On the way to Palenque, the transmission on our beloved van decided it was done. It started slipping very severely coming in and out of first gear. We had some minor repairs done in Palenque, but with little to no improvement. Fortunately, a church in Palenque expressed interest in fixing the transmission and buying our van. So, we entrusted Bob Waag with the keys and headed to the bus station to begin the race to Guatemala.
The trip to the bus station was an adventure in itself, as we had to pack the five members of our team with all of our stuff into the back of a covered truck, along with both South African teams and Anna-Marie and all of their stuff. So there we were: five Americans and nine South Africans packed in like sardines traveling through the mountains of Chiapas.
At the bus station, we parted ways with the South African teams who decided to take a shuttle to San Cristobal, but Anna-Marie came along with us on a nine hour bus ride to a small town on the Guatemalan border. The Mexican bus was very nice, reminiscent of an American charter bus. We enjoyed the air conditioning and the complimentary movies, even if they were dubbed in Spanish. The only downsides were the fact that the latch on the bathroom door was busted (my foot became the doorstop for almost the entire trip), and an unfortunate situation in which a little girl on the bus became car sick and threw up in the aisle right next to us. But did I mention the air conditioning and free movies?
At the border, we stopped at Mexican immigration and got our exit paperwork in order. Then it was a short cab ride to the border where we walked across on foot, carrying all of our gear. We stopped by the Guatemalan immigration office at about 8:00pm to get our passports stamped and headed on across the border to find ground transportation to carry us through the night.
Unfortunately, the bus system in Guatemala is a little different than in Mexico. Instead of bus terminals and charter buses with set schedules, we found brightly painted former school buses (called “chicken buses” for some unknown reason) in which you knock on the door and ask the driver when he’s leaving and where he’s going.
After asking around, we found that no buses were leaving until at least 1am. Not wanting to stand around waiting for 4 and a half hours with all of our stuff, we decided to hire a couple of cabs to take us into Huehuetanango where we would likely find a bus to take us the rest of the way to Panajachel. So, we jumped in two cabs and we were off.
This cab ride was a crazy indication of things to come. The cabbies drove over mountain roads at breakneck speeds, often using both lanes to take the corners a little faster. Things got somewhat more interesting when our cab blew out the left rear tire. We quickly came to a stop, jumped out of the car, and pried our backpacks out of the trunk to get to the full-size spare. Our driver, Napoleon (and no, I’m not making that up), went to work on changing the tire, and he must have worked in the pits at Daytona at some point in his life, because this was the quickest one-man tire change I’ve ever seen. Soon, we were back on the road.
When we arrived in Huehuetanango, it was just before 10:00pm. We had the cabbies drop us at the bus station, hoping to find a bus bound for Panajachel leaving soon. We were disappointed to find out that the bus we wanted didn’t leave until 2:00am. After scrounging around for a hotel that would let us wait for our bus in one of their rooms, or even the lobby, and finding nothing, we decided to just wait at the bus terminal.
Now in the States, that might mean crashing out on a bench inside. In Guatemala, that meant sitting outside on a concrete bench that sucked the warmth right out of us. Ashley began to feel ill at this point and threw up a time or two. It was a difficult few hours, but we got through it.
At 2:00am, we boarded our bus, an old charter that must have been at least a couple of decades old. We were glad it wasn’t a chicken bus, because it meant our stuff would ride inside a luggage compartment rather than on top of the bus. The seats on the bus filled rather quickly, but shortly thereafter more people piled in. The conductor passed plastic stools back through the aisle, and the people simply sat on the stools in the aisle of the bus. It was wall-to-wall people. Who would have thought a 2:00am bus could have that many people on it?
Anyway, the bus took off, and soon we were whizzing around the corners, flying from side to side. Guatemalan bus drivers aren’t much different from Guatemalan cabbies when it comes to driving style. We were thankful that it was dark and we couldn’t see the view. The positives in this though were that we made great time, and we were in constant prayer. So at least we had that going for us.
After a couple of hours, the conductor called for those going to Panajachel to work their way forward in the bus, past the people in the aisles. We had to change buses at “the interchange,” which we expected to be another bus station. We were wrong. The interchange was just that, a point where several highways came together. So, they kicked us out of the bus, threw out our gear, and were off in a flash.
And there we were: five Americans and a South African, loaded down with gear, standing on the side of a highway in Guatemala at 4:00am, waiting to flag down a bus. The stuff of high adventure, indeed.
We ended up hopping on a mini-bus that was headed to Panajachel shortly before 5:00am. On this one, our stuff was piled on top, and given the driving we had experienced thus far, we all prayed that God would hold it down. Fortunately, the driving was much saner and slower this time.
We arrived in Panajachel at about 6:15. We packed up our gear and headed for Lake Atitlan, where we would hop on a boat and head across the lake to the small village of San Pedro. Finding the pier was a bit difficult, but after about 45 minutes of wandering, we were on a small water taxi, headed across the lake. We got to watch the sun come up over the lake, which was spectacular.
Unfortunately for us, San Pedro was the final stop, so we were on the boat for more than an hour. The fatigue of being up all night began to catch up with us, so we took short naps between stops.
Finally, we arrived at San Pedro at 8:18am. Our entire trip took less than 24 hours, and provided us with stories to tell for a lifetime. We found Cathy, our contact, at her hotel, got ourselves a couple of rooms, had some breakfast, and crashed out. We slept most of the day, content with having put forward our best effort.
We’re back in the race.
