I spent my evening with my friend Willamjkin and her boyfriend Freek (pronounced phrake), the Dutch girls, and some people staying at the hotel (including Valeria one of the owners). It was an interesting night, although I was a bit tired from my previous day's ordeal of being stranded in Panajachel. I did a day tour and the bus left 30 minutes early, thus stranding me in a city with very little cash and no backpack. I finally managed to convience the owner of the travel agency to refund my money, something they don't do very often here in Central America. I suppose they don't like the idea of giving someone money back if they already have it. I spent the night in a small hotel in a room that wasn't too bad, however, it wasn't were I wanted to be and caused me spending money I didn't want to spend for a room and then return travel to Antigua. With that said, I spent my evening listening to music, dancing in the streets, dancing on the rooftop, and bringing in the New Year on the rooftop with people I don't know very well.
Alone is all I could think about, but it was a beautiful evening because from the rooftop we could view all of the surrounding pueblo's fireworks as well as all the ones in Antigua. It was a wonderful display of sky fires as one guy called them. I had attempted to retire early however, one man from another hotel was stranded here by his friends and he was very drunk (barracho) and I put him in my spare bed and spent the night waking up to help him get to the bathroom. I finally managed to fall asleep around 5 am, but the sounds of the city soon were going and I was up by 10.
Today was a relaxing day. The only thing was to go watch a movie at Cafe 2000 (Cafe dos mil), which was packed. I suppose a lot of people just wanted to relax today after partying so hard last night. Now I'm in my habitacion and typing. I depart here this week but at the moment I'm undecided as to where I really want to go next. My cold is gone, I'm feeling good, and I am feeling better about getting around places when I don't know the country. There are times when I wish I was doing this when I was younger, because I think it might have been easier. Now my views are tainted with bad experiences and bad decisions. However, this is a wonderful place with wonderful people and I'll be sad to depart soon.
It's possible to go to El Salvador or Honduras and then onto Nicaragua. I'll have to make a decision soon as to where I'll go, but for now I'm just feeling a bit lonesome. I felt this way all the time back in the states so it's nothing new, but down here I realize just how alone I really am. Most of the people from the United States I meet down here are not people I would really like, so I spend most of my time with people from other countries (las genta de otros paises).
I was just offered several weeks stay in a house that I just designed for a man in Sri Lanka. Of course I'll have to wait for the house to be built, but it will be a nice place to visit. I'll try to post some photos of the design in another post. But it was a nie project to work on and I enjoyed doing it.
Now the time has come to make decisions so I'll spend the next few days doing some research about El Salvador and Honduras. Although there is always the option of staying in Guatemala for a bit longer but visiting different places. I'll keep things posted here, but for now I just want to say,
Feliz Ano Nuevo
