Buses

There are three types of bus in Guatemala.

There are the charter buses. These are usually reserved for long distances. For example, Alej and I took a charter bus from Guatemala City to Xela on my first full day in the country. These buses are usually the nicest and the newest. The seat recline and there are seat belts. Though the bus driver might let a few vendors on the bus to sell their wares, it usually only happens when the bus driver or his right hand man (the man collecting money in exchange for money, helping people with bags, etc.) knows the vendor (or is receiving some kind of bonus from the vendor) since the charter companies try to cut down on this kind of hassling. Baggage is stored in a compartment under the bus and the fare is about 6 USD or 40 Queztals. This is the kind of bus that I gather tourists usually take.

There are micro-buses. These are private buses (and I use the term buses liberally; they are really no more than painted vans stuffed with extra seats) that, I take it, are usually owned by the drivers. Their right-hand man is usually a boy in his late teens, no older than me. The boy hangs by one arm out of the open doors calling the bus destination as the bus rumbles down the cobbled streets of Xela, which date back to a time before cars. One ride is about 1.25 Queztals (about a third of a dollar) so this is a popular mode of transportation in a city as sprawling as Xela. You know which bus to take from the Route number hand-painted on the side of the van. I did not see one tourist besides myself on these buses, and I only thought to take one cause Alej was there to keep me from getting completely lost in the convoluted system.

Then, there are what Alej calls "chicken buses." She says she calls them this because they tie chickens to the top of the buses. I haven't seen this yet, but when we took this type of bus from Xela to Pana (a city by the lake that lies about halfway between Xela and Antigua- my final destination in Guatemala) this is where they tied my huge backpack. These buses are retired school buses from the States that have been painted in many different bold colors, which indicate ownership. Seat belts have been removed and racks have been installed above the seats for small baggage. The right-hand man in this case is also the porter, loading heavy bags on top of the bus and looking for potential customers (also by standing in the doorway of the bus as it slowly passes groups of people on the side of the road). Mostly this kind of bus is full of Guatemalans, but on the second leg of our trip to Antigua, Alej and I saw a lot of tourists from out of the country.