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A riot on the way to Cuatro Caminos

It’s not just about arriving. For me, one of the best things about travelling is also the journey. Not flying (I hate flying), but being on the road, in a bus or a train or in the back of a pickup truck watching the landscape slowly unwind before you… even the times spent waiting at unsigned bus stops. There are so many things about a country you can pick up along the way if you stay awake.

From my travel journal forMonday, 26 May 2008 –

I only left Panajachel at about half past noon. Jumped onto a bus bound for Los Encuentros, where I took another bus to Cuatro Caminos, then on to Huehuetenango, and it was dark by the time I arrived in Soloma. 7 hours and 70 Quetzales in total.

While waiting for my connection at Los Encuentros, an elderly well-dressed man came up to me and asked me if I needed help getting around, and we started talking. He told me he works in Los Encuentros but he’d seen me around in Panajachel before when he visited about a month ago. I’ve gotten a lot of that while traveling, which freaks me out a bit. I guess being Chinese I stand out somewhat, and people notice a foreigner’s face, and remember it, whereas I wouldn’t remember Guatemalan faces I’ve never met properly or spoken to.  In a way it’s nice to be remembered, but in a way it’s a little weird to realise that all these people have noticed you, know where you’ve been, and who you’ve been hanging out with. After A and I had taken a break from each other and I went off on my own, I would sometimes meet people I’d never met before and the first thing they would ask me is, “Dónde está el colocho?” (meaning “Where’s the curly?”) Communities are small and eyes are sharp in Guatemala. You’re never anonymous.

And I’m so exhilarated to be traveling solo again but sometimes the attention from men make me uneasy. Like when I was talking to this elderly well-dressed man, other men and boys came up to us and started standing around us, just openly staring and trying to get a foot into the conversation. Having been in Central America this long, I’ve gotten used to attention from the opposite sex (from the very young to the very old) and handle it a lot better now though it can still be a little bit unnerving sometimes. So anyway, we stood around and chatted for a while, and then someone asked me how old I was and so I asked back, and then I got to this really young kid and I told him he looked 15 and he shook his head and I asked how old he was and he said 14. Then he said, with a cheeky grin, “Voy a chimar!” and then ran away like his mother was coming at him with a stick. And I couldn’t help it, I laughed out loud, because he’d said it with such a gust of celebratory air like it was a threshold of adulthood he was really looking forward to. You see, what he’d said was, “I’m going to fuck!” Haha. I guess he’s at that age. (Note: ‘chimar’ only means ‘to fuck’ in Guatemala. Elsewhere – I think in Mexico – other words like ‘coger’ or ‘chingar’ are used. Conversely, in Guatemala, ‘chingar’ only means to annoy, or to hang out in a bar – there are so many variations. The Spanish language is something of an art form in Latin America!)

Anyway, the stretch from Los Encuentros to Cuatro Caminos, and that from Huehue to Soloma were particularly beautiful, the latter especially because of the white mist that fogged up the minivan windows, allowing me to paint wet circles with my finger. Halfway through our journey, a whole family of brightly-dressed Mayans squeezed into the minivan, and this time it was the men who caught my attention. I’m well-used to seeing Mayan women in their traditional clothes, but men not so much. But these men were headed for Todos Santos Chuchumatan, where the men are famed for their traditional trademark style: red and white striped trousers, hats with a blue ribbon woven to a leather strap wrapped around them, thick long-sleeved shirts with multi-coloured stripes and a thick, equally colourful collar to keep the neck warm. One of them even had the flag of the United States woven into the back of his shirt, which I guess isn’t surprising considering that 50 percent of people in Todos Santos have a family member working or studying in the United States. They were wonderful to watch, and I’ve noticed a lot of the indigenous people have a kind of happy, innocent spirit that distinguish them from the Latinos. That thought came to me when they reached their destination and were getting ready to alight the minivan. But one of them was blocking the door, and the doorman (well, the guy who gets passengers in and out, who gets your bags in and out from the boot or the roof, and who collects money) just kind of pushed the door open and close (it’s the kind that folds) impatiently and repeatedly to get the poor indigenous man out of the way without really saying, “Excuse me, watch yourself, be careful” or anything like that. It pissed me off. He did the same to the indigenous woman who was traveling with the group of indigenous men as well and still they were so gracious and kept thanking him as they got out, as if they had decided it wasn’t something worth fussing over.

There were points on the Huehue-Soloma stretch that I seriously feared for my life, considering how bad visibility was, and how boldly reckless the driver was, careening through the narrow highway. I often wondered, when I wasn’t asleep, what would happen if another vehicle were to materialize abruptly out of the fog and push us off the road and down the ravine. It was mostly buses, trucks and vans on the road, hardly any cars, because I guess most families don’t own them and rely on public transport instead, which is why they are always filled to the brim. Which reminds me of how a friend of mine once made that rather wittily caustic slideshow about some salient features of Malaysia, and in the slide about our local produce, the mini car ‘Kancil’, he said it was a ‘test of faith’. Well, if he comes to Guatemala this June, I look forward to showing him what that means over here. Test of faith, indeed

The chicken bus was originally built by Blue Bird Manufacturing of the United States to hold 36 school children. In its reincarnation as a chicken bus in Central America, more than sixty adults and children squeeze inside. Three to four adults make room on a seat designed for three eight-year-olds. Not only that, when there are no seats left, people still stubbornly push their way in, and it’s allowed, even encouraged, until all the possible space is filled in the center aisle, where they clutch the overhead handrail and lean against their neighbours to brace themselves as the bus heaves itself over potholes in the road due to ever-ongoing construction. Despite that, it’s my favourite mode of transport, I think because of its height compared to the shuttles, minivans or pickup trucks, and they also seem to have a more spongy bounce to it, making it more bearable on unpaved roads. Also, the chicken buses are kind of cute, as each has its own individuality. The one I rode to Los Encuentros today had a name: Masheña. They all have their own names and they’re all painted differently, with various designs and colours. They look like traveling circuses really, and I always half expect to see clowns popping out of them, especially with those deep-throated celebratory honks the drivers don’t hesitate to use.

When I left my home in Panajachel today, I realize I haven’t made enough effort with my landlord. Don Felix, we call him. He’s a sweet indigenous man, with three equally sweet boys, and they’ve really done their best to make my stay at the house comfortable. When I came back from the States a few days ago, I came back to a very clean house – dishes all washed, trash all emptied, tables all wiped. And even just from day to day, they come in the mornings in the form of a few tentative knocks on my door to check up on me from time to time, take out my trash, check if I need a new tank of pure water, check if I’ve watered the plants that scatter the tiny courtyard (they’re a bit of a liability for me, to be honest, so some of them have withered and died and have had to be replaced), or just to say hello. I secretly think I brighten up the old man’s day a bit. He seems to like just looking at me, and getting a kiss from me when I say hello and goodbye. I think it’s because he lacks daughters. Haha. When I first moved in and had to buy some additional amenities for the house he went shopping with me and helped me carry half my load, loaned me money when I didn’t have enough. And he always tells me that I’m like family, that anyone who lives in his hostel and who rents the private house attached to it are like one big happy family, and that I should call him from time to time while I’m away to let him know I’m okay. My point? I’m always surprised at the lengths Guatemalans go to make a stranger feel at home.

While I was on the bus to Los Encuentros today I saw an elderly Guatemalan man on the street wearing a cap with South Park’s Kenny on it, with the caption, “Kick ass!” I’ve seen a lot of that around Guatemala, innocuous caps and t-shirts displaying punch lines I don’t think the wearer understands. Probably a foreigner gave it to them as a present, and they wear it without really being conscious of what it means.