wow.

The weekend! Saturday started like any other day could - I waiting at the bus stop at 7.30am with two other PLQ students for the bus to take us out of the city for a weekend trip. We were going to San Pedro La Laguna on Lake Atitlan. This lake is part of the reason I decided to take this trip, so I was really excited for my adventure outside of Xela. The bus came quickly and we squeezed in with 20 other passengers (mind you the bus is really a small van). We were dropped off at one end of an outdoor market in the city where we made our way to the other end to the bus terminal, and from there we caught a chicken bus to take us to San Pedro. The chicken bus is the favorite thing of the extranjeros to talk about in Guatemala because they are very colorfully painted old school buses from the states, where people sit four or five to a seat meant for two, and the drivers speed through the moutains like maniacs. The combination makes for a great adventure! But this bus stopped in the countryside for us to make a transfer, and when we disembarked we were told the next bus wouldn´t show up for at least three hours. Instead another van-bus took us to another small village where we again disembarked for a transfer, and discovered we needed to hop on the back of a pick up truck with again at least 20 other people, all standing (they provided grab bars for safety haha). But holy crap!! Here we are, descending on very winding roads through the mountains, standing cramped in the back of a pick up truck, breathing beautiful air and watching the lake appear closer and closer....we could have been heading for the most disgusting city in the world and it would have been worth it for that trip.