Bienvenidos a Guatemala

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Hola! Sorry for the bombardment of posts but this has been the first time I've had any spare time to sit down and a) think about what we've been up to and b) have enough time at a computer to get it all down!

As I mentioned in my last post, the trip to Guatemala was, for me at least, Hellish. I had developed what I initially thought was a cold which was probably from the close quarters on the bus to San Cristobal, the air conditioning and my general run-down-ness from not sleeping on any of the busses! This wasn't a problem initially - we big strong men can deal with colds no sweat...that was until the sweats came...and the fever, and the nausia, and the rest...I did manage to maintain my composure for the entire day however, regardless of the most ridiculous bus driver I have ever come across (to date).

The trip out of Mexico was fine, apart from the ever present speed bumps jarring your knees every few hundred meters (I was still feeling relatively perky at this point!). The landscape changed again from high mountains down into lowland jungle. It was great! We had our passports stamped as we left Mexico and drove another few km up to the actual Mexico-Guatemala border which was up on a suddenly steep mountainside...strangely, it was less of a border crossing and more of a large market selling a lot of trousers, mannequins and the sweets...I forgot to mention how much the Mexicans/Guatemalans LOVE their sweets...we got out of the minibus and walked through some of the market up to a wire fence - the actual fence was covered by market stalls of course - there was just a large opening and a sign saying "bienvenidos a Guatemala" - no Guards, no lift up barrier, no nothing really except a small building for passport control and a lot of people wielding masses of Guatemalan Quetzales offering the "best rates in town"!

We were introduced to the Guatemalan pace of doing things (which by the way for someone with limited patience anyway could be classed as going backwards) in the passport office - it took about ten minutes for the chap to take 4 passports, walk to his desk, sit down, look at them for a second, have a chat, look again, have another chat, get out his stamp, think about stamping them, have a bit more a a chat (I think I saw his eyes shut at one point for a snooze), stamp the passports, have a bit more of a chat...and then finally give us them back. Something that I feel could have been performed easily in under a minute! As I say...Bienvenidos a Guatemala!

By this point I was beginning to feel strange - wobbly, dizzy, sick etc. Luckily we jumped on the bus and continued our journey into Guatemala post haste, with stress on the Haste! If Guatemala has a highway code it reads thus:

The *Official* Guatemalan Highway Code

1. Do whatever one can to get to one's location in the most dangerous way possible;

2a. When overtaking, ensure that this manoeuvre is only performed when approaching the crest of a hill or a very tight and completely blind bend;

2b. During overtaking manoeuvres, ensure that at no point is only 1 car overtaken - efficiency is key, regardless of safety.

3. Where necessary, in a traffic jam, swing out into oncoming traffic to jump a few places forward as you will definitely arrive faster this way...should the oncoming traffic decide not to stop for you, do not try to force your way back into your lane, but use the hard shoulder/driveways/shop fronts on the other side of the road as a temporary carriageway.

4. Always ensure that at least 95%!o(MISSING)f each tyre is completely bald (preferably down to the wire)...especially in the wet season when the roads can be wet, muddy and can fall away beneath one at any point.

5. Your horn is your most essential tool - use it at all times.

6. Brakes are for pansies.

7. If in doubt, shut your eyes and hope for the best.

So, as you can probably imagine, the journey was totally fine and without a hitch...not at any point did we see large American style trucks with no front axle to speak of on the down hill section of the only 4 lane road in Guatemala...honest. The driver seemed to be in a bit of a rush I think, which bucked the general laid back approach that most Guatemalans have to life (as we are still finding out). This did not help me very much, and I must admit that to coin a very important person in our lives "it was the worst 3 hours of my life"... not in the last 10 years have I felt so bad; so tearing up and down mountain roads and performing perfect highway code style overtaking manoeuvres was ensuring that things were fantastic all the way.

Well, I say all the way. What I actually mean was that we stopped for a routine toilet break for "10 minutes"which turned into 20, then 40 then 60....this was after the driver had stopped to pick up and drop off some traveller type bags belonging to apparently invisible travellers (frankly Scarface was more subtle in his activities) that weren't on our bus! He then informed us that actually we had to get off and get on a completely different bus with a different driver (I think he had another bag drop to perform).

Fortunately the new driver was a bit lighter on the rally driving so my stomach wasn't quite as bad. This gave me more time to look around. Guatemala is simply beautiful - steep mountains, jungle covering everything and volcanoes shrouded in mist growing up out of the lowland plains...

The hurricane that hit a couple of weeks ago was pretty devastating on the road that we were driving on - the 4 lanes became 2 lanes as we rounded the mountains due to high land slides that had covered one side or the other in mud, trees, boulders as big as cars etc. fortunately they had cleared enough for the roads to be navigable, although at some points the cracks in the roads that were sectioned off by small rocks slipped away to very steep slopes of the mountain we were driving on!

We finally arrived after dark (something that is highly recommended NOT to do - although Antigua is nicer than most places) and decided to stop at the first hostel the driver stopped at which was recommended by a crazy American woman who was travelling with her husband and son (and had been doing so for the past year). They had 2 beds left in a 5 person dorm so we took them because by this time I was...feeling rather sorry for myself. The room was about 2m square and the beds were about a ft too short for me - Sarah was too big for them! Furthermore, the shared toilet for the entire FLOOR looked like something from trainspotting (with genuine faeces on the wall) which was not the best when I was frequenting it on a fairly regular basis through the night!

We checked out early after Sarah had been to scope out a nice clean hotel for the same price with a big comfy bed and a private bathroom. We then began exploring Antigua which is beautiful and not in any way as dangerous as Guatemala City, although the banks all have armed guards and some of the shops too...and there is a strange mortar that seems to be fired from the hillside every couple of minutes at random which explodes over the city...its amazing how quickly you grow accustomed to bizarre things.

Sorry for the ridiculously long rant again...I needed to get caught up with everything after getting sick - including eating which I omitted from my daily routine for 2 or 3 days...

Love to all

x
We're here for the language school which is where I am writing this from - a weeks tuition and living in a nice room with a view of the volcano for the week will suit me just fine!

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Comments

[michelle]

Wow
My goodness....fab reading but hope you are feeling better!!! Sounds amazing so far...love to you both....xxxx