This morning we changed from our tiny cardboard room (number 17) to a bigger room (number 3) upstairs on the balcony. It was a little more expensive at Q7.70 Guatemalan Quetzals for a double, but it was much nicer and overlooked the floral courtyard.
We had a good breakfast with proper sausages in a thatch-roofed, bamboo-walled café by the market. We then went into the market which conjured up all of the old stock phrases: “riot of colour and smells”, “babble of humanity”, “full of vibrant local colour”, etc.
Going in there was a human traffic jam of indigenous Indians with sacks of goods on their heads. Women and children squatted amongst huge heaps of multi-coloured fruits and vegetables. Other stalls sold local crafts and American-style clothing and accessories.
Some stalls sold live chicks or feebly struggling chickens with their legs tied together. We bought quite a bit of fruit and headed back to read our books and sunbathe in the square by our hotel.
Later I went out to take some photographs of the zocalo and buy some milk. We then had coffee on the very pleasant balcony outside our room. The courtyard below was a riot of colour from myriad flowers. A very tranquil life!
At 17:00 hrs. we cracked and went to the bar opposite the hotel. There was a jovial atmosphere and we tucked into the novel Victoria beer, at a very reasonable Q1 Guatemalan Quetzals a bottle. Victoria is a pale lager with a 5% alcohol content by volume. Like Gallo cerveza it is brewed by Cervecería Centro Americana Sociedad Anónima in Guatemala City.
The hotel owner was at the bar joking with an American guy and girl, cheerfully smashing eggs on one another’s heads, the shells filled with confetti. We left feeling a lot more cheerful and three bottles of Victoria lager heavier.
After an unsuccessful attempt by Declan to ring ex-girlfriend Karen from Guatel (Guatemala's incumbent telephone company is TELGUA, which won the bidding for the privatization of the government run GUATEL.) on the corner of the plaza we had Chow Mein in yet another Chinese restaurant.
We then went for a “quick one” in Mio Cid’s. “The Little Shop of Horrors”, a comedy film, was on the television. We ended up drinking heavily with a Belgian called Paul and a girl from Berlin who seemed to have been drifting about in Guatemala for months.
We had a good night, joking and shanting (an alcoholic drinking session), interspersing Gallo beer with Cuba Libres. At about midnight we moved on to another bar-cum-disco on the other side of the plaza where we met some young American members of the Peace Corps. Two skinhead Canadians were swaying on the dance hall.
We got back to the hotel at 02:30 hrs. and had to knock up the owner to let us in. Luckily, he seemed used to it and didn’t seem too put out.
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