oooo! I just trotted out of my yoga class and bumped into a man with a pump-action shotgun.

I.m even beginning to get used to the sight of them. I counted four men with guns in the bank today, all smiling at me with golden teeth. Most surreal. It seems that in Quetzaltenango, the men with the pumpaction shotguns are the good guys!!!

I can feel my life here beginning to settle into something of a rythm. Spanish class from 8 in the morning, till 1 in the afternoon, then home for lunch and a siesta, and then out to our favourite cafe to do our homework, with yoga at 5 or (yet to be experienced, but awaiting with much enthusiasm) salsa class at 6. Woo hoo! I am going to be a salsa queen when I get back to the UK.

I promised a description of Quetzaltenango, and I am still scratching my head wondering how best to do it justice. I am pleased to report however, that I have seen a place that offers to put piccies from your digital camera onto a CD, and I think that from there, I should be able to put them on here. Quetzaltenango (Xela) is quite a strange mix of the modern, and the very, very old. All the cars here are the very same ones I saw on cop shows in the 70s when I was a small child! They are here! belching out smoke, burning oil, and generally making me feel ill! All of the buildings are literally falling down, there is a kind of colonial splendour that has been eaten away. There are magnificent arcades with piles of rubble in the corner, and beautiful buildings with no roofs, and trees growing out of the windows. The streets are very narrow, and the houses small and squat, with stone floors and no central heating. Everything is really basic, and yet it has a kind of beauty that I have a feeling will grow to take a strong hold on me. The whole city sprawls like an enormous multi-coloured shanty town among the volcanoes and forested mountains. Each day dawns the same - a cloudless azure sky, with a sun hotter than I expected.

This is a place of 2 cultures living alonside one another, and somehow worlds apart. There are those that are descended from the Spanish invadors, and those with indigenous descent. Tragically, all of the people that you see begging, struggling around with missing limbs, or squatting in the market place selling magnificent woven handicrafts for a few quetzales belong to the latter group - testament to the continuing oppression of this cultural population.