International Mankini Challenge

Having backpacked around South Africa, South East Asia and the USA three years ago and now 11 months into travelling around Latin America as an STA Explorer, I was asked by the folk at STA Travel how things have changed and how I think backpacking may change in the future. My views, and those of other travelers, are a small part of them celebrating their 30 year anniversary of helping send young people to the far reaches of the earth.

It maybe surprising to some that in the three years since I last decided to grab my backpack and head to pastures new that the way people travel has changed significantly. There’s the obvious changes in technology that keeps everyone up to date with your latest adventures, but there are subtler changes too in terms of the kind of people you meet, where they are from and which countries they are going to.

Equally as there are noticeable changes, there are also a number of things that seasoned travelers will only be too familiar with that haven’t altered at all! In no particular order I’ve listed below what I think’s changed, what hasn’t and what I think the future may hold for backpackers. Id be interested to hear your comments.

What’s changed?

The backpacking of tomorrow – the next 3 years

N.B. As a caveat to what I’ve said above, traveling around South East Asia as opposed to South America is a completely different kettle of fish. Therefore some of these changes I’ve noted maybe influenced by location rather than time.

To close, while reading Between a rock and a hard place (the true story of Aron Ralston cutting his arm off to survive when it gets trapped by a falling rock) I came across a quote Aron likes from Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild that I think sums up what those who have backpacked have realised.

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”

My hope is that those that haven’t yet traveled have the good fortune to realise this too. I’m sure STA Travel would only be to happy to help you realise these great new experiences. With 30 years behind them they seem to be fairly successful at it!

Whenever you meet travellers who have been to Guatemala they can’t help but overflow with the things they’ve seen and done there. It’s Lake Atitlan this, Antigua that and Semuc Champey the other. The Guatemala problem then was where do we get the pictures? What a nice issue to have!

After taking a few of the infamous Central American Chicken buses (ex-US school buses) from El Salvador to Antigua, I settled into the comforts of a touristy town. El Salvador can be a tough place to travel when your Spanish is as limited as mine and you crave something to eat other than eggs, refried beans, rice and tortillas! It also gave me the chance to wash the Mankini properly!

Antigua is probably most famous for being an island in the Caribbean. However, there’s also one in Guatemala and it’s also the main place in Central America, if not the world, to take Spanish classes. As such, the town is full of gringos.

Coming up fast on the culmination of my Latin American adventure I decided against topping up my Spanish vocabulary thus sparing any potential fellow students a Mankini photo session during class. Instead, I travelled to the nearby volcano of Pacaya, the only active volcano in the region, to have the chance of getting within metres of fresh lava.

After travelling for 9 months through South and Central America it’s easy to get volcano fatigue. It may sound blasé, but they really are everywhere here. However the chance to get up close to lava was something I hadn’t had the opportunity to do before, and after being told not to do the Mankini shot here (as it was too dangerous) by my lovely friend Teresa, I decided it was maybe good to bank a Mankini shot in case some of Guatemala’s other highlights didn’t quite hit the mark (telling me not to do things is never a great idea).

Roasting marshmallows is the thing to do at the Pacaya Volcano to illustrate quite how close to the lava you are. It literally takes seconds to cremate them. Indeed, the main challenge is to keep the soles of your shoes as the lava runs underneath the rocks you’re stood on melting them away from the uppers. We saw a few unlucky tourists carrying theirs down hoping to glue them back on later. And so hopping from foot to foot to keep my shoes at room temperature, and my balance, I took off my clothes to reveal the Mankini in all its glory. I’d let most people start their descent, but as is the norm, once the Mankini is seen by one the word quickly spreads and a crowd gathers.

As I stood cooking marshmallows good old Joe Smith took pictures for me. With him having not seen the Mankini in a spontanteous public situation before he also took the shots of the crowd of paparazzi that had gathered who demanded I did different poses for their own albums.

With this in the can I travelled on to the glorious Lake Atitlan and stayed at one of the best hostels of my trip, La Iguana Perdida in Santa Cruz. Great staff and food in a beautiful spot. It’s definitely worth a visit if you’re there. Not ideal for a Mankini shot, I decided to keep the space on the memory card, said goodbye to Joe, and head to Semuc Champey.

Semuc Champey is in Central Guatemala and is a beautiful national park where you can swim in natural pools of water (surrounded by great mountain views), tube down the river and swim in caves using only the light of a candle in your hand to see where you’re going. Again this wasn’t suitable for a Mankini shot and so I headed on to Flores, in the north east.

It was on the bus to Lanquin (near Semuc Champey) that I met Aidan and Amy, a Kiwi couple. With this being the first time I’dtravelled on my own since May it occured to me that I would possibly need to recruit a new photographer for some shots at the Mayan ruins of Tikal, Guatemala’s most famous Mayan site. Fortunately, unbeknown to either of us at the time, Aidan had seen me in the Mankini on Volcano Pacaya and had been one of the crowd taking pictures. And so once the Mankini came up in conversation he was only too pleased to help.

Tikal was not only a Mayan city, but also home to the Ewoks (it was the forest moon of Endor) in the Star Wars film ‘Return of the Jedi’. I reckoned that if they could get away with wearing their little leather numbers, a Mankini would be fine.

Having climbed to the top of the highest temple we waited for the people traffic to die down before I stripped off for the shots of the top of the forest with some other temples in the background. Unfortunately after only a few shots security spotted us and said “No mas!” Even my Spanish was sufficient to know that was “no more!”, he wasn’t happy and we were to move on. As they say though, good things come to those who wait and an hour or so later we were able to take the other shots you’ll see in the gallery, away from the prying eyes of security, at the bottom of the temple.

See the photos here.

With two locations satisfactorily done it was off to Caye Caulker, Belize where it would mean I’d once again need to meet a photographer who was prepared to take pictures underwater… in just four days!!