Gregarius » Jagged Little Pili

Jagged Little Pili

Blogging from Flock!

Posted: March 4th, 2007, 3:19pm UTC

This is a test! If it works: Yay! :D
Blogged with Flock
flickr

Posted: February 24th, 2007, 11:28am UTC

My forays into the world of flickr began when Charlee reminded me to put up the photos from our holiday in Lloret de Mar last year in the photo pool. Now I had resisted for a while going back to uploading my photos onto photo sharing websites since back in the day when I was using Sony's imagestation. Also, my photos for that holiday were already up on this website.

Sony's imagestation was great. Until someone pointed out to me that the reason for me getting unlimited space was the fact that I was giving away the copyright to my photos. Now, I don't know if that was true or not, but it certainly scared me into stopping. I'll be darned if I let someone take away my right to sell my 20,000 pictures of Ivan!

So then I got my own website, with it's own gallery. Even though it didn't have masses of space it was good for the purpose of sharing the photos I had taken with friends and family (and random strangers sent there by google.) Unfortunately this was at the expense of a lower resolution than I had taken them in.

Anyway, I gave in to Charlee to put up the photos on flickr, because it's nice to share and I hate it when people don't share their photos. I only got to upload about half the photos because of the upload limits, etc... Charlee suggested I get a pro account. What?!?!? Actually pay for something online?!?! Crazy woman... But then I started thinking, what if I lost all my photos in some freak hard disk crash?!?!? Who will back up my pictures for me?!?

So I gave in... $47.99 for 2 years of peace of mind... See you in 2 months when I have finished sorting out all my pictures!
2 down, ? to go

Posted: February 16th, 2007, 5:46pm UTC

Ivan 2 - Mice 0

So this morning I awoke, sans boyfriend to find that the conveniently placed humane mouse traps had actually worked after 3 days on the floor :O.

Wasn't too happy about this since it meant going up to Hyde Park to release the poor mouse before work, since I wasn't going to be home that evening and figured it was cruel to keep the poor mouse in a small cage with not much food. So off I went with the mouse trap in a cardboard box to keep the mouse relatively happy. I don't think this worked though since the bastard started jumping around the very small cage when I put the cage on the grass. I think it was trying to bite me through the bars or something.

There is something really beautiful about seeing a mouse running off into the park in the exact opposite direction from your home...
Happy Birthday Ivan

Posted: February 6th, 2007, 8:00am UTC

My live-in geek turns 23 today. He just keeps getting older and older. If I don't watch out, he's going to catch up with me soon... ;)
Back Safe and Sound (just about)

Posted: January 24th, 2007, 11:16am UTC

In case anyone was wondering and didn't yet know :)

Entries on my last two days of holiday will be posted once I'm recovered from the jetlag.
Day 11: Flores

Posted: January 20th, 2007, 10:31pm UTC

Woke up in Hacienda Tijax far too early as usual and went to have breakfast. Was scared by a huge spider that was hiding in the napkins, but that did not put me off tucking into the nicest plate of pancakes ever. Food in Guatemala is not great, so when it is, you really appreciate it.

This was the day that Mili and I were separating, so it was a bit depressing making separate reservations in hotels and taking different buses in opposite directions. My bus left a lot to be desired. I decided to save some time and money and go on the 2nd class bus to Flores, it's a 4 hour trip and there was standing room only!!!

About an hour into the trip we got stopped by the police and had to get off. Luckily when we got back on I managed to get to the back of the bus and sit on some steps. I eventually got a seat after approximately 1h30. Got talking to some guys from Honduras, they seemed quite depressed about their experience in Guatemala so far. It was really sad, they were coming here to look for work and it seemed like they'd been taken advantage of. The guy I was talking to said the food was bad and that they had taken all their money (I don't know who "they" was but I can believe they did) He was also talking about how it was as corrupt as Honduras, and he'd only been here one day!! The two Hondurans I spoke to said they wanted to go to Spain... I didn't know how to tell them that it would probably not be easy.

Arrived in Flores at around 3pm. Got a taxi to my hotel (Hospedaje Doña Goya) and inmeadiately went out to sort out my tour to Tikal. Managed to get the last seat on the plane to Guatemala. Phew. That is it up until now. Should go back to the hotel and lie down and eat. Incredibly tired.
Day 10: Rio Dulce

Posted: January 20th, 2007, 12:00am UTC

Friday morning we woke up in paradise, went out to our porch overlooking the lake and lay on the hammock... for about 10 minutes until we got itchy feet and decided to go have some breakfast. Breakfast consisted of exactly the same as dinner the previous evening: 2 fried eggs, fried plantains, black beans and cream cheese. Still I wasn't complaining, it was some of the best food we'd had so far.

After breakfast we decided to head over to this amazing hot waterfall type thing that falls onto a cold river below thus creating a natural sauna type thing... or something :) I think by now MIli and I were a bit overloaded on travelling and natural things to be too impressed, but we had a fun morning's swim anyhow. Saw some beautiful butterfiles on the way, including a huge Monarch butterfly.

After the waterfall we went back to the finca. We had been toying with staying there another night, but for some reason decided we should go on to Rio Dulce. We knew there was a bus coming past the Finca at around 2pm. It was 1pm we hadn't yet packed and mili was not feeling too great. At the finca we met some canadians that were also going onto rio dulce so we convinced them to wait for us and go together (safety from being ripped off in numbers.) Since Mili couldn't walk to the road we comandeered a tractor for 30Q for the 4 of us.

Once on the main road, the first vehicle to come past was a pick up truck, so we jumped on the back and rode all the way to Rio Dulce in the back. I think I may have been on just about every mode of transport in guatemala so far... The pick up truck was great though, we stood up and enjoyed the feel of the wind rushing past (does that sound too romantic? it was fun)

Once in Rio Dulce we went to stay at Hacienda Tijax, which I think is one of the swankiest places in town, but don't let that fool you. I was impressed just by the fact that I could pay by card!!! It's quite hard to get hold of cash here, so it's always best to save it for an emergency.

The hotel was so nice and it was so hard to get anywhere else in Rio Dulce (everything is done by lancha (power boat)) that we decided to stay there and eat nice food all day long. Boring but a much needed day of rest. I know this entry probably doesn't make much sense but I'm very tired, I shall clean up everything once I get back.
Day 9: Back on the road to Finca El Paraiso

Posted: January 19th, 2007, 10:55pm UTC

Got up at 4:30am and packed in total darkness since the electricity in the hotel is generated from solar panels and a generator. Unfortunately there had not been enough sun recently and so they only turned the generator on from 6pm - 10pm. We woke up Paive and said goodbye to her and headed off back to Coban on a minibus full of locals and some other tourists. Got to Coban at around 7:30 and set about looking for the supposed direct bus to El Estor and hunting down some money. Two of the cash machines were broken, third time lucky though. Taxi driver then took us to a place where there were minibuses to El Estor... supposedly.

Got to the place and the only minibus was going to Teleman, since we had no choice and wanted to get to El Estor asap we took it. It took 4 hours on an incredibly bad road to get to Teleman, it was no better than the dirt track (and in fact worse) that leads from my grandad's house to his fields. For anyone that has not seen it, you don't want to...

In Teleman we managed to get a connecting minibus straight away, which was good, since the place was a dump. In fact, all the towns along the route were no better than a collection of mud huts (I may be exaggerating.) I was glad every time we were on the move since I was having nightmares about getting stuck in one of these places.

Eventually got to El Estor at around 2pm. We'd been on the road for 9 hours at this stage. Called up Finca el Paraiso (some 30mins away to make sure they had room) and once that was confirmed we set about finding a pick up going towards Rio Dulce to drop us off at the finca.

Went over to some guy that was supposedly going to Rio Dulce and asked how much he would charge us to go to Finca El Paraiso, 10Q. Seemed reasonable, he said we had to wait for more people to want to go to Rio Dulce though. He loaded our bags and we waited. A few minutes later he said to me something along the lines of "It seems like people don't feel like going to Rio Dulce, so you'll have to pay me the whole trip." I wasn't sure what he was talking about so I asked him to be more clear and tell us how much he wanted us to pay him. 100Q!!!! We took our bags off and said we'd rather pay that to go on a taxi.

Went over to the taxi rank and asked a man how much for Finca el Paraiso. 200Q. There were at least 5 other taxis there so I thought I should try my luck with them instead. They seemed interested in the conversation as well, so I shouted out:"Who will take us for 100Q?" Everyone seemed to want to, but we went over to some guy who then increased the 100Q to 150Q. So we walked off with the guy that gave us the 100Q price. It was the best car there as well.

Got to Finca El Paraiso, which was as its name describes a paradise after the day's travels. We lay in the hammock and chilled out.
Day 8: Semuc Champey

Posted: January 19th, 2007, 10:37pm UTC

Coban was rainy and miserable but we were not planning to stay there very long any way. We enquired about getting to Semuc Champey at the hotel and they brought us a tourism student who was clearly trying to rip us off. So we said, no thanks we will find our own way there. Called up Las Marias hotel to get a reservation and once that was all set we started the journey straight to the hotel. On the way there we met a sweet finnish girl called Paive who kept us entertained on the way there.

Got to the hotel and it was rainy and miserable as well. I was expecting that from Coban, but not from Semuc Champey... Not a good start... Fortunately the rain stopped for long enough to encourage us to venture to the pools and I am glad we did, it was beautiful. Semuc Champey is a series of turquoise pools which feed into each other over a natural limestone bridge which crosses the cahabon river. The description does it no justice... you will see the photos when I get around to posting them up. Seeing that made up for all the horrible travelling we had had to do to get there.

Back to the hotel then for a long game of cards with Paive and a "delicious" meal of chicken "chaomein" Had a long argument with the hoteliers then about the best way to get to El Estor. We wanted to go to El Estor via Lanquin and then Cahabon from where we would get a pickup to El Estor. They were saying that no way would we be able to get a pick up and that it was much quicker to go via Coban, even though the route on the map was much longer. After much toing and froing we decided to trust them, since we assumed being locals they would know better than us... Early night then since we had to get up at 430 for the shuttle to Coban.
Day 7: On the Road to Cobân

Posted: January 17th, 2007, 3:46pm UTC

After last time I blogged we went back to our hotel to shower and have dinner. Mili went in first, a few minutes later I hear some screaming coming from the bathroom. At first I assume the water is cold, but then Mili carries on screaming. Apparently there was a mouse in the bathroom staring at her while she showered... Had some giggles about that, but then we were both a bit freaked out about going in there, even though I've never been scared of mice.

Went to have dinner later, the sky looked beautiful, you could see lots of stars. We even think we saw a shooting star!!! Hard to tell though, it happened too quick. Went to bed after that.

Next day we went down to the lake for a quick swim to try to find the ring I had lost the previous day. I was told that I probably wouldn't find it since there are fishers that go look for crabs there and they'd probably have found it themselves. Needless to say the ring remained lost. I was such an idiot to lose it in the first place... We then went on to the hotel to have breakfast and get ourselves ready for the long journey ahead.

From San Marcos we took a lancha to Panajachel, which stopped on every little village around the lake. From Panajachel we then took a chicken bus to Solola. At Solola it was really busy on the first bus, luckily we met a sweet Guatemalan girl that was also going to Guatemala city who helped us out. So from Solola we took a chicken bus to Los Encuentros. I really felt like I was on a chicken bus on that one since I had to step over a basket of chickens to get to my seat. Once at Los Encuentros we took a chicken bus to Guatemala City.

Chicken bus drivers drive like maniacs. They will happily try to overtake another bus on a curve even though there is nowhere for them to go. Then there are women who get on to try to sell you food and another one that got on and started shouting about the benefits of a vitaminic complex she was selling. Mad...

We got to Guatemala City and my impressions were much much worse than the last time (as if that was possible) From there we had to take a Pullman bus onto Coban. We had about 60Q left and the cash machines weren't working. The 60Q went to pay for the taxi driver... luckily they let us pay in dollars for the bus to Coban, otherwise we would have been screwed.

Got to Coban at 9pm with no hotel reservation and 50Q. We took a taxi to a hotel in our guide, but that was full, so we had to go onto another one. We took the last room there. We're staying at hotel Virgen del Rosario in Coban. They wanted us to pay in advance but we didn't have enough. I offered the woman dollars and she said we could pay in the morning.

Went to bed exhausted.