For starters...

Okay, welcome to my blog. I’m doing this as an alternative to mass emails, which I never really got down with. I mean, what if I’ve been sending stuff to your inbox that you just didn’t want to read? Ok, probably not you—you’re here, right?—but what about the dozens of other people who were getting my emails too? Anyway, now I can post what I feel like telling you about, and you can come read it if and when you want. You’ll have to sift through a little more stream-of-consciousness rambling rather than rushed, long-after-the-fact recollections, but I’m a lot more comfortable with this arrangement. Esta bien? Bien.

So, while I was expecting to find myself in the Caribbean amidst palm trees, white sandy beaches and crystal blue waters containing new (to me) species of tropical fish and coral for my next job, I’m actually on my way to Guatemala. I will be working in the highlands, amidst volcanic peaks blanketed in dense green jungle foliage and cloud forest and peppered with small Mayan villages and ancient Mayan ruins. I’ll be working at a small backpacker hostel-cum-dive centre on Lago de Atitlàn, whose grandeur apparently made Aldous Huxley declare it “the most beautiful lake in the world.” Sounds pretty good, right? I’m really looking forward to it, too. I think it’s going to be a great place to live and work—gorgeous scenery, lots of interesting people with similar interests, easy-going and easy-to-teach students (fit, young, healthy, ready-to-learn backpackers make for better students than those typically encountered in the Red Sea: out-of-shape, crochety, middle-aged couples miserable from the heat and their angsty teenagers who would rather be anywhere but with their families), and a workplace that’s just a few seconds walk rather than a 40-minute bus ride from my bed. And lots of cute boys, too.

I’m not so sure about the diving, though. Lake Atitlàn itself fills the basin of an imploded volcanic cone and sits at 1560m altitude. The underwater features are geothermal mud (here, touch some warm mud!), volcanic walls, submerged forests and a few species of green-brown freshwater fish. Basically, compared to the Med, the Pacific or the Red Sea, there’s nothing to see and even if there was, the visibility is piss-poor—maybe 15m. I suppose the interesting thing about diving here is the altitude, since most diving is done in the sea and, duh, at sea level. Different rules apply upwards of 300m (though the rules are theoretical and once you know them and include them in your planning, the execution of the dive itself doesn’t really change). I haven’t done any altitude diving and only a couple of freshwater dives on Lake Ontario while I was on holiday last month, so it’s all going to be quite new to me at first. For someone who’s done all their diving in the Med, the Pacific and the Red Sea, this is all really quite exotic. I suppose all the backpackers who come through here fresh from their dive courses in Belize and Honduras must think the same thing. The difference between me and the backpackers, of course, is that they will do maybe four or five dives over the course of a week, and then leave, whereas I will be doing twice as many dives per week, every week, for the next four months. Something tells me that warm mud won’t be quite as exciting by January. Or, let’s face it, even by next week.