To select these I had to go thru 11 000 photos and delete some to make more space to my hard drive (which is full again).
So I hope you have to patience as well. Thanks!

Time kind of looses it’s importance at the beach. Sun comes up at 6 and goes down 12 hours later. I’m physically kind of tired of surfing. It’s a ruff hobby. Twice a day fighting with the waves is a full time job. I say fighting because H2O doesn’t always like the fact that I’m trying to ride it. Sometimes it washes me a shore like a piece rotten log floating on the sea. Other times it tries to tear all my limbs appart and make me become part of the water by stuffing water down my throat by the gallons.

Still it’s quite awesome. Yesterday I got the best wave of my life and saw a sea turtle in the middle of the sea. The funniest incident was when a huge wave hammered me and then the whitewater took me almost back to the shore. When I got to the surface gasping for air, a big swarm of little fish started jumping around me. It felt like hundreds of sticks were poking at me. Some of the fish went inside my shirt while others were exploring the insides of my shorts.

Beach life is quite addictive and I’m not sure when I’m able to leave this place behind. I might go to Honduras next week to do some scuba diving or I might just stay here and continue surfing. Let’s see what happens. 1st world might define my current form of being as embodiment of laziness while others might call it a bliss. What ever is going on around me, it’s something new and I have no idea what I’m going to do next.

I did get a Christmas present for myself. It’s a used surf board. I have no idea what the hell I’m going to do with it if I go to Honduras. There aren’t really waves there for surfing. I guess one more small thing hanging outside the backpack isn’t that bad…

Few tips for all you travelers out there who want to travel light: Don’t get into photography, don’t get into surfing, and especially don’t try to do them both at the same time!!! 4 reasons why:
1. Too much stuff
2. Both are best at early in the morning and late in the evening
3. Both take all of your time and energy
4. Too much stuff

So at the moment I’m starting to limit my travels through my own shoppings. Nice! At least both hobbies are really cool! Right?! Hahah, I’ll tell you a secret: Both are just hard work if you take them seriously. So if you happen to think that traveling, taking photos and surfing all year long is just like a long vacation, you are wrong. The difference between a holiday and traveling, at least for me, is that on holidays I do nothing and while traveling I do something all the time. I search for challenges and try out new things and I don’t mean different beer brands. I think soon I’m in need of a short holiday.

I’ve hardly touched my camera lately but here are some shots.

With a friend from Xela I briefly visited lake Atitlan, Antiqua and the volcano called Pacaya, which are by far the most touristic places and sights in Guatemala. Apparently Finlands biggest newspaper wrote about the hike to the volcano (voit lukea sen tästä). Trust me when I say that it’s a cool place but there are experiences in that country that are far more interesting than easy climb to maybe see flowing lava.

Lake Atitlan: Beautiful lake surrounded by volcanos and mountains. At the moment so polluted that you can’t swim in it.
Antiqua: Widest streets I’ve seen in Guatemala. Kind of reminds me of some Mexican and Spanish cities. Every tourist in Guatemala goes thru this city.
Volcano Pacaya: Flowing lava. 1 hour hike if you don’t have out of shape people in your group.

After the volcano it was time to take a bus the Guatemala City and get out of there as quickly as possible. More of dangers of traveling in Central America on my next blog post.

Now I’m at a beach called Tunca in El Salvador. It’s a beach. To me they all look pretty much the same. The difference with this beach is that it’s pretty good for learning how to surf. After three days of surfing I somehow managed to catch a flue (thousand curse words!). So now instead of enjoying the peaceful ocean days before the God damn Christmas and thousand tourists, I’m stuck in my hammock surfing in Facebook. That sucks big time! I keep telling myself that after the holidays are over I can still stay here while others head back to their cubicles. Still, I’m running out of patience. Damn (swine) flu. My head is about to explode! (Despite of difficulties thinking straight life is still sweet.)

On the beach I talked to this guy who works as a ^^^^^^ and as a (side)business he sells drugs to people on the beach. Just earlier that day the police took him into custody and made an ultimatum: He either has to pay them 100 euros a month or stop dealing. He didn’t seem to be even thinking about finding a new second job.

Better quality photos

The new plan:
Tomorrow we’ll head to the coast for 2 weeks and after that maybe couple of days in Mexico City. I’m probably staying there a little bit longer since some say it’s quite big city and has plenty to see. After that.. don’t know. I’ve got until the 28 of August to get out of the country so next after Mexico is probably Guatemala or USA. After that I can return back to Mexico with a tourist Visa and see rest of the country.

I was suppose to do lots of things during the next 3 weeks (portfolio, blogging etc.) before heading out of Guadalajara but those things have to be put on hold for now. Life is like playing rock, paper, scissors, Surf beats Cities.

But don’t be fooled. I’m no pure hedonist so after this small vacation I will put my effort on something other than pure leisure as well :)
We all need breaks and this will be it for me.
Take care!

Ps. I will be back to Guadalajara to say ‘bye bye’ to all my friends and maybe stay for a while.