. No wonder she spoke spanish so well. In ay case we got to her hotel where it was very expensive, so with a helpful point in the right direction, I began wandering the streets of Antigua at 12:00AM I soon found a really cool hostel called the yellow house run by a Guatemalan family, the man said I could pay the next morning when got the money from the bank, very kind of him!

So that is my story so far, I plan to make it to the earth lodge today which should be nice if I manage it.

Until next time thanks for reading.
Matt