Cthulhu & I

Vampires in Mexico

There are Vampires in Mexico, one of them lives on the island of Cozumel, outside of Playa del Carmen. According to rumours, he works with saving the coral reefs, but more obviously he wears a long cape and has white pointy teeth. Disappointlingly, he moves around outside at daytime, but I think that is ok, as Dracula did the same.

Otherwise, I'm staying at Santa Lucia Hostel in Merida. Here they don't know that Santa Lucia should have candles in the hair and wear white, but they do know who Nils Holgersson is. Mr. Cthulhu is getting scared of monster trafficing, as several people have wanted to buy him from me. It doesn't really help that he's trying to hide behind his sombrero. New picture archive has been added on Mexico with diving pictures from around Playa del Carmen.

New text in swedish on Mexico and Guatemala can be found here.

Some Like It Hot

New photos added to the Guatemala photo album. Mr. Cthulhu poses by the Pacaya volcano with a girl he charmed.

Scoop on Christmas Billy-Goat

Ok, sometimes you get really strange information. In Antigua I met an american from a small place in northern california, population 400 persons. However, when he heard I was a swede, he asked me if I knew about the swedish "christmas sheep in gavle" (julbocken i Gävle). It turned out that he was a friend from sweden, supposedly called Ola Larsson (hard to know from american pronounciation) that claimed to once have burned the billy-goat to the ground. And later the same night, I met a girl from Gävle! However, she had never heard of Ola Larsson, so the story remains unconfirmed.

Otherwise, I have recently arrived in Mexico, which I shall ravage and plunder. Mr. Cthulhu missed to see Tikal as he overslept, so now he has demanded to see the ruins in Tulum instead. Also, a longer text in swedish on Guatemala that I have written can be found here.

Read or Die!

Having trouble right now, have finished almost all books I´ve brought with me, so I´m on continuous lookout for used books. As yet I have finished the following books:
Crusader´s Torch, The Other Side of Israel, Definietely Dead, Air America, Conflicting Missions, Koreas Place in the Sun, The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990, A Vietcong Memoir

Luckily I´ve found a descent bookstore near my Hotel, so I´ll hope to stock with 5-6 books before I leave Antigua for Flores/Tikal tomorrow morning. Btw, here´s some info in Pacaya Volcano. Mr. Cthulhu has spent the morning trying to stare down the dog at my hotel. As yet he the dog seems uninterested which irritates Mr. Cthulhu. We will see if dog will still be alive tomorrow.

Walking on Fire

Found some weird stuff in Guatemala City:

* There´s a Natural History museum with horse skeletons. Looked like something for the grim reaper. Supposedly there´s also a room with dead rodents in jars, but there was a problem with the ceiling so I couldn´t get in. And my photo of the dead horses went bad.

* There´s a really cool mega-ultra-gothic church made by some fanatic businessman. There´s a photo of it here.

* There´s Halloween in Guatemala, so there´s bats and stuff in the stores. Check out here.

Otherwise I´ve moved onto Antigua today where I and Mr. Cthulhu climbed an active volcano, jumping between rocks, trying not to fall into the lava. Was a really cool experience. Found some cool stuff to buy (have to figure out how to get it home). Some kind of skeleton and a Zapatista soldier on horse with his girlfriend.

Here and here are two pictures of the room in Pension Meza where Che Guevara stayed in Guatemala.

Dental Travel

The last couple of days, Mr. Cthulhu has had to stay in our room, as I don´t have any backpack to carry him around in and as yet, still refuses to travel in a plastic bag. As a revenge, he poured a bottle of mineral water on one of my guide books.

Otherwise, I have spent some time with my dentist here, Dr. Carlos Escobar. Apart from fixing my teeth (a surreal experienced to get drilled while listening to "flight of the bumblebee"), he has shown me around, bought me beer, shown me where the swedish ambassador lives and much more.

I have bought a one-use camera with 27 pictures, so I expect to be able to send some pictures from guatemala in a week or so. Otherwise, I´m checking out the cameras on the net to see what I want to buy.

Otherwise, some longer swedish messages, read in Radio Tuff, can be found here and here.

Two Bad News and a Good

Yesterday, I quite optimistically said that I would upload some pictures soon. That will not happen, as an evil robber snatched my bag yesterday. So here´s a list of pictures you will never see:

* Che Guevara memorial in Santa Clara
* Castillo El Morro in Santiago
* Diving with muerena in Varadero
* Stuffed two-headed babyshark in Varadero
* Castillo in Havanna

On the bright side, this gives me an excuse to buy a new camera (the old was insured) which I will do soon.

Also, Cubana air made a great messup with my ticket to Guatemala (where I am now), so I had to pay for the ticket again! Then I have to mess with the head office to get my money refunded.

On the brightside, a fellow at the airport recommended me to stay in Pension Meza, only 7$ a night. When I looked it up in my guidebook I found out that I´m sleeping in exactly the room that Che Guevara was sleeping in when he stayed there! So right now I´m quite happy.

Don't Underestimate The Power Of The Dark Rum

Avast, ye mateys!

Yesterday, Mr. Cthulhu stared so menacingly at a small girl, that she started screaming and continued to scream gibberish until her mother dragged her away. I fear she might never recover her sanity. Mr. Cthulhu is very proud of himself.

Otherwise, everything is nice. Mr. Cthulhu & I have now travelled around Cuba, visiting Bay of Pigs, Santa Clara, Trinidad , Santiago, Varadero and of course Havanna. The dark rum is more dangerous than one can believe and together with the heat, it is downright lethal. Mr. Cthulhu had much fun looking at me trying to drag myself up the stars to my room. Himself, he had settled for a dead fish, much more senible.

On a weird-o-meter, Cuba doesn't rank high. Everything is so scoutlike with the revolution, schooluniforms, everyone works, and so on. However, I have found some hopes.

* Varadero: Here there are two great pipes, spurting flames all around the hours, giving the sky a strange look in the evening. They say it has something to do with burning left-over gas from the oildrilling, but I think it is for the image. Also, it gives a nice smoky smell you can feel in your hotelroom if you live to close.

In varadero, there's also a little museum with some very ugly stuffed animals, including a bat, a puff-fish and a twoheaded baby shark! The last made me very happy.

Lastly, there's a tame two meter muerena eel by the Neptuno shipwreck. The muerena will swim up to you to be cuddled and is very nice. Don't try to pet the wrong muerena though, or you might loose some fingers.

* Santiago: In a schoolyard, there's an old russian MIG-plane that the children climb around on.

* Havanna: In the fort right across the bay from Havanna you can see the skull from of the sailors of the ship Maine, which accidental sinking (it's engine blew apart) was used as an excuse for the US forces to occypy Cuba and place it's own dictator until the revolution. In another part of the fort there's a chapel where you can see the remains of people once buried there.

Arrr, time to quit, ye scallywags. No time to upload more pictures now, will do that later. Tomorrow morning I fly for Guatemala. Will try to give descriptions to the pictures later. Been some problems updating, as often the SSL port is closed down for the internet places. Mr. Cthulhu gives his regards, but he's busy terrorizing a couple next to me that are very fascinated by him.