Excursion to Volcán Chicabal

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Yesterday was an adventurous day. I took a "chicken bus" about 45min out to a nonactive volcano to do some hiking. These busses are hilarious. They´re actually old school busses (complete with little-to-no leg room) all painted up in crazy colors emblazoned with religious sayings "dios es amor" "mi dios es real" etc. etc. as if that will keep them from getting out of accidents. (In my opinion, they could use some new brakes!!) We were all packed (and I mean packed) in there and the aisles were about 1/4 the size of regular school busses, so you can imagine the ordeal it was to enter/exit the bus. Especially for the old people.

I ran into some ppl going to the same place, but they were hiking too slowly, so I (graciously) ditched them and made my way up the very steep dirt road, passing indigenous village people and smiling and greeting the cute little kids running all over. Around the top, I ran into some Guatemalans (actually 3 Guatemalans and a Canadian) and joined forces with them against the precipitous trail. They were all really nice and we had lunch together at the crater lake and hiked back down together and took the bus back together.

The bus ride was even more adventurous this time around. The first bus was too full to board, but when the second one passed, we all pushed in. There were people squished into every single row, people standing in what little aisle space there was, and kids mushed in all over, so we ended up standing by the driver, and some of us were barely in the door of the bus. We rode like this for 40 min. Ironically, there was a poster on the wall that said "we care about your safety" or something like that. It was amazing. At one point I got to sit down and this indigenous woman with a little baby on her back was standing by me and the kid was in my face and stading on my lap. I think he pooped. Either that or it smelled pretty bad in that bus. In any case, the "chicken bus" was definitely a worthwhile experience, and I hope to make use of this wonderful method of transportation in the future!

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