the chicken bus adventure ride!

bad-ass chicken bus!
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chicken buses and cheap thrills

how the chicken buses work

the driver has one job: drive twelve tons of diesel powered detroit steel like a crack-addled mad race car driver in the nimblest of overpowered sports cars.

moving right along!
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now, if you have never taken the so-called chicken buses in guatemala, let me tell you a bit about it. these buses are old-school american school buses just like you had as a kid, except that they have been repainted in garish exciting colors and designs, trimmed out with chrome and decals and fringe, pimped with kick-ass stereo systems blaring mariachi music, individually named in honor of some saint or girlfriend, and pressed into service as a form of hot-rod public transport.

these buses can be found all over guatemala and are the primary means of transit for most of the population, and the cheapest and usually fastest means of transit for the tourist. you can find a "terminale" for these buses in at least one market in every town and village. the terminal will be wide lot packed with innumerable buses, hawkers, food sellers, hustlers, and people generally on the move. just keep repeating the name of the place you want to go and soon you will be taken by the elbow and hustled to the correct bus. there's no ticketing system and no need to make reservations as buses typically leave in less than 15 minute intervals for any given destination. and don't worry about food for the trip; before you leave the station, and in each town passed through, the bus will be boarded by at least ten different vendors selling soft drinks, water, and food from homemade tamales to ice-cream cones to pizzas in the box. we're talking efficiency here, guatelmateca-style.

bus terminal
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each bus is staffed by two men, one driver and one conductor.

the conductor has a lot of jobs; he grabs you in the market and loads you up, he walks the aisles between towns and collects the dinero, he is the roof-monkey loading bags on the rack, climbing back down the rear ladder, and climbing back in the rear door while the bus is already back in motion. if the bus is not already packed three-people-to-a-bench, the same bench seat made for two american children, i have seen the driver stop on the side of the highway and the conductor grab people off the shoulder of the road and all but forceably load them!

a view on the inside
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the driver has one job: drive twelve tons of diesel powered detroit steel like a crack-addled mad race car driver in the nimblest of overpowered sports cars. his mission is to pass every other vehicle on the road, including cars, motorcycles, tractor trailer rigs, and other buses when possible. if there isn't enough road to pass, use the dirt shoulder to pass. if there is a construction zone, cut through the cones and drive through the construction to pass. if there is a blind turn, pass anyway. try not to stop, ever. if he must stop it is for less than one second. when loading passengers between towns slow down but keep rolling. as soon as the conductor climbs to the roof to load luggage, start rolling.

he will get back inside somehow, someway.

the ride to antigua

so when i say the ride to antigua was the most exciting chicken bus ride for me yet, you now have some context for it.

just finding the bus was an adventure. in guatemala city i was too late to catch the bus at its regular stop, and with my bad spanish i got correct directions, or so i hoped, to where the last buses would be found. boarding public bus 70 i talked to my ride mates and discovered my directions were not quite correct, but as far as i could tell i was still going in the right direction. trusting i knew what i was doing i followed two friendly guys and got off at the same bus stop as them. did i say bus stop? i'm sorry. i meant to say, "i got off in the middle of the same crowded traffic circle with them, dodge fast moving cars and massive trucks, crossed four lanes of traffic in the middle of a busy curve, and jumped on a green chicken bus as it got jammed in traffic on the other side." this mini-adventure  itself further proved something i have found to be true all over central america: people are really really nice, and if you have even a tiny spanish and just ask around a bit people will really help you get on your way. understanding the transit system in general is hopeless, even for locals, but point-to-point transit can be navigated with a little local help.

i am constantly enjoying the little local dramas on the buses, and this trip was no exception. the three people on the bench in front of me were playing some sort of game. as best as i could tell they were all part of one family, and they were the dad, the six year old son, and, as best as i can tell, the mental disabled but funny uncle. "uncle" was playing a game that involved blowing raspberries on the belly of the boy, who was sitting in dad's lap giggling his ass off. dad, who was about twenty or so years old, was referee, intervening if the play got too rough.

it's less than a couple of hours to antigua, and it was already getting dark when i left. by the time we hit the narrow, winding decent through the mountains, it was fully black outside. this is where the ride hit its climax.

you know those crazy blinking animated LED lights that are popular on pimped-out cars in the usa? well, these are popular to mount inside the buses, on the front wall over the driver's head. sometimes these are in sync with the music system as well. this particular system was two horizontal rows of red lights which pulsed various slow, throbbing rhythms, at least until the brakes were pressed, at which time they went crazy with flashing patterns and designs.

all of which became even more exciting when the driver turned off absolutely all the interior lights in the bus. with the moon being new, the outside world was even more pitch-black than the inside. and on this winding ski-slalom of a road to race on, our driver actually sped up for effect. the results were both terrifying and hilarious.

for one, the disabled guy in front of me began shouting loudly in spanish. i am not really sure what he was saying, but at intervals he would bust out with something like "we are going to hell!", "next stop inferno!", which went well with the flashing lights. his antics which seemed at best half-serious were causing the dozen or so children in the back of the bus to laugh and giggle hysterically. so the pattern would be to cruise straight for a bit, bus rattling, wind rushing in the dark, and then wham wham wham! we would slam into some turns, crest a peak and get weightless, the red lights would flash, throb, and go all disco, the crazy uncle would shout something furious, and the children would bust out laughing!

up, left, right, down, flying through the darkness of the unknown!

and i am sitting in the middle of all this, grinning my fool head off, feeling like we could crash and die any minute, and for the life of me all i can think of is that this is exactly like a disneyland rollercoaster ride. somewhere in america some fools are paying $50 for this exact experience. i just dropped all of $1.50 on this ride. god, i hope to live long enough to blog about it!