Day 94 – Thursday 22nd December 2005
I had arranged to meet up with the lad who had been staying at my hotel when I was doing the Spanish lessons as he was due to fly home that afternoon. I was up for the breakfast meet up in plently of time as I had an alarm clock with a difference – rats were scurrying across the roof of my dorm at five in the morning.
After a healthy feed we said adios and went our separate ways. A couple of days earlier he had seen my hat and said he would like to buy one, so I took him along to the shop and he made a purchase. Then when I met up with the lads from bath, Boyce said he’d like to get one for his brother so I showed him the shop and he also made a purchase. I reckon I was that shops’ top salesman for the week, but I didnt get a penny commission!
The group of us got ready and made our way to the bus station to catch the bus to the lake, where we would all be spending Christmas. There were 8 of us travelling on the chicken buses and it turned out to be a fairly long and arduous journey. The first time we changed buses was after 40 mins, and Ben spotted the guy who had pickpocked Angus the week before. This happened on the same route, the guy had been chatting to them being as nice as pie and he even told them where to get off the bus. When they had upped and collected all their stuff and got off the bus Angus realised his wallet was gone but it was too late.
On this occasion the guys knew who he was and gave him a wide berth so as not to give him the same opportunity. We kept our eyes on him until our next bus turned up, and even though he didnt get on the same bus, I took no chances with potential other pickpockets by keeping my hands firmly in my pockets!
I have been travelling for over threee months now and in the course of this have spend many an hour on the buses. Up until now I hadnt really been caught in any kind of traffic jam. Of course it was bound to happen at some stage and this happened to be the journey! An accident on the single lane carriageway had blocked the entire road and the clever dicks who tried to squeeze by only conjested the scene more. Thus the traffic came to a stop for about 90 mins while everything was cleared out of the way.
We eventually got past the scene of the accident and our driver made up some of the lost time with some erratic overtaking manouvres. Making it to Panajachel jut before nightfall we hopped onto a lancha and sped across to the other side of the lake to San Pedro. After some food and a beer the day caught up wth us and we hit the sack pretty early.
