Quetzaltenango, Sunday

1717 Rather a mixed day.

Woke up about 10ish - I deliberately didn't check the time - and got up after snoozing a bit on 11am alarm. I needed to be packed and checked out by 12 and - perhaps in part why I was reluctant to get up - I also needed to resolve checkin for the new apartment.

The booking.com e-mail said I had to contact the property by phone or via e-mail throug their site to arrange checkin. I e-mailed yesterday via their site and had no response. This morning after getting up and while packing I made two attempts to call via Skype (using it to call a normal number, which costs a tiny amount of real money - using my phone directly would have cost too much even if it worked, as I am treated as being in the UK so it would be an international call) but it just rang without any answer, even after 3 mins. So I sent another e-mail via booking.com to say I'd. be there about 1230 and had to set off and just hope.

I'd been dithering about leaving my bag at the old hotel or taking it with me - trading off risk of loss vs having to lug it over to the new apartment only to end up lugging it around all afternoon as I tried to sort out alternate accommodation if I still couldn't get in touch with the apartment owners. Anyway, although the checkout was linguistically surprisingly awkward, the guy at the desk virtually offered to hold my bag and I made the snap decision to take him up on it. As it turned out this wasn't necessary, but I still feel in hindsight it was the best choice at the time.

I waited outside the metal door (no bell) which had the right number painted on the wall next to it. I got there about 1215 I think. Seemed very hot. Almost immediately (I was stood reading a book on phone) a guy came over and introduced himself. No mention of not replying to my messages, but anyway. He led me a couple of doors down the street to another metal gate which had the same number painted next to it. (!?)

He took me in and showed me round. Slightly stilted conversation in Spanish but hey, it's all practice. Turns out this apartment block is on a sort of private street hidden behind the metal door on the public street and it is (overly grandiose term) the campus of one of the Spanish schools here, which the guy (presumably) owns.

The private street is very nice, I saw a cat earlier (it wouldn't come to me; I didn't try that hard). Apartment is on top floor so nice views from the balcony (the guy didn't show me, but there is a terrace on the floor above, though so far I have only peeked through the bolted door and not set foot on it). There's a water filtering machine on the ground floor in the hall, which I have used once or twice and guess I have to trust.

Building is in pretty nice condition on the whole. There is a huge metal/plastic model of an ant stuck to the wall on one part of the staircase near the ceiling; the first time I noticed it was out of the corner of my eye and it gave me a bit of a turn as I thought it might be a spider. (I think it is way too big for that to have been really the case, but corner of eye and all that.)

Apartment is a bit spartan in some ways but quite nice on the whole. I had a shower not long after trogging back from the other hotel with my bag and I had terrible trouble turning the water off; you seem to have to hit a tiny sweet spot on the shower tap, rather than it having a hard 'stop' like most taps. One of the kitchen light bulbs is dead but not a big deal. The owner left me a mostly full bag of coffee for the coffee machine, which was a nice little touch, and a fresh roll of toilet paper but that's all. No towels, no dishwashing soap, no bin bags.

I went out with the intention of having food in a restaurant and then buying some stuff (e.g. a big bottle of diet coke to take advantage of having a fridge) and coming back home for a quiet evening in. (I still need to do my homework, and ideally review some of last week's stuff.) The restaurant bit didn't happen; there looks like quite a nice cheap and cheerful restaurant just on the corner (I had seen it on previous walks too) offering quarter chicken and chips for Q25 and since they also advertised whole chicken at Q55-ish I have hopes they may do a half chicken. However I shoved my head in and there were no free tables, so I left it today. Most of the little comedor type places seemed to be shut and the ones which were open correspondingly busy.

I did eventually find one of the supermarkets shown on Google Maps (hiding in a fairly smart shopping centre with a passage-type entrance; I expected it to be directly on the street) and wandered round for a while. Feeling some temptation to cook for myself while not wanting to get too involved (either in terms of washing up - I am far from clear how cleaning works here, more rambling on this later), I spotted some burger buns and that made me wonder if I could buy frankfurters, hot dog buns and mustard and eat myself sick for once. Turns out I could. :-) The mustard (Ana Belly) is not a patch on Colman's and I've a sneaking suspicion it's a bit vinegary (it contains aceitic acid) which I am trying to ignore, the sausages are enormous but are chicken not pork, but still, I had four (microwaved with a plate on top, for minimal mess-creation) and do feel stuffed. I still have 6 sausages and 6 buns left.

I also bought a load of junk food, partly out of some idea of having a Sunday-evening treat, but not sure that was smart. Got a three litre bottle of H2Oh sugar-free orange sparkling drink, I couldn't see any big bottles of sugar-free cola - sugar-free appears not to be a big thing here. Total shop was Q80.3, when I got home I then had to pop out again to another mini supermarket to get washing up liquid and a sponge (about Q12). Mustard was Q6.2, buns Q11.80, sausages Q24.4 for a total of Q42.4; that's relatively economical (if not healthy) considering there's probably 2.5 substantial meals there. Plus it's a novelty to be able to eat 'as much as I want' in my own private space.

I still don't have the wifi password, owner didn't know it, said he'd e-mail it (we exchanged addresses and he sent me a test e-mail) within half an hour but didn't. I sent him a polite reminder an hour or so ago and he has replied apologising but still no password.

There's a three page A4 printout in Spanish showing the rules. I have skimmed them. They clearly don't apply precisely because they say the minimum booking is either 1 month or 3 months (it appears contradictory but I haven't saw down and double checked the Spanish with a dictionary) and I'm booked in for a week. It seems to imply (again I am assuming this doesn't apply to me) the guest has to pay the electricity bill (though lots of unknown vocab there and I didn't use dictionary). Cleaning is according to that weekly and costs Q25. (Does this mean the dirty toilet paper has to accumulate in the bathroom bin for a week? Good job I don't have a really sensitive nose...)

I am far from clear if I am likely to be able to extend here. My gut feeling is this is normally school student accommodation but as it's low season they've decided to put it on booking.com for short term occupation.

I don't know for sure if I want to extend. Supposing I can for a week at a time, I would expect the apartment to be cleaned for free each week, since they'd have to do that if a new guest was coming in. Or would they try to stiff me for a cleaning fee when I leave? This isn't actually a huge deal, Q25 a week is mostly negligible.

Ignoring some of these niggles, I would probably stay here indefinitely if I could, *provided* the distance from the school doesn't bother me and (more likely) provided I am not too scared to walk home at say 1am here. (There appear to be very few taxis on the street, even if they are safe. Something I realised the other day is that there don't seem to be any tuktuks here, unlike Antigua and Panajachel.) It's not really remote but you never know. I won't know how I feel until I try it, which is most likely to be after pub quiz Thursday. By that point it may be too late to extend here - not that I know if I could do it now, actually. May check.

Obviously other better apartments might be available and I could call some, but *if* no major drawbacks emerge this does feel OK on the whole and I'd rather settle down than apartment hop every week. If nothing else by the time I'd got everthing sorted and settled in here, I didn't really feel I had the time or inclination to trog over and up to that park. If I change accommodation every weekend that is going to keep happening. (Plus once I've had another week or two or maybe three to acclimatise, I want to do some hikes at the weekend if possible.)

I do feel a little bit lonely. I think this is slightly irrational, at least viewed from an accomodation point of view; all the other guests at the hotel were Spanish speakers, I never met any of them and the noises coming through the walls were more mildly annoying than comforting. Looking at my social life in general, while I don't feel I have an automatic bunch of 'friends' from school (a downside of individual tuition, I guess, though I'm sure it's vastly superior for learning - I do also sort of feel there is actually a group of more social students with 2-7 classes, but I may be wrong), I have been out with people a couple of times (even if one was by chance) which really isn't bad for only the first week, and as waffled other day there is lots of other stuff I can do to meet people. I think it's perhaps just being in this slightly echoey and unfamiliar apartment on a Sunday night.

Yes, I could try moving into a hostel. But I think I'd rather try other things first, and TBH I am not so sure I'd be able to meet people in a hostel anyway.

The  bedroom walls are a bit dirty but nothing terrible. There's no sofa, but at least I have a biggish kitchen table and dining chairs I can sit on, which is still an improvement over sitting on the bed and it taking up most of the floor space. (To be fair there was one dining-ish chair in hotel room last week, but it was in corner without much room to move it and it didn't feel all that relaxed sitting on it staring at my phone in my hand.)

Night views over city (looking west, not towards the centre) are very nice though. I am practically next to the brewery. :-) The owner pointed it out from the balcony, also the big white Mormon temple on the hill and a nearby commercial centre and 10-screen cinema.

I did notice a nice-ish little bar next to that restaurant I couldn't get into earlier. I do want to try to not drink too much during the week, but I may pop in for a quiet pint mid-week on the offchance of striking up a conversation with either a local or maybe a student from one of the nearby schools.

I think I already said but I'm paying Q603 (including Q1 tax!) for a week here. That is really very affordable; a bit like when I was paying eight pounds a night in Delhi (only more so, as I do feel a bit more at home here), this really does make me think about the possibility of spending extended periods of time here in part as a way of cutting spending - renting somewhere in London, albeit perhaps something a smidge nicer, would probably run at the very least £250 (Q2500) a week, probably singificantly more. Savings would go a lot further living out here, in other words. (I mean, you could even whack Q900 a week for Spanish lessons to top and you're still £100 a week better off than being in London.)

FWIW I just checked booking.com and currently this apartment (or another in the same block; I am guessing they are all owned by the school) *is* available from next Sunday for a week at the same price.

Worth observing that it's also very nice to be able to drink *chilled* water more-or-less ad lib. I think the cooking facilities (given the cleaning hassle) are maybe not that much use in practice - nice though it was to be able to microwave those hot dogs, and maybe if I had booked in for 3+ weeks I'd feel more comfortable buying cooking oil and spices and so on - but having a fridge really is a big comfort boost, despite the fact it's not generally excessively hot here (it was hot when I was trogging back and forth between here and other hotel, but it got cloudy by the time I was visiting supermarket). Drinking room-temperature water is so "meh, gotta keep hydrated" whereas I am more likely to actually enjoy chilled water. Sure, I can get by without it, but I'm just saying it's nice.

Don't really feel in mood to study. Will force myself in maybe an hour.

There's a biggish water container with a spout in the kitchen; evidently the idea is you can take it down to the machine and fill it. I would like to do this but it had a bit of water in the bottom and I'm concerned maybe someone has filled it with tap water. I've tipped the water out and am going to leave it to dry by evaporation, which I hope will render it sufficiently sterile to use (though probably it was clean anyway). I am not 100% sure about this but after all tap water has to be used for washing and rinsing plates, drinking vessels, etc so if the relevant nasties in the water can survive drying out surely you're fucked anyway, as you're going to consume them when you eat off the plates or drink out of the cups.

1824 I think I've lost one of the plastic water bottles I'd accumulated; it was the one I'd brought out with me from home. It was only a (albeit relatively sturdy) disposable bottle, but this bugs me slightly as I don't want to be *losing* stuff by accident.

I'd quite like another coffee but the pot still has tapwater drops in.

1832 OK, struggled to find a definitive answer re washing/rinsing dishes in non-drinkable tap water - of course some people/sources are going to be extremely conservative on this. Some bacteria - lots, in fact - apparently can survive being dry (especially for a day or two). However, other people report practical experiences with having rinsed dishes in (Mexican) water they wouldn't drink with no problems. I may ask my teacher about this tomorrow. To be honest I'd be *astounded* if most of the places I've been eating in for the last three weeks (is it really three weeks? I haven't counted properly) are rinsing the dishes with anything other than tap water. I suppose it's possible they are at least using heated, maybe even boiled, tap water, but I'm not so sure. It hasn't been an issue until now as I had no real control, it's just that now I need to avoid doing stuff in my own kitchen which will fuck me over.

2033 Intermittently doing homework and reading book on phone and snacking (despite eating 4 big hotdogs earlier). Have just realised the other light in kitchen *does* work, if you operate it from the second set of light switches - it's just one of the light switches in the set near the entry door apparently has no effect, whether deliberately or because it's broken.

It is very echoey, whenever I bitch out loud about anything it sounds really freaking loud.

2114 FFS, the rules (which I am assuming mostly don't apply as I came via booking.com) say you have to wash the bedsheets when you leave. If not they will take Q50 off your deposit. Well, fuck it, I'll just see if they try to charge me Q50 when I leave and if I have to pay it no big deal. I haven't had to pay a deposit anyway. OTOH this does kind of suggest there is essentially no "service" here and that if I do stay for n weeks I am going to have to wash the sheets myself. There is no washing machine so that means lugging them to the laundry (there is admittedly one across the road) and - I guess - hoping they can do same day service because there are no spare sheets. I don't know what to make of this, from the POV of maybe staying longer. I wouldn't necessarily expect this service for free at this price (though it has been the case when I've stayed in "apartments" elsewhere) but it's not particularly obvious I can pay x amount to have the sheets replaced/washed by someone. (They do offer cleaning services, thought that Q25 is a bit misleading as there's a separate Q50 for other types of cleaning.) Then again, as I observed earlier, if I'm renting through booking.com I feel I should get at the very least a freshly cleaned flat and new sheets every week, because they'd have to do that if I were a different guest every week. Then again, maybe their attitude would be that every week's guest would have to wash the sheets before they leave.

I *might* ask about this in a couple of days time, but TBH the owner seems extremely uncommunicative via e-mail or phone judging from earlier experiences. (I still don't have the wifi password, just the last e-mail saying "Perdón").

OK, I *just* saw a message timestamped 1852 from owner asking if I've received the password yet. Doesn't he know if he's sent it or not? I replied saying no anyway, a shame I didn't see his message earlier but I guess with background data switched off to conserve data allowance on the SIM Gmail app is not checking regularly or at all in the background.

2129 Credit where it's due, owner just came round and handed me password in person. Not tried it yet but sure it will be OK. Told him about the shower turning off issue, he said he knows about it and I said it's fine at the moment, I was just worried it get worse. I told him so not my problem now. Didn't ask about cleaning etc, no need to stir this stuff up just yet.

2327 Moving towards bed. I observe quite a few long black hairs around the place, which sends mixed messages about cleaning. Not excessive quantities, but still.

2341 Bed.