150 Miles In... 12 Hours!
Trip Start
Oct 08, 2009
1
10
27
Trip End
Nov 13, 2009
Lanquin guatemala, Quiché, Guatemala
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
and 6 buses later, we are in Lanquin. Most of the day was uneventful,
thankfully. The bus system here is incredibly efficient and we are
actually starting to figure it out. We didn't have to wait more than 5
minutes for any bus. On the other hand, the roads are awful. It took us
12 hours to travel a measly 150 miles! When we say most of the day was
uneventful, however, we don't mean the whole day. That wouldn't be
possible with a full day of Guatemalan public transportation.
(Sidenote: we found out last night that pretty much no other gringos
take public transportation. Which would explain why we never see them.
They all take these nice, and costly, private shuttles everywhere.
Sounds lovely, but then you'd be missing half the adventure.. read on!)
Our last leg, from Coban to Lanquin, was awful. We were stuffed into
the back of a minibus between two drunk dudes. One was leaning on me,
and then proceeded to pass out and start drooling all over himself. The
other one was sitting next to Teddy and kept spitting on himself, the
floor, and on Teddy. Eventually, I couldn't get my passed out drunkie
to not lean on me, so we asked the other drunkie if he would switch
seats. So the order was drooly drunkie, spitty drunkie, me, and then
Teddy. Spitty kept spitting on the floor, and on me. So, eventually, I
flipped out on him in Spafrenglish, saying "Spit on your friend, spit
on yourself, but you can't spit on me!" It wasn't any New York on
Pumpkin tirade (sorry, Flavor of Love reference), so it didn't work too
well. He literally spit every 1.5 minutes, most of the time on me. And
I had thought that Teddy produced a lot of fluids and noises! He also
was getting a little too close to me, so I made a water bottle barrier
between our legs. Done and done. At one point, the bus stopped, and
though we initially were only lamenting
the lack of a breeze to cover up the smell of our drunken amigos, we
then got kind
of scared. There were a group of men all holding guns standing on the
side of the road. Not sure
what that was about, but we were on our way in a few minutes.
We
also reached a new high (or should I say low) in terms of the number of
people that can fit in a 15 passenger van. 25! Unbelievable. Why those
other people take those little Gringomobiles is beyond me. The ride was
actually pretty, though, and the landscape here is so different than
where we've been. Instead of deep vallies, there are rolling hills, and
instead of freezing mountain air, we are a low jungle climate. It is
hot! And once again, the clothing is totes different. It's amazing how
you can travel a short distance and the traditional Maya clothing and
language have completely changed.We finally got to Lanquin and made our
way to El Retiro, a hotel which both our books had raved about. And
rightly so. It is a bunch of palm-thatch roofed cabanas on these
beautiful grounds with flowers and palm trees, all alongside a river.
There are hammocks everywhere, free internet, and beautiful outdoor
bathrooms with mosaic floors. The sinks are even made of shells! This
gringo paradise is by far the nicest place we've stayed, and it's only
$10 a night. We ate dinner at a restaurant run by an Israeli (there are
dozens here!) and then immediately passed out. It'd been a long day, to
say the least. Tomorrow, Semuc Champey!
