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I began 1997 in Guatemala, Central America. I was staying at a small hotel in the village of San Pedro on the beautiful Lake Atitlan. I stayed at the lake for almost a month and ended up running the hotel for three weeks! The American owners needed a holiday and they asked me to be the manager. It was quite strange trying to run a hotel with Spanish only speaking staff and my Spanish being pretty awful. While managing the hotel I met a group of travelers who had driven down from the USA in a four wheel drive, and were continuing all the way down to Panama. They were looking for an extra traveler, so I joined up. It was certainly a great opportunity to be able to drive right through Central America and have a rest from the rough old buses! All I had to pay for was my share of the petrol!

1997 Travel Diary (Part 1)

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2005-12-23 14:46:53

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I began 1997 in Guatemala, Central America. I was staying at a small hotel in the village of San Pedro on the beautiful Lake Atitlan. I stayed at the lake for almost a month and ended up running the hotel for three weeks! The American owners needed a holiday and they asked me to be the manager. It was quite strange trying to run a hotel with Spanish only speaking staff and my Spanish being pretty awful. While managing the hotel I met a group of travelers who had driven down from the USA in a four wheel drive, and were continuing all the way down to Panama. They were looking for an extra traveler, so I joined up. It was certainly a great opportunity to be able to drive right through Central America and have a rest from the rough old buses! All I had to pay for was my share of the petrol!

On 17th January I met up with the group in Antigua and we set off in the jeep towards the border with Honduras. Just across the border from Guatemala in Honduras were the famous Mayan ruins of Copan. If the Tikal ruins were the New York of the Mayan world, then Copan was the Paris. The site, although less impressive in grandeur, had some extraordinary detailed work. The famous hieroglyphic stairway was certainly a marvel and the ancient ball court made us think about the Mayan culture all those years ago.

While in Honduras we visited many of the Caribbean beaches and went out to another tropical island paradise, Islas Cochinas (Pig Islands). Again I was staying on a tiny coral island, but this time in a traditional Garifuna village. The Garifuna people were so different from the Latin Americans - it felt like I was back in Africa! In Honduras we also visited some of the typical mountain villages before continuing down to Nicaragua.

We really enjoyed Nicaragua, there were hardly any tourists and the people were very friendly. We visited some of the active volcanoes of the region, and the beautiful colonial town of Granada on ...