Tikal to San Pedro

We took the shuttle from Tikal back to Santa Elena/Flores and had time to kill before our overnight bus left Santa Elena.  We had a delicious lunch at Raices on the lake in Flores, thanks to the recommendation of Alejandro at the Jaguar Inn.

Our food spread at Raices.

We took the overnight bus back to Guatemala City last night, splurging for first class seats.  All of us slept soundly the entire ride, and we arrived at the bus station in a little less than eight hours.  As we disembarked half asleep from the bus at 5 am, we were immediately pounced on by dozens of cab drivers.  TAXI?  Antigua? Airport? TAXI senor?  We struck a bargain with one of the drivers to take us all the way to Antigua.

When researching Guatemala, I found people to be either hot or cold about Antigua.  Those who raved about it preferred it over any place in the world.  The other camp loudly proclaimed that it was too touristy and not authentic enough.  Everyone there is supposedly an English speaking Gringo.  Well, at 6 am on a Sunday morning, this is not the case.  Even the tourist police lacked any English skills.  Fortunately, we know enough Spanish to ask where the bus station is.  Unfortunately, we don’t know enough to understand their answer.  We never expect folks to speak English in a foreign country.  We just had some hopes based on the on-line complainers.

Eventually, we bumped into a man whose job it is to round up all the ‘wet behind the ears’ gringos and get them on a chicken bus.  Yes, we did achieve that great cultural milestone of Central America.  For those of you that don’t know, chicken buses are refurbished school buses from the United States.  When I say refurbished, I mean pimped.  Just check out Google images for ‘chicken bus’ and you will see what I mean.  Inside they generally blast some fun music and they crowd in as many people as they can.  But it gets more fun than that.  Remember how slow and safe US school buses are?  Well, the speed governor has been removed baby!  Think Grand Prix racing through the narrow streets of some European city.  Then the buses hit the country side and fly up and down and around mountain roads.  Let me tell you, they drive ‘em like they stole ‘em!  Once in a while the driver leans on the horn, slams on the breaks, and lets people waiting on the side of the road board the bus.  The guy who rounded us up in Antigua hangs on the side of the bus to rush new passengers aboard.  And you gotta run to get on the bus.  We left some slower folks behind.  Besides being a lot of fun, chicken buses are cheap.  We paid about $4 each for a three hour bus ride, and I’m pretty sure they overcharged us for being gringos. 

On all of our bus rides through Guatemala, we noticed that the roads are littered with people selling things.  Sometimes they are selling handicrafts, but most often they are selling food.  Fruit, grilled chicken, tortillas, drinks.  Many of them seemed like they hadn’t sold anything all day long.  When I mentioned this to a tour guide, his response was that they do whatever they can to survive.  “The government isn’t going to feed them,” he said.  Even though we knew the statistics, our visit has been eye-opening.

Our chicken bus ride ended safely at the lakeside city of Panahachel.  We had finally arrived at Lake Atitlan.   We hopped on a water taxi and headed to San Pedro.  On the taxi, we chatted it up with a young man who spent six months in Portland, Oregon.  He told us how irritated he was that everyone took advantage of white people here. That’s not something I have ever heard before since it has always gone the other way in the US.  Anyway, he was referring to the fact that they charged us 25 quetzals for the water taxi, and he only had to pay 15.  The 10 quetzal difference is about $1.25, so it’s hard to haggle with the taxi about that.  Besides, that’s nothing compared to how the Italians took advantage of us.   Non-EU citizens got hosed at every government run tourist attraction.




Lunch on Lake Atitlan upon our arrival in San Pedro La Laguna.

We checked in with the Orbita Spanish School.  Rene, the owner, seems very nice.  He hooked us up with our host.  She is a very kind woman as well.  She even invited us to dinner tonight even though our meals don’t start until tomorrow.  Our room has a balcony with a view of the lake.  The only down side, which is actually an up side, is that they all insist on using Spanish all of the time.  Yes, immersion is the best way to learn a language.  But we’re tired!




View from our balcony at the homestay.

Watching the USA vs. Japan women’s World Cup game in Spanish at our homestay now.  Exciting!