1244 At Restaurante Típico just off Plaza de los Poetas. Teacher proposed that we finish half an hour early and don't have the half hour break on Monday; this gives me time to eat lunch and go back to flat to drop my bag off before meeting at 2 for that English thing.
Tried - with mild prompting - a tiny bit of ceviche at the break. I didn't realise until someone told me (before I tried it) that Guatemalan ceviche is with beef testicles (chopped and fermented in some way) not fish. Taste was OK if not amazingly keen on the slightly vinegary fermented quality. This does make the many ceviche street carts seem more sensible; I had wondered who would buy raw fish from a street cart (though maybe that would be OK too).
Semi-impromptu school trip out to Bakeshop just before break; I got a bagel and a ring donut and bought a loaf of carrot bread for teacher. He said my interactions with the counter staff were fine, which is reassuring.
Pan pipe (? ish anyway) version of Skorpion's "Wind of change" playing...
Getting breaded breast (chicken??) fillet here, Q20 including peach juice and tortillas and possibly some other bits and pieces if I am lucky but not mentioned on menu.
1835 Home. Actually pretty cool afternoon but let's cook now.
2203 Just showered. Quick write up of this afternoon. Only three volunteers plus the organiser, one of them being the organiser's mother. We walked over to La Democracia-ish and got public minibus for Q70 - about 45 mins drive over to San Martin Chiquito.
Bit nervous about it but it was all fine. I got (by chance, I think) the most advanced group, three women who I thought looked young but didn't find out til the end were actually late teens-ish. They were a bit giggly but I don't think it was aimed at me. I think they found my accent less clear than the American organiser, but they did understand me - we were mostly at the level of me asking them questions using a children's picture book ("where is the cat sitting?") and they had to reply with a complete sentence. Organiser kept coming round to offer guidance and it was fine, time actually flew past. (I did use a bit of Spanish, against instructions, to clarify one or two things and they did understand me, which was reassuring. Also interesting to struggle to remember to use ustedes instead of tu form. Oh, and interesting to see the flip side of the b/v sounds being "the same" in Spanish in that they struggled to hear "bandage" and wrote "pandich".)
Someone from the organisation had offered to drive us back but the minibus was broken so we got a public bus back as we'd come. Very busy on there but I had a seat (albeit with a damp backpack shoved in the floorwell; vague London-esque bomb thoughts but not too worried and a guy did take it eventually) and it all felt fairly good-natured etc. One of the group suffered from travel sickness (kudos to her for not being put off going in the first place) and was sick on the way back, but this didn't seem to bother anyone too much (luckily someone had a bag to give her).
Might do it again, among feedback I gave organiser was that it would be better if it wasn't Friday afternoon as that meant it was incompatible with going away for the weekend. But that probably won't happen that much anyway. Also got some advice from organiser re volcano hikes, obviously all very personal and hard to judge but still feeds into my mental picture. She recommended Quetzaltrekkers (sp) though partly due to their profits going to some charity and not *strictly* due to quality, though she said they were good.
Current thinking there is I will see if school *is* doing Lake Chicabal next weekend, if it is I will go, if not I will make private arrangements to go there and I will also look into getting on a waiting list for one of the other local volcanoes so I can probably manage this before I go.
Deliberately not mentioning any names for other people on trip out of some vague sense of respecting privacy. Was impressed to find organiser's mum had been a programmer 20 years ago (she stopped when she had children, I think) and had worked in APL (among other languages) - possibly the first person I've knowingly met with commercial APL experience.
Decided not to take waterproof jacket/trousers tomorrow. No point lugging the weight and risking losing them. Guys (one man and one woman but easier to write this) who went today have messaged me to say they went to San Pedro (a direct bus, I think) but ended up having to walk for ages due to a road being under construction so I should just go to Panajachel. I was intending to do that anyway but I might have got tempted away by advice at bus terminal and now I won't. The weather forecast doesn't suggest much rain (oh, it did piss it down when we were in San Martin this afternoon but we were inside, and it was actually slightly refreshing - there were a few drops in Xela as we were nearing bus terminal on the way out there) and I think *at most* there will be a little bit of mild hiking done (plan seems to be mostly just to relax) and after today's unplanned walk I wouldn't be surprised if they have little interest in doing any more.
Let's stop waffling and go to bed.
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