Advertisement
Published: February 12th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Tim Version:
* Tried to leave Antigua for Coban on the 1st, found life totally shut down! Got there on the second though...
* Spend some time in net cafes and caught a movie, stayed in my worst ever hotel, and enjoyed the cheap but brilliant street food.
The version that is still creeped out by that druggie tryin to break into my room...:
For Coban I had to enter the dreaded *da da daaaaa scary music* Guatemala City... doh. The areas for both my buses I know are dodgy too. This time though, being sick and having worked out how much I was saving by taking chicken buses versus microbuses that might avoid the city, I happily took a cab from one to the other and all was fine and dandy. Escobar y Monje Blanca was my bus company today, the ride, 4 or 5 hours... good for sleep! On the bus my neighbour ended up being a spritely and good to talk to 17 year old Guatemalan girl and we chewed each others ears for about 2 1/2 hours until she had to get off the bus. There were 4 German girls in front of
me but when they roam in packs that size they are totally self sufficient and usually not too bothered with outside communication... a bit of an insulated way to travel I think, I'm not a big fan of it, so yehhh I just slept and took some time to myself.
Arriving in Coban, its a basic place, really basic! Just there to serve economic needs. I did however find a room for 25Q. Checking out the town, there wasn't much around and it was late, so I got some street food and found it to be some of the best meat I've tasted in ages and half the price of most other places! That night in my wonderfully cheap hotel there was a drugged up guy like a zombie in the bathroom all the time, running water over his face. When I went in there he just stared. Later on while in my room he knocked so I answered and he droned on some shit about the number 29, always 29, and then he asked "como esta?" in a slow droned way and shook my hand with his clammy hand. Ew. So I politely said goodnight and closed the
door... when I was closing it I could see his eyes darting around in his head scanning my room but I made sure he could see nothing of my things when I opened the door, and I'm so glad I did... he returned later when the whole place was pitch black, knocking on my door for ages, softly then harder and harder, until he started pushing the door at which point I silently crept over and put my weight against the door. He kept pushing for a while, starting to put his shoulder into it, and the door only had a small latch closing it so could be easily broken. A heart thumping 15 minutes later or something he finally stopped and wandered off, shuffling like a zombie. I got my bedside table and used it to jam the door. Heart pounding, I tried to go to sleep but couldn't... once I finally did doze off a little he came back again and repeated the whole thing, this time with me blocking the door so he was not getting in. I was still freaked though as I had an unprotected window at the end of the bed that anyone could easily break into - thankfully he never thought of that! I tried to find my knife in my pack but couldn't fo it without making too much noise, so settled for just hoping he couldn't get in... once he left again, I relaxed after about 30 minutes enough to half sleep while clothed with my shoes on in case he came back again. He didn't. In the morning I changed hotel, quickly.
The other was great and I spent most of the day taking it easy, sitting in the sun and using an internet cafe trying to get healthy, and caught a new movie and the end of days or something in the cinema down the road. A funny thing this cinema setup... it has 3 movies playing at the same time, and guess what... they're not the least bit sound proof! So while our movie was sitting in supposedly silent critical suspenseful parts, I could hear the carton laughing and joking next door as clear as a bell! The door was also just a curtain blocking the light coming in, so breezes from the air con made it flutter and let light in. Heh not the best cinema experience but truly Central American! The movie sucked anyway, with keanu Reeves about Aliens landing to purge the world of humans because we are destroying the planet, but whn they discover that humans love and have the ability to change (well, Americans really, but they played it like they are the only humans), they called off the destruction at a crucial moment.. Cheeeezy.
The next morning it was Lanquin time. Everyone says its beautiful and a must visit, including the rich rich rich Guatemalans we met in Antigua, so I thought if everyone from the cheapest backpacker to the richest person from here loves it, something good must be going on there... so I went to investigate =)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0594s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb