Guatemalan Adventures, con't (finally)

Chickenbus Assistant

I woke up the morning after visiting Semuc Champey to a very grumpy Melanie. Her left ass cheek was the size, shape and color of a very large mango due to her fall (as detailed in her blog entry). She had not slept very well either due to the rock hard bed we were sleeping in. The hotel was cute though and right in the heart of Coban. There was a cute courtyard with hammocks hanging outside of each room. The restaurant situation in Coban left something to be desired though. We ate at the safest, cleanest place we could find in town for all of our meals which happened to be the restaurant in our hotel. The service was atrocious though. It definitely had the feel of a town overrun by years and years of tourists. They just didn't seem to care anymore. Anyways, back to Melanie's ass. Wish she had let me take a picture of it, because when she had pants on and you couldn't see the sickening discoloration, it looked like she had a kickin ghetto booty (cue the Sir Mix-a-Lot song). It was really painful and it didn't help matters that I kept grabbing and squeezing it.

So, me and my sore-assed , grumpy, sleep deprived gf set out for our seven hour chickenbus ride after a crappy breakfast at the hotel restaurant. We hopped in a cab that was sitting in the town center and had to insist that we really wanted the chickenbus station and not the first class bus station. Maybe he saw Mel's ass and figured the first class bus seats were more padded. Nervertheless, he took us to the chickenbuses and dropped us off. One of the "bus station" attendants noticed us and led us to where we needed to wait and let us know we'd have to wait an hour or so. I put bus station in quotations because chickenbus stations are nothing more than super busy, crowded, dusty, gravel and dirt (mostly dirt) parking lots. There are 20- 30 chickenbuses parked around it, some pulling in, some pulling out, some just waiting while the assistant shouts out its destination to any passerby. There are also 10- 20 cabs driving around at any point in time, 50 to 100 soon-to-be passengers waiting or meandering around, and what seems like 200 six year olds carrying pegboards around their necks selling toenail clippers and other dollar store paraphenalia.

One of the walking dollar store six year olds sat right down next to Melanie. This precious dirty faced little girl started asking her about everything she was wearing and carrying... how much did it cost, where she bought it, what was in her backpack etc... It was one of the cutest (and saddest) sights I witnessed in our entire journey. The little girl told her she was saving money from all of the stuff she was selling so she could come the United States. Melanie didn't have the heart to tell her that she was wearing sneakers that cost more than she would make in five years.

Finally our bus arrived and we were the first ones to board. We got the seat right behind the driver that had some extra leg room that we could fit our bags into. It was a good thing too, having that little six year old stowaway in my bag made it slightly more bulky than before. The bus filled up and we were off. The driver looked like Cliff Huxtable's father on the Cosby Show and the assistant was a strapping young Guatemalan lad.

The drive itself wasn't nearly as exciting as previous chickenbus journeys. Having the elder statesman behind the wheel made a big difference. There were no 90 mph passes around dump trucks on blind mountain curves. Apparently he was just too old for that bologna, which was fine with us. At one point during the ride I had a basket full of 10 live chickens, all tied up together, slid right next to my feet. They were just looking around wondering wtf was going on. I took every opportunity I had to poke Melanie on the arm when she wasn't looking. When she turned to scowl at me I would simply point to the chickens in the basket and shrug. The chickens were totally playing along, blinking guiltily at her with an occasional cluck of confession. That must be why they are called chickenbuses, because you are bound to be eventually sitting next to a basket full of chickens.

Toward the end of our journey the chickenbus assistant was unloading a large amount of boxes onto the bus for a passenger. I was dying to try my hand at chickenbus assisting and jumped into action. I formed the last link in the bag/ box human conveyor belt, loading the large load onto the bus on a platform between the driver and our seat. The driver and assistant seemed shocked that a gringo would be willing to work. I enjoyed every second of it and felt more a part of my journey than ever at that moment. I was officially a chickenbus assistant for a few fleeting moments. For a reward the driver let me take a picture of him. I got a little overzealous at the end of our trip, though, climbing up the ladder toward the top of the bus to help retrieve our backpacks and box o' books. It took the assistant and Melanie a few minutes to drag me off the ladder by my ankles but I finally came to my senses and released my ladder rung arm lock.


Melanie explains our time in Flores and Tikal on her blog. Please click the link and check it out. There's a great picture of me on a rope swing over a river. I will post a few of my favorite pictures though. It was a great leg of our trip and unfortunately as it turned out, our next to last. Here's my sad face...


Next post will bring everyone up to date on what's going on right this second.


Thanks for reading,


Chris

Guatemalan Adventures!

Seeing Guatemala

Melanie and I have done so many cool things the last two weeks it’s hard to believe and it will be difficult to put into one blog entry without being ten pages long. I’ll try to keep it fairly short but please read on as I am very excited to share the recent events with you all. Hope you enjoy...

Las Fuentes Georginas

Two weekends ago we arranged a tour with Adrenaline Tours to take a day trip to a place called Las Fuentes Georginas. They are naturally hot sulpher springs that are tucked away in the mountains a few miles outside of town. They are naturally heated by the active volcano that they are located upon. The hot springs sounded amazingly tantalizing after not having had a decent hot bath (or shower for that matter) in months. The driver climbed a windy mountain road to about 9000 ft. and into the clouds. The jungle was dense, clouds pouring over the trees and sulpher steam rising up out of the mountain side. The stench of rotten eggs from the sulpher was overpowering. Or was it just because I hadn’t bathed in a week?

We reached the parking lot, exited the van, and headed up a little path toward the fountains. There were many people frolicking around in the steamy water including, unfortunately, a few too many kids for my liking for such a small pool. I’ve peed in a few pools in my time and I feared that this was a karmic payback. I jumped in nonetheless trying to block it out of my head. The water felt great. It was spooky hiw the steam rose off of the water. I thought about the old Bugs Bunny cartoon where he’s in the pot on the stove and imagined chopped up veggies falling from the sky into the water around me. I think the sulpher was making me hallucinate a little. Melanie got in the water for about two seconds, and not being able to block out the vision of swimming in twenty kid's warm urine, decided she had enjoyed it quite enough. She headed to the tiki bar overlooking the fountain for a drink. That’s the spirit, right? I climbed out soon after witnessing one of the children pushing his dog into the water and then feeling a particulary warm patch of water flow by my legs. I then saw this sign posted and wanted to report the four legged law breaker. He definately was not wearing a bathing suit!

We headed back to Xela down the curvy cliff side road in the fog. It was pretty herky jerky and stop and go driving because of the conditions which didn’t sit too well with Mel. We made it back to our apartment and she ended up worshiping the porcelin god like I had never seen her do before. She didn’t even drink any alcohal at the bar. I ended up coming down with a cold a few days later so we both ended up feeling a little terrible after that trip, but it was definately worth the trouble, if just for the scenery alone.

The Journey to Tikal

Last Wednesday we boarded a first class bus headed for Guatemala City. It’s supposed to be a six hour bus ride to Guat. City, another six to Coban, and then another eight to Flores, which luckily is about an hour away from the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal. Don’t think we planned on doing all that in one shot. We stayed in Guatemala City for one night, Coban for two nights, and Flores for two as well.

We arrived in Guatemala City exhausted after our six hour ride turned into eight because of all the road construction delays. I have to point out something really bizarre here. The music selection on the bus ride was normal at first with Spanish pop music and some classic Spanish tunes. The third cd they put in, however, was what seems to be the Guatemalan tourism board standard issue gringo cd of eighties US pop music. It was apparantly meant to be a special treat for us, as we were the only gringos on board. Everyone kept turning to see if we were enjoying ourselves at which point, to Melanie’s horror, I would open-mouth grin and bob my head wildly, giving my best dance moves. I wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings would I?

We had heard the exact same cd on several occasions since arriving in Guatemala in various buses, vans, and boats. It would not be the only time we heard it on this particular trip either. This was by far the most fun of any of the times though. The best part in this instance was the 60 year old Guatemalan lady who had been happily singing along with all the Spanish songs still trying to hum or sing along with the eighties cd until Funkytown came on at which point she finally gave up. The song list included (I’m leaving a few out that I can’t remember) : “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”(C.Lauper), “Eye of the Tiger”(Survivor), “Ghostbusters” (yes the Ghostbusters theme song - she was still humming along at this point!), “Africa”(Toto), “Rockit”(H. Hancock), “Playing With the Queen of Hearts”(Juice Newton), “Bad Medicine” (Bon Jovi), “Betty Davis Eyes” (Kim Carnes - Possibly the worst song I have ever heard in my life), M.J.’s “Beat It” & “Billie Jean” double shot, the aforementioned “Funkytown” (Lipps Inc), and “You Know I Love You” (Phil Collins).

I put on an elbow swinging dance in the aisle during “Queen of Hearts”, showed off my head banging skills during “Bad Medicine”, and tried, unsucessfully, to get everyone to shout “Ghostbusters!” every one of the two thousand times they yell it in that song. Melanie downed half the pill vial of valiums at the beginning of “Eye of the Tiger” and was happily crumpled on the floor in front of her seat by the time the “Ghostbusters” song started. She’s quick like that.

I’ll let Melanie describe our time in Guatemala City. The city wasn’t anything special, but I think we enjoyed our one night there more than almost any place we’ve been on this trip so far. I’ll let her explain why.

Off we went the next morning well rested, happy, and thoroughly clean to the next bus station. We purchased our bus tickets for a city called Cobán and ran to the café next door to grab a quick bite to eat before departure. Halfway through our meal a “little person” walked in and walked a few tables back and sat down to have lunch. She recieved her food and started watching a soccer game on the television. Melanie, not in eye shot of her (a coke machine blocked her view), but definately within earshot, was talking about something (I can’t remember what), and said “....I would FREAK!” All that little person heard was the word “freak”. She whipped around to stare at me! If looks could kill...

If I recall correctly this is not the first time Melanie has insulted a little person. Her friends will remember. Before we met there is a story about her refusing to dance with a very handsome four foot tall gentleman at a dance club in a lovely plaid suit at the Limelight. Very very sad.

So, after making Melanie feel really bad about something she didn’t intend and drudging up bad memories of her past we boarded the bus. We sat in the sun on the highway at a dead stop for almost two hours trying to leave the city. Traffic was a nightmare and the sun turned the bus into an e-z bake oven. The driver, apparantly concerned about conserving gas, refused to turn on the air conditioning, and the windows on the first class buses do not roll down. It was another butt numbing, sweat pouring, head aching eight hour bus ride. The last two and a half hours on this ride they showed the newest Scorsese flick, ¨The Departed¨with Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCapprio, and Jack Nicholson. The voices were sadly dubbed over in Spanish. How can you have a movie with Jack in it and dub over his voice?

I still thought the movie was great, but everyone on the bus would glance at me at shake their head every time someone got their brains splattered all over a wall, which in this movie was about every 10 seconds... yet another akward bus ride. It seemed like we had much better luck on chicken busses and were bound and determined to take one of those on the journey from Cobán to Flores.

Meanwhile we were dropped off in Cobán, a little city, which is a hub for all tourists headed to Tikal. We checked in to our hotel, went for a bite to eat, then headed to a local travel office to sign up for a tour of a beautiful place called Semuc Champey that was about an hour away.

This part of Guatemala, come to find out, the locals all go to the local university to get degrees in the ¨hostitality¨ industry. The service at the restaurants was terrible, the people at the tour office were jerks, and everyone on the streets looked like they wanted to smash my ugly white face in. This continued unfortunately through Flores as well. It seemed as if the people were extremely tired of their lives depending solely on tourism. In these particular places it is way more common for people from the U.S. to fly in, chug beers, wreck their hotel rooms, and see the pyramids then go home. I wanted to carry around a sign saying that I'd lived here for a month and a half. The people and the service, for the most part, was very dissapointing and depressing.

We visited Semuc Champey the following day. The one compact disc the driver had in the tour van?... you guessed it, that damn eighties cd. He was not discouraged by our request for a radio station and simply turned “Beat It” up a few decibles while saying to all of us in bad English,

¨You like ochentas (eighties) music, no?¨.

Semuc Champey is up in the mountains where a river runs into an underground cave and mountain water runs down to form beatiful crystal clear multi-leveled swimming holes on top of the cave. The mountain water meets up with the underground river as it exits the cave to form a huge rapidly flowing river. It is truly something to behold: the view from the mountain, the river running into the cave (death to anyone who falls in), and the beauty of the pools.

We hiked up a grueling path to a beatutiful vista point first. Check out the view. The hike down the mountain led us to where the water flowed into the cave. It was phenominally cool. We then hiked through a stream over mossy, incredibly slick rocks to where the pools were. It seriously was like what I had always imagined the fountain of youth to look like. Beautiful turqouise water with little bright yellow fish swimming around.

Here's a picture of Melanie doggy paddling around (Check out the Guatemalan kid's Van Damme shirt!).

There were layers of deep crystal clear water. You could dive in to each level from the previous one. There were also a great cliff with several levels to dive off of into one of the pools. The water was clean and refreshingly cool. I felt like screaming for joy it felt so good. I spent a good hour with my new friends climbing up tree roots to about twenty feet on the mountainside overlooking one of the pools and diving in. I can't remember the last time I had so much fun.

Pictures of the river flowing into the underground cave:

We headed back to the hotel after our exhausting day of hiking, diving and swimming and crashed out knowing that we had yet another full day of bus travel to look foward to the following day, only this time on a chicken bus headed towards Tikal where we were going to see more ancient ruins, climb more pyramids, and see hundreds and hundreds of MONKEYS!!!

To be continued....

The Journey of Lake Atitlan

Before I get started, I want to give everyone the opportunity to download Google Earth and the custom Xela map so you can see exactly where we're at (right across from the cervecería(beer factory)) and be able to see where the lake is in relation to the city (due east)...

OK, got it installed? Make sure the topographic option is turned on so you can get the feel of the mountainous terrain.

Lake Atitlan

Off we headed last weekend on our newest adventure, a three day excursion to Lake Atitlan. This time, however, we had a secure apartment to leave our belongings in and we only had to carry a tiny backpack with the essentials. Thank goodness, you guessed it, no box ó books.

We headed toward where we thought the chicken bus station was. It was near our apartment , but we only knew the general location so we ended up having to ask a local newspaper vendor for directions, which he gave so kindly. We didn't know what the chicken bus station looked like but knew we were on the right track when we started seeing hoards of them parked on the side of the road we were walking down. All of a sudden we were in the midst of chicken bus madness. Ten ¨rows¨, if you want to call them that of chicken buses, some coming, some going. There were people yelling at the top of their lungs as to where their chicken bus was headed, vendors yelling, everyone yelling.

We walked through the center of all the buses looking for the depot, or ticket office, someplace where we could buy tickets for our journey in an orderly fashion. We were finally approached by a Guatemalan gentleman in a bright red polo shirt with an official looking logo on it. He was one of the bus ¨station¨ attendants. I'm sure this was not the first time he's seen confused gringos wandering aimlessly through the jungle of buses and people. He knew exactly which bus to put us on, told us where we needed to transfer, and about how long the journey would be. We apparently would be paying later and did not need tickets.

What is a chicken bus you ask? A chicken bus is a chromed out or wildly painted school bus, the inside exactly like the one you rode to school in as a kid. They have luggage racks on the rooftops that run the length of the bus. They are equipped with numerous horns, whistles, and noise makers for the driver to use to a.) warn oncoming traffic that he is in their lane, b.) warn pedestrians that they are about to die, and (most importantly) c.) to let passing females know that they are hot.

Remember how fun the rides to school were if you had one of those bus drivers that would go 90 mph over hills and bumps? This was an extreme version. This was almost like when I was in fourth grade and the bus driver overslept by an hour and frantically raced around trying to make up time, kids jumping in the open door with the bus still moving, etc... These buses, however, have Indycar racing engines in them and drivers behind the wheels that would put the likes of Wheldon, Dixon, and Andretti to shame. Seriously, imagine an Indy car race only with school buses, and the track being several thousand feet high on a two-lane cliff-edged highway under construction with no guardrail and you have a feel for the chicken bus experience. Here's a picture of the one we were on after I disembarked and kissed the ground:

The journey officially began after several other native Guatemalans boarded the bus with us. The last person to board the bus was a kid that jumped in the moving bus and hung out the open door grasping a metal handle affixed to the side of the bus in front of the door. This person was the true brains of the entire operation. The drivers, or as they fittingly call them here, ¨pilotes¨, just have to focus on driving and trying not to kill everyone. The sidekick, for lack of a better word, was responsible for yelling out to potential riders where our destination was while hanging out the door as we were moving, collecting payment, making sure people got off where they need to, knowing whose luggage is whose, getting said luggage on and off of the bus (without the bus stopping), and communicating with drivers in vehicles we are passing around blind corners to slow down so as to avoid head on collisions with oncoming traffic. He never wrote down anything to help him remember.

We were truly awestruck by the skills this guy possessed. If a person wanted on, the bus would stop for a brief second, long enough for them to hop on. If the people had belongings the sidekick would jump out, grab the huge sack of stuff and would climb up the ladder on the back of the bus with the sack or various other belongings balanced on his back. Meanwhile the bus would start racing down the curvy highway, the sidekick left to tie down the belongings while hanging on to the luggage rack for dear life. He would then climb back down the ladder and in through the back door of the bus in one fluid motion. The first time we took off with the sidekick on the roof we looked at each other in astonishment thinking the driver had left him behind. Seconds later the kid walked right passed us from the back of the bus. This procedure was repeated many many times. He would also scale to the roof from the open side door, of course while in motion, to retrieve people's belongings so that the bus only had to stop for a brief second for anyone to leap off, their stuff landing with a thud on the ground next to them as the bus accelerated away. This was some real life Jackie Chan craziness. I saw the speedometer get up to 130-140 kph which translates to 80-90 mph with the little guy climbing around up top.

Our ¨pilote¨ on the journey there was particularly insane. There was quite a bit of road construction going on that day so we had to stop several times for time spans of ten to thirty minutes and wait to start up again. The driver would off-road it around all the other vehicles in line in order to get to the front of the pack and then would, as if the the checkered flag had been waved, floor it, leaving everyone else in his dust. Ever seen a school bus burn rubber in third gear? He would drive through the construction zones like a complete maniac, and once out of the construction zone, he would cease driving conservatively: passing around blind corners, passing tour buses through thick fog, and driving on the wrong side of the road for long stretches at a time, barely avoiding collisions.

Luckily Melanie had taken her medication and was happily humming the Sesame Street theme song while drool dripped down the front of her blouse. No, she was actually conscious and coherent, but the meds kept her from getting motion sickness. I think the drugs helped keep calm her as well. She didn't once grab my arm and dig her fingernails in it, which was a minor miracle. The most amusing point of the journey for me was when Melanie bought a chocolate coated ice cream bar from a roadside vendor at one of our construction zone stops. They waved the checkered flag unexpectedly early and she was left to hold on for dear life while trying to hold on to her ice cream bar. I felt a little bad and wanted to help her to eat it but I was a little queasy. OK, I didn't feel that bad. I thought it was damn funny, but I tried not to make it obvious. It's damn hard to keep from sliding out of your bench seat while going 90 mph around corners. It's even harder while holding an ice cream bar that's dripping down your hand, trying to take occasional bites!

The last leg of the journey as we were winding down the mountain road overlooking Lake Atitlan was breathtaking. Three volcanoes surround the lake and the day we arrived they were most evident. The rest of the time, unfortunately it was quite cloudy. Lake Atitlan is about 5000 ft above sea level and about 1000 ft. deep. It's crystal clear turquoise color and pleasantly warm temperature make it seem obvious why people end up staying there for years when they just went to visit. During rainy season, however, it stays cloudy most of the time. Makes for some pretty spooky pictures though.

Needless to say we were thrilled to make it in one piece to our first stopping point, Panajachel. We wandered, shell shocked, into the closest cafe to drink a cold Gallo and recuperate. The total bus time was about five hours. We had fun recounting the whole bus ride as we sat there and munched on our bacon cheeseburgers. After gaining our strength back we walked around Panajachel a little and then down to the docks where the boats took people to the surrounding villages. Panajachel is the main hub at the lake where all the buses go. You have to board a boat to go any of the villages around the lake as they are so remote. We did not want to spend our time in Pana because of it being way too touristy and the fact that there are dirty hippies everywhere, in other words, it reeks of patchouli and b.o. We decided to spend our nights in San Marcos.

San Marcos was a quaint little village that most tourists skip on their path around the lake. We looked at one place that had amazing views, the rooms built into the cliff sides. We had not made reservations though and they only had availability for one night. We ended up staying in a place considerably cheaper, appropriately called Posada Schuman. Melanie wanted to stay there especially because of the name. The room was actually quite cute if you don't count the little visitor, a huge hairy spider, we had on our first night there. I ripped Melanie's book she brought along to read out of her backpack and smashed him with all my might against the wall. Instead of running to me exclaiming ¨my hero!¨, all she was worried about were the spider guts all over her book. Ironically the book was named Not So Funny When It Happened.

We met two incredibly nice people on one of our boat rides that were just arriving at the lake. They ended up staying at Posada Schuman as well. They had met up on their journey somewhere in Guatemala and had travelled together ever since. Minsook, aka Teacher Michelle, as she was known in her home country by her English students, was from Korea. Manuel, was from Switzerland. We went out to dinner that night and had a great time talking about everything from politics to whether it's okay for dogs to eat out of ¨human food bowls¨. It was really cool that they had connected together, as well as with us, speaking their second language of English. We were all in the process of learning Spanish and none of us spoke a word of it to each other the entire time... pathetic. We had a blast hanging out with them, hope to see them again in the future, and wish them the best of luck on the rest of their journeys.

The main attractions besides the dirty hippy watching at Pana were San Pedro and Santiago Atitlan. We visited both on our second day there. San Pedro is the place where everyone goes to score weed and supposedly they grow it pretty openly although I didn't see any or get offered any while I was there... seriously. We did see a chalkboard sign on a restaurant by the dock that advertised, ¨We Have Hookas¨. The teenagers that worked at the docks seemed way more loose and jovial as well. I was a more than a little suspicious (and a little depressed).

We went to Santiago on our second day as well, which happened to be market day. There were so many high quality arts and crafts it was amazing. They were also dirt cheap. We ended up buying a few things to take back with us and a hammock, as promised, for our stay at (Casa de Tortugas), which we will deliver when we make it back to the states to Tushar.

Our bus ride back to Xela was not nearly as fun. This driver apparently hadn't filled his nitrice tank before the journey. There was also not as much construction that day so it was a much quicker journey as well. All in all we had a great time. The lake was gorgeous, we made some great friends from the other side of the planet, and we got some beautiful souvenirs. Next week we're heading to Antigua, Guatemala City, and the incredible Mayan ruins of Tikal. Check back next week for another episode.

Chris