The bus ride

The cruising guide books on Asperida covering Rio Dilce were from 2009 and another from 2013.  Even the more recent guide made reference to taking the chicken bus from Fronteras (Rio Dulce) to Guatemala City concerning a flight to where ever.  Well I'm not sure if they still had chicken buses for the route to 'The City' from Rio Dulce back in 2013 but the don't anymore.  Old repainted school buses from the U.S. are still used on various rural routes possibly even with the occasional customer bringing a chicken?  I suppose the success of tourism has the 2 main bus lines in the country using big comfy air conditioned Mercedes or other buses.  I took Litegua and the almost 6 hour bus ride only cost $10 U.S.  You start out heading up over the bridge spanning where the Rio Dulce becomes Lago Izabel.  Then you travel around 40 to 80 kph with occasion short stops.  Just short of half way there is a longer break at a hotel, cafeteria with restrooms.  About an hour past that stop you finally begin climbing into the mountains on the same paved but narrow road just like what passes through Fronteras.  There are plenty of places for a bus to roll off the mountain with little in the way of guardrails.  At some point this secondary paved road changes to a modern 4 lane divided highway the rest of the way to The City.  I had chosen a seat in the very front but the very high windshield that would have allowed good viewing was covered by curtain on the upper part to shade the sun for the driver allowing only a veiw ahead of the road a 100 feet ahead at the most.  While it's quite tropical in the Rio Dulce area once underway the terrain became much more arid as you can see in the photos.

The high bridge over the Rio Dulce