If it's Wednesday, it must be Guatamala.

We arrived in Santo Tomas de Castilla, in Guatamala at about 8am. With very few excursions having been laid on today, I found myself without any escort duty, so I headed for the terminal building where there is an internet cafe, with the intention of uploading some photographs to the blog. I have a small 4GB flash-drive that fits neatly into my bum-bag, which I'd copied the editted photos over onto from my laptop prior to leaving my cabin, so providing I could find a PC capable of accepting it, I was in business.

Unfortunately, none of the 8 PCs there would accept it, for some reason, so I decided I'd take the shuttle bus into town later to try one of the internet cafes there.

Before doing that, however, I joined up with 3 other passengers to hire a taxi for a small excursion of our own. After bartering with the taxi people, we agreed on a price of $20 each to take us to three locations - the city, the waterfalls, and the mountains. George, our enthusisatic driver, was the perfect host; he drove us into the small township they call the city, stopping every now and then to point out places of interest. After driving through Santo Tomas de Castilla, he said the next on our itinerary would be the beach, which we all said we weren't really interested in; we were all keen to see waterfalls and mountains.

George seemed to be enthusiastic, and well-able to understand English, only when it suited him. In the town, he insisted on introducing us to his wife, Caroline, who ran a hairdressing salon, and his shaggy dog called Sosa. Continually, we kept saying how much we were looking forward to seeing the mountains and some good viewpoints from which to take photographs, and continually, he kept saying how much we would enjoy the beach.

Anyway, somehow we managed to get it through to him that none of us were in the slightest bit interested in the beach, and so we finally found ourselves heading towards the outskirts of town, and to a nature reserve promising some fabulous waterfalls, Las Escobas.

After handing over an entrance fee of $8 each, a young guide called Joseph led us along well-tarmaced tracks, into what can only be described as a bit of a rain forest. It must be said, at this point, that the temperature today was 32-degrees, with a humidity of 93%, which made wearing clothes a tad uncomfortable. Joseph, an orphan, told us all the names of the plants and trees, pointed out a bats' cave, and dutifully let a huge ant and a small lizard crawl over his forearms for our entertainment. Unfortunately, when we came to the waterfall, despite it being in a beautiful location, it was a touch on the disappointing side. We were told that we are here at the wrong time of year to see the waterfall in spate, and would have to make do with the trickle before us (of course, it wouldn't do to point this out at the taxi rank or they'd never get any customers).

After this, it was back to the quayside, and George became strangely unresponsive. What about the mountains? What about the fantastic viewpoints we'd been promised? Alas, there would be no mountain viewpoints today. I rather suspect, also, from glancing at the maps that adorned the entrance to the waterfalls walk, that we were somewhat shortchanged in that regard too - there looked to be tons of different walks and waterfalls labelled on those maps, yet we were marched up to see only one (could it be that George was a little too keen to get back and pick up a fresh set of tourists to take along to meet his wife?).

Back at the boat, I had a brief lunch and headed out to catch the shuttle bus for what would be its last journey today. I figured it shouldn't take me long to find an internet cafe, since I'd spotted a dozen or so on the morning ride with George, and it would only take a few minutes to complete the upload and then I could get back to the ship.

Unfortunately, when we were dropped off, we discovered that we had to have a guide (it's the law in these parts apparently), a lovely young lady who would see that we got everything we needed. Many passengers stayed put on the bus, having seen all they needed to see from the outward journey. Guatamala is a poor place; many homes are ramshackle, run-down shed-like structures, and we'd been warned of pickpockets on the ship.

So, it ended up being myself and two gay american guys being led through the town, firstly to an internet cafe, where my USB gizmo failed to be recognised yet again (aaargh!), then into a market so one of the blokes could buy a t-shirt. For the entire time, we were also followed by a young, dishevelled boy hassling us for money; poking us or just standing in front of us at every opportunity. Blatantly ignoring him, which usually seems to work in such situations, didn't seem to have any effect whatsoever, and it was a bit like having an annoying fly following you about.

Annoyed that I'd failed to upload my photographs, I headed straight for my cabin on my return to the ship, just to double-check that everything was okay with the gizmo, by plugging it into the laptop, and guess what? It didn't work!!!! Quickly, I fished out my plug-in USB hard drive, copied the photos over, and headed back to the terminal internet cafe.... at which point the power went down in the building, and I was unable yet again to complete my task, which now will have to wait until tomorrow.

It's still hot and humid as we head into the evening; Guatamala is a nice place overall - I liked it, but I wouldn't want to spend a fortnight's holiday here!

Tomorrow we arrive at Roatan Island, Honduras.