Chicken (bus) Run- Through Central America

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January 28th 2008

Published: February 14th 2008

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Tom Brosnan

Guatemalan Countryside

The view on approach to the border.

Crossing the border from Mexico to Guatemala, you can adjust your clocks by as little or as much as you like as you go from General Mexican Time to Guatemalan Mean Time.

I was aboard a Mexican tourist shuttle that was to meet up with a similar service on the Guatemalan side. For almost 2 hours we waited at the border, sitting outside the ´immigration office´ in the blaring mid-day sun. Luckily our international crew had all the ingredients to keep us entertained. A Canadian girl had a guitar, a German couple had some snacks, and of course the 2 Aussie´s (Simon and Owen) had 2 bottles of tequila. So we said farewell to Mexico by sitting on the border, drinking tequila, eating and playing guitar.

Entering Central America, many things remained the same as Mexico: tortillas were eaten with every meal, security guards with shot-guns still manned shoe stores, pharmacies and car-wreckers, homeless dogs still roamed the streets, speed control continued in the form of speed bumps and toilets still couldn´t handle toilet paper in them.

Other things did change though, like the ´Central American Suicide Showers´- basically a simple exposed-wire heater that is connected to the

Killing G.M.T. at the Border

Tequila at the border, with Simon and Owen.

shower head to provide ´´hot water´´. Apart from being very dangerous, it only ends up heating one strand of water in the middle, while the 20 surrounding it are still cold.

The other noticeable difference was the appearance of ´Chicken Buses´. These ex-U.S. yellow school buses sent down and repainted in amazing colours and designs are the main form of public transport in Central America. Its like a competition between the buses to have the shiniest and most colourful bus.

Guatemala
The destination for our group on the delayed shuttle bus was the stunning Lake Atitlan, a huge crater lake with 4 volcanoes surrounding it. Unfortunately where we stayed, in the touristy town of Panajachel, it was not so impressive. It did have a good range of tasty restaurants and cheap beer, which we made the most of that night.

The next day, we took a day trip to the Chichistenango Market, one of the biggest and most colourful markets in the Americas. The colour and quality of textile goods on offer were amazing, with everything from hammocks to rugs to baby clothes. More interesting than the stalls themselves, were the locals shopping there. Despite a few

Guatemalan Chicken Bus

Hardly resembling a U.S. school bus

inconspicuous tourists, the crowd were mostly local Mayan villagers there to buy and sell useful goods and food, like they have probably done for decades. We returned with a few goods and all went for an amazing Argentinian steak dinner and some sunset drinks over the lake.

On the last day, Simon, Owen and I took a shuttle boat across the lake to one of the other towns, San Pedro, for a look. It was a hippy-haven, with yoga classes, coffee shops and hot rock massage houses. It also had more of a local town behind it all and was good to see the lake from another perspective. That afternoon, we took a bus to Antigua, a town with beautiful architecture and surrounded by active volcanoes. Being a hub for Spanish language schools, the town is very international, with everything from its residents to its food hardly representing real Guatemala.

The next day, the boys were flying out so I booked in for the dawn tour of the Pacaya Volcano. My Spanish vocabulary falls well short of understanding the botanical and geographical descriptions our guide was giving, but I did understand ´´caliente´´ (hot). After an hour or so,

Chichistenango Market

Billed as the most colourful market in the Americas

we made it to where an old lava flow had occurred 2 years ago continued on, walking on the volcanic rocks near the summit. We then spotted a steady red lava flow a few hundred metres away, and my bare legs could feel the heat rising. I knew we´d get a bit closer, but I wasn´t expecting to be able to walk to within 5 metres of the lava stream! The heat was almost unbearable, and within seconds you could feel it radiate through the soles of your shoes. Some people in the group had their soles melt instantly! The rest of the day was quite tame after that, as I went back to check out Antigua´s buildings and nightlife. The next day I got a bus down to El Salvador.

El Salvador
In El Salvador, the Chicken Bus drivers have girl's hair clips stuck around their rear-vision mirror, indicating how many girls they have had in their life, like a kind of trophy.

My first introduction to El Salvador was arriving at the border immigration office on the bus, and being confronted with 6 men all asking for my passport. They had customs forms in their hands,

Panajachel Dinner

Our international crew- can you guess which are the French, which are Germans and which are Aussies?

and began filling them out. They then asked for $10USD for their troubles. The American guy I was with gave them a $100 note and asked for change, and the guy took off with it. One guy started walking away with my passport, which I quickly chased down. When all the commotion settled down, it turned out they were all just money changers, and we didn´t even need a form to enter the country! The American guy lost his $100 note, I lost money on some exchange because of their faulty calculators, but at least we had our passports.

After that I was relieved to get through the dirty and dangerous capital, San Salvador, and get another Chicken Bus out to the small surfing town of Playa El Tunco. The dirt road town with a handful of simple hotels and restaurants is a favourite destination for travelling surfers with a few quality breaks close by. I met an Austrian guy, Michi, and an American couple at the hotel and spent the next few days surfing during the day, and relaxing in the hammocks and eating at night. Michi decided he would follow my plans to get to Panama, starting

San Pedro- Lake Atitlan

Filling in some more waiting time with a Gallo beer

with 1 night at nearby Playa El Zonte- another small and simple surfing village.

With time running out, we decided to skip through Honduras and Nicaragua to get down to Costa Rica. To do so involved a 22 hour bus that left San Salvador at 3am. We killed some time at another Argentinian steak restaurant and concert club in the capital, before boarding our ‘King Quality’ bus in the early hours. The quality may have been king, but the leg room sure wasn’t, as I was unable to fit my knees directly in front of me. The next 22 hours was a mixture of small naps interrupted by border crossings as we left and entered various countries. At the end, we had been in 4 countries in 1 day and arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica late at night.

Costa Rica
Costa Rica definitely stood out as cleanest of the Central America countries and also showed the biggest U.S. influence.

San Jose was much cleaner and safer than the previous Central American capital cities I had been to, and not even the police in the CBD carried guns We spent the morning walking around the market and

Volcano Pacaya

Sitting and relaxing by a slow stream.... of lava

shopping area, before boarding another bus to the surfing/ party town of Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean Coast. The laid-back town was a welcome break from almost 30 hours on buses in the previous 2 days. There we spent a few days, so I could surf the heavy ‘Salsa Brava’ reefbreak, and soak up the Caribbean food and relaxed atmosphere. It was easy to see why there were numerous ex-pat American surfers who have relocated down there. From there we got a bus to the Panama border and crossed on foot.

Panama
After my experience with the El Salvador border, I was reluctant to hand over my passport to the tourist official who was asking for it after it had already been stamped. Instead our group walked away, only to be rounded up by a cop who tried to explain he was the guy we needed to pay $5 for our tourist card from. Every border has something different. After a short shuttle, we crammed into water taxis to make it out to the island town of Bocos Del Toro. A hub for scuba, hiking and of course surfing, the town was surprisingly built up and bustling. We stayed

Hot Feet

The reason we couldn't hang around too long

a few nights in the town and hit the happening nightlife, that included a waterfront bar with a sunken old barge in the middle of it.

We then had a tip about the cheapest PADI certification scuba diving course around (USD$175), and signed up for the 3 day open water ticket with ‘The Dutch Pirate’. It was located on one of the nearby islands, Bastimentos, so we took a water taxi over to stay there. It was also closer to a fun reef break which I surfed one afternoon. Where Bocos Del Toro was a hive of tourist activity, Bastimentos was almost all locals and 100% relaxed Caribbean. It was the perfect base to avoid partying while doing our dive course. The diving was pretty fun, with a coral wall and shipwreck dives, but nothing like the variety and colours I’ve seen when snorkelling in Australia.

Australia Day
The final day of our course fell on Australia Day. It began with disgusting the people in our group with some Vegemite on toast, followed by passing the course. We then relocated back to ‘’Bocos’’ to join the other Aussie tourists and fun group of Chilean girls we’d met in

Playa El Tunco

The El Salvadorian coast- a strange mix of beautiful beaches and barb wire

Costa Rica for a big night at the sunken barge bar. Needless to say, we missed our boat off the island in the morning, and had to get a later one to meet our overnight bus to Panama City.

My first glimpse of Panama City was seeing the Panama Canal as we crossed it on the bridge in the pitch black of early morning. Red and green markers brightly indicated the shipping lane towards the Pacific Ocean. Arriving to the bus terminal with hardly any sleep but with a flight to Brazil that night, I was determined to make the most of my one day. With our reduced group, we dropped off our gear and walked around the old Havana-like area of town, and looked out over the new high-rise section. We then did the mandatory taxi out to see the Panama Canal for a few hours, before taking a much needed shower and hopping on one last Chicken Bus out to the airport.

My Central America tour had been brief but action-packed. Next up- meeting up with Jimmy for Carnaval in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil.

Highlight
Arriving at the Caribbean coastal town of Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica, an

Brekky with a View

The break of El Sunzal

hour before dark and paddling out from the palm tree-lined beach to the famed heavy break of Salsa Brava (brave sauce). Some perfect waves were breaking on the sharp reef while behind a full moon rose above the beautiful Caribbean Sea. From the land, I could hear Bob Marley music from one of the bars, while in the water the dark-skinned locals were speaking Spanish with a Jamaican-type accent (picture the movie 'Cool Runnings' dubbed in Spanish). When it was completely dark, I paddled in from ´Brave Sauce´ to meet Michi and drink a couple of brave sauces- of the cerveza kind.

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