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If I’m entirely honest, Liverpool has never struck me as somewhere I’d want to go. I’d seen Brookside and had a pre-conception that they were football mad and hard as nails with an ear grating accent to boot.
We got the train in, which was a short 30 minute journey through towns I’d never heard of before, and without really going through areas that seemed to be getting more and more built up, like the journey into London and through it’s suburbs (although some might argue that the entire area between Manchester and Liverpool is suburbia), we were suddenly there. I had no idea what to expect from this big city, but stepping out of the Victorian station and walking half a block had some shocks.
First off was the strange temporary looking structure wrapped in brightly coloured plastic, which as we walked further around, proved to be a very un-temporary shopping centre. The curvy, brightly coloured plastic with graphics printed on it was a way of hiding a very ordinary 70s mall- the type where all the shops face outwards around a square on a few levels. If different periods and pieces of architecture could be ‘No-More-Nails’-ed together, rather than knocking it down and drawing up new plans, this would be the outcome.
Then, right next to this gaffa taped creation, was this massive square, that wouldn’t have looked out of place in central London. There was an enormous building which steps leading up to the front of it and huge columns all along the front, with a few statues dotted about, and I immediately could sense a feeling of history. Some of it’s uses include being a law court and a concert hall, and the huge square out the front has seen The Beatles play on it, along with many others.
From there, we wandered down to the Albert Dock, where we were overtaken by a DuckBus. For those of you not aquainted with DuckBuses, they are amphibious buses that take you on a tour of many cities, both by road, and by river. We decided immediately that this was the way forward, so we brought our ticket and we were off.
The tour guide was a very friendly woman who gave a very funny and lighthearted tour, packed with information. I saw the two cathedrals- one absolutely stunning, which took more than a hundred years to build, and the other- Paddy’s Wigwam, a weird cylindrical steel structure that apparently has one of Europes largest stained glass windows, but I didn’t get to see that.
I also saw where John Lennon married his first wife (apparently there were roadworks outside during the ceremony and they could hardly hear a word being said) and I also saw the ’streaky bacon building’ where the White Star Line’s offices were (the people that were in charge of building the Titanic). Only up north would they call a building the ’streaky bacon building’!
Once we were on dry land again we went for a wander around the Albert Dock, which houses a couple of museums, a Tate gallery, a few shops and a lot of bars and restaurants. We had some lunch and a drink (I had a pint of Magner’s, much to the dressed up lady on the next table’s disgust- she’d never feel comfortable drinking a pint!) and then we wandered back up into town.
We walked through Liverpool One, the brand spanking new shopping district that has been recently built, which has a rooftop garden and all the big name shops, housed in a half indoor, half outdoor shopping centre. It all looks very swanky, and not at all like I was expecting, and then it was time to wander back up to the station past Dickie Lewis (a famous statue of a naked man, which caused a stir when first errected because of his size- and the size of one part of him in particular!).
I actually really enjoyed my day in Liverpool, far more than I thought I would. The people were so friendly, very well turned out (putting me to shame in my denim skirt and vest top!) and incredibly proud of their city, proud of it’s past and it’s present. They were definitely footy mad, they definitely had a mad accent that I couldn’t always understand, and a strange sense of humour that I understood less than the accent, but they all came across as much friendlier than anyone you’d encounter in London. My pre-conceptions weren’t entirely wrong, but it’s definitely somewhere I want to spend more time.
I’m staying in the north-western town of St Helens for my summer holidays this year, using Rick’s parent’s house as a base for lots of day trips to nearby attractions. A day in Liverpool, a trip to Chester and their zoo and a day out in Blackpool are all on the cards.
The weather is currently lovely, and is supposed to stay lovely, so I might even come home with a tan!
How do you get the cork out of an empty wine bottle without breaking it?
I still don’t know. Answers on the back of a postcard please.
Somehow a whole six months has gone by without me blogging about anything except my honeymoon. Life has been so busy, it feels like my feet haven’t touched the ground, and it still feels like only last week that we were adventuring around Guatemala on flying buses.
Once we got back, it was time to get ready for Christmas, and this year everyone was coming to us for the first time. Then we turfed everyone out for New Year as we went to see the new year in Budapest which was amazing (-ly cold!), I’d reccomend it to anyone wanting to get away for a different New Year- just don’t try the local champagne. Trust me.
Once we were back, it was time to concentrate on work again, which even though exhausting, has proven to be worth it. In our spare time we decided to get a fish tank and slowly add fish to it- we’ve seventeen at the last count- zebra danios, guppies, gouramis, silver sharks and a pleco! It’s almost like diving again, but without getting wet!
We went up to London for an overnight stay for Easter, which was brilliant. We walked from our hotel overlooking Hydr Park to the Saatchi Gallery, went on the London Eye for a gloomy sunset view over the Thames and we had a lovely dinner at the Oxo tower. The Easter bunny even delivered to our hotel room!
Since then, we’ve been enjoying the beautiful spring weather in the lovely Brighton, and throughout May we’ve been out regularly enjoying (or not) the street entertainment, gigs, talks, outdoor theatre and the occasional insect circuses that have graced our town as a part of the Brighton Festival and the Fringe Festival.
So a definite E for effort on the blogging front, as I’ve definitely not done the last amazing six months justice, but I hope to start blogging much more from now on- so watch this space!
After a few more flying bus adventures through the mountains and getting off over 1500m higher than when we left off in Panajachel, we were left feeling slightly shell shocked, and as we had no idea where we’d been been dropped off (actually flung off, as the bus driver didn’t stop for us to get off, or for us to get or bags off the roof of the bus), we decided to get a tuk tuk to take us to our hotel. We were led through a pretty flowery courtyard and up a flight of stairs up to our room, which had a fireplace, I was relieved to see, and a beautiful balcony which looked out over the mountains.
The drop in temperature caused by the altitude was immediately noticeable, and after we had had a wander around the small town to get our bearings before we went to visit the market the next day, we sat on the balcony with a beer huddled up in blankets to try and keep warm. Dinner was the usual hurried affair and we were in bed early tucked under no less than five blankets!
After a very cold night, we were woken early by the noise of the market setting up and trucks revving as they struggled up the steep and narrow streets. We had breakfast right on the edge of the market while we compiled the very long list of presents that we needed to get and a few goodies for ourselves. We had purposefully not brought anything throughout our trip as were were counting on getting everything at the market.
We were surprised at the goods on offer at the market, I don’t think either of us had realised that although it does cater for tourists, it is mainly for people in the surrounding towns and villages that need to get their supplies for everyday life. So there was a huge area dedicated to selling dried fish, fresh fish, dried meat, fresh meat, dried fruit, fresh fruit… the list goes on. Having visited many markets all over the world, I braced myself for the pungent aromas that was to be expected from fresh meat and fish in a hot climate, but I was pleasantly surprised. It must have been because it was so much cooler that the small was much more bearable and the fact there were so few flies about, making it much easier to have a good look at local delicacies though I still couldn’t quite bring myself to try any of them!. The slight downside to the fact the market was more like an open air supermarket (albeit with more atmosphere!) was the fact that we couldn’t get all of the presents we were hoping to find. We still managed to get one of the very brightly coloured blankets, a few Christmas decorations, a beautiful hand-carved and hand-painted ceremonial Jaguar mask, a woven tablecloth (that we wished we could keep for ourselves!), a gorgeous jade and silver bangle for our friend’s newborn baby and some fantastic black jade earrings for myself. It was a hard day’s work and we rewarded ourselves by layering ourselves with blankets out on the balcony again and have a few beers.
Dinner was spent in an empty restaurant looking out over a fast disappearing market and a faster diminishing crowd. I loved Chichi (as it’s affectionately named), but I was starting to look forward to going back to Guatemala City and then back home, as it felt like we had been away for so long, and I was looking forward to central heating again (the promising fireplace in our room never did get lit)!
The last Central American bus ride we took was less fearsome than the previous ones, but what it lacked in excitement was more than made up for by the fact it had the densest human population per square centimetre that we had encountered so far, mainly due to the fact that the bus we first got on broke down and we were squeezed onto another full bus that was headed the same way. It was a long journey which felt longer due to the cramped conditions (people were even squeezing themselves into luggage racks), but we arrived back in Guatemala City all in one piece, and we checked into our motel.
That evening we read up on good places to eat in Guatemala City, as we wanted to spoil ourselves before a fairly hellish few days of travelling back to the UK, so we caught a cab across the city and found a restaurant that the guide had been raving about… and it was empty. After the bland and chewy meal was finished we went to a (German run) bar a few blocks away that actually did have a lot of people in, and a good atmosphere, but unfortunately for us we were no longer really in the mood to carry on drinking for long, so we went back to the motel again for a good nights sleep.
Well, until 4am anyway, which is when the city bus system seems to swing into action and toots and revs its way through till dawn, just underneath our window. It was because of this that we decided to switch hotels so we could get a last good night’s sleep in Guatemala. We dropped off our bags at the hotel so that we could check in later on and went off to do some exploring.
We started off at the city’s main square which had the government palace on one side and the beautiful cathedral on the other, and we spent a good few hours wandering the areas around the square and getting a bit more shopping done (we hit the super-tourist market to get the essential Guatemalan tat) and soaking up the atmosphere. Once we’d had enough of being semi- cultural, we decided to go and see one of the strangest tourist attractions we’d ever been to. The to-scale relief map of Guatemala. Yes, really. It was a strange scale, the vertical scale of the many mountains being of a different scale to the horizontal scale of the land, creating these huge peaks and valleys, and I finally realised why it had taken us so long to travel what I had presumed what a relatively small area of land. Why the relief map had been built however, I will never understand, other than it was 1905 and that there was no reason why not!
After checking into our lovely hotel and walking through the lovely corridors and walking into our lovely room to have a look at the lovely view from our window… I mean the brick wall built less than 10cm away from our window, I decided to have the first bath I’d had since leaving the UK and get ready for the reality of being back in the UK at the end of November.
I wont bore you with the details of our dinner that evening- even though it was a Peruvian restaurant, the food was exactly the same, and we got our last early night.
We were up at some ungodly hour the next day to catch a cab to the airport, where we flew to Flores (near Tikal where we first started our Guatemalan adventure), and then flew on to Cancun, where after a short wait we’d then fly back home. The firs two flights were short and on the cutest, smallest plane I’d ever been on, and Cancun airport was as rubbish and tacky as the rest of Cancun was, and I was actually pleased to be leaving.
I made the comment to Rick in the last week of our holiday that it felt like time had really dragged on since we left the UK the day after our wedding. I didn’t mean it in a negative way at all, I simply meant that three weeks had felt like a really long time away, and I was looking forward to getting back, and starting our lives as man and wife. Rick was definitely of the mind that he could have stayed away a bit longer! I, on the other hand, was looking forward to seeing our cats and our friends, and catch up with our families, and gossip about the wedding and most importantly- open all of the presents!
After a short bus journey from the capital, we arrived in Antigua, which used to be the capital city, founded by the conquistadors when the invaded. The reason it is no longer the capital is why it’s such a beautiful city- it’s got a ring of volcanoes around it, and there are a lot of earthquakes, causing the population to give up rebuilding their homes and living in fear and relocate to the current capital.
We stayed in a beautiful little hotel, which was nice and quiet, in a great location, with it’s own restaurant set around a little courtyard with a fountain. After a quick lunch we set off to explore the small city, and we spent the afternoon wandering the cobbled streets, eating ice cream and booking our tour up a volcano for the next day.
As we’ve found with the rest of Guatemala, restaurants close early and there’s very little nightlife, not helped by the fact it was low season for tourists. Most nights we’d ate dinner and were in bed by nine, but we’d be up early the next day to do exploring. Antigua proved no exception to the rule.
The volcano we visited was called Pacaya, and it was a 4km hike to the top, and once you were at the top you’d be privy to a very rare sight- molten lava running down the side of the volcano. It’s obviously an incredibly active volcanic region- Pacaya’s last big erruption was a few months ago, and we felt and heard the volcano rubble underneath our feet as we walked up it, which was a bit scary! In the distance we could see Fuego volcano spewing out smoke, and our guide told us that Guatemala has no fewer than 33 active volcanoes. A fact which made it difficult to get to sleep that night, with a vision of the surrounding volcanoes which could be seen from any window in the city!
Once we were back in Antigua we spent the afternoon taking photos and eating great cake! Food in Guatemala was invariably rubbish- very bland, either chicken or beef with rice or potatoes, but the redeeming point is that they know how to make very good cakes!
Another thing Guatemala is famous for is it’s jade. There are a couple of types only found in Guatemala, including purple jade which has the most incredible colour and translucency. The jewellery fanatic came out in me once again and we visited a fair few jade shops!
We spent the evening somewhere we thought we might be able to eat our meal at a leisurely pace, a nice restaurant that had a lovely extensive menu, and most importantly, a well stocked dessert trolley.
As we sat down, the entertainment began- oh my god. There were ten or so dancers in tradditional dress, with traditional hand carved masks on, doing what can only be described as a repetition of a few fairly intricate steps along to live music- a collection of men whose ages rivalled the Buena Vista Social Club’s playing a combination of the double bass, drums and a massive, two layered xylophone type contraption, with quite some skill I must add. The inevitable happened and the collection of coach tour tourists were invited up, little by little- from the embarassing dad dancers to the gyrating grandmothers. It went on for several eternities, and while we couldn’t bear watching, it was impossible to think of moving to one of the tables in the (quieter) courtyard.
Eventually it ended, and our dinner arrived, and the new record of a three course meal with coffee in under 45 minutes was set.
The next morning we slowly packed our things again, went out for a breakfast bagel and enjoyed free wifi (where we found out from the local news website that our building had been on fire, but a quick call to my mum put our minds at rest, as it was a flat on the other side of the building) and then set off over mountains, around volcanoes and up and down valleys on our journey to Panajachel.
Once we left Flores after a good night’s sleep, we got on a bus at 9.30am and spent the rest of the day slogging it across the country to Guatemala City.
When I was last in Guatemala city, I was completely unaware of it’s status as a ‘dangerous city’. Nothing made me feel uncomfortable, or made me feel that I had to be any more on my guard than anywhere else I’d been, and I left the city unharmed, with all of my belongings and a fondness for the run down capital.
On my return this time, I was unfortunately aware that Guatemala City has a bad reputation, and I felt uneasy once we got off the bus ( after a mere nine hours this time) in the dark, in an unknown area of the city. The feeling was made worse by the cab driver telling us to lock the car doors, Friday night drunks in the street and not being able to find the hotel we wanted to stay in.
Cities are planned out in a grid system in Guatemala, and adresses are written in a fairly confusing format, as generally there are no street names, just numbered avenues that run north to south and streets that run east to west. An address would look like this : 12a calle 8a avenida 32, which is translated as 12th street, 8th avenue, number 32. So without knowing how the address system works first, you’re unlikely to find anywhere you want to go- hence why we couldn’t find our hotel.
We settled into a hotel that we could find for the night, went out into the deserted streets, found some overpriced Mexican food and had an early night, as the next day we were moving onto Antigua. We’d be spending a few more nights in Guatemala City at the end of our trip.
After a rubbish night’s sleep spent listening to the antiquated American school buses that Guatemala’s transport system is run on revving up outside the bedroom window, we caught the bus 40km out of the city to what was once the capital city of Guatemala.
Two years ago Rick started giving a monthly sum of money to the charity Action Aid. It was to sponsor a child in a country that needed sponsors the most, and when the information pack came through we were told that the child we were sponsoring was Hugo in a village called Chinatal in Guatemala.
When Rick and I had decided on Guatemala as our honeymoon destination we wrote to Action Aid to see if we’d be able to visit Hugo and his village, and after lots of correspondance, it was organised, and Karina, from Action Aid’s head office in Guatemala City and a man ( who’s name we never did catch!) who was in charge of one of the many organisations that Action Aid allocates money to to help local people with met us at our hotel in Tikal and drove us to Chinatal.
We drove for three and a half hours and then for another half an hour along a tiny dirt track that you’d never have thought led to a village of fifty families from the main road. Along the way we picked up people in the back of the pick-up truck and gave them a lift to the village, and very quickly word spread that there were visitors to the village, and by the time we arrived, there were lots of children and a few adults, along with the village leader waiting to say hello.
Everyone was very shy at first, including ourselves, and The Man introduced us and spoke about the village and the people who lived there and what the money given to them was spent on. I have to confess, I didn’t listen to every word as I’d already started playing with some of the braver children!
We finally met Hugo, who was very shy, and didn’t really seem to know what was going on, but who was an absolute treasure to meet, and who held Rick’s hand for the rest of our time there.
We were then taken to the school that Action Aid had help them to build, and then we were shown the sink that was given to them where they can wash their clothes when they can pump water from an underground source, with the use of a generator which again, Action Aid helped them get, but which they share with another village nearby.
We saw their one local store which seems to have been subsidised so that the prices are kept lower than that of stores elsewhere.
The village elder said thank you on behalf of the other people in the village for sending them money, and how much it meant to them, and then, all too soon we were back on our way.
On the way back we pulled off the main road once more and visited another community, where Action Aid’s help was helping them to build a new school building, so that the students could be thinned out, so that there weren’t three grades to a room.
We arrived in Flores, where we’d be staying for the night, completely shell shocked, and I still wasn’t able to pull all of the things I’d seen and all of the things I’d thought into a coherent train, and even though it’s still on my mind, I still can’t make head nor tail of what I’ve seen. The reasons are below.
All of the above is fact. But there are also other facts that we found out during the day. We found out that Karina, the lady from head office several hundred kilometers away, had flown in to meet us, instead of driving over like she’d originally planned. Aside from the obvious environmental issue, and the fact that she spoke with at length about the environmental issues that Guatemala faces, who paid for her flight to come and meet us? Could that money and would that money have been more worthwhile spent elsewhere? But, she said she had to be in the office the day before, and she was urgently needed in the office the next day, so the only way she could have met us was if she flew. How did she know that we wouldn’t be offended if she couldn’t meet us, and upon our return, wouldn’t cancel our direct debit?Even through all that, I can’t help but think whose money had been spent on her flights, and would that money have been better spent elsewhere?
Later on we found out that there were 60 employees in the Guatemalan head office alone, which seems a huge number of people when you consider the fact that a lot of Action Aid’s money and time is delegated to other, smaller agencies. But then, I don’t know the true extent of their workload, so I can hardly question that, and after all, the more people working, the better, surely?
We were given a fact file on Action Aid with current newsletters and facts about their work and Guatemala, which included the startling statistic that Guatemala’s GDP is just $59. That figure continued to roll around in my head for the rest of the day, a figure which we’d spent every night on our Eco-lodge hotel in Tikal.
The information pack also included the fact that Women’s rights were high on their agenda, as Guatemala is apparently far behind places like the UK with regards to women’s rights, as most girls don’t get educated, where boys get more of a chance, and the female role is still expected to be in the home. I don’t know if it’s because I have so many rights as a woman that I now take it for granted ( I’m sure I do), but should Action Aid’s work with women and teaching women be higher up on the agenda than drinking water? Or any continuous supply of water for that matter.
But Action Aid’s scheme seems more about educating the younger generation who will eventually shape their country, and while it seems unfair on the people that are suffering today, it makes for a more positive tomorrow.
Action Aid didn’t pay for Chinatal’s school to be built, or give them any funding for it, but they taught them how the government’s system works, and showed them how to appeal to the government for funding, which they got. As for the sink that they wash their clothes in when they have the water to do so- a sink?! Above having a doctor visit every week, or again, drinking water provided? But I found out that Action Aid gets the community to decide what their money is spent on, and they decided that they wanted a sink- however I do wonder if guidance was given, if they’d have made the same decision.
On the way back, we were taken to the local offices of the charity that helps Chinatal, to find some fairly run down looking offices. I did notice that their computers were of a very high spec, in fact, better than the ones I use in my office, and everyone had one, though it’s difficult to begrudge them this, as technology is important, but is it important to have the very best equipment available and did every person in the office need one? On the way out of town we were shown the new offices that were being built from scratch.
So having given myself some time to think, the only conclusion I can come to is this- I may not agree totally on the way our money is being spent, but it is slowly getting through to the people that matter, and we’ve been made aware of how important it is, and i’m aware it must have been a difficult thing for the village elder to have said as much. I’ve decided that the only way that we can make sure that Hugo’s village and others like his can get a better standard of living is to try and give a bit more. Hopefully once Action Aid and their related organisations are sorted more fully, more money will end up going to help them too.
When we get home we’ll be setting up another sponsorship scheme with Action Aid, and we’ll sponsor another child like Hugo, in another village like Chinatal, and the only question I need to ask now is- how do I decide which village in the world needs the money the most?
After a night of no sleep thanks to the kareoke bar across the road, we set off on our bottom-numbing, bone-shattering journey to get to Guatemala and a mere eleven hours later we arrived!
I was struck again by the incredible peace and lush green rainforests that Guatemala doesn’t share with it’s neighbours, noticable as soon as you cross the border. I was looking forward to the Guatemalan leg of the trip more than the Mexican leg, and I put it down to the incredibly laid back, friendly nature of this country and it’s people. There’s something about the mix of the varied, unspoiled landscapes, the people and just the general atmosphere that makes Guatemala one of my favourite places.
When we got to Tikal national park, neither of us were in a fit state to do anything apart from relax, unpack in our lovely Eco-friendly lodge, have some dinner and relax a bit more! We had been told that the park guides no longer offer sunrise tours of the park (apparently due to red- tape restrictions) which is a real shame as it would have been great to show Rick the view from atop a temple as the sun rises, but it was not to be.
Instead we set off not long after sunrise with our guide and a few other people for our four hour flora and fauna trip around Tikal. The guide surpassed all of our expectations and continued to surprise us with information about the park and we found out how much of his life he had dedicated to the excavation and work he’d done all over the world to educate people on the park he’d grown up on as a child.
Luis, the guide, got chatting to us once the tour was up, and when we told him we were on our honeymoon, he told us that he’d have a word with the guards and sort it so that we could go in the park after hours and sit in the main plaza on top of a pyramid. So, upon our entrance to the park later in the afternoon, amid many winks, nudges and well placed tips we were escorted by a guard to the pyramid, where we sat and enjoyed a couple of beers in the relative silence that a rainforest provides, on top of three thousand years of history! It was an extremely special experience, made even more special by the fact so many people were involved in trying to make it special for us.
The next day was spent catching up on reading in hammocks ( and trying to get comfortable when we were both in the same one) and having a look around the tiny museum which although small, was worth the 90 pence entrance fee, as there was a reconstucted tomb which was found inside the most impressive pyramid with the skeleton of King Cocoa and all of the jade jewellery and artifacts that were found with him- along with some very big, very beautiful jade ear plugs. Beat that Emos!
Later that evening we were re-packing our rucksacks once again as we were spending the next night in Flores, only 60KM down the road, but not before meeting Hugo.
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