Solola
The last two evenings in Pana I kept trying to get info about how to reach Todos Santos, and mainly how long it Hill take and with what connections. It was impossible to get straight answers no matter that I tried in various agencies. The info that I got proved to be wrong an it was not a question of ill intention, but just the fact that they did not know. The only reliable info is still the info from Lonely Planet. So, not getting anywhere I gave up the idea to arrive in Todos Santos today and I resigned to the thought that I have to sleep in Huehue, with the idea to wake up at 5:30 am and catch the first bus.
So in the morning I left at 7:00 to Solola, where it was today, Tuesday, one of the most authentic markets in the country. I left my luggage in Pana because it was no place to store it in Solola. I arrived in 20 minutes with the chicken bus and I started to walk the market. Indeed it is worth it. It is a fascinating local market, where the locals come and sells their wares and vegetables. It is a symphony of colors, everybody, men and women being dressed in colored huiplas in various designs. An advantage of this market is that is not a touristy affair, there are no handicrafts and in the morning there were only 4 Italians who were taking pictures. You could take picture till you run out of battery so many things are to shoot and photo. I sat down and watch the hassle and bustle of this amazing market, going from the veggie area to the wares, and clothing but coming back to the down-on-the-street vegetable area where the pictures were the best because there were no stalls. After I shot as usual too much I decided to leave earlier and take a chance to get to HueHue or even to Todos Santos.
So I left the market at 9:30am and I took the first chicken bus to Pana, where I took my bag and went back to Calle Principal to get in a bus. They told me that is no direct bus to Los Encuntros so I took again a bus to Solola and when I got off this bus the driver attendant from the Los Encuentros took directly the bag and I left in no time to Contro as is called. Another 30 minutes and at 11:00 I reached the crossing. There it was supposed to exist, based on the info I got, direct buses to Huehuetenango. Wrong again! You have to take a bus to Quatro Caminos, 1 hour and 45 minutes away, now with the works caused by the road modernization. The bus, a Pullman, came in 5 minutes and I got in and got off in Quatro Caminos, and again the driver attendant from the bus in front that was going to Huehue, fetch my bag from the bus and put it in his bus and it left in 30 seconds. With such amazing efficiency and coordination, we left QC at 12:45 and arrived in Huehue at 2:30 , right for the Todos Santos bus, primera classe, meaning not chicken bus but a minibus, that was leaving at 2:45. The last bus to Todos Santos is at 3:45. The road to Todos Santos is paved most of the way. Only the last 45 minutes are of dirt road. All the way from Huehue till here the scenery is stupendously beautiful. These small minibuses are climbing the amazing steep mountains and you are continuously surrounded by peaks and look down in valleys that have villages. It is one of the most charming roads I saw and for sure is the best in Guatemala.
Todos Santos de Cuchumatan
I arrived here at 5:00pm after 7 bus rides. I just want to mention that the chicken buses are actually Ford trucks that have built in the back an enclosure with very basic benches. They are painted in garish colors and they are absolutely charming ….and hard to travel in them. But most often they are regular American School buses, still yellow and some of them having still the name of the school painted on the side. It even say on some of them School Bus on top. The difference is that the seats are way better when used in the USA…. I went to see Santiaga at Casa Familiar, a hotel that is in reconstruction, and took a room in Hotel Mam for Q30/night. The village is charming and I barely wait to explore it tomorrow, when by pure luck it happen to be the market day. When I returned from the Internet I bumped into an animated conversation in the kitchen of the hotel in Spanish. They were three foreigners, one couple from Canada, but the girl may not have spoken English, she was looking Portorican and a girl from Amsterdam. We chat all four of us a lot about markets, Guatemala and what can be done in Todos Santos. They knew about a hike that they wanted to do and it looks good but you have to take a bus also. Finally, I had to eat something because I was on fruit the entire day, but they ate already so I went wit the girl from Amsterdam, Eva to the nearby hotel Todos Santos. The restaurant, if it can be called this was was obviously empty but they cooked for us. We chat for an hour, in English this time. After she finished high school she started to travel and went in Australia and New Zealand for 9 months. As a result she was speaking English perfectly, and very fast. She came back from Australia with a very strong that she worked to drop, and she did. She speaks Spanish fluently also. She studied Journalism for 4 years and now she travels for 6 months before she goes back to school. Now she is 4 months in her travel and tomorrow she will leave to cross the Mexico border and go in the night to San Cristobal de las Casas. I told her many of my travel stories and about my experience in San Cristobal in 1991. Great town! At 9:00pm we left and going in the market you see that everything is closed and the entire town went to bed. Good night at 9:00pm!
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