³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Guatemala has one of the most intact indigenous cultures of any land in the Americas. Between twenty and thirty dialects of the indigenous language are still spoken. We rode through lush canyons where old ladies sat outside small houses weaving rugs and clothing in bright reds and greens.

Along the road there are stores selling staple supplies and, as one might expect in one of the world's few 'cafeteros', the dark bitter coffee beans are not sold in easy-seal packets but in fifty pound sacks.

Mark's Spanish is probably much better than mine was then, but the hospitality and friendliness of the locals make it easy to learn the lingo quickly then find shelter and eat along the way. While I zigzagged my way from one coast to the other across the small but still significant spine of mountains, I think Mark is planning a more sensible line down through Central America.

The roads are good in Guatemala, especially down the west coast. While you can do as I did and pick a line dotted with swampy tracks and ill-advised river crossings the solid but sometimes potholed asphalt forms a continuous strip on the road south.

I remember crossing borders like they belonged to counties not countries, crossing into Honduras and back out of it again within three days. Long enough to stumble across a home to a family that wanted nothing more than to look after Julie, the airline pilot, and I when we arrived on their patch with the tandem.

While cultures and methods of the local people subtly change crossing these borders, the level of hospitality rarely drops to the level we are more used to in the UK. Hospitality exists here by the truckload for sure, but it's different. Here we have etiquettes, there are 'pleases' and 'thank yous' and polite procedures that have been bred into us. But in Panama, for instance, where I passed a house late in the day- more like a wood shed in the forest - it was assumed that not only would I be hungry but tired too. A plate was put on the table for me brimming with food, and one of the two beds occupied by the four-strong family was vacated for me, no questions asked, no procedures followed. I am sure Mark will, if he hasn't already, fall into the kind hands of such people too as he travels down towards Panama.

Those memories seem like yesterday though its been over a year since my return. I remember lying dead-still so as not to sweat trying to rest in the humming night under my mosquito net. Also rejoicing in the rainy season, the rain cool enough to refresh and powerful enough to wash in, and resting in a small impoverished village on the El Salvadorian coast while recovering from the results of eating raw pork skin offered to me by a food vendor. The sounds of the rainforest after a downpour are almost deafening with a myriad of crusty little insects competing for airtime.

More than these ambient drifting memories though, I remember the people I befriended along the way - people that spectacularly derailed the scare stories I'd heard about in these less wealthy countries. There must be the occasional opportunist that wants a tourist's possessions more than they do, but I never came across any. A pretty clever man that went by the name of Gandhi sums it up fairly neatly for me:

"...Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."

I'm sure Mark will experience this same heart warming reception!

Keep on truckin',

Dominic