Travel E-mails
An archive of e-mails from my Centeral/South America trip.5/10/2006
Alive or not, I think I´m in heaven.
Greetings everyone.
November 9th was the big departure, the trip was most interesting -- day 1 we bussed to detroit, got hasseled a LOT at the border (at 5:00 AM none the less), then at 9:00 we flew to Huston Texas, and transfered flights to Harlingen (more hassels and security checks, but no issues, I got checked 2 times, Murray - a friend who lives here half the year, got checked 4 times... good luck I guess!). From Harlingen, we bussed to Brownsville (a border town) and then got tickets to the southern tip of mexico... Strangley enough there was little english in brownsville, and almost none in mexico... Time to learn spanish FAST. We bused through mexico (about 36 hours, but MAN are their busses better than ours) then got a cab to the guatemala-mexico border... the cab dropped us off in front of a bunch of grinning locals - I thought This was it... gonna get mugged by a cab driver and a bunch of mexicans... but no - they just wanted to carry our luggage and give us bad prices on Quetsels (guatemalan money). We managed to get through the border without too much trouble, but we weregetting swarmed by people looking for handouts... so we jumped in a cab... we asked what it would cost to get to one town, seemed cheap, then asked what it would be to Panajachel - 95 Quetsels (15 dollars about) so we took it... only to later find out that our spanish had failed us, and it was not 95 but 950... over $100 canadian... so we haggled and managed to get him down to $650 to get to a town one bus away from here... the local busses are brutal, and the roads are plagued by speed bumps, so it was an interesting ride... but we made it! It´s incredible here - we´re in a town that is in a mountain valley and right on the lake. The weather is 20-25 C, or 70-80 F, and it´s been nothing but sun so far.
In total, the trip cost about $500 american including food, which isn´t bad for the distance traveled... though it was rough sleeping on busses and planes for 3.5 days straight.... and staying awake for constant layovers.
But here I am, it´s cheap to live here, I just stayed at an ´expensive hotel´ which was about $6 USD, but tonight I should be able to find a place at half that price.
Anyhow, enough computer, I need some more sunshine.
Cheers everyone!
Zac
November 9th was the big departure, the trip was most interesting -- day 1 we bussed to detroit, got hasseled a LOT at the border (at 5:00 AM none the less), then at 9:00 we flew to Huston Texas, and transfered flights to Harlingen (more hassels and security checks, but no issues, I got checked 2 times, Murray - a friend who lives here half the year, got checked 4 times... good luck I guess!). From Harlingen, we bussed to Brownsville (a border town) and then got tickets to the southern tip of mexico... Strangley enough there was little english in brownsville, and almost none in mexico... Time to learn spanish FAST. We bused through mexico (about 36 hours, but MAN are their busses better than ours) then got a cab to the guatemala-mexico border... the cab dropped us off in front of a bunch of grinning locals - I thought This was it... gonna get mugged by a cab driver and a bunch of mexicans... but no - they just wanted to carry our luggage and give us bad prices on Quetsels (guatemalan money). We managed to get through the border without too much trouble, but we weregetting swarmed by people looking for handouts... so we jumped in a cab... we asked what it would cost to get to one town, seemed cheap, then asked what it would be to Panajachel - 95 Quetsels (15 dollars about) so we took it... only to later find out that our spanish had failed us, and it was not 95 but 950... over $100 canadian... so we haggled and managed to get him down to $650 to get to a town one bus away from here... the local busses are brutal, and the roads are plagued by speed bumps, so it was an interesting ride... but we made it! It´s incredible here - we´re in a town that is in a mountain valley and right on the lake. The weather is 20-25 C, or 70-80 F, and it´s been nothing but sun so far.
In total, the trip cost about $500 american including food, which isn´t bad for the distance traveled... though it was rough sleeping on busses and planes for 3.5 days straight.... and staying awake for constant layovers.
But here I am, it´s cheap to live here, I just stayed at an ´expensive hotel´ which was about $6 USD, but tonight I should be able to find a place at half that price.
Anyhow, enough computer, I need some more sunshine.
Cheers everyone!
Zac
# 1:13 PM 
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