Lanquin and semuc champey, Guatemala
The
9am bus arrived to pick us up at 9.30. It's the smallest hottest piece of shit I've ever seen! There's 8 of us in here so far and I'm praying no other bastard gets on. The 8 hour long haul begins.
Fark me we just arrived at the hostel and I can honestly say that was the most white knuckle ride I've ever had. 8 hours of hellish bends through the Guatemalan countryside with the driver going about 200k on tiny roads only big enough for one car. Included was a river crossing on a barge that could well have been frequented by the Mayans it was that old. The guide book description is "it's a bit of a rough ride but not too bad"..........fark you lonely planet you pack of friggin liars.
On the way I'm told the place I'm staying has no electricity.........awesome.
I get to the hostel which is set in the jungle by the fast flowing river and the women shows me to my 'room'. It's a farking ladder into the roof of a cabana and I'm talking a steep friggin ladder. By the way it does have electricity. Luckily I ran into the polish couple I met in Flores and they let me leave my bags in their room below me instead of lugging the crap up the death ladder. I am seriously too old for this shit people!
I climb down from death ladder and go straight to the bar for a strong Cuba libre and about 400 ciggies to calm my nerves.
This little kid comes over within 10seconds of me sitting down in mozzie-ville and pulls out this napkin with foil in it and asks "you wanna buy my hash brownie"! He wouldn't be older than 10. After a resounding "no gracias" from me he cracked it and left!
I have that feeling of dread you get when you get into a situation where there's no turning back. I mean I'm stuck here until my transport picks me up on Monday to get to Antigua which is another hellish 8 hours via Guatemala city. I would give my left flap right now for a charter plane! It is beautiful and off the beaten track but so is the moon and I'm pretty sure it's actually easier to get there! The upside is rums are Q10 which is just over $1.
There's a good possibility at this stage that I might fly to my next destination after Antigua instead of hell buses. You get spoilt in Mexico with the ease of getting around. Apart from the freezing aircon on the buses it's relatively luxurious.
At this stage I'm thinking fark the caves and try to get the shuttle out of hippy hell to Antigua tomorrow instead of Monday.
I'm waiting for the Internet to kick in here, apparently in about 15 mins. My only link to the outside world!
I met a couple of nice girls that work for child protection in Melbourne and we had a few drinks.
I stupidly got on the net and looked at this hostels trip advisor reviews. I can sum then up in a few choice words.....bed bugs, theft, spiders, smelly toilets!
I reluctantly climbed into my roof of death and basically slept with the light on. There was no sleeping anyway because the DJ was cranking gangham style all night long for a massive group of Guatemalans!
I woke up at dawns crack and started to put my getting out of here plan into action.
I grabbed my bags from the polish couple and went to reception to ask if the
8am shuttle to Antigua was going. He looked at my ticket which I had changed the date on and made a phone call. Long story short I got out of there after speaking to old mate from the worst travel agency in Flores and talking a lot of shit!
Well I thought the mini bus here was crap, boy was I in for a treat today.
We were crammed in with no suspension and on what we thought was the last pick up I saw the 3 Aussie boys from the naked tiger!
An hour down the road we stopped to pick up 4 locals, so because there was a tiny bit of space old mate driver thought it was ok to earn a bit of coin on the side. I wanted to kill him.
So the rest of the trip until Guatemala city I had my knees up around my ears. Luckily there was a lovely Melbourne girl and a girl from Iceland to talk to.
7 hours later we arrive in Antigua and what a beautiful sight. It's like San cristobal in Mexico with the same colors and cobblestone streets. I could kiss the ground! I went to a couple of hotels near where old mate dropped us off but they were all booked out so I ran into a girl who took me to a hostel round the corner so I checked in for 2 nights. Time to chill the fark out!
No more hippy bullshit places for me anymore, just awesome cultural places all the way.
