Analysing a real British English conversation with my girlfriend

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Hello and welcome back to another video.

[00:00:03]Today we are breaking down a conversation. So here we have Helena.

[00:00:10]>> Hi everyone.

[00:00:12]>> Helena is my girlfriend and recently we went traveling together. We went traveling with another couple. It was like a really long double date, but today we're going to talk about it and tell you where we went, what we thought of the different places, and if we have time, where we plan on going next. So, Helena, I'm going to call you Hen. So, Helena's nickname is Hen. So, Hen, where did we go first?

[00:00:46]>> So, we went to Mexico first. We flew into Cancun, which is kind of in the south of Mexico, um, on the coast, but we only stayed there for one night. And then we traveled up, I think we got a bus, didn't we? Um, to a little island called Hobbos.

[00:01:08]>> I think we're pronouncing that right. We we to this day, we don't really know how to pronounce it because in Spanish, you don't pronounce the H. But everybody we spoke to was pronouncing it with the with the H. So Bosch, whole boss, something like that.

[00:01:27]>> Before we went out there though, we were calling it whole box, which it definitely wasn't a whole box island.

[00:01:34]Um, so yeah, Bosch is is what we're going with now.

[00:01:39]So, we like you said, we got the bus to I forget the name of the little port, but we got the bus there and then we caught a ferry over to the island and I think the ferry took what, half hour, 40 minutes, something like that.

[00:02:00]>> Something like that. [clears throat] Not very long. So, we met our two friends in that little port place and it was it was the first time that we had seen Tom, our friend Tom in Yes. First time we had seen him in a very long time and it was the first time that we met his girlfriend Phoebe, which was very nice.

[00:02:25]So, we all caught the ferry as our first kind of double date. And then when we got there, we walked with our big heavy backpacks to the hostel. And the hostel was called >> I can't remember.

[00:02:42]>> I've put you on the spot there.

[00:02:44]>> We can't remember.

[00:02:45]>> Was it the CH?

[00:02:47]>> Chhat Hangout. Was it Hangout?

[00:02:51]>> Something like that. I can't remember.

[00:02:52]It was a very nice hostel though. There was a nice pool. um quite a lot of people around and um [clears throat] so we'd booked separately to Tom and Phoebe. Um but when we were checking in they said that we could uh be in the same room. So uh that was nice too. So there were rooms of about six beds I think in that hostel.

[00:03:16]>> Six bunk beds. So 12 people. Or was it 16? No, >> that was the small one where there were six beds, three bunk beds, I think. Or maybe there were four bunk beds, so eight people, but it was quite small. Um, so four of the beds we were in and then I think there were a few other people in there as well.

[00:03:40]>> If you just got confused, don't worry cuz I got confused as well. But anyway, it was a nice hostel and we stayed there for a few days because then we both started to work. So, we needed to move into an Airbnb that was a bit more private because we both were doing a lot of classes or teaching a lot of classes.

[00:04:06]So, we needed our own private space because you can't really do that in a hostel. So, we stayed in the hostel, the Airbnb, and we kept meeting up with Tom and Phoebe, and we stayed on the island for about a week before catching the ferry again and then heading to Biodolid, a small city that's not near the coast, but it is surrounded by lots of cenotes, which if you are a Spanish speaker, I'm sorry because that pronunciation sounds horrible to you, but in English when we anglify the pronunciation, it's cenotes.

[00:04:53]There was one actually in Violid as well, which we went to. We peeped over the wall and looked down into it. You couldn't really see it properly, but we had seen two very good ones, very impressive ones the day before. So, we didn't bother going down actually into it. But hen, why don't you tell them about the day before cuz that was a pretty epic day that we had.

[00:05:23]>> Yeah. So, um we arrived in Viadal. There wasn't loads, um in actually in Viadal.

[00:05:30]It was quite a small town or city. I guess it's a city. Um so the reason we were staying there was to go to um Chichinetsa. Um also don't know if I'm saying that correctly. Um but that's what we were calling it. Uh but it's one of the wonders of the world. So we booked this uh kind of day tour where we went to Chichinetsa had a guided tour there and also went to two cenotes. Although there was a cenote at Chichinets as well um which we couldn't go in but we could look down onto it which was quite cool.

[00:06:10]So we got up very early had to get a bus to Chichinetsa. We had the guided tour.

[00:06:16]It was very interesting. There was a lot more there than I was kind of expecting.

[00:06:21]I was expecting just the kind of pyramid um temple kind of thing, but there was a lot of other interesting areas as well.

[00:06:31]Lots of kind of old ruins and stuff. And then yeah, went to the two other snow days where we could go in the water.

[00:06:39]The last one that we went to was actually quite scary. Um it was there were some sketchy stairs that went all the way down. [clears throat] No lifeguards or anything. no one kind of around. It was just our group. And um people started jumping off the stairs into the water and just getting higher and higher. And Finn and Tom, they ended up going all the way to the top, I think. Did you go right to the top one?

[00:07:04]>> To the highest one that we could go to.

[00:07:06]Yeah. There was one on the other side that was even higher. It was a separate platform, but it was all closed off. So, it looked like maybe there had been an accident there or something [laughter] scary like that. So yeah, we went as high as we could.

[00:07:23]>> Yeah. Um I did not I stayed I think I jumped off the lowest one uh which was high enough for me. I found it quite scary, but it was a very cool place. Um so yeah, that's what we did the day before.

[00:07:38]>> Yeah, definitely pretty unique. You don't really find that anywhere else really, especially not here in the UK. So yeah, that was a pretty epic day. It was a a big day out.

[00:07:52]And then we had a few days of just chilling out. I think maybe one day of chilling out. And then we headed to Guatemala.

[00:08:01]So there was some problem, some sort of issue. I can't really remember what was happening, but we were planning on catching a bus down to a different town in Mexico and then getting a bus into Guatemala. But we ended up catching a flight from Cancun again to Guatemala City, staying there for a night, and then going to Lake Atital, which is quite difficult to say. Lake Atlan.

[00:08:33]We kept saying Atalan because it's a lot easier, but Atitlan. And yeah, we stayed in another Airbnb there, which was quite nice, waiting for Tom and Phoebe to catch up with us because they were somewhere else. I can't really remember where, but we worked during the week and then we were waiting for them um until the weekend and then we joined them at a hostel in Panahashelle.

[00:09:05]>> Yeah. So, we were in Panahash for about four or five days, I think. Um so, we're in Airbnb for the first few days and then we moved into the hostel, which was really cool. um at like at I just kept saying at so I'm going to go with that.

[00:09:25]Um at this big lake there were lots of different villages kind of dotted all around the lake and you could only really get to them by boat. So there were these kind of feries or speedboats almost. They were quite small and they seemed a bit dodgy as well. They would just pack as many people onto them as possible.

[00:09:47]Um, so we would get these fairies across to the different villages. So I think when we were staying in Panahasha, we went to uh San Maros.

[00:09:59]>> Yeah, I think it was San Marcos.

[00:10:00]>> Uh, so we went there for a day which was really cool. It was a very colorful uh kind of vibrant town. Um, and there were also some jump spots where you could jump off platforms into the water.

[00:10:15]So that was really cool. In Panahashal as well, there was a nature reserve that we went to where there were um lots of cool walks and waterfalls. There were those rope bridges as well um and a butterfly garden which was cool. Um so yeah, we're in Panahash for about maybe a week and then we moved to what was >> I can't remember. All pretty much all of the other towns around the lake started with San and we only spent a few days well a a couple of them we spent a few days in and some of them we only spent an afternoon in so we keep getting mixed up. Um, there was San Juan, San Marcos, San I want to say San Miguel, but that is a beer, so I don't think there was a San Miguel. But we went to one of the other kind of bigger towns and we stayed in a hostel for a couple of nights um with Tom and Phoebe again and we went on a bar crawl which was fun, met lots of people. And then for the next week, well the next few days when we were working, we stayed in that was San Juan where we stayed.

[00:11:37]>> Yeah. So that was um another really colorful one. Bit of a different vibe, but all of the streets were painted really colorful. There was one street that had loads of colorful umbrellas just hanging above you. Um and loads of paintings on the walls. It was really cool, really pretty. So yeah, we stayed there while we were working. Although we were both ill for a few days there as well, weren't we?

[00:12:02]>> Yeah. Violently ill.

[00:12:04]>> Very unwell. We don't really know what caused it. I think it must have been some kind of virus. But yeah, that wasn't a highlight of the trip.

[00:12:14]Yeah, we thought well because you got ill first on the Monday and we thought it was food poisoning something that she had eaten but then two days later I had the exact same thing and so did Phoebe and we hadn't been with Phoebe for I don't know how many days but we worked out that it couldn't have been food poisoning and that it must have been some sort of virus but Yeah, it was probably the I think it was the most ill I have ever been. I don't know about you.

[00:12:50]>> Yeah, I think at least from what I can remember, it's the worst that I've ever been, which was a shame because there was a sunrise hike that we wanted to do up to one of the top of the volcanoes or at least close to the top of one of the volcanoes. I think it's quite a famous one that we wanted to do, but we were doing a little um well, we were doing a volcano hike a few days later that was going to be like the highlight of the whole trip, so we didn't want to miss that. So, we made sure that we both rested and got better before that.

[00:13:26]Yeah, I think it was Well, I think it was just a big mountain or like Yeah, a big mountain right next to the lake where you could see over the lake and see over the mountains in the distance and do that for sunrise. And I think it was actually the day after that that we were doing the big volcano hike. So, well, well, it was me that was ill on the Wednesday. So, I made the decision not to go and Hen didn't want to do it on her own, but that was definitely the right call because the volcano trip was a monster trip. So, we actually went from the lake on the Thursday to Antigua, which is an old colonial town, and it's very popular with uh backpackers. and you could see some volcanoes in the distance. But we stayed there for one night and the next morning got a bus very quite early, very early, I can't remember, quite early in the morning to the bottom of the volcano with the rest of our group and we met the tour guides and I made a a whole video on this massive adventure. So, I won't well, we won't go into too much detail cuz there's so much to talk about, but it took 6 and 1/2 hours to go from the road at the bottom to the base camp, which was overlooking the active volcano. So, the big main volcano that we climbed was dormant. So, it was I don't even know if it was dormant. It was just an old one.

[00:15:12]wasn't even really. It just looked like a mountain basically. And the one next to it is a live volcano that every kind of 10 minutes or so uh spews out some lava, which is why we went up. It was very cool. And when we got to the base camp, it was very, very cloudy. So, we couldn't see anything at all. So both of us and Tom wanted to climb onto the actual active volcano to see if we can see it from there because at base camp we couldn't see the lava uh spewing out. So it was another it was a 4hour round trip. So, it took an hour to go climb down a little bit and then an hour to climb up the other side and then an hour back down afterwards and an hour back up to base camp. And what did you think of that part of the volcano trip?

[00:16:15]>> So, yeah, as Finn said, when we got to base camp, it was cloudy, so we could hear the active volcano erupting, but we couldn't see anything. and we'd walked six hours up the inactive one and it was a really hard really hard hike and I just thought to myself if there's any chance that I could see the active one erupt then I want to kind of maximize my my chances basically. So yeah, we decided to do this extra hike but it was extremely hard. Uh, so we we actually got up the active one for sunset, which meant the hike back was then in the dark, which made it really hard. And also Tom was really exhausted by then. He was really struggling cuz he'd had to help Phoebe up the to base camp cuz she was still feeling really quite unwell. I don't know how she made it up to be honest. So then Tom started getting really tired. So, we were then both carrying the big bags.

[00:17:21]Um, and yeah, it was just exhausting.

[00:17:24]But when we got up to the top of that active one, there was still a cloud covering the top. So, again, we could hear it erupting, but we could just couldn't see anything. And I was starting to get a bit worried that we'd hiked all that way for nothing.

[00:17:39]But then it suddenly just seemed to clear. The volcano erupted and it was just the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Um, I I just can't even explain it. I I just started crying at the top because it was just so overwhelmingly incredible.

[00:17:57]Um, and probably the exhaustion didn't h help as well, but it was yeah, incredible. And then we made it back to base camp kind of what about 9 10:00 probably.

[00:18:12]had dinner and then um tried to go to sleep. Um I had some kind of weird allergic reaction. Um I'm not sure what to, but I ended up not really sleeping at all that night. And then we got up at about 4:00 in the morning to then hike to the top of the inactive volcano, which was about maybe an hour and a half, do you think?

[00:18:40]Yeah, something like that.

[00:18:42]>> So, we got to the top of the inactive one where the crater was to watch sunrise and we could also see the active volcano erupting at the same time which was also just incredible. Amazing. It was beautiful.

[00:18:58]Um, definitely worth getting up that early. I was so exhausted after though.

[00:19:04]Yeah, we were pretty knackered and felt pretty terrible, but yeah, it was definitely worth it. And then afterwards, we had to go back down to base camp and then all the way back down to the bottom. And that really just emptied the tank. We were so destroyed after that. Um, and there are so many people that try to do the hike and don't make it. And when we were signing up, we were kind of thinking, "Oh, it won't be that hard." But yeah, in reality it was it was a lot harder than we were expecting.

[00:19:39]But we did that and then was it the next day that we went to the Hobbit Tanango?

[00:19:47]>> Yes, it was. So if you are a fan of the Lord of the Rings, you will know that in New Zealand where they actually filmed the Lord of the Rings, there is the Shire, the real Shire, so Hobbiton as it's called in the films. They have that movie set location as somewhere that you can visit. I think you can even stay there and they have the pub and everything like that. So, there was basically one of those, a mini one of those in Guatemala, which [laughter] is quite random, but uh it was very, very cool. And you could see the volcanoes in the background, which was amazing. At the start of the day, we could even see um the active one in the right in the distance. You could see it just little clouds of smoke coming out the top, which was so cool. and they had all of the Lord of the Rings music and the pub and I got really excited and so did Tom >> and I think you had a nice time as well.

[00:20:52]>> Yeah, it was really nice. I definitely don't love Lord of the Rings as much as you and Tom. Um me and Phoebe were kind of just following you around a little bit, but it was a really cool place. Um it was it was good fun. There were lots of little games and stuff as well and we had a had a drink in the pub which was nice. And then I did actually watch Lord of the Rings. I think it was the first one on my journey home on the plane. Um >> You've been inspired.

[00:21:21]>> I was inspired. Yeah. [gasps and sighs] >> Yeah. That made me proud. That made me very [laughter] happy.

[00:21:26]>> Yeah. So after Hobbitano, we stayed in Antigua or just outside of Antigua for a few days and then and then you went home and then I carried on my journey. and I ended up going to El Salvador for a month. But again, there there are more videos on that. So if you are interested in about anything that we have spoken about, there is probably a YouTube video on my channel somewhere if you scroll down um in the playlist of comprehensible input vlogs. You will see them all there, which I highly recommend doing because you'll learn some interesting vocabulary >> and some see some cool pictures and videos. Definitely would recommend watching the volcano one.

[00:22:14]>> Yeah, I was going to ask you what your highlight of the trip was, but I think we I think we know >> definitely the volcano. Yeah, I mean it was all pretty cool. Um, in whole bush, we didn't mention at the start, but unfortunately Finn was working, so he couldn't come with us on this trip. But with Tom and Phoebe, we did I did a sunrise boat trip, canoe trip, and we saw loads of really cool birds and also crocodiles, which was amazing. Um, so that was one of the highlights.

[00:22:51]the cenote and chichinets today. That was also a highlight. But the volcano, that's that's number one. That was incredible.

[00:23:01]>> Yeah. So, where's next?

[00:23:03]>> Where's next? Good question. [laughter] >> Where do you want to go? What are your top three places that you want to go to?

[00:23:11]>> Top three?

[00:23:12]>> Sorry, I'm putting you on the spot there. [laughter] I'll let you think.

[00:23:14]So, for me, mine are well, the north of Spain. I know that's quite a general answer, but there are lots of different areas in the north of Spain that I want to visit. Uh, Patagonia and Hobbiton, the real Hobbiton in New Zealand for me. Those are my top three bucket list destinations.

[00:23:38]To be fair, they're probably not where we'll go next, but those are my my top three destinations to go to.

[00:23:47]Yes, I have a lot of places on my list.

[00:23:50]New Zealand is definitely quite >> high. She really wants to go to Hobbiton.

[00:23:55]>> Yeah, Mhobbiton. Not just Hobbiton, but just the kind of the whole of New Zealand. I'd like to see. I think it's really pretty. I'm actually going to Costa Rica with my parents this year.

[00:24:06]Um, so I'm really excited for that.

[00:24:08]That's kind of on my bucket list and I've got it booked so that'll be checked off. [snorts] And where else? I definitely want to go back to Australia. I've got a lot of family kind of dotted all around Australia, so I want to go back to see them. And also, I think Australia is just so so pretty as well.

[00:24:27]Uh yeah, we'll go with those three for now. There are a lot of other places I'd like to visit, too, but >> that's another video for another day.

[00:24:36]So, yeah.

[00:24:38]Well, thanks Hen. Thanks for sitting down. Hopefully, I'll be doing a lot more of these types of conversations with people and breaking them down for you. Remember, all of the vocabulary that you've seen will be in the description as well. So, make sure you make a note of anything that is useful for you. And yeah, thanks for watching.

[00:24:59]I will see you in the next video.

[00:25:01]>> Bye.