Crossing The Passion River

At the edge of our town the road ends and you have to cross the Passion River via the ferry to continue north.  It's something we do every time we go into town to shop and eat out.  It's nice when you get to the ferry and it is on our side of the river and you can just drive right on.  There have been several times it's just left as we arrived and times also that we've had to wait a few turns before we could get on.  You never know what the wait is going to be so your trip into town and back is really determined by your access to the ferry.  Once you cross the river it is a solid hour into town.  By town I mean Santa Elena, Flores, and San Benito.

A view of our town from the other side of the river. We were waiting in line to cross.

getting ready to board

The charge to cross in a vehicle is 15 quetzales.  Quetzales are what money here is called, similar to our dollars in the States.  That's a little less than $2.00 each way.

You will have a variety of vehicles on there from 18 wheelers to motocycles.

Most of the locals travel in public transportation.  At the edge of the river on both sides you will see a lot of these micro buses.  They will ride these to the river, cross over, and then catch another bus to where they are going.

Most of them cross the river on these taxi boats.  They only cost two quetzales, about 25 cents.

The Passion River

We hope to take a boat ride down the river one day soon.

The buses and boats on our side of the river.

Here are a few photos of the man driving the ferry. 

I am going to start a new series of posts from time to time called Random Guatemala.  They will be about random stuff that we see and encounter while living here.  If you have a question about anything Guatemalan and would like us to post about it, leave us a comment and we'd be happy to answer your request.