Day 173 - Dumped again

Panajachel to Cóban 

Another day, another shuttle bus ride ... we had been dreading our trip today to Cóban as the shuttle from Antigua had been so poor, but as our hotel was right on the edge of town we were collected first and had the pick of the seats, meaning we also had control of a window and access to fresh air - very important! The shuttle was also fairly new and had decent leg room, everyone that got on sounded pleasantly surprised. For a while there we thought we were going to have a very nice trip, but we should have known better! An hour or so into our nine hour trip we made a stop at Chichicastenango, where we picked up more people, so out came the folded seats and once again we were back to being crammed in, though not as badly as in the last shuttle.

Along the way there was one stop for toilets/food, and we arrived at the McDonalds in Cóban (to squeals of delight from some of the passengers on the shuttle) around 5pm, and the driver said there would be a 30 minute stop before the shuttle continued on to Lanquin. The problem though was that Cóban was our stop, and we had been told when we bought the ticket that we would be taken to our hotel - wrong again! The driver refused to take us to our hotel about 2km away, and he also declined to remove our luggage from the top of the bus so we could make our own way. Did he really think that a) we wanted to eat at McDonalds, or b) we were happy to sit and wait while everyone had something to eat?

Coban ... just another intricate front to a plain church

M climbed up onto the roof and started untying the rope and tarp to get our luggage, after a few minutes the driver came out shaking his head, but at least we had forced the driver's hand, he climbed up and gave us our luggage and we caught a taxi to our hotel.