sorry, only google translate…
The trip from Lago Atitlan to San Cristobal was praised us with 7-9 hours. We started at 6:30 in the morning and we arrived at 21:00. Exceptionally this was not the result of an empty promise, but simply bad luck (paired with a proper portion of bad organization). We were driven to the border (took about 4 1/2 hours) and should change there to a minivan, which exactly the same journey from the other direction had made. This had but due to a truck accident almost 2 hours late and we had to wait. But instead of getting us to Mexico, including immigration, we were waiting in Guatemala. When the van finally came, it took another 30 minutes until the drivers had cleared everything, then we were allowed into the stateless zone and were driven 2 km to the border to Mexico, where all the immigration papers had to fill …
Well, we were then somehow there and related our very nice AirBnB and just fell dead tired to bed. The next day the tour of San Cristobal was on the program and we took part in a free-walking-tour, which showed us mostly bars, restaurants, cafes, but also through the huge labyrinth of the resident market. In addition, there was a coffee, nacho and schnaps tasting in between and all for a tip. Very good! In the evening we booked a tour for the next morning in the Canon Sumidero, but there should be something a dash through the bill.
We were already in bed, when Kerstin was suddenly awakened by a shaky bed, and Tobi first struck a blow, he should stop wiggling. Relatively quickly, however, it was clear to us that it was an earthquake and so we quickly slipped into a few clothes, searched our passports and went out into the courtyard. Probably by far the most stupid reaction to an earthquake, but from where we should know better. We just thought it would get worse if we got worse our passports with us. Outside, we also had medium-sized panic, our hosts bounced relatively wildly through the area and talked in Spanish. Tobi’s demand, whether this is “normal”, but was clearly denied. When it was over after about a minute and shortly thereafter again electricity and telephone network was present, a wild telephoning went on, in the background always a siren as one knows it with us only from films over the second world war in air raids. When the Internet went again, we were able to get a little bit of information and realized that the earthquake was one of the strongest 8.1 and had occurred in the Pacific near the Mexican coast, and it was just because of the strength up to us Mountains (at an altitude of 2000m). After an hour we are then also back to bed, but the constant siren due to numerous aftershocks (supposedly up to 50 only this night) made the sleep rather uncomfortable.
In hindsight one can only say, lucky and a very memorable experience …
The next day, our trip was canceled halfway through the effects of the earthquake and we spent the rest of the day sightseeing before the next morning at 4am we went to our last stop Palenque.