big city mayhem

i like big cities, honestly, i live in one. so i was quite looking forward to seeing guatemala city, and figured it would get me in good training for my time spent in san salvador!

i travelled a 9 hour overnight journey on a hotel with wheels... apparantly they call it a bus! but it was swish all the same, i inagine this is almost what first class is like on planes, except i've never seen first class in my life so i wouldn't really know. anyway. you got reclining seats, lots of legroom, pizza (!) and films to watch. i managed to endure shallow hal (the novelty of watching something in english was too tempting for me) and then slept, till i was shaken awake by the bus attendent who told me we had arrived and promptly chucked me off. i sat in the tiny room in the bus station with an armed guard till it got light (it was 4am) and i could leave to find a place to sleep. it was amazingly chilly, in fact bordering on manchester weather, cold and drizzling, when i hopped into the nearest taxi and went to a hotel inside a bus station near the airport side of town. figured as i was catching my bus to el salvador the following morning. i rejoyced in a shower with HOT water, amazing! and set off on a mission to find bus tickets, internet, and money. despite the streets being logically numbered and names (avenidas and calles), i managed to get lost on the way back to the hotel, collapsed and slept when i finally got there, and had to run out and get lost again a few hours later as i realised i hadn't got enough money for the next day. i think i finally lost my nerve afterwards, and the fact i couldn't find any food except for mcdonald's (noooo! never!!!), so i sat in my room and felt very sorry for myself (accompanied by the sounds of people hocking up lurgies in the room next door), and slept figuring i would get up the next day and feel better. kind of.

breakfast of watery coffee, a dry cake thing and crisps. this is budget travel at it's finest