Bus trip to Santa Cruz del Quiche

The bus is quite nice, each seat has seatbelts, there are 14 of us on the bus including the bus driver, but the bus could seat 20, albeit cramped.

Driving through Guatemala city reminds of any modern central american city, many nice new cars and the odd beater vehicle. Driving past a burger king, papa john's, Denny's and a McDonalds, the McDonalds parking lot was filled with motorbikes with delivery baskets, so my impression is that the economy in this city seems to be doing well (it's a McDonald's based assessment strategy)

Have seen some interesting sights, my favorite so far was a small pickup truck with about 25 blue barrels (bigger than oil barrels) stacked in the bed and on top of the cab, the barrels were held in place with small wire fencing. The top of the highest barrel must have been 30 feet high.

Although we are in a bus driving through the city, I think I would feel quite safe walking the streets here during the day. The only guns I've seen were held by security guards, at banks, in the airport, and an automotive lubricant shop of all places.

For a city of 17 million people (edit: someone in our group said 17 million people, after looking it up, it's 1 million, which makes way more sense due to no high rises) there are very few tall buildings, the one in the picture is the tallest I've seen.Read more