Day 35

Travel day. I'm sad but also feeling ready to be leaving behind the guys I've been spending the majority of my time with these past three weeks in Xela, 2 of them (Richard & Leo) having known them from my very first week in Guatemala when I first started taking classes in Antigua 5 weeks ago.

Heading back to the capital, the place I spent a day in when I first arrived, 5 weeks ago to the day.  How different it is with 5 weeks traveling in the country under my belt, 5 weeks worth of Spanish knowledge and practice.  Heading to meet a friend who I have also only known a short period, since my summer in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Such strange pockets of my life experiences. A year ago working daily with people with mental illness in a psych hospital in Chicago, 6 months ago moving from house to house in ritzy Marin County while looking after 3 young children, and now leaving behind my crazy traveling amigos from all over the world who have been drinking and smoking their way through the country.

I feel like a different person experienced and was present in each of these very different contexts of my life.  I don't feel like I'm the same person I was with the same needs and desires as I had when I first met April in the Bay Area last July.  Such a short time ago feels like a lifetime ago.

Enough of my thoughts. My day. With all my belongings strapped to my back I headed out for the bus terminal.  I didn't leave myself quite enough time and definitely got my workout trekking up the hill as fast as I could in order to arrive by 9.  About a block away, some guy seemed to be telling me that the bus already left and that I needed to take a taxi, but when I got to the office they told me to have a seat.  There were 2 Mayan women waiting as well but we waited awhile and I began to worry.  After awhile, the 3 of us were ushered into a taxi.  Then we got to a street and parked for a couple minutes before a very old Greyhound bus came by and we got on.

When I'd bought the ticket, I'd gotten to specify what seat I wanted. But when I got on it was already taken.  In all, the experience wasn't much different than taking a chicken bus, we still stopped for vendors to get on and other travelers got on and off throughout the trip (2 different guys sitting next to me at different times, one with a strange smell, the other falling asleep on me).  I found myself to be quite irritable. Maybe with the chicken bus experience I expect this but the Pullman bus, somehow I expected a little more.

Once in Guatemala City I thought it a bright idea to walk to the hostel where April was waiting for me.  It was a lot further than expected, I got lost, my bags were breaking, and I was sweating up a storm.  But somehow I made it!

We grabbed some food at a very expensive nearby restaurant (the most I've spent on a meal thus far).  It makes me worry traveling with someone on "vacation" rather than other career travellers who also seek out ways to spend 1-2 dollars on every meal.  Then spent the evening at the hostel chilling and planning for out trip up to Tikal.