Guatemala City

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Well, here we are in Guatemala City.

We did not do much yesterday apart from travel. 9.5 hours to Miami, nearly 4 hours lay over, 2.5 hours to Gautemala City.

Hotel Posada Belen is lovely - comfortable, friendly, very helpful staff. We had some beers some soup and bed. Up early this morning for an excellent breakfast, eggs, beans, melon and cheese with coffee and toast. Then we searched long, long time for a cash machine. Eventually found one. The search involved a lot of walking round Zona 1 which is atmospheric. There were multiple bands playing in the main square and market stalls everywhere selling pretty well everything. I´ve got a new bag - well it holds my wallet out of the way and ties it to my belt loops.

Once we had cash, we had one last stroll round then a taxi to the hadcrafts market, the zoo and the archaeological and ethnological museum. Both of which were very good. Yes, I got photos but no one who knows where the usb ports are will be here for half an hour so...

The zoo was pretty full but the humans were well behaved and the animals well kept. The archaeological museum was excellent though I wasn´t 100% sure it was laid out as helpfully as it migth have been. But then I am fussy about my museums. There were some very, very fine reliefs in there and the painting on some of the pottery was remarkably delicate. There were a variety of Mayan dental enhancements on show, including variously shaped teeth and some inlaid with jade.

Returning tot he City we decided to search for the bus station and had some difficulty finding the hotel. It is a very easy city to get lost in. We then checked the guidebook and looked for the bus station again. And failed. I am on the internet because, on googling for the bus station, we discovered they´d moved. Well, not precisely a bus station, more the place from which the bus we need to catch to Chiquimula has to be caught. From Chiquimula we are heading to Copan in Honduras to crawl around the ruins. Must remember to use a cash machine at the border, if there is one.

Then we found out that the deet had leaked onto a load of stuff including my reading glasses case. But most seems to be sorted now and no lasting harm done. We were never going to use up an entire bottle of deet.

So, all in all an excellent day. Yes, a lot of getting lost, but we did see some very interesting things that we might not have seen had we stuck to the rigid paths.

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