New Car!

I finally have a car in my possession! I've been looking for about a month and found one through a friend of a friend. It's a 2002 Volkswagon Polo Classic sedan in great condition - not typically the case here in Guate. There are loads of traffic accidents, so the cars get beat up fast and many people don't seem to take very good care of their vehicles.

Driving here isn't bad, although there are no real rules. As I said before when I rented a car, the rules are more like suggestions. There are stop signs, but nobody abides by them - ie. the use of speed bumps, as in Mexico, although not nearly as many, thank goodness!

The guy that I bought the car from, Vittorio, was driving my friend Jaime (who also bought a car from him) and I home and she mentioned that he couldn't take the upcoming street to her apartment because it was a one-way. He laughed and said you only need to follow the traffic laws when the police are around - and not the kind on foot because they can't catch you. That about sums it up.

People tend to make abrupt stops, picking people up or dropping them off in the middle of traffic, or a pollution-belching bus will decide it needs to be in your lane and cut you off leaving you coughing and almost blinded by thick, black smoke. You just need to stay on your toes and all is well.

I have an underground parking spot in my apartment, which is very nice, and the guards are the typical sweet, service-oriented Guatemalans. They literally run to open the gate once they hear me start my car in the morning or drive down the ramp to enter at the end of the day - I never have to wait even a second to exit or to enter the garage.

Having a car in Guatemala opens up a whole new world. Taxis are fairly easy to come by - you simply call Yellow Cab and they arrive within 15 minutes, but it's much more of a hassle. Public transportation consists of those smoke-belching buses and not only are they crowded and uncomfortable, but there not the safest, having a reputation for murders and robberies.