Day 100 - Wednesday 28th December 2005

When travelling by bus in Guatemala there is a definate trade off between price and comfort. On the one hand there are the shuttles which for Q100 will take you from Lake Atitlan to Guatemala City in about 2 1/2 hours. On these shuttles you have your own seat, the ride is smooth and they are comfortable (usually 8 seater people carriers). On the other hand are the chicken buses. These take 4 hours for the same trip, are jammed solid and are an unbelievably bumpy ride. However they cost only Q25, or should do, as for Gringos the price is invariably higher. I ended up paying Q30 for the trip. Which tells you I went for the chicken bus option.

Another problem with the bus is the lack of toilet opportunities. Never good when you wisely drink a litre of OJ before getting on one, as I did on this occasion! When we got to Guatemala City we took a taxi across town and bought tickets to the town of Rio Dulce, a further 6 hours away. This bus was a step up from chicken buses as I had my own seat. The bus looked as though it would never make the trip, but credit to Guatemalan mechanics, we made it without a hitch. Not counting the incredibly pedantic conductor who insisted on moving Tom and I three times to three different seats even though he kept looking at the same tickets we were giving him. At one point he wanted us to swap seats with the people opposite us, who were going to the exact same place as us, because we were sat in their seats and they were sat in ours. The four of us looked at each and just laughed at the conductor who went away in a huff and proceded to give me evils for the next 6 hours!

We eventually arrived after 10 hours on the buses and checked into the Hotel Backpackers. Before coming away one of the lads, Angus, had worked for Footprint, a company who produce a travel guide similar to Lonely Planet. The company is relatively small, but the guide is actually really useful. Plug over, the Hotel Backpackers came “recommended” in Footprint (as well as Lonely Planet). On check in we found it to be pretty shabby, no sheets or pillows provided, poor service in the restaurant and the dorm was noisy being as it was put smack-bang in the middle of the bar and kitchen. We made our minds up that the Hotel Backpackers should definately be changed to “unrecommended” in the next edition!