random thoughts

some things i´ve been thinking about...

driving in guatemala is dangerous. there are cetain rules to the road, like bigger vehicles get the right of way. they tend to honk a lot here, not as a ¨get out of the way¨ honk but ¨i´m coming so watch out¨. mostly it´s a friendly honk. there are stop signs but it seems they don´t always mean stop. as a pedestrian you have to be ultra-careful when crossing the street. luckily a lot of roads are one-way. sometimes there aren´t any lines in the road to make separate lanes but everyone seems to know where they are.

chicken buses are fun. well about as fun as a ride on a greyhound bus, but way cheaper. all buses have two workers, the driver and his assistant. the assistant helps get people´s belongings up on the roof (we keep ours on our laps though), he keeps track of who gets on and where they are going, he collects money, and he climbs up on the roof to get their belongings when their stop is coming up (even if the bus is still moving). people just keep getting on the bus, it´s a regular school but with little people sized seats but sometimes people are sitting three (adults) to a seat. people stand if they have to and i´m just glad we got on at the first stop so we didn´t have to. it is a fun way to travel though and you are with the locals, doing what they do. it was Q25 for a ride here (chichi) from xela and looking at a shuttle bus (no more than 12 ppl) it was over Q100.

eating in restaurants in the states usually means no one will bother you or try to sell you something while you are eating. not the case here. you can be totally eating your meal and someone will come up trying to sell bracelets, dolls or candy. it doesn´t seem to bother the restauranteur at all because they let everyone in. there was someone begging for money once. it´s annoying because you can´t just say ¨no gracias¨, you have to say it a few times. interesting.

haggling is the way. we walked through chichi with a little preview of tomorrow´s big market. many of the stalls are already set up and people are trying to sell some things. i went to look at a pair of ¨crazy pants¨ as i call them, colorful comfortable looking pants, and the girl said Q85 at first. i was sucked in and she was showing me all these different ones. then i said i was just looking and she lowered the price a little and said ¨tomorow it will be more¨ and i said i had to go get money from my hotel. so we started walking away and the other lady, i´m guessing her mom, says Q60. we walked farther and i heard them say Q50 then Q45! i´m definitely going back and naming my price, now that i know how low they will go. i kind of feel bad but i guess that´s what they do here.