Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

km 8001
We arrived here yesterday evening after a 36 hour bus trip. Guatemala is different from anything I´ve ever seen. Mexico was different but it looked like what Mexico is supposed to look like. Guatemala is beyond what I expected.
After two days in Manzanillo we went to visit a friend whom we had met in Brandon. Her family was, once again, very friendly and hospitable. We had supper there, and went swimming in some natural hot springs. Some of her family was headed to the airport in Guadalajara at 3 am Wednesday morning and offered us a ride to the bus sation there. We took a bus to Mexico City where we had to change bus stations to catch another bus to Tapachula, Chiapas. Mexico City is not nearly as scary as everyone makes it out to be, then again, we were only on the subway. We bought a Mexican newspaper to see who won Canada´s election. That was a shock. I guess a lot can change in three weeks. We left for Tapachula at 7:30pm and arrived there at about 11:00 am. The busses are pretty nice in Mexico (twice as nice as a Greyhound bus), and we can usually get some sleep on the overnight ones. We exchanged some money and had lunch. Then we took a collectivo (van/taxi) to a town called Hidalgo where we thought the border was. However it was about 3km back (we had passed it in the van, just didn´t notice) so these guys drove us there on bicycle taxis and charged us $10 each. Rip-off. We crossed the border, a 1 km long bridge. It was about 3 km between the two immigration offices. It was hot, so we caught a ride for part of it. Once in Guatemala we took a bus to Retalhuleu. That bus was normal. The bus from there to Quetzaltenango was one of the infamous chicken busses. As soon as we got off the first bus, these guys asked us where we were going, took our bags out from underneath, and as the chicken bus (looks like a schoolbus) was already moving, they threw our bags on top and told us to run to the front and jump on. Never done that before. The bus was completely packed but we found two empty seats in the back. The ride itself wasn´t too bad. At one point there was a detour because of a 10 metre gap in the highway. We gained quite a bit of altitude, I think we are at about 2300m, which means it gets cool at night.
Quetzaltenango, which is better known by its Mayan name Xela (pronounced Shay-la) is beautiful. The plaza is surrounded by 19th century buildings, and the original facade of the colonial cathedral which was built in 1535. There are a lot of gringos here. We went to McDonald´s for Clay´s birthday. Tomorrow we are going to to climb the volcano, Santa Maria, from where we will be able to see another volcano, Santiaguito, which is considered one of the most active and dangerous volcanoes in the world. On Monday we will start a week of language class.
For those of you who are wondering, Clay is Butch, and I am Sundance. We hope to find Etta somewhere along the way.
Thanks for reading and thanks for all the comments.
Pieter