It all began with a rendez-vous in San Diego, Brett and Steve jetting in from a boarding trip in British Colombia and me from London-town. It took a few days in SD for team Canada to shake the bed bugs, but after a few dodgy Mexican diners we were ready to head south. While Brett took off down Baja way Steve & I trotted over the border to Tijuana then took a flight down to Cancun in southern Mexico. We headed straight out of Cancun to Isla Mujeres, a small island we we burnt off our jet lag by drinking 2 for 1 beers and falling asleep on the beach. We spent the next 2 days recovering from extreme sunburn and decided to head south to Guatemala.

Tikal, the Mayan ruins in the north were the first stop in Guate. The boys rented a 1.5 man hut and overhearing a neighbouring organised tour group late at night developed an extremely cunning plan. As lacking the necessary artificial illumination was a bit of a hindrance, we decided that our cowboy hats would be an adequate disguise to join the tour, free of charge. Unfortunately the boys appreciate their beauty sleep a tad too much, so by the time we found our spare undies in the dark and ran out into the pitch black there was deathly silence and not a torch in sight. We stumbled our way across the campground to the park entrance but still no sign. Here lady luck came knocking. We managed to befriend a local who knew a �shortcut� through the snake infested jungle by heart after 20 years of guiding. After pulling him out of the ditch after the first corner we managed to trip after his dying flickering cigarette lighter for a 30 minute jungle crawl for the temple sunrise, the perfect Mayan tour, gringo style.

Down to Antigua, a funky little colonial city where we chilled for a few days. Climbed a volcano, went out and tried out the cafes, markets and pubs, ate dodgy burritos, had chronic diarrhea, that sort of thing. Met up with a Dutch girl Tabitha who we travelled with onto Panajachel on the shore of Lake Atitlan. Pana, famous for its food poisoning, pickpockets and local mafioso. Not exactly the description in the Lonely Planet but it should be. Travel tip # 7: Don't take your visa's for a walk to a Latin American market. My pocket was ripped open in Solola and I didn't even notice in the crush. Bye bye dinero. We fled from Pana after 3 nights, back on the chicken buses with plugger tablets close at hand.

A few problems with communication at this stage. We believed Steve may have been speaking one of the 21 Mayan dialects, as it most certainly wasn't Spanish. "My-own" he called it. Back in Antigua we faced a little problem. Steve had spent his last few bucks on a Mayan dog collar for his parents (sorry Steveo but I still savour the irony) and with my invisible credit cards we were in for a spot of bother. Fortunately, there was a Burger King, the only reputable place that accepted visa. So, for the next couple of days we limited ourselves to 2 greasy BK meals a day, and walked around town with our BK bags looking like fat American tourists when in fact we only had $7.35 to live on between us. Ironically, Waitangi Day almost drove us to starvation as money could not be wired from home on a public holiday. Happy NZ day!

Finally Steve's visa jumped out of the red so we headed west to Monterrico on the Pacific coast, hoping for some waves. More local mafioso experiences were endured before finding a sweet spot on the beach. As the waves were dirty 2 foot sand suckers Steve and I organised the Guate body-boarding champs at 11 each morning to clear the previous nights cobwebs. Needless to say the gritty beach was the winner at the end of the day and I am very happy now that my second nipple has almost grown back.

From Monterrico it was back north through Antigua to Coban after hearing rave reviews about some hidden swimming pools in the jungle. It is worth mentioning here that chicken buses, the popular form of local transport were starting to wear a little thin on the butt. The chicken buses are old school buses from US and Canada that somehow got down to Guate, painted up and restored for ultimate discomfort. Average warp speed, 20km per hour. 3 people to a kid sized seat and another with half their butt on the seat and the other wedged into their neighbour. Steve and I were really happy though - the money we saved by not taking mini vans will go straight into our chiropractic accounts.

A couple of days stuck in Coban before heading to Lanquin. From here we jumped on the back of a 4wd out to Semuc Champey, well hidden out in the jungle. Semuc, as our English friend Vic described perfectly, is like Walt Disney with water - claimed by the locals to be the 8th wonder of the world, which isn�t as ridiculous as it sounds. It�s a tricky one to explain. A dirty surging river cuts into the limestone and dissapears into the ground for 300m before spitting out into the gorge below. However, enough water trickles around the top through the trees to form a series of limestone terraces and pools; warm, clear, tinted varying shades of blue and green and fringed by grasses and flowers. INCREDIBLE. Definitely the trip highlight.

The best day was to be followed by the worst night. I started vomiting about 2 hours after our not so delicious chicken dinner and a couple of locals fortunately found me curled up on the toilet floor at about 2am. After convincing them I wasn�t drunk (�no esta baracho!�) they woke up Steveo and found some sort of doctors apprentice. Onto the back of a truck and down to a hospital where a drip was plunged in my arm and there was a mass partaking of antibiotics. My fingers, toes and lips had numbed up by that stage and Steve was scrambling around with the dictionary screaming �pollo! pollo!� so we were really at their mercy. Bit of an eye opener for both of us. Travel tip number 72: Don�t eat chicken in the middle of the Guatemalan jungle.

Stunned for a few days, we mellowed and meandered our way to Caye Caulker, an island off Belize. Here we bumped into Kim and Vic, the poms we met in Semuc. Evenings were spent enjoying a few quiet beers and fresh seafood Carribean style. Back to Mexico and San Diego, where Steve headed back to NZ and I lapped up Ross' hospitality before heading back down south. And the road goes on...