Dear Readers,When I last left you I was on a fun day trip to Semuq Champey. I had such a good time at Semuq that I decided to stay another day at the El Retiro Lodge in Lanquin. Little did I know that the beautiful weather wouldn´t hold out and that the next day was damp and grey. Because the weather was bad I ended up spending most of the day hanging out with this English girl, Natalie, who was not feeling well. Little did I know that her sickness was contagious. Actually, I don´t know for a fact that we were sick with the same bug. It could be pure coincidence that I got sick a day after she did. Long story short, the next day we both went to Antigua, and later that evening I started feeling extremely sick. Then Natalie and I spent the next couple of days in Antigua being sick, and stupidly not going to the doctor. It took me a full week to fully recover and then a week after that my bug returned to haunt me on Christmas. I finally decided to go to the doctor, who told me that I had a parasite. She gave me some bright orange miracle pills and I immediately started to feel better. My doctor´s visit plus pills cost me $7. Lesson learned: don´t put off going to the doctor´s.
Backtracking. The trip to Antigua was made in another long and ardous shuttle van journey. From what I had gathered from my fellow backpackers, traveling to Antigua via local means was not that much cheaper than just taking the tourist shuttle, so once again I found myself in one of those vans. This shuttle ride was not quite as bad as the collectivo ride I had from Coban to Lanquin, but it definitely rates up there on my list of worse transportation experiences . The drive to Antigua is about 5-6 hours long, which is a long time to be cramped into a small van, but at the very least I had a normal sized seat and wasn´t totally squished. Not being totally squished is why we tourists pay the extra amount of money to go on these shuttles. But nothing can ever be certain in a land where there is no fear of litigation.An hour into the trip, just outside the city of Coban, we made an unexpected stop at the side of the road. We looked out the window and saw a girl standing there with a suitcase, pillow, and a crate. The shuttle van was already completely full, and every actual seat was occupied. I did not like where this was going. The driver hopped out and started to load the girl´s bag onto the top of the shuttle. All of the passengers started murmuring and wondering what was going on here. They couldn´t possibly be trying to put another person in this van. Could they? Oh no! They definitely were trying to add this girl to the passenger list. The driver opened the back door to the van and pulled out a toolbox, which he then jammed in between the bench and the seat of the backrow. He then set the girl´s pillow on top and told her to hop in. When the reality had fully hit us, we immediately began to argue with the driver about the craziness of the situation. He told us that the girl had a need to get to Antigua and that we needed to oblige her. We argued that we had paid a lot of money for this shuttle and that it was already full, so she should never have been promised a seat. Maybe if were in the middle of nowhere it would have been more conceivable to take on this lonely passenger, but we were right outside the city with lots of buses going to her destination. The funny thing is that this girl just listened to us argue with the driver and never really said anything. I think she really just wanted to get in the shuttle. No offense to her, but there were already three tall European boys sitting in the back, and she was not a petite waif who could easily slide in among them. It would have been a very tight fit. Amazingly the driver gave up and sent the girl back to the city in a taxi. Everyone sighed in relief, because we had no idea that the fun was just beginning.
We started driving again and everything seemed to be okay until someone had to go to the bathroom. It was at this point that the driver decided he was an officer of the karma police. For not letting the poor girl on the shuttle we would be punished with absolutely no stops on the way to Antigua. He said that we had denied this girl her need to get to Antigua and therefore he would deny us our need to empty our bladders. This time the guys in the front had the unfortunate job of arguing with the driver. The driver really didn´t seem to care if we peed all over his van, or if he lost his job. The arguing went on for over an hour until finally in a huff the driver pulled over at a gas station. I was so glad that he pulled over because I did not want to find out what would have happened if he didn´t. When we all piled back into the van tensions were still high. This man was a loose canon and who knew what he might do next.
After some exhaustive hours later we finally arrived in Antigua. I was feeling incredibly weary and just wanted to have a hot shower and lie down, so instead of hostal hunting I followed some of my fellow shuttlers to A Place to Stay. ¨Where,¨ you ask? No, that´s what it´s called, A Place to Stay. A Place to Stay is a friendly little hostel located right across from the market, which unfortunately means it´s located right next to where all the local buses leave from. Convenient if you´re hopping on a chicken bus, annoying if you can´t tune out the noise of someone incessantly shouting, ¨Guate! Guate! Guate, Guate, Guate!¨ all day long. (Guate is short for Guatemala City). Buses for Guate leave from this street every five minutes all day long. We get it. Stop yelling. I think the main reason this really got on my nerves was because I was sick and lying in the hostel listening to this yelling all day long.
Once I was all cleaned up and rested I set out to explore the city a little bit. First I went to the market and checked out the large array of goods. I bought a Peruvian style knit hat because it was cold. (This turned out to be a very good buy, because I was cold for 75% of the rest of my stay in Guatemala. ) As I was walking around the city I noticed that all of these little kids were dressed up in costumes that looked like what I imagine is the traditional style of dress from the colonial times. The little boys were dressed in white cotton pants and tunics, with red scarves tied around their necks, straw hats, and their upper lips decorated with eye liner mustaches. So cute! The girls were dressed like little Mayan women with their flowered shirts, and traditionally patterned wrap skirts. After several inquiries I was told that I could find the fiesta at the Yellow Church Plaza (this should be it´s name, because it´s much easier to remember than the real name of the church). At the plaza I found a lively scene of street vendors selling food and toys to parents toting dressed up children. Today was Children´s Day, which apparently is celebrated in Guatemala by dressing your kids up and making them eat questionable street food. I had some of this street food. I started feeling sick a couple of hours afterwards. Maybe my friend Natalie was not the culprit after all. Actually it´s probably an act of love to expose your children to street food early on. Hopefully, in this way, they will develop a tolerance to parasites and other bacteria.
In this plaza I also discovered the reason all the kids were dressed up. Along one end of the plaza were all these lovely little country scenes set up so that the kid could stand in it and have their picture taken. (The Guatemalan equivalent of sitting on Santa´s lap.) Each set up had the same theme, but each one varied wildly in authenticity and elaboration. Some had live animals. Some had Santa. I´m sure no matter which one the parents settled on they received a very cute memento. After all, no one can resist a child with a drawn on mustache.It was good that I got out that first night, because, as I said before, I spent the next couple of days sick in bed. When I felt well enough, I tempted fate by booking another shuttle to the town of Panajachel on Lake Atitlan.
Next Time: San Pedro la Laguna.
xx,
gwen
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