travel blog - to coban... NOT

upon leaving tikal,
we headed off back to flores
and went to the offices of el tigre
where we were to catch our bus to coban
when we arrived, however
we found that the bus was cancelled
due to something called a ¨strike¨
now apparently,
the way a strike works here is
a bunch of very unhappy people
get together and block off highways
with trucks and cars and fires and many many people
thus,
our direct route to coban was not an option
arriving in flores at about 1pm
thinking to catch the 2pm bus out
we ended up going the way we thought we´d have to go to begin with
and that is to guatemala city
which is way south of coban
(with flores north of coban)
and then backtrack to coban on another bus
this bus didn´t leave till 10:30pm
and thus i spent about 5 hours catching up on my blogging
now,
in sorting things out
we found that we could get off the bus early
at a town called el rancho
and save maybe 120km of backtracking
estimated time of arrival was 5am the next morning
after a number of hours in the internet cafe
we proceeded to board a ¨first class bus¨ ... mas o menas
which i learned means something like ¨more or less¨
i´ve got to say it was a lot more on the less side
the seats reclined
but they were made for tiny people
the bus driver didn´t have the AC on for the first hour or so
which made the bus stifling hot
and then when we finally got under way
after waiting for some locals to board over the period of an hour
(so much for leaving on time)
el bus drivero cranked the freaking AC so high
i felt like i was back in canada
in the middle of winter
...without my winter jacket
the night proceeded at a breakneck pace
with the driver going through hairpin turns in the dark
so quickly
that i was thrown half out of my seat a number of times
the night was a hazy blur
of trying not to get tossed
and trying to stay warm
it cannot be said
that i was amazingly successful at either
the journey was punctuated by stops
presumably at different towns
but no one ever got on
and no one ever got off
at about 4am at one of these stops
i asked sarah if she could check
to see how far we were from el rancho
i had this feeling
that we may be ahead of schedule
due to our driver´s exuberance
in handling those mountain roads
...we found out then
that we were long past el rancho
and almost at guatemala city
about half an hour out of the city stop
(bus station some where in the city)
the pollution became very evident
sarah and i could not stop coughing
the rest of our companions were peacefully oblivious
or something like that
it reminded me of beijing on a bad winter coal burning day
anyways,
we arrived in a terminal of sorts
in the darkness
and were promptly swarmed by taxi drivers
at some point during our journey into the city centre
we´d decided to skip coban
and go on to the highlands
which would be a shorter bus ride
and not involve any backtracking along the route we´d come
the 6 of us
(we´d been joined by daniel from switzerland
who was also attempting to go to coban
-and for those that have been following the blogs,
he´s one of the boys that erin and mikayla met atop a pyramid temple
through their peanut butter offerings)
crammed into 2 mini taxis
and headed off to 2 different bus stations
daniel went on to coban
while we hopped onto a moderately chromed chicken bus
and left not long after for panajachel
the bus was an old school bus
converted into a completely different type of vehicle
with fancy signs and chromed grill
and religious sayings in spanish pasted all over the interior
2 or 3 hours into our travel
picking up and dropping off many locals along the way
the bus broke
guess it was bound to happen sooner or later
some of the more optimistic amongst us
sat in the bus for quite some time
(it could be because we didn´t want to haul our packs down)
while others abandoned bus immediately
after half an hour
of watching the bus driver attempt the same fix
-this consisted of wrenching at the shift stick which was stuck
the rest of us got off
and walked a bit down the road
to see if we could catch another bus
this process of waiting by the road side
lasted for maybe another half hour
when all of a sudden
with a shout of glee
our previous bus
made it back to the land of the working
the last little bit to panajachel
didn´t take long
and we hopped off the bus
and headed over to mario´s rooms
where i can´t remember if sarah had stayed before or not
but turned out to be VERY pleasant
nice showers with hot water
clean bathrooms
and bright airy rooms
perfect!
the little hotel is right on the street
where the tourist market sets up
and after checking in
and ditching our packs
a few of us set off to see what was available
and how much things costed
an adventure in haggling was about to begin...