As Mil commented, blogging is like exercise, and I have been intimidated to start again, especially since such momentous things have happened in my life since I last blogged. But no need to repeat what others have already talked about. Let’s start with some things from the week past.
Victor and I went for a little impromptu holiday over the weekend. It turns out that an American missionary was selling his bikes and moving back to the States and Victor has been mentioning every so often over the last couple of months that he really wanted to buy a bike. So we rang this man and had a little chat, and then we realised that he lives in a city a couple of hours away. Oh well. Good excuse for a holiday. And since the city also has the biggest markets in Guatemala (Central America even maybe?) we thought it was a jolly good idea to go check out the bikes.
So off we set after Victor’s work on Saturday afternoon. It was a little bit of an adventurous trip. Well not good adventurous. First we got stopped by police to check all our documents and Victor was driving. He didn’t have his driver’s licence on him so they decided to fine him. The policeman took quite a long time to get around to writing out any fine, so I went to see what was up. He was making an elaborate explanation to Victor, over the car boot, of why he was fining him, what right he had to fine him, just how much it was going to cost (Q400) and making a suggestion that he could possibly just buy him a little cafecito instead (Q20 or so).
I drove away with Victor sitting in the passenger seat, the fine in his hands, me fuming about the corruption in the policeforce that also lets the abusers of our clients get away when there is an arrest warrant out for them, for the price of a couple of cafecitos….
Well, in my fuming state, I also passed the not-sign-posted turn-off and we drove for another hour or so until the sun was going down and we decided to ask someone where the city was. Turns out we were way off track and we had to drive an hour back and then only half an hour from the turn off that I had missed!!!
But we made it, and we found a hotel and I got to live out my dream of going on holidays and staying in a hotel with a husband. It was quite fun and very grown up of us. The next day we headed out for breakfast and ate on a balcony looking out over the colourful market place and then, after checking out a bit of the markets, headed out of town to check out some bikes.
We were very pleased with them, especially when the two of them, taken apart, fit in the back of my little Corolla. So we headed back home, content with our weekend away.
This morning we decided to go for a bike ride instead of a run, so we got up bright and early to head out on a little route that Victor had planned in his head the night before. I decided that I needed a little bit of warming up so drove in and out of the streets in our colonia. When I tried to go down the hill however, that is between our house and the street, my memories of riding down a hill on an oval in Asquith and coming off my bike, forward roll over the handlebars, came back to haunt me and needless to say, even though I conquered the hill this morning, I didn’t quite make it out onto the main road. Maybe next time? I suggested to Victor. Perhaps Not was his reply.
So I must practice, and practice will make me perfectish and then I will be able to ride on the road and that will be a great achievement.
