Travel Hiccups on the Road to Xela

I arrived in Guatemala from Dallas/Ft Worth – it was pouring and dark when I arrived and I wished I had gotten a flight that arrived earlier! When I got out of the airport it was hectic, with hawkers and men advertising different hotels all yelling. I was supposed to be met by a person from Quetzalroo, but when I looked around no one was there to meet me. I had a moment of freakout, but soon enough a guy with a Quetzalroo sign came and asked if I had a reservation (he was just there advertising)– turned out they had forgotten to pick me up! No harm done someone came and picked me up pronto. At the hostel, I paid for a dorm room but since it was so empty that just meant a larger private room for me with several beds in it!

The next day I was dropped off at the bus terminal, and caught the bus to Xela. However, about an hour into our 4 hour journey the bus started to smell suspiciously of burning rubber, and about twenty minutes after that two old ladies in the back started screaming stop the bus! There was a large amount of smoke coming out of their seats from the back wheel. (At first I thought there was a fire, so bad brakes was a large improvement)We stopped for a couple minutes, then the driver decided to try again despite loud protests from several passengers. Someone was in denial. My four hour journey turned into a six hour journey, and everyone had to get off the bus and wait to flag down various buses on the side of the highway. Several people just decided to flag down camionetas or chicken buses ( local buses – which are just  old, intensely polluting and insanely decorated school buses) but I waited till a pullman or greyhound came along and got on that. As luck would have it the only available seat was next to an older guy who talked my ear off (despite loud music coming from my headphones!) and gave me a monologue about which countries have the most beautiful women. When I finally got to Xela, I took a taxi to my host family’s house ( the taxi driver overcharged me and had no idea where the house was – I had to give him the telephone number so he could call and ask for directions). By the time I got there I was exhausted and extremely happy to be over the most stressful part of my trip.

 So far despite my travel hiccups Guatemalans in general seem friendly and helpful. I start volunteering and Spanish classes (which apparently I need super bad! I forgot how to say fries while ordering at MacDonald’s) on Monday. My host family is super sweet and has two young kids – Diego ( 7) and Fatima (4). I haven’t seen much of much besides from the bus so far, but when I have a chance I’ll explore Xela and give some updates.