Guatemala City to Antigua

06.45hrs and our water taxi arrived; actually it was Laurent from Linus who had been volunteered by Eliane to give us a lift ashore. Laurent, it was very much appreciated - Thank you.

We were booked on the 07.15 Fuente del Norte bus to Guatemala city, from where, we would have to change terminals and get a connecting bus to Antigua. The bus was ok, but the seats were rather dirty as I found out (more about that later). Actually for the price you couldn’t grumble. It was a five and a half hour journey and it cost us 55Quetzales(Qs) (US$7.30 or £3.65) each!

It was actually a very interesting journey. To begin with it transpired that the conductor also had a sideline, selling herbal remedies and we were his captive audience. Then, at every drop off or pick up, street vendors would board selling everything from the latest copy of Diarios  (the newspaper) to a full meal! Maybe they didn’t think we spoke the language (we were the only gringos on the bus) so they didn’t hassle us.

At one stop, 2 young girls selling food got stuck on the bus and had to wait until the next stop to get off.

The countryside was surprisingly very like the UK, green rolling hills and forests, the only difference being the palm trees dotted amongst the trees.

We finally arrived in the metropolis that is Guate (the local name for Guatemala City). A very kind ticketing clerk, after informing us that they did not run buses to Antigua, found us a taxi to take us to the terminal across the city where we could find a bus to Antigua.

We arrived just as the ‘chicken bus’ to Antigua was about to leave. These buses are very different to the bus we had just taken and boy, were we in for an adventure.

Our bus was called Camellia, which I took as a good omen as my aunty was called Camillia. The seats were much cleaner than the other bus and it was quite empty, so we settled down for the next leg of our trip, which was to take about another hour and a half.

The conductor is responsible for filling the bus, so he frequently jumps off at junctions and shouts “Antigua...Antigua”, gathering customers and competing with all the other buses plying the same route. His objective, it appeared, was to fill the bus - and I mean FILL!!!!

More and more people boarded, as all the seats filled, they didn’t stand in the aisles like in the UK, no, they squeezed themselves onto your seat next to you. Now those of you who know Roger, it is not unkind to say he is not a great fan of public transport, especially buses, so you can imagine his dismay when he was squashed up against some stranger, who would constantly have to stand up and lean across him to let others off the bus. I think he took it all very well and I am proud of his spirit of adventure.

But the fun didn’t stop there. The driver of these buses all have aspirations……..to become the next F1 world champion!!!!  They scream around bends at top speed in top gear. You may think the photo I tried to take is out of focus and at the wrong angle, well you’d be partly right, it is slightly out of focus. That’s because I only had the one hand to take the photo while using the other to hang on for dear life. As we screamed round the bends, it was like a funfair rollercoaster, everyone (driver included) leaning hard over trying to deal with the ‘g’ force. 

But let me put it into context, imagine a steep hill with lots of hairpin bends and blind corners……now add to that a Kamikaze, aspiring F1 driver. We were overtaking lorries and cars and buses at breakneck speed on blind bends. You had to laugh or hysteria would have taken over. Having now travelled on a ‘chicken bus’ I have my own explanation of the name. All of the drivers are taking part in a huge game of Chicken, to see who will crack first. Such is the machismo of Guatemala.

It was very hot by the time we pulled into Antigua. We had no idea where we were, where the hotel we had booked was or how to get there. I have to say, our Spanish is improving exponentially, mainly out of necessity. We managed to find the taxi rank and took a rather expensive taxi (30Qs or US$4, we tried to negotiate but he wouldn’t budge) to the hotel.

Antigua is a very pretty city with cobbled streets and brightly coloured buildings, it reminded me of Patzcuano in Mexico.

Antigua was once the capital of Guatemala back in the 1700s and has many beautiful buildings which reflect its previous status.

It is also surrounded by the most majestic volcanoes, the sight of which are quite awe inspiring. (The cloud is covering the peak)

Our hotel was the Casa De Los Suenos, and was a typical Guatemalan quality hotel but costing no more than a Holiday Inn Express; all the rooms built around a beautiful, ancient courtyard as are most of the hotels, cafes and restaurants in the area.

We had the added luxury of not only a fire in our room, but also a bath. I cannot begin to imagine that anyone, other than a fellow bath lover or cruising sailors, can have the slightest understanding of what this means. It has been almost 10 months since I had the luxury of a proper bath (by that I mean one that is deep enough to get my legs completely submerged, unlike the American versions) and even though it turned out to be luke warm it was...... lovely.

We had just finished bathing and were drying off (hope this will not be TMI - but it is integral to the plot M’Lud and I will get to point shortly M'Lud) when suddenly the room began to vibrate. At first it was like the feeling one gets when a heavy lorry passes close to a building and you feel the vibration. Only briefly and then it stops.

But then the whole room began to MOVE. It was an earthquake!!!!!! It was quite surreal, imagine the floor moving – your feet and legs shuffle back and forth but your body remains completely still!  Like standing on the floating base of those public weight scales in reverse. The extremely heavy solid teak chest (it’s in the picture) was vibrating on the floor and while it only lasted a short while, it took a while for the mirror on the wall above it to stop moving. And of course, Roger just couldn’t resist commenting that “the bath was great and did the earth the earth moved for me too?”

We turned on the TV and sure enough Guate had an earthquake that hit 4.3 on the Richter scale and lasted 33secs.

It was ironic in a way as 32 years ago when Guatemala was devastated by an earthquake I was linked to it, at a distance by way of raising money to send for relief. Now, here I was 32 years later experiencing albeit a minor one in comparison, an earthquake in the same country.

Wow, our trip was certainly proving to be exciting and different, so many new experiences for us both. Isn’t life wonderful?