Antigua, Guatemala

Alright, I apologize that I left the last blog half way finished. I didn´t realize quite how many people are reading this thing. I vow to keep it up if I have the audience, maybe if I get a big enough readership I can finance my trip through google ads ;)

To set the scene: Heather and I are in one of Mexico City´s bus terminals, having just waved goodbye to Lee.

We strolled over to the nearby ticket counter asking how to get to somewhere in the far South of the country, a tiny little place called Talisman, where one of the 3 border crossings are into Guatemala. Heather had researched all of them and this one was by far the coolest, as you the border occurred in the middle of the river.

We were told that no bus left the terminal we were at for the where we wanted to go, but one indeed did leave from another terminal from the main terminal in town. The metro system in the city is incredible so we go and hop onto a train which takes us most of the way to the other terminal. When we go to transfer the platform we were on was so crowded that it was 5 deep from the trains as they arrived. And when they did arrive they were already insanely packed out, we let a few go by and I noticed that there was about 3 or 4 dodgy looking blokes doing the same and eyeing Heather and I. She suggested we ditch the terminal and catch a cab the rest of the way. My backpacker´s intuition told me she was correct and so we left the station.

Coming out of the station we were in the middle of some sort of l0cal market selling everything from knockoff superman dolls (you can tell they were fake as the S was facing the wrong way) to batteries, to Croc shoes, to toilet paper. We flagged down a passing cab who stopped in the middle of traffic and we had to race to jump into his cab. It was very amazing race, made all the more so because I kept glancing at my watch thinking we had only 30 minutes to get to our bus. So when he let us out at our terminal after heroic driving forcing his way through traffic, cutting people off, driving in lanes that were little more then pockets in traffic. We ran to the ticket counter with what I thought to be only 8 minutes before the bus left.... Buying our tickets I realized we had two hours more to go and I had done my conversion from 24 hour time incorrectly.... So we spent 2 hours sitting in the terminal preparing for what the ticket seller had told me would be a 12-13 hour ride (confirming the lonely planet´s version of the time required.)

For those not keeping score at home, we had already spent 7 hours travelling that day and then had to wait 2 hours for the bus.

When we finally got on board and settled in the driver (doing his best airline pilot´s impression, full on with the pauses and the "uhhs" informed us that it was going to be a 16-18 hour journey.... Damn it! So we settled in Heather watching some terrible movies in Spanish and me reading Romeo Dallaire´s Shake Hands With The Devil. Granted my experience is only anecdotal, however, maybe there has been some research on the subject. What the hell is up with Mexicans and bad movies? So far on this trip I´ve seen: The Jaguar (crap), Spiderman 3(Western Blockbuster Crap), Centennial Man (Robin Williams Crap) and Wayans movie with a jewel thief who pretends to be a baby (do I even need to say how bad that is?)

When the interminable terrible movies were over and the bus went more or less dark, I tucked away my book content to watch the country side roll past and ponder. As tends to happen in the wee small hours of the night i had a lot of things going through my mind. I was missing my friends back home (odds are if you read this blog I spent a little time considering our friendship that night), I was also struck with an overwhelming desire to really get my head around the language here and wanting to be able to read a Spanish newspaper and understand it before I head home.

Finally the next day at about 2 in the afternoon after travelling for almost 30 hours we got into our tiny hamlet of choice. I was ready to find any hotel, shower and sleep as I don´t do well on buses. Heather, who does much better at sleeping in those seats, had a bit more energy and urged me on to the border. She was right and we jumped in a cab for the 30 minute drive.

The border was not anything like we are used to when crossing into Canada. I had to ask around to find where we emigrated from Mexico! Finally having our passports stamped we started walking across the bridge that divides the two countries and had dozens of people sauntering around offering to change money and just hanging out. When we crossed over to the Guatemalan side it was even harder to find where we had our passports stamped for entry! It was in a small little shop off the main street, it would have been incredibly easy to simply walk right past it. Finally ¨processed¨we found a cab and took it to the nearest place listed in my Let´s Go travel guide that had a bed. By the time we arrived it had been 35 hours of travel and we went lavish with a glorious room with a hot shower, HBO and air conditioning. Which we promptly cranked to make the room 17 Celsius. Man oh man was it nice to need a blanket.

The next morning it was back onto another bus. (SOB) This time 6 hours to Guatemala City. The journey which is less then 200kms ended up taking 7+ hours as we got stuck in some crazy traffic jam on a tiny back country road. At one point some locals hopped on the bus and started selling ¨Tortas con Carne,¨which literally means tortillas with MEAT. (not beef, not chicken, not pork, MEAT.) Impressed by the hustle of flagging down a bus to sell your food and then getting off at some distance later I bought some. It wasn´t great cuisine, but it hit the spot and on the plus side it didn´t kill me. Although I didn´t eat the weird white pasty stuff that came with it and that I´d never seen on another plate before or since.

Finally arrived in Guate (that´s what the locals call the capital city and I want to blend in as much as a 220lb 5´6 white dude can) and it was cold, ugly and from all accounts dangerous as all hell. So we got one of the employees of the bus terminal to tell us how to get to tiny little Antigua about 45kms away. He offered to take us in his cab for about 15$. Exhausted with buses the only concern was how soon we could be on our way.

We should have shopped around more. His cab redefined shunky! The headlights were dull and near useless in the driving rain, as goes for windshield wipers. And then there was the defrost to try to take the humidity off the windows, it was completely useless and our driver had to frequently use a rag or newspapers to wipe them so that he could see the road. On top of all this I am pretty sure it was his first week as he had to read street signs to find the town! It was rather terrifying, particularly when he would take take phone calls and try to wipe the windows at the same time drifting from lane to lane. The terror turned into hilarity when we arrived in Antigua as we spent about 20 minutes of driving around the old cobblestone streets trying to find our hostel (he must have asked about 10 different people for directions) before the eagle eyed Heather spotted it driving down one of the streets.

We have been in town for the last 3 nights, and it has been lovely and warm with many beautiful vistas as we are surrounded on all sides by volcanoes.

And that dear reader brings you up to date and this entry to a close as I must go get prepared to hike one of the active volcanoes this evening. Photos of magma to be posted soon.