Another crowded minibus from Lanquin to Cobán left as soon as I got there but the bus boy and the driver pissed my off by charging me 50% more than everyone else on the bus. The difference was only 10q (1€) but that didn't make it any cooler – if I wanted to pay the gringo prices I would've taken the direct gringo transport all the way with the other tourists. After being persistant, quite vocal and speaking my fastest Spanish, which is apparently pretty fast even on the local standards, I got 5q back, but still felt and told the driver he was just another ladron to watch out for. At the bus station everyone told me I'd have to take a taxi to get to the central square, or that it would be more than a half an hour walk there. I decided to give it a go anyway and arrived to my hostel, two blocks past the square, 10 minutes later. Incredible how convinced everyone is that I have plenty of extra cash to get rid off.
In Cobán I finally got online after a couple of days in the internet shadow and saw my friend Oscar's message saying that if I wanted to get the stuff I send to Tapachula before Monday (my flight home being on Tuesday) I'd need to get there by Thursday night. The only problem was that I was more than 10 hours bus ride away on Thursday afternoon. After a frantic search for bus companies and their timetables and many messages and calls to Oscar, he came to my rescue by taking some time off from work to pick up my stuff on Friday. So I could take it easy for the night and take a 3am bus to Guate the next morning (4h, 40q, 4€). In the early hours of the morning I checked out the brand new Transmetro local transport system in Guate getting to the South terminal just in time for the 8am bus to the Mexican border (7h, 60q, 6€) and shared a crowded taxi with four locals for the last 15 minutes of the journey (5q, 0,5€).
Having already got used to the hundreds of 'cambio, exchange!' & 'taxi, taxi!' shouts the border crossing went well without too much hassle (Guate exit fee 20q, 2€) and after another half an hour bus ride, wondering around Tapachula unsuccessfully looking for a bank to transfer money to the friend who sent my stuff and taking a local bus to Oscar's place in the middle of Halloween parade transport chaos, I felt this was pretty much all I could take for the day. I didn't have to wait too long to fall asleep when I laid down on the mattress on the floor of Oscar's bedroom and only woke up for three seconds when he came back home from a night out at 3am.
The next morning at 7am I was out on the road again and made my way to Guatemala city the same way I had taken the day before. After I had crossed the border the bus driver told me I had 30 minutes for getting breakfast and showed me the way to a nearby restaurant charging 30q (3€) for the typical Guatemalan day starter. I looked outside, and instead chose the old ladies on the street corner selling something, which turned out to be bread filled with black beans for 2,5q (0,25€) each. With the huge fresh fruit plate from another vendor for 5q (0,5€) my breakfast was complete.
In Guatemala city I managed, even without remembering the hotel name or full street address, to find the same pension, Pension Meza, I had stayed in 6 months earlier and was welcomed in by the same dude who said goodbye to me back then. And just like the last time, my CS friend Luís picked me up for a nice dinner and a couple of beers and again made sure I got back safe and sound.
On Sunday morning I did two hours of efficient gift shopping for the near and dear at home in the Central market place and packed my backpack more full and heavier than it had ever been before with its seams crying in agony. The state of my budjet also looked more worrying than ever, but not spending 5€ here and then buying something half as nice for five times more in Stockholm, when I'd get my first pay in a few months, didn't seem too wise either. You might have to feed me when I get back, but at least you'll get a piece of Guatemalan handicrafts in return. Well worth some noodle soup.
Luís had assigned himself my designated driver, or just happened to be heading to the same direction, and gave me a ride to Antigua and to my new hostel El Caminante (45q, 4,5€) there. I took a nice evening stroll around the city with my old CS host Pampa, who hadn't found a flat yet after his three-month adventure in Europe, so he couldn't host me, but who had promised to take me to the huge kite festival taking place only an hour away from Antigua the next day.
My hostel sucked, or maybe the Halloween night just isn't one of those nights you should even think you could really sleep in a hostel anyway, so I got up at 7am after having slept a half an hour here and there and feeling like I had a hangover, even though unlike Pampa, who looked pretty dead when we met up with him and six other CSers the next morning, I hadn't even had more than two bottles of beer the day before.
The kite festival was awesome. It takes place every year on the 1st November in at least two places near Antigua and the Sumpango celebration in a small village of 2000 inhabitants we took part in is visited by over 100 000 people on just one day.
The kites were colourful, beautiful and indeed gigantic, and crowd around them seemed to be on their best mood; kids flying their small kites and indigenous women all dressed in their most beautiful, handmade outfits.
We walked to the village cemetery decorated with hundreds of flowers and filled with people sitting down on the grass close to their loved one's graves having lunch, eating ice cream or waving incence burners to keep the bad spirits away on this day of the dead.
On the way back to the festival area we tried some new fruit, like litchi and jocote, and some other local delicacies, like grilled black corn and cordobas. With our tummies full of snacks and a little bit of cold beer, it was time to see some kites crashing down.
The idea is perhaps to get them up into the air and from them to stay there, but like most of the crowd, we too enjoyed the failed attempts at least as much as the successful ones. And since only two out of a couple of dozen teams managed to get their kites flying properly, and all other ones had two attempts with each kite, we had plenty to enjoy.
From the European perspective it was hard to understand why the announcers kept on asking people to make more room for the kites and the team members trying to get the kites up for security reasons, but the area wasn't constricted in any way so that some of the people getting too close were hit by huge kites consisting of relatively heavy bamboo structures crushing down on their heads from the height of 5-20 metres. Nobody got killed, but their bruises must have been at least as bad as the throbbing bump on my head after hitting my thick scull into the low roof jumping into a chicken bus on our way to the festival.
We all got home safely and after giving a huge big hug to my favourite waiter Pampa, it was time to get back to Guate again. My last full day in Guatemala and Latin America was over and I didn't feel to bad about getting a bit sun burned knowing that there was no chance of that happening again in the next six months.
My last overcrowded chicken bus ride, my last Guatemalan breakfast, my last sweaty backpack trek in the concrete jungle and my last cold shower for a while – I'll miss them all, I'm sure.
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