The Land of the Chicken Bus Merry-Go-Round

Quieramos ir a Quetzeltenango, no, Chichicastenango, er Chimaltenango, Altotenango, Jocatenango, Huehuetenango, actually it doesn't really matter as the crazy chicken bus drivers of Guatemala will just nod and tell you that their bus is going to whatever town you ask for, "si, si, es directo, salimos ahorita! subi! subi!" later dumping you on the side of some road in the middle of nowhere, shouting out which chicken bus you should catch next! Let the games begin ;-)
As comfortable and efficient as the tourist transfer minivans are, you really haven´t experienced Guatemala until you've screamed around the corners of unmade roads, with a local pressed up against you on either side of your 2 person seat for 3. What, no room at the front? Just open the back doors and climb over people, never mind if a few fall out, they'll climb back on.
After touching down in Guatemala City we quickly hot-footed it to the more civilized city of Antigua. They gave up rebuilding Antigua after too many earthquakes and moved the capital to the non-descript Guatemala City. Antigua now bubbles along as Guatemala's grockle hub and shows off some beautiful old buildings and ruins in a town surrounded by three volcanoes.

The biggest culture shock coming from South America has been that half of America seems to be in Guatemala! The upside of this is lots of eating choices and a good cafe culture - did we just contradict ourselves here? The downside, well, that would be rude and the budget has taken a beating and is crying in the corner... Lots of coffee drinking, walking cobblestone streets and taking picturesque snaps for the blog has been in order. We gave our salsa another shot here too but we seem to have left our rhythym somewhere back in Caracas :-0 Antigua has become the civilised base for hopping to and fro around gringo tenangos everywhere.

Once Kaz managed to drag Stu away from the comfort of his black Fernando we headed north for beautiful Lago Atitlan. This huge flooded volcanic crater takes 2, no, 3, no, 4 chicken buses to reach from Antigua. Plenty of washed up hippies in Panajachel to cook up some good stirfrys and plenty of chai. Que vistas! Checked out the mono cheekees at the local nature reserve. We sat up on the lookout deck wondering what was the go until we found the long limbed black spider monkeys checking us out - very cute. Plenty of coatees kept us amused too but we left wondering where all of the butterflies in the butterfly enclosure had got too. Maybe the injured pet hawk developed a taste for insectitos? A quick sunset cocktail at the sunset lounge overlooking the lake and we were ready to scoot across to the other shore and check out San Pedro.

Mmmm.....coffee heaven. After one or two false starts in San Pedro we found an 11 year old, José, who made a very tastey brew from freshly picked and roasted coffee from the family finca (coffee plantation). San Pedro turned into an interactive tour of the coffee manufacturing process, with plenty of taste tests along the way. The red coffee beans grow on small trees, mostly under the shade of larger trees. The little berries are fleshy and not too bad on their own. The hills of San Pedro are covered in coffee shrubs while the flats are taken over by plucked beans laid out to dry in the sun - pretty ;-)

A local chirpy chappy washing the coffee beans happily showed us how they filter out the dirty bits from the beans and throw away the bad coffee beans which sink in water. The next stage is the second best part - smell the roasting coffee beans, yummo! A little grinding and then naturally, the best part, sip slowly with a killer view of Lago Atitlan stretched out before you aaaahh! No wonder we had trouble leaving San Pedro.

In between serious coffee business we paddled our way across the lake in a canoe built for two and went for a long and hot but worthwhile walk to the next town around the Lake, San Juan. After spotting some funky handmade leather bags in San Pedro we got lucky and stumbled across the local in San Juan who actually makes them and his handbag workshop and just had to snap one up. We passed on the inflated toad and a photo with the dead armadillo, hmmm...the fun we could have with Australian customs... Four very relaxing days later we left the crusties and their adopted hounds and took an early chicken bus that nobody thought existed apart from the 14 year old who was driving it and bumped our way back to Los Enceuntros for more chicken bus merry-go-round.

We arrived two days before the big Sunday market in Chichicastenango to soak up the quiet atmosphere and watch the locals get ready for the big day. This meant most restaurants were decidedly shut before the grockle infiltration and we had to improvise a bit, good thing we like pizza, pity we ate lunch with the locals in the market, blaaaaaaaah! Not much happens in Chichi outside of Sunday except for Saturday night mass and constant fireworks explosions. We toddled along to Saturday night mass to see how its all done in Guatemala and it turned out to be pretty interesting with an American priest giving the sermon in halting spanish which was then translated into Quiche (indigenous language). After hugs all round with the rest of the congregation we legged it before having to take communion in latin. During the day we had a lovely big garden with a massive advocado tree in the middle of it to read and picnic under. It also gave us a chance to snoop out where some of the market products were being made and buy them more cheaply direct from the source, how smug were we! (Quwak, quwak TOF!!).

On the big day we fought our way through the grockles on tours, locals dragging chickens (no doubt to the buses), fruit, veg, clothes, shoes, sacks of god knows what, all being haggled over by locals and gringos alike. With a bundle of christmas presents under our arms we retreated to the serenity of our garden to recover.

The next day, after a run in with a post office worker with an unashamed fettish for wrapping and celotape ("yes, it will weigh over 6kg if you keep using that much paper and sticky tape!") we braved the chicken bus merry-go-round again to head to Quetzeltenango, Xela for short. Thinking we'd struck lucky by dodging the chicken-bus guy (who wanted to drag us on a bus going nowhere near Xela) we joined the terrified passengers on a pullman (as close as Guate gets to luxury public buses). Pullman drivers are obviously those considered too reckless to drive chicken buses. Ours specialised in high speed overtaking, down hill on blind hairpin bends and cue jumping at road work tailbacks. With rosaries being clutched all round our whole lives flashed before us.

Given that Kaz was still recovering from her dodgy Chichi market lunch, Xela was a bit of a blur. While San Pedro was the place for spanish students on dope, Xela catered for the more serious end of the market. We came with high expectations but left without them, just another big city really. The most entertaining moment came over breakfast one morning, sitting in the highlands of Guatemala it seemed pretty funny to be served kiwi butter. That pretty much sums up Xela.

A quick stopover in Antigua en route to the beach turned into a couple of extra nights once we heard about a local music festival, Jamtigua. With tickets and very unattractive Jamtigua t-shirts we found our way to a big field in Jocatenango. It was something along the lines of the Port Fairy Folk Festival but on one stage ;-) All very nice though with a volcanic backdrop, pretty good tunes and some unusual inbetween acts; guatemalan belly dancers?!!? and two local tap dancers?! Entertaining nonetheless. We shiverred and shimmied the night away until we couldn't hear the music anymore for our chattering teeth and were whisked away by an obliging chicken bus.

Feeling vitamin D deprived we moved down to the Pacific coast to do battle with the strong pacific currents, surly staff at Johnny's and the local insect population, ouch! Monterico is a tiny town with pretty basic accom on a scenic black volcanic sand beach and a mangrove swamp behind it. Great weather, great hammocks, good swiss chefs, no complaints. The highlight was our baby turtle recue. By moonlight we helped to flip over the struggling bubs from the hatchery who were tossed onto their backs by the waves. We then launched them for the first time into the surf at the right moment with their flippers flapping. Cute!

Back in Antigua to catch up on the mundane and then off to Honduras tomorrow. Let´s hope the chicken buses connect!

Kaz and Stu xx

Gaffe of the week: "I'll grab one of yer muffins" blurts out Stu to the hippy baker of San Pedro before he can stop himself.

Sight of the week: a giant white Canadian pelican trying to affectionately (?) fit a small grey Guatemalan pelican into its beak in a Swiss restaurant in Monterico.

Culturally insensitve act of the week: a 75 year old english woman going to a Halloween party in Antigua dressed as a muslim...

Meal of the week: a black fernando

Arse of the week: Chichi´s post office Nazi, step away from the celotape!