It's been a funny day, dominated by some bad news from home and doing necessary chores.

This however only accounts for a fraction of the time. The rest of the day has been filled and glued together by those moments that make travelling special. Moments are those things that you look back on in years to come. Things like having a cute little girl excited about lots of kites in the sky and looking puzzled that we spoke strangely. Or sitting up on the terrace catching the first breeze of the evening and the setting sun over the lake. These things are the moments that we hardly see now, but every so often we are reminded that we are in a different world to the one we left behind.

I remember what we were like when we first started this trip in Africa. Then everything was new; the smell of the airport, the taxi filling the gas tank with only what he needed for the journey and the first butterfly on the first day.

The chores were mundane in nature but interesting in the execution. We had to get some food for going to the Mayan ruins at Tikal. Liz, because she has had so much stick about being a Ginner wanted to get some hair dye before the intensive photo opp at Tikal. We went on the search for hair dye without knowing the Spanish for hair or dye. Without getting into an embarrasing option of sharades decided to locate a super market that we knew the Spanish for. Exhausing the options on the island we went across the causway to the main town, where we asked a local for directions. On the way there we bumped into one of many pharmacies here. One had a pile of hair dye stacked up in a prominent position on the counter. The problem was that the sun had dyed the colours on the boxes, blacks looked purple and the others boxes had faided to ginger. Picking up a box to see what the colour was where the sun couldn't shine disloged the substancial amount of dust off the top. I tested it with a blow, sure enough a comical dust cloud was formed. They were however very cheap and of a recognisable brand.

With the hair dye in the bag we continued our search for the super market and the remaining items on the list. After walking in the direction indicated we couldn't see it so we asked a local again where it was. They sent us in the direction we just walked but again we did not see it. The third time of asking, a local told us the name of the shop. This time I saw the name but the shop looked barely bigger than all the other small shops. We went in looking for some food and came out with a loaf, vodka and sprite. We couldn't find anything to put in a sandwich but we thought that the market is sure to sell bananas for a banana sandwich. The market was down a partly dug up dirt road. We found a stall selling fruit but no bananas. Searched high and low but no bananas, normally you are tripping over them in other towns. However the search was of interest, mainly for seeing the warts and all way they live. We passed a woman selling food right by a very smelly open sewage ditch but the general mood of the place was positive with people laughing and living life.

After booking a trip and having a couple of very cheap Pina Coladas as a treat we went back to the room so that Liz could dye her hair. Liz found the dye bottle was broken, and was freting whether it would be alright. She went for it but I suspect that there were some doubts as 20 minutes later she was fretting that her hair was dropping out and tried to illustrate this by pulling at her hair to show me - well a lack of hair in her hand. I couldn't think of what I could do so I took the micky instead.

The ginner has gone and hair is still there.