We had quite the adventure yesterday coming to Guatemala! We left the Casa Concrodia at 5 am and headed to the bus station. We went with a very nice bus company that has very nice two level buses with comfy seats, air conditioning, shows movies, and serve a little meal. We got all checked in and left San Salvador at 6 am. I fell asleep pretty much right away and slept until we got to the border. A man from the Salvadoran customs came on the bus and checked our passports. Then after a few minutes the man who worked on the bus serving us food, etc. told us that the bus was going to have to wait there for an hour, so it would be best for us to get off the bus and walk across the border and go through the Guatemalan customs and wait for the bus on the other side. So we all got off the bus and walked across the bridge that took us to Guatemala. It was definitely an interesting experience to walk across the border. As we were waiting in line to get our passports stamped in Guatemala, we saw our bus pull up, but it had not been an hour. I'm not really sure what happened- perhaps they thought the traffic was worse than it really was- I don't know.
So, then we all got back on the bus and continued on our way. After a little bit we started going slow and stopped periodically. Then we stopped and the engine went off. The driver tried to start it again, but it didn't start. The young man who worked on the bus told us we be waiting for an hour or so while they found some parts and tried to fix it. After a while it got really warm on the bus without the air conditioning so we got off and chatted with each other. I got to meet a young woman from the U.S. who is working for an organization called Voices on the Border (http://www.votb.org). It was neat to hear about this organization and to hear about the work that this young woman is doing.
Here we were standing on the side of the road while with bus driver worked on trying to fix the bus. I think they said there was something wrong with the oil or fuel filter. They got it started we got on the bus and then it stopped working. We got off the bus and after a few minutes they got it started again, we got on a started moving. We were going pretty slow though. After about 45 minutes we met another bus and we changed buses and continued on to Guatemala City on the new bus. We got into Guatemala City at 2:00- about 4 hours later than we should have. Then we had an hour ride to our cute little hotel in Antigua. We went out and had dinner- our first real meal of the day- and then walked around the city for a little bit before heading back to the hotel for our nightly Bible study/group devotions.
By no means was it a horrible day, just different than we had anticiapted. Always an adventure.
