Guatemala City-Antigua

Tue 1219 (Guatemala) Got to the hostel maybe an hour or half an hour ago. Flights OK, got through customs OK - I had to press a button and got a green light, so wasn't checked. Arrivals bit of airport tiny and couldn't see cash machine. Lots of not-overly-threatening-but-I-had-my-bag-and-passport touts around. Asked someone respectable looking re ATM, got advice which in hindsight was helpful if incomplete. Failed to find it after trogging across the road outside into multi-storey carpark. Went back inside, despairing slightly. (I *think* I remembered if push comes to shove I had a few USD notes and some USD traveller's cheques which I could have changed for a doubtless shitty rate. But I still despaired.) Asked someone else, who told me to go into the slightly grim multi-storey car park opposite and go to level 3. That got me to the arrivals area. That plus a hint in the guide book that the ATM was hiding behind a staircase got me some cash. At that point I was able to pop into bog, get everything properly stashed away and feel a bit more comfortable.

A shoeshine guy semi-accosted me and took me over to a shuttle bus. I didn't have a coin to tip him and by this point I was super leery of everyone. They said they were waiting for more people before they went, so I said I'd keep my bag and pay when we were ready to go, so I couldn't be held (metaphorically only!) hostage. I was also a bit worried they'd just drive off with my bag. Probably excess paranoia but there you go. I waited maybe 30-60 mins and then an American couple turned up and we were ready to go. There was already an Australian woman I'd seen coming through security waiting in the van, not that I knew this before I got in. To be fair to minibus tour company people, they took payment from us all at that point, so I had probably been excessively paranoid.

Anyway, they dropped me practically opposite my hostel. The other three were going on to Pana(jachel?) and slightly awkwardly had a long conversation about an onward transfer 'across' me in the bus; since it was a conversation with a 'point' I didn't like to butt in, but I felt a bit uncomfortable.

(Incidentally, I could have just paid USD10 for the minibus. I should have thought to ask that. But it worked out OK in the end, I am not saying that's a great price and I'd like to save my USD for emergencies. Of course that could have been an emergency, in which case it would make sense to use it.)

Kept nodding off on the drive over.

First impressions of Antigua from the minibus as we drove through town are that it's pretty enough (but it's raining and low visibility so can't see the volcanoes properly) but super touristy. It's obviously not desert-y and it is perhaps a bit bigger, but the through-the-minibus-windows-impression was distinctly San Pedro de Atacama-ish. This isn't *bad* and I saw lots of old (even compared to me) tourists so it's not all twentysomethings.

I think the plan for today is just to wander out (rain permitting) and get a bit of a feel for the place, *not* book any tours, have some coffee to help keep awake (though I woke up once the bus got into Antigua) and go to bed earlyish. I'm continually looking round the room for spiders, which is massively counterproductive, but might as well be honest.

Plan for tomorrow is (if I get up early enough) to maybe have the free hostel breakfast (up to 10am), perhaps see if my Spanish teacher wants to meet up and once I know what's happening with her to perhaps look into signing up for a relatively undemanding hike up one of the adjacent volcanoes/mountains/whatever you hike up round here, though I could imagine the tour itself would probably be the day after, so Thursday. I'm not going to pressure myself to do more, we'll see how to goes. Hostel does its own tours (or offers certain agency tours) but be good to see if there are better options.

(Did see a sign offering a Q35 service to clean your boots after a hike. I am hoping this is a super luxury kind of service, not a suggestion that they're going to be in such a state this is an absolute requirement. If it turns out they are in a terrible state after a hike I may just have to find somewhere to buy a cheap pair of normal shoes so I can relegate the hiking shoe things which are my sole footwear to hiking only. But no need to worry about this in advance, I think.)

Not too hungry as ate all those fruit/nuts plus got a bit of food on second flight. The one *essential* thing today is to buy a bottle of water so I can a) clean my teeth b) have a drink in my room. I may eat something this afternoon if I find something OK looking, but TBH not sure I need it.

I could also do with some cash as paid nearly all I withdrew (got stiffed about 3% fee by the ATM at terminal but obviously couldn't help it) for the bus (Q80) and the hostel (Q680ishish plus 10% paid on credit card when I booked). I have enough cash to buy water though without going to a machine today.

I got offered three different rooms here at hostel, which was nice. One was a bit cell-like with no windows, another had a window but I went for the one with a skylight but no window as it looked a lot brighter. I can hear the rain pattering heavily-ish on it now. The weather app on my phone shows no rain so not sure I trust it.

Had a shower and will put clean clothes on to go out. Don't think will be able to do my own laundry in shared bathroom so will probably have to spring for laundry somewhere, will see what places I can see, and it's probably still cheaper than having a private bathroom.

Is that it for now? I think so. Oh, the Three Go Roam thing does seem to work for texts but I appear to be unable to make or receive phone calls, even though AFAIK this should work. Haven't tried from anywhere except my hostel room yet so maybe it will work if I end up connecting to a different network or something. Bit annoying but even if it doesn't work having text messages is worth something, since I can send and receive them without being on wifi.

Do wonder if I'll regret this skylight in terms of rain noise, but I suspect that aspect will be fine - it's not an unpleasant noise, we're not in monsoon-on-corrugated-iron territory...

London-Guatemala

Mon 20:26 Air side at Heathrow, just got through security. Bag was pushed into the 'manual inspection' channel, though so was just about everyone else's. All they did was use a sniffer machine on my bag of liquids. 

Filled up my empty water bottle at the drinking fountain; cheers MSE! Couldn't fill it completely as it wasn't a 'tap' but a squirty up thing, but still. Fingers crossed it doesn't leak. Squeezed as much air out of bottle as I could to reduce chances of air expanding and bursting it when cabin pressure lowers.

No real problems getting over here. Piccadilly train destination got changed from T4 to T1/2/3/5 so had to change at Hounslow West but wasn't pushed for time so no big deal. A few halts en route on Piccadilly were a touch worrying but again I wasn't too short on time. About an hour and a half to get to Heathrow, and I got here with a whisker under 3 hours til departure. So it's taken about an hour to get airside. I went over to the bag drop first to see if they wanted to do anything with my cabin bag but they didn't; a MoS was working the queue and although he took my passport off to scan it he didn't want to do anything else, so at least I didn't have to queue just to get to the counter to ask. TBH I could probably have not bothered and just gone through security but I had loads of time and thought it would set my mind at ease.

Apart from modest jitters at security am feeling pretty chilled out, almost surprisingly so.

Slightly disturbed to find GMail app is picking up new e-mails in the background even though I have background data restricted. In a way it's useful but I do wonder how much data this will burn; I'm on a tight-ish 1GB allowance on my Three PAYG SIM for the next 20-25 days. I don't plan on using it for anything other than e-mail but don't want to burn it all in case I find another need for it. Have set a hard 200MB usage limit so I shouldn't really worry unless/until that triggers early.

Very slightly tempted to go have a pint but (I haven't actually checked) I'm sure the price would be exhorbitant and I don't want to burn through my 14-unit-a-week alcohol budget unnecessarily even ignoring the money; I can probably have a beer on the plane for free, and I can have one with an enormous lunch tomorrow in Antigua if I feel like it.

Lingering doubts I've forgotten something but I probably haven't, and I have my passport and a credit card so it's not critical. I didn't re-pack today, I perhaps should have done but I felt I was more likely to accidentally leave something out than to discover anything missing.

2057 At gate 22. Managed to find a seat away from the burblings of BBC News 24. Not looking overly busy so far. Gate is a substantial hike from the main departure area, but perhaps because of that I did get a chance to snap a photo or two of our plane on the walk over.

While I could obviously have lingered over a pint, given the gate was called pretty soon after I wrote the previous bit and I'd have been unable to relax for wanting to neck it and get to the gate, I think it was a smart move not to have one.

Topping up phone with powerbank while I wait. There are limited mains charging facilities at the gate, which is nice, but I'm not going to fight for access to them. I could probably top up on the plane but I figure if I do it now I can probably avoid needing to do so in case it turns out to be prohibited for some reason. Only down to 80% but might as well top up while I can.

2156 Got battery up to 96%. On board. Looks like middle seat is free, into the lining! Flight seems reasonably full in general. Feeling OK actually. Was a bit worried my bag wouldn't physically fit into overhead locker but of course it did. This is a 787-8 FWIW, I just read the safety card because I'm conscientious and haven't flown for 4.5 years. Will switch to Mexico City time now, I don't want to go to Guatemala time lest it cause me to miss my connecting flight somehow.

Actually I won't. Phone in theory will adjust automatically so let's see if that works. I'll put my watch forward in a bit as a compromise.

0105 Just watched Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. Not entirely sure if I liked it or not, but sort of interesting. The airline had dubbed all the swear words out which grated a bit; it wasn't quite at the "melon farmer" level but perhaps approaching it.

Had a Corona and a small but tolerable portion of chicken in red thai sauce with mashed potatoes, oh, and a small chunk of bread and some chocolate.

Miscellaneous bodily pains but presumably just from sitting. Feeling OK, is a bit weird to look at the online map and think that I'm 30000 ft above the middle of the north Atlantic, but it"s not like I'm freaking out about it. Greenland is practically a solid lump of white on the onscreen map, I assume this is an artefact of the map rather than any kind of reflection on its actual terrain. But I should check when I have internet access again. Flight has wifi but AFAIK it's not free and I'm not that bothered.

Feeling a tiny bit tired, which I guess is not too surprising given the time back in the UK. Jet lag advice I read is to try to switch to destination time as soon as you leave, but since we land at 4am destination time I doubt I'll get much sleep following that plan to the letter.

Not sure if I want to try to sleep or not. I think I'll try another - lighter - film and accept I may fall asleep during it. Ultimately it's OK, I can sleep as much as I want once I get to Antigua.

0754 It's freezing. I exaggerate, a bit, but did manage to sleep/doze - hard to say how much - although I had to crack out the supplied blanket despite having my fleece on and zipping it up. Had blanket over head and not tucked inside the seatbelt. A few fasten seatbelt warnings but no one made a fuss and I didn't notice anything scary in the turbulence line. Just had breakfast (bit of fruit salad, scrambled eggs, mini muffin and some unrecognisable thing - a sausage?? in sauce which I left), we have 1h 50 to go ish and I hope to snooze some more [pause for refreshment] after coffee and orange juice. Maybe it's the food/drink but I feel a bit livelier now, though will probably still try to snooze.

Fitful thoughts - I am not sure they were dreams, they were more in the 'sitting back in seat with blanket over head and eyes closed waiting to go to sleep' - of spiders and having to go through immigration in GC and maybe having my fruit and nuts confiscated in transit in MC and having to guzzle some before security in MC and the eternal conundrum of 'keep passport in my security belt and risk mugging vs leave it in hostel and risk theft' for the wbole trip - but nothing too actively agonising. TBH the most vivid thoughts were of finally (FFS, it's only been one day) having a proper bed and a proper sleep.

Watched 2017 Murder on Orient Express before trying to sleep - was feeling tired towards end but did watch whole thing. I found it a bit melodramatic, especially at the start, and the Poirot a bit action hero/superstar-ish (the scene at what I assume was the Wailing Wall at the start seemed massively OTT; I have read the book - so knew the twist - but it was ages ago and I find it hard to believe that was in the book) but it did grow on me somewhat; certainly OK overall. (I still prefer David Suchet's Poirot; call me a pleb if you will.)

During pre-dreams did find myself thinking a) I can't afford to waste a whole day 'recovering' from the flight, I need to crack on and not get 'stuck' in Antigua b) that is exactly the kind of thing I need to fight against in the name of relaxing and not running round like a blue-arsed fly (a phrase I really must look up the origin on  BTW), I have 10 weeks and fun/interesting stuff can pop up anywhere, I don't need to push myself to save a day right at the start.

It will be about 4am in MC when we land. I hope it's not too grim. Haven"t used phone much on plane but battery is at 86% which isn't too shabby.

-56C outside. Must be at least 10C in here. :-) I do still feel cold but not as much as earlier. We're over the Gulf of Mexico, south-east-ish of Houston. No transit at George Bush International for me today anyway. :-)

0451 (Mexico) Phone has auto adjusted timezone, Three don't offer Go Roam here so have disabled mobile data and I hope I can't accidentally incur charges as I have no credit balance, just an add-on which I think will only work in UK and Go Roam countries.

Got through immigration and security OK. Bit stressful as always, security woman rather unsmiling but no quibbles with my bag here. I asked at the food products desk about my fruit and nuts, guy said they were fine (though I had nothing in writing). Had to chug my water before security so nothing to drink with them but hey, not too bad.

Thought it was pissing it down when we were on the plane waiting to disembark but it didn't look like it when we actually did disembark, no idea if I imagined it or it stopped and I didn't see any dampness on tarmac as it was dark. Was air bridge not bus anyway so not a big deal.

FWIW my hidden belt pouch thing seems to go through security scanners fine while I'm wearing it, although if it matters it never had my passport in.

Am in the bit with shops and signs for gates. A sign says free wifi but it doesn't tell you the name of the network or any password. My phone shows a billion wifi networks but of the passwordless ones I've tried I either get no internet or it just seems to not even bother to connect and shows them as 'Saved', which makes no sense. Wifi selector on phone pretty much unusable as it keeps refreshing the list (either reordering it or blanking it for a complete rescan) as I'm trying to use it. I don't *need* wifi but it's annoying to have this tantalising hint of connectivity then be thwarted.

Not overly hungry now and am thinking will crack the nuts open later; they're not salted but that way if they make me thirsty I will be closer to getting a drink on the next flight.

Feeling OK, a little bit tired but not too bad. Didn't enjoy the immigration/customs/security experience but to be fair except for some slightly unsmiling personnel and the fact I'm doing it in a foreign language it wasn't worse than usual.

Minor confusion as guy checking boarding passes at the entrance to the transit stairway evidently - in hindsight - interpreted airport code GUA as Guadalajara and asked me if I was going there. I dithered a bit and he repeated himself then I twigged and told him I was going to Guatemala and it was fine. My flight isn't on the screens yet but not too surprising. There is a flight to Miami which gives me confidence this isn't a domestic-only section or something.

0528 Been topping up phone (very slowly) at a free charging point here, but it's making me jittery I'm going to walk off without it or someone will steal it from under my nose, so am copying the idea of someone next to me and topping up my power bank instead - this is one reason I bought it (though thinking hostels more than airports) - it's less valuable, a less tempting target for theft and I can probably replace it easily if it does disappear, whereas I won't be able to buy a keyboard if I lose the Priv.

I think when we were at Heathrow the captain said (in the Spanish version of his spiel only) that the plane had been made in Mexico. I was/am a bit disconcerted at not being able to understand all the various announcements (eg at the gate) but to be fair I just need to practice and some of the announcements weren't so clear even in English.

0643 At gate 64; can't see a screen from my seat but I think this is my gate. Boarding not til 0725 anyway. Think powerbank got charged fully so left the charging area to come find my gate, taking advantage to visit bog en route. Had load of fruit/nuts while charging phone; could have shovelled more in but I was probably overdoing it, I certainly don't feel hungry and if I do have to discard the rest of the packet on landing I've at least had value from it.

Feeling a bit meh. Not really deeply worried, though until I came to the gate I was a bit edgy about having got confused and missing the flight. It is very mildly exotic to be here at MC airport, but only very mildly. I don't seriously doubt my ability to navigate immigration, customs and getting a shuttle bus to Antigua, but they feel a bit like unpleasant chores instead of excitingly adventurous. To be fair I think what's playing on my mind is really the concern that I will lose something or have it stolen. This always exists abroad but a) I haven't had time to get used to this feeling yet b) I am extra on edge because the consequences of losing something while flying seem worse c) once I have accommodation, I can at least subdivide my posessions to reduce the risk of losing everything.

Will see if I can top phone up from powerbank while I sit here.

0752 On plane. Some chance of no one in middle seat. 737-800. Been yawning a bit in the terminal, further proof I guess I didn't get a huge amount of sleep.

Need to ask someone about 'buen dia' vs 'buenos dias' - is there a difference? is one wrong? See, already I am learning things. :-)

Felt a bit cold coming on to plane. It's daylight now and I think outside temp is about 16C so bit surprising. Feel OK now, probably just tiredness.

1021 Through immigration and customs. Will try to send this now...

Guatemala preparation, part 5

Fri 13:20 Back in London after a few days visiting parents. While attempting to confirm my flight bookings, I found many scary reviews of and negative comments on Opodo - I could swear I checked this out before I booked my flights through them and they seemed to get mostly OK reviews. Who knows? I am taking some comfort from the fact that Aeromexico's own site accepts my booking reference, so with any luck I am now largely independent of Opodo and it doesn't matter if they are good or not. (My recollection is that when I looked before booking the flight, they had huge numbers of reviews on the sites I looked at, and about 20% of them were really negative, but the other booking site I was looking at had a relative handful of reviews and maybe the same proportion of negatives. There are always going to be some people who are just massively unhappy for no "good" reason - I seem to recall seeing lots of whinging about being charged fees to make changes to tickets, and while I agree the whole process is unpleasant and chiselling, it is something you kind of expect before you start and I doubt anywhere offering budget fares is significantly different.) I'll have to look into this more carefully before any future booking, but fingers crossed I am OK this time anyway.

Going to walk over to town and back to do a tiny bit of extra shopping, though I do have almost everything I need already.

17:40 Actually quite enjoyed the walk today; my feet hurt a bit but not too much. I think what really helped is the feeling that I wasn't under pressure to buy loads of crap; I wanted to get a few bits and pieces but they weren't essential. I did actually manage to get a long-sleeved non-cotton T-shirt in the Tottenham Court Road branch of Mountain Warehouse, so that was a bonus.

Sat 00:10 DIcking around trying to get stuff together to pack. I've dug out my motley collection of SD cards and I'm trying to see if they still work etc. LIke the anal-retentive idiot I am, I left loads of old photos on some of them - presumably on the grounds that "it's an extra copy if I suddenly realise I made a mistake and wiped some other copy" while I was sorting things out after the last trip. Of course, this means that despite being 95% certain I have all these photos safely filed away on my main PC (and backed up along with all my other data), I now have to copy the files off and leave them on my PC's hard drive to check they are duplicates before I delete them. Assuming, of course, I ever get round to doing that. This isn't a seriously problem in terms of packing, but it is a problem in terms of having created unnecessary work for myself later on.

Having heard that you don't get a free plastic bag for the onerous and wanky liquids check at security any more, I've dug one out and just about got my liquids into it. (I'd have liked to use a nice freezer bag with a decent-ish plastic zip on, but I only had one which was too small to get everything in and one which was slightly over the maximum permitted size of 20cmx20cm, and I don't want to give some jobsworth fuckwit any unnecessary excuse to screw me over.) The bag of liquids weighs 600g. I really should look into some of the non-liquid alternatives at some point - this being mainly about weight reduction, but having the added advantage of minimising security shit with liquids. I'm not taking insane quantities of anything here; I could buy a micro-sized tube of toothpaste but unless I'm actually going to be squeaking up against the hand luggage limit for the flight there's no major point doing that kind of thing, because I care more about the weight when I'm lugging the bag round the country, not on the flight, and I'm not going to keep buying micro-sized toothpaste once I get there so I'd be lugging round a full-sized tube anyway. And similarly for other items, not just toothpaste.

While I'm rambling, I picked up a pretty ragged paperback copy of Dorothy Sayers' "Strong Poison" at a charity shop to take with me. I've read it before - though I don't remember it very well - and the plan is that this will seem sufficiently un-valuable that I'll be willing to swap it if I get a chance to do so. Most of my reading will be on my phone or my Nook e-reader, but I like to have at least one physical book - ideally a smallish one, as this one is - for situations where I can't use an electronic device or they're running low on power.

The Nook weighs 200g and I find myself wondering if I shouldn't take it, but unless I'm really tight on weight I probably will. While I'd be pissed off to lose it, it's much less valuable than my phone (I also only ever use it on holiday, so if I lose it on holiday I lost it "doing what it was purchased to do", so to speak) and I can imagine feeling a bit less vulnerable "showing it off" if I want to sit and read somewhere public (e.g. a bus). Unless it has degraded enormously through age and/or lack of use, the battery is also pretty long-lasting and the main thing is that it avoids running my phone battery down "just" so I can read.

Sat 1215 Pretty grey, grim looking morning. Still intend to trog over to Decathlon for some final supplies. I really also need to pick up a small souvenir of London - a keyring or something - as a gift for my Spanish teacher, who I will probably meet in the flesh - but I will probably worry about that tomorrow unless I happen to spot something en route to Decathlon.

With this slightly grim weather, I might as well make a note of something I hope to bear in mind during the trip. I have moments - I suspect I'm not unique in this - when things start to look pretty shitty. For example, I might wake up on Monday morning and think "Fuck, I have to fly tonight. I'm terrified. This is going to be a fucking disaster." The key point to remember when this happens is:

"your feelings are not facts!... If your perceptions make no sense, the feelings they create will be as absurd as the images reflected in the trick mirrors at an amusement park. But these abnormal emotions feel just as valid and realistic as the genuine feelings created by undistorted thoughts, so you automatically attribute truth to them.

...

Unpleasant feelings merely indicate that you are thinking something negative and believing it. Your emotions follow your thoughts just as surely as baby ducks follow their mother. But the fact that the baby ducks follow faithfully along doesn't prove that the mother knows where she is going!"

(David D Burns, Feeling Good)

Changing topic completely, I am totally unable to find a headphone adapter for those weird two-pin headphone sockets you (still?) occasionally find on planes. I am pretty sure I had one with my last set of headphones (which have now broken), but I can't find the adapter anywhere. I am not ripping the entire flat apart looking for this - I suspect it fell out of the headphone drawstring bag into my pocket and then into the street at some point over the last few years - and I'll just have to hope the flight doesn't have sockets like that. I am annoyed all the same.

Weather forecast is to piss it down all day. Yay!

19:30 So I walked over to Decathlon and back. It was raining pretty much the whole time, but it wasn't too bad and I got the tiny item I was after. I also just cut my hair; I really wasn't in the mood to do it, it always feels like a massive chore, but it needed doing and now it's over with. Next time I have it done will be a linguistic challenge at a small barber's somewhere in Guatemala. :-)

I need to pack tonight and check I've got everything I need. I could feel a minor temptation to buy more shit in Decathlon - not that there was anything I actually needed, but I think it felt a bit like it might constitute being better prepared and help set my mind at ease. I resisted, however; I have my packing list, I know what I need, and since Decathlon weren't selling confidence-in-a-tube there was no need to buy anything else.

21:00 Continuing to intermittently test my SD card collection. They seem to mostly work; some of them sometimes appear not to, but after enough inserting and removing they then seem to work after all. This makes me a bit edgy but I tend to keep so many different copies of photos when I'm away the chances of losing anything to a single card failure are slim, and while it would be galling to lose a load of photos it's not the end of the world.

It seems hard to be sure, but half the time I suspect the problem is that some of the micro-to-full-size SD card adapters are a bit dodgy (or at least loose).

Sat 00:05 Probably already said this, but I do need to strive not to run around like a blue-arsed fly this trip. Take it easy, don't put pressure on myself. Have fucking lunch even if I got up late; it's supposed to be fun! I'm not going to regret not visiting the cheese museum in Quetzalteopan on my deathbed. (Maybe if I spend several days doing "nothing", I need to have a word with myself. But I need to keep the pressure off otherwise.) I also need to try to resist the temptation to read books/write blog posts on my phone when I'm out and about, partly from a theft deterrent perspective and partly so that I am in with a chance of getting into conversation with people. Need to acknowledge that, yes, I am interested in striking up a conversation rather than deliberately occupying myself with the phone to avoid sitting there feeling like a loser.

Since I'm just waffling, I did read something the other day - can't remember where - which struck a chord. The gist being that people like Cortez and Magellan had genuine reason to be feel nervous before setting out, whereas I don't. There's a well-developed tourist infrastructure where I'm going, fuck, I even more-or-less speak the language. I think the thing is that intellectually I know this, but emotions take no cognisance of these subtleties. (I also know that I would be a bit nervous anyway, but the vaguely scary warnings on the various government travel advice websites are lurking around in my brain and making things a lot worse. Not that I'm too edgy right now, to be honest.)

Sun 16:35 Thanks, Opodo! They've sent me an e-mail saying (and I quote) "Check in before it closes! There's only a few hours left to check in for your flight". Sudden panic, that a) I've missed this b) I will get stuck with a shit seat because I didn't check in ASAP. But no, I just went to the Aeromexico web site and tried to do the check in and it says the check-in window will open in 6 hours, exactly as I'd expect. I assume this is Opodo touting - very confusingly - their own app which will check you in automatically. I am not touching this because I can't find any reviews of it and I suspect it will irrevocably go and check me in and pick a terrible seat without my involvement. Even if there are only terrible seats left when I come to check in myself, at least I'll be able to see for myself instead of having a lingering doubt that I got screwed over by the app.

18:20 So I've finished packing. Except for the billion SD cards which I'm still testing and dithering over. According to my luggage scale - a ridiculous thing to own, given how little I use it, but it was a present - my bag weighs 7.1kg. Numerically this is a pretty decent result; it may in practice be a smidge heavier in day-to-day use as it will have my fleece in and a bottle of water, but I'll wear the fleece to the airport and of course I can't carry the water through because it's a security risk (FFS), so this is the number which will count for being allowed to take the bag as a carry-on. It does feel a little heavier than I'd have liked; I didn't think I was in that bad a shape, maybe I'm not. I can't say this is really ridiculously heavy or anything.

Poking around some old blog entries, assuming I am trusting those luggage scales, my bag weighed 7.3kg (with the daypack - containing the netbook and a few bits and bobs - removed) at Kiev airport in 2013. So I do seem to be doing fairly well, and it does look like I have "saved" the weight of the netbook by not taking it, despite the extra lightweight shell garments I'm having to take this time, since the no-netbook bag now weighs a bit less than the no-netbook bag in Kiev in 2013.

19:05 The brain's a funny thing, eh? I just popped out to Tesco to get a few bits and pieces and walking out of the flat and seeing it was dark and then being in Tesco with the Sunday evening idiots blocking the aisles, I thought "fuck, I'm going tomorrow" and felt a bit pre-homesick.

I bought a 500g bag of dried fruit and nuts to shove in my bag - so there's a chunk of extra weight already. I suspect I'll have to discard those if I haven't eaten them in either Mexico City (where I transit) or Guatemala, but this way I have something to eat if the airline meals are inedible or insubstantial. Barring accidents I have a three hour wait in Mexico City and I really don't want to be buying food in the terminal as a) it's likely to be super-expensive b) I don't want to use my credit card for fear of it being cloned or blocked (this happened to me after using my card at Heathrow in 2006 and I've never got over it...) c) I don't want to withdraw pesos from a cash machine and be stuck with them for months or years just to buy a bit of food. I will probably compromise on those points if I have to, but that's the plan.

I wanted to get a small packet of hard mints to keep in my pocket but my local Tesco couldn't do any better than soft mints or Werther's Original. I'll perhaps pop over to another shop tomorrow; I don't want to be doing too much tomorrow, but I'll probably go nuts if I'm just hanging around waiting to leave all day and if I fail to buy any it's not the end of the world.

22:41 Whew! Checked in online, I got an aisle seat on both flights. I feel amazingly better for this, much more than I expected. FWIW there was no shortage of aisle (or window, for that matter, had I wanted one) seats, but obviously some flights will be different. I was sitting there hitting the refresh button on the web checkin page every minute as the checkin window approach. :-)

In a superstitious touch, I got a seat in a row which I consider a "lucky" number, and I also picked (because there was no real reason to prefer one over another which I could see) exactly the same seat number on both the two flights.

I did look on seatguru.com for the longer of the two flights, although the no-extra-charge good seats at the back had already gone and it didn't otherwise help, but I guess no real harm in looking.

22:59 Have also just sneaked out to deposit the contents of my kitchen bin in a public litter bin; I won't be here on the regular collection day and I don't want this stuff in the flat while I'm away. Just hope I wasn't caught on CCTV and there's no identifying material in the bag; I'm sure the council are red hot on inappropriate use of public facilities in this way.

Mon 01:24 Been tidying up some of the not-packed junk from the floor and so forth. Might have a bath now and then go to bed. Plan is to try to get up earlyish tomorrow for no ultra obvious reason; I do hope to do a tiny bit of shopping (e.g. for mints) but not a big deal, and I want to cook for myself tomorrow too. Probably need to leave the flat about 6pm. I've had a very quick check of the F&CO travel advice for Guatemala; I didn't re-read it all (no point shitting myself up unnecessarily), the key thing is that the advice has not been updated since 7th September so there's no new information to take into account.

Been accumulating this for ages which is probably a bad habit as the draft could get lost, so let me send it now anyway.

Guatemala preparation, part 4

So I got vaccinated this morning. Bit of a balls up when I turned up at the clinic - they had no record whatsoever of my appointment and didn't have another slot 'til next Tuesday. I managed not to start cursing but did persist a bit (instead of just slinking off to wait a week or pay for private vaccinations) on the offchance it helped. I left in a pretty foul mood all the same but they called me back literally a few minutes later to tell me they had a cancellation for 11:30. They might have done that anyway, maybe being a bit persistent helped, who knows?

Got typhoid (valid for 3 years) and combined tetanus/diptheria/polio (valid for 10 years). Malaria is low or no risk so it's just a case of using insect repellant; ditto for zika and dengue. Mildly shitted up by the fact rabies is recommended for IIRC long-term travellers or whatever, and I simply don't have the time to get it done now. I've had a bit of a poke around on the web and not too worried about this now. If you get bitten and and get the post-bite vaccination promptly it's fine; I think they told me this today and I already knew. I think the post-bite vaccination is widely available in Guatemala - it's not like I'm heading off on any multi-day expeditions into the middle of nowhere either - and the suggestion seems to be that nearly all cases of rabies in Guatemala are from dog bites, and I would imagine I'm going to know about it if I'm bitten by a dog. (The idea of a bat bite had me a bit worried because it might be something I wouldn't realise was a bite.)

It seems to cost about £165 to get the three rabies shots in the UK, which takes about 3-4 weeks in total. (It's not available on the NHS anyway; I was told by the nurse today they didn't do it, presumably not even if I paid them.) I just might get this done prior to a future trip, given it lasts ten years, but I've never had it before so who knows if I will bother. See how I feel when I come back from Guatemala I guess; I'd probably have time to squeeze in the vaccinations round Christmas before any subsequent trip in January.

The vaccination booklet I have seems to imply I was due for a hepatitis A booster in August 2016, but the nurse told me today (she double checked the booklet, and I do believe her) that I didn't need it as I'd had two shots already. (As I say, I did believe her, but a quick bit of poking around on the web finds slightly confusing information which does seem to back this up; one site says the first two shots provide 20 years of protection and possibly lifetime protection.)

My left arm hurts a bit but nothing too bad yet.

I did finally manage to buy some trousers apparently suitable for hiking on Monday, after an epic trek (wearing cotton trousers; living on the edge, baby) into central London and back to see what the shops there had. (I walked; apart from saving tube fares, I figured it's only sensible to get some walking in before trying to walk uphill in Guatemala.) In the end I just bought some from Sports Direct, although it was the branch on Oxford Street or wherever not one of my local ones. I dropped them into that local tailor yesterday to be shortened, and will go over to collect them shortly - if he's done a decent job, I'll be pretty impressed (one day turnaround for a fiver, I think he would have been willing to do them same day if I'd wanted but I didn't want to push it). I also managed to buy a fleece and jacket combination at one of the local Sports Direct shops yesterday, so the enormous list of things I need to buy is gradually dwindling.

I plan to go and try to buy some shoes (local Sports Direct again; cheap 'n cheerful, that's me - I did happen to go into one boutiquey outdoors shop in town which had some trousers at £140 a pair, at which point I decided that wasn't the shop for me) this afternoon and maybe a pair of those waterproof over-trouser things. I can see the weight saved in my bag by not taking a netbook being stolen away by all this stuff, but if you need it you need it (and I must admit I was probably taking a bit of a risk that time I went off wandering into the hills in Mestia without having basic gear like the stuff I'm buying now) and while it's moderately bulky I guess most of it is fairly lightweight (I care far more about weight than volume), and I would be have been taking a jacket of some kind otherwise so the weight can be offset against that in part.

I do feel there's so much crap to sort out before I go and I'm running out of time; I've hardly managed to do any Spanish study because I've been getting so worked up trying to sort out the clothes. If the trousers are OK when I get them back from the tailor that will hopefully take a lot of the pressure off; as I think I said before, I can buy other clothes off the peg (even if I don't like the price or the neon colouring or whatever), it's just the trousers which are really tricky. The one consolation is that I'm not spending insane amounts of money on the clothes - trousers were about £25, the fleece+jacket about £50 (I could have maybe saved a tenner there by trying it on in the shop and then ordering the same thing off the shop's web store, but apart from being a bit cheap I wanted to get the things bought and in my possession ASAP), the shoes will probably weigh in about £30-40 tops. Yeah, I'm sure I'm not getting the best possible quality, but I have to assume the stuff is basically functional (doesn't leak and/or insulates, as appropriate) and I'm not doing anything terribly extreme.

[time passes]

OK, about 4 hours after the vaccinations and the muscle(s) in my upper left are hurting nicely now... On the plus side, the trousers are fine and I went out and bought some shoes, need to wear them for the next week or so to try them out but probably OK. They're a bit chunkier than I might like for normal not-hiking wear but I think an acceptable compromise. Because I'm just so goddam tough I'm going to ignore the burgeoning pain in my arm and trog out again to see if I can get any more stuff, and maybe see if I can get my Metro bank card replaced while I'm at it.

[next day]

So I did go get my Metro bank card replaced - very slick, very convenient  - and I bought some (in hindsight, overpriced - but not insanely expensive at £22-ish) waterproof over-trouser things at SportsDirect. I then ended up going for a few beers with Patrick - only a few, not loads! That was fun and he gave me some advice re all this clothing stuff which (like any advice in this area) was a mixture of scary and helpful. I got home quite early, foolishly indulged in a massive snacking binge even though I wasn't actually all that hungry and went to bed. My left arm was hurting like a bastard at this point. Long story short, I woke up several times during the night, once in a massive cold sweat, once feeling sick, another time with my brain seemingly doing the "stuck record" kind of thing, unable to move off from one (totally inoffensive, but relatively dull) thought, another time with my feet inexplicably cold. I guess this is all down to some mixture of beer, the vaccinations and the snacks.

(While I don't think the beer was more than a relatively small component of this, this did give me a kind of reminder that I ned to be careful not to render myself too uncomfortably sick while I'm away on holiday via over-indulgence. Obviously sometimes the situation gets away from me and that's kind of part of the fun, but I am also taking this as a kind of warning. It was pretty miserable feeling all these different kinds of sick in the comfort of my own home, with a private bathroom on hand and everything.)

I finally woke up about 10-11 feeling much better (but a bit tired and not really wanting to get up). I trogged over to Decathlon at Canada Water (Patrick's suggestion) - that was about an hour each way, as before I figured walking would be good exercise/practice and would save money on tube fares. I was pretty impressed at the size of the place and the levels of stock, not like e.g. Mountain Warehouse in the centre of town where most things didn't seem to be available in all sizes.

I managed to get some non-cotton short-sleeved T-shirts (really cheap; about three quid each) and since Patrick had mentioned it I also bought a bandanna/scarfy thing which I can apparently wear on my head and drape down the back of my neck instead of a cap. Frankly I'm not sure I'll have the balls to wear this, but it was only about three quid and it weighs bugger all so taking it with me won't hurt. I guess it's the sort of thing I might feel OK wearing on an actual hike but when I'm just wandering around town I will probably wear my cap, or just put sun block on my head.

No joy getting a long-sleeved T-shirt. I did find one which wasn't completely skin tight by design, but it was still a bit tight and my nipples were on permanent display when I tried it on so I decided against that. Sorry ladies. :-) Notwithstanding advice I have read that a long-sleeved T-shirt can be better for keeping cool, I am probably going to bow to what's available in the shops and just take short-sleeved ones with me, and maybe I will be able to pick up a cheap long-sleeved T-shirt while I'm over there. (My Spanish teacher tells me there's quite a bit of cheap clothing available in the market in Antigua.) I haven't completely given up, I will probably be going into town at least once more and Mountain Warehouse did have one or two vaguely possibly acceptable long-sleeved T-shirts so I may try those on; I didn't bother before because at £15 they seemed a bit pricey, but compared to other stuff I've seen that isn't actually too insane if they actually fit etc.

I am finally close to having completed all the clothing purchases. I'm not saying I won't buy anything else, but it's just the odd item or two and at a pinch I could get away without it. I hope this will allow me to finally concentrate on all the other little bits of preparation I want to do.

Guatemala preparation, part 3

Been doing a bit of casual web searching as a way of easing in to trying to find some of the information I need despite my tendency to avoid thinking about these awkward issues. A couple of web sites turned up randomly by Google for tour companies in Guatemala suggest that the equipment requirements for day and overnight hikes are not that different. (This assumes the tour company supplies tents/sleeping bags, that is - at least one of these random ones does. I don't intend to take my own and am not necessarily intending to overnight hike in any circumstances, but I thought I'd mention this while it's in my head.)

Broadly speaking they appear to recommend closed-toed shoes, not trainers with a flat sole but trail running shoes are fine (though they do seem to say hiking boots are best). Now I come to write this I realise I didn't notice anything - maybe I wasn't paying attention - about shorts vs trousers, but let's ignore that for now. (Besides, I am not wearing shorts unless the alternative is dying of heat exhaustion or someone has a gun to my head. ;-) ) They also say you need a warm layer and a wind layer; based on some earlier poking around I did on Wikipedia, I am guessing this means something like a fleece and a thin (mostly) rainproof outer layer. They don't seem to be very explicit, but I'm guessing a similar thin outer layer for trousers is required too. They do say - not that this is new advice, though I have no idea where to buy clothes which satisfy it - that cotton is not recommended as it's crap if it gets wet.

In terms of travelling light, I do normally have some kind of jacket/fleece with me on these trips anyway, so taking a fleece with me (which I'd hope could be used in the evenings in towns etc if it's cold, assuming I can get one which isn't super brightly coloured) is no major hardship. So ignoring questions of cost, the extra stuff mainly comes down to this hypothetical shell layer, which I'd hope is not terribly heavy or bulky.

I'm pretty sure I can get a T-shirt style thing which isn't cotton which would be fine for normal everyday wear, and I think there's a chance I can find a pair of trail running shoes which are sufficiently non-extreme-looking that I could just wear them all the time - I really don't want to be lugging around multiple pairs of shoes if I can help it. I'm far from sure I can get a pair of trousers which aren't cotton which would be fine for normal everyday wear, so that might be extra bulk and weight to lug around, but maybe I'm being pessimistic. After all, I know bugger all about this stuff.

I am thinking I might potter over to the local Sports Direct tomorrow to see what, if anything, they stock. I had thought I might go right into town to find some slightly more specialised and/or larger shops, but I think SD is likely to be cheap-ish and I'm not trekking to the poles or anything; no harm in taking an initial look at SD's stock anyway just to ease my mind gradually into dealing with this stuff.

Something else which emerged from this casual bit of reading up is that the best time to do these kind of things is supposedly November-March, when it's dry. This isn't to say that I won't do these things in October assuming tour companies are offering them - I guess you need the wet weather gear regardless as there's always a chance of rain, and I did read something suggesting it's often dry in the morning so the shorter half-day hikes can be done then anyway - but in terms of sketching out an itinerary it does suggest that all else being equal I should prefer doing this kind of thing in the second half of the trip. But I'm sure the weather isn't that predictable and it may be dry in mid-late October some years or still be pissing it down all the time in late November in others.

While I'm rambling, I think I forgot to say that when I booked the flights, it would have cost something like an extra hundred quid (a 20% increase on the overall flight cost!) to have chosen my seats there and then. I really really do want an aisle seat if possible, but not badly enough to pay an extra 20% for the flights. I just hope I don't regret this when the time comes to fly. I will do the usual thing of checking in online as soon as the check-in window opens (I think it's 24 hours before departure) and it will probably be fine, but if not maybe I can use my crippling cheapness as a weapon in the fight against my fear of non-aisle seating. :-) I am also kind of thinking that as the flights are overnight, if I do have a shitty seat I could deliberately get minimal/no sleep the night before the flight so as to increase the chances of me sleeping through the flight.

[Next day]

OK, so I went out and checked out Sports Direct, because they're local. One of the two local shops had closed the basement, where I think most of the vaguely hiking type gear was, due to flooding. Anyway, I had a bit of a wander round and peered at the shoes and so forth. There did seem to be some shoes marketed as multi-activity which don't have a flat sole (apparently a big no-no as noted above) which while looking a bit chunkier than I'd like for day-to-day wear are probably acceptable, if not ideal.

I didn't actually see much in the way of shell jackets and fleeces but I found a combination on sale on the SD website which looks like it would be acceptable and drab enough to wear day-to-day as well - I don't want to be wandering round town in a dayglo jacket... 

They had quite a few pairs of different "outdoorsy" trousers and I'm reasonably confident I can get something fairly acceptable looking for day-to-day wear - these may well actually be a big win and more comfortable than anything I'd have been wearing if I hadn't had to look into all this stuff.Tthey also had the waterproof trouser things which I think you wear on top (not instead) and they do seem sufficiently lightweight they won't bulk my bag up too much. Biggest worry was actually that even the "small" size trousers appeared (from just holding them up against me; I didn't faff trying anything on as I didn't intend to buy at that point) to be massively too long. However, I remembered a local tailor I'd walked past once or twice so I thought I'd wander over to see if it was still there; it was, they were open and they told me it would be £5 (a leg? or for a pair? but acceptable either way) to shorten them and it takes a couple of days, so that's probably OK. Having had a poke around on the web I think I may be able to buy a different brand of cheap trousers which actually come in a short leg anyway.

What actually seemed virtually nonexistent was any kind of fairly plain T-shirt, ideally long-sleeved, which isn't made of apparently-lethal cotton. But maybe I just didn't look hard enough.

I think I will be able to find some acceptable stuff at tolerable prices with a bit more shopping. If anything the critical path is getting some trousers, in case I do need to get them turned up. I'm thinking I'll probably trog into town tomorrow and have a look at e.g. Mountain Warehouse, as they appear to be relatively cheap and cheerful. If I can get some trousers purchased tomorrow from somewhere I should have time to get them altered if necessary, then I can if necessary dick around over the next few days buying other items.

I note some of the cheaper "outdoorsy" trousers appear to be polyester/cotton blends; a quick bit of googling suggests that there's some disagreement but that this is probably acceptable and won't be massively uncomfortable or kill me, though it depends on the environment. I have to remember that these guys are probably talking about really serious fucking hiking and I'm probably not.

I'm far from clear what would be a good idea as far as socks go, but there was no shortage of those in stock so I can easily pick some of those up at some point in the next couple of weeks.

[Time passes]

It does occur to me that maybe I'm getting overly exercised about this. I mean, it's supposed to be fun. But maybe not. Sure, the trip is supposed to be fun, and hiking (or whatever we're going to call it) is supposed to be some combination of fun and nerve-inducing novelty (for me), but shopping is not something I expect to find fun, especially shopping for clothes in the barren wasteland of the Venn diagram where my lack of expertise in hiking and lack of expertise in making tasteful clothing choice intersect. So I guess I should not quite so bothered by it, but not be surprised if I'm not particularly enjoying this.

Guatemala preparation, part 2

Some of the goodies I've treated myself to from amazon in anticipation of the trip arrived today, like a 64GB micro SD card for my phone (for music and backups of photos) and some insect repellent containing picaridin which is supposed to be effective but without DEET's wonderful plastic-melting qualities. (I suspect DEET is what completely destroyed the lens on the camera on my old smartphone, but I don't know for sure.)

Just booked a hostel in Antigua; I dithered a bit but in the end went for six nights, I figure the first day is going to be a write-off after the flights and I should easily be able to fill five days there, and as I think I said before it seems like a comfortable spot to get my bearings in before I go anywhere else. I booked via hostelworld - my old account seems to have been quietly deleted, although this is probably no big loss. About £13/night for a single room with shared bathroom with apparently all taxes included and a supposedly pretty substantial free breakfast if I can get up in time to eat it. (I may stay in a dormitory occasionally to keep costs down, but at this sort of price I'm springing for a private room while I get myself settled in.)

I did notice one cheaper hostel had small print saying there was a 22% tax in addition, whereas the one I booked didn't say this and the booking does tax is included in the price. Worth bearing this in mind on future bookings too.

I didn't spend all that long choosing a specific hostel; I went for something with cheap single rooms, a good location and reasonable reviews. I did wonder about trying to pick a lively/"party" hostel, but given my age and the fact that I want to find my feet for a few days first, I figure it's better for me to go out and try to meet people rather than trying to have everything right there at the hostel. I have free cancellation up to just before I fly out anyway, which also helped to ameliorate the desire to agonise too much over how many nights to book.

I'll probably make the final decision when I'm there and can see what it's like, but my gut feeling is I don't want to spend time in a Spanish school in Antigua. It would be too easy to just squat there for half the trip without ever seeing anything else, and while it is in some sense a very safe place *because* it's so tourist-friendly, I am also picturing it as stuffed full of 20-somethings and impossible for me to meet anyone in. No point worrying about this now anyway, I'll see what it's like when I'm there.

I haven't sorted out the bus from La Aurora to Antigua yet. I think the hostel does offer a transfer service, but I have no idea if it's competitive on price - I haven't done any research on this at all yet. I wasn't offered the chance to buy this service when I booked so I can always get in touch with the hostel in a day or two if I decide I'm interested in their service and they haven't tried to sell it to me themselves first anyway. You can probably just turn up at the bus station at the airport on the day, but given my safety concerns and the fact that I'll be zonked after the flights, I probably do want to pre-book. But I'll need to read up and see what's advised, really.

Guatemala preparation, part 1 of n

So after what's arguably way too long, I'm planning on taking another trip. I had a look at the world map on kayak.co.uk to see where I could go cheaply, and given my penchant for Latin America, I've decided to give Guatemala a try. After much dithering and agonising over the inevitable scary advice on UK/US/Canadian/Australian government websites, reading advice on forums and speaking to my (Guatemalan) Spanish teacher I went ahead and booked travel insurance and flights on Tuesday; I fly out in just over two weeks. This is a bit short notice but circumstances slightly outside my control prevented me booking earlier and I didn't want to postpone the start of the trip.

I think most of the vaccinations I had in the past have expired - I probably got them done for my 2006 trip to Mexico and they only last ten years, but I have managed to get an NHS appointment for next Wednesday after only a small amount of lecturing about short notice from the receptionist, and I think that while this isn't ideal it's probably OK. I'll be away for long enough that even if I'm under-protected right at the start of the trip it's still worth getting these shots done. I had originally planned to go private (which I hoped would save time) since I thought most vaccinations weren't free on the NHS, but when I looked it seems the recommended ones for Guatemala are.

I am quite nervous and excited about this. Not that I was ever exactly blasé about travel, but since it's been about 4.5 years since I last left the UK I half hope I will experience some of the sense of novelty and wonder I did when I first went to Mexico (my first trip outside Europe) in 2006. Time will tell, I guess.

It feels like there is so much preparation to do and very little time, especially since I would like to swot up on my Spanish before I go. In theory I am studying all the time as just a general hobby, but there's no denying I'm a bit lax and I hope that having this trip in prospect will give me a bit more motivation. I do half intend to spend some time in Spanish schools in Guatemala, but I'm not booking anything in advance and I don't intend to spend more than about half of my time in schools. Whether I go to a school or not, it will be helpful to bone up first.

After having carefully signed up for various good-for-travel credit cards over the last six months in vague anticipation of taking a trip, I have now decided I'm not taking most of them with me because the credit limits are too high (and I don't like to ask to have the credit limits reduced because I might regret that in the future when I'm back in the UK). I've therefore applied for two bank accounts with debit cards which work well abroad and am hoping the cards will arrive before I leave; I think I'll be OK on this.

I have only had a quick flick through my paperback 2007-vintage travel guide, but I can vaguely imagine wanting to do a certain amount of very modest hiking. We're talking there-and-back in a day sort of thing, not multi-day stuff. This opens up an enormous can of clothing worms; I am currently intermittently surfing the web and asking people for advice on this. On the one hand, I don't want to die of exposure. On the other hand, I don't want to be over-sold hundreds of pounds worth of bulky, heavy hiking boots and padded jackets suitable for arctic expeditions. Vague plan is to go into town at some point in the next few days and have a bit of a browse in some shops to see what's available. I suppose in theory I could probably buy whatever I need once I'm there, but I'd feel happier (and less of a forced buyer) if I can get it here before I go.

Technology has obviously moved on since 2007 (as has my ability to travel light) and I now only take electronic guidebooks with me. Having had a quick poke around, it looks like a full Guatemala guidebook in electronic form clocks in at around £10-15. That's not insane, but (especially with all the information available on the web) I'm not really sure it's worth it either. I am not sure if I have ever stayed in any accommodation recommended in a guide book - it's usually not available on the web sites I'm booking on, and the guide book is usually at least a year or two old and I tend to wonder if the recommendations are still valid. What I think I'll probably do is just buy the Guatemala chapter of a Central America guidebook - that will run about £3, will provide me with an offline reference if I'm stuck with no internet access and should cover all the main tourist sites anyway. Anything more obscure is likely to be something I'll find out about on the web or from talking to people.

I don't want to plan the trip out in excessive detail but I think it would help to sketch out a rough itinerary. Based on what I've read so far, Guatemala City sounds a bit dangerous. I am flying in and out of there, but I think I will probably get a bus straight over to Antigua on arrival - Antigua is by all accounts extremely safe and tourist-friendly (not to say exploitative?) so that way I can recover from the flight and start to settle down before I venture further afield. I may put in a few days in Guatemala City just before I fly home, depending on how I feel after having been in the country for a couple of months. I need to look into booking a bus ticket in advance (if possible) and definitely need to book some accommodation in Antigua for the first 2-4 nights ASAP.

I normally find it virtually impossible to have a mobile phone that works when I'm abroad; even when I buy local SIM cards they usually refuse to work in my oddball phones. With a bit of luck this trip will be an exception; it appears that Three's Feel At Home/Go Roam option will allow me to pay £10-£20 a month on a PAYG SIM and have a virtually infinite supply of UK phone call minutes and even mobile data which I can use in Guatemala. If I need to call a Guatemalan number that will be billed as an international call, but I typically don't need to do that, and I think I can work around that by calling via Skype using the mobile data and a few quid of credit on my Skype account anyway. I haven't confirmed that this will work yet, but I have a Three SIM handy and I'll give it a try.

On previous trips I have taken my netbook with me to satisfy my nerdy requirements for computer access. (If nothing else, I can't go out every night, and so a quiet evening in the ho(s)tel surfing the web passes the time pleasantly.) The netbook is not exactly heavy and it was never valuable (£200 IIRC) even when it was brand new, but it does weigh about 1.2kg and it is showing its age as well; it struggles to comfortably browse the web any more. I could buy a new one, but even the very lightest modern netbooks/Chromebooks/laptops seem to be just as heavy, and 1.2kg is probably 10-15% of the total weight of my bag and I think saving that weight could make a big difference in the comfort of carrying it around. I've therefore decided I am going to experimentally just take my smartphone on this trip. I did toy with taking a tablet as a compromise, but really it is the keyboard I would miss more than anything, and by the time I've added a Bluetooth keyboard to my Nexus 10 the weight is getting back up towards what a netbook would weigh anyway. I think a 7" tablet with a keyboard might only clock in at about half the weight of a netbook, but I'd have to buy both specially for this trip so I am going to experiment with just having the smartphone first.

I just hope i don't get my (unusual) smartphone, complete with UK SIM, stolen, especially early on. I am sure I could buy a half-decent smartphone for not too much money in Guatemala, and a local SIM to boot, but my actual smartphone has a hardware keyboard (which is super rare and uncool these days, of course - but is in part why I'm willing to try doing without a netbook for two months) and the SIM will be my UK-issued Three SIM so both will be kind of irreplaceable.

One downside to my current smartphone is that it doesn't have a removable battery, which I find really handy on a trip as it means I can just carry a spare battery or two and swap them in when I need to. I'm going to compensate for that by taking a powerbank, but it's quite bulky and I'd probably rather have the option to just do battery swaps. On the other hand, I can at least charge the powerbank and the phone at the same time, whereas I could only charge the spare removable batteries in the phone.

I need to resist the temptation to repeatedly say this, but I'm aware most of what I write here is pretty tedious stuff and not the kind of exciting travel adventures which just might possibly make this interesting for someone else to read. At the very best, this blog is a kind of raw material which might be distilled down into something mildly diverting. However, I started re-reading some of the entries myself just the other day - just the tedious stuff about my last day or two in Buenos Aires and flying back home at the end of the last trip - and I found it awoke some pleasant and interesting memories. So while it's a bonus if someone - a friend or a random web searcher - ever reads and enjoys any of this waffle, my primary audience is definitely a future version of myself, and I am going to stop apologising for writing crap which probably doesn't appeal to anyone else reading it.