Day 41 - Lake Atitlan

Boxing Day and time to leave one lake for another. I booked on to a luxury bus in the equivalent of Business Class at great expense for the overnight journey to Flores in Northern Guatemala via a short stop in Guatemala City. All that being so, there's not a great deal of touristy stuff to talk about. Instead, I thought I'd share my vast wisdom on the nuanced differences between one layabout backpacker and another....

So I should say that Central America is the natural habitat of your more serious backpacker. Asia and Australasia is more of a cheeky gap year for the middle class teenager who just doesn't really fancy doing anything except drugs and girls for 12 months. 

I know that’s a bit broad brush, but in my experience, largely true. So what does all that mean? Well the average age of your Central American backpacker is a lot higher for a start. 20’s and some 30’s (I’m always going to be an outlier at my grand old age). Also the equipment and dress code is a bit different. Backpacks are a bit more battered and a bit more tied up with string. None of your fresh out of Blacks, North Face premium bacpackery here. Carrier bags play a much important role here too. It’s what you carry water bottles and fruit in. I haven’t seen a camelback since I was in Hanoi I think.

I have been mercilessly ribbed for wearing vests on social media, but they are fairly common hot weather garb in truth. That said, I eschew the serious backpackers pantaloons, alpaca poncho, beads, braids and a woven hat of some variety. You get that look anywhere backpackers roam of course, but in Central America, it tends to be more multi-layered, far grubbier and threadbare, and as an ensemble, takes on a kind of 1000 yard stare feral bag lady look, as opposed to an Asian hippy dippy, vegan, prawns is murder, save the orangoutangs, kind of way.  

It’s kinda like the difference between being in the army and being in the SAS. Central America is the SAS by the way. And I’m in neither camp for the record. I plough my own furrow. ....Hey! Maybe I’m Delta Force? ....Or maybe Dad’s Army. You decide. 

It’s difficult to take photos of fellow travellers without them noticing and asking you what the fuck you’re doing, but I did manage to take this cheeky shot to prove I’m not the only person with my shoulders out in these parts.