I haven't been sure what to post to follow what was such a profound experience traveling in the mining delegation. I spent the last few days in Guatemala City and Antigua, meeting a friend and also a potential co-instructor for my Dragons course this summer.

This morning I grabbed a bus at San Lucas and headed toward Xela. My mind was racing with a million thoughts including a conversation I had with this weird ex-pat guy in Antigua who told me in 5 years of living in Guatemala he has only been to Antigua, the lake and the beach. He travels only in taxi and tourist shuttle. His justification was safety. The day I had this little convo with him I had taken a Guate city bus and yer regular good old fashioned "chicken bus" (I sorta detest that well-known name for buses in Guate, but anyway...) and was pretty quick to label this guy a big wuss. Until today as I was traveling at who-knows-what speed along the super curvy slick roads out of Antigua and along the Inter-Americana to Xela, anticipating the next time the driver would abruptly stomp on the brakes. I wondered if I had a healthy pot of cash I'd opt for more taxis and tourist shuttles. I, personally, feel like a goon traveling in 'private' transport when all the fun/misery lies in a regular bus ride, but, sometimes, when it comes down to it, maybe a few more sheckles would ease my nerves....

Naaaah.

But this "thoughtful" bus ride I had today was not without incident. This evangelical preacher got on and shouted at us for what seemed like forever. Then at the end he whips out a bag of gum and says, "Now I'm not taking advantage of the word of God to sell you something, but, um, I'm selling gum."



A man got on the bus during the last 45 minutes or so and fell asleep leaning on me. The windows were all fogged up because all the windows were closed and it was down pouring outside so I was getting a little nauseous without being able to see the road ahead. Everyone's tossed on the floor soda cans were leaking the little liquid left and so I rode most of the way with my pack on my lap. And a plastic bottle of someone's urine was rolling around the floor the whole time... I got icked-out every time the "pee bottle" hit my Chaco-clad feet.

Tourist shuttle, shurist schmuttle!