first day

OK, these are my notes for my first day in Guatamala. Don't worry, I won't be repeating this stuff as a daily blog. It would get tedious, as I now realise I ain't as full of adjectives as i once thought (honestly - it may be the alcohol - but I had to just look up Dictionary.com to actually find the word "adjective" as my mind had gone blank)

I'll skip the Jenn entry as you already have that...

"Its hot - yippee!"
yep this is the first thing I wrote. Based on the idiocy of my comments from now on I'll paraphrase my entries.

actually the first entry is:
"Its hot! yippee
Not the first thing to say but as I write I'm (not so gently) burning.

So who have i met (in my first day). Alexandra, Lisa, Judith, Liz"
Ok now I'm gonna paraphrase to save me typing (excessive) shit.
Alexandra I met on the plane. Really nice Australian girl/ woman (take your pick postmodernists). Great first leg. We chatted a lot but somehow (miraculously) we both shut-the-fuck-up when the other person needed to just sit and mong out to the dumb film on the seat in front of us. This is no mean feat. We were stuck together for a trip across the atlantic. maybe 11 1/2 hours to SF. Coulda ben that we utterly ignored each other but instead we had a good chat, watced the nonsense, ate our food, and as far as I'm concerned she was a perfect travelling companion. Do they breed Aussies this way??

anyway, landed at San Francisco - then flight to LA and met Lisa who spotting my cut-down Lonely Planet asked if I was going to Guatamala. we agreed that we'd hook up for a cab together. She was far more together and sussed than me. This was later evidenced when we dropped me off at the hotel I'd zeroed in on (via LP) which to her mind was a bit far from the centre of town and I think she wondered how I'd get on with zero Spanish. Nice woman but never spotted her again and no great loss to either of us. Needless to say my reasons for going to said hotel (good write up and English speaking owner) were untouchable, and for someone who regularly walks an hour into 'town' 5 minutes was hardly beyond my limit!!

At Gutamala airport, me and Lisa met Judith and Liz. 2 real characters. When I retire (or get near that point) I want to do what these two are doing. Leaving their husbands (and kids!) for a few months and travelling around Central and South America for a bit. And unlike me they were so NOT green. As Judith said at one point "you can buy a taxi in Mexico for $25 and it will take you anywhere - I ain't paying more than that for a cab from Guat to Antigua". Met her agian a few days later and it was like she'd adopted me. Needless to say, they were in the bestplace to be an were just leaving - they knew how to have fun, find the best places etc from experience - I hope I'm halfway as good as that in 10 years time. Sadly I don't think I'll have sailed down the coast of America to SA by then....

sorted out my hotel. My Spanish is nonexistent (I can't stop emphasising this) but everyone I met was fantastic even if they had little English. At worst we'd both just smile and laugh and I'd try shadow puppetsof what I wanted. (at moments like these I tend not to eat well).

So, I arrive in Guatamala airport at 6am. I travel to the prettier Antigua (town) an arrive around 8am. sort out the hotel and am ... welll... what do I do now? after walking around for a bit I join up for a climb up Volcan Pacaya, the only active vocanoe in Guatamala. set off at 1pm.
Meet a whole bunch of good people on that one (Jenn, Alex, a German couple who I meet again later..). Its exactly what I needed after being cooped up. A few hours easy walk and then a small bit of hard walk at the peak. OK the conditions at the top weren't good (zero visibilty, choking sulphuric fumes leading to days of illness) but still. Best day's walk I'd had in a while!

On the incredibly bumpy trip back, I was sitting between 2 seats in a minibus. Still, I managed to sleep. I guess it was the previous 20-odd hour journey to Guatamala with no sleep as much as the climb.

But I DID find the cure to jet lag! I didn't suffer a jot from then on (unlike now that I'm back)

if you find an address...

well, just emailed Jenn.... her friend Alex was quite hot.
make of that what you will.

he he

this is actually true, but the first page of my notebook is a ripped page. The first bit is a hotel name i stayed in and the second bit (in big bold felt tip pen is:
Jenn (Canadian) d*********@hotmail.com.

this makes me smile a helluva lot more than it should

a shame and a possible encouragement..

***NOT ABOUT GUATEMALA***
which will be a fucking relief.

My mate J** (using his new code) says that he won't be blogging anymore! yeah i and all of you know that this is tragic.

Without knowing he'd blogged this (I've been away - did i mention? It was to Central America. Guatamala in fact! yeah, let me tell... oh hold on) I sent him a link to another blog I sometimes read (yeah - I ain't faithful). This is an Arsenal blog which today was celebrating its 4th year. And it gets updated daily! it really does. So I thought I'd send my mate J*e a link to today's entry which goes on about how his bloglife has changed, how and why he's kept it up and so on. except I can't link to a specific entry so just look at the long one for 27th

maybe it'll keep J** blogging as his is funnier.

ok, where shall i start..?

right. As you'll know (cos I'll bang on about it for ages) I was in Guatemala for a few weeks. I guess the proper thing to do would be to blog about stuff the day after it happened (like my mate).
However, I couldn't stand the idea of being stuck in some internet "cafe"(??!?) typing on a shit keyboard that won't type "c" without you really banging it hard, while i could be outside in the sun doing just about anything else.

Now, while i was away, I carried around a little notebook and filled page upon page of it with fascinating observations of the (new) world around me and the day I'd had. Perfect blogging material to retype when i got back. I even had the idea - or conceit - of scanning these pages rather than re-typing them. A blog filled with scans of contemporaneous notes! Brilliant!! [for nerds and IAs I hope you all ignore the fact that it would be unsearchable and not 'accessible' and none of my blind friends' screen readers could access it. I have no blind friends and to be honest I don't think anyone reads this stuff much anyway, so just go away and be brilliant somewhere else. and then give me a job or something].

However.... I'm now actually re-reading this stuff and .... well... it ain't that brilliant. I know, hard to admit, but it sounds like the ramblings of a guy sitting in a bar or restaurant on his own, writing in a tiny notebook as he waits for a beer or food, trying not to look like he's got no friends and that actually he wants to be alone at the bar as its the perfect time to write very brilliant stuff and no you can't look but are you a language student here or on holiday? oh travelling down from Belize... nice..

ahem.

anyway, my notes won't be scanned (thouh it WAS a great conceit) but I'll try and get something of interest out of the sludge i wrote....

well, I'm back

yup - has it only been a few weeks..? did yer miss me?

no?

ah well...

there'll be more of this level of stuff as soon as my head cold clears and i stop feeling sorry for myself.

well, I'm orf!

yup, in case I haven't managed to contact you (and god knows I've been telling everyone) I'm off to Guatemala tomorrow.
gulp
So, surprise surprise the blog may not be updated much in the coming weeks but... well, hopefully I'll have a few stories the next time I'm stoopid enough to sit in front of a computer! and I will go online to check mail etc so who knows, I may try and get on!

And if you DO wanna leave a message here PLEASE DO - it'll prompt me to write this thing more often (i've kinda got lazy!)
See y'all in March!!

jealous??