Last Ditch Culture

I've been spending my last weekend of the year squeezing in some more culture, trying to make sure I've not missed anything that I should have a 2012 opinion on.

First off: music and an album with a very orange cover, probably the most excited I've been about listening to an album this year; not Frank Ocean's Channel Orange (which seems to have swept the year end polls but which I don't get, which is probably a function of me getting old as much as anything else) but the new Beans on Toast album (which for some reason has been omitted not only from the year-end charts but also from any review section of any non-niche music publication).  Turns out it's about as good as an album has got this year, but this again may just be a function of me getting old and this not sounding like David Guetta / everything else.

This year's seen me going to the theatre a lot.  I've seen some really fun stuff (Three Sisters - who'd've thought?), some really boring stuff (Bingo) and loads of Shakespeare.  To maximise my Shakespeare exposure I saved the biggest 'til last (I'm taking the histrionic Americanised version of Mayan astronomy in my definition of "last" - tomorrow night my calendar runs out so it's the end of the world, right?). Mark Rylance! Stephen Fry! Trigger from Only Fools and Horses! All on stage together! Exclamation mark explosion of excitement!! I've not seen Twelfth Night before and it was well acted and funny and that but crikey the first half is boring. I appreciate that that Bard fella is handy with words but he can drag out the set-up of a comedy.

So Shakespearian highlight of the year (the Pete of ten years ago has just been sick in his mouth at how bourgeois the concept of "Shakespearian highlight of the year" sounds)?  Was it Mark Rylance in Richard III? Simon Russell Beale in Timon of Athens? No and no. Both were good but both get soundly beaten by the Globe to Globe, all-African Julius Caesar. Which in any other year yada yada... How good was Macbeth at the Clerkenwell House of Detention? It makes a pretty good case for the dropping of "Shakespearian" from that first sentence...

Last Tango in Guatemala

We were going to miss out Guatemala City, what with its reputation for being a bit shooty, but we figured that it needed seeing so see it we did. And you know what, I'm pretty glad.  It had good levels of random which I'm a big fan of - we got a mussel soup with a beer in one bar; there was a line of sheep and goats outside a milk store - and we never felt particularly unsafe, although the high levels of guards-with-shot-guns on the street meant that you never forgot that there may be a bit of a risk somewhere.

So that's it then.  Guatemala whizzed around.  Jungle trekked.  Didn't get shot. Didn't get erupted. Don't think I've got Dengue fever.

A couple of weeks ago I thought this was going to be about the most ridiculous trip I'd ever taken.  Turns out that it didn't ever really feel that crazy and, like most other travels, it's just left me envious of everyone else whose trips sounded more hardcore.  Hmmm, itch still not scratched...

The Lost City of El Mirador

Lost jungle city - box ticked. And, at the risk of sounding like I'm doing things for all the wrong reasons, that particular box has pretty good blagging credentials. Five days of walking through jungle to find some 2000-year-old ruins.  Way cool.

Although, like a lot of things, it turned out to be nowhere near as hardcore as I was expecting.  The donkey we hired turned out to be a mule train, so pretty much all we had to do was turn up and walk.  It was like staying in a hotel, albeit a hotel where the aircon is set at 95% humidity.  With insects. And snakes - we saw a coral snake.  If you're going to see a snake it may as well be a really dangerous one.

The ruins themselves were pretty cool.  All jungle and monkeys and tombs and toucans and pyramids.  Enough to fulfill your schoolboy, Indiana Jones, Lara Croft dreams.

Back in Flores now and looking forward to eating something that isn't refried beans.

Maya Mistake

Right, I learnt something today and I'm going to share it.  The "Mayan" people don't see themselves as Mayan - they see it as an insulting, colonial tag (incidentally, it's based on the indigenous word for "I don't know what it is" - which is what they said when they saw the Spanish).  They would pigeonhole themselves as the Ixi'm - people of the corn. Consider yourselves taught.  Or at the very least consider the lies that I wholesale swallowed passed on. (If anyone can be bothered to Google it and correct me I'd be grateful.)

Had an impromptu trip to Tikal this morning.  That's Guatemala's premier tourist attraction and the largest pyramid in Meso-America.  Pretty impressive stuff, if you can get above the jungle canopy you get to see ruins poking through like the noses of massive stone moles.

Also got put straight on this "end of the world" thing, turns out it's a massive distorted exaggeration.  Who would have thought? Them Ixi'm just ended their calendar in two weeks' time as it was when the sun completed its slow, slow circle.  Still word on the street is Tikal should be quite the party place that night...

Hermano Pedro's Finger

There's a lot of churches in Antigua.  Loads of them. As there's very little else to do in town and we're not leaving until this evening, I've ended up visiting quite a lot of them. Religion's weird, isn't it?  I saw a dead man's finger just before lunch.  It was in a display case with gold trim.  And a lady tried to sell us rosary beads to kiss whilst looking at said dead man's finger. I really wish I understood.

We climbed a live volcano this morning (Pacaya since you asked). Now that's something that I understand - rocks and pummice and steam rising through cracks. Noone told us until we were at the top that you can toast marshmallows in the vents. Rubbish. Failed to see molten lava though, booo.  Guess that's one that stays on the bucket list.

AntigWaaaaah

Right, in Guatemala. Weird Travelling. The holiday begins now.

We managed to escape from Miami, never really did find anything to do.  Apart from a bit of self discovery - apparently I´m now too high maintenace to use a shower that someone´s vomitted into.  How I have changed...

Planed into Guatemala City - it looks big and sprawlly and a little bit horrible.  Think we will try and avoid that.  Instead we are in Antigua (pronounced AntigWaaah, so you do not confuse it with that there island thing) which is a tiny ramshackle colonial town with more churches than you can shake a stick at - unless you have a stick which is designed for the purpose, obviously.

The City Where The Heat Is On

As all of you know, if there's one thing that I always try and do it's follow Will Smith's advice - I'll go with the flow and not fight the feeling. If I see a hot summer mix that isn't broken, I'll think WWWD? And then not try to feel it.  I even went for three months getting chicken with everything, until I'd realised I'd misheard - So it was only natural that in Miami I should party on the beach til the break of dawn. I can only assume that Mr Smith was a lot less jet-lagged than I was - barely made 11.

Miami is a funny place.  Miami Beach is exactly as you'd imagine it: lots of massive shiny cars with massive shiny wheels all going everywhere at two miles an hour. Lots of opportunity for people watching.  Not a fat lot else to do other than sit in a bar or sit on the beach.

We're staying in the Art Deco Historic Quarter.  Art Deco is soulless isn't it?  Feel like I'm stuck inside a box of fondant fancies.

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Things I've recently learnt: 

1. You can get seatbelt extendors on planes - they are bright orange so that everyone knows you're a fatty.
2. It's very easy to lock yourself out of your own Facebook account. Apologies anyone who's using that to contact me - you may want to try email instead...

It Is On...

Holiday time again:
I wanted to go to Guatemala;
TR wanted to go on a big, fat, stupid walk.
We managed to combine plans.  This could result in my most ridiculous adventure yet, which is saying something as I've adventured in quite ridiculous ways.

I've replaced the batteries in my head torch, hired a donkey, impregnated a mosquito net, stocked up on hypodermic needles, deet and Immodium. It is on.

Come on adventure, you gnarled, old flirt.  I'm ready for you.