Quetzaltenango, Thursday

1652 At Palacio de los Jugos, have asked for pollo dorado but who knows?

Another power cut last night - woke up about 3am with no power, still off when I got up (pushing it to last minute) to go to school. At least I had a battery for my torch this morning.

Classes OK if not absolutely great. We didn't do any shopping, I did hang around in the kitchen and 'help' a tiny amount but it was not really a big deal. The lunch was more involved than I expected - some of the female teachers and students got dressed up in traditional costumes and we had a bit of a talk - but it wasn't excessively awkward. I also managed to talk to a few people (perhaps doing OKish on names if not great) and I am going to an Irish bar tonight for some regular quiz night to meet some of the students. (There's a bit of a split as another pub has karaoke; I don't plan to get anywhere near drunk enough to sing so I'm going for the quiz.)

So on the whole this turned out much better than I expected. I'm not quite sure why there seemed to be so many more students and people were more talkative today than earlier in the week. Anyway, given the relatively low impact of the cooking thing after all I will stay on another week.

There might be some possibility of renting an apartment by the week; one student mentioned something she'd seen and another mentioned airbnb. I will probably check this out tomorrow afternoon.

Did homework after the lunch thing finished back at hotel and have come out to eat (Mana song playing "oye cabron" ?) then will go back to hotel before heading out to pub 7:45ish. Think people will be there 8ish and quiz 8:30 but torn between being sure I get a seat vs being there too early. I may struggle to recognise everyone at this stage.

"En el muelle de San Blas" now.

1716 Food OK, pretty decent frijoles negros (which I ate on the tortillas; no idea if this is enormously rude or not), chicken a bit tough. They didn't have rice so got chips - absolutely gutted. ;-) Papaya juice, I think. Will see if I can get them to break a 100 so I can maybe avoid having to hand one over at the bar tonight.

I tried fixing the insole in one of my shoes yesterday and it seems to have stayed put today unlike the other one, so I did the other one when I was back at the hotel earlier. I hope this works longer term; if it doesn't I hope it doesn't damage the waterproof lining when the tape gives way. I suppose it might be OK as my weight is pressing down on the tape to help hold it in place some of the time.

1802 Back at hotel. Went into supermarket and spent 7.05 on a couple of small cake bar things and a few bananas so I can snack on them when I get back tonight. Paid in coins as have accumulated a fair collection of shrapnel over the last few days, after having run out of change completely a while ago.

As long as I don't drink too much tonight should be fun. I don't think there'll be too much problem given I know I have to be up in time for class tomorrow as does everyone else.

The bar is a few blocks due north of hotel, so should be easy enough to find way there and back. Some of the people I spoke to today were a bit less reassuring about safety than I had heard until now but not excessively worried.

One of the guys I spoke to this afternoon said he wasn't using insect repellent but had managed to get a prescription for doxycycline at USD0.20 a tablet/capsule back in the US which was anti-malaria. OTOH, he said he had been asked for USD3000 (!) for rabies vaccination, so he hadn't had it.

0037 Just got. back to hostel. We got a free tequila for best team name - Skeggyfornication. But then I think every team should have got a tequila so we maybe missed out. We got two litres of beer for coming second so not sure how much I drank. I learned almost too much about international drug culture; I am both humbled and appalled.  Retired rabbi actually very inspirational in a strange way. But hey, it's all cool, I am a bit drunk but none of the extreme shit from last Sunday and it was on the whole a matey evening. Bed.