Quetzaltenango, Monday

1748 Very pink sky for sunset. Went out on balcony and admired view while listening to brass band somewhere nearby practising "How Deep Is Your Love" .

Got into school about 20 mins late. Left phone on charge overnight, woke at an unknown time to find it had turned off but showing 75% charge. AFAICT the battery ran down to nothing despite it being plugged in, at approx 4am it powered off due to dead battery and then whatever shit was stopping it charging could no longer interfere and it started to charge again - but as it was off, the alarm didn't go off. By sheer chance it was 0805ish when I looked at my watch. I could have slept til 11am or whatever.

This is bollocks. I didn't go to bed pissed at 3am. I didn't forget to set the alarm or charge the phone. The fucking thing just let me down big time. Of course Android magically manages processes and the battery, so there's no way I can tell what the fuck happened, because IT'S MAGIC. Apparently no app was responsible for this, so maybe it just didn't happen? What happens next time I need to be up at 5am for a tour or to catch a flight? Crock of fucking shit. I will have to get a digital watch with an alarm on.

Went to supermarket (two in fact, since Mas y Mas near El Calvario has replaced all the tuna with sardines - I even asked a MoS) and also Xelapan (been meaning to try their stuff) on way home, also got a lime and some (different) mixed chopped veg outside Mercado Las Flores. Cooked gutbusting portion of rice, tuna and veg then gorged on the three different things got from Xelapan - pretty good.

Went up on roof terrace this afternoon, took some photos and admired view a bit. Will try to go up at night, maybe tonight but if not another night before I go.

Casa Argentina have confirmed via e-mail for Fri night. School was OK, teacher didn't seem upset about me cancelling w other agency, I told him truthfully I would rather have used them but QT were able to promise it would happen. He told me some things about QT which I won't repeat here in public.

He also told me someone (I think; as always I don't like to probe for maximum clarity when he's telling me sensitive stuff) has stolen something related to his electricity meter, it will cost Q700-odd to fix and he doesn't have the money so he has had no electricity for a week except a neighbour lets him have a bit via an extension lead when it's dark. I do believe him but at same time can't help nagging "size of tip" thoughts at back of head. Based on the odd conversation I am not sure any other students plan to tip their teachers. Meh. We are confirmed for private lessons Thu and Fri (tho Fri is difficult due to needing to meet owner here to hand over keys and move bag to CA and hopefully attend language exchange and go to pre-hike meeting) at Q25 an hour.

Should really be getting some serious study time in tonight but feel pretty lazy and slightly nervous about rest of week/weekend. Feh.

1922 Quick read of guide book and poke on booking.com and I've just booked a ho(s)tel in San Pedro to check in Mon and out Thu; it's not in guide book and may be a smidge out of town but I'm not too worried. I got a bit confused about the prices shown on booking.com and assumed they were per night when they were of course for the total stay (3 nights). So I could arguably have splurged more, but WTF. Q150 inc taxes for three nights for queen room with shared bathroom; shared bathroom is not ideal but I can take a gamble on laundry service I guess. If I'm not happy there I can always switch somewhere else after.

Don't have rock solid plans for rest of time yet but it looks from guide book like there are a couple of accessible walks/hikes from San Pedro so looks like a good base for a few days anyway. All I really want to do in Antigua is an Acatenango hike and ideally an in-person lesson with my Spanish teacher, so I don't need to be there *too* sharpish (especially if I can book an Acatenango tour by e-mail, which I should look into once I am in San Pedro) and I vaguely hope to be able to spend a week round Lake Atitlan, maybe all in San Pedro but we'll see. TBH it feels like spending a week there would still give me too much time in Antigua but we'll have to see how things pan out; I don't want to be too rushed and just maybe if I have 'too much' time I could spend a day or two in Guatemala City.

1939 Trying to work out how much cash I need to withdraw and how much to tip teacher, I just checked old e-mails and at the end of Wednesday I will have been at the new school for three weeks. (So I *think* it will be six weeks studying Spanish in total come Friday, ignoring the lost day due to public holiday and the lost half day when I walked out of old school.) That means total spend at new school will be Q2925. I don't feel compelled to tip eg 10%, it doesn't really feel like that sort of situation, TBH I kind of feel I shouldn't have to tip at all here. I am not worrying about the extra two days' private lessons as in a rough finger-in-air thing like this two days is nothing, plus I suspect teacher is doing *better* for himself with the private lessons even at Q25/h compared to what works out at Q39/h (ignoring the fact it's really only 4.5h a day not 5h) I am paying the school.

I'll be honest, even before doing the above calculation I was leaning to giving him Q200 as a tip. This feels *slightly* extravagant in that it's not an insignificant sum to me, but it's about 6% which isn't insane and it's also almost exactly the cost of one days' classes at the school. I may end up rounding this slightly up or down when it comes to paying for the private classes to make a round sum in cash to hand over, but I think this is a reasonable approximate figure. Q200 isn't insignificant to me but it's not like it's going to substantially increase the overall cost of the trip or anything, and notwithstanding a slight "telling me about money problems in a way which might be genuinely because he feels he can trust me and which might be slightly hinting at a good tip" business, he has on the whole been a pretty good teacher who I've felt comfortable with.

Another way of looking at it is I think I'd want to tip an absolute minimum of Q100 and so the "discretionary" amount I'm putting on top is only another Q100, i.e. ten quid. While not huge he has also probably saved me Q5 on the (admittedly relatively rare, lately) occasions I have eaten in a comedor and tipped only Q5 instead of Q10.

So yeah, probably Q200ish tip.

2146 Had shower, will go to bed shortly. Not tired but not not-tired and might as well go to bed. Entered tiny amount of vocabulary backlog from classes into app.

Still not bought another razor and have a few cuts from shaving earlier tonight, oh well.

Probably be doing the Xelaaid English activity tomorrow but we'll see, if it's not on will probably go to language exchange.

Tue 2359 Just realised I forgot to send this e-mail yesterday, hence it appearing out of sequence on blog, but I did write it on Monday, except for this bit.