Middle of nowhere

Here I sit, in the middle of the Guatemalan wilds on a wireless internet connection! Ain't technology grand! Sadly it's not good enough for Skype, Bittorrent or uploading of photos to this blog, but good enough for basic HTML email and text blogging...

After a week of nothing much in San Pedro La Laguna, I've made my way north, to the dead centre of the country, to a little place called Lanquin. San Pedro was nice – if only slightly overrated. Paradoxically, San Pedro is a town full of Spanish schools... where everyone speaks English. Menus are never in Spanish, even the drug dealers speak English. Seems like a shitty place to improve one's Spanish if you ask me. I caught up with my old mate Matze from Dresden, Germany and we drank overpriced Guatemalan beer (shite for the most part) and were subjected to cheesy late 90s trance in any number of sleazy gringo bars. It was fun, although far from cheap.

(While I'm on that point... to all the peeps who have travelled to Guatemala and raved about how cheap it is, I regret to inform you that it is no longer the case. Indeed, food, beer, and transport are far more expensive in Guatemala than in Mexico, especially Chiapas. How much this has to do with the devaluation of the Mexican Peso and how much with the Guatemalan propensity for price-gouging and ripping off tourists is debatable. I find it difficult to believe that somehow Mexico's economy has suffered more than the economic powerhouse of Guatemala... so maybe it's the latter).

Lanquin is a would-be ecotourist hotspot, and thankfully it seems to suffer slightly less from the rubbish problems that plague the rest of this very beautiful country. All around are waterfalls, caves, rapids, etc... it is a place of undeniable beauty, and as this post's title suggests, I really feel like I'm in the middle of fucking nowhere (despite the wireless internet and hordes of gringos). It's great.

Yesterday I visited Semuc Champey, a natural limestone bridge and series of pools that is honestly one of the most incredible pieces of nature I've seen ANYWHERE. Words do no justice, you'll have to wait for photos.

From here it's on to Flores, the jump-off point for the fabulously overpriced ruins at Tikal (around AU$30 entry I'm told) then back to the adopted mother country – Mexico. There's a Zapatista gathering taking place for International Women's Day, so I'll probably check that out, then head back to Oaxaca to wether the financial crisis.

Gotta go. Dinner's ready where I'm staying.

Peace. x x x