We left yesterday on the second race to guatemala and that was one crazy trip. We sold our van back in southern mexico because the transmission was shot, so we were doing public transportation the whole way. We piled my team, our stuff, and the two south african team and there stuff into the back of this minature transport truck. I was standing on a bench, leaned over the bags for like a 45 min. trip. We got on a nice bus to the border of Mexico and Guatemala, and then we walked across, changed mnoey, got visas, and were met with the problem of getting deeper into the country.
The buses here aren´t so nice, and we couldn´t find one that went to our town. We got in two taxis and drove to the next town. It´s dark now, so we couldn´t see much, but the road super curvy. We get to the next town´s bus station rather quickly. It was skank nasty, middle of the night, and very yucky. We´re talking sewage in the street, bad smells from bad food, and late night drunks. We couldn´t find a hotel or place to rest in for three hours until our bus came. So we sat on these nanty benches outside in the freezing cold waiting for a bus we only thought would take us were we needed to go. While we were waiting the smell got so bad that I got sick to my stomach….not a good mix when you´re driving through roads that make West Virginia look straight.
Finally at around 2:00 AM our bus pulled in. Then people came out of the cracks and it was a totally booked bus. It wasn´t one of the chicken buses luckily. It was like an older charter bus. We got in and sat down, thinknig this might not be so bad. Then they just let more and more people on. They sat stools out in the isle and people sat on them for the two hour trip. So because I had an isle seat, I practially had an old gu
atemalan man sitting on my lap. Then the trip started. We were high in the mountains, flying around curves in a charter bus. We were swaying from side to side and I just couldn´t handle it. I coudn´t get up, so I puked in a trashbag in my hands the whole way. It was the worst thing ever. Then when we got to our stop, we were the only ones getting off. The bus barely slowed down to let us off. They made us get up and move to the front of the bus (with people all in the isle) before it even stopped. Not easy on curves you know.. So the luggage guy jumps off the moving bus runs back and starts throwing our luggage out on the street. We barely get off when the bus steps on the gas and is gone. It was like 4:00 AM and we were on the side of a road, at an intersection in the middle of nowhere.
We had to hop another shuttle bus to get to our little town by the lake, walk to the dock, hop on a boat to ferry us across to the volcano, and finally we made it at 8:05 AM. It was the single craziest night of my life and I was sooo sick the whole time. So I´m blogging from the side of a volcano, San Pedro, on the side of Lake Atitlan, in the middle of the mountains of Guatemala. Tomorrow we are racing to the top of the volcano. Pray that I feel better and find energy. Pray for our ministry this month. I´m excited to be in Guatemala.
