Ah, what a cunning stunt!!
Trip Start
May 25, 2007
1
48
Trip End
Ongoing
Bury St. Edmunds,
United Kingdom
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
what is this unexpected and sneaky return about? i hear you cry. well, financial mainly (much searching in the guatemalan highlands failed to produce the elusive money tree and i needed some hard cash for ibiza in sept), the realisation that being here for my birthday (4th sept take note!) would produce more presents, and my hankering for certain home comforts (marmite, milk that didnt make me want to vomit, a decent cuppa, the sound of john motsons voice . .). plus the chance to be down right sneaky and basically suprise the hell out of everyone!
i had been toying with what to do re coming home while in queztaltenango, and changed my flight from the beginning of sept to last thurs 9th aug when i got to san pedro. I informed a certain giant baby of my aquaintance of my plans and he organised my unsuspecting victims this side of the atlantic. but i shall begin at the beginning - back to last wednesday (hard to believe a mere week ago i was still by the lake with water lodged in my ear!!)
wednesday 8th aug: panajachel - san cristobal
basically most of what i told you about last wednesday was true (its not all a pack of lies y'know!) i was up with the lark and on my shuttle to san cristobal (which only turned up 20mins late) complete with souveniers and sunburnt backside.
unsuccessfull serupticious copper snapping
im not sure iv mentioned before but a 'shuttle' is basically a 14 or so seater mini bus - its not as glam as it sounds! we reached la mesilla, the border with mexico, at about 11:30am or so piled off the shuttle and shuffled thru imigration (without having to pay the 20Q fee i'd been told about, result!) i then had arguments with 2 greasy guatemalans, both of whom were trying to charge me obscene amounts of money to use the toilet. argument resolved (for some reason shouting loudly and irrationally in english works better than trying to talk calmly in spanish!) i haired back to the shuttle, worried that it had left without me to find the drive hauling my bag off and my fellow passengers standing in a dejected group by the side of the road.i hadnt realised but the shuttles cant actually cross the border, we would walk physically over and get in a different shuttle of the other side. the 'border' is basically a black and yellow pole across the road that a small mexican (or guatemalan, they're fairly interchangable) lifts up with a bit of string when you want to go over. there was some confusion however as it seemed we were waiting for another shuttle, then walking over as two groups. however our original driver had driven off, taking our tickets with him, so we had no proof that we had paid to go, and no one to ask what exactly the hell was going on! the drunk ancient american (who for some reason was wearing two hats) didnt have a clue what was going on and just wandered off (he reeked of booze - at one deparate point i considered licking him).
bandstand at night
i was all for walking over and finding the other shuttle but the italian guy from the couple was stomping around being self important and insisting we all stay put. seeing as it seemed a better idea to all stick together we sat tight.after we'd sat and watched many other shuttles come and go and id shouted at about every tiny foreign looking man i could see, the elusive second bus appeared and we all trooped over the line (barrier man was most excited) and into the other shuttles. we drove fro 2mins before we got out and had to go thru mexican imigration. when you enter mexico you have to fill out this form stating name, home address, length of stay etc etc and rather than just having these forms in a handy pile you had to queue up once and show your passport to get a form, and then again with your complete form. as fight nearly broke out at about 4 shuttles turned up at once, and some people we going straight to the counter to get forms not realising that the queue was actually pre and post forms. luckily mine was the first shuttle in so i was in and out like a rat up a drain pipe!
a further 10mins down the road we were stopped again by the mexican army could have a rummage thru our bags. i was used to this from before but my new fellow passengers (several young americans) were bitching and moaning "its against my civils rights" blah blah. civil rights schmizzle rights, if the nice man with the big gun wants to look thru my dirty (and quite possibly friggy) smalls, hes more than welcome! back on board we were soon on the road.
cathedral, zocolo mexico city 1
we were looked at at several more check points but no more drama and we arrived in san cristobal a mere at 4pm, a mere 2hrs late. 4pm was actually of course 5pm as mexico's an hour ahead. and here is where the sneakiness began!!i walked straight down to the bus station and booked myself on an overnight bus to mexico city for that nights at 10:30pm and checked my bag into the 24hr luggage store. i then went to an internet cafe to check my email and ensure all plans were in place. i then did what is possibly the largest and most impressive poo in my whole life! seriously i had to laugh out load and actually took a picture! i wont include it on the blog but if you'd like to see it drop me an email and i'll send it to you!
post poo i trotted round san cristobal taking some piccys for the fake blog entry i was planning to write when i got to mexico city (so sneaky) and then went out for one of my last tastes of central american cuisine, chicken tacos in spicey sauce with a side of refried beans (whats the difference between a mexican refried bean and a guatemalan refried bean? nada!) inexplicably enough altho gallo is a mexican beer you cant get it there so i settled for a couple of victorias. i was revelling the fact that my phone was now working again and happily sat and sent about a bilion texts. bumped into the kiwi couple from my shuttle in the restaurant and then trotted off to claim my free coctail from another bar with a coupon i'd got earlier. thwarted by the fact the bar wasnt actually open yet (mexican swine!) i watched a bit of a traditional dance exhibition that was taking place in the zocolo, ambles round the special amber fair they had on, and tried (unsuccessfully) to serupticiously take photos of two policemen with big guns.
i went for another quicky cheeky victoria in a jazz bar (in mexico? wheres the mariachi?!) and then ambled back down to the station.
cathedral, zocolo mexico city 2
san cristobal bus station has to be one of the friendliest places in all of mexico! the lady i'd bought my ticket from had been lovely, the bag storage lady remembered me from earlier, and i had a right old natter with martin, the guy you check your bags in with so they can put them on the bus! (i dont think they're called martin in all the bus stations btw). remembering the cancun to tullum incident where jo and my bags ended up going on an adventure of their own, i was especially pleasant to martin as he was obviously a man with considerable power (not over friendly or beyond the limits of propriety or anything). i also made sure i had a good peer in the luggage compartment as i boarded. the bus was packed and i was sat next to a 20 something mexican man who appeared to be slighty frightened by me (something to do with the slightly disheveled i woke up at 5:30am in guatemala, had 3 beers, got refried beans down my top and a bit of chicken stuck in my teeth look i was sporting i imagine!). i was lloking forward to a good bit of badly dubbed film viewing but all we got was the last 10mins of this shite firefighters film with john travolter and wackeem pheonix (i have absolutely no idea how to spell his first name but im reliably informed that wackeem is how you pronounce it!) and the it was lights out.the night passed without incident until about 3am when it was time for a toilet trip. my neighbour was sleeping and i'd been holding for a while hoping he's wake up but i could cross my legs no longer (always struggled with that one a bit!).
church
i decided to carefully clamber over and had successfully got one leg in the aisle (thus straddling him) when i bus lurched, i lost my balance and sat straight in the poor lads lap! worst of all i was so bursting to go and i sat down so hard that i very nearly wet myself all over him! needless to say this little tumble did little for anglo-mexican relations!Thursday 9th - mexico city
i dozed on and off and before i knew it it was morning and we were treated to a lovely dose of badly dubbed 'hotel rwanda', just what you want first thig on an empty stomach! (i have now seen in in spanish twice, if anyone has a copy in english pleeese can i borrow it!) the second film was subtitled, hurrah! unfortunately it was originally in french, boo!! we got to mexico city at 11:30am, a whole 20mins early! i quickly checked my email to again confirm all sneaky plans were still in action, but decided to leave writing my fake blog entry til later (i was planning on writing a load of drivel about still being in san cristobal so as to fox everyone!) as my brain hurt and my belly was flapping against my back bone!
i had the afternoon to kill as my flight wasnt until 8:30pm so i checked my bag in the store (a truely brilliant invention for the weedy traveller!) and being a bit more mexico savvy now jumped on the metro. seeing as id been sans camera on when i originally arrived 11 weeks earlier i decided to whip round and take some pics. whilst on the tube i spotted a stop marked 'boullevard puerto areo' and asked the mexican id been chatting to if that was the stop for the airport (an unessessary query you would think but this is mexico!) was thrilled to find it was (i had been expecting to shell out 100pesos for a cab) but then other helpfull mexicans interjected to tell me i was going the wrong way for the airport.
cross outside said cathedral
much spanglish and gesturing later i managed to explain i wasnt off to the airport now but later! i got off the metro to change lines when i small elderly mexian lady grabbed my elbow, she had heard part of the airport conversation and was offering to help me onto the right train. i was carefully explaining to her that i was actually off to the zocolo now, when we were overheard my helpfull mexican man no6 who was also going there and personally escorted me all the way to the very cathedral!i mooched about and was thrilled to discover a oaxacan fair where i had a delicious mezcal ice cream! i then went on a photo bender and saw loads of really nice bits of the city i'd managed to completely miss before! i decided it was time to spin my wed of lies and get the fake blog out but only managed to get an entry title and upload some pics before the internet connection went, dammit! i decided to head back to the bus terminal to write there. i feasted on my last genuine mexican tacos from a street vendor (4pesos ie 20p apiece and possibly the best ones iv had the whole trip!), and stocked up on grasshoppers and mezcal for the trip home.
to my immense annoyance the internet at the bus station had also ground to a halt! was all of mexico conspiring against me?! i sat in the food hall glaring at the helpless computer technicians but to no avail, so i mooched about a nearby market, collected my bag and jumped back on the metro for the airport, hoping there would be an internet cafe there.
dancing bloke in the zocolo
i got off at the airport stop (which was a worryingly few stations away from the centre of town!) and was most bemused to be confronted by a total lack of airport! panicked questioning of passersby ensued and it transpired i needed to catch a bus up the road. the bus fare was 10pesos and i only had a 100 note (change doesnt exist in mexico by the way, you wouldnt think it by the response you get when you pressent people with the only note you ever get out of a cash point!) but luckily the bus driver let me on anyway (scary dishevelled wild eyed blond strikes again!). i was soon at the airport and most dismayed to see a metro station - what every single one of the oh so helpfull fecking mexicans had failed to point out at the nearst station to the airport is actually called 'terminal' not the one marked 'airport'. obvious really!!i ducked straight into the loo for a freshen up and to put sort out what i wanted in my handluggage. i would be hotfooting it straight to the boozer on my return to blighty so needed a change of clothes and a least a swish of deoderant! the airport is clearly designed by same guy that named the metro (as in its fecking impossible to navigate!) but i found check in eventually. it was then that i noticed my watch was missing from my wrist! it hadnt stopped since its last miraculous resurrection in panajachel the previous morning and i hadnt taken it off once! my third and most favourite! i searched hign and low (much to the consternation of the female security guard that was now using the cubicle id freshed up in!) quizzed the cleaning staff and genrally paced about like frantic lunatic englishwoman i was! but to no avail, the secret powers of the watch could not be brought back to england.
i strolled thru passport control (no silly regulations about fluids in mexico oh no!) and much to my further displeasure discovered there was no internet cafe on the other side, not a whisker! there was however a smoking area and a woman standing outside a duty free shop with free samples of tequila so i made the best of it! i swapped my 100pesos for dollars (and only got $8 swindlers!) and ambled round to the gate at the alotted time.
giant book
the computer screens with iminent flight details are written in gibberish, there's no aanouncements and no signs at any of the gates! i decided to check i was in the right place but when i asked the grumpy old arsehole next to me if this was the flight to madrid he simple replied "i dont speak english" despite the fact id asked him in spanish! he then refused to understand simply the word 'madrid' even tho this was pretty much 100% definately where he was flying too! unable to actually inflict physical pain (i was worried they might not let me on the plane!) i contented myself with snarling and and treating him to a generous helping of my tequila-cigarette-havent brushed my teeth for a ridiculous amount of time breath!funnily enough i was in the right place to fly to madrid and happily trotted on the plane. unhappily i then discovered i was sat right next to the fecking twat who apparently didnt understand human speech! i sat down and buckled up with much huffing and puffing. my mood improved when dinner appeared along with the free vino! i didnt have the heart to consume quite the revolting amount i had on the plane over but did manage to stash a bottle in my handluggage to tide me over on the tube to the pub! i managed to fall asleep during the first film and wake up halfway thru the second - it took me a full 5mins to work out it wasnt the same one!
Friday 10th: madrid - london
the plane landed in madrid at 7:30am mexico time which was 2pm ish madrid time (and iv been almost continuously awake since 5:30am wednesday lizzie time! hotfooted it straight thru passport control which was of course a free for all, then you have to get the tube one stop to another part of the airport to get ur bag xray-ed, a further free for all.
mexican mountains
the bottled water police were in full force (they got the bottle in my bag but stupidly missed the one i'd cunningly place on under my poncho!). luckily my big bag got automatically tranfered onto my london flight so a charged around the airport in search of an internet cafe. i was worried that my silence on the blog front combined with the promise of 'a big suprise' made to several people back in the big smoke would give the game away, so was desparate to get a fake entry out. unfortunately they dont have an internet cafe but these automated terminal thingies, and double unfortunately they wouldn't accept my card! i had a sum total of $27, £3.64, 1 mexican peso, 21 queztals, 1 belizian dollar, and 4 cuban pesos, suprisingly enough none of which were accepted my the automated machine! i blatently queue jumped the line at the nearest cafe (scary, dishevelled works everytime!) and manged to buy some water with my dollars and get euros change! i quickly banged out the previous entry - not my finest work but enough to firmly mislead the interested parties - and hotfooted it to gate no H8 and good old england!
i spent the flight alternately jumping around in my seat like an overexcited child and dozing off out of sheer exhaustion! 20mins before landing i snuck into the loo for a quick head to toe deoderant wipe wash, and remove the clothes id had on since i left since wed morn! id miss-timed this makeover and was called back to my seat for landing before i managed to get any slap on (altho i didnt manage 2 coats of mascara during landing despite some fairly bumpy turbulance!) i raced off the plane to my third bear pit come passport control.
museumy place
i nearly flung myself on the poor official who greated me with a cordial "good afternoon"! but managed to keep it to a slightly more reserved tearfull "buenos tardes"!my bag came out with suprising speed but unfortunately here the cunning plan unravelled slightly. nino had got the girls in position at the pub, but my assistant scheduled to meet me at the airport for general bag duty had forgotten and was still at work! im not ashamed to say a fairly loud episode of sobbing ensued! a reviving cigarette later i was on the pickled-willy line: id managed to get myself from guatemala, i reckoned i could get to holborn! i remained fairly tearfull until i remembered the bottle of mini red wine i'd stashed from the mexico-madrid flight (a nearly empty bottle of water they conviscate but a full half-size bottle of red wine is acceptable, que?!). i sat swigging away (much to the apparent disgust of my fellow passengers, had london changed so much in 2 and a half months?!) and my the time i was above ground again i was more than a mite excited!
a brief bus journey landed me safely at the jeru where i was able to catch the girls one at a time: sneaking up behind beccy, putting my hands over her eyes and growling "buenos noches!" and then lying in wait for vic as she innocently trotted out of the toilet! gretchen was in paris that weekend with her mother so we saved her suprise for the folowing monday. presents were duly dished out and we trotted up the road for a bottle of rose (sweet sweet heaven in a glass!)
money being on the tight side we headed back to the party palace via costcutter for further booze and most importantly - marmite!! several slices of toast smothered in the good stuff later, we had been joined by the stig and were all poncing about to some much missed head candy (see photos: dave has the same facial expression in nearly all of them, i suspect he actually replaced himself with a cardboard cut out which we unknowingly danced around!).
old foundations of aforementioned cathedral
i had timed my return for the girls moving houseday, that sunday (i figured removal brownie points would earn me a decent amount of sofa surfing over the coming weeks!). bex and vic were up early doors sat to go sign contracts on the new place so sensibly went to bed, while dave, stig and i decided to pop round nigels for 'an hour'.nigel had just bought a wii so i spent the next few hours kicking everyones arse at bowling, swigging JD and cokes, while nigel and dave fought over the decks! all too soon daylight was pooring in the flat at we discovered it was 7am!
saturday 11th - moving on up
we were unable to rouse stig from the sofa so he was abandoned and dave and i made our shaky way home, lugging daves records behind us. we crawled in at a not very respectable 8am and i passed out on the sofa in front of my first glimpses of this years big brother! i woke up just was the girls got back from signing their contracts and vic whipped up a lovely bit of pasta for lunch. they then cracked on with the last bits of packing whilst i dozed on beccy's bed (such a hard life!)
Trit and dawn arrived in the van about 4pm which was loaded with the first of the stuff. unable to do anymore that day (we couldn't actually get in the house til sun) we did the only thing we could and headed to the pub! it was definately pimms o'clock and after a spot of dinner and after me, bex, dawn and trit headed into islington for a few more cheeky ones. we were limited to pubs with beer gardens (goddam smoking ban! why did i ever come back!!) and found a nice one only to be told 2nd beverage in that you could smoke outside after 10pm but not drink! we ploughed bravely on and managed to get fairly sozzled (think the shots helped a little), made the obligatory trip to the kebab house (altho we all had burgers), found a footy and had an impromptu game of street soccer, feared arrest when beccy kicked it infront of a cop car, furnished ourselves with a bottle of vodka and some limeade and headed home!
Sunday 12th - moving on out
god knows what time we went to bed (no watch y'see!) but vicki got us up at 6:30am so crack on with the moving (my first semi-proper sleep in a bed since tues night, bootifull!) the new place is right near the new arsenal ground and as it was a match day they closed the roads at 10am! we just failed to make it in time with the last load (something to do with me loosing the keys to the old house in a feezer bag oops!) but we were able to park up and before we knew it all was done and we were celebrating with some vino in the garden.
palace of belle artes - front 1
once dave had got back from the game (an exhausting 4min trot round the corner!) we treated ourselves to goodies from waitrose and vicki cooked up a fantastic roast lamb - yorkshire pudding and everything. im home!Monday 13th - suprise suprise!
dave and vicki were both off work mon so we trotted about while i re-acuainted myself with the mean streets of london! whilst trotting from dave's to angel along the canal ahead of us we saw a rather rotund man side step a female runner only to bash into a cyclist on the other side knocking him bike and all into the canal! we christened the garden with a lunchtime BBQ and then it was time for more sneakiness!
Vicki had arranged to meet Gretchen and her mother for dinner at the mexican (im my honour!) in stokey. imagine their suprise when vicki turned out to be lizzie! much more wine, general squeeling and present giving ensued, altho it wasnt quite the racous evening id envisaged as G's mum was off back to american the next day and they were up early for the airport run. friend suitably suprised and nearby diners suitably deafened i wobbled home safe in the knowlege of a job well done!
Tuesday 14th - country girl
back to being a little bit of a grown up this morning as headed to an induction session for a nursing agency i'd joined pre trip. form signing, uniform collecting blah blah, boring but i thought it best to have a back up in case my busking in picadilly circus on the spoons and living in a squat plan fell thru!
train back to good ol bezza was 4:30pm so i popped in to gretch's office at 2pm where we celebrated our reunion with a bottle of vino and a good laugh at various as yet undiscussed escapades.
palace of belle artes - front 2
falling asleep on the train stinking of booze kept the seat next to me free all the way to colchester! my parents are on hols this weeks (suprise no 3 due saturday!!) so vicki's mum collected me from the station and plied me with yet mote rose and wonderful homecooked curry! we were also treated to a visit from Tommy and i have since spent the last 3hrs bashing out this gargantuan mother-of-all-blogs for you! tomorrow im off to birmingham to collect my sister from uni, then off to lowestoft fri to see me grannie (sloe gin!!). im basically going to spend as long as possible sponging, scrounging and generally not facing up to reality! (its overrated anyway!)so my darling blogees, this is it! well its been emotional! iv had an absolutely wicked time, iv seen some totally weird and wonderfully things, drunk the equivelent of the gross national product of sweden in cocktails and beer, and eaten enough refried beans to fart all the verses of the national anthem!
many apologies to those of you not suprised in some way (it was felt that a unexplained large gathering of all my aquaintances, and there are many of you, would arouse suspicion). i have also forgotten about the existance of phones having not really used one for 11weeks! i did manage to remember to bring it bury with but not a charger however, d'oh!! i am back on my old number (for those of you lucky enough to have it) so any texts or calls i actually manage to intercept will be recieved with great pleasure!
on my return to the big smoke next week i shall be more than available for a healthy parade of welcome back drinks to mark the auspicious occasion of my homecoming! i hope you have enjoyed reading the pile of mostly nonsense! i assure you all it does come directly from the diseased mass loosly refered to as my brain. im actually looking forward to sitting down and reading it as i cant fecking remember half of what iv done!
anyway, enjoy the pics (there's some corkers!) dont forget the old birthdays sept 4th, and for one final time .
hasta luego!!
xxx
