Chicken Bus

I took my first real chicken bus (el chickon) leaving Guatemala city for the boarder. I had taken a chicken bus before, but chicken bus can really be a chicken bus unless it follows theses rules: A chicken bus must once have been a school bus A chicken bus must be re-painted and silver hood ornaments are what the cool kids do A chicken bus must stop for people in the most absurd places A chicken bus's passengers for the most part must only be going a quarter or less, in fact a real chicken bus has less then three passengers going the whole route.   A chicken bus must have a constant stream of food sellers every 15 minutes or so A chicken bus must have someone come on begging for money A chicken bus must have a chicken bus preacher enter for part of the time A chicken bus must have some form of entertainers enter, be it singers or clowns A chicken bus must exude excessive amounts of pollution A chicken bus must have at least one driver and money collector A chicken bus must have music, either provided by the driver or someone's cell phone A chicken bus must always have someone who is asleep I caught an unofficial chicken bus when I headed to Coban. I went up there (back towards Tikal park) to visit a tea plantation. What most of you will not know is that while travelling, my father hooked me into an Afrian tea project that a family friend is trying to start up. The project is called Just-tea and it is a brain child that came about after a trip to Kenya. It seems that the tea farmers there do not make enough growing to to earn a living. The thing is that they do not process the tea, only sell the Un-roasted leaves to a large plant. I believe some of it is then processed in Kenya and is then sent to England to finish the processing (I am not sure if this is only scenting and packaging). The biggest industry in Kenya is tea, it is also the most corrupt with the most bribes. The idea is to set up small hand processing tea roasting so that the farmers will then have a more valuable product to sell. We are looking at finding markets in the west to sell the tea, and personally I am interested in trying to get an African market because I know in Ghana, aside from gunpowder green tea the Muslims (mostly old men) drink, the only tea is Lipton. Which of course is bought from England. I am told it is the same in Kenya. I of course also want to see empowerment and de-westernized practices set up. Anyhow back to the bus. I managed to sit next to a 24 year old girl who spoke perfect English. She had grown up next to an American missionary family. I had a great time chatting with her. I also went to the most beautiful river, Semic Chempey and did some cliff jumping. The tea place was a bust though, not only was the tour not in English (I had phoned to ask), but they processed the tea by machines and I could not even take pictures of them. My first real chicken bus was from Guatemala to the boarder. The advertised route ended up with me needing to take two buses. I pestered the driver several times as to why I had paid twice what the ticket said. He never did explain, but I did figure it out. Between those who buses we had three traveling preachers board us.  I took a short bus to old Guatemala city, Antigua, and it had two clowns. One with the most awful voice who would yell. I also had a clown board a city bus in Guatemala city. Guatemala city does have official city buses, but the only time I tried to take one was to get to the chicken bus station and I had my bike, so they would not let me on.  Today I took my first bus with actual chickens (chicks in boxes), but by virtue of it being a real bus and it having air conditioning, it was not a real chicken bus.