This is Guatemala: 1

I said goodbye to my new friend and then waited where the busses pick people up to go to Nebaj.  It was 4:15 with plenty of daylight to spare.  The busses leave every half hour and the last one leaves at 6:00.  My chances of getting stranded seemed pretty low.  But this is Guatemala. 

I sat next to a boy with a box of a dozen little chickens on the sidewalk.  We waited.  A microbus came by and we were stoked that we would get to leave soon.  Except, they would not leave unless we had eight people.  So we waited.  A man with his little son showed up and waited with us, he was looking for a ride to the intersection that went to Chajul.  Another guy came as well with his wheelbarrow.  But four people were not enough people, and it was getting later.  So we started to walk.

We ran into another seeking a ride out of Cotzal.  We planned with him, and another came toward us in the same predicament.  Alas, six people did not a ride to Nebaj make.  We found a good deal with a tuc-tuc driver to drive us to the intersection.  A tuc-tuc is basically like a golf cart.  Including the driver there were 7 grown men, 1 little kid, 12 little chickens, and one wheel barrow strapped to the top.  A couple of the guys got out and pushed it along on the up hills to keep it going.  We made it to the intersection where we watched the man with his son get a ride to Chajul fairly quickly.  But the four of us going to Nebaj waited.  And waited.  But no micro bus from Chajul was going to come.  No micro bus from Cotzal was going to come.  After one hour of waiting in the chilly mountain air, we began to walk.

After walking only a hundred meters, a truck came by.  They let us travel in the back under their covered bed.  So in we went, us four guys, a dozen chickens, and a wheel barrow.  Not being able to see anything in the pitch black night, I sat on the chicken box.  Oops.  But we were able to finagle things in the back to all fit in without any more mishaps. 

We arrived to Nebaj at 7:30.  It was only three hours, but quite an adventurous commute nonetheless.