Gruffly waking up at 5am to the distinct growls of the howler monkeys, our alarm clock became their curiously deep throated bellowing, as I blinked in the faint light of false dawn. I closed my eyes for a moment, savouring the last strands of sleep as they parted company and shook the final filaments of slumber from my clotted thoughts. Stretching both arms and arching my back outside the tent, a mist spun down around us; thick and sparkling, it resembled a benign blizzard of miniscule snowflakes. I peered down and marvelled at a blotchy red-ringed bite on my leg the size of a two-pound coin; more than appreciating where I was. Deep within the maw of the Guatemalan jungle. Continue reading
sanmarcos
10-16 Jul 2015 – “This must be underwater love, the way I feel it slipping all over me…”
An elevated 80 miles saw our sorry excuses for bodies, sore muscles that’d ache for some time to come and seized legs—on a less than welcomed ride—taking leave of Antigua’s stunning architecture up through the nippy Guatemalan Highlands and into the Sierra Madre mountain range. Ordinarily happy to earn the magic moments that often ensue post a slog of some sort, I just hurt, throbbed even and yearned for timeout. Gingerly negotiating steep switchbacks on a broken road peppered with gaping potholes was about the least desirable endeavour on my radar, or on Pearl’s suspension—the pair of us far from fresh. Still, it featured heavily on our agenda the morning after the day before our closure with Acatenango. Continue reading