lo siento, no es mi problema

When we left Lago Atitlan for Xela it sounded fairly simple. We bought a 11 dollar ticket that would get us from San Pedro to Chichi which was an hour, where we would switch shuttles and then continue on to Xela, another 2 hours. Simple enough.

Lies.

We leave san pedro and about 20 minutes in we have to shut off the bus and get out because there is some kind of road construction happening and the road is impassible. SO we all unload while traffic piles up behind us..everyone sitting on the side of the road waiting for about 30 minutes. Once we get moving our bus cant get up the hill so we have to wait, let all the traffic pass us, and then retry it. About another 30 minutes later we are winding back and forth up the side of the mountains and the bus starts sputtering...and we start coasting backwards down the cliff. The driver says please get out, this is very difficult. So half of the bus gets out and hoofs it up the terrain and meets the bus at the top. We all find this very funny...the first time. When it happens again ten minutes later its not so funy. When the bus stops working all together and we all have to sit on the side of the road for an hour waiting for alternative shuttles, it is no longer funny at all. Actually its to the point where most of us are failing to see the humor at all when the rescue shuttle can only fit half of the crew, leaving the other half of us to wait another 20 minutes for the second shuttle.

Whitney and I hop in and get the last seats, in the last row...which is american terms is the trunk. Sitting in the trunk, 3.5 hours into a trip that is supposed to take an hour and bouncing around like rag dolls...

When we finally arrive in CHICHI which is a huge market city and is the destination of every other traveler on our shuttle, we inform our driver that we are to get a connecting shuttle here that is bound for xela. He said, oh, sorry but you missed it. We instantly get pissed because we not only paid for it, but we are now stuck here without a shuttle?? In relaying this to the driver, his only response is Lo siento, no es mi problema. In english, tough luck asshole, not my problem.

It only gets worse when in looking for an alternative way to xela we find out its going to cost us 100usd for the 2 hour trip. Not to mention we have three creepy guatemalan men telling us they can take us in their shuttle, no their bus, no their taxi, right now, no in an hour, no at 4pm to xela for 100 usd no 15quetzales no...shady!!

So we end up running away and jumping spontaneously on a collectivo headed to los encuentros. Where that is we have no idea but its 45 minutes closer to xela, or so we are told. So we squeeze in, whitney up front next to her new bff pedro and me in the back in the middle in a sea of guatemalans...all staring at me like i have 8 heads. These collectivos make about 6 stops per quarter mile and shove whoever wants to get in, in a seat...or on someones lap...or to hand on to the oh shit handle and hang out the side.

Finally we get to los encuentros and 3 seconds later are shoved onto a Chicken Bus headed for Xela. Now we have been informed several hundred times DO NOT RIDE A CHICKEN BUS. They are notorious for highway robberies...for maniac drivers flying down the highway at excessive speed ignorning all traffic laws and weather complications. Not to mention it is a recycled US cheese bus and they put three people per seat so breathing room is negligible. All the while, your pack full of everything you own currently is being slopped around all over the roof where you cannot see it and will have no reassurance that it is still there until you get off and with some act of god, it is still there. God was on our side that day, thankfully.

After 9 toturous hours, 3 shuttles, a chicken bus and a cab we find ourselves at the american equivalent of a dump hotel...thanking god the day was over. Oh but im sorry, ´no es mi problema.¨