We decided to only spend two nights in Semuc Champey and headed out on the 7:00am shuttle through the jungle to catch the 8:00 bus to Antigua. Alyssa and Melissa were also headed to Antigua and we had planned to travel together and stay at the same hostel. Unfortunately they put Alyssa and Melissa in a different bus, but we were with the Scottish family that we knew from our hostel. There was some debate right away because the driver insisted that one if the German passengers sit in a wood/duct tape chair in the aisle between seats instead of in the four seats that were open in the back because apparently he had paid $30 quetzales less than the rest of us. There was an argument that ensued between the rest of the passengers and the driver because we all thought that was very unsafe, complete bullshit and a lie and in the end, once we started moving we folded the back chairs back up and he got a luxurious 4 seat section to himself. We headed an hour and a half down the road to Coban where we stopped for lunch at a mall. They had tons of American food like Subway, McDonalds and Dominos so we got lunch there quickly. I was not feeling very well because we were a nearer to the back of the bus than we have been in other rides and my motion sickness was kicking in with the lack of sleep, lack of breakfast and lack of airflow. Not even an hour after we left the mall, the road was shut down due to some sort of protest. Apparently there were some illegal street vendors that were upset because the government wasn't preventing other illegal street vendors from selling in their area so they decided to protest...only in Guatemala. We were stuck on the side of the road for over two hours.
Once we finally started moving again, I put on Star Trek on my iPad so that we could all watch it (but mostly to entertain the three kids on the bus). We were hours behind schedule and were going to arrive into Antigua much later than we'd hoped since for the first time we had not pre-booked a hostel and weren't sure where we were going to stay the night.
We had to drive through Guatemala City on the way to Antigua which is where Alyssa and I had previously considered staying a night and once I saw the city, I couldn't have been more thrilled that we weren't staying there. It is a huge city but was clearly very run down and unsafe. Everyone that we have talked to our our travels has said never to go there.
We finally arrived in Antigua at around 9:00pm, which was much later than our anticipated arrival of 2:30pm. The hostel we were hoping to stay at (and got dropped off at) was full so we began traipsing around the city trying to find an available hostel. We did find one that had a private room available, but since it was the weekend they wanted $350 quetzales which was much more than we'd been paying so we declined. Finally after inquiring in many full hostels we found one of the hostels that had been recommended to us by the owner of Utopia called "The Terrace". They didn't have any more privates available, but only had one double bed in a shared room left in the entire place for $130 quetzales. We decided to take it because carrying 50lbs on your back in the middle of the night after a 12+ hour bus ride sucks! The lady did tell me that they had a bar on the floor above us on the terrace and that sometimes it was noisy. What she neglected to tell me was that it would literally be Marci gras at this bar and that our room was right next to the staircase that people had to go up and down to get to the bar and the bathroom. So, we heard not only the bar music and screaming but also every drunken fight and mental breakdown that happened along the way. At one point when Alyssa had gotten up to go to the bathroom I heard our door slam open so I pulled off my eye mask and there was some guy in our room. When I asked him what he was doing he asked "Is this Sophie's room?". I promptly threw him out and decided not to tell Alyssa so that she didn't have a nervous breakdown. I was SO exhausted that I eventually passed out but poor Alyssa spent many hours awake listening to the madness.
Needless to say, it was not the best day of the trip and I was glad when I could finally pass out and move on to the next day.
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