Panajachel – a few hours late
Frantic reading of the guide book suggested that we would make it to Panajachel eventually. Would it be today – who knows?
The plus side to this slight detour was that we got to see a bit more of Guatemala. The recent Hurricane Stan had certainly left it’s mark with sections of road and mountainside missing – and still undergoing reconstruction. But the people here certainly didn’t appear fazed by it all.
We were sure the bus was heading the long way round to Panajachel but when we got to Los Enquentros, the driver told us we needed to change again. Typical, I’d just managed to find a position where my breasts didn’t attempt to exit my bra each time we found a pot hole or speed bump.
Hey ho, now we were on the bus to Soloma. But it wasn’t going anywhere for a while. We had a few little guys on the bus trying to sell us chips and ice creams. One of these got a plastic monster from Woollies and the smile was amazing. He legged it off the bus to go and show his mates. Naturally one of his mates paid us a visit five minutes later but went away empty handed. We didn’t want to take away the glory from the little guy who got the prize first!
A very bumpy bus ride to Soloma didn’t take long – it was all downhill from here – and we found the FINAL bus of the day to Panajachel here straight away. The driver insisted our bags went on the roof this time and we were paranoid that someone was going to scuttle up there and nick them whilst we were trying to think about how much we didn’t need a pee and how the bumpy road couldn’t get much worse!
Everything worked out fine and we got to Panajachel intact. The journey had taken us over twice as long as we’d anticipated but it was an experience. And the most bizarre thing was that in total, the whole journey cost something like one pound sixty each!
Tags: Guatemala
mihai