Or, Why I may start taking the shuttle busses
There are choices in Guatemalan transportation. Many travelers prefer to move from town to town via minibus shuttles carrying no more than ten or twelve people at a time. The more budget conscious among us navigate by a more rustic method; the oh so aptly named “Chicken Busses”. The chicken busses get their name from the propensity of fellow travelers to carry with them on their persons live animals (not necessarily chickens) either trussed or non-trussed. On my travels I have seen several species of barnyard animals including of course chickens, but also rabbits, piglets, dogs and once, a turkey that bit me on the arm after mistaking my arm hairs for food.
Now, I am a rather large person by anyone’s standards, standing a shade above six foot three, but in Guatemala I am frequently pointed out by parents to their children and vice versa. These chicken busses are invariably ancient Blue Bird brand busses that probably spent their intended lifespan shuttling school children to and from school somewhere in North America before moving down into Central America. Squished into seats designed for school children with aforementioned animals and at least two other people and as many as four while merengue music emits furiously from an antiquated and blown out speaker directly above your head can only increase your discomfort level. Then you look out the window and realize the driver is passing a large truck laden with about five thousand pineapples while going uphill around a blind curve and think it can’t get much worse. Then you realize further that the driver is trying to simultaneously commit this rather precarious passing maneuver whilst lighting a cigarette and adjusting the speaker volume at the same time. Generally I try to avoid looking out the window at all to avoid cardiac arrest from the shock either from seeing what the driver is doing, or from seeing the incredible natural beauty of the Guatemalan Highland scenery.
On particular bus ride though terrified me more than the rest though. For once it wasn’t the driver’s fault, which is what makes it remarkable. I was coming back to Antigua from a couple days of lying in a hammock drinking rum and swimming in Lake Atitlan (not at the same time of course, that would be kinda difficult) and decided to take the direct chicken bus back to Chimaltenango and then off to Antigua. Successfully avoided being freaked out by the above mentioned uphill blind corner passing attempts, only to be shaken out of my reverie about my twenty year old, blond Norwegian new girlfriend by a frantic application of the Blue Bird’s brake system. Being situated in the back of the bus, I could not immediately ascertain what exactly was going on. My confusion and ultimately, fear, was heightened by the appearance at the window of young men masked with bandanas over their faces waving ax handles in meanacing fashions and shouting. Immediate Caq’Kichel language pandemonium breaks out inside the bus with people trying to figure out what is going on and why the road is blocked and WHO THE HELL ARE THESE GUYS AND WHAT DO THEY WANT seems to be the general mood. I ask the edelery gentleman next to me what is going on, but he speaks no Spanish, only Caq’Kichel. The masked guys outside then start pounding on the side of the bus and screaming. I begin to get rather nervous as some women start crying and I look around and realize that I am the only foreigner on the bus. Mentally I curse myself for smoking a absolutely gigantic doobie immediately before leaving San Pedro as I did not want to travel with drugs in my bag. The bus drivers assistant leaves the bus and talks with some of the guys outside for about five minutes before returning to the bus and shouting in Caq’Kichel at all of us then sitting down. Then I ask the guy behind me if there is anything to worry about, and he says, “Well, are you from Sta. Lucia de la Laguna?” I reply in the negative. “Then you don’t have to worry. This town is fighting with the next town over and they want to beat up anyone from Sta. Lucia.” With that explanation my heartbeat returns to somewhere around normal and I settle back into my one-third of the bench seat. With a shudder and a bang, the bus is off again and all is going smoothly. That is until a toddler barfs on my boots forty five minutes later and another hour further on when we stop on the side of the road for a half hour to help repair another busses brake system. The good side is that the whole ride ended up costing me just over two bucks. Maybe I’ll look into those shuttle busses next time.