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 | brendandroz |  | Central American Tour |  | Xela (Quetzaltenango), Guatemala |
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Jan 23 2010, 09:30 AM
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Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
I went back to the hotel, collected my bag and Roz, and we went out to the street. We haggled with some first-mates on a couple of buses and eventually boarded a local bus to Guatemala City. Having quickly forgotten my morning lesson, I got one more cup of street-coffee—to drink on the moving bus.
We talked the first-mate down to a 15 Quetzales each (about $1.90). We congratulated ourselves on avoiding the inevitable tourist rip-off, until we noticed that we had actually haggled down to below the actual fare. Our tickets were marked for Q20, and we looked on in shame as the impoverished locals payed the full fare.
There is something about small guide-book maps that just doesn't comprehend the scale of big cities. By just adjusting the key to read 1in=500m instead of 1in=50m, it doesn't seem to capture just how useless the map becomes with that change of scale. Guatemala city is a big mess and there are whole neighborhoods that disappear between the lines on the map. We got off the bus from Jutiapa in a market, immediately lost. We wandered, despaired, drank Fanta, wandered some more, and eventually someone put us on a bus going somewhere across town. We got off when told to do so, and wandered in the indicated direction. We had been given the impression that we ought to take the metro, so we attempted to board that but, after a cop tried to pay my fare and asked where we wanted to go, we were redirected back to the stop from which we had just come. The officer was nice enough to walk part of the way with us (another police escort) and when we approached the highway he said “wait, I will stop traffic,” and proceeded to walk straight out into the middle of the highway and put up his hand as if he intended to literally stop the oncoming cars. Fearing more for his life than for ours, we hurried across the highway and back from whence we came.
Back at the stop, beneath a freeway interchange, we flagged down a number of buses hoping to find one going north. But, once again, we were redirected elsewhere. Another first-mate gestured, as he flew by on a bus to Antigua, “go somewhere over there. No not there, there.” So we wandered in that general direction until, sure enough, we were accosted by the Xela first-mate. So we boarded the school bus with full-bladders to begin our five hours of uninterrupted travel.
We soon discovered that we had boarded the express bus. It was unclear whether this was going to be to the benefit or detriment of our bladder-situation. For the buses in Guatemala earn their “express” status not by limiting the number of stops but rather by simply increasing the speed. Why on earth would they institute a system of limited, regular bus-stops when they could simply give it a little more gas? And you would agree if you had any idea what a school-bus can do. I'm not sure what Blue Bird Co. had in mind when they started building these things, but school buses have so much pickup that they can get up to 80mph going uphill on a curvy mountain road. It's really a spectacular ride. I got callouses on my hands just trying to hang on. And for some reason, only one three-year-old child in the front of the bus seemed to share our belief that this was a truly terrifying experience. I was happy to discover, however, that, unlike some people, extreme fear has the effect of causing my bodily functions to go into nearly complete arrest, facilitating my otherwise painful four-hour (express) wait for the “servicio santitario.”
I've decided that after introducing coffee-lids to Central America, I will introduce school-bus racing to regular America.
We arrived in Xela an hour ahead of schedule—right in front of a bathroom—shaken but still quite alive.
(B)
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Buses
Written by mbucy 41 months ago
So--you've confronted my one big nightmare about your travels in Central America, though fortunately you woke up before the part where the bus goes careening off the cliff. I'll pay for a tourist bus, you know, if the alternative is another express. I'm curious what the purpose was of this little jaunt to Guatemala City. It appears you did nothing but wander amongst and between buses. Just looking for a pleasant outing?
Re: Buses
Written by brendandroz 41 months ago
Unfortunately, despite the large expanse of land on all sides of the capitol, it is nevertheless impossible to go anywhere without a little jaunt through Guatemala City.