Chicken Buses!

After Auryn and I crossed the border we walked up to the bus 'station' (more like a vague dusty parking lot), and we caught our first chicken bus! Chicken buses are old American school buses that are converted into badass looking public buses. Apparently they can become so full of locals who are transporting various cargo that you can often find yourself sitting next to a chicken! 🐔

Throughout the day we took a total of FIVE chicken buses to get to Panajachel, Guatemala. These rides are absolutely wild. The drivers are completely reckless; passing people in the on-coming lane around blind winding corners, screaming around corners forcing everyone to hold onto the bars in front of them, and that's just the first bit of it. The driver has an assistant that honks the horn, takes the money from passengers and loads and unloads cargo from the top of the bus. So as the bus is racing around corners (on the side of mountains btw) the assistant hops out of the moving bus onto a ladder, finds the cargo for the passenger getting off at the next stop, chucks the cargo down to the passenger when the bus stops, and then remains on the roof while the bus starts going again where he then walks on the roof to the back of the bus, climbs down another ladder, and then opens the back door and gets back into the bus! It's wild!!! 😮😮😮

At one of our bus transfers we get off of the one chicken bus and our next buses assistant came to meet us. He then grabbed this older lady's cargo and started sprinting down the road! We also started sprinting down the road (with all of our bags) following the bus assistant and the older lady. We all stop along the road and the bus assistant then starts helping guide this full sized school bus to turn around in the middle of a traffic jam on the other side of the road. I guess they decided to turn around and take passengers going the other way rather than sit in traffic. Anyways, the bus eventually gets turned around, but is blocking traffic so the older lady (who is obviously used to this craziness) runs to the back of the bus and starts trying to climb up the ladder to get into the back door. She is having significant trouble so Auryn helps push her into the bus. He then hops in and I start to get pushed to the back of the line by a bunch of aggressive guys. Auryn, hanging outside the back door, yells for me to push past everyone and I realize I am being too Canadian so I push past all of the guys and scale up the ladder (again with all of my bags). I was afraid that the bus was going to start moving with me on the ladder, but I needed to get on otherwise I'd be separated from Auryn with no way of contacting him and no money. 😅😅😅 Thankfully I'm able to push into the crowded bus AND even somehow manage to grab a seat!

After that we took another three chicken buses. We thought we missed our stop on one (but didn't). And then we thought we were on the wrong one so we got off only for them to tell us that it was the right one so we had to get back on and a couple older indigenous ladies started laughing with us. 😂

Finally! We get to Panajachel and find a really good hotel room for a great price. As soon as we got into our room we both realized how dead tired we were. We decided to pop out and go for a little walk (about 9 pm) to see the town and because we needed to find an ATM to pay for our room. The town is adorable! Lots of interesting shops and friendly people. After a short walk we decided to head back where I scarfed down some food, had a shower, and passed out while watching some Brooklyn Nine-Nine. 😂Read more