I have always heard the term “Chicken bus,” but I never really understood it until I visited Guatemala!
It does not take a big imagination to understand the term as almost everyone uses the chicken bus as their main source of transportation within Guatemala. If you ever wondered what happened to the school bus you took as a kid, there is a good chance it ended there.
I visited Guatemala twice (San Jose and Antigua) on my Volaris All-you-can-fly pass (AYCF). There are direct flights from Los Angeles, and the same plane ends up in San Jose, Costa Rica, so I took advantage of that, too. The flight is about 60 dollars with the AYCF pass, and you can find an Airbnb in both cities for around $20-$30 a night.
If you can stay a month, you can find rent for about $600 a month for a simple, clean stay.
My first experience riding the chicken bus was from the capital of San Jose to the amazing city of Antigua.
It was a great way to start the crazy mode of transportation as the road was relatively straight with no cliffs, LOL. Although, nothing would prepare me for the trip to Lake Atitlan was a start.
Lake Atitlan is the deepest lake in Central America and a three-chicken bus transfer from Antigua. I am not joking when I say that I was chicken shit scared! These bus drivers are insane and swear that everyone on the bus was hanging on for dear life as we traversed the road with cliffs on both sides.
Did I mention that these buses may still have the same tires they did went we took them to school?
I plan to write blogs on each of the cities visited in Guatemala. I wanted to start with the Chicken Bus first as it sets up how awesome of an adventure it is to visit.
I remember vividly asking this guy if they checked the brakes!
