I´ve got nada

Nothing new except I remain sorry to be leaving, but maybe it is because I just have no idea what Ecuador will be like, and before I left New York, I had no idea what Guatemala would be like, and it turns out not to be too bad!

The first potential casualty of the trip was averted yesterday - the loss of mi sombrero. I left it on the shuttle to Xela on Saturday, but luckily I had chatted with the driver and it was a small company, not a big bus line. So I went to the office every day from Saturday to Wednesday, asking if my hat was there, and pretty much every day the really friendly Belgian owner, or another guy, would call the driver, who said he´d bring it by tomorrow. And then I sit around and ask the owner annoying questions like ï the San Francisco El Alto market really that interesting?¨and ¨Where should I stay if I have an early flight?¨and ¨where is a good but cheap restaurant.¨And I look at a copy of their Lonely Planet Guatemala. It was like a ritual for me in Xela. Finally yesterday the guy was like ¨why don´t you just walk up to the other office and pick it up?¨so I did, as well as buy my bus ticket for Saturday. The guy in the other office didn´t speak English - he looked at me blankly when I said I wanted a ticket for Saturday, but I didnt get that he didnt understand until he said ¨no English,¨but I was easily able to explain my needs in Spanish. A small transaction to be sure, but one that wouldn´t have worked so easily 2 and a half weeks ago.

I´ve been really hungry in Xela even though I don´t feel like my meals here are noticably smaller - well, maybe dinner is, but that doesnt explain being hungry at 4 pm. Dinner is also a half hour later. Happily, there´s a bakery in town that sells big flat cookies and small round, sweet rolls for 0.22 Q each, which is about...3 cents? I may be doing the math wrong, but either way it is a heck of a lot cheaper than at home. I guess if you shop in stores and markets here for food rather than go to a restaurant it is cheap, and I shouldn´t be complaining about it being (relatively) expensive in Guatemala for food. I think Ecuador, which was dollar-ized a few years ago, is going to be more expensive, but I dont know how much more.