A change of plans.

The weekend has come and gone and I am still in Xela. As you may remember, my friend, Carrie, and I were suppose to take off yesterday and head north. After an entertaining twist of events, we headed back to the boys house, rang the door bell, and re-situated ourselves back in our room.

It all started Sunday morning with a cup of coffee from McDonald's (they have really good coffee down here) and me procrastinating (that's not like me at all, is it?) Our shuttle to Antigua was picking us up at 2:00 so we could spend the night there and then head to Sumec Champey the next day (an 8 hour bus trip). Our bus driver showed up at 2:15 and we headed out of town. We quickly made friends with the two other travelers in the shuttle and agreed that the trip was much safer than in a chicken bus. Carrie and I were both 'patched' (motion sickness+Guatemalan roads=a disastrous road trip, however, with the patch, things are a little better). We were on the outskirts of town when we pulled into the middle lane of the five lane road and stopped. Our driver had received a phone call and from what I could tell, he had just been told that we needed to pick up a few more people. I clarified and he said yes, that is what we were going to do. We turned around (in the middle of the road) and headed back into Xela. We made a few turns and ended up at Linea Dorada (one of the four first-class bus stations in town). Our driver (I'll call him Pedro) then told us that we were going to take a taxi to Antigua because he had to take all of the people at the bus station to Guatemala City. The four of us were a little confused by the situation because we had paid for a shuttle and that's what we expected. At this point, one of the other travelers asked Pedro if he would wait until out taxi came before he left for Guate and he said he would. Shortly after he unloaded our backpacks, he started the shuttle and drove off. So, here we were, four female travelers left on the side of the road, waiting for a taxi. It was close to 3:00 now and at the same time Carrie and I looked at each other with the same look in our eyes. We were both questioning our decision to go. A taxi driver walked over to us and asked if we needed a cab and I told him to hold on a minute. Carrie and I took about 12 seconds to decide that this trip was starting off in the wrong manner and we headed over to a local taxi and had him take us back to our 'home' from the last week. When I asked what was going on with all the people at the bus station he said that the bus wasn't able to come because of all the construction on the road. He said that traffic was backed up and at that point, we both knew that we made the right decision.

We weren't able to get a refund for the shuttle but we did work out a deal that the company would pay for our bus to Rio Dulce (the sweet river) on Wednesday. We will miss out on the beginning of our trip but considering that both of us gets so sick, we figured it would be more fun to hang out with friends for the rest of the week than make ourselves spend so much time on a mountainous road with our heads out the window!

When we arrived back at the house, we were welcomed back with open arms but decided to make dinner to make sure they wouldn't mind us staying a few more nights. We cooked a great meal and headed to bed early. We will be in Xela until Wednesday morning (we leave on the 4am bus) and I will return on Sunday. Unfortunately, Carrie has to go back to the states on Sunday but I will have two more weeks here before I continue on to my next stop!

It's been wonderful having an old friend here to experience this city with and laugh at the random things that happen every day. Just today, we were enjoying our morning Diet Cokes in McDonald's and a Guatemalan girl was sitting behind me. After about 15 minutes, she turned around and asked if I would be willing to give her English classes. At first, I was a little hesitant because I didn't want to over commit my time here but after talking to her for 10 minutes, I decided that she was pretty interesting and we are going to meet up next week to get coffee. We worked out a deal that if I speak to her for 30 minutes in English, we will spend the next 30 minutes speaking Spanish. I'll give an update on how that goes next week!

Viva La Vida!

Liz

Oh, my avocado guy is back! I have eaten the most wonderful aquacartes since his return! I wish I could bring some back for all of you!

Playlist:
Beautiful Day by U2
Portions of Foxes by Rilo Kiley
Beautiful by So Long Goodbyes
Island Girl by Elton John
Furry Sings the Blues by Joni Mitchell
Sideways by Citizen Cope
Growing Older But Not Up by Jimmy Buffett
Love Story by Taylor Swift
Hips Don't Lie by Shikira