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18/2/10 - day 71.
up at half 7. got a ticket the night before for a shuttle bus to Quetzaltenango, or "xela" as its called for short. she told me it could come 15 minutes either side of the half 8 departure time, so this being guatemala, i took this to mean 30 minutes either side, though almost certainly after.
sure enough, a car pulled up outside the hostel for me at 9am. thought this was a bit odd ans its normally a minibus that takes you. the old man driving struggled to find the address of where we had to pick up another fella in antigua then we left. for guatemala city. now i was beginning to think this was really odd. my bemusemt continued as the old man drove around in circles in the nations capital, looking for christ knows what.
after he'd finished getting lost and asking people for directions, he pulled up at a bus station. turned out they just take you to the bus station where they then pay for your ticket and pop you on a nice (ish) bus to your destination. wierd system if you ask me. anyway, got the 11am bus to xela. the journey took 4 hours, and i purchased chicken tacos and pineapple along the way.
i taxied it to the recommended black cat hostel, then went for a little walk to see around the city centre. had to put more clothes on to do this, since at over 2000 metres high, xela starts getting cold by late afternoon/evening. though it seemed a quite nice, clean, tidy place with lots of business types knocking about - something i dont recall seeing elsewhere i dont think - there didnt seem to be an awful lot to it. also i saw lots of non-natives walking around. like antigua, xela is a city a lot of people come to to learn spanish and there a lots of spanish schools advertised.
after dinner at the hostel (chicken in pitta) i went to the dorm where a moody cow rather impolitely asked me if i intended to go to sleep or was going to leave the light on. luckily, it was kinda late (10pm) and i was tired. also she scared me a bit, and not seeming like the type you wanna annoy, i promptly went to sleep!
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