How'd you know I was lost?

Right when I handed my taxi driver sixty quetzals for dropping me off at Calle 41, two men opened both the doors next to me. They looked at me but spoke to my driver, their Spanish too quick for me to understand. One man yanked my backpack out of the car. The other pulled me out by the arm.

Pushing me through the stubborn crowd, the men forced me onto a colorful, dusty old bus, its shape just like the school busses I used to ride as a kid.

But these busses were nothing like the ones from home. They were just as loud, sure, but children didn’t occupy these busses. Grown-up locals did. Locals from more remote areas of Guatemala, it seemed like. There were at least three crammed into each row, each wearing embroidered shirts and headscarves, and each one staring at me when I hopped on.

Before I could ask the driver where the bus was headed, I found myself perfectly wedged between two women with our elbows fixed together like Tetris blocks. The bus kept moving.

Guatemala City’s Calle 41 is a transportation hub for chicken busses. Dozens of these rusty busses line the street, picking up locals and foreigners alike. The chicken busses have been known to be dangerous – just a week before my trip, four busses had been hijacked by armed men. Two foreigners had been taken from them.

I didn’t say a word the first few hours. I had no idea where I was going. I looked for clues in my surroundings trying to figure out if I was even going in the right direction. But of course, I hadn't mapped it out beforehand.

I wanted so badly to blend in with the locals, but I wasn't fooling anyone. If they were chickens on the bus then I was a turkey trying its best to fit in, even with the undeniable knowledge that if anyone was going to end up as Thanksgiving dinner, it would be me.

The woman to my right must've sensed my nerves. She grabbed me by the arm and asked where I was going. Her touch unexpectedly put me at ease.

I told her I was headed to Lago de Atitlan and the man upfront told me it would be 200 quetzals.

"No," she laughed. "Solo veinte. No mas."

The woman told me to get off the bus when she did. For some reason I trusted her, probably because I severely distrusted everyone else on the bus.

I got off when she did. When I didn't see any water by us, I thought I'd made a big mistake.

But in almost an instant, she walked us over to a shiny white SUV. A young man was in the driver's seat. It was her son.

"Vamos al lago," she said to him. "She needs our help."