Thursday 14th January 1988
I got up for a piss at 04:15 hrs. and was amazed to find that it was raining. We got up at 05:30 hrs., the alarm having failed to go off at 05:00 hrs. and hurriedly made some sandwiches and threw some hiking gear into our bags.
The rain had stopped but the streets were soaking, and the volcano was obscured by dense black cloud. Byrn appeared at 06:15 hrs. with a red baseball cap and a 2.5 litre container of water that he had brought from the United States as he didn’t trust the local water.
In view of the conditions, we decided to abandon the trip and go back to bed. There was no point in climbing the Volcán de Agua in nil visibility as the whole idea was to experience the panoramic views from the top.
We awoke at 13:00 hrs.! and went out shopping. I bought some dye to colour my dirty white Rohan waistcoat a more practical colour and Declan bought some Brylcreem for his hair. Brylcreem is a British brand of hair styling products for men. The first Brylcreem product was a hair cream created in 1928 by County Chemicals at the Chemico Works in Bradford Street, Birmingham, England, and is the flagship product of the current brand. The cream is an emulsion of water and mineral oil stabilised with beeswax. It is notable for the high shine it provides, which spawned the name of the product, stemming from "brilliantine" and "cream".
Back at the hotel I had written half of my essay when I had to stop for my Spanish lesson which was early as Declan had cancelled his. In Spanish I discussed with Lety tourist rip-offs and robberies in Belize and Guatemala to be aware of.
I had a bit of trouble with sentences with about 5 pronouns. Subject pronouns replace the subject of a sentence. Examples include yo (I), tú (you), él (he), ella (she), ellos (they), and ellas (they). Almost all of us like to take shortcuts, and that's one way to think about what pronouns are: In both Spanish and English, they're usually a shorter and quicker way of referring to a noun. Common pronouns in English include "he," "she," "what," "that" and "yours," all of which usually would be replaced by longer words or more words if we didn't have the pronouns at our disposal. Find out more at https://www.thoughtco.com/types-of-pronouns-spanish-3079367 if you are interested.
That evening we had a great night in Mio Cid’s watching the nauseating special effects of the transformation of a man (who looked like Pedro) into a fly in the “The Fly” on TV. Directed by David Cronenberg in 1986 and starring Pedro-lookalike Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz, Joy Boushel. A brilliant but eccentric scientist begins to transform into a giant man/fly hybrid after one of his experiments goes horribly wrong.
Byrn and Pedro arrived after the film had finished and we talked with Wilma, an English painter and her Guatemalan friend. At closing time, we went from Mio Cid’s to “Los Pollos” and made up a group with some others drinking Cabro cerveza (beer) until 06:00 hrs. on Friday morning.
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