Guatemala - another peculiarity:

This time about the visiting Gringo. A lot of Gringo's come to Guatemala and use the colonial town of Antigua as a home base to do their travels. Armed robbery of buses is a very real thing in Guatemala. A trip, let´s say from Antigua on a shuttle bus to Rio Dulce costs $37.00 US. Many people prefer to do this for safety reasons. They feel that if you pay the extra money you will be rewarded with an additional measure of safety. They seem to think that the more easily robable (sic) chicken bus would be a gamble. What they don't, but should realize is that if you can afford to spend the $37.00 US for a shuttle bus ticket you've probably got a lot more money where that came from. The same ride by chicken bus costs about $3.00 US and most of the people riding it don´t have two Quetzales to rub together. I chicken bus heist might net the criminals $4.00 or $5.00 - tops. I guess now you´ve figured out which buses get robbed and which ones don´t.


The very next morning, after I sent this original message a shuttle bus was robbed not far from Guatemala City. A 26 year old American was shot and killed by gunmen.