the joys of traveling in developing countries

I love developing countries: the sights, sounds, smells (except for all the diesel exhaust), and the wonderful people. And the adventures of getting from point A to point B. I was in a town called Panajachel trying to get to another town called Quetzaltenango (Xela - pronounced Shay-la to everyone here). It looked like an easy enough place to get to on the map and I should have been able to take one, or maybe two buses, to get here. Trusting the locals, who told us there weren´t anymore direct buses to Xela for that day, we boarded the first bus and they guaranteed that we would only have to change buses once. So we got off and got on a direct bus to Xela, or so we though. Every time we (we is an Austrian guy I am currently traveling with and me) got on a bus, I asked if it was ¨directo a Xela?¨ And the response: ¨Si, si. Directo a Xela. No problema.¨ Yeah right! Four buses and 4 hours later, we finally arrived. Whew.