Just before we left Cuenca in Ecuador we stumbled across a demonstration by a handful of heavy metal fans....the sign reads (roughly) 'Metal is Art and Culture - Respect It.' Make of that what you will...
That's masking tape, not paint. Not painful to remove at all. Onwards to Banos for some mountain air and lying around in hot springs in the rain...
Next we bypasssed Quito for the market town of Otavalo where we intentionally met up with Martyn and Sarah, who we had first met on New Zealand's South island, again in the North Island and then by sheer chance in a pavement cafe in Peru. Funny how you can not see your next door neighbour for six months yet randomly bump into people on different continents. Especially when it turns out there are mutual connections back in sunny Scotland.
We had a very brief look round Quito before flying north for an equally brief look round Costa Rica en route to Nicaragua and then a week at the beach in San Juan Del Sur in the south, before taking the ferry to Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua....
At the north end of the lake is the beautiful city of Granada...
We were there for a week before another bus north to Leon. You wait all year to see a Nicaraguan drag queen and then six come along at once....
We took a side trip to the beach here too. It is rainy season...
which makes going to work interesting for some....
After almost a month in Nicaragua it was time to head further north to Guatemala and meet my (Mike) extended family. Lots of pictures for the folks back home and in Australia in this next bit....
This is Teo III, my first cousin once removed...
and his wife Elizabeth...
their daughters Lila (left) and Xristha with Sarah...
at a party for their son Teo IV, here with his son Teo V, and Nicolle (belongs to Lila) and Ainhoa (Xristha)...
Teo IV again with Jano (husband of Xristha) and Francis (Lila)..
This is all of us, including Teo's wife Jimena...
And again just for the folks back home, Teo III is the nephew of my grandmother Helen...
and grandson of Seton Guthrie....
Hope you're all paying attention. There will be a test later. Almost forgot, this is Goyo...
Teo III and Teo IV took us to their coffee and avocado farm three hours or so out of the city...this is the house, the mill and Sarah receiving her first lesson in avocado-farming...
Good commute...
Next we spent a few days in Antigua, another beautiful colonial city...
where it also rained...(tis the season)...
We also took a trip to Lake Atitlan where unsurprisingly it also rained...
Although a few hours later...
(Thank you Manolo)
Panajachel on the shores of the lake...
On the way back to the city we saw the legacy of Hurricane Agatha....
More of the children and all...
Teo V...
Ainhoa...
Nicolle...
and Teo V telling Ainhoa about the witches under her bed...
Elizabeth and Xristha
and finally...
Eventually we felt we should give Elizabeth her spare room back so we took the night bus north to Peten to visit the Mayan ruins at Tikal. After weeks of being spoilt rotten we ended up sharing a mouldy tent outside the ruins with a selection of voracious insects, got up at 4am to watch the black of night turn to a lighter grey and went off to climb some spectacular pyramids...
Itchy.
Coatamundi...
To recover we hitched a ride across the border into Mexico...
and to the Antigua and Granada-like city of San Cristobal de Las Casas where we have managed to do very little...
apart from the odd bike ride...
and shopping trip woth our new friend Ginger...
The sign warns the bridge can only take five people every two minutes. Mexican health and safety.
We have been in Latin America for a few months now. These are some of the things you think about at 4am in a Mexican bus station:
1. No-one has any change.
2. Shoeshine boys will offer to polish your flip-flops.
3. Avocado goes with everything. So does lime.
4. Chill the glass. Add salt and lime (see above). Add beer. Repeat as required.
5. If the shopkeeper does have change, it will have been kept in her bra.
6. Bank notes kept in a bra go a bit soggy after a while.
7. It takes ages to wash shoe polish off your feet.
8. Louder is better.
9. Gordon Blue is always on the menu.
10. If they say the bus will arrive in 15 minutes, you still have three or four hours to wait.
11. No-one accepts soggy banknotes.
12. Pretending to be a cat is not an effective sales technique. Just saying.
We have ten days or so left here in Mexico before we fly to San Francisco and start the drive in the direction of home. On the way we want to stroke a grizzly. Apparently they like it.
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