Hey, I'm in Guatemala.

The flight here was pretty uneventful baring running into Ryan Congdon in Calgary who was en route to Disneyland with his girlfriend. Small world.

Regarding the flight, I was starting to come down with something and there was some strange stuff happening in my GI tract. So much gas. Anyway, I'd just like to apologize to all those that had to suffer through there close proximity to me throughout all the flights.

When I got the Guatemala city I was expecting a taxi to be waiting for me and in fact there was one with a nice printed sign with my name on it and the name of the hotel. In addition to the sign he had what looked like a mask covering his face. For sure this guy wants to rob me or doesn't want to be recognized for some reason. Anyway I did't notice this until I had already waved at the sign with my name on it on account of the fascinating mob waiting for others.

The man waved me behind the crowd and told me to wait 5 minutes and then left. There was security all around so I was going to let it play out. 5 minutes later a man with his face uncovered starts flashing his high beams at me. He's driving a legit enough looking cab and helps me get in. All the security around sees this happening and seems ok with it. I rationalized it as probably safe on account of calling the hotel directly and him having my name correct.

The man was wearing a scarf because he was sick. He was actually really nice and spoke a little english, french and italien. There is a lot of mcdonalds here, holy crap. There was a whole street with a multitude of fast food restaurants the like we have. After we passed fast food alley we got to a much less modern part of town, where my hotel was.

Not much to report about Guatemala City. I was there for a day and a half and saw some cool markets and such. I tried out my new spanish skills trying to find an ATM. After a couple hours I succeeded.

Monday morning I left for Xela and that went pretty smoothly. It get's really cold here at night. Unbearably cold. Anyway I signed up for 4 days of spanish lessons which I started today so I'm here until at least the weekend. There's lots to do in the surrounding area so I'll hopefully have lots the do in the coming days.

There's some sort of soccer team celebration going on here tonight, so I'm going to check that out now. Buenos Noches.