Guatemala City.
Where do I start? We’re
quickly learning that to get anywhere, you have to switch buses at least
twice. If you ask the bus driver,
or his assistant, if a bus goes to a destination, they will just say
“Si!”. What they don’t tell you is
that the bus only goes part of the way.
When they drop you off at whatever drop they decide is yours because you
have no idea where you’re at or if you’re even going in the right direction,
they’ll point you to the next bus that will take you on the next leg of your
journey. Then you ask the driver
if that particular bus is going to your destination and they reply “Si!” and
you think “Oh thank God. This bus
will take us all the way there!”.
Then that bus drops you off at some other random location that’s not
you’re end destination and points you to yet another bus that will take you a
little further. This “game”
continues until you’re not really sure you’re actually going to make it to the
place you’re trying to get to because the towns, as well as the streets, have
no names. Just when you’re ready
to give up……. you see a sign with your destination town on it saying you’re
almost there. On top of that, they
pack the busses as full as possible.
I’m not kidding! Three to a
seat plus however many people can stand in the aisles as well as people riding
on top of the bus if their happens to be a roof rack. You don’t pay when you get on the bus, you pay when the
busses “helper’ comes around to take your money. I have no idea how they keep track of everybody, but they
seem to do a good job. I’ve seen
these guys(tiny guys) walking on the seatbacks over people to make their way
around the bus making change. It’s
pretty ridiculous and insanely dangerous but you just go with it. That’s how we made it to Coban. As well as the rest of the towns I’ve
been writing about. However, as
luck would have it, there was a straight shot bus from Coban to Guatemala city. Despite it being packed, we were
thankful for the direct route.
Once again, the bus to the capital city dropped us off, at
night, in the rough part of town exactly where our travel books tell exactly
not to be at that exact time of day.
Luckily, our hotel was literally two doors down from the bus terminal. We were very happy to get a clean room,
a television with some bad English speaking programs, and some hot
showers. Yessssssssssssss! Needless to say, we slept very well
that night.
The next day we decided to walk 6th Ave. In Guatemala City, 6th Ave
is kind of a promenade, closed off to traffic, full of shops, art, and
restaurants. We walked 6th
all the way to the end where it opens up to Central Park. This Central Park is nothing like
Central Park in NYC. This one is
much smaller and completely concrete.
Turns out, it’s where the city first started. The “park” is actually more of a square, parade ground where
they would do small military exercises.
The buildings surrounding the square are, or were, the capital building,
the courthouse, and housing for high ranking military and dignitaries. All in all, it was impressive in it’s
own right. And…… they were having
a Christmas festival! It was
mainly for the kids but still lots o fun.
They had a rock climbing wall, lots of craft and food booths, and even
an ice skating rink. Not something
you’d expect to see in the middle of a Central American country. Heck, we even got to see Guatemalan
Santa!
That night we decided to go to one of the major malls to see a
movie. We hadn’t seen a proper
movie in awhile and it’s a small treat that keeps you from getting homesick too
fast. When we got to the mall, it
was an even bigger treat than we had hoped for! Very clean, lots of shops including a book store, and lots
of fast food from the good ol’ U.S. of A.
I know, I know. We
shouldn’t be excited about fast food.
But it’s a rare treat to have some food from home when you’re in a
foreign country and everything just seems so weird and crazy and, well,
foreign. We took full advantage of the situation and even decided to stay
another day for another movie and even more comfort food. Don’t get me wrong, the food here is
awesome but it’s nice to take a break from it all with some Quizno’s and
Cinnabon! We stayed the next day
taking in more of our new land of milk and honey known as “The Mall”. However, getting to the mall the next
day was a little bit of a challenge that let us know two days in the capital
city was plenty. It’s as simple as
this. If it weren’t for the insane
amount of black car exhaust filling your lungs, Guatemala city might actually
be bearable. We decided to save
money and take the bus to the mall.
It was a safe decision as it was daytime and we wanted to do the “local
thing”. It took us a couple hours
and a little walking to get there but the major hurdle was not suffocating on
the never ending black smoke billowing out of every bus(and there are a lot of
them), car and motorcycle that passed by.
Seriously, our lungs actually hurt after about an hour. I think it’s safe to say that there is
no DOT or DEQ down here. That pretty
much sums up Guatemala City.
Stroll 6th Ave., see Central Park, and go to the mall. The next day we left the capital city
for the beautiful lakeside village of San Pedro.
After two exhaust filled(literally) days in the capital city of Guatemala City, we made our way to the beautiful, lake side village of San Pedro on Lake Atitlan. It's kind of a backpacker destination so there were lots of travellers and hippie types there. We just relaxed for a couple of days. We went on a tour to watch the sunrise on top of one of the very steep hills across the lake from San Pedro. We decided to make an extended stay and take five days of Spanish classes. At four hours a day, I speak much better English than I did before! I can read signs and think "Hmm, I couldn't even read that before I took that Spanish class in San Pedro. Losiento, Sra. Click, but I think I learned more about verb conjugations in one week than I did in the whole first year of high school Spanish! Of course, that might be due to a better attention span and willingness to learn. While in San Pedro, I was able to fit in some early morning runs and even get in some weightlifting at the local gym. San Pedro is at about five thousand feet elevation so the workouts were definitely harder. Especially the running! Nicole was able to find a yoga teacher she liked and start every day with a good yoga workout. Basically, it was nice to stay in one spot for awhile and kind of get into a routine. It just lets you reset and regroup. Being on the road and hopping from bus to bus everyday doesn't allow you to do that. Nicole and I would go to the same restaurant every night for movie night. Because the movies were pirated, sometimes they would work and sometimes they would stop before it was over. We would have a good laugh because everyone else at movie night was older than us. At least retirement age. We would joke that we were just another one of the grandma and grandpas at movie night. Whoopin' it up with all the other grandmas and grandpas. That about sums up San Pedro. More updates soon!
