Pimp my ride

Before coming on this trip, I can honestly say it had been years since I had been on a school bus. I can no longer say that. The most common way that people get around in Guatemala is on a chicken bus. The chicken buses are old school buses that have been painted and completely pimped out. They put railings along the top of the bus so they can cram as many people in as possible and they pump music through the bus – sometimes it’s Spanish hip hop, sometimes it’s gospel music, you really just never know. They squash 3 people in per seat and then you have tons of people standing in the aisles. Sometimes someone from the back wants to get to the front, so he will climb out the back door, up on top of the bus, walk across the bus as it’s moving, then climb down and swing in the front door. It is soooo dangerous! They also put everything you can think of on top of the bus – we saw animals in boxes, luggage and even a bed! I really think these super sweet buses would make an amazing episode of pimp my ride!

The last couple of days have been really cool – we spent 2 nights staying in the home of families in the small mountain village of San Jorge. We split up and were with just one other person from the group and we had to live as the locals live. Our family only got water every other day, they cook all of their food over a wood fire, and they have 11 kids! It is so difficult to see how some people in the world live. The language barrier was also a huge challenge. They speak not a word of English so we had to bust out the high school Spanish. We talked about the weather, our families and if we had any pets, and that’s about as much as we remembered – guess I should have paid closer attention!

Since I raved so much about Rio Dulce, I thought it was only right that I put a picture of my home there. Our room was the second story of the building in the picture below, and if you look in the top right hand corner, you can see one of the beds. I felt like I was living in the jungle book!