My legs read like braille. They are full of bumps and lumps telling me to buy bug spray and mocking me for not having any itch relief. The hazzards of visiting a jungle during rainy season.
I left Guatemala City and took a chicken bus down to Monterrico a beach town on the Pacific with volcanic black sands. I sat at the back of the bus and watched four kids jump up and down in their seats trying catch some air when the bus bounced over the speed bumps that marked every town along the route. They reminded me of when, as kids, we did the exact same thing on our way to elementary school. After ten minutes they timed it perfectly and caught a great bounce- they squealed with laughter. I couldn't help but laugh too. Then the Mayan man across the aisle who'd been watching me started laughing with me and then another, and another, and it soon kicked off the whole bus. It was one of those little moments where language and culture disolve and you find the real joy of travel.
Arrived at Monterrico and checked into a beach front cabana. Turned out there were two Brits and a Swede who also just arrived and were single women travellers. Was great to be able to kick back in a hammock and relax with them for a couple days - even if we got eaten alive and a Canadian woman who joined us the following day found fleas on one of the beds.
Louise, the Swede, joined me in checking out a turtle conservation project 8 kms outside of town. Was so close but took us about 2.5 hrs to get there along a narrow sandy track - and that was by bus. Got there and found the director wasn't available. Spent 15 mins talking to a volunteer, learned there wouldn't be another bus for 3 hrs and started our hike back to town in stifling humidity and 90 degree heat under the midday sun. Louise figured hitch-hiking was our best option and flagged down a passing pick up. We hopped in the back with a couple of goats and off we went. (Don't worry. When the truck approached I read the sign on the side - they were pastors from the local church.)
Had a monster travel day from Monterrico to Xela (Quetzeltenango) on Wed. My 'direct shuttle' included two extended layovers which meant I didn't arrive until 8.30pm - clearly breaking my no-travel-after-dark rule. I was the only passenger on the last leg and the driver Manuel had me sit up front with him. Manuel liked to talk, which worked for me as he spent the first 45 mins telling me how overworked he is. He'd already put in 16 hours that day (which was normal) and hadn't had any time off in about a month. I would have been happy to ride in silence but figured so long as he was talking he was awake.... and I needed him to be.
The two and half hour drive was along a windy road through a mountain pass. It was dark, rainy and intensly foggy - the type of fog where you can't see the road. Manuel told me how he spent a good chunk of his life in California driving 18-wheelers from the Bay Area to Arizona. He figured all the US driving exams he had to pass and the fog he regularly navigated there made him much more qualified in Guatemala, so he sped along at top speed in the white out. To prove his point, he pointed out how there was no on in front of us and a long trail of cars behind following his lead.
The other thing about Manuel is that he likes to use his hands when he talks- a lot. Meaning he rarely had them on the wheel- always a bad situation and it was compounded by the rain dislodging mini landslides dumping oil drum sixed boulders in our path. Then there was the confused chicken bus driver who wandered onto the wrong side of the divided highway at a construction zone and came at us head on.
It wasn't all bad with Manuel and even though it reads like a nighmare. I felt surprisingly secure during the drive and when the fog receeded it felt like we were driving on top of the world with all the lights of the valley towns below us. Manuel is also a tour guide, so once he finished his life story he gave me the history of the Mayans and the Spanish Conquistadors. My big lesson of the night was the 'Mayans' in Guatemala aren't really Mayans at all, but indigenous people that the Spanish brought with them from Mexico to help 'settle' Guatemala. I think they were brought against their will as slaves, but Manuel, a Spanish descendent, wasn't willing to admit that part of the story.
Arrived in Xela, the hub of Guatemalan Volunteerism and the whol reason I'm here. My hotel is cheap $3.80 a night for a private room and full of long term expat residents, mostly students studying Spanish and doing volunteerwork. Not everyone is a student though.... been hanging out with two guys Brett and Walter. Brett's an Aussie who works as a wine maker, following the seasons and harvests around the world. Right now he's stuck in Guate waiting for his income tax refund to come in and living off pineapple which he buys 3 for 10Q - about $1.40. He claims he can't afford anything else. Walter is a retired San Francisco cab driver and one of the most educated and intelligent people I've met in a long time. He's a scruffy looking guy with long, greasy, yellow-white hair and a Santa Claus beard who smells a little funny. He splits his time between Mexico and Guatemala, spending his days playing chess and facilitating electronic political debates on the internet. He's sitting next to met as I write this, sharing philosophical quotes by literary masters. He barked out a great one a few minutes ago that I wanted to remember, but I forgot it already. He's also the only other person I know, besides my father, who's read Prouts complete works multiple times.
Walter is also the one who informed Brett and me that Michale Jackson died yesterday. The news sparked off a hotel-wide tribute fueled by cheap Guatemallan beer, cheap Guatemala rum and the looped play of "We Are The World" - the only Michael Jackson song that could be found on short notice.
Hangovers were rife this morning, but I still made it to the San Franciso market. The whole mountain town is transformed into one vendor stall after another selling clothes, household goods, and livestock. Manuel had given me a tip that if I spoke to the man at the church he'd let me up on the roof . He claimed the view was one of the best in all of Guate - and he was right. Felt liberating, if erie, to be standing all alone on the roof of a 400 years old colonial church on a mountain topin Guatemala, but there I was looking down at the mass of market goers below snapping pictures and wondering exaclt what decisions I'd made that led me to be right here right now. God's view.
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