Graham Williams & Louise Jones Travel Blog This is our journal logging our trip through Central and Latin America from July 2005 to the present date. We update it and add new pictures every two to three weeks. At the moment Will is travelling in South Africa, while Lou is living in Buenos Aires.For more background reading on our travels go to - http://journals.worldnomads.com/will/

We are writing this from Antigua in Guatemala where we are experiencing Tropical Storm Stan. This storm is far to the north of us in Mexico but it has meant that we have had three days of heavy rain which is beginning to effect the country. A bridge has collapsed outside the town and lots of areas are cut off because of flooding. Everywhere is very, very wet and although the storm is weakening we will have a couple more days of rain to come. Over the last week we have traveled across Guatemala, going first to Flores, a lovely town on a island on a lake, now attached by a causeway. This is on the edge of the remote, jungle part of the country,  which we visited to go to the famous Mayan site at Tikal. From Flores we went to a hill town called Coban, which is in the important coffee growing area and we visited a coffee farm and sampled the product. In this country you are always guaranteed a good cup of coffee. We then passed very quickly through Guatemala City to Antigua. This is like arriving in some sublime version of Europe. The center of the city is old and untouched with beautiful houses painted in bright colours, burnt orange, yellow and red with most of them are built around plant filled courtyards. Scattered amongst the streets are picturesque ruins of Spanish churches left after a huge earthquake in the Eighteenth Century.  The town is surrounded by three volcanos which are covered with forests and small villages, when you can see them. As so many tourists come here the place is packed with great restaurants and  hotels and everything is of the highest quality. You could almost forget you are in Central America. At the moment, the cobbled streets are swimming in water and everything is damp under a lowering sky. This is not such a problem for us as we are here (like so many people) to learn Spanish so we spend a large part of the day at school. Well put up our school report next week. Also in the last week, Graham wrote a piece on managing your finances while traveling which will appear in Januarys edition of Wunderlust magazine.