In order to understand this story, you’ll need some definitions.
Chicken Bus: A Blue Bird school bus, tricked out with fire paint, metal work, and extra handrails for the standing riders.
Quetzales: Guatemalan currency. The conversion rate is about 7.67 Q’s to 1USD.
Spanish: the language I should have learned more of during those 3 semesters worth of credit hours in college.
Last weekend, a, we needed a BREAK. So a ton of people jumped on chicken busses in the Quiche market headed to Antigua, San Marcos, and San Pedro.
After two weeks of straight 24/7 livin’ with 55 people me, Laura Ficken, Laura Bush, Katelyn, and Beth all went cheerfully on our way to San Pedro, ready to spend the weekend staring at the volcanoes that overlook Lake Atitlan.
First, let’s talk about these “chicken busses”. They’re tricked out with cool paint jobs and other tricked-out things you use to trick cars out. The drivers like to fit a lot of people on them so they can make more money, so you usually end up sitting three to a seat. Also, they like driving really fast. Like. REALLY FAST. So just imagine a school bus, without speed control, plummeting down super curvy, super tight mountain roads.
You could also imagine some near-collisions around said curves, because that would be completely accurate.
Three busses later, we made it to San Pedro, had a nice night exploring the town, eating, and playing with fire (that’s a question for Laura F. and Katelyn).
I was away in my dreams by like 10, and everyone else drifted off around 1130 (typical). We had decided a 4am hike up to Indian Nose Point to see the sunrise over the lake would be beautiful, so we signed up.
Apparently our alarms planned a mutiny against us and we all woke up at 3:35am. In a rush of throwing on clothes and brushing our teeth, we sprinted down to the honking van that was waiting to take us to the base of the mountain, and we were only like 3 minutes late.
So it’s dark. It’s 4am. We’re in a van with a British couple, Mike and Andrea, and it was Mike’s birthday. Our contact, Jose, is riding shotgun, with some guy we’ve never met driving.
Y’all, I was praying so hard we were not being led to slaughter and that this was in fact a legit tour.
About half way through the drive (he told us it would take an hour) the van stops at the bottom of this steep hill, Jose gets out, opens the van door, and tells 3 of us to get out.
So I don’t know anything except it’s 4am and Beth, Katelyn, and I all file out and Jose closed the van door and the van promptly started driving up the hill without us.
Jose says nothing, and just starts walking up the hill, in the same direction that our van just drove off.
Oh, so you’d like us to follow you, Jose?
Oh, so you’d like us to be in fervent prayer that the 500 motorcycles whizzing past us in the dark don’t smash into our unprotected, unlit, apparently too-heavy American bodies?
I think this is a good time to mention I was wearing my Birkenstocks for this hike because that was all I brought. I know, Mountain Hideaway can smack me later.
The hill was steeper than a living room wall and altitude ain’t no joke and that’s what we’ll go ahead and blame the heaving breaths that occurred 5 steps in on.
We made it to the top where the van had stopped to wait for us, embittered by our forced pre-hike. Mike, Andrea, and Laura apologized. 4:30am.
We drive into this mountain town, Jose gets out of the van again, shakes some kid’s hand, tells us to get out of the van, gets back in the van, and drives off.
The kid he shook hands with begins walking down a dark alleyway toward some corn stalks. Mmm, yes, this makes me want to follow you, 14-year-old boy.
But follow we did, into darkness and muddy walkways.
All I know is there were about 264324032 muddy earthen steps leading straight up the side of the mountain. And we all almost died of heart attacks at 530am.
But we made it to the top. And it was more beautiful than I can describe. So, they’re all on facebook.
So let’s discuss the downhill hike back to the van.
In Birkenstocks.
On steep, muddy earthen steps.
I ate it a solid 3 times. The first of which, my right hand landed on a root sticking up out of the ground, hitting a nerve in my hand and sending numbness running ramped up my arm. I got mud everywhere and new bruises all over the place.
Don’t hike in Birkenstocks.
But we made it down alive, and I feel my Birkenstocks deserve a medal for the hard work they put in that morning.
We checked out of our hostel. We kayaked a bit and got to see some pretty cool views.
We ate lunch in Panajachel, the town where we needed to catch our first bus back to Quiche.
The finale to this story includes 2 chicken busses (avg about a 45-person occupancy) each packed with about 85 Guatemalans and the 5 of us, and 4 vans (avd about 10-person occupancy) each packed with about 20 Guatemalans and the 5 of us.
It was Guatemalan Independence Day weekend, which means that kids thinks its fun to throw muddy water balloons through the windows of the chicken busses as they’re passing by. Laura and I got hit TWICE with those things, and the Guatemalans thought it was HILARIOUS.
Exhausted and feeling confused, I just wanted sleep.
It was a fun weekend full of lots of memories, but something had been missing. I wasn’t content, I wasn’t rejuvenated, and I was actually more exhausted emotionally, spiritually, and physically than before we left.
And as I drifted into my dreamless, still sleep, I wondered what I had gotten wrong, what I had missed.
