Day 52 12/17/2021
Odometer 29, 520 – 29,535—– 15 Miles (6845 Miles Total)
Antigua, Guatemala
So my hostel has bunk beds stacked up 3 beds high. My bed is on the top and its about 15’ off the ground. Maybe higher. So at about 6am today some guy who tried to climb out of his bunk completely blew it and fell. Jesus Christ the noise he made when he hit the ground. I opened up my curtain to make sure he didn’t land on my motorcycle helmet and went back to bed! Poor guy. He woke the whole room up but he was fine.
I got up at about 8:30 and took a shower. Someone told me about a Crossfit gym hidden behind this restaurant so I went to the 9am class. It was a nice outdoor set up and cheap at 50 Q’s. The workout was god damn brutal and I nearly finished except for the last run. I’ll post a picture of the workout. I met a guy there who is from Colorado and he builds custom bikes in Antigua. It was a nice morning there other than almost being killed in that class.
I had nothing else planned today other than possibly taking a private salsa class later on today. My main goal was to edit all the photos from the last few days and write up the blog. If I was lucky enough I would be able to email everyone from the hike all the pictures I took and maybe even upload all the photos to the website. So I went on my hunt. I got breakfast at a nice place this morning. This city is really expensive and it’s getting annoying. The wifi there barely worked. I bounced around to 4 different cafes buying food and smoothies to be able to use their non-existent wifi. No luck all day long.
While I was at one of the cafes I was in the bathroom about to wash my hands and someone tried to open the door. Not once but like 5 times and then she lost her shit. She was screaming and cursing and kicking the door. I got a bit nervous thinking what the fuck is wrong with you. There’s obviously someone in the bathroom so chill out. She did this for about 20 seconds. I thought she was going to knock the door down. When I walked outside I gave her a nasty look and she was facing the wall on her phone assuming she was embarrassed. When I sat back down to eat my food she walked out a minute later and sat down with a guy. It looked like their first date. I would have loved to warn this guy about this girl but I didn’t know him. I found the situation pretty funny so I posted a picture of them eating and what had just happened.
I got tired, went back to the hostel and decided to lay in the hammock in the sun next to the pool for a few hours and take a nap. I didn’t get to nap much but it was lovely just resting there for a few hours after the last 2-3 days of hard climbing and partying.
After getting an early dinner and walking around the city for a while I dropped into the salsa school to ask some questions. A few minutes later I had a booking at 8pm for a one hour lesson. Exciting. I went back to lay down at the hostel for a bit and needed to go out to get some more money since I was out. I walked around for an hour with no luck finding an ATM that would work and then right before I was about to give up I found one. On my walk looking for ATM’s I ran into Jasper and he made two new friends. They were going out for dinner and then off to some parties later on. I told him I’d give him a call when I was done with the salsa class. So much fun to just run into people I know now in all these cities I’m going to! It’s like I’m a local here!
I got to the salsa school and Victor would be teaching me all the moves. He had me show him what I knew and it was terrible so we started from scratch. We progressed pretty quickly and he taught me how to lead. He taught me how to show my partner what we were doing next without talking. So much goes into it and it was cool to learn. I was hooked. I’m definitely going to be doing 2-3 salsa classes a week and when I go to Colombia I’ll be staying in cities for much longer then I have been here so I can take more classes. I would have never thought I’d be pumped up for salsa classes. I think I like the challenge of learning something new physically. I haven’t been stimulated that way in a long time. I’m bummed I didn’t do this the first night I was here. I had an absolute blast. I’m pretty sure I would have taken 3 classes a day while I was here.
On my walk back near the hostel Jasper told me he was at my hostel having drinks with people so I headed back there. On my walk back the girl I met drinking tea messaged me on Instagram and told me she knew that guy the girl was with. Dustin was his name and she was going to tell him! Hah. When I got to Antigua this girl found me on IG and followed me. I was checking out her profile and noticed she posted a workout at a Crossfit gym in town. So I messaged her asking her where it was, that’s how I found out about the gym. I blame her for almost dying there this morning. Anyway, she also messaged me and told me she knows Dustin. He owns a big bar/club near the center and everyone knows him. She said she was going to tell him too. OMG
So I met up with Jasper and a few of his friends and we had some good chats about the typical political bullshit which was interesting to hear everyone’s opinions. I had some dinner and answered a lot of questions about my bike trip. We all decided to go out to an illegal club that was open later than the curfew here and as we were walking over Michelle who told me about the gym told me to go to a place called Vargas. It was the bar/club Dustin owned and was DJing at. I told the guys and we walked over there. She found me, I made a new friend and she told me what Dustin said about the date and he had a weird feeling about her and that was the end of that! Good on him!
I went down to the dance floor to see Jasper plus the new friends we made and on my way down who do I run into? Jack and Charlie the guys from the UK I met at the Lake last week who we also partied with a few nights in a row. God damn they lost their shit with joy when they saw me. Their energy was out of the roof! We all partied, found out we’re all heading to El Salvador and we will meet up there as well! We danced and danced and danced. I was actually having a great time at a dance place with all kinds of music blending in like everyone else still feeling a bit out of place but I was there and I was doing it. I wasn’t even drunk!
At the end of the night when they were closing I got to meet Dustin and his business partner who were hilarious and he was cracking up at my post about the girl who lost her shit. That was that and the night was over.
Victor my salsa instructor
