Guatemala Politics Update

And whilst I was away, Guatemala went to the ballot boxes. The law here is that if no one candidate gets 50% plus one vote, then the two candidates with the highest percentage of votes, go through to a second round. And with 14 candidates, that was always most likely to happen. Thankfully for the most part, election day was a peaceful affair, and then there was a wait for the results. The three highest scoring candidates were revealed within a day or so, but votes were still being counted for a few more days. When it looked clear that he was going to lose, the candidate placed third, then made a big deal of withdrawing from the presidential race, and resigning from his party, saying that the electoral process had been suspect (although his party have been the most to blame for that!). That great British saying about 'throwing your dummy out of the pram' came to my mind, but I don´t think it would translate into spanish!

So now they´ll have the second round in late October. The two candidates remaining, one of them has come of nowhere, he´s a completely fresh face in terms of being outside of the traditional 'political class' of Guatemala, (although is well known publicly for other reasons) - but has very little political experience. The other candidate has a lot of political experience, but as seems to be the norm in Guatemala, that brings with it a history of corruption and scandals as well.  So let´s wait and see who the Guatemalan public will prefer.

Independence - Mexican Style!

After my holiday in Isla Holbox, I then had a week visiting some Latin Link members in Puebla. From their flat they had a fantastic view of volcanic peaks of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl (or Popo and Isa!)

 I also happened to be visiting over Mexican Independence Day, 15th September. This is the same day as much of Central America, but of course they celebrate it slightly differently.

We went to a party of their church, where they explained a bit of the history of the Independence which took about 11 years to gain victory over the Spanish colonisers. Then we had  the traditional 'Grito'  - a shout of independence - celebrating a list of different heroes of Independence.

 Then there was a fantastic display of traditional Mexican dances  - incredible energy and balance!!  - and they carried bottles and whole trays of drinks on their heads, whilst continuing to dance and stomp!

 Then dances from a different region of Mexico, the dances were in enormous skirts with lots of rapid twirls and swirls. (Sorry for the blurry pictures - but you get the idea!)

It was a fantastic atmosphere - and then came the food - all the church members had brought a different Mexican food, for everyone to try - so there were mountains of food - and much of it made in the colours of the Mexican flag!

¡¡VIVA MEXICO!!

A few pics from my holiday in Isla Holbox

I had a fantastic week in Isla Holbox (near Cancun)..... so here´s a few pictures of things I saw....

I swam with Whalesharks  - the biggest species of shark in the world - it was an amazing experience - swimming alongside one, who just wonders along with his mouth open catching plankton:

 Flamingoes