From the Highlands to the Coast

Well, we made it to the beach. And back. This school week is already half way over, which is hard to believe. Time is funky, here. It drags and races simultaneously.

So on Friday, we met at the school around 2pm and had several errands to make along the way to the bus station. The bus station is in Zone 3 and we all live in Zone 1. We could have taken a microbus from the park to the bus station, but we needed to go to the Bake Shop and the mall for cash. The Bake Shop is only open on Tuesdays and Fridays and has American pastries and we were all very much in need of them. Olivia and I bought donuts filled with fruit and Stefan bought an assortment of cookies for all of us and Susannah bought some apple muffins. From there we walked to the mall, one street over, and then had about an 8 block walk to the Minerva bus station.

The station itself is half market and half parking lot. I can't remember if I have mentioned chicken buses here, but they are the way you navigate the county unless you have the cash to spend on a private shuttle. Chicken buses are US school buses that have been retired. I have no idea how many miles they have to have before they are retired in the States, but eventually they end up here and they are refitted with larger engines and longer bench seats and luggage racks. What we have learned is that the more flamboyant the bus, the better shape it is likely in. Because if the owner can afford disco balls and airbrushed flames he can probably also spring for new brakes. So you arrive at the bus station and the back half is people selling all kinds of food and drink and trinkets and the buses are lined up in long rows with the routes painted on the front and you're immediately accosted by lots of drivers who, more than they want to know where you want to go, want to take you where they are going. And you never go anywhere directly here, so you need to know what the next connection is. We thought we had 2 connections, but it turned out to be six. Or maybe 8. I can't remember. So amid the hustle and bustle and exhaust, we found our bus and climbed on and set out. Well, almost set out. Before you go anywhere, vendors climb on the bus while the driver waits for it to fill and they try to sell you things. Newspapers. Tortillas. Empanadas. Water in a plastic bag with a straw tied to it. Gum. Also, the seats are designed to fit two adults each, but that is really just where it all begins, because you could have 3 or 4 adults in each seat and also people crammed into the aisles, and because the seats are longer than they were in the States, there really isn't much aisle left. When we headed out of Minerva I was sitting with Susannah and Stefan and Olivia shared a bench. But we didn't have that much room for long. Our route was Xela to Mazatenango to Escuintla to Ixtapa to Monterrico. But we didn't know that then.

The drive from Xela to Mazatenango is my new favorite in this country. It is absolutely gorgeous and I spent a good deal of those hours in awe of the scenery. I felt like I was, once more, in Avatar, or the opening of Jurassic Park, or even Land Before Time. When I think of mountains, I think of being above the timber line, but here in the highlands you are surrounded by the the most radically green mountains I have ever seen or imagined. And there are so many different greens up here, and the textures are so rich. I wish I could convey the beauty of it all. And I wish I knew plant species, but I am pretty sure I saw every species of tree at some point over the weekend. So there is much green here and there are mountains you can't see the tops of through the bus windows without sticking your head out of them. And there are clouds everywhere because you're up that high. And incredibly steep cliffs and rivers flowing through canyons and tiny towns sheltered at the the bottom. And amidst all this are buses racing precariously along the mountainsides, passing each other around curves, getting air over bumps in the road.

The trip was just a rush of images and scents for me, because the buses go so fast. A woman and a girl washing laundry in a canal. The bloody corpse of a dog, stuffed in a clear plastic bag, thrown into a ditch. Barefoot, sooty children standing in dirt yards. A thick, almost smoky twilight as we descended into more warmer climes. Rivers of mud. Destroyed homes. Men soldering water pipes after the storm. A colorful cemetery perched on the slimmest bit of cliff, overlooking the town below. Someone coming on the bus, selling something in a cooler that smelled exactly like soggy dog food that had been heated up. A dry valley of lovely boulders, a dog picking his way among them. The wet feel of the weather changing, becoming tropical. The damp weight of other peoples' bodies swaying into you around turns. The lushness of the rain forest, things growing on everything that is already growing, giving the scenery this wonderful carpeted feel. The scent of charcoal and burned meat.

Guatemala looks like everywhere. Texas. Kenya. The Carolinas, especially the Low Country. Coming down out of the highlands, the air began to change before the scenery did. But soon there was more field, less forest, and when we slowed down you could hear the dry clatter of palm branches. It got humid, which was not exactly good news on a bus crammed with people. But even so, it was nice to be moving. I didn't even really care where we were going, only that we were going.

We arrived in an empty parking lot in Mazatenango around 5:30 and were shooed off the bus and onto a coach. Now, this coach was probably older than me, with cracked leather seats and this saggy, beaten look to it. But I cannot begin to tell you how absolutely First Class it felt after the chicken bus. There was room for us all to have a private seat. And they reclined! I was in heaven. At this point we were headed to Escuintla, and were told it was an hour or so away. It was beginning to get dark and I was keen to arrive and make our next connection as quickly as possible, but also, I was so comfortable and a little drowsy from the heat that I didn't care what happened. And this would be, of course, where things got a little wacked, but that is to come, because I am now late for supper.