Guatemala, 2 thefts in one day - El Salvador

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So i take the bus back from Flores to Guatemala city. There was an accident on the road about half-hour before the city and the road was blocked both ways. We had to wait on the road for about 3 hours until they cleared one of the lanes. There were lots of trucks and busses, the accident happened before 5 am. The drivers´ reactions shocked me: as I was eager to find out what had happened and when we would be able to get through, all the bus and truck drivers started talking on the road, making jokes and laughing. Noneone seemed upset that they were getting delayed because of the accident. When I asked the driver if he knew when we would be able to get through, he said, "i don´t know, there is nothing we can do, we have to be patient". I think we would all live our lives much better if we learned that simple lesson from the Guatemalans.

My appreciation for the Guatemalans didn´t last long - sorry Carlos and Luis. We got to Guate city around 8 am and i took a "chicken" bus to Antigua, where Eloisa and Blue Thunder were waiting. A chicken bus is one of those american school busses repainted that i told you about. It was freaking unconfortable, especially with 50+ Guatemalans in one of those. But I wasn´t there so complain, afterall, it was only about an hour and a half to Antigua, i could survive. When we were getting off the bus, i noticed the guy behind me was kind of pushing me a little. Then I remembered that pick-pockets in Brazil push you slightly so that you don´t feel that he is taking your wallet from your back pocket. I feel for my wallet and it was gone. I turn around, it was a 30 year-old Guatemalan, not taller than 5 feet. I knew he had taken my wallet, and i was prepared to smack him. I asked where my wallet was, I must have been really scary at that time, without a shower for two days and at least a month without combing my hair, because he seemed scared shitless. He started saying, "it fell in the bus, it fell..., i did´t take it". I followed him back into the bus, he pretended that he was searching the floor, and gave me back my wallet. I checked the money and it was there. In the meantime started waking away. Then I checked my cards and there were two missing. He had disapeared in the crowed by then. I cancelled both cards immediately and confirmed that he didn´t use them, so no damage was done this time.

The next victim was Blue Thunder. When we were leaving for El Salvador we noticed that someone had broken into Blue Thunder - and nicely left the window open, which at first we thought it was broken, but it wasn´t. The only thing I had left in the car were my sun glasses, so that´s all they took. They forced the lock on the driver´s side pretty bad, though, and it doesn´t work with the key anymore. So now Eloisa has to open the door for me from the inside every time.

El Salvador

We drove to El Salvador without any problems, it was pretty late by the time we finished going through immigration and customs, so we stayed in a small town close to the border. We stayed at a cheap but clean hotel. Eveything was fine, except that in the middle of the night someone in the hotel started screaming and breaking things. It went on for a long time. We couldn´t quite understand what was going on, he seemed to be pissed about something someone in the hotel had said. That was very strange, but I guess it adds to the experience.

*** ADDED 7/2/05 ***

BT had a problem that I had forgotten to mention. It was the only mechanical problem that could have left us on the road the entire trip. We stopped to have lunch in El Salvador and we noticed that there was a lot of steam comming out of the engine. I opened the hood and noticed that there was a whole on a pipe that took water from the radiator to the engine. It was a small hole, but we had already lost about one liter of coolant (in the US they can´t use water cause it freezes). We probably wouldn't have made it another 100 miles. Fortunately there was a car mechanic shop close by and we got it fixed for about 4 dollars.

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