Guatemala Part 1

I arrived in Huehuetenango and crashed there for the night rather than pushing on. My 10 day tour of Guatemala was ambitious and I kind of saw half of what I wanted and due to the storm outside, one more place would have to be visited in february. I saw the feather hatted man again in Huehue as well. He seemed to be everywhere (well Comitan) as well. In the morning I met some German photographer who was surprised I did not have a camera and I headed off to Quetzeltenango (Xela). Now typing the places, I can understand why they shortened the names. There are a lot of good looking people in Guatemala, but it is not cheap. Its pegged to the dollar, which does not help, but food and drink are almost comparable to London in price. Transport and accomodation however are significantly cheaper. Its a very pretty country full of rugged green mountains and we weaved around sharp bends on our way to Xela. Bus drivers here are also insane. They speed all the time and commonly make reckless manouvres like overtaking two long vehicles on the outside on a one lane road blindly on the outside of a steep curve. Or diving through a nonexistant gap with a three way race, stone walls on either side. Man they are nuts here. I got chatting with a Guatemalan guy on the bus, who thought England was part of the US. We chatted a fair bit in Spanish and I used my dictionary to help myself. They get 45 quetzals a day minimum wage. In Mexico its 45 pesos. So with the exchange rates of 11:1 and 20:1 it looks like Guatemala is a better place to work officially anyway.

In Xela the first hostel I visited no longer exists. Bugger this 2004 book may be a problem. I stayed in Casa Argentina and met a Canadian girl and a Yankee named Harris. We chatted for a while in the kitchen and then went out for an Indian meal with their language students that cost more than it would have at home lol. They were all language students or volunteers and there were about 20 of us. There had also been some wanker Aussies in the hostel who wanted to buy guns before travelling on. Fuckwits. I found out Harris had had stuff stolen from his home stay, a Czech girl had been robbed and one guy had been mugged at gun point and even had his glasses stolen. Thats mean. They are of no use and he can't even find his way back home now. One guy had lost his card and the new one had come from DHL but had been left at the depot. He wanted to leave it to teach them a lesson, but I persuaded him he was a moron and should pick it up. After the meal a select bunch of us went back to this guy Chris´apartment and got some beers and rum in. He was an extreme sporting American and there was an assortment of Swedes, a cute American named Emily, a crazy Danish girl and a few more Yankees. We played the ladel game (shooting shots from ladels, which was heavyish) and listened to random music until about 4am. Harris had to catch a bus in the morning but overslept it and had to catch them down the road. The rest of us were slightly hungover and I woke up around 11am. Shit.

Somehow I crawled out of bed and headed out to Fuentes Georginas. I took a bus out there and then got accosted by an Italian couple as we needed to hire a truck up the hillside. We paid 50 quetzals between us and headed up. They were from Sardinia and had been working in London. I had forgotten how cute the Italian accent was and she was stunning in her swimming costume. Once at the top we headed into the baths. These are natural hot springs and the main pool was like a bath when you have first run it. Very hot. As you got closer to the source it became almost scolding. We hung there for a couple of hours and I got talking to some German investment bankers. They were on a package tour and had space in their bus so I convinced them to give us a lift back. It was interesting to get a tour of Xela in German and I could understand bits of it. It was good that it saved us so much money. In the evening I was going to join the Italians for a concert but missed them somehow and saw the National Orchestra perform a christmas concert in the main square. Its a beautiful square and the city is pretty in general. One of the Germans had told me a joke about bus drivers in Guatemala. One driver and the Pope come to heaven. God lets the driver in and stops the Pope. The pope asks why he can't enter but the driver can. God says 'when you are working, people fall asleep, but when he is working lots of people are praying to me'. The ice cream is phenomenal in this country by the way. Must be the milk somewhere. I got back to the hostel and would have joined the Candian but she was with the wanker Aussies and so it was on to Antigua.