Central America 2000 - Latin American driving
From Worldtraveller
All our travel up until now had been on local buses. We were a little daunted at the thought of the Guatemalan bus system, having been advised by the Foreign Office that fatal crashes are frequent, and by other travellers that the buses are unbelievably crowded. We were also not too keen on negotiating our way across Guatemala City, about which we'd heard more horror stories than Managua. So when we discovered that you can get a minibus all the way from Copán to Antigua in Guatemala, our next destination, we decided that we would cop out and take it. It's a service used solely by tourists, and I certainly felt like a cheat as we got aboard. We crossed the border at a very quiet border post, and no-one tried to rip us off. It was rather boring.
On the whole, though, it was probably a safer and more sensible option that the five-leg journey we would have had if we had got the local buses. It wasn't all plain sailing, though - we had a marvellous run for the first four hours, through beautiful mountainous Guatemalan scenery, but during our slow, traffic-jammed crossing of Guatemala City (which, incidentally, looked like the ultimate grim urban nightmare), we were hit by a bus. It was a low-speed impact, so no-one was hurt, though it took some time to extricate my backpack from the crumpled boot.
Our driver got out to discuss things with the other driver, and I fully expected punches to be thrown, but fortunately everything was calm and sensible. After a short discussion we drove on to a petrol station nearby, taking the conductor of the bus that had hit us along with us. I wasn't sure why this was - perhaps the minibus firm were keeping him as security? We then stopped and waited for a replacement minibus to arrive, and completed the final leg of the journey safely.
We arrived in Antigua late that evening, and checked into a marvellously cheap hotel. It was hard to shake the odd feeling that the trip was nearly over, as here we were in our final country with Costa Rica already a distant memory. But we still had nearly three weeks to go, and much to see and do.
