Sun 0633 Didn't sleep that well, did sleep but woke up 10pmish all tangled up. Slept intermittently, felt cold but not terribly so 5amish, think got up 610ish and have packed and cleaned teeth and changed uw and shirt for clean ones (actually changed socks last night and slept in the clean ones). Hands feel cold. Think we will be going to nearby small restaurant for breakfast soon. Not really spoken to anyone yet.
Left phone topping up later part of night, also read ebook inside sleeping bag at points when couldn't sleep. Could hear other people shuffling around, was v conscious they might hear me. Someone just told me first night in a sleeping bag is always the worst, so if that's as bad as it gets I'm good. (I had never used one before, unless have forgotten something.)
Mon 1806 I need to write about trek but am at hotel restaurant (no one else here; it's a small place, if there are other guests am not too surprised if they are elsewhere) having a very expensive small bottle of Gallo (Q15). We had to get up at 0345 this morning (went to bed about 9 last night but didn't sleep brilliantly; got up for big piss about midnight too, probably due to 4 US pint cans Brahva - though wasn't otherwise debilitated by this) and it's been a moderately full day, I am not exactly tired but a bit and will probably go to bed earlyish. I just *might* indulge in a second ridiculously expensive Gallo, we'll see. There are no bars near here, it's nice enough but right out of town. TBH San Pedro feels a bit odd and it isn't superficially obvious how it can live up to its party reputation, unless the action takes place in hostels, as I saw few bars this afternoon while on epic walk trying to find a laundrette and getting excessively worked up about it. Hotel chap says it's safe (wrt people and dogs) to walk but TBH it's probably best to chill for a few days and I may then move somewhere else (here or another town round the lake) to see how that goes.
Hotel dog - which seems pretty quiet, I have stroked it a tiny bit earlier - is curled up on bench other side of table.
I did find a laundrette eventually and paid Q21 for three pounds of washing (combat trousers and 3 pairs tops+uw); there is actually a pila here and it may be possible to use that to wash despite not having a private bathroom, but haven't asked yet. Probably not a bad idea to get a proper wash after trek; it wasn't really that hot or dirty, but even so it's more strenous than my usual activities.
Have exchanged a few WhatsApp messages with Sean from school about how it went; be interested to hear how those guys find it.
1818 Mosquitos here. I don't think there's risk of illness, but I don't have repellent on (supplies v low, plus I didn't even think about it) so not sure if I'll get bitten. I was fine on the hike but some other people who say they are very prone to bites did suffer/need repellent.
So yesterday we did have breakfast (no choice, though food was pretty good) at that small comedor, then we headed off. Fairly early on was a steepish hill (switchback path) which we were invited to race up. Most but not all of the blokes did it, don't think any women did. I didn't join the "official" timings, but I did time myself up privately and got 16m 30s, though the guy who went up just ahead of me and who I used to set my pace said he did it in 17m, so I won't take my timing too seriously. Still, moderately pleased with that - best time in our group was an Israeli guy about 20yo who had recently finished his national service (though he said the last year is relatively easy and they don't push you physically as you'll be leaving soon) who did it in IIRC 13m, one of the guides had a personal best of 11m and the absolute record was 8m xxs, but considering I was apparently the oldest person on trip (second oldest was a 32yo fireman) I think that was a pretty respectable performance.
It wasn't as hot as I'd been lead to believe it might be, which was good. Overall it was, as I would describe the whole thing, as not easy but not *difficult* - it was more a question of just keep putting one foot in front of another and keeping on, I was indeed feeling knackered when we went up through an implausibly steep cornfield at the end of the Sunday's walk and felt we were setting a pretty brisk pace, but I think it was pretty hard in that sense for most people and I didn't feel terribly outclassed in terms of physical abilities.
Went out twice to get beer on Sun evening, had a shower, as already said had 4 beers and although it wasn't absolutely ultra matey it was quite pleasant. Stayed up "late" til 9 (which was when we'd been told in advance to stop making noise).
My inflatable pillow popped noisily when I got into sleeping bag at 9 and put too much weight on it through my elbow.
We got up 0345 and walked over to some hills overlooking the lake in the dark. Quite cool stars though moon was in first quarter so probably hiding them a bit. Watched pre-dawn colours and sunrise interspersed with some coffee and porridge+nuts; I mostly stayed on own during this phase, as I quite liked the relative solitude.
For whatever reason, I had not really been shitting much during the hike despite the food generally being surprisingly plentiful and compatible with my foibles. I did feel a mild urge to go while we were at the lake - I had tried to force something out every morning/evening at places with proper toilets but with little to show for it - but didn't ask for the shit kit to go have a dump in the bushes, and I mostly forgot that feeling after we started to walk. Even when we basically finished the hike at coffee place and then went to nearby restaurant I didn't want to/couldn't really go, but had a massive dump when I got to hotel today about 1430 IIRC. Did have a piss up a tree by the lake side but that was the total extent of my communing with nature.
Felt a bit awkward over coffee but - doubtless aided by a michelada and two beers - felt reasonably matey while we were at the restaurant pre-lunch. I didn't join in with the diving off the upper balcony as I can't swim and it was apparently quite deep so I didn't go into the water, perhaps luckily two other ppl did same, and it was apparently too cold to swim so most ppl were lounging around on the dock most of time anyway. I did feel a bit jealous but I've already noted that I need to make the effort to learn to swim when back in London, it is a fact that I can't at the moment and it would have been foolish in the extreme to join in as it was - definitely *not* a case of me limiting myself for no reason.
Due to road problems, the luggage we'd sent on had to go to San Marcos. It also turned out that almost everyone was going to stay in SM, so in the end we all got boat over there after lunch and I and one other woman who were staying in SP got boat back after we'd hung around and waited for the pickup bringing the bags to turn up. She went off to her hotel by tuktuk and I turned down an offer from another driver and trogged maybe 20 mins across town to get here. Had a shower and then big shit and shave before heading out for laundry quest and to get some unhealthy snacks, which I have already pigged out on almost excessively.
Some people do have my WhatsApp details but TBH I think it's unlikely I will see any of them again. While I didn't feel ridiculously old most of them were 20s or early 30s and I didn't feel I got on super well with anyone, and the fact they are almost all based in SM is likely to rule things out. Not saying I won't move to SM or another town, but I'm here three nights anyway.
We travelled in back of pickup from coffee town to San Pedro, which was quite fun and at least I have now tried that. We stood up, I don't know if that's normal.
Pre-sunrise and sunrise pretty nice. Walk down afterwards felt surprisingly hard, maybe I was just knackered and/or the low sun (it was 7-8amish) and/or wearing sunglasses messed up my depth perception and made me misjudge depth of next step; I slipped a few times though not too badly. I had slipped a bit on other days though no more than several others.
This is absolutely not an exhaustive record of the hike. Let me actually just crudely paste in the QT hike description here for future reference:
Well I can't seem to the page up now, maybe later.
My legs did/do hurt a bit but nothing terrible and I hope this will be a form of prep for eg San Pedro volcano and/or Acatenango.
32yo chap said I looked younger than 42; not sure I believe him but won't deny am flattered. Did make me think (not that I didn't already) it would be good to lose my modest gut, but we'll see. Someone also - nothing to do with how young I do or don't appear - suggested shaving my head and growing a beard, TBH I think he may have been joking but even if he wasn't that sounds a bit of a faff (I remember my previous experiment in shaving my head as being an ongoing chore), but writing it down FWIW.
Plan for tomorrow is to maybe get up in time for free breakfast (ends 9am) if that happens to work, otherwise to go get laundry and look into booking a hike up San Pedro volcano, otherwise low key day just relaxing. If I spend the day in room or on hotel terrace surfing web that's fine. I may also do Indian's Nose/Maya Face (not entirely clear if this has been renamed consistently or not) hike, but we walked "past" it today, it tends to be a sunrise thing and I'm not getting too bent out of shape about it. If it seems good to stay here and do it in a day or two fine, if not also fine.
TBH half wonder if I could do San Pedro without a guide (it's only 3000m IIRC, about same as Lake Chicabal) but it's probably prudent (if only due to robbery risk) to use a guide and I might meet people. The laundry I eventually found was in a travel agency (woman operating it held her maybe 2yo son on her shoulder the entire time I spoke to her) and if they don't fuck my laundry up I may give them the benefit of my custom for the San Pedro hike all else being equal.
I need to remotely book Acatenango tour and hostel in Antigua but I am going to worry about that in a day or two. Ditto the possibility of tandem paragliding over the lake.
It's 1852. I might have one more overpriced beer (I didn't tip on last one and probably won't on this) and then go to bed. The room is at least cheap at Q50 a night to pseudo-compensate.
I think it will feel a bit odd not to have the regular 8-1 commitment of the Spanish school, once I am back in "normal" mode after the hike. It did occur to me today that (notwithstanding time zone difference) this was a pretty cool Monday morning.
Some woman - presumably family - has stirred the dog up and left it and now it's growling. Not apparently at me, but still bit crappy. Hope the fucker doesn't take it into its head to molest me on trip out to shared bathroom at 3am. But to be fair, it hasn't shown any sign of being stroppy with me so far.
I didn't shave during the trip, so had a shave earlier, which felt surprisingly good.
Lake is right behind hotel - though haven't gone down narrow and mildly alarmingly rural access path to hotel any further than the actual entrance yet - but you can't see it from the garden. There is an upstairs outdoor area but it just has some washing lines and tanks on.
I did get the impression the woman at the laundry/tour agency shop only gave me a "receipt" because I asked if I needed to give her a name.
Chap in a shop I bought snacks in (with ulterior motive of asking him if there was a laundrette nearby, in which he was not terribly helpful, gesturing off in one direction in a "get rid of the annoying tourist" way, or so I couldn't help interpeting it) showed me the price on a calculator before announcing it in Spanish. Obviously a low confidence in tourist's Spanish abilities. Oddly while there were a few white tourists around, there seemed far fewer than I'd have expected, and in fact I kept recognising the same couples on multiple occasions.
Not sure if I should ask for another beer or not. Family sort of seem to be dining on terrace and I don't like to interrupt. OK, I just asked, he was almost overly aimiable about it (told me of course, I was in my house, this was a small family hotel - in Spanish of course). (No pleasing me, eh?) But then if I could sell small bottles of Gallo at Q15 a pop I'd probably be amiable about it too. :-)
While wildly overpriced (at Q30, compared to Q15 for a straight bottle of Gallo) I did enjoy the michelada earlier, been years since I had one and I had been promising myself to have one some hot afternoon by the lake or some other equally "nice" setting, so good to come through for myself on that.
Going to resume reading book on phone but if think of anything else will add it here, but as I say I am trying not to pressure myself right now, lazy day or two to "recover" from hike here and prep for further activity.
Garden quite nice - though it's dark, not seen it in day - but very foliagey and if I think about it I get a bit anxious about spiders. There's actually a small tree with what looks like a bunch of upwards growing bananas on it next to my table.
When I booked here I got the cheap mountain view room as opposed to the lake view room. (TBH my room doesn't seem to view anything except another part of the garden from either of its two windows, not that I am complaining.) Not entirely sure where those lake view rooms might be given the garden seems to end in the kitchen/covered terrace, but of course have no reason to believe they're lying.
Much warmer here than in Xela. Mostly pleasantly so; a bit hot on walk over here with bag and when sitting on dock in full sun, but not excessively. Room is warmish but not stifling and I expect it to get cooler overnight, but probably be a welcome change from three blankets on bed and cold mornings at 0730 in Xela. Not that I didn't like it there; I did, and I can imagine returning again for a combination of study and altitude acclimatisation. Chap on hike said altitude acclimatisation lasts about 4 months; this does at least suggest I won't lose whatever I have before I try Acatenango. Also most people on hike had done it and apparently had no real problems, even doing it "fresh off the boat".
Just noticed table had some maps under the glass covering it, and one has a mileage chart - the triangular kind I remember from road atlases of UK 20 years ago - and this makes me thing of the HMHB song. :-)
I am wearing fleece but air is very still and it's very comfortable, and it is nice to suddenly realise that it's December and I'm here instead of (presumably; I haven't checked) freezing back home. OTOH I did find myself imagining a takeaway pizza and a DVD watching binge back in my own flat at one point during the hike (I think this morning, but maybe yesterday).
1925 Prob middle aged (I'm not staring at them) tourist couple just come into restaurant. I didn't think I would be the only guest given some stuff booking.com said about "no room type X available" during booking. Not an issue, just nothing this for live action reportage feel.
1936 Dog kicking off about *something* in the garden. No idea what. I guess lesson here is if the bugger does appear to be violent towards me that it's probably just gobbing off and won't actually do anything.
Nearly finished beer. Slightly tempted for another but it would also be good to go to bed and given the overpricing plus fact I may want to have a quietish night "out" here tomorrow night it seems prudent not to overdo it tonight.
1943 Finished beer. Let's go clean teeth and go to bed.
1946 Just taking photo (just in case) of WhatsApp late entry details on back of entry door and noticed a substantial - if not truly terrifying - spider on wall next to it. Not absolutely "bigger than UK" size and pretty flat-looking but still. Slightly fascinated and slightly freaked out. But let's go clean teeth and move towards bed.
1957 Cleaned teeth. Did wonder if would see anything scary in that like during hike through what I will loosely call cloud forest etc but didn't. While I don't think there was much risk, the hike was in a goodish way just slightly risky - some of the paths were very narrow and not looking where you were putting your feet and/or a mistimed slip could have lead to a nasty fall over the edge.
2006 Bed. There's a blanket if I want it but as made bed is just a thin sheet on top; will try it like this for now. Feel pretty warm, and that crickety kind of noise coming from outside. Got to do Duolingo before I can go to sleep; I love Duolingo, it's not remotely fucking annoying. I was able to get mobile data last night at Don Pedro's house so though I didn't do Duolingo, I could buy a new streak freeze to keep things alive. Duolingo doesn't accept that sometimes you might be out of internet range for more than a day. When/if my streak hits a year I may deliberately break it and try to focus my attention on eg Memrise DELE vocab, which probably has a higher payoff.
Pedometer app says 31507 steps Sat, 30711 steps Sun, 27060 steps today (though a good quantity of those will have been not part of the hike). Plausible-ish, I think.
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