Tobes

I'd forgotten how cold it can get here in Antigua, the start of the Guatemalan highlands. The first time I was here, I had to bring my blanket up to the rooftop where a few of us were chilling. The walls were high but the night was clear and one of the three volcanoes around Antigua loomed up in the distance before us.

Tonight, I'm up on the rooftop of another hostel with three layers on (I'm counting my vest as one layer). Fog shrouds the surrounding highlands but the walls are low and I can see the comings and going of the cobbled street below.

I'm glad I broke the backpackers' code of not visiting a place twice. Strolling down the familiar streets of Antigua, it feels different than when I did the whirlwind tour of the city. And with no time restrictions, I'm beginning to experience Antigua's charm.

The city still feels touristy with hostels a stone's throw away from each other (at times side by side) with tourist services filling the gaps in between. But now that I have the opportunity to look inside these businesses, it's absolutely interesting to see how they've customised themselves to find their own niche in the wide and varied market of tourism, be it an overpriced bookstore to a wine and cheese tasting parlour to a shisha smoking salon.

Conversely, I'm glad I honoured the philosophy of backpacking by deciding against a direct luxury bus from San Salvador to Guate. Instead, I made my way there slowly by various chicken buses with the entire weight of my rucksack on my shoulders. This gave me an extra day at El Tunco where I learnt how to surf (proof that at 24, you can still teach an old dog new tricks).

That's where I met Tobes (that's what I call him). Tobes (as in Toe-b-s as in Toby as in Tobias) and I shared a room in El Tunco. He had been paying $10 a night for his room until I arrived, after which we shared the room for $14 per night. So he had every reason to be happy, really.

But Tobes is a really cool German guy. We got on really well together somehow. We hung out together (he'd read on the hammock whilst I wrote on a table nearby or vice versa), we'd grab food together, and he even invited me to surf with him (he took the bigger waves while I the smaller).

He was going to leave the day before I did but changed his mind so that we'd travel together when I told him I was also heading to Guatemala. And the night before we left, he convinced me to join him in Antigua.

I don't think I'll ever forget the chicken bus ride along El Salvador's coastal route to the border at La Hachadura with Tobes: the occasional view of the Pacific crashing upon beaches isolated by sheer cliffs and the intermittent clucking from two chickens at the back of the bus. This crazy mash-up of classic love songs (including More Than a Woman and Sugar, Sugar) was playing, so I leaned over to Tobes and cheekily said, 'You know, with all these love songs, it's a shame we're not boyfriends.' And we had a good laugh.

He may be no boyfriend but I truly treasured his company and I wouldn't trade our time spent wondering the streets of Antigua amidst the colourful houses with an evening by myself in Guate.