lunes, 15 de mayo

happy birthday su.

another week has slipped by. after posting that last update – written tuesday, but posted wednesday, I went from monterrico to Antigua, talking politics and economics with some friendly Minnesotans. it was great to be back in Antigua, very familiar and very easy… surprising how different it is from the other places I’ve been in Guatemala, now that I can look at it in retrospect.

so that was wednesday, I spent that and thursday there, just relaxing comfortably. bought a couple books – hadn’t really had anything to read lately, did my laundry – which was long overdue, and walked around town. was very tempted to stay, but still had xela on my list, and so decided to at least check it out and then could come back or return to the lake to finish out the month.

I almost ended up staying through the weekend anyway, but at the last minute friday morning I sorta spur of the momentish made up my mind to get it over with and go while I had something to read on the bus. so off I went. the ride had a couple of necessary transfers, one of which was unexpected and so I missed it and wound up having to hitch a ride back to quiché and finding a connecting bus, but that was pretty easy and quick and a bit of an adventure.

arrived in xela sometime early afternoonish, had chosen a place to stay – this time of year it doesn’t seem like anything is full, so I’ve been getting my choice pretty easily. walked from the bus terminal, which was a little confusing because it’s off the map that’s included in lonely planet, but I at least new which direction it was in and so it wasn’t difficult or as long as I’d expected. found my way straight to the place, left my things in the room and went out exploring.

I love xela. this is probably my favorite place so far. it’s a good sized city, but it’s easy to walk from one side to the other – it’s bigger and less touristy than Antigua, and smaller and less polluted than the capital. it seems to have lots of good places to eat – found a vegetarian meal friday night served by a girl from winnapeg and accompanied by an interesting conversation with a student from Dartmouth. the following morning I had a good breakfast at a café that featured music by a jazz quartet – very sophisticated, you know.

been walking around a lot, took some photos yesterday, timing is important because so far it’s rained most of the afternoon each day. but there have been several sunshiny hours earlier in the day though, which make for good walking.

I’m pretty content here, I think I’ll stay for awhile, maybe until it’s time to head home, only a little more than two weeks to go… can that be right? I’ll have to find a place to plug my computer in today so I can put this up, but of course if you’re reading this then I must’ve already done that.

enjoy your day.