my mind my life

well i have now made it to el salvador, and am staying in a fairly expensive hotel $12 US but its in a nice area of town and then tomorrow, my plan is to goto la libertad tomorrow, with a bit of luck !

last night was a night of being close to the porcilen, yes thats right it was the on the toilet every hour on the half hour, i am trying to work out if it was the food at night which was a subway in this americanised city or if it was something else like the breakfast i had in the morning, oh well it was something i just don´t know what and well it was fun while it lasted NOT, but i have now cleared out my system which is what it needed hurrah.

whats next well i am hoping for some surf but i will have to see !!!!

well i am now back in antigua, my just over 2 weeks jaunt to san perdo has finished and i have picked up a little spanish and well can sort of understand what people are saying i just need to keep it going more and more and practise, which will be hard here as everyone talks english and well its all good but not what i am looking for.

i managed to get out last night with swedish dan who i came back from with san pedro with, i got to go out with swedes and norwigys and well didn´t really speak much but got a good few drinks and i managed to get to the point where i didn´t want another one yay and i wasn´t in a state that i would be sleep walking, thank fuck !

so i am guna be here until saturday morning i think and then its off to pastures new and to el salvador, i was planing on going back up north in gutemala to see semuc champy (another of dan´s spelling hits) to see the water falls and caves, but the beach and the chance of surfing is calling, it´s been sooo long since i have been in the water but i just have a craving for exersice and adrenaline and i´m hoping i can get a board there to travel down to costa rica with if not then i will have to stay there for a little while and then make the next trip and get a board !

so life est good at the moment and with a bit of luck its only guna get better !

well last night was the second time that i can confirm that i have slept walked, and it only seems to happen when i get drunk from what i can see, the first time it was cause there were other people in the house that they knew i had done it, and this time i know because i did a small amount of demage to myself,

basically i was out and had had a few drinks and i went back to the familys house where i am staying and was on the phone for a little while and i went straight to bed after i came off the phone, this i remember, all the other times that i have awoken on the floor it was maybe i just thought i would sleep there, so it was like something out of a bad dream, what i remember was that i heard a noise of the floor breaking and then me falling and then i was in someones house and then i was in bed it seems quiet a weird sort of dream/nightmare, then i realised that my foot hurt and i had actually scraped my self, the question i have is where and how and what actually happened.

i was called for breakfast by the family and they told me that a cat had fallen through the corrogated plastic in the roof that covered the kitchen, this was like and oooohhhhhhh fuck moment, i have kept quiet so far as i really don´t know how to explain it to them in spanish but i´m shocked and really don´t know what i was doing or why, i then tried to take a look and see where this bit of the roof was that i fell through as i am upstairs living on there roof, and there is no way that i could have got to it unless i walked along a very thin ledge that i could have fallen off and i am still asking the why why why

well as you can imagine i´m still confused dazed and a little scared that it can happen again, the question i have is did i used to sleep walk, have i always had this problem, is it something new, whats causing it, and how can i prevent it from happening, i´m lucky this time cause i have hardly hurt myself luckly but it could have been alot worse i could have broken something or worse ……..

well i have started learning spanish and although it seems simple fuck i keep forgetting the words that i am supposed to know i am guessing that it because i am thinking in english and reading in english.

 i am however understanding a little more as i am living with a family in san pedro and although its taking me time to get to what they are talking about i am getting there and i am sure at the end of the 2 weeks i will be ok but not brilliant.

the food i am being cooked is plentiful and quiet good no chilli unfortunatly yet but maybe i can change that somehow ????? anyhow i am guna be here until just after easter i think and then see a little more of guatemala and then move on to costa rica hurrah !!!!!!!!

san pedro where i am staying is beautiful and they think that its probarly the most photographed lake in the world and although i dont have any pictures yet i´m guna get some, i really missed an amazing sunset last night with clouds rolling down a volcano in pinks and oranges !! damn maybe today but it looks really clear.

note this is also a hippy town and well a fun one at that its really cheap as well and even cheaper for me cause i only spend on drink at the moment cause i am paying the family to stay with them so it seems so much cheaper, i will have to find the bank at somepoint though !!!!

i got to do some homework now so back to learning for another day and maybe i might not sleep as much as i have been pretty much 12 hours a night which is wonderful

well i have made it from mexico to belize and from belize city to a little island called caye caulker which is on the the caribeean, its seems lovely slow paced easy going but i have only been here for about half aday so far, i am thinking about doing my advanced open water padi while i am here but, am not sure yet, i know that i want to get at least one dive in while i am here i think, and the plan for tomorrow is snorkeling i think, it all looks grand.

as for yesterday when i got to chetumal. well i decided to goto to the only hostel in town with girl i met on the but and it was well how can i put this something like a horror movie school, funny as that is i decided to stay there the night and yeah it could have been a scene out of a horror, there was only one door on the toilet cubicles and well 2 on the showers they forgot to put toilet seats in the place which i thought was a master stoke of genius, the town didn’t have much else going for it and the only reason that someone would want to go there is to, there was no beach that i found and actually finding a cheap place to eat that sold beer was sooooo much harder and i could ever imagine !!!!!

well its a new country although i will only be here for a few days as i have to get to guatamalafor the 3rd of april !!!!

well its that time of year again when the irish go mad !!! it´s st paddies day, and i dont know if there is a bar that would sell guiness in this town, i am sure there must be one somewhere but where is the question.

its been a slow week or so with some towns with nothing else todo other than maybe a little site seeing and other than that not much of anything, but that is probarly cause i am still off the booze and well i was feeling better for it but the last few days i´ve been feeling really tired i think that was down to the amount of food i was eating !!!! (lots) so today i decided to forgo the breakfast and just have a coffee yes a coffee was what was the order of the day and then i have only had some fruit till my can of refried beans tonight. and i feel so much more alive, its been to much bread for me i think !!!!!!!

as for the next stop its chichen itza which is a fairly famous mayan ruin to look forward to and then its a town called vallidiod i think thats the name anyway, i can never remember spellings, and i am looking forward to my spanish course at the moment and looking forward to a new country with new things to explore and new people. once i have a grasp of a little of the language i think i can only have more fun as i was trying to by some pain killers today with a woman who only spoke spanish but well i managed to almost get what i wanted, there was no codiene in it but well it was a start to what i wanted.

life is good and tooooo hot and well the mossies are bloody everywhere !!!!!!

well i made a 14 hour overnight bus journey, which i hardly slept through, as always i find it so hard to sleep on moving transport so am a little tired today.

 i had just come from peurto escondido which is supposed to be this town that everone raves about and well i can´t see what all the fuss is about i saw the beach´s, didnt get to surf, but nothing special, i didn´t however go out boozing, although i have had a few beers i am still off the partying and i acutally feel so much better for it.

yep its sad to be not partying but its guna be the longer term detox that i needed, now i just need to get some more exercise into my life and then everything will be fine, i am trying to limit my eating but that can be easier said than done when your travelling with a few people and they want to eat, so i try to pick small things as they are normally better.

i have also been having alot of time to think about life and what i want to achieve from here on in with it and its quiet interesting as i have about 10 things that i want to achieve before i die, well probarly not before i die but just its goals i am setting for myself and where i want to get to with certain things, work has also been the ever contstant and i think i have been doing more since i got on the road than when i was in oz and should have been doing it. but its keeping me upto date with everything and i am getting there i think with it all, i have idea´s of what i want todo going forward and its just if that can happen its all good, if it can´t then well i will have to look at other options of what i want todo.

 i think by the time i get to the UK i will have worked out my life going forward which would be wonderful.

well its my first bus trip in mexico and god it was so easy compared to some of the trips that i did in asia, although i speak no word or spanish i think i understood what was going on and it all worked perfectly, i also finished my book on the way here and have started a nwe one today called marching powder, which is about a famous bolivian prison !!

tomorrow its going round the museums and the day after its going to see monte alban, i´m leading the boring life at the moment and enjoying it.

well i am now on my last day in mexico city although its been fairly quiet for me staying in on the saturday night i got here and i haven´t had a drink since i have arrived, i think my idea to detox from my melbourne life style has gone a little to my head, i am sure it will change further down the line.

 i´m off for a 6hour bus journey tomorrow to oxaca (yeah i still can´t spell at all) to see some of the sites and make it to my first anchient ruin, i am bypassing the one just ou side mexico city as i plan to come back here one day, and it wasn´t until i got here i really discovered how much this country has to offer, i´m also on a fairly tight shedule as i have central america to do in 3 months which i know isn´t going to happen so ì`m going to make some desisions of where i want to goto and what i want to see, i think that it should be fast paced as i haven´t really been on the move for 8 months, where i should have got up off my arse and done a thing or 2

i will probarly spend the 6 and a half hour bus jounrey planning what i am guna see in mexico and times and dates for that as well, but we will see.

as for the hostel i am staying in here, its all good other than the cunt in the bunk below me, deciding he was going to piss in the room when he was pissed and hit my bag, well i made my distaste known, and i got an appolgy, thank fuck for the water proof lining i bought for the bag though.

anyway more from my next stop

well to my suprise i slept like a baby last night and i woke up at 11:30 which was brilliant considering the amount i had slept the day before. i have also started reading my first book for this part of my journey as well iu didn’t read anything really while i was in australia and definetly not for the last 8 months while i was in melbourne.

i went and saw underworld 2 this afternoon which was about a 3.5 mile hike to the cinema which was in a mall in redondo beach, the major thing i noticed was the lack of people on the street walking it was very reminicent of perth in that respect, and well the size of people in there carsm fat fuckers its about time american’s started to walk rather than driving everywhere as it might help them get a little smaller !!!!!!!

tomorrow is my last full day here and i am trying to work out what i am going todo, i actually haven’t eaten anything as yet here as i ate so much the day i was on the plane that i just haven’t been hungry and well i am sure there would have been a few kilo’s put on then, the only problem is the usual plane problem i have of not being able to shit but i am sure i can find something that will help that out in mexico i might hire a bike and head for venice beach as there might be something healthy to eat over that way, even the sushi joint that i went to last time i was here is closed i think maybe its the time of year ???? and the mall that had the cinema in it didn’t even have a sushi joint just fat fat fooooood

god i am looking forward to mexican food

well i have made it here after my first long haul flight in i dont know how long, hurrah it was a bit of a wierd trip as usual i didn’t sleep so i am now bugger as usual. i have however been greeted by ladys playing volleyball on the beach, what a sight that is for a bleary eyed traverller !

i’m in the hostel now and about to get some shut eye as i am buggered!!!

Well it was my leaving party at the weekend, and its one of those things, there was a party planned and it never quiet goes according to the plan’s that you have. a few people i would have like to have seen didn’t turn up but ahhh well thats there loss.

All the people that i have spent alot of the last 7 months with were there and they made it a very fun night that lasted until about 6pm on sunday night, and yeah its 2 days after and i am still recovering, my brain hasn’t made it totally back to normality just yet.

i think i am just about packed which is fucking brilliant, i have decided not to take the nikon with me and to send it home as its fairly heavy and something that i don’t really want to have stolen while i am away so i picked a very small and light canon ixus 55 which will do me perfectly for taking pics while i am away

well thats it i have one week left here, well its slightly more as its a week on wednesday that i have to make. but i have quiet alot todo this week i need to pack get things sent back home, as well as make it upto the city on wednesday to catch up with andres for lunch and hopefully catch up with dave as he is just back from south america.

i need to buy a couple of things and do my test pack and all that crap, its guna be good through, starting in LA and i have book my hostel in hermosa beach as well i’ve stayed in that area before and its nice and an easy way to start the road trip again.

i was gutted at the weekend as i found a house with scales and i knew that i had put on a few kilo’s since i had been staying in melbourne due to the lack of exercise over the past few months and also the fact that i have stopped working now and well i also think that i probably have been eating a little to well as you do. getting on the road again will be the perfect way to shed it and all the walking and seeing life will only aid it, i will need to work out an exercise regime though if not now but when i get back to the UK for a while, i missed the footy and well i was doing the swim but i could never fit it into my weekend going out life style properly but i will need to find a way so that it comes off.

its coming to the end of a fabulous 8 months ish, where i hadn’t expected to stay here for this long but when you find somewhere that you fit, there is no need to go anywhere else and well living off smith street made it all the more enjoyable

We its been another while since i posted anything to my blog but my time in australia is coming to an end and i am moving on to the final stage of my travels and probably the one i have been looking forward to the most since i escaped the UK.

on the 22nd of February i am flying to L.A. to then make my way to Mexico City from there i have some overland travels to Costa Rica where i will be flying out to Ecuador and from there i will be making my way round some of south America before flying home from Sao paulo.

i only have a couple of weeks left and have to pack my stuff up and send the bits and pieces home that i need to send home as well as relax and get prepared for the next few hikes

well its been a fun weekend, my first full weekend at work after having a couple of weeks with fridays off. and it was a weekend of shenanigans with a party on sunday starting after i got in from working and the pub.

the fun part, it cost me $50 bucks but jay for some unknown reason got dressed up in alicia’s underwear and i told him i would give him the cash if he went and bought me a packet of ciggys

well cairns is the next place on the trip in australia and i’m only going for about 10 days and going to get some sun and it will be back on the trail for a wee while before ending back up in melbourne.

well thats it i have been ill for the last few days with a major cold, i am hoping that i will be better for saturday night cause its jays birthday so it looks like it will be another trashbag sunday !!

i got to see one of the fathers of reggae lee ’scratch’ perry who was brilliant last night i was dying while i was watching him but a little alcohol helped a little but not as much as i would have hoped.

its jays birthday today so i need to go and find him something but might do that next week once i feel a little better but i am supposed to be going out for a wee dram tonight but i’m not going to be having a heavy one at all as i need to be better for tomorrow and saturday !

well its been a while since i have told you all what i have been upto but really there hasn’t been much other than sleeping working partying and recovering. this weekend has been one of the first weekends that i actually was fairly normal on sunday and went to bed before midnight.

friday night was work and then out for a wee dram i was planning an early one but yeah that didn’t happen, i was out with dave dana and jay poped round later and we went from alia (my home after yelza) to control and then back to alia for the lock in, then it was the short trek back up the road to johno’s place and yeah by the time i left i was bouncing off the walls across the roads it was wrong turns all the way home and how bad did i feel when i got up in the afternoon yeah you guessed it i was fucking dreadful.

so saturday night i ended up out at frankson for the second weekend in a row, out to see alicia and spend some quality time in the pool, spa and sauna she has in her parents house yes i have been leading the life of decadence hurrah.

so for this week more inatos work cause i am getting through sorting out the bits and pieces i am trying to do and then i had friday off work for the first time i i might try and get out in the city to some cool bars i haven’t been to yet. lets see what happens

well last night was my first forte into being a bar man and it went suprisingly well although i have no idea what is in some shots and cocktails not there yet but i guess that is just my wearyness of doing something new and making sure that i dont fuck it up, pouring beers is easy but i already knew that !

but it will be back to being a busboy again tonight which is cool cause i dont need to worry about anything or use my brain at all soooo looking forward to that.

other than that there are about 3 or 4 parties going on tonight that i know about and its deciding which one i am going to and who with or going home to bed is the other option i guess which sounds quiet nice at the moment lets see what happens.

what have i been doing the last couple of days i have been off to the yarra valley doing some wine tasting. so an expensive couple of days but blondie did well and she made it with no problems what so ever.

got a couple of nice wines and tasted some awful ones, it was good getting out of melbourne for a day or so though.

tomorrow night out for a beer

well its been 5 days since my bday and i had a briliant time, that sunday !!

i got completely wasted and spent the whole day out in the sun drinking talked to mum as she phoned and did everything i planned i think well geting fucked was the plan and i achieved it.

the night started on saturday as it was geek night in yeltza (the bar i work in) so i was dressed to the 9’s in my best geek atire then we sat around for a while after work drinking and chatting and then went to republica which is my local 7am haunt and then got back to the flat with some work mates and was drinking the whole day hurrah

monday was a blah day but tuesday felt better and then wednesday i was in the pool feeling on top of the world again, and from there its been a nice chilled out relaxed week.

after my birthday i am guna slow down a little and i think i am going wine tasting this week in the yarra valley which will be wicked