Shettling Down in Xela (pronounced Shay-la)

a.k.a. Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

We were both ready to leave Mexico and find someplace to settle down for a while. Although we have experienced so many incredible things there it was quite exhausting; the constant moving, bus trips, hotels/hostels wear on a person after a while.

This time, however, we did not choose the ADO busline and had a much nicer journey. We signed up with a private tour company for a reasonable rate and were promised a comfortable 12 hour journey into Guatemala in a nice van. They also promised to walk us through customs and other potential snags which turned out to be worth its weight in gold. More on that later.

The day of our departure we were down in the hotel lobby waiting at the specified time, 7:00 a.m. We waited, waited, then waited some more. I silently contemplated walking down the street to the corner store where we purchased our journey to see if the building was now vacated. We did hand over the full cost of the journey in cash days ago just going by the credentials posted on the plaque behind the desk. It was at least a hundred bucks. Had we been scammed?

No, right then the guy drove up with his coffee looking like I did when I would roll out of bed, throw scrubs on , and stumble down the stairs to work at the hospital -- pillow lines on his face and everything. Lets just say I don´t miss that in the slightest. He, and the nice dude that worked at the hotel, helped us load our things in to the back of the van and we were off.

It was a large van that could comfortably hold 10 adults. We were the first ones onboard so I thought maybe I'd be able to stretch out and get comfy. We proceeded to stop at six or seven other hotels, one of them picking up six passengers at once. We crammed into that bus like it was a clown car at the circus, all thirteen of us. I still managed to fall asleep during a large portion of the first part of the trip. Luckily we were right next to a small window that cracked. Appartantly from hearing the others complaints at the border it got quite hot and steamy back there. I had a dream about that same bus ride, only instead of dirty smelly backpackers, ligerie clad Victoria's secret models that smelled like flowers were cramming in. Where was I?...

...Oh ok, so I woke up a little while before our breakfast stop about 4 hours into the journey. The scenery was astounding; gorgeous gigantic mountains everywhere surrounding cute little towns and villages in the valleys below. Cute locals in colorful outfits walking right next to the highway some trying to get the driver to stop top sell there wares. We passed a cop going really really fast, definately speeding. The driver made eye-contact with the officer and gave a little friendly honk as we whizzed by. He actually honked at a lot of people. I was then especially happy we had gone with this service as they had apparantly paid off the police ahead of time. I had heard many stories of assuredly having to pay a ¨tax¨ to the local officers when making the journey alone. Also there were some stories of highway robberies. These people seeemed to know everyone and the journey went totally smooth.

We had a decent breakfast at a small town along the way. The bathrooms didn't have toilet paper and the toilets wouldn't flush though. Sorry to the person that went in after me... I had brought a bunch of kleenex in one of my pants pockets and I made Melanie steal the rest of our toilet paper from our hotel in San Cristobal before we left, thank goodness.

We arrived at the border and had to unload all of our bags, go through customs, and then load up on a different van. I was thankful here as well that we were using the service because it would have been quite confusing otherwise. This time we had to load our belongings on top of the van and I felt quite sorry for the little guy up on top when I hucked the box-o-books up to him almost causing him to fall off. A new driver took the helm for the Guatemala leg of the trip and we were off once again.

We passed through many more cute towns and around many more mountains. It was truly some spectacular scenery -- wish I had the pictures to prove it. Many hours later we arrived at a gas station and everyone unloaded to stretch their legs. It had actually been only eight hours of driving. We were the only two passengers actually going to Xela it turns out, so at this point we were instructed to get into the back seats of a pickup truck and throw our stuff in the bed of the truck. It seemed a little sketchy but at this point we were just looking at each other, shrugging, and saying what the hell. Our new driver got in along with his travelling companion. Turns out we were just minutes away from our destination down the worst road I have ever riden on in my life. Apparantly, our driver told us, it had been under construction for six or so years. Such is life in Guatemala apparantly. The driver was incredibly nice and actually gave us a rundown of the entire history of Xela (Quetzaltenango) in our 10-15 minutes together... well he tried to at least. To get the entire history in he had to speak some really fast Spanish and we had been crammed in a bus for eight hours so our brains were mush. We soaked up as much as we could.

Through the course of our journey I've felt less and less bad about my Spanish comprehension, as it seems that usually when I don't understand Melanie doen't either. She's naturally way better at salvaging the conversation and/or pretending like she did understand than me. I usually get that squinty-eyed head tilt look, mouth half open. After looking at me for a few seconds, then chuckling politely, most stop trying to address me directly and just start talking to Melanie.

We pulled up at our hotel, unloaded our stuff, checked in and went to a restaurant across the street, the closest one to our hotel. The entire meal ended up costing five dollars total and the food wasn't half bad. Turns out after being here for a week that is the norm-- really good food at amazingly cheap prices. Eating out is costing us about 5 - 10 bucks per meal on average and as stated the food has been great. Way better than in Mexico except of course for Marcela's home cooking. We ended up switching hotels because the one we originally were staying in was a pressure cooker with one tiny window and the light switch in the bathroom shocked the shit out of me every time I turned the light on. I really didn't want to die from electricution in a Guatemalan bathroom-- not quite the end I had envisioned.

We are now staying in a really cute hostel and have a private room with a comfy bed. I say private, but it is really one big room that has been separated in to two by an extremely thin wall made of plywood. It hasn't been that bad except for some dude that was staying in the room next to us for a few days that had unbelievably bad gas. I mean this guy must have been drinking a two liter of soda water right before bedtime. Luckily I never smelled them but the sound was bad enough. They have since moved on thankfully.

We officially signed up for a Spanish school today and will be living in a private apartment on school grounds. It´s really really cute, almost the same size as our apartment at Westside Animal Hospital (extremely small). It´s up a cute windy staircase, kind of an attic apartment. For the next couple of weeks we will be studying Spanish five hours a day one on one with a professional teacher. Hopefully that will help my Spaninsh speaking immensely. We´ll see.

Sorry no pictures this time, but Melanie I´m sure will post some in her blog. We plan on being here for at least two months so plenty of time for picture taking, however, I don´t plan on taking any more pictures of the locals after Tara made me feel so guilty. :(

After that, who knows where we´ll go, we sure don´t....

Hasta Proximo (until next time)

Chris