Guatemala, Part 2
The kid cuts in. “I went to Guatemala City once. Go to Tapachula, and there is a nice bus, ‘Golgos,’ that is a straight shot right from Tapachula to Guatemala City. Six hours in the bus, seven because of the time change. They will totally take care of you.”
I think about it, and decide to take the locals’ advice. I turn to ask the driver how much I would need to continue to Tapachula. As I look over I see him standing and pound on the table. “It’s four o’clock,” he shouts, almost like he is crying, “they just came and said they won’t open the road until five. They are never going to open the road! Bring me a beer!” As he sits down everyone is laughing and he quickly receives his beer. I quietly tell him I would like to go to Tapachula instead, to which he smiles and says it was an hour out of the way to Ciudad Cuautemoc anyway, so I am really going to help everyone. “But it’s not like it will matter since they are never going to open the road!” He spends the next half hour getting absolutely trashed. Another Cristobal Colon bus shows up, the one that left four hours after us.
And then, just like that, it ends. Everyone dashes for their car. The pasta man runs back to his truck on the other side of the road block, the tienda girls clean up our scattered soda and beer bottles, we all get back into the bus, except for the bus driver who is now, perfectly on time, horrendously drunk. Luckily, the extra bus driver from the second bus volunteers to drive our bus, and we are on our way. In a half hour I see the turn off for the town I would have gone to, and give a quick thanks that I am not going there.
Scenery, trees, jungle, blah dee blah and we arrive at about 10:30. Tapachula. I immediately purchase a bus ticket for the 6:00 AM bus to Guatemala City, the first available one. It’s quite hot and humid and late. I am tired. I walk down the street and see three hotels immediately. Their sleepy desk clerks all tell me they are full. I go back to the bus station, relegated to sleeping on one of the hard benches. It’s closed. Lights off, doors locked. The town is relatively alive, outside of the bus station and hotels, so I am not really nervous to be out. From where I am I can see a grocery store, a sign for a McDonalds, a pharmacy, and plenty of lights. The sweaty, large doored restaurants remind me a lot of Taiwan restaurants. It actually feels pretty nice. I finally find a hotel for 120 pesos that provides me with a bed and a fan. Nice. Now just to find food and possible internet to inform Eddie that I will not be arriving on time. I find the food just down the street which is fajitas with especially delicious tortillas, hot and thick, just out of the pan.
I finish that and head down the street. I find an internet place that has a couple inside but door closed. I look in and folds my hands like I’m begging and look sad. They smile and open the door. “We weren’t going to go to bed anyway” they say. “But don’t take too long.”
I write Eddie that I will be there at 2:00 the following day, and go back to my hotel. The guy is still at the desk. It’s like 11:45 and I don’t think they will get any more customers this night. I suddenly remember that I have no alarm clock and need to be to my bus by 5:50.
“Hey” I ask him. He smiles. “Can I borrow an alarm clock or something?”
“Oh, I can wake you up.”
“With a… wake up… knock?”
“Yes. I just sleep here on the sofa in the lobby with my clock. I’ll wake you up.”
The lobby is really just like a reception area; it looks like any sort of office space. The hotel itself looks a lot like a homeless shelter I once stayed in during a mission trip to San Francisco, except that almost everything is outside, there are tin roofs on the rooms, and there is a little restaurant you have to cross through to get to the back where the rooms even are. I open my door to the fan going and the big bed. I search the room for bugs, in the sheets under the bed, above in the cracks of the tin roof, and in holes and cracks in the room, but it appears to be pretty clean. With that, I pray quick that the man wakes me up in time, and fall asleep almost immediately.
The knock came just at 5:30 like I asked, and I rallied myself together and pulled my way out of the room. I thanked the man, who was really happy for it being five thirty AM. I get out, walk drearily down the street to the bus station, wait a few minutes, try to buy a water that they are charging 15 pesos for, forget it, and get on my bus. There are probably only five people on. Two girls about 18 years old. An older lady. A younger guy, maybe 27 or 28. Maybe a couple other random people. Maybe there are 12 people. There is another white guy across the isle from me. He must be about 45 and is balding. He is flittery, if that’s a word, like someone constantly trying to get comfortable but never getting there. He looks at me and I smile.
“Canadian?” He asks in a gruff voice.
“Umm, no. I assume you are. What part are you from.”
“Vancouver, BC”
“I’m from Bellingham. I’m right there” I say with a certain enthusiasm. He couldn’t care less. It appears that I am not Canadian, and we could live five minutes apart for all he cares, he isn’t giving a crotch’s rash about it.
A guy gets on the bus and looks at his ticket. A bigger man, and somehow looks really nice. Like a big mariachi singer, the guy who plays the huge guitar that sets on his equally huge belly. He sits next to me which is obnoxious because there is hardly anyone at all on the bus and a million seats, but there he is nonetheless. He smiles and I smile back, lean my head against the window and am out. At some point I am given a sandwich on my lap, which I awake to which ends up being like twenty minutes before the border. The bus driver pulls off the road and gets out, goes in a house, and comes back and we are off again. Already a strange ride. We pass by grove after grove of trees that are all leaning forward in the same direction, as if the wind has always blown in the same direction and is slowly pushing them over. Some lady who works for the bus hands out the customs form and tells us that once we get there, we have a half hour to cross the border, that if you can’t make it across in that time they will have to leave you, that 150 pesos is worth like 100 “Quetzales,” the Guatemalan money, and that we can change it at the border, but to be careful crossing. The Canadian apparently knows no Spanish, and looks to me. I kind of give a barebones explanation, not wanting to be mean but feeling that if this man is going to survive on his own here, I better not give him a false sense of safety or let him think it’s going to be hunky dorry the whole time. I figure I am doing him a favor by seeing if he can swim or is going to sink right away. I have no idea how he got this far, got on this bus, or where he is going. When I did find out, it was too late anyway.
Anyway, we get to the border and we all get off. I get to the front of the line quick, even though there is hardly anyone. I hand them my passport.
“Where is your visa? The piece of paper you got when you came into Mexico?”
Uh oh. It’s at home in San Fe. “Uh, it’s at home in San Felipe.”
“Hmm. Well, I can’t give you a stamp then.”
“Uh, ok… wait… uh, does that mean anything? I mean, can I get back across without any problems?”
“Hope so.” They all laugh.
“Yeah. I hope so too.” Jerks.
I walk across, a little confused. It’s maybe a quarter kilometer, up a ramp, past a run down Western Union that is closed and looks like it always has been. I am hounded by money changers. I finally find one that will change me my only 150 pesos for a hundred Quetzal. There is a bridge crossing a river, and then the bus. The Mexico side has a pretty tight border, but the Guatemala side has hardly a guard. I go to the bus and find that there is a little room where the bus people are waiting.
“Go ok?” one asks.
“Uh, I guess so. I didn’t get a stamp. Does that matter?”
“Did they tell you it was ok?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, you’re across aren’t you? I suppose it’s ok.”
Whatever. I look around outside and see everyone coming except for the Canadian. My seat buddy gets there and asks if I got across alright. I explain the confusion and he just shrugs and talks about how it seems to be a little more easy going than the US-Mexico border. But I still have the paperwork unstamped and untouched in my hand, the same goes for my passport. Finally the Canadian guy shows up, looking more than flustered.
“You ok?”
“I think they fucked me.” (his words)
“Beg your pardon?”
“I gave them 200 US dollars and they gave me 200 of… their money.”
Man, he certainly did get…screwed. I brought one of the bus ladies over and explained. She took the money from him and walked back over the bridge. Not real tight security. She came back with about 1200 Quetzales more, for which he was quite grateful, but still flustered. To get his mind off of the money incident, he pulled out a map and looked at it. He showed it to me. It was like a map of the main highways and like 12 major roads. As much detail as a globe would give you. He pointed out our highway, which lead from Guatemala City to our point in “Talisman.” There were maybe three roads on his map that headed off from our highway to the western coast.
“I’m going here, to the coast. I take this highway to ‘Rio Bravo’ and then head to the coast.” I thought it odd, that being the name that Mexicans call what we call the Rio Grande. It looks like it’s another two hours to the turn off, and should be an obvious highway or major road. I was going to look out for it for him. “I am a fisherman. I am always comfortable with fishermen. I am going to stay there for like three weeks.” I raise my eyebrows in skepticism and smile.
“Cool.”
We get back on the boat and sail off. The man who was sitting next to me, sits next to me again. He starts chatting, about funny things that have happened, asking me where I am going and where I have come from. Some really fun questions, nothing about if I like their country or nothing about his uncles who are in the US, non of the normal questions I get. We know some of the same places: Angangeo, El Oro, Tlalpuhajua, whatever. He has a great story about hanging out in Tijuana drinking beers. Apparently he and a friend got to drinking on the beach in Tijuana, and started walking down the beach. They walked for like four hours straight, and ended up in San Diego. They got scared because they had heard bad stories about illegal immigrants being treated bad by the police and all, but at the same time they were way too tired to walk back down the beach. I think they slept on the beach that night or something and then walked back. They thought about turning themselves and getting a free ride back home, but were nervous so they ended up just walking back. All the Mexicans who are trying to cross illegally, paying lots of money for “coyotes” and they just started walking and arrived on their own.
As the time went by, I found out that he sells dairy products, has a big family, is on the road a lot, other random stuff, but mostly a lot about working hard and good morals and other things that I was impressed with. I also was impressed with the number of protestant churches I saw as we drove down. About an hour and a half I see a sign near a little creek that says “Rio Bravo” and chuckle at what the Canadian said to me earlier. I see a little tienda that has a sign advertising “Gallo” beer, which was just a big funny looking rooster. Just after I saw some green starts and blue hands, which probably represented political parties (they did). The bus was stopping. I was trying to figure out what the “PNL” could stand for when I see the Canadian with his large backpack gets off the bus. “Oh crap,” I think. My neighbor is looking at me and says “what is he doing?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” The Canuck nods to the bus driver, and we start to pull away. “Ohhhh noooo…” It all went in slow motion, me completely frozen to stop anything. He must have seen that sign back there and thinks we are in the town of Rio Bravo, even though there is nothing around here. The last thing I see as I crane my neck to watch him is him asking something to two guys eating (the only people I can see) and them motioning towards the direction we are going, making big arm motions like it’s a long way away. But we are gone. I think about saying something, but I don’t think the bus driver is going to stop to pick the guy up again. Man, that guy is going to have some adventure. It doesn’t help that the Guatemalan newspaper he was “reading” had an article about a group of German tourists who had been assaulted and robbed. I take little joy in this situation, even though it would seem like he deserved it, but I honestly felt bad for the guy.
I got back talking to my dairy friend, who got us some yogurts and granola, which were tasty, and suddenly we were arriving in Guatemala City.
Obviously local public buses were pouring out smoke and diesel fumes, the names of their destinations written in soap on the front windshield, often nearly covering a good portion of the right side. They read locations and destinations that I pictured in my mind, inventing poor communities, bright colors, churches and cement homes, farmers, small tiendas and taco shops along the way, or else rough urban neighborhoods, lost, forgotten and pushed down in the large sprawl and bustle.
Guatemala City is way more Americanized that Mexico. The bright rotating signs of Chuck-E-Cheese, Dominoes Pizza, Chevron, Shell, TGI Friday’s, and Wal-Mart line the streets of broken pavement and broken backs. We rolled into the downtown-ish area, passing government buildings and statues of unknown heroes.
The bus station was in a rough area, and we all knew it, getting down off the bus. I said goodbye to my friend, everyone with their game faces on. I walked to the exit, and looked out. There was a burned out building with people sleeping inside. There was two people with matted, filthy hair sleeping on cardboard just out of the reaches of the bus station property. A Shell gas station was across the street, the only thing that reminded me of civilization as I knew it. Mentally crazy people walked by, violently, and usually shirtlessly.
I remembered that I should probably check the time when the bus leaves, so I can catch it on my way home, without having to return here. It reads “Tapachula” and below it “9:30, 2:30.”
The inside of the bus station was free of crazy people, but not that nice. There was just the long counter in front, maybe 50 uncomfortable looking chairs between that and the front windows and doors. Facing the counter, there was a little deli or something to the right, selling pop and sandwiches, apparently, which was walled in with glass panels to make it a separate entity from the bus station. The same was true on the left side, but was taken up by a tourist agent, a nice looking older lady.
Sweet. I see a kid from the bus who is talking to the tourist agent. I wander over that way, hoping to get directions to the “Holiday Inn” where Eddie had told me to arrive the previous night. The lady smiled as I waited at the door. I heard the kid say that he was trying to find a hotel, she recommended a hotel, and I piped in and said that I was heading that way and that we could share a taxi if he wanted. Which of course I just prayed he would say yes, as I was already terrified of the area we were in. A friend would be welcome company.
A funny thing happened then: the son or maybe grandson of the lady, who was only like five years old, ran up and tried to get into her lap and whispered something into her ear. She turned to him and said “Hablo con usted cuando termino con estes muchachos” which translates to “I’ll talk to you when I finish with these boys.” It was funny because she used the formal version of “you” as if her child were her boss or some person in high position. Maybe it’s not so funny, but it was at the time. It was something to note, obviously a slightly different way of speaking than I was used to. Which probably was to be expected, since Guatemala resembled Mexico, but was unique and different in its own ways. Right.
We go get a taxi. We haggle a price and put the kids luggage in the back, and are about to leave when a cute girl runs up and asks us if she can split it with us. We look at each other and nod, and she gets in. She is really friendly, thanks us, and starts to ask us all about us. She is maybe 20 and speaks really fast. My money on that she is American. I don’t know why, but I just am feeling it. She has a colorful cloth pack filled with who-knows-what and fun earrings and necklaces and rings. Very pretty. She is asking me all sorts of questions, and when I stumble and half joking/half serious say I don’t speak Spanish very well she says “no! You speak great!” I blush, if I haven’t already been. She says some word a lot that makes me laugh. It’s like “chido” or something, that wants to say “cool” or “nice.” I don’t remember the word, but she kept saying it after each answer we gave her to whatever question about our past and future she asked. I put the word in my mind to remember, assuming it was popular in Guatemala, but I never heard it again so I forgot it. I ask her about herself, and she says that she was born in Nicaragua, moved to Los Angeles when she was young, and just recently got into college in Mexico, and is traveling through Guatemala selling handicrafts that she makes by hand, selling them to tourists to pay for the trip. Which apparently has been going really well. Speaks to me in English just to prove that she is American, which proves my theory correct making me strangely satisfied, just to be right, I suppose. I laugh and say that she is quite international, existing in four countries at the same time.
The hotel was arrived to. The car doors were opened, the taxi driver was paid and goodbye’s were said. I walked into the Holiday Inn lobby and sat down. I noted that this was the nicest Holiday Inn I had ever seen, and probably the nicest in the world. It was huge, maybe 40 stories (who knows) and had big comfy chairs, bell boys rushing around, the flags of the world out front, and valet parking. “Now it’s time to play the waiting game…”
…
Mmmm…
“Uh, waiting game sucks. Let’s play…” oh here they come! Eddie, his sister Rebecca, and his cousin Amy (who I didn’t previously know) came walking up to the hotel doors, only like fifteen minutes after I arrived.
Throughout the the following five days, much fun was had. It was tense at time, due to my lack of money, the girls’ desire to do all the shopping and touristy things they could do, long bus rides through winding roads, and a lack of flexibility. We went to four main places: Antigua, the old capital of the city that was abandoned like 40 years ago due to an Earthquake that damaged most of the buildings, almost completely inhabited by trendy ex-pats or tourists like ourselves, or now wealthy Guatemaltecos. Lake Atitlan, a gorgeous lake that you have to drive down from the towering hills above, giving unbelievable views the entire way down, where it rained the entire time. Chichicastenange, a huge marketplace that smells of burning tree sap, filled with artisans used to hard bargains, surrounding a food market where we bought roasted chicken, rice and cooked vegetables while seated at a handmade wooden table, chatting with an old woman about the traditions of the area. Those three are all in central Guatemala. The fourth is Tikal National Park, the home of famous Mayan ruins, deep in the howler monkey-filled northern jungle of the country. Tikal was something special that I had not counted on, did not know about, and did not have the money for but Eddie helped me out with in a fabulous investment in fun. It was certainly worth it for me, but even, really, it was worth it for him because it would not have been anywhere as fun. There were massive ruins of temples that had been so long buried in the forests of the Maya, including the fabulous Temple 5 that pokes up above the canopy of the jungle, giving you an endless view of the lush landscape in all directions.
I think about it, and decide to take the locals’ advice. I turn to ask the driver how much I would need to continue to Tapachula. As I look over I see him standing and pound on the table. “It’s four o’clock,” he shouts, almost like he is crying, “they just came and said they won’t open the road until five. They are never going to open the road! Bring me a beer!” As he sits down everyone is laughing and he quickly receives his beer. I quietly tell him I would like to go to Tapachula instead, to which he smiles and says it was an hour out of the way to Ciudad Cuautemoc anyway, so I am really going to help everyone. “But it’s not like it will matter since they are never going to open the road!” He spends the next half hour getting absolutely trashed. Another Cristobal Colon bus shows up, the one that left four hours after us.
And then, just like that, it ends. Everyone dashes for their car. The pasta man runs back to his truck on the other side of the road block, the tienda girls clean up our scattered soda and beer bottles, we all get back into the bus, except for the bus driver who is now, perfectly on time, horrendously drunk. Luckily, the extra bus driver from the second bus volunteers to drive our bus, and we are on our way. In a half hour I see the turn off for the town I would have gone to, and give a quick thanks that I am not going there.
Scenery, trees, jungle, blah dee blah and we arrive at about 10:30. Tapachula. I immediately purchase a bus ticket for the 6:00 AM bus to Guatemala City, the first available one. It’s quite hot and humid and late. I am tired. I walk down the street and see three hotels immediately. Their sleepy desk clerks all tell me they are full. I go back to the bus station, relegated to sleeping on one of the hard benches. It’s closed. Lights off, doors locked. The town is relatively alive, outside of the bus station and hotels, so I am not really nervous to be out. From where I am I can see a grocery store, a sign for a McDonalds, a pharmacy, and plenty of lights. The sweaty, large doored restaurants remind me a lot of Taiwan restaurants. It actually feels pretty nice. I finally find a hotel for 120 pesos that provides me with a bed and a fan. Nice. Now just to find food and possible internet to inform Eddie that I will not be arriving on time. I find the food just down the street which is fajitas with especially delicious tortillas, hot and thick, just out of the pan.
I finish that and head down the street. I find an internet place that has a couple inside but door closed. I look in and folds my hands like I’m begging and look sad. They smile and open the door. “We weren’t going to go to bed anyway” they say. “But don’t take too long.”
I write Eddie that I will be there at 2:00 the following day, and go back to my hotel. The guy is still at the desk. It’s like 11:45 and I don’t think they will get any more customers this night. I suddenly remember that I have no alarm clock and need to be to my bus by 5:50.
“Hey” I ask him. He smiles. “Can I borrow an alarm clock or something?”
“Oh, I can wake you up.”
“With a… wake up… knock?”
“Yes. I just sleep here on the sofa in the lobby with my clock. I’ll wake you up.”
The lobby is really just like a reception area; it looks like any sort of office space. The hotel itself looks a lot like a homeless shelter I once stayed in during a mission trip to San Francisco, except that almost everything is outside, there are tin roofs on the rooms, and there is a little restaurant you have to cross through to get to the back where the rooms even are. I open my door to the fan going and the big bed. I search the room for bugs, in the sheets under the bed, above in the cracks of the tin roof, and in holes and cracks in the room, but it appears to be pretty clean. With that, I pray quick that the man wakes me up in time, and fall asleep almost immediately.
The knock came just at 5:30 like I asked, and I rallied myself together and pulled my way out of the room. I thanked the man, who was really happy for it being five thirty AM. I get out, walk drearily down the street to the bus station, wait a few minutes, try to buy a water that they are charging 15 pesos for, forget it, and get on my bus. There are probably only five people on. Two girls about 18 years old. An older lady. A younger guy, maybe 27 or 28. Maybe a couple other random people. Maybe there are 12 people. There is another white guy across the isle from me. He must be about 45 and is balding. He is flittery, if that’s a word, like someone constantly trying to get comfortable but never getting there. He looks at me and I smile.
“Canadian?” He asks in a gruff voice.
“Umm, no. I assume you are. What part are you from.”
“Vancouver, BC”
“I’m from Bellingham. I’m right there” I say with a certain enthusiasm. He couldn’t care less. It appears that I am not Canadian, and we could live five minutes apart for all he cares, he isn’t giving a crotch’s rash about it.
A guy gets on the bus and looks at his ticket. A bigger man, and somehow looks really nice. Like a big mariachi singer, the guy who plays the huge guitar that sets on his equally huge belly. He sits next to me which is obnoxious because there is hardly anyone at all on the bus and a million seats, but there he is nonetheless. He smiles and I smile back, lean my head against the window and am out. At some point I am given a sandwich on my lap, which I awake to which ends up being like twenty minutes before the border. The bus driver pulls off the road and gets out, goes in a house, and comes back and we are off again. Already a strange ride. We pass by grove after grove of trees that are all leaning forward in the same direction, as if the wind has always blown in the same direction and is slowly pushing them over. Some lady who works for the bus hands out the customs form and tells us that once we get there, we have a half hour to cross the border, that if you can’t make it across in that time they will have to leave you, that 150 pesos is worth like 100 “Quetzales,” the Guatemalan money, and that we can change it at the border, but to be careful crossing. The Canadian apparently knows no Spanish, and looks to me. I kind of give a barebones explanation, not wanting to be mean but feeling that if this man is going to survive on his own here, I better not give him a false sense of safety or let him think it’s going to be hunky dorry the whole time. I figure I am doing him a favor by seeing if he can swim or is going to sink right away. I have no idea how he got this far, got on this bus, or where he is going. When I did find out, it was too late anyway.
Anyway, we get to the border and we all get off. I get to the front of the line quick, even though there is hardly anyone. I hand them my passport.
“Where is your visa? The piece of paper you got when you came into Mexico?”
Uh oh. It’s at home in San Fe. “Uh, it’s at home in San Felipe.”
“Hmm. Well, I can’t give you a stamp then.”
“Uh, ok… wait… uh, does that mean anything? I mean, can I get back across without any problems?”
“Hope so.” They all laugh.
“Yeah. I hope so too.” Jerks.
I walk across, a little confused. It’s maybe a quarter kilometer, up a ramp, past a run down Western Union that is closed and looks like it always has been. I am hounded by money changers. I finally find one that will change me my only 150 pesos for a hundred Quetzal. There is a bridge crossing a river, and then the bus. The Mexico side has a pretty tight border, but the Guatemala side has hardly a guard. I go to the bus and find that there is a little room where the bus people are waiting.
“Go ok?” one asks.
“Uh, I guess so. I didn’t get a stamp. Does that matter?”
“Did they tell you it was ok?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, you’re across aren’t you? I suppose it’s ok.”
Whatever. I look around outside and see everyone coming except for the Canadian. My seat buddy gets there and asks if I got across alright. I explain the confusion and he just shrugs and talks about how it seems to be a little more easy going than the US-Mexico border. But I still have the paperwork unstamped and untouched in my hand, the same goes for my passport. Finally the Canadian guy shows up, looking more than flustered.
“You ok?”
“I think they fucked me.” (his words)
“Beg your pardon?”
“I gave them 200 US dollars and they gave me 200 of… their money.”
Man, he certainly did get…screwed. I brought one of the bus ladies over and explained. She took the money from him and walked back over the bridge. Not real tight security. She came back with about 1200 Quetzales more, for which he was quite grateful, but still flustered. To get his mind off of the money incident, he pulled out a map and looked at it. He showed it to me. It was like a map of the main highways and like 12 major roads. As much detail as a globe would give you. He pointed out our highway, which lead from Guatemala City to our point in “Talisman.” There were maybe three roads on his map that headed off from our highway to the western coast.
“I’m going here, to the coast. I take this highway to ‘Rio Bravo’ and then head to the coast.” I thought it odd, that being the name that Mexicans call what we call the Rio Grande. It looks like it’s another two hours to the turn off, and should be an obvious highway or major road. I was going to look out for it for him. “I am a fisherman. I am always comfortable with fishermen. I am going to stay there for like three weeks.” I raise my eyebrows in skepticism and smile.
“Cool.”
We get back on the boat and sail off. The man who was sitting next to me, sits next to me again. He starts chatting, about funny things that have happened, asking me where I am going and where I have come from. Some really fun questions, nothing about if I like their country or nothing about his uncles who are in the US, non of the normal questions I get. We know some of the same places: Angangeo, El Oro, Tlalpuhajua, whatever. He has a great story about hanging out in Tijuana drinking beers. Apparently he and a friend got to drinking on the beach in Tijuana, and started walking down the beach. They walked for like four hours straight, and ended up in San Diego. They got scared because they had heard bad stories about illegal immigrants being treated bad by the police and all, but at the same time they were way too tired to walk back down the beach. I think they slept on the beach that night or something and then walked back. They thought about turning themselves and getting a free ride back home, but were nervous so they ended up just walking back. All the Mexicans who are trying to cross illegally, paying lots of money for “coyotes” and they just started walking and arrived on their own.
As the time went by, I found out that he sells dairy products, has a big family, is on the road a lot, other random stuff, but mostly a lot about working hard and good morals and other things that I was impressed with. I also was impressed with the number of protestant churches I saw as we drove down. About an hour and a half I see a sign near a little creek that says “Rio Bravo” and chuckle at what the Canadian said to me earlier. I see a little tienda that has a sign advertising “Gallo” beer, which was just a big funny looking rooster. Just after I saw some green starts and blue hands, which probably represented political parties (they did). The bus was stopping. I was trying to figure out what the “PNL” could stand for when I see the Canadian with his large backpack gets off the bus. “Oh crap,” I think. My neighbor is looking at me and says “what is he doing?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” The Canuck nods to the bus driver, and we start to pull away. “Ohhhh noooo…” It all went in slow motion, me completely frozen to stop anything. He must have seen that sign back there and thinks we are in the town of Rio Bravo, even though there is nothing around here. The last thing I see as I crane my neck to watch him is him asking something to two guys eating (the only people I can see) and them motioning towards the direction we are going, making big arm motions like it’s a long way away. But we are gone. I think about saying something, but I don’t think the bus driver is going to stop to pick the guy up again. Man, that guy is going to have some adventure. It doesn’t help that the Guatemalan newspaper he was “reading” had an article about a group of German tourists who had been assaulted and robbed. I take little joy in this situation, even though it would seem like he deserved it, but I honestly felt bad for the guy.
I got back talking to my dairy friend, who got us some yogurts and granola, which were tasty, and suddenly we were arriving in Guatemala City.
Obviously local public buses were pouring out smoke and diesel fumes, the names of their destinations written in soap on the front windshield, often nearly covering a good portion of the right side. They read locations and destinations that I pictured in my mind, inventing poor communities, bright colors, churches and cement homes, farmers, small tiendas and taco shops along the way, or else rough urban neighborhoods, lost, forgotten and pushed down in the large sprawl and bustle.
Guatemala City is way more Americanized that Mexico. The bright rotating signs of Chuck-E-Cheese, Dominoes Pizza, Chevron, Shell, TGI Friday’s, and Wal-Mart line the streets of broken pavement and broken backs. We rolled into the downtown-ish area, passing government buildings and statues of unknown heroes.
The bus station was in a rough area, and we all knew it, getting down off the bus. I said goodbye to my friend, everyone with their game faces on. I walked to the exit, and looked out. There was a burned out building with people sleeping inside. There was two people with matted, filthy hair sleeping on cardboard just out of the reaches of the bus station property. A Shell gas station was across the street, the only thing that reminded me of civilization as I knew it. Mentally crazy people walked by, violently, and usually shirtlessly.
I remembered that I should probably check the time when the bus leaves, so I can catch it on my way home, without having to return here. It reads “Tapachula” and below it “9:30, 2:30.”
The inside of the bus station was free of crazy people, but not that nice. There was just the long counter in front, maybe 50 uncomfortable looking chairs between that and the front windows and doors. Facing the counter, there was a little deli or something to the right, selling pop and sandwiches, apparently, which was walled in with glass panels to make it a separate entity from the bus station. The same was true on the left side, but was taken up by a tourist agent, a nice looking older lady.
Sweet. I see a kid from the bus who is talking to the tourist agent. I wander over that way, hoping to get directions to the “Holiday Inn” where Eddie had told me to arrive the previous night. The lady smiled as I waited at the door. I heard the kid say that he was trying to find a hotel, she recommended a hotel, and I piped in and said that I was heading that way and that we could share a taxi if he wanted. Which of course I just prayed he would say yes, as I was already terrified of the area we were in. A friend would be welcome company.
A funny thing happened then: the son or maybe grandson of the lady, who was only like five years old, ran up and tried to get into her lap and whispered something into her ear. She turned to him and said “Hablo con usted cuando termino con estes muchachos” which translates to “I’ll talk to you when I finish with these boys.” It was funny because she used the formal version of “you” as if her child were her boss or some person in high position. Maybe it’s not so funny, but it was at the time. It was something to note, obviously a slightly different way of speaking than I was used to. Which probably was to be expected, since Guatemala resembled Mexico, but was unique and different in its own ways. Right.
We go get a taxi. We haggle a price and put the kids luggage in the back, and are about to leave when a cute girl runs up and asks us if she can split it with us. We look at each other and nod, and she gets in. She is really friendly, thanks us, and starts to ask us all about us. She is maybe 20 and speaks really fast. My money on that she is American. I don’t know why, but I just am feeling it. She has a colorful cloth pack filled with who-knows-what and fun earrings and necklaces and rings. Very pretty. She is asking me all sorts of questions, and when I stumble and half joking/half serious say I don’t speak Spanish very well she says “no! You speak great!” I blush, if I haven’t already been. She says some word a lot that makes me laugh. It’s like “chido” or something, that wants to say “cool” or “nice.” I don’t remember the word, but she kept saying it after each answer we gave her to whatever question about our past and future she asked. I put the word in my mind to remember, assuming it was popular in Guatemala, but I never heard it again so I forgot it. I ask her about herself, and she says that she was born in Nicaragua, moved to Los Angeles when she was young, and just recently got into college in Mexico, and is traveling through Guatemala selling handicrafts that she makes by hand, selling them to tourists to pay for the trip. Which apparently has been going really well. Speaks to me in English just to prove that she is American, which proves my theory correct making me strangely satisfied, just to be right, I suppose. I laugh and say that she is quite international, existing in four countries at the same time.
The hotel was arrived to. The car doors were opened, the taxi driver was paid and goodbye’s were said. I walked into the Holiday Inn lobby and sat down. I noted that this was the nicest Holiday Inn I had ever seen, and probably the nicest in the world. It was huge, maybe 40 stories (who knows) and had big comfy chairs, bell boys rushing around, the flags of the world out front, and valet parking. “Now it’s time to play the waiting game…”
…
Mmmm…
“Uh, waiting game sucks. Let’s play…” oh here they come! Eddie, his sister Rebecca, and his cousin Amy (who I didn’t previously know) came walking up to the hotel doors, only like fifteen minutes after I arrived.
Throughout the the following five days, much fun was had. It was tense at time, due to my lack of money, the girls’ desire to do all the shopping and touristy things they could do, long bus rides through winding roads, and a lack of flexibility. We went to four main places: Antigua, the old capital of the city that was abandoned like 40 years ago due to an Earthquake that damaged most of the buildings, almost completely inhabited by trendy ex-pats or tourists like ourselves, or now wealthy Guatemaltecos. Lake Atitlan, a gorgeous lake that you have to drive down from the towering hills above, giving unbelievable views the entire way down, where it rained the entire time. Chichicastenange, a huge marketplace that smells of burning tree sap, filled with artisans used to hard bargains, surrounding a food market where we bought roasted chicken, rice and cooked vegetables while seated at a handmade wooden table, chatting with an old woman about the traditions of the area. Those three are all in central Guatemala. The fourth is Tikal National Park, the home of famous Mayan ruins, deep in the howler monkey-filled northern jungle of the country. Tikal was something special that I had not counted on, did not know about, and did not have the money for but Eddie helped me out with in a fabulous investment in fun. It was certainly worth it for me, but even, really, it was worth it for him because it would not have been anywhere as fun. There were massive ruins of temples that had been so long buried in the forests of the Maya, including the fabulous Temple 5 that pokes up above the canopy of the jungle, giving you an endless view of the lush landscape in all directions.
posted by Patrick McEvoy at 10:52 PM
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