Needing a change of scenery…Guatemala anyone?

About an hour ago we arrived at Lanquin, it was a 7 hour drive in a sauna like mini bus but well worth it. We found ourselves a place to stay called El Retiro, and it’s amazing. It consists of pretty little huts (we’re sleeping in the atic of one) scattered along the land surrounding a river, enclosed in gorgeous lush hills with cute ducks and cows living on them. We planned to stay here only 2 nights but have already decided it’s completely necesary for Michael to embark on a 5 hour round trip tomorrow so we can get more cash out and stay longer! We haven’t even seen the rest of the town, though it’s near the notoriously picturesque Semuc Champey, we’ve just become completely entranced by the beauty of where we’re staying. The people here seem really nice and not in that annoying hippy way that they were in San Pedro, and each night there’s an all you can eat buffet…need I say more?

Just makes me wonder, is this too good to be true?

What do they want from us?

Who is that oddly charismatic leader?

On Thursday, in a desperate bid to save some of our precious Quetzales we decided to make our way to Flores on the night bus. Travelling in Asia night buses just aren’t a big deal, they’re a huge convienience and save on paying a nights acommodation, with the high rates of tourist crimes in Guatemala though, it is always recommended to travel by day. This tip  flew out of our minds the minute the lady dazzled us with the fact we could save 100Q if we extended our journey a further 12 hours and travelled by night. Excited by being able to spend the money on extra food we said yes staight away and signed the dotted line, smugly congratulating ourselves on the great bit of shopping around.

As the journey approached though our fears began to grow, Michael instigated the paranioa but seeing as I have a certain amount of bravado that comes from having a St. Christopher in my possecion, I managed to maintain my ever cool demeanor until we got on to the first bus of the trip which was going to take us back to Antigua. The minibus had barely been travelling 5 minutes when a Dutch guy shared the news that as of that day Barack Obama had issued an official warning against people travelling in Guatemala, this was just what I needed to hear. I tried to put it to the back of my mind, after all, there’s no point worrying about it, if something bad happens it happens. The thoughts didn’t reach that far back though as the Dutch guy proceeded to give us the details of numerous on the road horrors encountered by his friends in this country. Focussing on the divine protection that my St. Chris obviously aids me with I came to the conclusion that everything was going to be fine and dandy and turned to look out the window at the lovely views.

Unfortunately the lovely views were 3 dead horses, laying about 20 metres apart from one another having their eyes and flesh pecked apart by some pretty sinister, Steven Kingesque carrion birds. Honestly it was the stuff nightmares are made of, and seeing it seems to be in my genetic makeup to be supersticious for the sake of supersticion I could think nothing other than this was a bad omen. This was very unnerving.

We arrived in Antigua at midday where we had to wait for 6 and a half hours for a bus to take us to Guatemala City. I tried to shake off the bad thoughts by eating lots of sandwiches, cream cheese bagels and cakes (emotional eater moi?), but even this wasn’t enough to distract me from the potential terrors I was to face on the roads that night.

6.30 arrived and we were about to embark on potentially the most dangerous part of our trip, a 45 minute journey into the gangland that is Guatemala City, where we would have to wait a further 2 hours for our bus to Flores. We were going by minibus, which like all the transport in this part of the country had blacked out windows which made me feel better, also there was a nice, calm and friendly atmosphere on the bus so I began to let myself sink back into my happy place once more and try and enjoy the ride. It didn’t, until we drove passed some guy fireing his gun in the street, cross my mind that I was actually travelling on a moving target, that stuck out like the biggest sore thumb ever as it had 8 back packs strapped to the top. Cursing my lack of common sense and praying we’d make it safely I sat there looking like a rabbit in headlights whilst the easy converation flowed through the rest of the bus, to make myself looked normal I focussed on my excitement at cracking open the tube of Pringles we had when we arrived at the bus station, though I’m guessing this just added to the manic look I was sporting.

Thankfully we arrived safely at the bus terminal, which was busteling with tourists and locals and as I begun to stuff handfulls of Pringles into my mouth my stress seemed to dislove as my salt intake hit the roof. Calm was restored.

By the time 9 o’clock arrived I was more than ready to get on the bus and distort myself into one of those cramp inducing  sleep posistions. To get on the bus we had to go through post 9/11 style security which was disturbing yet reassuring at the same time and once on the “VIP” bus I found that it resembled something close to my old school bus but with a TV!

The journey was quite uneventful apart form a few minor inconviniences. One being the man sitting in fron of us who’s snores sounded worringly like he was being strangelled, which it turned out he deserved to be as when he wasn’t keeping the bus awake with his snoring he thought it was appropriate to whistle ear piercing little tunes to himself. Idiot. The other annoyance was that at around 3am the bus was suddenly stopped and I was woken by a woman and 2 men shouting at everyone to get off the bus, and from what I could make out it was so they could search for fruit?!? Although their voices were filled with a certain amount of urgency and people were getting off the bus, I couldn’t find my glasses or shoes rendering more or less completely useless (in my opinion), so I decided unless I could make out some blurry gesticulating I would stay put. My sorry excuse for functionaing eyes never managed to make this out and I allowed myself to drift back into broken, cramped sleep, until at around 6am when we managed to do the undoable, defy the newspapers and the 3 dead horses and make it to Flores all in one piece! I should have been embarking in some kind of proud celebration but I was absoloutely shattered form my night of panic, cramps and salt so found a bed and stayed there until the afternoon!

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