So after what's arguably way too long, I'm planning on taking another trip. I had a look at the world map on kayak.co.uk to see where I could go cheaply, and given my penchant for Latin America, I've decided to give Guatemala a try. After much dithering and agonising over the inevitable scary advice on UK/US/Canadian/Australian government websites, reading advice on forums and speaking to my (Guatemalan) Spanish teacher I went ahead and booked travel insurance and flights on Tuesday; I fly out in just over two weeks. This is a bit short notice but circumstances slightly outside my control prevented me booking earlier and I didn't want to postpone the start of the trip.
I think most of the vaccinations I had in the past have expired - I probably got them done for my 2006 trip to Mexico and they only last ten years, but I have managed to get an NHS appointment for next Wednesday after only a small amount of lecturing about short notice from the receptionist, and I think that while this isn't ideal it's probably OK. I'll be away for long enough that even if I'm under-protected right at the start of the trip it's still worth getting these shots done. I had originally planned to go private (which I hoped would save time) since I thought most vaccinations weren't free on the NHS, but when I looked it seems the recommended ones for Guatemala are.
I am quite nervous and excited about this. Not that I was ever exactly blasé about travel, but since it's been about 4.5 years since I last left the UK I half hope I will experience some of the sense of novelty and wonder I did when I first went to Mexico (my first trip outside Europe) in 2006. Time will tell, I guess.
It feels like there is so much preparation to do and very little time, especially since I would like to swot up on my Spanish before I go. In theory I am studying all the time as just a general hobby, but there's no denying I'm a bit lax and I hope that having this trip in prospect will give me a bit more motivation. I do half intend to spend some time in Spanish schools in Guatemala, but I'm not booking anything in advance and I don't intend to spend more than about half of my time in schools. Whether I go to a school or not, it will be helpful to bone up first.
After having carefully signed up for various good-for-travel credit cards over the last six months in vague anticipation of taking a trip, I have now decided I'm not taking most of them with me because the credit limits are too high (and I don't like to ask to have the credit limits reduced because I might regret that in the future when I'm back in the UK). I've therefore applied for two bank accounts with debit cards which work well abroad and am hoping the cards will arrive before I leave; I think I'll be OK on this.
I have only had a quick flick through my paperback 2007-vintage travel guide, but I can vaguely imagine wanting to do a certain amount of very modest hiking. We're talking there-and-back in a day sort of thing, not multi-day stuff. This opens up an enormous can of clothing worms; I am currently intermittently surfing the web and asking people for advice on this. On the one hand, I don't want to die of exposure. On the other hand, I don't want to be over-sold hundreds of pounds worth of bulky, heavy hiking boots and padded jackets suitable for arctic expeditions. Vague plan is to go into town at some point in the next few days and have a bit of a browse in some shops to see what's available. I suppose in theory I could probably buy whatever I need once I'm there, but I'd feel happier (and less of a forced buyer) if I can get it here before I go.
Technology has obviously moved on since 2007 (as has my ability to travel light) and I now only take electronic guidebooks with me. Having had a quick poke around, it looks like a full Guatemala guidebook in electronic form clocks in at around £10-15. That's not insane, but (especially with all the information available on the web) I'm not really sure it's worth it either. I am not sure if I have ever stayed in any accommodation recommended in a guide book - it's usually not available on the web sites I'm booking on, and the guide book is usually at least a year or two old and I tend to wonder if the recommendations are still valid. What I think I'll probably do is just buy the Guatemala chapter of a Central America guidebook - that will run about £3, will provide me with an offline reference if I'm stuck with no internet access and should cover all the main tourist sites anyway. Anything more obscure is likely to be something I'll find out about on the web or from talking to people.
I don't want to plan the trip out in excessive detail but I think it would help to sketch out a rough itinerary. Based on what I've read so far, Guatemala City sounds a bit dangerous. I am flying in and out of there, but I think I will probably get a bus straight over to Antigua on arrival - Antigua is by all accounts extremely safe and tourist-friendly (not to say exploitative?) so that way I can recover from the flight and start to settle down before I venture further afield. I may put in a few days in Guatemala City just before I fly home, depending on how I feel after having been in the country for a couple of months. I need to look into booking a bus ticket in advance (if possible) and definitely need to book some accommodation in Antigua for the first 2-4 nights ASAP.
I normally find it virtually impossible to have a mobile phone that works when I'm abroad; even when I buy local SIM cards they usually refuse to work in my oddball phones. With a bit of luck this trip will be an exception; it appears that Three's Feel At Home/Go Roam option will allow me to pay £10-£20 a month on a PAYG SIM and have a virtually infinite supply of UK phone call minutes and even mobile data which I can use in Guatemala. If I need to call a Guatemalan number that will be billed as an international call, but I typically don't need to do that, and I think I can work around that by calling via Skype using the mobile data and a few quid of credit on my Skype account anyway. I haven't confirmed that this will work yet, but I have a Three SIM handy and I'll give it a try.
On previous trips I have taken my netbook with me to satisfy my nerdy requirements for computer access. (If nothing else, I can't go out every night, and so a quiet evening in the ho(s)tel surfing the web passes the time pleasantly.) The netbook is not exactly heavy and it was never valuable (£200 IIRC) even when it was brand new, but it does weigh about 1.2kg and it is showing its age as well; it struggles to comfortably browse the web any more. I could buy a new one, but even the very lightest modern netbooks/Chromebooks/laptops seem to be just as heavy, and 1.2kg is probably 10-15% of the total weight of my bag and I think saving that weight could make a big difference in the comfort of carrying it around. I've therefore decided I am going to experimentally just take my smartphone on this trip. I did toy with taking a tablet as a compromise, but really it is the keyboard I would miss more than anything, and by the time I've added a Bluetooth keyboard to my Nexus 10 the weight is getting back up towards what a netbook would weigh anyway. I think a 7" tablet with a keyboard might only clock in at about half the weight of a netbook, but I'd have to buy both specially for this trip so I am going to experiment with just having the smartphone first.
I just hope i don't get my (unusual) smartphone, complete with UK SIM, stolen, especially early on. I am sure I could buy a half-decent smartphone for not too much money in Guatemala, and a local SIM to boot, but my actual smartphone has a hardware keyboard (which is super rare and uncool these days, of course - but is in part why I'm willing to try doing without a netbook for two months) and the SIM will be my UK-issued Three SIM so both will be kind of irreplaceable.
One downside to my current smartphone is that it doesn't have a removable battery, which I find really handy on a trip as it means I can just carry a spare battery or two and swap them in when I need to. I'm going to compensate for that by taking a powerbank, but it's quite bulky and I'd probably rather have the option to just do battery swaps. On the other hand, I can at least charge the powerbank and the phone at the same time, whereas I could only charge the spare removable batteries in the phone.
I need to resist the temptation to repeatedly say this, but I'm aware most of what I write here is pretty tedious stuff and not the kind of exciting travel adventures which just might possibly make this interesting for someone else to read. At the very best, this blog is a kind of raw material which might be distilled down into something mildly diverting. However, I started re-reading some of the entries myself just the other day - just the tedious stuff about my last day or two in Buenos Aires and flying back home at the end of the last trip - and I found it awoke some pleasant and interesting memories. So while it's a bonus if someone - a friend or a random web searcher - ever reads and enjoys any of this waffle, my primary audience is definitely a future version of myself, and I am going to stop apologising for writing crap which probably doesn't appeal to anyone else reading it.
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