The Story Today is THE CHICKEN BUS!

Hold on to your hats, bags, backpacks, groceries AND the seat in front of you for dear life! That just about describes our day today. It was another 5 am wake up cuckoo from that smart aleck travel clock to make the 7 am bus to Melotto school for what was to be the last time. The first leg of the trip was uneventful but the second leg started off a little rough because the pullman bus was replaced by--------you guessed it -- by a CHICKEN BUS! The last two trips on the pullman the driver was having a time getting the bus to shift gears. Today the driver of the replacement bus said the pullman was down for transmission repair. The chicken bus was not a new one by any means. Its seats had long since lost any padding it may have had new. So the hour trip to the school was done by getting bounced and jounced and shook side to side for one hour. There was another anglo on the bus who kept complaining that his ticket said this buss was supposed to be a pullman. When we stopped for gas part way the man moved up to talk to us about his woes. Don and I informed him that we had been riding on the pullman and knew for sure that no one was giving him false information. He was finally satisfied to go back and take his beating along with the rest of us.

We arrived at the school in one piece. We had the caretaker open the door to the computer room and that's when we discovered we had no electricity. Today was a wasted day as far as getting finished with the school today. Kristen was there today to teach and model teaching of reading to teachers and the kids. So while we waited for lights to return to the school Don and I sat outside in a perfect spring day and studied Spanish. It was soon discovered that the electricity would be a while coming back on because road construction had cut the lines. The only thing to do was head back for Antigua,  by Chicken Bus. This also means that we have to do this trip at least one more time but not tomorrow. They found the key to the computer room at the school here in Antigua so we will go check out the problem tomorrow.


The ride back by non pullman bus involves taking a short trip on one chicken bus and changing to another on the Pan American highway. When we entered the bus for the short leg we discovered that the whole back half of the bus was filled with fresh carrots and other vegetables. The seats had been removed to acomodate all of the vegetables.Kristen took a picture of this and Don is in it so check his blog to see it. I stayed with the old format for blogging and have yet to figure out how to add pictures. Our new driver on the second bus must have been a frustrated race car driver because he lit out of Chimal like someone had shot him out of a rocket. We really were beaten up on the trip back. He did not slow down for much and zipped around other buses, cars, trucks, up hill or on curves or worst down hill. He slammed on the brakes to go over the tumelos (slow yourself down HUMPS in the road at critical points--and these have taken out oil pans in vehicles) and then he would rocket up to the next one. People getting up and making their way to the front to get off the bus were almost taking suicide walks! In my humble opinion this kind of driving has no place on a private transportation vehicle. Don and I felt like we had been beaten with a short stick by the time we got home by way of the store for veggies to put in our soup.