I start my first day on the farm with Shad killing one of his goats for thanksgiving dinner. I tried going up at 5am to see him but as I got lost I came up with someone who tried to give me directions before. I can’t actually remember the guys name unfortunately. He was a really nice guy though. I get shown where the farm is but the goat slaughter already took place. It wasn’t a pretty one apparently. Shad had to bash the goat 3 times before it stopped moving. Though when he had to slit the throat the animal started convulsing which meant it wasn’t dead before. The other volunteers were either helping shad cut the meat or helping skin the hide.

I stood by and chatted to everyone about general stuff. By now it was 7:30 or so and we decided to go back to the hostel for breakfast. We walk down the rocky road and stop by a tienda to buy eggs, bananas and potatoes to make hash brown type thing.

We talk for about stuff and we establish that I probably won’t be making a website and that everyone is a little tired of working on the farm and living in the hostel which has basically nothing.

This is where I really regret signing up for woofing. My high expectations and hopes where brought down to reality. Sometimes an advert on a website might not explain everything in real terms, such as the state of the hostel or whats type of work you’ll actually be doing. I suppose its not Shads fault but its something I will take with a pinch of salt in the future.

We’re expected back on the farm at 5pm or so as Shad is having thanksgiving with his friends and the employees on his farm and will celebrate with the volunteers later.

I find that the guy who lead me upto the farm is a chef and has bought food to cook for us to eat. So we spend the next few hours peeling potatoes, sweet potatoes, dicing garlic and generally assisting the chef to prepare the food. I’ve never had thanks giving food before and we make mash potato, sweet potato mash with marshmallows, runner beans with mushroom gravy soup and vegetable gravy.

It come to 4pm and we start to take the food up to the farm. When I get there, Shad’s guests are all pretty drunk and there are leftovers from their first thanksgiving dinner. There really isn’t any electricity so we have to use candles and torches to see what we’re doing. We warm the food we prepared in Shad’s oven and have our dinner. Shad made sausages from the goat intestine and meat, and it tasted pretty good! A few of the volunteers have brought instruments to play for everyone and all the Americans have a sing along. I’m not too versed in their music so I just enjoy the ambience.

I felt quite out of place while having dinner. So I decide that I wanna leave the very next day, to go to Panachel and then to where else I pick. It was a little fun celebrating with the Americans but as they’re all tired of working on the farm, I saw little point in staying any longer.

Some you win, some you lose. In this event, I lost money and gained a few days as I was supposed to be here for a week.

The next day we just chill out at the hostel and sun bathe. This is when I receive my “local” tan colour. The sun in that area was hooot. But not too hot that its not tolerable. In the afternoon I tell everyone I’m leaving and pack my things in preparation to travel.

After the hot springs, reality comes back and hits us as he needs to plan his flight back. He’d been researching prices for flights home for a while and waited til last minute to book. A few days earlier he booked a flight but it was removed because he couldn’t verify his purchase as he didn’t have his phone on him to receive a call from his bank.

In the end, I used my debit card to buy his ticket as I told my bank I was using my card overseas. This took a while to do aond it wasn’t til the late afternoon where we left the hostel for some food. We found a cheap as chips burger place. There were some locals in there already so it couldn’t be bad. 2 burgers for only Q20! Thats £2 for 2 double burgers! I saw another deal for 3 chorizo burgers for Q20! We got them and chips and we were stuffed. So much so I coulsdnt finish my 3rd burger. There was one thing about the burgers, they didn’t seem to have been cooked properly. Like the meat was a little pink inside. The patty was thin but it seemed, ‘normal’. We left the burger place and went to purchase Naz’ shuttle bus to Mexico. A homeless guy was outside so I have him my burger. After Naz’ bought the ticket we went outside and the home guy was still there. He didn’t finish the burger! A mouthful was left! Maybe even he knew it was a bad burger!

Naz leaving hit me quite hard. Partner in crime, best bud leaving me to venture central america on my own. I know this trip was supposed to be mine, but it was more enjoyable with him along. We’ve done south east Asia together and 4 weeks of Mexico and Guatemala. I didn’t really want him to go, but ‘you gotta do what you gotta do’. We all have our own agendas and it is a pity he had ton leave early.

It is very true that I will meet other travellers, but having someone you know so well travel with you and share experiences is awesome. Its like when you’re back home and you go out for drinks. You wanna share the experience with your friends. Likewise I wanted to share the future experiences with him too. The reason why you share your photos is to show people who couldn’t be there what you were doing. ‘Wish you were here’ means you want that person there with you, sharing the moment.

Still, now I’m back to what I originally planned on doing: travelling round central america on my own, being uncomfortable, learning from my mistakes and showing the world that travelling makes you a good human being. That’s the most important aspect of this trip. Proving that by going to foreign lands you find patience, humility and respect to others, that make you a better human being than if you stayed at home. Someone I know has travelled the world, yet is the total opposite of what I thought they would have become. I’m here to prove that travelling makes you a better person. To prove her wrong.

During our decent from Volcano Tejumulco, we remembered that there were some hot springs that we could go and soothe our aching bodies from the hike.

We tried figuring out if was cheaper going their ourselves or getting a shuttle to the springs. Ole, a German guy who stayed in our dorm before Jon, told us the costs and timing doing it yourself but in the end we figured a tour company would be much simpler.

Jon found a place in his lonely planet guide for a tour and we heading off to find it. We found the street the place shoulda been join but couldn’t find the office. We musta gone up and down the street 3 times and still nothing. In the end we found the tour company, it turned out it was a local cafe which offered tours. Very bizarre that!

It cost about Q110 which is about £8, for transport and entry to the springs. We were told by a guy Naz was chatting to at our hostel about a “secret spring” at the same place but wasn’t quite so advertised to the public. When we arrived we made a beeline for it. Go down the steps right of the main area, avoid the angry black dog tethered by a chain and trek for about 5mins down. Eventually we found it and no one was there. Perfect.

Jon and I thought the water was too hot, but Naz took the plunge and went it. He said it was pretty good so we all went in. It was really hot, but not so much that it was uncomfortable. There were two pools, one that had water fed direct from the spring outlet(?) and another next to it that had water pouring in from the first pool. The second pool was a little cooler but we didn’t go into that one.

We started taking photos and Jon and I managed to coerce Naz into doing a model photoshoot. I have a set of images that I need to combine that shows off naz’s “flair” shall we say?

Behind the pools, around some rocks, there was a waterfall. It was about 15 feet tall and the water was cold! Though after being in the hot spring that didn’t matter. We took turns standing under the waterfall. The feeling of the water crashing on your head wasn’t painful or irritating, it was strangely nice. I guess its a type of massage, the pressure of the water hitting the scalp, and the temperature of the water strangely making us feel something we would never experience back home. I can’t vouch for Jon but Naz and I have never been under a waterfall so we were buzzing from the experience.

After a while we went to the main pools where everybody else were at. The main area had 3, 1 large and empty one, 1 medium which had water feeding from the large, 1 medium that wasn’t fed from either pool. We decided to dip into the large pool as there were already people in the other pools.

Jon brought his aerobie with him and threw it to me. I missed it and it went into the waster. I jumped in the get it. The water in the large pool was extremely hot. So hot you could only last a few seconds in there before the body’s survival instinct kicks in and tells you get out. I though my skin was on fire. There was a reason why people didn’t go into that pool. We chilled out in the first pool as we couldn’t tolerate the heat of the large pool. That pool had the largest feed of hot spring water so it was extremely hot. We played with the aerobie for a bit and we eventually tried throwing it on each others head. After a while we went back to “heat up” in the large pool. We dared each other who could last the longest in the water. There were stairs leading into the pool and we kept going further in. Eventually I decided to right in and dip my head under water for a few seconds. Boy it was hot. Moving while in the water was uncomfortable. There is a tingling feeling all over the skin as you move any part of your body in the water. Whats affected me the most were my legs, walking up the stairs to get out. It was like they were in shock at the temperature and the muscles couldn’t believe my brain was telling me to exert myself.

Jon and Naz took the plunge also and went underwater. I took a video of it as I knew it would be funny watching them scream at how hot it was. Time was almost up so we packed our thing and went back to the shuttle. On the way back to our hostel, we noticed that street lights used energy saving bulbs! They were not as powerful as the amber lights we have back at home, but using an energy saving bulb makes sense as these lights are on all night.

I’ve never been to a hot spring and I really enjoyed it. I prefer showers than baths so the idea of sitting in a hot pool, like literally just sitting there, was interesting to me. If I encounter more hot spring on my journey you can be sure I’ll give them a visit.