Day 7: On the Road to Cobân
After last time I blogged we went back to our hotel to shower and have dinner. Mili went in first, a few minutes later I hear some screaming coming from the bathroom. At first I assume the water is cold, but then Mili carries on screaming. Apparently there was a mouse in the bathroom staring at her while she showered... Had some giggles about that, but then we were both a bit freaked out about going in there, even though I've never been scared of mice.
Went to have dinner later, the sky looked beautiful, you could see lots of stars. We even think we saw a shooting star!!! Hard to tell though, it happened too quick. Went to bed after that.
Next day we went down to the lake for a quick swim to try to find the ring I had lost the previous day. I was told that I probably wouldn't find it since there are fishers that go look for crabs there and they'd probably have found it themselves. Needless to say the ring remained lost. I was such an idiot to lose it in the first place... We then went on to the hotel to have breakfast and get ourselves ready for the long journey ahead.
From San Marcos we took a lancha to Panajachel, which stopped on every little village around the lake. From Panajachel we then took a chicken bus to Solola. At Solola it was really busy on the first bus, luckily we met a sweet Guatemalan girl that was also going to Guatemala city who helped us out. So from Solola we took a chicken bus to Los Encuentros. I really felt like I was on a chicken bus on that one since I had to step over a basket of chickens to get to my seat. Once at Los Encuentros we took a chicken bus to Guatemala City.
Chicken bus drivers drive like maniacs. They will happily try to overtake another bus on a curve even though there is nowhere for them to go. Then there are women who get on to try to sell you food and another one that got on and started shouting about the benefits of a vitaminic complex she was selling. Mad...
We got to Guatemala City and my impressions were much much worse than the last time (as if that was possible) From there we had to take a Pullman bus onto Coban. We had about 60Q left and the cash machines weren't working. The 60Q went to pay for the taxi driver... luckily they let us pay in dollars for the bus to Coban, otherwise we would have been screwed.
Got to Coban at 9pm with no hotel reservation and 50Q. We took a taxi to a hotel in our guide, but that was full, so we had to go onto another one. We took the last room there. We're staying at hotel Virgen del Rosario in Coban. They wanted us to pay in advance but we didn't have enough. I offered the woman dollars and she said we could pay in the morning.
Went to bed exhausted.