Antigua 2

I headed out earlyish to find some breakfast and a good coffee and rattled my way over the cobblestones 

to the main square and had a nice bowl of oats and a full plunger of coffee at Café Barista. This is the view

This became my morning routine for the next few days. There are lots and lots of motorbikes in Guatemala. 

This is Ziggy trying to blend in.

 I rode in circles for three hours going from hostel to hostel and some hotels. The hotels wanted too much money and the hostels had no parking. I finally settled for one that let me park in the foyer but I had a funny vibe about it as soon as I walked in. Should have listened! Hostels are really just new for me on this trip. I like the quietness of a hotel room with Internet and privacy but I am becoming more aware of my budget and realizing that I am not really travelling as cheaply as I planned. When I say I became aware of my budget, I looked at my bank balance and saw that I had used more than I thought. Budgeting is not my greatest strength. I tend to forget to worry about it.

 This hostel was Q37 a night, basically $5, but you do get what you pay for. There was a very funny mood with the other people there. I say hi and try to engage with people as a matter of course and didn’t do anything different here. But I hit some stoney faces, even an English girl saying she didn’t speak English before I heard her talk in a broad London accent. She snobbed me completely. A couple of other strained intro conversations. One American guy was quick to tell me how he was making jewellery to fund his Spanish course and hadn’t dipped into his bank account in two months. Hmmm isn’t this a town full of indigenous Mayans trying to scrape a meager living from selling handcrafts to tourists? Here was an American with other choices cutting in on their livelihood. Less than impressed I ended that conversation. The staff were nice but maybe the price of a bed reflected the poverty mindset of the clientele. I stayed two nights.

 Maybe the police summed it up 

I did take a couple of hours of Spanish conversation with this local guy Marcos which I hope will help my Spanish along.

My next accommodation effort was double the price but seemed a bit more promising with a private but very small room. Unfortunately I was placed between two toilets and every doorway was made of metal, so it resembled a prison during the night. The drunks would arrive back loudly at 3am clanging their doors. Everyone cleaned their teeth at the basin outside my window. At 5am there was a mix of people getting up to catch their bus to another destination or a tour, but also there was a group of Guatematecas who seemed to like getting up at 5am and hanging around talking at the top of their voices in the hallway.

During the day I got out and caught a local parade, then went for a ride around some local towns.

The first night I just thought it was that night and things would change. However the second night was worse. I had been to the market and bought a papaya for lunch and sat in the common area to eat. Almost immediately I felt a bit bloated and flushed. I went to lie down and spent the next four hours in a sweat with severe nausea. Finally I vomited my life away. That got me up but I was still feeling bad. I went to bed early but noticed my mattress had a big sag and with the banging and clanging of metal doors, the toilets flushing and doors slamming, the cleaning of teeth, the noisy people at all hours; I experienced my worst night I can remember. Funny that I have no photos of this period!

 Somehow feeling marginally better in the morning, I packed the bike, said my farewells to the people I had met and connected with there and rode back to Guatemala city.